In addressing you on this subject, I modestly hope to be helpful, even if
mildly provocative. We outsiders don't envy the educator his task. It seems to
us that it's a bewildering job; it involves integrating elements which to a degree
appear mutually destructive of each other - things like fire and water. They
appear irreconcilable. Education's problem is that society needs both fire and
water. Fire suggests the Devil; water, the deep blue sea; and education is in
the middle between the two. Any criticism we offer is, therefore, a sympathetic
criticism. While we may question education's dividends, we wouldn't ourselves
for a moment assume its liabilities. We may yell, "Get in there and fight," but
we do it from the vantage point of a safe position on the sidelines, and we intend
to stay there.

I*1] admit that this is a lot of introduction, but when Someone does get
around to throwing me out the window, it may persuade him not to be too vigorous
about it.

All right! Assuming that we have now a little bit more of common wderstand-
ing, let's talk about the School Curriculum and Life Needs.

From what I have been saying, no doubt you have already located my profes-
sional point of view. You have its range, and can concentrate your firing on it.
But if we are to shoot straight here, let's have no uncertainties. Let's get
it definitely on the map. We think that in our thirty-five years of contact
with the life of a typical American city, our recreation department of the Chicago
Park District has seen people responding to Life Needs, even though they may have
been themselves only dimly conscious of their impulsions as Life Needs. But if
we possess any perceptive sensitivity at all, we should be able to sense at least
some of the significance of their social gropings. We should have learned some-
thing about what people want out of life. ‘We think we have. We believe their

gropings, when released from regimenting compulsions, do have significance.

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