186 MY AMERICAN FRIENDS

" leisure " or " recreation " or " the unity of work
and play/' or some such title, was enough to
draw an eager audience running into thousands;
nor was there much difference in this respect
between New England and Texas or between
Utah and Tennessee. Among educators especially,
from college presidents to teachers in the common
schools, I found that interest in the matter ran
very high; and often after " making my talk,"
I would be seized upon by men or women full
of apostolic ardour and carried off to' see
institutions where experiments in education for
leisure were being tried out on the lines I had been
advocating, such as the Community Centre of
Westchester County, the Martha Berry Schools
in the mountains of Georgia, the Cranbrook
School near Detroit, the Hampton Institute for
negroes in Virginia, or that wonderful "Play-
ground for the Soul " the Graphic Sketch Club
of Philadelphia, founded by Samuel Fleisher1—to
name but a few among many. Indeed, after
seeing these things, the feeling would sometimes
come over me that I was engaged in the operation
known as" carrying coals to Newcastle." Not
that my American friends put it in this way.
Even when I had described something they were
actually doing, without my being aware they were
doing it, as something they ought to do, they were
glad to have it described and would do me all

1 I have described it more fully in my book, The Education of
the Whole Man, Chapter VI.