MONTHLY RECORD SHEET.

5 771

2 10

356

MONTHLY RECORD SHEET.

Method No. 2 of tabulating requires a larger sheet (10 by 16 inches is a good size) and one which would have to be prepared especially for each school. The manner of using such a sheet is illustrated by the fictitious data shown on pages 24 and 25. On the first line has been entered the information contained in the daily record blank shown on pages 20 and 21.

The main principle of arrangement is that of placing the names of the regular staff workers at the heads of columns grouped under their respective lines of activity. Each entry in the column headed "Roe" denotes an evening's work for Roe, one group occasion in athletics, the number of persons in attendance, and, by the line on which it appears, the date of the occasion. The exponent 4 in the first entry under "Doe" signifies that four groups made up the attendance of 64 persons. Lines of activity in which different workers engage, like "Dancing (social)," require extra spaces for the data regarding workers, their names being entered on the same lines with the respective attendances. The miscellaneous occasions require columns for the attendance, activity label, auspices, and record of the workers. Another column should be set aside for indicating the attendance of the general workers, such as the director, janitor, and engineer, also a space for explanatory remarks and a couple of columns for entering the daily group and attendance totals. It will be observed in the printed example that the accuracy of these latter totals is checked by the attendance and group totals of the vertical columns.

In the hands of an intelligent principal or director, this sheet could be used for original entries and the daily record blank be omitted altogether. In cases where the central office does not require a daily or nightly report, considerable labor is saved by the use of this monthly sheet, since the record for one evening is all contained in the row of figures and brief notes on a single date line. By having the workers in charge of groups make reports on little printed slips like the form shown on page 22, the director's work is reduced to a minimum. The filled-in sheets could themselves be forwarded to the central office as monthly reports, or summaries be submitted on a prescribed form.

The merits of this form are best seen in the significance of the information it assembles. As an illustration let us analyze the fictitious. data presented in the table. Taking the gross facts first, we see that the aggregate attendance at the evening occasions for January at the Horace Mann school was 9,747, an average of 375 for each of the 26 evenings the school was open. This attendance occurred at 177 group occasions, which consumed 230 evenings of personal service. The distribution of the attendance among the various lines of activity

is easily derived from the data presented and is shown in the following table:

TABLE 4.-Group occasions and attendance by activities.

The relation of impacts of effort to results is clearly shown in this array of figures. Club meetings constitute 60 per cent of all the groups cared for, but they gave only 23 per cent of the attendance. Over two-thirds of the attendance came from the "movie" shows, which constitute less than 3 per cent of the occasions. Furthermore, we see how the attendances run with the various kinds of activity, 21 at the club meetings, twice as many at basket ball, 175 at lectures, and nearly four times as many at the motion-picture entertainments— figures which throw interesting sidelights upon our tastes and manner of grouping during leisure time.

After sizing up our products it is always worth while to inventory the expenditures of energy which they cost. These are shown in the accompanying tabulations of evenings of service and the amounts paid for salaries, supplies, and equipment. The rates of pay set down approximate those prevailing in the school centers in New York City.

From these tables it appears that the regular staff contributed 150 evenings of service, the workers hired by the parent-teacher association, and the choral society 27 evenings, and the volunteers 53 evenings. In all, 80 evenings, or about 35 per cent of the service, cost the taxpayers nothing. After deducting overhead expenses, it can be said that about one-third of the burden of this work is borne by the people who are directly benefited by it. An interesting fact. Is it due to the character of Director Robinson's administration, or to the day principal, or to the enterprise of the community? Now that the fact is definitely known, an incentive is furnished for tracing the causes; when these are located and appreciated, steps can be intelligently taken to produce the same results at other schools.

From the standpoint of administration it is always valuable to be able to compute the cost of the various kinds of products or results. Which costs more per person, a dance or a lecture? Such data can be easily derived from the monthly record presented above. All the expenditures are correlated directly with their respective group occasions, except the following general items:

The most equitable distribution of this amount among the various lines of activity is probably one based on the per cent of the aggregate attendance. Wear and tear on the building, consumption of heat and service, and the other aspects of enjoyment are probably more nearly proportional to the numbers of the enjoyers than to any other determinable set of conditions. The method, then, of comput