[Sidenote: Sharing Dances]
A new gymnasium had just been erected at Horton and the principal, Mr.
Bergen, was anxious to have all get the benefit of it. The eighth grade
girls under Miss Vance were especially pleased with this fine play room.
One of their number, Stella Day, had been taking lessons in dancing and
promised to teach her special friends the new steps. It so turned out
that Miss Vance herself was interested in these new dances and enjoyed
watching the lessons. But the majority of the girls in her room cared
nothing about dancing and indeed if they had cared the “lessons” were
not at all open to them, since only eight of the twenty-one girls were
invited to take any part in this exercise.
Mr. Bergen had carefully arranged the gymnasium program so that each
room might use it every day. The first time he watched Miss Vance’s
pupils at “gym” work he was surprised to find so few taking the
exercises and furthermore to see that the onlookers were not even
enjoying the watching of the dancers. This led him to surmise that they
did not take turns in their exercises, otherwise the dejected look would
not have been seen on the faces of the observers.
Mr. Bergen made a mental note of those who were dancing and returned the
next day to see if the same girls were occupying the whole of the
teacher’s attention. Finding that such was the case he explained to Miss
Vance that all of her pupils must be really interested in watching or
actually engaged in every game during the exercise period. Following his
advice, Miss Vance changed the exercise to games in which all could take
part, thus making a legitimate use of the gymnasium period.