The Lexington Civic League: Agent of Reform, 1900 - The Filson ...

344 The Filson Club History Quarterly [July
twelve supervisors hired by the city. The League remained active
in directing these parks and playgrounds with help from the
city until 1927 when they were made a department of the municipal
government.l
Members of the Civic League also recognized the need for
various kinds of improvements in the field of education. Mrs.
Breckinridge spoke to the school board in December 1902 asking
that manual or vocational training be initiated in all the public
schools. The board responded by appointing a committee to
study the possibility. Encouraged by this action, the League
dramatized its interest in education by bringing to Lexington
Jane Addams, the famed Hull House reformer, to speak on
"New Ideals in Education." In a speech, given on the campus of
Kentucky University (now Transylvania University), on 14
May 1903, she called for an end to child labor, for the introduction
of manual training in the schools, and for playgrounds and
kindergartens.lS
Publicity for manual training continued as the League brought
Judge Ben B. Lindsey of Denver, Colorado, a pioneer in the
development of the juvenile court system, to Lexington in 1905.
In an address at the Opera House on 30 January and at the
Courthouse on the following day, Lindsey spoke on "Manual
Training as a Preventive of Delinquency in Children," arguing
for the benefits of both manual training and a juvenile court
system. One reason why children got into trouble, he said, was
because they could not find employment. Manual training schools,
he contended, were "moral hospitals" which would train children
for a job and thereby keep them out of trouble.1
17 Wright, Lexington, 10O; Lexington Herald, 11, 13 July, 8 September
1902, 30 January, 31 May, 1 April, 2, 14, 30 June, 30 August 1903, 27 April,
1O, 26 June, 31 August, 5 September, 20 November 1904; Florence Shelby
Cantrill, "Among My Souvenirs," unpublished autobiography in possession
of Mrs. Florence Tabling, Lexington, 90. For a brief history of the
traveling Chautauqua groups which provided lectures, concerts, and recitals
around the country, see World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago: World
Book, 1984), 3:301.
18 Lexington Herald, 30 June, 4 July, 5 December 1902, 12, 13, 14 May
1903. -
19 Ibid., 31 January, 1 February 1905; "Reports of Hon. Ben B. Lindsey,