Community Civics and Rural Life Part 47

The need for organized play in rural communities is one of the best arguments for school consolidation, for it brings together larger numbers and makes possible the employment of a competent play director and the proper equipment of the playground. Teacher- training schools now make a point of training play leaders as well as teachers of arithmetic and geography.

MEANING OF RECREATION

As children grow older, an increasing part of their time must be given to work--school work, tasks at home, remunerative employment outside of the home. After leaving school and throughout adult life, work absorbs the major part of one's time and attention. But even then, "all work and no play" will continue to "make Jack a dull boy." We now call play "recreation," for by it body and mind and spirit are refreshed, renewed, RE-CREATED, after close application to work. That is why school work is broken by "recesses." Recreation is necessary as a means of providing for physical, mental, and social wants; for the pleasure that it affords. But it is also important in its relation to work, for without it body and mind become "f.a.gged," people grow "stale" at their work, producing power and power of service are reduced.

THE HABIT OF PLAY

It is very easy to get out of the habit of play, and especially difficult to form the habit in adult life if it has not been done in youth. People often become so absorbed in work that there seems to be no time for recreation. In such cases not only is the enjoyment of life narrowed, but there is a risk of damaging the quality of one's work and even of shortening one's life of productive activity, or of service.

LEISURE A REQUIREMENT

Every worker is ent.i.tled to opportunity for recreation, both for his own sake and for the well-being of the community. This means, first of all, that he must have LEISURE for it. When people have to work hard for ten or twelve or more hours a day, year in and year out, as was once customary in industry, there is neither time nor energy for wholesome recreation. That such conditions existed, and still exist to a considerable extent, is due to gross imperfections in the industrial organization of the community. One of the evidences of progress toward "trans.m.u.ting days of dreary work into happier lives" is the reduction in the hours of toil in many industries, and the consequent increase of leisure for the enjoyment of life and for self-improvement.

One of the things for which labor unions have struggled is the shortening of the working day. Through their efforts, and through the awakening of public interest and knowledge in regard to the matter, the working day is now fixed by law at eight hours in most industries, often with a half holiday on Sat.u.r.days. Experience has shown that this change has in no way reduced the product of industry. There are still some industries, however, in which men toil at the hardest kind of labor for twelve or more hours a day, sometimes even including Sundays.

A LIVING WAGE A NECESSITY

A second thing necessary to afford opportunity for recreation is an income from one's work sufficient to provide more than the bare necessities of life. Before the war, it is said, more than five million families, or about one fourth of the families in the United States, were trying to live on a wage of $50 a month, or less. During the war, wages of skilled and unskilled labor shot upward; but so, also, did the cost of living. It is not easy to determine just what share of the proceeds of industry should, in justice, go to the laborer in wages. But it should be enough to provide not only for food and clothing and shelter, but also for decent family life, for healthful surroundings, for education for the children, and for wholesome recreation.

Labor unions and others interested in a fairer distribution of the proceeds of industry have long been working for the enactment of "minimum wage laws," that is, laws fixing the least wage that may be paid for each cla.s.s of labor, this to be enough to provide a reasonable satisfaction of all the wants of life. Some states have already enacted such laws, and during the recent war the federal government in some cases fixed rates of wages, and appointed labor boards to adjust wages to the rising cost of living.

THE WISE USE OF LEISURE

Neither leisure nor income, however, suffice for recreation unless they are wisely used. Mere idleness is not recreation; and many people use their leisure in DISSIPATION instead of in recreation.

"Dissipation" is the opposite of thrift. It means to "throw away,"

or to be wasteful. A person may "dissipate" his income. We have come to understand the word "dissipation," however, to mean excessive indulgence in pleasures or amus.e.m.e.nts that are wasteful of time, energy, or health, or all three, and we call the person "dissipated" who is addicted to such indulgence. Any amus.e.m.e.nt, even though harmless in itself, may become dissipation if indulged in to excess, or at the sacrifice of other things that are better.

RURAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR RECREATION

One of the princ.i.p.al disadvantages often put forward against life in rural communities is the lack of opportunity for recreation. It partly explains the difficulty of obtaining an abundance of farm labor, and is one of the obstacles to inducing young people to remain on the farm. Unfortunately, too, the women on the farm have often been the chief sufferers from close confinement to the drudgery of housework, with little opportunity for recreation and less chance than the men have to enjoy the companions.h.i.+p of other people.

The very nature of farming entails hard work and long hours, especially at certain seasons. Under existing conditions it is hard to see how the farmer's working day could be limited to eight hours as in most other occupations.

The citizen farmer who lives in the same community with the miner ...

must invest in land and buildings, tools and livestock. He must pay taxes and insurance and repairs and veterinary fees. He must work often sixteen hours, seldom less than ten, and he must be on duty day and night, ready always to care for his independent plant--all this, and yet in order to receive a labor income equal to that of the soft coal miner ... the farmer must not only work himself as no professional laborer ever works, but he must also work his children without pay.

[Footnote: E. Davenport, Dean of the College of Agriculture, University of Illinois, in "Proceedings of the First National Country Life Conference," Baltimore, 1919. p. 183.]

IMPROVED CONDITIONS ON THE FARM

Although this only too faithfully describes living conditions on the farm as they have been in the past and still are in many cases, much improvement has taken place. Improvement of agricultural machinery and methods has brought a greater measure of leisure to the farmer, while better means of transportation and communication have both saved him time and made easier for him and his family a.s.sociation with other people and the enjoyment of entertainment in the neighboring village or city. The farm woman has benefited by the introduction of labor-saving devices and better management in the household, and by the development of community cooperation in such matters as dairying and laundry work (see pp. 106, 107). In fact, better team work in every phase of the business of agriculture means greater opportunity for the enjoyment of living, and the efforts of the national and state governments to encourage such team work and to improve the methods of agriculture have for their purpose not merely the increase of the agricultural product, but also the greater happiness of the rural citizen.

FACILITIES FOR DISSIPATION

When leisure may be found for recreation, the facilities for it are often inadequate. The city, and even the village, affords facilities for amus.e.m.e.nt and social enjoyment that good roads, automobiles, and trolley lines have made more accessible than formerly to the country round about. While the urban community naturally affords greater opportunity than the rural community for social recreation, its opportunities for dissipation are equally great. "Going to the movies" may be a real recreation, or it may become a dissipation when indulged in to excess without discrimination as to the merit of the performance. Almost every village has its well-known "loafing places," and the saloon used to be a favorite meeting place for certain cla.s.ses of people.

Amus.e.m.e.nts that are especially harmful are more or less regulated by law. Even moving pictures are "censored." Saloons have now been totally abolished.

FACILITIES FOR RECREATION

The most effective preventive of dissipation is ample provision for wholesome recreation. Various agencies in urban communities seek to supply this need, both for their own residents and for visitors from outside. Men's clubs, such as chambers of commerce, afford social and amus.e.m.e.nt advantages for the business men of the town, and for visiting farmers who formerly met only at the store or courthouse, in the saloon or on the street corner. Public libraries, often with the cooperation of women's clubs, provide "rest rooms," arranged for the comfort and entertainment of visiting women, and afford means of profitable and enjoyable recreation for young people. Town churches sometimes maintain social rooms, open during the week for similar purposes. The Young Men's and Young Women's Christian a.s.sociations have performed a great service by providing entertainment and social life for young people. One of the more recent developments is the "community center," usually at the schoolhouse, where there are offered lectures and concerts, social entertainments, dances, games, and sports. In some large cities such "recreation centers" are of the greatest value in the crowded districts.

OPPORTUNITIES AFFORDED BY THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL

Rural communities have suffered from a dearth of recreational facilities of their own, especially of a SOCIAL type. One of the most promising influences to supply this deficiency is the CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL, which makes provision for a.s.sembly halls, social gatherings, and recreation grounds for young and old alike.

An ill.u.s.tration of this is given in Chapter XIX (p. 296).

Development of community recreation centers at consolidated rural schools is going on rapidly in many parts of the country.

Iowa affords a striking example of this. In that state more than 2000 one-room country schools have been consolidated into something more than 300, and consolidation is still going on. Some of these consolidated schools have five acres of land, where provision is made, not only for gardening and farming activities, but also for picnic grounds and for fields for athletic sports and contests. The buildings contain a.s.sembly halls, gymnasiums, and kitchens where food is prepared for social entertainments as well as for school lunches and for the teaching of cooking.

NEED FOR LEADERs.h.i.+P

One of the chief obstacles to the development of rural community recreation has been the absence of leaders.h.i.+p. The consolidated school helps to remedy this. Other agencies, however, are doing something to provide such leaders.h.i.+p, among the most active of which is the county work department of the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, which has organized county-wide athletic a.s.sociations and rural play festivals and field days in many localities.

KNOWING HOW TO USE OPPORTUNITIES

There are agencies, or organizations, in almost every community that could and should serve recreational ends. The trouble with many of us is not so much the lack of time or of the means for recreation, but a lack of knowledge of how to get the most out of our recreational opportunities. Hence the need for leaders.h.i.+p.

Hence, also, the need for an education that will open up to us new avenues of enjoyment. Recreation may be obtained not only from athletic sports and social entertainments, but from the fields and woods, from books and music and pictures, even from VARIETY IN OUR WORK, if we only knew how to find it. The school is under as great obligation to provide us with an education that will teach us this as it is to equip us to earn a living.

Investigate and report on:

The opportunities for play in your community.

The forms of play most prevalent in your community.

The extent to which play in your community develops team work and leaders.h.i.+p.

How your school playground could be improved.

Play as a means of education in your school.

Agencies besides the school that afford opportunity for play in your community.

Leisure on the farms of your locality: for men; for women; for children.

Could an eight-hour day be applied to farming in your locality?

Why?

Length of the working day for different employments in your town or neighboring city.

Minimum wage laws in your state.

Recreational facilities and agencies in your community.

Community centers in your community and their activities.

The value of a county field day in your community.

Meaning of the statement that "the boy without a playground is father to the man without a job."