Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1919-09-18
It's Growth.

- ~~8''sS t"Srs~- '''~-s~--'- 80
Its G
prepared by the United States Depart
ment of Agriculture.)
The fair.
What does 1t mean to your
Fair" is very old noun. With va
riations in spelling it exists in many
languages.
Fair" is akin to the ancient "fes-
tus" and therefore cousin In some de-
gree of the more modern feast" and
festival" and the like.
Always and everywhere it has car
ried the away-from-work idea. 1t has
always been pretty much what we
mean nowadays by holiday" though
not what that word meant originally.
Holiday" was "holy day." and sacred.
"Fair" has always been secular
wholly human sort Of thing.
Fair time is playtime. That it al
ways was, that 1t always meant TO
most people, that It always will be.
But for every play there must be play
ers, and two kinds of them, too-play-
ers who play playfully and players
who play laboriously, more or less, for
the entertainment Of the others.
And "the fair has very different
meaning for the two classes. The big
bunch goes to have good time, to be
carefree, to drink red lemonade and
throw confetti and toot tinsel horns ;
to get the CLINT of twinkling horse
heels on a saffron track; to see the
broad-backed cattle, the prettily packed
jellies and jams, the big pumpkins, the
intricate needlework, the fulfilled
ears of corn and to mill around, going
nowhere in particular and not caring
especially if they never get there.
But with it all they are getting q
sugar-coated education. The fair is q
university in which the festive stu.
dents soak up science unawares.
| Then there must be the other kind
Of players-the ones who "put on the
show"-the professors and instructors
and tutors in this most accommodating
of academies. And there has to be
somewhere sort of teachers college
for those people. There are, in fact
lots of normal schools for fair profes
sors, but the United States department
Of agriculture is the graduate college
| And one of the queer things is thai
any boy or girl still in the grammar
grades of the public school may b
doing postgraduate work in gettins
things ready for the fair.
Much In Getting Ready.
Too many people, the department
experts say, do not know how mucl
depends ON preparing exhibits in thu
right way, on getting the pig or calf o.
corn or canned stuff in just the RICH
shape to show to the best advantage
One of the boys club workers tells
story in point.
zone of our club boys in Mississir
! pi," he says, grew an acre of might,
good corn and entered an exhibit il
the county fair. There were fou
prizes, but he couldn't even get tn
fourth one. The Judge simply tied o.
the ribbons and made no explanations
The boy was disappointed--not rebel
lious, but he wanted to know why hi
good corn couldn't get prize l wen
over 1t with him, showed him tina
some of his biggest ears had crooke
rows and how others had other d.
fects. Picking out the best ear salt
If you had ten like this you coul
win a prize
'0NelI, that boy went back home an
carefully examined every ear of hi
corn. He found only nine that h
thought were as good as the one ha
pointed out. He went back throug
the whole pile again and finally foun
the tenth ear. He sent those ten cal
to the state fair-and won first priz
Do you see? Knowing little of no
to prepare the exhibit made a sta
winner out of corn crop that was 6
also ran at the county fair"
Manicuring the Pig.
Now the boy who is preparing p
J or calf for the fair has more cor
plicated task than the one who ente
some corn. With the corn boy II
whole problem is selecting the rig
. ears With the others it is not on
selecting the right individual but
ing great many things to put tn