The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1921-04-15

mer may not directly share in them,
are those social groups and activities
which he initiates and envies. The lit
tie town is his school of fashion and
social propriety. Most of the social
organizations to which he may belong
center here"
AS our little towns become more in
teresting (many forces now at work
tined to make them SOY, the "town's
country" round about them will be-
come more interesting also, and there
are evidences that the little towns
are beginning to feel that they have
a duty toward the farming people up
on whose well-being, to a considerable
extent, depends their own; more and
more, we shall see the little towns
organizations-its churches especially
consider the farmer and his needs.
Chief among those needs is that of
recreation. All writer's on country
life recognize it. For example, DR..
Warren H. Wilson writes in Volume
V of the Publications of the American
Sociological Society:
"Allowing for some exceptions, not
too numerous, it may be said that
throughout the prosperous and pro-
ductlve farming regions of the United
States, which have been settled for
fifty years, community life has dis
appeared. There is no play for the
children;~ there is no recreation for
the young people; there is not in a
weak community that satisfaction of
social instinct which makes it "a good
place to live in Time was in New
England and New York and Pennsyl-
vania when there was a community to
which every farmer belonged with
some pleasure and pride. The absence
of community life through these re-
gions expresses to-day what one man
calls the intolerable condition of
country life"
In almost every other respect, life
IN me open country has improved. 1t
is an earlier life. Gone are the days
when the farmers wife churned, spun,
Wove, dyed, made clothes for a fam
lily of twelve, and wound up in the
insane asylum. 1t is a more success
ful life. Rotation of crops, analysis
OF soils, scientific warfare upon pests,
the use OF farm machinery, the adop-
ton OF special methods such as in
tensive farming, dry farming, and the
rest, and the organization of scoop
eratlves" and Of political parties here
and there have gained many an ad-
vantage; to-day, no one laughs at the
farmers ambition to get rich; fire.
quently he does get rich. And it is a
less isolated life. Telephones, trolley
cars, and automobiles have greatly
relieved loneliness. But no one pre-
tends that it is a jollier life. 1t must
be made jollier or We shall see more
and more farms abandoned or farmed
by proxy and more and more farm
people moving to the city. If we are
to place effectively educated men and
women in the open country" men and
women "of vision and with trained
minds"-if we are to place them there
and keep them there, we must promise
them not only Prosperity but a ~iovial,
soclable, merry existence which they
will honestly prefer to life in town.
There is now a considerable array
of books and pamphlets explaining
how this can be done and how, in GER
tain farming communities, it has al
ready been done. Henry S. Curtis
writes of "Play and Recreation for
the Open Country" Raymond G.
DfeSSlef describes 'GameS for the
Country" a magazine called The Play
ground deals constantly with sub
jects pertaining to rural recreation,
and the Russell Sage Foundation pub
fishes Clarence Arthur Perry's Com
munity Center Activities" while a
booklet, "Rural and Small Commun-
ity Recreation" bears the imprint of
Community Service. Among the var
ious suggestions offered by Mr.. Bail
ey, we find hints toward a jollier
country fair: 81 should give much at
tention to good games and sports, and
| should have these cooperative be-
tween schools and other organizations.
| should introduce good contests of all
kinds. I should fill the fair with
good fun and frolic. I should want to
see some good pageants and dramatic
efforts founded on the industries, his
tory, or traditions of the region. In
the old days of the school Exhibition
something of this spirit prevailed. It
was manifest in the old Sewing bees
and also in the 'lyceum.'"-Literary
Digest.