The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1923-06-14
RECREATION
POTENT FACTOR OF
SUMMER HEALTH
Vacation Should Mean Different
Thing to Various Glasses. Exer=
else in Open Air. Mental Health
Equally Important as Physical.

''They that are engaged in
the restoration of Health
through joint exertion of skill
and energy, are above all great.
They even partake in the D1-
vinity, since to restore and pre-
serve, is almost as noble as to
create. Voltaire.
what one should do to keep
well in the summer, depends upon
what one had been doing in the
winter" AS winter occupations are
infinitely varied it may seem at
first sight that this dictum calls
for equally varied summer pro
grams. However, most occupations
fall into certain groups which CAN
tor corresponding vacations.
For instance, most mon and an
increasing number of women work
hard all winter and take vaca-
ton when summer comes. On the
ether hand, large groups of men ana
women (farmers for instance work
hard all summer and take vaca-
ton, if they ever get one, In the
winter, when farm work is slack.
Most women work hard III their
own homes, and they too have earn
ed a vacation, though their right
to it is not always acknowledged.
Some men and women appear not
to work at all ard would probably
be very angry if any one accused
them of working. These also need
a vacation, but very few of them
get a real one.
A vacation should mean very
different things to these classes.
A clerk, for instance, should do
something that would make him
use his muscles Though not to ex-
cess) and a hard laborer something
that would rest his. a girl who has
been typewriting, sewing, cooking
in someone elses home should use
her vacation in outdoor sports, such
rs playing tennis or something like
that. A tired wife and mother
should rest by getting away from
husband and children, soothing her
nerves by chatting with other Wo-
men gand above all to have a few
moments in genuine privacy In
order that a general inventory may
be taken of her own self and her
very own problems. A society
girl who really works about as
hard as anybody in the service of
the Goddess of Pleasure" and is
prabably temporarily, at least)
sick of teas and men and women
and other girls, would do well to
attend a summer Normal School,
where she would at. least get a
brand new outlook on life-unless
she has courage enough to get a
job in a factory, where, if she was
not too naughty some Factory
Girls" might take pity on her and
teach her some things that are
really worth while.
The usual prescription for va
cation is exercise in the open air.
Such advice assumes that exercise
in the open air is the one important
thing that most workers do not get.
This is, of course, true in regard
to many persons but it is not true in
regard to many Others-farmers,
for instance. Anybody who has
been spending his or her winter
evenings in stuffy rooms studying,
playing cards, dancing, or just nod
ding, should by all means get out
into the open air in the summer.
A truck driver, on the other hand,
might well spend his vacation in
doors.
Exercise, particularly in the open
air, is valuable and indeed, essential
to continued good health. Exercise,
however, looks chiefly to physical
and ignores mental health; and
mental health is now considered to
be about as important as physical
health.
Millions of persons, women in
particular perhaps, need change
rather than a rest.
AS matter of fact, nearly every
one feels this and unconSciOusly
strives to act upon it. The tired
business man. of whom papers say
so much is not so foolish as some
persons think when he goes to the
theatre to listen to farfago OF
nonsense: for this is the very anti
thesis Of his daily work. I'm
Continued on Page Six)