Community Civics and Rural Life

by Arthur William Dunn

CHAPTER XXI

SOCIAL, AESTHETIC, AND SPIRITUAL WANTS

HAPPINESS THROUGH SERVICE

Several times in the preceding chapters reference has been made to our national purpose "to transmute days of dreary work into happier lives." This does not mean to get rid of work; for happiness can be attained only IN work and THROUGH work. Happiness IN work depends largely upon our freedom and ability to choose the kind of service for which we are best fitted, and upon the extent to which we prepare ourselves for it. It also depends to a large extent upon good health (p. 309).

SATISFACTION OF HIGHER WANTS

But there never was a truer statement than that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." In return for his work every citizen is entitled to enough compensation to enable him to provide not only for the bare necessities of life, such as food and shelter, but also for the pleasure that he derives from the satisfaction of his higher wants, such as social life and recreation, an education that will give him a richer enjoyment of life, pleasant surroundings, religious advantages.

EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY TO ENJOY LIFE

All these things have much to do with our national well-being and our citizenship. Our nation is democratic only in proportion to the equality of opportunity enjoyed by all citizens to satisfy these wants. Moreover, the efficiency of each citizen in productive work and as a participator in self-government depends more than we sometimes think upon his opportunity to "enjoy life" in pleasant surroundings and in wholesome social relations. In the past the citizen has been left largely to his own resources and to purely voluntary cooperation to provide for these wants. Government has not even adequately PROTECTED his rights of this kind, to say nothing of positively PROMOTING them. At present, however, community team work through government is being organized as never before both to promote and to protect the interests of all citizens in the fullest possible enjoyment of life.

RECREATION AND SOCIAL LIFE

THE VALUE OF PLAY

Children enjoy play because it satisfies physical, mental, and social wants. But it is also the principal means by which they prepare for the more serious duties of later life. It builds up health, trains the muscles and the senses, and sharpens the wits. It gives practice in team work, develops leadership, and teaches the value of "rules of the game." Every child is entitled to an abundant opportunity to play, both because of the happiness it affords him and because by it he is trained for membership in the community. It is to the interest of the community to afford him the opportunity. It is largely for this reason that most of the states protect children by law from being put to work for a living at too early an age.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAY IN CITIES

In large cities thousands of children live in crowded districts where there is no place to play except in the public streets. So little appreciative have we been of the importance of play in the development of young citizens that great numbers of city schools have been built with no provision whatever for playgrounds. This mistake is slowly being corrected, often at great expense. No city school is now considered first-class if it does not have an ample and well-equipped playground, with competent directors to teach children how to get the most out of their play. Most cities are also establishing public playgrounds apart from the schools, sometimes under the management of the school board, but often under that of a special playground or recreation commission.

PLAY IN RURAL COMMUNITIES

Play for the children of rural communities is as important as for those of cities, but even less attention has been given to it. Many a country school has no playground, and if it has one it is likely to be small and not equipped with play apparatus. Why should there be playgrounds when there is all outdoors in which to play? Why should there be expensive play apparatus and play directors when boys and girls can get all the "exercise" they need at home or on the farm? "Play" means more than mere physical exercise, and must be pleasurable if it is to have value. Organized play is as truly a means of education as any school instruction, and must have competent leadership or direction. In rural districts, where the children live far apart, there is particular need for a common meeting place for organized group play, and the school is the most appropriate place for it.

ARGUMENT FOR SCHOOL CONSOLIDATION

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 "fagged," 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 entitled 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 "transmuting 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 Saturdays. 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 class 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 amusements that are wasteful of time, energy, or health, or all three, and we call the person "dissipated" who is addicted to such indulgence. Any amusement, 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 principal 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 companionship 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 association 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 amusement 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 classes of people. Amusements 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 amusement 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 Associations 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 assembly halls, social gatherings, and recreation grounds for young and old alike. An illustration 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 assembly 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 LEADERSHIP

One of the chief obstacles to the development of rural community recreation has been the absence of leadership. The consolidated school helps to remedy this. Other agencies, however, are doing something to provide such leadership, among the most active of which is the county work department of the Young Men's Christian Association, which has organized county-wide athletic associations 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 leadership. 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 leadership.

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."

ATTRACTIVE SURROUNDINGS

APPRECIATION OF THAT WHICH IS BEAUTIFUL

Beauty in one's surroundings adds much to the enjoyment of life, and therefore, also, to one's efficiency in work and as a citizen.

People are often apparently blind to the beauty that is around them. "Having eyes, they see not; and ears, they hear not." Those who live in the open country are surrounded by natural beauties of which city dwellers are largely deprived. Too often, however, they are unconscious of them or indifferent to them. To the hard- working farmer a gorgeous sunset may be little more than a sign of the weather on the morrow, and the beauty of a field of wheat or corn may be lost in the thought of the toil that has gone into it, or of the dollars that may come out of it. Fortunate is the rural dweller whose toil and isolation are tempered by an appreciation of the beauties of the natural world about him!

ITS CULTIVATION

Love for and appreciation of that which is beautiful may be cultivated. It is a part of one's education. The schools now give more attention to it than formerly; but many of them do not yet give enough. Appreciation of beauty is cultivated not merely by instruction in "art," but also by those studies that increase one's knowledge of the common things about us. The teaching of agriculture and of science has a very practical purpose; but its purpose is only partly accomplished if it teaches us how to raise corn or cotton without opening our eyes to the wonders of nature involved in the process.

An appreciation of beauty may be cultivated, also, by association with it, as it may be destroyed by constant association with that which is ugly. People who live in unkempt and slovenly surroundings are likely to become indifferent to them. It is the duty of every one to have a care for the appearance of his surroundings both because of its effect upon himself and its influence upon others.

IMPORTANCE OF APPEARANCES

A stranger who visits our school is likely to judge it, first of all, by its appearance. He will note whether or not the building is in good repair, the condition of the grounds and fences, the presence or absence of flower beds, shrubs, and trees. Inside, he will observe the cleanliness and orderliness of the room, the decorations on the walls, the presence or absence of pictures and flowers and plants; yes, and also the care the pupils and teacher take of their personal appearance. These things are signs to the visitor of the interest taken by pupils, school authorities, and the community in their school. They are also signs of the character of the work done in the school, and of the happiness of the pupils.

A COMMUNITY JUDGED BY APPEARANCES

In a similar manner, the visitor to your community will form his first opinion of it by its appearance. He will note, first of all the appearance of the homes, and then, probably, the cleanliness and state of repair of the streets or roads. He will observe the condition of the fences, and whether or not the weeds are cut along the roads. He will notice, also, the extent to which the people love flowers, and care for trees and vacant lots. All of these things will be signs to him of the prosperity, the happiness, the "community spirit," of the citizens. They will doubtless enter into his decision as to whether or not he cares to live, or establish a business, or educate his children, in that community.

COMMUNITY INTEREST IN BEAUTY

In cities a good deal of attention is usually given to such matters, and laws exist, with government officers to administer them, for the protection and promotion of community beauty. In rural communities these matters are left more largely to individual initiative and voluntary cooperation. It becomes a matter of public interest and spirit on the part of the individual and the family. It is true that some things are done through government authorities, as in the improvement of the roads and the building of bridges and culverts that are of pleasing design as well as serviceable. In some New England "towns" there are "town planning" boards, which carefully plan for the laying out of streets and their improvement, the proper location of public buildings and the style of architecture to be used, the location and development of parks and playgrounds, the enactment of suitable housing laws, and other matters pertaining to the beauty of the community as well as to the well-being of its citizens.

COMMUNITY PLANNING

Systematic planning of rural communities with a view to making them beautiful has not been carried very far in this country. In fact, as one travels over a large part of the United States one is impressed by the monotonous and unattractive character of the towns and villages. This is not true everywhere, for in some parts of the country, usually those that have been settled longest, one sees beautiful villages that fit harmoniously into the landscape. But over large areas of the country it seems that wherever man has gone he has marred the beauty of nature.

INFLUENCE OF EXAMPLE

There is nothing in which the influence of example is so quickly seen as in matters relating to appearance. People are prone to copy their neighbors in matters of style, whether it be in dress or in architecture.

In one rather wretched community a few boys who were studying civics sought permission to lay sod in the dooryard of a tenement house. Having obtained permission and laid the sod, it was not long before some one else in the neighborhood did likewise, and soon people all around were sodding their yards or sowing grass seed. Then they began to repair and paint their fences and otherwise "tidy up" their places, until the whole neighborhood was transformed in appearance. It is interesting to note, also, that as the community improved in appearance, it also became less lawless than it had been.

This is one phase of community life in which it is easy to establish leadership, and in which young people can perform valuable civic service and contribute materially toward "transmuting days of dreary work into happier lives."

Investigate and report on:

The natural beauty of your community.

How natural beauty has been destroyed in your community.

How natural beauty has been preserved in your community.

Our national parks.

How your school promotes the love for beauty.

How your school could be made more beautiful.

How you and your schoolmates could make your school more beautiful.

What impression a stranger would get of your community from its appearance.

The features in the appearance of your community of which you are proud. Those of which you are ashamed.

Agencies that exist in your community to promote its beauty

Ways in which you can participate in making your community more beautiful.

RELIGIOUS LIFE AND AGENCIES

GOVERNMENT AND RELIGION

In some countries church and state are inseparably bound together. Before the recent war the Russian Czar was also the head of the Russian church. In our own country in colonial times, no citizen was permitted to vote in the New England town meeting who did not belong to the Puritan church of the community. This religious qualification for participation in government was in the course of time dispensed with, and one of the fundamental principles of our democracy is that every citizen shall have complete liberty of religious belief. Our government exercises no control over the religious life of the people other than to guarantee this liberty. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" (United States Constitution, Amendment I). State constitutions contain similar guarantees. To prevent government interference with religion, religious institutions are exempt from taxation.

RELIGION A MEANS OF CONTROL

On the other hand, the church and other religious institutions are an important means of community control. They do not exercise this control through government, but through the influence of their own beliefs and organization upon the conduct of their members. If everybody should live in accordance with the Golden Rule, there would be no need for government as a means of repression, but only as a means of performing service.

RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES AN OBSTACLE TO TEAM WORK

One of the unfortunate things about the church has been the fact that more or less important differences in religious belief have tended to break up the community into numerous religious groups, or churches. This may be necessary in purely religious matters, but it has too often happened that the people have allowed their religious differences to prevent united action in other matters of common interest to the entire community. In some cases communities have been broken up into rival, or even hostile, factions because of this. There is, however, a growing tolerance of one religious sect or denomination by others, which is in accord with the Christian spirit, and is necessary if community life is to be well developed. It often happens that there are more churches of the same denomination in a community than it can support. In such cases, at least, there is need for church consolidation similar to the consolidation of schools, and for the same reason.

SOCIAL SERVICE OF THE CHURCH

The church may be, and often is, an important agency in the community for the performance of services other than that of ministering to the religious wants of the people. Or, to speak more correctly, it has realized more or less fully that the religious wants of the people are closely bound up with their other wants, and seeks to minister to these other wants as a part of its religious duty. Thus, we find the church growing more active in looking after the health interests, educational interests, and social and recreational interests of its members and others.

Investigate and report on:

The number of religious denominations having churches in your community.

The number of churches in each denomination.

Membership and attendance in the churches of your community.

Arguments for and against church consolidation in your community.

Activities of churches in your community, other than religious.

Religious organizations other than churches in your community.

READINGS

In LESSONS IN COMMUNITY AND NATIONAL LIFE:

Series A: Lesson 27, Concentration of social institutions (including the
school and the church).

Series B: Lesson 12, Impersonality of modern life.
Lesson 20, The church as a social institution.
Lesson 29, Labor organizations.

Series C: Lesson 11, The effects of machinery on rural life.
Lesson 29, Child labor.
Lesson 32, Housing for workers.

"Sources of Information on Play and Recreation," by Lee F. Hanmer and Howard W. Knight; Department of Recreation, Russell Sage Foundation, New York (1915).

THE PLAYGROUND. A monthly publication of the Playground and Recreation Association of America, 1 Madison Ave., New York ($2 a year).

NEIGHBORHOOD PLAY. A manual of rural recreation (The Youth's
Companion, Boston).

McCready, S. B., Rural Science Reader. In "Rural Education
Series," H. W. Foght, general editor (Heath).

Write the County Work Department, International Committee of the
Y. M. C. A. for material.

Foght, H. W., THE RURAL TEACHER AND HIS WORK, Chapter VI (The rural school and community recreation).

Jackson, Henry E., A COMMUNITY Center—WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO
ORGANIZE IT, U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1918, No. 11.

Quick, Herbert, "The rural awakening in its relation to civic and social center development." Bulletin No. 474, University of Wisconsin.

"Beautifying the Farmstead," Farmers' Bulletin No. 1087, U. S.
Department of Agriculture.

Proceedings First National Country Life Conference (address Dwight Sanderson, Secretary, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.); "Play and recreation in rural life," p. 95; "Religious forces for country life," p. 83.

Jackson, Henry E., THE COMMUNITY CHURCH (Macmillan).

Numerous "surveys" of rural communities have been made by various agencies. Among them are those made by the Department of Church and Country Life of the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church, 156 Fifth Ave., New York. Extensive surveys are being made by the Inter-Church World Movement, 45 West 18th St., New York.

Bulletin No. 184 of the Agricultural Experiment Station, Iowa State Agricultural College, Ames, Iowa, contains a social survey of Orange Township, Blackhawk County, Iowa.

Write your State Agricultural College or State University for possible materials of a local character.