Community Civics and Rural Life

by Arthur William Dunn

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.