Roadtown

by Edgar Chambless

There is no reason why every boy, big and little, should not attend the ball games and athletic meets on the home field as well as the grand finale in which his team participates.

Transportation will cost him nothing, the ball ground will be owned by the community and the hours of Roadtown labor will be set by the will of the worker and not by the greed of the capitalist’s purse.

Education for Old as Well as Young.

Roadtown education will apply to all ages of both sexes. The whole living scheme of Roadtown will be a vast school. The modern school, a place where we send our children to be herded in immense droves under the care of girls who use the teaching profession as a makeshift until an opportunity of marriage arrives, is far from perfection as a means of child development. The disciplinarian system of education which crushes out individuality and molds all children in the industrial-political virtue of being bossed, is likely to vanish as a population is freed from economic slavery.

Roadtown will provide instruction for those who wish to learn and citizenship prizes and privileges will go to the educated, and compulsory education and graded schools in time will have no excuse for existence. These are striking statements and I am simply calling attention to the change that I believe will come about naturally and unresisted.

The Roadtown will have to pay county taxes, but on account of its 1,000 population to the mile will influence the location of these schools in Roadtown. At first the use of the present public school methods must necessarily be employed; gradually as the Roadtown gains influence and better teachers are secured the educational system can be adapted more closely to Roadtown life.

In the first place, the Roadtown home will be an enlightened one. The Roadtown library will be a book store house, not a reading-room. If the citizen wants a book or magazine he telephones the library and in a few minutes the book is delivered to him by mechanical carrier. The kind of free library we have to-day requires ten cents car fare and much time to get a book.

There will be a library of telegraphone records, which do not have to be duplicated for every household, but one set at a central office will suffice, where one girl can run a complicated programme of music and lectures for many homes.

Eyes to be Used Less and Ears More.

Excessive reading is hard on the eyes and it lacks much of the efficiency that auditory methods have of conveying ideas. Our education has been entirely too much from the printed page and too little from the use of the ear. The Roadtown dictograph and telegraphone will change all this. The child who has not yet learned the letters can be taught to speak German and told stories of nature and history. And in all this education the parent will learn along with the child and become fascinated by such a wonderful process. The significance of this telegraphone and dictograph will never be appreciated until we have it in operation. The telegraphone is not a cheap instrument to build, but when operated on a large scale will be extremely economical for each family. From a programme announced in advance a choice may be had from a hundred pieces kept playing at once. More than one wire can lead to each house if desired. The family may be in the drawing-room, listening to grand opera or a lecture on philosophy, and Jimmy may be upstairs, tucked in bed with ear muffs clapped over his curls, being put to sleep by Sinbad the Sailor or the Twenty-third Psalm, according to his mother’s idea of child psychology.