This modern sort of recreation is not as good as the old for two reasons. It is really a sort of intoxication instead of a mild stimulant; and it is often solitary instead of social. Solitary pleasure is subtle selfishness. Even the rural sports are apt to be solitary, such as hunting and fishing. If the country is ever to be socialized and a spirit of cooperation developed which will make possible strong team-work in business, politics and religion, then we must begin with the laboratory practice of organized play. As a successful country minister says, “The reason why farmers cannot seem to cooperate when they are grown up is in the fact that they did not learn team-play when they were boys.” Faithfulness to the daily work is a great character builder, but Dr. Luther H. Gulick rightly insists that play, because of its highly voluntary character, trains men in a better morality than work does.
Especially is this true of wage-earners, students in school, and all those who work for others. As Dr. Wilson in his fine chapter on Rural Morality and Recreation, so well says, “What we do for hire, or under the orders of other people, or in the routine of life is done because we have to. We do not choose the minor acts of study in school, of work in the factory, of labor in the house, of composition in writing a book. All these little acts are part of a routine which is imposed upon us and we call them work. But play is entirely voluntary. Every action is chosen, and expresses will and preference. Therefore play is highly moral. It is the bursting up of our own individuality and it expresses especially in the lesser things, the preferences of life. The great school for training men in the little things that make up the bulk of character is team-work and cooperation in play. Here is the school of obedience to others, of self-sacrifice for a company and for a common end, of honor and truthfulness, of the subordination of one to another, of courage, of persistent devotion to a purpose, and of cooperation.”[26]
Morality and the Play Spirit
The undeniable fact that rural morality is so closely dependent upon wholesome recreation makes this subject a most vital one. Life in the country ought to be sweeter, purer and morally stronger than life in the city. The very fact that incognito life is impossible in the country is a great moral restraint. But the moral stamina of country people will surely give way, under stress of constant toil, unless relieved by play and its wholesome reactions. Investigate the sad stories of sexual immorality so common among country young people and you will find one of the ultimate causes to be the serious lack of wholesome recreation and organized play. The recreation problem is fundamental in this matter of rural morality and the sooner we face the facts the sooner we shall see a cleaner village life.
It is not enough to encourage occasional socials and picnics, track athletics and baseball games under church auspices, as a sort of social bait, to attract and attach people to the church. The Y. M. C. A. has taught us that these social and physical things are essential in and of themselves. They cannot be neglected safely. In a sense they are moral safety-valves, for releasing animal spirits which might be dangerous to the community under pressure. Certainly some measure of play is needed to keep the balance of sanity and efficiency in all human lives. Rural life, made solitary and mechanical by modern farm machinery, is seriously lacking in the play spirit and team-play practice. Here is its most serious failure in cooperative living. Here its socialization must begin.
B. THE NEW COOPERATION IN COUNTRY COMMUNITIES
I. Social Cooperation.
The Problem of Community Socialization
The seriousness of the problem as described in the previous pages has not been overstated, though dwellers in progressive and comfortable country communities may think so. Let them be duly thankful if their social environment is better than the average here described. Speaking from broad experience of the tragic results of rural individualism, Mr. John R. Boardman says, “There is a great social impulse in the country but its force is centrifugal. It tends to split up the community into jealous, suspicious groups, and we therefore find sects and parties disintegrating and multiplying often by division. This is nothing short of a social crime. Strong measures must be taken not only to prevent further social stratification of a prejudicial character, but to compel a practical organic federation which will unite the personal forces, combine available resources and focus on mutual interests.”
Country folks must learn to cooperate; to live harmoniously together in rural neighborhoods, to find real recreation in organized play, to work effectively at mutual tasks and to utilize more successfully all social organizations and means for community welfare. Interdependence must be made to take the place of boasted independence. Selfish individualism must yield to social cooperation. Only thus can life in the open country be made to survive. Otherwise tenant farming will continue to increase and a rural peasantry finally develop on the land, with absentee landlords living in comfort in the more normal social conditions of the villages and towns. Already 37% of farm owners do not live on their farms; and the farm renter is cursing the soil.