I should give much attention to the organization of good games and sports, and I should have these coöperative between schools, or other organizations, such organizations having prepared for them consecutively during the preceding year. I should introduce good contests of all kinds. I should fill the fair with good fun and frolic.
I should want to see some good pageants and dramatic efforts founded on the industries, history, or traditions of the region or at least of the United States. It would not be impossible to find simple literature for such exercises even now, for a good deal has been written. By song, music, speaking, acting, and various other ways, it would not be difficult to get all the children in the schools of the county at work. In the old days of the school "exhibition," something of this spirit prevailed. It was manifest in the old "spelling bees" and also in the "lyceum." We have lost our rural cohesion because we have been attracted by the town and the city, and we have allowed the town and the city to do our work. I think it would not be difficult to organize a pageant, or something of the kind, at a county fair, that would make the ordinary vaudeville or sideshow or gim-crack look cheap and ridiculous and not worth one's while.
Premiums.
If we organize our fair on a recreation and educational basis, then we can take out all commercial phases, as the paying of money premiums. An award of merit, if it is nothing more than a certificate or a memento, would then be worth more than a hundred dollars in money. So far as possible, I should substitute coöperation and emulation for competition, particularly for competition for money.
It is probable that the fair would have to assume the expense of certain of the exhibits.
It is time to begin.
This kind of fair is not only perfectly possible, but it is feasible in many places, if only some one or two or three persons possessed of good common sense and of leadership would take hold of the thing energetically. One must cut himself loose from preconceived notions and probably from the regular fair associations. He must have imagination, and be prepared to meet discouragements. He need not take the attitude that present methods are necessarily all bad; he is merely concerned in developing a new thing.
Because I should not have horse races in my fair, I do not wish at all to be understood as saying that horse races are to be prohibited. Let the present race courses in the fair grounds be used for horse races, if the people want them. We have June races now, and they could be held at other times of the year when persons who are interested desire to have them. My point is that they are not an essential part of a county agricultural fair. They rest on a money basis, and do not represent the people. Neither do I say that all traveling shows and concessions are bad; but most of them are out of place in a county fair and contrary to its spirit.
If the horse races were organized for the purpose of developing the horses of the county, then I should admit them; but I should give them only their proportionate place along with other means of developing horse-stock,—as of work horses, farm horses, draft horses, driving horses.