President Roosevelt twenty years ago recognized the importance of keeping on the farms the young and vigorous American men and women who are needed to maintain the enormous food supplies required by the vast populations of the great cities and industrial centers, and appointed a Country Life Commission to investigate and report on the conditions that were making life on the farms unattractive as compared with the cities. One of the reasons found by the Commission for the increasing flow of country youth cityward was the lack of social activities and amusements in the rural districts, and the consequent desire to migrate to localities where a denser population brought wide opportunities for social diversions. Curiously enough, the dance as a means of promoting sociability among the farm population was not discussed, possibly because of an old-fashioned prejudice against dancing that still prevails in many rural regions. Why certain good people should object to the dance, innocent, joyous and beneficial as it is in practically all its manifestations and associations, can only be explained on the grounds given by Lord Macaulay from the British Puritan's objection to the sport of bear-baiting. "The Puritan condemned bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators." There was a time when it was considered frivolous and wicked to be happy, and dancing and many other innocent amusements were put under the ban. This narrow view of life is, fortunately, becoming outgrown, and no power is now invoked to prevent pleasure-seekers finding diversion in sports, games, or the dance.
With the gradual disappearance of the ancient view of pleasure as akin to sinfulness, there is no good reason why dancing should not become as popular in the rural districts as it is in the cities. The automobile and good rural roads have combined to make possible social gatherings in central localities that would have been impossible twenty years ago. Improved farm machinery and implements have shortened working hours on the farm, so that the evenings are no longer devoted to finishing up the day's work. Then there are the long winter evenings when the heart of youth calls to youth, and when in every village or country hamlet there should be assembled joyous groups, finding in the dance an escape from the routine of daily cares. Picnics and outings would take on new attractions, and under the spur of rivalry the simpler forms of dancing would evolve into its more artistic branches. There would be something to look forward to outside the family circle; new acquaintances and agreeable companions. With the dance would come a wider knowledge and love of music that would stimulate its study and practice. In many thousands of farm homes the radio is now installed, and programs of dance music are arranged that make it possible for millions to join in moving to the strains of the best metropolitan bands and orchestras.
The contrast between the city residents and their "country cousins" is in no respect more marked than in their walk and carriage. Watch the city crowds, as with heads up, chins in, and shoulders back, they step out briskly along the sidewalks. They know how to walk. They may be going somewhere in a hurry, or sauntering to see and be seen, but in either case they carry themselves as individual personages. They have been taught grace of movement, and their self-confidence expresses their individuality. Compare with them a group of rural walkers. Too often the latter slouch carelessly and drag limbs that are awkward and aimless. They are frequently bent and listless, as though walking were hard labor imposed as a penalty. They do not know how to hold their arms to keep them in accord with their bodily progress. It is not an injustice to the country folk to say that by their walk they can nearly always be distinguished from the city resident. Instruction in even the simplest forms of the dance, and practice in their movements, will bring about a far-reaching change. The country boys and girls will learn to hold themselves erect, they will quickly see the difference between the sort of progress by what has been described as a process of falling over and recovering one's balance, and real walking by a coördinated entity. They will take pride in well developed bodies, and will show in every movement the results of the training that has enabled them to become proficient in the dance.
Is it not possible that the answer to the old query: "How you goin' to keep them down on the farm?" may be found in the advice: "Teach them to dance"?
Perhaps you are asking yourself, "What has country dancing to do with stage dancing?" And I will answer you:
Just this: The city has no monopoly of talent in any field. The candidate for dancing honors and emoluments comes as often from rural communities as from metropolitan. But first, whether in city or hamlet, there must be present in the aspirant the true love of dancing as an art, a sense of rhythm, an urge to step to music,—and these he or she discovers only as the ballroom dancing in the home community develops them.
This is no lure; it is a true word: There are young ladies and gentlemen in all localities who, if they but knew it, could rise to heights worth while, because possessed of genuine talent needing only correct training to develop its possibilities to the full.
The country-bred girls and boys in our courses have equal opportunity with their city cousins, and both are thriving alike.
