Some elders think it pleasing and cute for young men and young women—fourteen to sixteen, or even seventeen—to wrestle and roll around on the floor like two huge kittens; but it is unwise and indiscreet and should be discouraged.
DANCING
We hesitate to speak of dancing for we realize it is a very popular indoor recreation of today, but we most earnestly urge that if dancing must be done, it be done under proper chaperonage, and if young people must meet in public dance halls let them be municipal dance halls, where motherly matrons are in charge. Many of the social dances which bring the participants into such close physical contact are to be discouraged and stricken off the list; and while dancing is a splendid form of exercise—let us add that it is also sometimes a dangerous one.
QUESTIONABLE PLAY
After the boys and girls graduate from grammar school they may come into contact with such agencies as secret societies—which nine times out of ten are questionable—and while we realize that there is a contention both for and against these organizations, we may dismiss the subject here by simply adding that we have known little special good to come out of these societies.
While it may not be any more wrong to hit a ball from the end of a stick—as in billiards—than it is to hit it from a mallet in croquet; or from a stretched tendon, as in tennis; or from a bat, as in baseball—we do not feel that we have to argue the point, when we remind the reader that billiards and pool, especially in the public parlors, do assemble questionable companions, who use questionable language; while these games are often accompanied by betting, which is always to be deplored. And so with card playing, we see no greater harm in playing a game of euchre, than a game of authors, as far as the cards are concerned, but your boy and girl, as well as mine, as a rule, have cleaner and purer minds at the home game of authors than is probable in a game of cards in a public place.
In closing this chapter we have to announce a group of wholesome recreations which may be entered into by our lovely young people—the man and the woman of tomorrow—whom we one and all wish to keep clean and good and pure; all the while helping them to develop the sense of humor and the element of play. Such recreations are tennis, golf, croquet, roque, boating, sledding, skiing, bicycling, motoring, horseback riding, and a host of others too numerous to mention. Let us not forget that ofttimes pursuits such as garden-making and helping the parent in the office or in the home, may be made a great source of enjoyment to the adolescent youth, if they are allowed to earn a small amount of money each week, which they may deposit in the bank.
We close this chapter "Play and Recreation" with the wish that all, old and young, would develop a greater sense of humor, a greater love for play and recreation, which will increase the health of both mind and body and prevent many nervous disorders such as neurasthenia.