PERSONAL AND SOCIAL CONTACTS 123 



More and more recreation is coming to have a real place 

 in county agent work both for its own sake and because it 

 helps to balance community life and programs. It intro- 

 duces desirable contrasts. It opens up new horizons. It 

 encourages and even teaches cooperation. Indeed, play it- 

 self is a form of cooperation since most play requires the 

 acting together of several or many individuals. Because it 

 is one of the simplest and most pleasant forms of coopera- 

 tion, it is an excellent way to begin the development of com- 

 munity spirit. This is especially true of group recreation. 



Perhaps the most common and the most useful form of 

 group recreation is community singing. Nearly everybody 

 likes to sing, or at least to hear singing. It is surprising 

 how under good leadership groups of people yield to the co- 

 operative spirit aroused by simply singing together. One 

 can almost feel the change in the atmosphere of such a 

 meeting. When interspersed with subject-matter talks or 

 addresses, it both promotes the serious objects of the meet- 

 ing and enlivens it generally. And where cooperative ac- 

 tion together in matters of common concern is the end de- 

 sired, it may even prove to be the deciding factor. 



There are some communities which need to learn to sing 

 and to play together before they are ready for other forms 

 of community activity. Recreation is sometimes the key 

 which will unlock the cooperative spirit, where more seri- 

 ous approaches would and do fail. Children yield most 

 readily to such an influence but it is not without its effect 

 on adults. A community comes to mind where both an 

 evening meeting and an extension school had failed because 

 of bad feeling which existed over the question of the pool- 

 ing of products. This community was brought to a 

 saner view of the situation and to cooperative action 

 through recreation activities, chiefly singing, which were 

 accompanied by a talk by a person able to arouse commu- 



