RURAL AMERICA 



qua spirit began to take possession of the whole people and 

 as the agencies supplying the talent found ways of .providing 

 courses of great excellence within the financial reach of the 

 smallest villages, the movement became quite general, and 

 greater and greater numbers of people living in territory 

 hitherto unreached have, during the past few years, been 

 given the pleasure of enjoying the very best talent of the 

 country right at their own homes. The writer took a long 

 automobile trip during the summer of 1915 through many 

 rural sections and found that nearly all the communities of a 

 thousand population and over that were visited were adver- 

 tising a Chautauqua Week. The Chautauqua is the most 

 democratic institution of the whole nation and is a success 

 because it has found out just what pleases the people and is 

 constantly giving the people the very thing they want. 



The institutions that are doing the largest service in con- 

 nection with the play and recreational life of Rural America 

 are the rural library, the rural Young Men's Christian Asso- 

 ciation and the rural Young Women's Christian Association. 

 All three likewise emphasize the intellectual and the spiritual, 

 but one of their most important activities lies in the field of 

 play and recreation, and for that reason they are considered 

 under the head of PLAY. 



H. The Rural Library l 



The trend of recent years in the library activities of the 

 country has been toward rural extension, with the idea of 

 placing books in the homes of those on the farms as well as 

 of those living in the towns and cities. In earlier years books 

 were accessible only to the few. Today a majority of the 

 people enjoy library privileges, and the drift of library legisla- 

 tion in the several states indicates a purpose to make provision 

 for the country people, many of whom still have no opportuni- 

 ties to get books, except through purchase. 



1 Saida B. and Ernest I. Antrim, " The County Library," pp. 233-239, 

 140, 187. 



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