136 KURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



One of the causes of this loss is the coming of the com- 

 mercialized spectacle of sport. Our joung people from 

 the country flock to the nearest town or city to pay their 

 entrance fee and see a professional game. They have 

 given up play for what serves no true recreative pur- 

 pose. " Contrast the bleachers' benches and the field 

 at a baseball match. On the crowded seats is such an 

 abandonment of restraint as can hardly be paralleled 

 in civilization. Men release themselves from control. 

 They shout, they hoot, they yell, they scream. They 

 wave their hands, their hats, their handkerchiefs. On 

 the other hand how alert and controlled the athletes are. 

 They have won their places by being highly trained in 

 body and mind. They are cool, quick and resourceful. 

 Brain and body are at the highest tension. And the 

 players work together: every man is ready to make a 

 sacrifice hit if it will win a run for the team. Every 

 man knows his place, and every man does his best. It 

 is a wonderful exhibition of co-operative activity. It 

 is a lesson in self-control, self-reliance, self-denial. It 

 is all that the howling gallery of spectators is not."* 

 Once play was well-nigh universal. That condition 

 must be won back again. 



Eor play, sport, recreation, is one of the great human 

 needs. There is involved not a question of athletics 

 alone, nor of amusement, but of the enriching of life 

 , throughout childhood and the refreshing of life in later 

 years. Scientific study of child-life has demonstrated 

 that a balanced manhood depends upon fullness of play- 

 experience in childhood. In adult life efiiciency de- 

 mands recreation. It is the finding of accurate ob- 



* Dr. J. W. MacMillan, in " Social Service," p. 69. 



