234 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



themselves as happier, healthier, more efficient members of the 

 community in which they live. 



Space should be provided to serve not only for the drills, plays, 

 games, competitions and the like but also for entertainments and 

 community gatherings. 



In order to inaugurate a program of this character it is neces- 

 sary that each community should have a general community 

 leader. Whatever the future may develop in bringing this need 

 to a practical realization in terms of specific organization, for the 

 present, at least, this work must be done by the local leader of 

 physical education. Now the usual instruction afforded by the 

 majority of courses in physical education fails properly to equip 

 its product with the necessary training. The physical director 

 in a rural community, to be able properly to work out this pro- 

 gram, must have a very definite and concrete notion of personal 

 and school hygiene, health and sanitary inspections, inspection 

 for signs of abnormality, and injury or illness, for conditions 

 which call for immediate attention on the part of the teacher, 

 and for signs of disordered health for which children should be 

 kept at home ; for conditions productive of bodily deformity, pos- 

 ture, and the like; of the detection of defective sight and hear- 

 ing; of the organization and duties of health officers and pupil 

 sanitary inspectors; she must have a very definite and concrete 

 notion of physical training, including calisthenics, athletics, 

 games, dancing, swimming, etc., and all those terms imply, and 

 the practical conduct and organization of these various phases of 

 physical training into a rational health program; she must have 

 a very definite and concrete notion of the nature and function 

 of play, of child nature, of festivals and entertainments for old 

 and young, of the social center or community center; and she 

 must have a vision of the service and duties of a general com- 

 munity leader as well as a technical knowledge of her subject. 



I wish I had time to elaborate on the training of a so-called 

 general community leader. At Cornell University we have made 

 a special study of the needs of the rural boys and girls and of 

 the rural communities. A Division of Physical Education in the 

 Rural Education Department of the Summer Session of the Col- 

 lege of Agriculture has been organized for the purpose of train- 

 ing teachers of physical education as general community leaders 



