302 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



stricter people of the town. Here dances may be given, here 

 there may be a pool room or bowling alley, and here sometimes 

 may be found rooms to let for immoral purposes. Here all the 

 gossip of the neighborhood is interchanged ; and here, in the bar, 

 pool room, or bowling alley, may be found legally or illegally 

 numerous little boys who learn to drink, smoke, swear, steal, tell 

 dirty stories, and amuse the adult crowd thereby. 



After so many years of agitation the large part drink plays 

 in all social problems hardly needs to be stressed. Perhaps, after 

 all, it should be stressed, because with the discovery of other 

 sources of evil has come a tendency to minimize the one about 

 which we have heard so much. But certainly the present investi- 

 gation shows anew and decidedly the great harm done by drink, 

 not only through tavern training of the young but also in making 

 parents and guardians cruel or idle or inefficient, as found in case 

 after case, and creating those bad home conditions which are 

 most favorable to the development of juvenile delinquency. 



No account of social centers in a country district would be com- 

 plete without mention of the village store. It is the clubhouse 

 for men and boys who do not like to go to the length of haunting 

 the village tavern ; or for all, in * ' dry ' ' villages where no tavern 

 exists. Here neighborhood matters are discussed, personal af- 

 fairs, politics, the latest scandal. Here it may happen that 

 "racy" stories are told and matters of sex held up to indecent 

 comment and ridicule. The store is to a startling extent the 

 place where social ideals are formed and where the minds of 

 the young are impregnated with the principles which later will 

 govern their work and play. 



Here, too, a taste for gambling may be fostered. This is a form 

 of recreation greatly under the ban of opinion in rural communi- 

 ties, but as a matter of fact, quite frequently indulged in. It 

 may be carried on in connection with games of various kinds 

 pool, poker, and so on entered into spontaneously. But worthy 

 of special note are cases mentioned in the investigator's report 

 of petty gambling schemes, devised to play upon and encourage 

 the gambling instinct, run in connection with the store. Such 

 devices are familiar in city neighborhoods where they are with 

 greater or less severity suppressed by the police. They are no 

 doubt introduced into country districts in the process of organ- 



