1 62 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



developed in the rural community? For the young- 

 sters the school is the natural center of play life, partly 

 because that is where children are and partly because 

 the right sort of play is good education. Some boys 

 and girls learn as much through games as they do in 

 school. The Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A., the 

 Sunday school, the Boy Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls 

 all have possibilities in developing play that is organ- 

 ized and yet not artificial. In the small or scattered 

 rural communities, it is difficult to maintain an adequate 

 play life for the youth who have perhaps left school 

 and have not yet joined their elders' socials. Perhaps 

 the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A., working in the 

 country districts as they do, are more likely to work 

 out this problem successfully than any other institution. 

 But these agencies work on a community basis; they 

 bring together the young people of the larger neighbor- 

 hoods. They do not deal very much with the indi- 

 vidual alone, on the one hand, nor with big scattered 

 groups on the other. For the older people, the church 

 and the Grange or similar organizations make an out- 

 let. The chief difficulties are not so much in agencies 

 as in difficulties of getting together. It is here, of 

 course, that good roads have a part in the right sort of 

 community life. The community should make recrea- 

 tion a part of its program community picnics and 

 sociables; the keeping of holidays and celebrations by 

 the entire community; the community paper; the com- 

 munity drama, developing the theatrical talent of the 

 community; community musicals, the natural inheritor 

 of the traditions of the old singing schools; community 

 excursions to the state agricultural college of the nearby 

 city or the state fair; the community motion pictures or 

 at least community oversight of the motion pictures; 



