iece of land on the
borders of the village, formerly used as a fair ground. This work is to
have local value for the children of this community, and has been used
as a demonstration center of the efficiency of recreation as a moral
discipline among the young.

But most communities have not so much money to spend. The proposal of a
play-ground or of a gymnasium is itself sufficient to condemn the
doctrine of play. "We cannot afford it," settles the whole question. In
the country expensive apparatus is not necessary; nor do the farmer's
son and daughter require in recreation so much physical exercise. The
gymnasium is an artificial and expensive machinery for inducing sweat,
but the farmer needs no such artificial machine. The problem is purely
one of play, not of exercise. For this purpose a careful study of the
community, and of its tendencies and inclinations, is necessary. The
great essential of recreation in the country is the opportunity to meet
and to talk. Therefore the social life of gatherings in the church, and
in the schoolhouse, no matter what their program, provided it be
innocent, is valuable. Farmers will attend an auction, and go a long way
to a horse-race, or gather at a fair, without any intention of buying or
selling. The fundamental service rendered by the county fair and the
auction is an opportunity afforded to converse. This exercise of the
tongue is far more important in rural recreation than the exercise of
the biceps. But country people cannot talk without an occasion which
unlocks their tongues. They must not be directly solicited to converse
or they are silent. If the occasion is provided and is made to be
sufficiently plausible its greatest success will be in conversation.

In almost every country community, therefore, there should be revival,
in various forms, of the old "Bees," which had so much of a place in the
former economy. If there is a widow who has no one to cut her wood, the
men of the country church should assemble to do it. If there is a
household whose bread winner and husbandman has died at the time of
planting corn, let the men of the community gather at an appointed day
and till the ground for the family, whose grief is greater at that
moment than their need. Let the women of the community assemble at noon
to provide an abundant repast. This was recently done by a countryside,
at the instigation of the minister, and the effect of it was lasting in
its values as well as inten