ween work and play--monotony and freedom--is not possible in
the country environment. In the midst of country recreations there are
likely to be suggestions of the preceding work or the work that is to
follow. It is as if the city recreations were held in factories. Country
places of play are usually in close contact with fields of labor. Often
indeed the country town provides the worker with very little opportunity
for recreation in any form. In rural places recreation cannot be had at
stated periods. Weather or market conditions must have precedence over
the holiday. Recreation, therefore, cannot be shared as a common
experience to such an extent by country workers as is possible in the
city. Since the rural population is very largely interested in the same
farming problems, even conversation after the work of the day is less
free from business concerns than is usually that of city people.

The difficulty of obtaining sharp contrast between work and play in the
country no doubt is one reason for the ever-present danger of recourse
to the sex instinct for stimulation. One source of excitement is always
present ready to give temporary relief to the barren life of young
people. Not only of the girl entering prostitution may it be said that
with her the sex instinct is less likely "to be reduced in comparative
urgency by the volume and abundance of other satisfactions."[10] The
barrenness of country life to the girl growing into womanhood, hungry
for amusement, is one large reason why the country furnishes so large a
proportion of prostitutes to the city. "This civilizational factor of
prostitution, the influence of luxury and excitement and refinement in
attracting the girl of the people, as the flame attracts the moth, is
indicated by the fact that it is the country dwellers who chiefly
succumb to the fascination. The girls whose adolescent explosive and
orgiastic impulses, sometimes increased by a slight congenital lack of
nervous balance, have been latent in the dull monotony of country life
and heightened by the spectacle of luxury acting on the unrelieved
drudgery of town life, find at last their complete gratification in the
career of a prostitute."[11]

Consideration of the part played in the rural exodus by the nature of
the stimuli demanded by the individual for satisfaction or the hope of
satisfaction in life suggests that the school is the most efficient
instrument for rural betterment. The country environment