CENTERS OF RECREATION, ARTICLE II
Centers of Recreation ARTICLE II. THE FL ST NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CIVIC AND SOCIAL CENTER DEVELOPMENT IF WE DIVIDE human life into work and play or rest, that is, into creation and recreation,...
...Tell me at once where you got that chewing-gum...
...Civic Leaders Will Take Part AMONG THOSE who will be here to unite in the call to establish a wholesome center of recreation in every community and so to change the common leisure life from the exploited one of vanity, dissipation and disease to a common source of health and joyous strength, will be Dean Walter T. Sumner, Chairman of the Chicago Vice Commission, who will speak on the evening of October 26 upon "The Need of a Substitute...
...Miss Mary McDowell, whose splendid work has been done in The "Jungle" Back-of-the-Yards...
...It" will point out the tremendous waste of artistic, musical and dramatic resources through our failure to supply directors and promoters of neighborhood orchestras, choruses and dramatic expression, and our failure to use the schoolhouse as a center of music and dramatics, which would not only elevate the public taste but would enrich all our community life...
...Herbert Quick, editor of Farm and Fireside...
...These will treat of the problem especially in its relation to the larger cities...
...Miss Zona Gale, the creator of "Friendship Village," who knows the little town, will tell of its need and the remedy: and Mrs...
...It will call attention to the fact that there is in every neighborhood in America a building which belongs to all of the people, which has about t a clean, wholesome atmosphere—the public schoolhouse—which may be easily adapted for use as a center of recreation...
...They believe that the time for practical, constructive action has come...
...The Conference will not merely talk the promotion of wholesome recreation, but in its musical features, its informal round table gatherings and finally in the Saturday afternoon field day, pageant and Halloween Festival, it will express the wholesome American spirit of good fun on a democratic citizenship basis it aims to promote...
...Willie—"You don't want the truth, teacher, an' I'd ruther not tell a lie...
...It is the report of actual methods followed today in the "pursuit of happiness" in a typical American city...
...Judge...
...It, will seek to remind the American community that the school house used to be the place where good times were had, and without attempting to answer the difficult question why this best institution of American recreational life has been deserted for trivial specialization in recreation, this Conference will seek the restoration in every community of that center of friendly good times...
...But this Conference will recognize also that the vice—drunkenness, prostitution, gambling-which is rotting out the life of the American city, results also from habits developed through the lack of wholesome, interesting public recreation centers in every neighborhood...
...The great problem of establishing centers in the rural communities will be presented by such practical students of rural conditions as Dean Harry L. Russell...
...Recognizing that there is no more important phase of the problem of protecting family life and the home in America than by surrounding the early acquaintance times of young men and young women with wholesome environment and influence, it will declare the obligation of an intelligent society to provide such wholesome, attractive acquaintance place in every community...
...The men and women who will gather at the first National Conference on Civic and Social Center Development at Madison, October 25 to 28, will offer one...
...and P. V. Collins, publisher of the Northwestern Agriculturalist, The whole recreational field will be summarized by Professor Clark W. Hetherington, of the University of Missouri, author of the "Normal Course in Play" and leading authority in America upon recreational organization...
...M. L. Johnson, President of the Art Association of Richmond, the leader in the movement which made Richmond an example to the whole country through its establishment of the schoolhouse as a local art gallery, will speak upon this phase of the question...
...THE FL ST NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CIVIC AND SOCIAL CENTER DEVELOPMENT IF WE DIVIDE human life into work and play or rest, that is, into creation and recreation, the report of the Chicago Vice Commission is an account of present day recreation in an American city...
...Charles Holman, whose work in Social Center promotion is known throughout all the Southwest...
...So they will urge that the citizens come together in public school-houses and other public buildings seriously and frankly to discuss wages, hours and conditions of labor—especially for women, girls and children—to see if the pressure that drives people into vice cannot be relieved...
...WHERE HE GOT IT Teacher—"Now, Willie, where did you get that chewing gum...
...and John Collier, Secretary of the National Board of Censorship of Motion Picture Films...
...What the Conference Will Do THIS CONFERENCE will consider every phase of the problem of social recreation—rural as well as urban...
...it is a plain statement of the way in which one class of people seek recreation, another class of people sell themselves to supply recreation and a third class of people conduct the business for profit...
...Edward A. Ross, Professor of Sociology...
...Teacher—"How dare you say, I don't want the truth...
...It will recognize the stupidity of our failure to take advantage of the motion picture machine as a tremendous labor saving device in public education and a powerful attraction for social organization...
...Herbert Bigelow, who for fourteen years has been studying the life of Cincinnati and now heads the forces that are fighting for the new day in Ohio, who will speak the same evening on "Dissipation or Re-creation...
...Colonel Frank P. Holland, owner and publisher of Farm and Ranch...
...What is the remedy...
...It will advertise the rank injustice of providing at public expense recreational opportunities for the privileged youth who go to high school and college, and at the same time denying public recreational opportunities in the evening to the boys and girls, the young men and young women who are obliged to leave school for work...
...This report is another diagnosis added to those of The Committee of Fourteen in New York and others, of the festering disease with which the American city is sick...
...and Clarence Arthur Perry, who has devoted a year to the practical study of the best methods in this development...
...It will emphasize the fact that a potent reason for the drift from the rural communities into the cities is the desire for "something doing" and that the promotion of a wholesome recreation center in every rural community is a practical, intelligent approach to the country life problem...
...It will call attention to the democracy of sport and the fact that bankers and office boys, owner and janitor find common ground of interest in base-ball and basket-ball and to the fact that the opening of a recreation center in every community will tend to clear away the un-American barriers of petty snobbishness...
...I want the truth...
...Willie—"Under your desk...
...These men and women recognize that the vice—drunkenness, prostitution, gambling—of the American community is partly the result of economic, industrial and social conditions which can be bettered only as the government—that is, the citizenship—approaches it intelligently...
...And this calm, true statement of the actual recreational life of an American city is barred from the mails...
Vol. 3 • October 1911 • No. 41
