munity a most unsafe place in which to bring up a family." 1

The school the natural social center

The school is the most natural and effective solution of the rural need for a neighborhood center. The school belongs to the whole people, and can easily be made to serve the social as well as the intellectual requirements of its constituency. Instead of ministering to a very small proportion of the population a few hours each day, twenty days in the month for a little more than half the year, it should be of service to all the people of its community whenever it can serve their needs. With adequate buildings planned with such uses in mind, the young people will find at the school a place for their entertainments and parties; here the older ones of the neighborhood will come for their special programs on scientific agriculture and home economy; here all will assemble for neighborhood picnics, lectures, concerts and whatever else goes to add to the intellectual and social life of the community.

Only the consolidated school equal to social demands

But it is to the consolidated school that we must chiefly look for such service. The one-room district school can hardly hope to minister successfully in this way to the social and intellectual demands of the entire community. Indeed the community itself which is tributary to the district school is too small to carry on well such activities as are required in making the school a social center. The consolidated school, however, serving from twenty-five to thirty square miles of territory, embraces a large enough population to make possible a real neighborhood organization.

Betts, New Ideals in Rural Schools, page twenty-eight.

1912-1913. Indiana

A hurdle race

Courtesy O. J. Kern (Ill.)

by rural school boys of Winnebago County, Illinois, May 18, 1912

The best proof that the consolidated school can be made a true social center for its territory, is the success that has already attended efforts made in this direction in various parts of the country. It has been found that the commodious assembly room of the centralized school naturally suggests and leads to lecture and entertainment courses; that the large and ample grounds are the logical places for picnics, agricultural exhibits, and stock or grain judging contests; that the well equipped athletic grounds result in the organization of neighborhood teams for outdoor sports, and in field days for the witnessing of athletic contests.

In neighborhoods where the school has been put to such uses, it is not necessary for the boys and girls to drive to some adjacent town to see ball games, or enjoy literary or musical entertainments. For these things can now be had in the home community, and better still, the boys and girls themselves are active participants instead of idle spectators, and hence a thousand times more interested in the occasion. Parents who were worried at seeing their boys start from the farm home for the streets of the near-by town on Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons, look with approval and satisfaction on their departure for some clean and wholesome entertainment at the school center. For here there are no pool rooms, saloons or other dens of corruption.

Ready response of the people

The ready response of the people of the rural communities to the school as a recreation center has been well typified in Winnebago County, Illinois, where Superintendent O. J. Kern has organized a series of play festivals held on the school athletic grounds. These gala days are attended by hundreds of people from the near-by communities, who bring

their picnic dinners and give the entire day to fun, frolic and a general good time.

Illinois play festivals

The program recently carried out at the festival held at the Harlem consolidated school is typical of all. The hour fixed for assembly was ninethirty, and by that time the roadside was lined with buggies and automobiles from miles around. The program opened with The Star-Spangled Banner played by the school band. Then came the march to the playgrounds, and the exercises of hoisting the flag over the grounds. The entire audience sang the state song and gave the salute to the flag. Next was the tug of war between boys of the competing townships, who fought valiantly for the honor of their teams. This was followed by an hour of games, for which the children were divided into groups in accordance with age, and led by their teachers, who entered as fully into the spirit of the occasion as the children themselves.

Three deep, dodge ball, hill dill, and bean bag throwing occupied the smaller children. Girls from nine to Play-day games twelve played long ball, and sheep and athletic events fold; they wound the May-pole, held a fag relay race, and competed in basket-ball throwing. Boys of the same age ran in a hoop-race, and a kiteflying contest, a three-legged race, a leap-frog race, and a relay race. Still older children played games suited to their ages. By this time it was noon, and a monster dinner was set under the trees on the school grounds. At one-thirty began the sports of the afternoon, consisting of a field-meet open to all pupils of the rural schools of the district represented. The junior events included a fifty-yard race, high jumping, a one-hundred-and-eightyyard race, the shot-put, a sixty-yard hurdle race, pole