Milwaukee's Junior

Band Contest

For two years the Milwaukee Leader has conducted a Junior Band Contest which is a source of great enjoyment to the young people of the city and their friends. Leo Wolfsohn, news editor of The Leader, in a letter to Miss Dorothy Enderis, Director of the Extension Department, Milwaukee Public Schools, has outlined the steps taken in organizing the contest. Some of these suggestions will be of interest to other communities organizing similar contests.

"For a band contest to be held in June, work must be started about February. It was during February that we announced in our paper we would hold a junior band contest. Then we sent out announcements to all band directors who participated in the contest last year and to all additional directors whose names we could find, telling them the plans for the contest and the date selected. After this preliminary, entry blanks were sent all the bands, asking them to submit their entries. With the cooperation and approval of the school board, superintendent of schools and other officials, school bands were enlisted.

"Then came the publicity for the event. The picture of each band which entered was published in the paper and two or three times a week, later every day, the paper carried stories about the

contest.

"Next came the judges. Pictures of the judges who had accepted were published together with stories of their acceptance.

"The time had come for giving publicity to the program. Questionnaires were sent each band asking what selections it was going to play, and when replies failed to come promptly, reminders. were sent out. The cups which were to serve as awards were selected, suitable legends were engraved on them and they were placed on exhibition in the store windows. Pictures of the cups and information about them appeared in the paper.

"The next step was to arrange for the park. Permits were secured from the Park Board and arrangements made for securing chairs, benches and the regulation of traffic by the police.

"At last the program is completed and the night of the concert is approaching. The program has been given, two columns wide, down the first page. Arrangements have been made with mem

them on the stage in good order and off again. "The time draws nearer. We are at the park early. The hope to start at 7:15 is somewhat fractured. For one thing, the judges have not yet arrived. At last they trickle in and are greeted cordially. A table is put out for them in front of the band stand and three chairs placed. They are seated.

"Another difficulty arises. The band which was to play first, does not arrive until after 7:20. At last they are lined up and the first number is on. The big event has started.

"A great deal must be done during the band concert. Two reporters are kept busy picking up leads for stories. Two staff photographers are hard at work taking pictures of the crowd, the judges and the bands.

"A great deal follows after the contest. The score cards of the judges must be totaled and averaged and the winner determined. The next day in the office the layout must be planned, pictures run and a story told with as little pain as possible to the unsuccessful contestants."

The Zontians of Glens

Falls, New York, Start

Something!

The Zonta Club of Glens Falls, an organization of young business women, is a wide awake group. Two years ago the club woke up to the fact that something was lacking to make summer time. quite complete in Glens Falls. They decided it was the absence of a bath house which would facilitate swimming, so they took steps to remedy the situation. It wasn't easy for they had to meet the objections of the "Can't-Be-Doners," the "What's-the-Use Brigade," the "Costs-Too-Much

WORK MEN STILL BUSY ON THE BATH HOUSE, GLENS

Club," the 'Too Busy Crowd" and all the other obstructionists.

But the Zontians went to work in spite of them all. They gave money themselves and got others. to give funds and to work. Volunteers worked for almost a week clearing the land. A local architect gave his services to the supervision of the bath house. A group of local contractors gave either the services of their men or other assistance. The Street Department loaned tools: the city engineer helped and the use of the land where the bath house was built was secured through the courtesy of the Adirondack Power and Light Corporation. Many other business firms helped a:d the actual construction of the building was done largely through volunteer workers under the leadership of skilled carpenters and builders.

The beach is under the supervision of the City Recreation Commission with a trained life saver and matron and supervisor in charge.

Discussion Meetings
in Reading, Pa.

The Department of Recreation of Reading, Pennsylvania, has arranged for a series of discussion meetings in a group representing the recreational agencies of the city both participating and non-participating in the Welfare Federation. The subjects for discussion at the first meeting follow:

Reading with its great development of industry and congestion of population presents problems of the recreational life that are peculiarly its own.

Parallel with the development of the factory system, its differentiation of processes, and highly specialized routine of labor, have come subsequent reduced hours of toil and a great unrest for satisfying experiences during this newly acquired "time off."

(a) Under these conditions, is the joy of living to be preserved and enhanced through rich and abundant recreational advantages?

(b) Will the workers find therein the experiences which can give life more significance?

(c) Do they have inherent rights to such advantages?

(d) Is there a general problem of securing and maintaining high standard facilities and guidance for recreational activities?

between the amount of "self-direction" to be encouraged in leisure activities and the amount of "super-direction" that appears to be necessary for coordination purposes and the happiest results to all concerned?

(Some Corollaries to Problem "e")

I. What praiseworthy and enjoyable activities have become unpopular because of super-impositions?

II. How does the age of the participant effect the amount of freedom to be encouraged in his free time activity?

III. What are the benefits of "guide lines" placed before an individual or a group over set rules and regulations?

IV. How can we work through immediate desires to likings for more excellent types of activities?

V. What objectives besides that of "more freedom" should be considered in opposing any form of activity?

VI. Wherein does education have a responsibility for "building towards more 'non-disastrous' freedom?"

VII. How should "recreational methods" be brought to the leadership in the naturally formed groups of the community?

VIII. How can recreation be interwoven with the activities of the institutions and organizations of the community to contribute simultaneously to their specific aims?

Family Play

The Illinois Institute for Juvenile Research, in its attempts to adjust recreation, early discovered that recreation plans were most effective if some at least included other members of the family or, better still, the family as a whole. Family case records here and there show instances where recreation for the whole family group. both within and outside the home, has been attempted with varying degrees of success: the Hudson Guild Settlement in New York has made it possible for father, mother and children to go to the summer camp together; the Godman Guild Association in Columbus has similar projects under way. Bu

et these instances are few and far between £ at indication that at present recreation plans ar or the individual or for other than family group with the result that children and other member: of the family spend their leisure outside the hom

To my mind, the most important problem that we have before us at the present time is what to do with the leisure which has been thrust upon us and which may be a menace as well as a help. Or, to put it in this way, on account of this leisure there is a demand for pleasure far in excess of the supply, either commercial activities or homemade. On account of the fact that the demand is so much greater than the supply, people are filling up their leisure time in ways that are very— I might say-questionable. Well, perhaps not questionable at all, but really dangerous to the nation and to the race.

Now, the readjustment is not easy. We are not yet readjusted to the industrial system that has given us this leisure. This industrial system is a little over a hundred years old, but the species to which we belong is somewhere between a half million and a million years old. We have not come to our present position and condition by standing at a machine and doing the same thing over and over again. The spirit of adventure and the spirit of the unknown, the spirit of the interesting and the spirit of variety, have brought us to our present position, and we are not used yet to our industrial system.

It is all the more true that we are not used to this leisure that has been thrust upon us, because man has not come to his present position except by strain and stress and struggle and labor, not always because he wanted to do it, for he is naturally lazy, and especially mentally lazy-but because he has been forced to do it. Having his body and mind adapted to the strain and the stress and the labor, he cannot easily become readjusted to the idea or the practice of leisure.

To readjust ourselves, we must do either one of two things. We must either restrict our desires, or we must transform and redirect our desires and aspirations in the direction of attainable ends.

The first way is practically impossible. We can not restrain our desires and our interests, for our interests and desires are always along instinctive

*Address given at Recreation Congress, Atlantic City, N. J., October 18-22, 1926.

lines. The instincts are a lot older than man, and they can neither be eradicated nor can they be acquired if we do not have them; so the idea of restraining these desires must be wiped out. But, on the other hand, when we come to transform or redirect them, we come into what, in the broader phase, must be called education. And this is the theme which has been assigned to me this morning -that of "Leisure and Education."

Now, note, if you will, that the primary meaning of leisure was school. And some people think that we are carrying out the primary meaning, in connection with our colleges at least, very literally. But this is to be said that the leisure which was employed in the school, according to the Greek idea, was not used simply by those who had leisure to go to school-although they did use it-but by persons who had the leisure to carry out their investigation and their study in a way that would bring full fruition. That is the idea of leisure as it was the idea of school in the Greek sense. And down through the Middle Ages, it was the rich, or those connected with the church, who obtained an education, for no other reason than that they had the leisure.

A PERIOD OF UTILITARIAN EDUCATION

Now we come down to modern times, with our free compulsory education, which has taken on, unfortunately for the subject that we have before us and our outlook at the present time, a utilitarian and a commercial aspect; particularly in this country. Why should a person have an education? Because he can make a better living, because he can make more money? Not a few of our young people have gone into one profession rather than another because it seemed to them that there was more money in that profession than there was in any other; and the idea of leisure or school-the idea of school from the original standpoint—has been entirely lost. It was not for the sake of education that they went to this school or that, but that through education they might be enabled to make more money or a better living, or something of that kind.

Now we must turn things back on their hinges. If leisure has been the handmaid of education, now education must be the handmaid of leisure. And we must in some way have education for the leisure that has been thrust upon us.

See the trend of the times! From a sixteen hour day to a twelve hour day, in our fathers' times; then from twelve to ten; from ten to eight; and now, as soon as we have the eight hour day, it is becoming obsolete.

The American Federation of Labor is asking for-what? A five day week. That is, a forty hour week instead of forty-four, which is common today. Going down-inevitably going down! It is unsafe, perhaps, for us to prophesy how much lower it will go; but my own opinion is that we are coming to a time when a twenty-five hour week will be the common standard laboring week.

And then the problem will be, what are we to do with the rest of the time? Thank God we haven't got it yet, and we are not going to get it next Monday morning. But I think it is inevitably coming, and it is for us to prepare for it.

THE ARTS COURSE WINS NEW RESPECT Now, if you will allow me to talk shop for a minute or two, I want to say that the Arts course in college is coming into its own. In the days when education had only a commercial aspect in the ideas of most people in America, or of a great many people in America, they were saying to us, "What good is the Arts course? Can a man make any more money because he has taken an Arts course in college? Is he going to be richer? Is he going to make a better living? What good is it?" And in vain, then, when we were tinged with this commercial idea, did we try to explain that it was more important to make a life than it was to make a living, and that the life was much richer and grander and more worthwhile to the individual and to the community, because the man or the woman had this broad basis of training. Of course, it is coming now to be recognized that this basis of training is the best foundation for the professional course.

But the time came, you know, when we were likely to go too far in specialization. I do not want to wander too far afield, but this I want to bring before you because to me it seems so important. Education seemed to be running entirely to specialization, and the history of the race has shown that early specialization has always been detrimental.

I suppose the greatest change in the human frame or in the organism, that is, the one that has been most valuable, has been in the hand. When the thumb was opposed to the four fingers so that something could be grasped, we made probably the greatest advance that has been made in connection with the organism. But our Simian cousins, or forty-second cousins, specialized too far. So valuable was the hand that they developed four instead of two. A monkey has no feet, but has four hands; consequently, it is at a disadvantage, on account of too great specialization.

Now, mankind developed two hands, and fortunately these two hands grew up alongside of his head, instead of, as is the case with the monkey, having the best two hands on the lower extremities. But our hands are up where they take care of the head. In addition to that, man developed two feet. The only case in nature where the inside digit is the longest is in the human foot, and it enables him to stand up straight, to walk, to run. It has given him a great advantage over his Simian cousins. Why? Because he didn't specialize too much.

I suppose there was a time in the history of the race when instinct gave those who had it a very great advantage. But there were some species, such as the insects, that developed instincts to such an extent that they became sidetracked. There was a time, probably, when the insects were far superior to our ancestors, on account of the specialization of instinct; but because we did not develop instinct to such a great extent, and had to consummate the instinctive impulses in some other ways, we developed intelligence. Now, of course, if we specialize too much in intelligence, some other species may come along and take our place.

But the thing I wanted to bring before you is the danger in specialization. This general development, both in the individual and in the race, is, after all, the most valuable, and that is what the Arts course stands for.

I was talking not long ago with an important electrical engineer, head of a large electrical engineering firm, and I said, just by way of conversation, "I suppose it is no trouble for you to get electrical engineers to come into your business?" And he replied, "Oh, we never take electrical engineers." I asked, "what do you mean? Isn't yours an electrical engineering firm?" "Oh, yes, but we take mechanical engineers or chemical or civil engineers, and train them. We never take

something besides electrical engineering if he is going to be any good to us."

COLLEGES CAN PREPARE FOR LEISURE

That is the basis of the general, broad Arts course. It is coming into its own. I want, however, to consider it just now in connection with the special idea of leisure. First, there is the introduction to knowledge, which the Arts course gives -and the Arts course formerly gave the introduction to all knowledge. We can not do it now, but we can give an introduction to all kinds of knowledge, so that a man can carry on for himself. That, of course, is valuable in giving good opportunity for a man who has leisure to occupy it in the proper way.

Then consider the habits that a person acquires in college. I know I might be questioned in regard to that, but I am referring particularly to those who do acquire the habit of reading and the habit. of studying. I know there are some people who think that the Arts course is a four year membership to a country club, and that you shouldn't allow your studies to interfere with your education, and a few other things of that kind, such as that college-bred means a large size loaf. But, after all, there are things that are acquired, if it is not any more than acquisition by absorption through the epidermis. There are things acquired that are valuable to a person, especially his habits of study and his habits of general reading, that may be valuable in filling in the leisure.

Then there are the extra-curricular activities, for instance, athletics. You will notice that the colleges are spending more time and giving greater attention to the kinds of athletics that men can carry on after they get out of college.

A few Saturday afternoons ago I happened to look out on the first tee of our college golf links which are very conveniently within a hundred yards of my house. There I saw at least thirty college men waiting for the opportunity to start. The course, someone afterward told me, was so filled that it was dangerous to play. We are extending our course. That game is something men can carry all through their lives. They do not have to stop, as they do with football and baseball and lacrosse and hockey, just as soon as they graduate. It is the same with tennis.

There are other things that men can carry on that we are paying attention to and that are valuable in helping in connection with our leisure. There are certain activities more and more com

We for a long time had our glee and mandolin clubs, and for a time they ran riot with jazz, but now they are coming back to real music. Our colleges are furnishing courses in appreciation of music and different music courses for which they give credit that are going to be of a great value to people after they get out of college.

I need hardly call to your attention the fact that there are certain social activities in the colleges. We get in our colleges a lot of virile young men who have come from districts apart from the towns and cities-good stock-going to make a place for themselves in the world, but who have few or no social graces. Well, of course, the Junior Promenade is an old institution, but that has been supplemented by the Winter Carnival and a lot of social events in connection with Commencement which to the minds of a great many people who come to Commencement are the most important part. These and other similar activities are going to help these people take their places in the social life which will occupy considerable of their leisure time when they get out of college.

I mention these things, and could enumerate as well a number of others, to show how the Arts course is, at the present time, the best preparation we have not only for life in its full and large aspect but for occupying the leisure in a way that is really worth while.

Not all people can go to college, although when you turn away, as we did this year, 500 young men in trying to take 250 freshmen-it would look as though pretty nearly everybody were trying to get there. As a matter of fact, there are about ten people out of every one hundred in the United States who have the mental ability to graduate from college, and only one of those ten goes. WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO DO NOT Go To COLLEGE?

What about the other nine of those ten? We have had in the past continuation schools and night schools and correspondence schools for those who had ambition as well as ability, but they have been taken up entirely with bread-and-butter courses. It seems to me that these must be changed, to some extent. It is not a problem, at the present time, for young people to earn their living in this country; but the great problem for them is what they are to do with their leisure. Can not our continuation schools and our night schools and our correspondence schools do something along this line for those who are intellectual