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NEW PUBLICATIONS IN THE LEISURE TIME FIELD

Dr. Plant contends, we are moving into an individualcentered cultural pattern. Social thinking necessarily centers, therefore, around the individual with its inner motivations and the outer influences of its environment. We now accept the fact that if we are to change the individual we can probably bring about such change more effectively by altering the environment in which the individual lives than by probing his inner motives. We therefore ask these questions: What does family life do to the personality of the child? What part does the school, the church, the law and industry play in the development of personality? What is the function of recreation in personality development? What kind of education, and how much education, do we need to get in order to secure the best results in personality development?

The chapter on "Recreation" is a challenging one. "It is perhaps true," says Dr. Plant, "that in our recreational life we can bring into play the entire integrated personality as we cannot elsewhere-and it is perhaps true that this is precisely the reason that we gain such refreshment in the most wholehearted undertaking of recreation." The most serious problem in the recreation field, he says, "is not one of developing a polished set of techniques but of eliciting and strengthening these highly desirable informal elements which already exist. An institutional structure is probably required-but its policy should be that of inviting rather than regimentation."

This volume is not easy reading but it will repay the careful study which recreation executives and others may give it. Reviewed by E. C. Worman.

Natural Color Film-What It Is and How to Use It.

By Clifford A. Nelson. The Galleon Press, New
York. $1.50.

If photography is your hobby-particularly if you are intrigued by the use of color in motion picture or still photography-you will be interested in this book with its new approach to the entire subject of natural color photography. Non-technical and informative, the book has been planned and written for the amateur worker who wishes to achieve the full beauty available in "Kodachrome."

The Relationship of City Planning to
School Plant Planning.

By Russell A. Holy, Ph. D. Bureau of Publications,
Teachers College, Columbia University, New York.
$1.60.

City planning is at last beginning to assume the place in community life to which its importance has long entitled it and which municipalities have been slow to recognize. And in intelligent city planning school plant planning must be an essential consideration. This study by Dr. Holy published with the approval of Professor N. L. Engelhardt, has had two purposes: (1) to investigate and appraise the degree of existing articulation of school building planning and city planning, and (2) to formulate recommendations for the improvement of both city planning and school planning by means of a better articulation.

Understanding Architecture.

By H. Vandervoort Walsh. Art Education Press, Inc., 424 Madison Avenue, New York. $.50. "We do not have to go to Europe to understand architecture. We can begin right in our own town to make our first conscious observations. Ask ourselves the first question, 'What are the different kinds of buildings in our town?' Then inquire deeper, 'What are the social activities that made it necessary to build?' Finally we come to the first and fundamental matter concerning all architecture does the building serve the people who use it?" To show how these questions may be answered

through architecture is the purpose of this attractive booklet which presents some of the fundamental principles which should enter into the planning of building. It is unique in the skill in which it interprets to the lay mind beauty in building.

The American Home Course in Period Furniture.

By Lurelle Guild. Art Education Press, Inc., New
York. $.50.

The individual whose hobby is antique furniture, or for that matter one who is only mildly interested in the subject, will find fascinating material in this attractively illustrated book giving information regarding the furniture of various periods and their originators.

Digest of Laws Relating to State Parks.

National Park Service. United States Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C.

In response to numerous requests, the National Park Service has undertaken the compilation of a digest of all state park and recreation laws of a general and permanent nature. Special attention has been given to the important consideration of making it as convenient as possible for the reader who desires to know the law generally or who may seek the law on a particular subject as it relates to recreation. The material has been published in three volumes: (1) Alabama to Mississippi; (2) Missouri to North Carolina; (3) North Dakota to Wyoming.

Children's Mental Whoopee.

By Mabel H. Meyer. Simon and Schuster, New
York. $1.00.

Here are seven new games-and there are ten sets of each game-which will provide entertainment for children from six to twelve and will tax their ability to think quickly.

Officers and Directors of the National Recreation Association

OFFICERS

JOHN H. FINLEY, First Vice-President

JOHN G. WINANT, Second Vice-President
ROBERT GARRETT, Third Vice-President
GUSTAVUS T. KIRBY, Treasurer
HOWARD S. BRAUCHER, Secretary

DIRECTORS

F. GREGG BEMIS, Boston, Mass.
MRS. EDWARD W. BIDDLE, Carlisle, Pa.
MRS. WILLIAM BUTTERWORTH, Moline, Ill.
HENRY L. CORBETT, Portland, Ore.

MRS. ARTHUR G. CUMMER, Jacksonville, Fla.

F. TRUBEE DAVISON, Locust Valley, L. I., N. Y.
JOHN H. FINLEY, New York, N. Y.
ROBERT GARRETT, Baltimore, Md.

AUSTIN E. GRIFFITHS, Seattle, Wash.

MRS. MELVILLE H. HaskelL, Tucson, Ariz.
MRS. CHARLES V. HICKOx, Michigan City, Ind.
MRS. MINA M. EDISON-HUGHES, West Orange, N. J.
GUSTAVUS T. KIRBY, New York, N. Y.

H. MCK. LANDON, Indianapolis, Ind.
MRS. CHARLES D. LANIER, Greenwich, Conn.
ROBERT LASSITER, Charlotte, N. C.

J. H. MCCURDY, Springfield, Mass.
OTTO T. MALLERY, Philadelphia, Pa.
WALTER A. MAY, Pittsburgh, Pa.
CARL E. MILLIKEN, Augusta, Me.
MRS. OGDEN L. MILLS, Woodbury, N. Y.
MRS. JAMES W. WADSWORTH, Washington, D. C.
J. C. WALSH, New York, N. Y.

FREDERICK M. WARBURG, New York, N. Y.
JOHN G. WINANT, Concord, N. H.

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Entered as second-class matter June 12, 1929, at the Post Office at New York, New York, under Act of March 3, 1879. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized May 1, 1924.

Copyright, 1937, by the National Recreation Association

T

Freedom

"HE RECREATION MOVEMENT stands for the "flowering of personality," letting-helping each person to express the full beauty of his gifts such as they may be. We do not want a world of men all alike. In every group we want a "minority," even if it be a minority of one-whose rights are respected.

We live in a world of mass production by machinery. Every Ford car in a given class is exactly alike even if there be several million. Every human being, every child at the recreation center is different, is individual, and it is our desire to develop the difference, the individuality.

Mass activities-swimming, skating, dancing may be so planned as to leave each person free to be himself, to develop himself to keep himself different, alive; or they may be used as a means of control, of regimentation, of trying to make each person like everyone else the creation of a horrible world of uniformity.

Respect for personality should be a foundation stone for recreation workers. A reasoned faith in human beings is essential. Control of the many by the few is even worse in recreation than in other parts of life. It is in recreation that democracy should have full expression.

Free choice of what one will do in one's own free time is essential. Exposure to all that is called best by the wisest yes. But the recreation worker should lean over backward in trying not to make those who come under his leadership over into his own pattern. Let persons because they are persons make themselves over-if they care to be made over. Keep always the ideal of letting each person decide for himself the activities that have life-giving power for him. Fortunately men are so built that they have considerable power in resisting external compulsion in their free time.

Freedom is a watchword of recreation-freedom for each individual to grow, freedom under discipline; and freedom under a cooperative plan to give freedom to others as well as to oneself.

Recreation is a sorry thing when it becomes a tool for changing men according to ideals which they themselves have neither chosen nor accepted.

HOWARD BRAUCHER.

NOVEMBER, 1937

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