A

LTHOUGH man ranks high

est on the social scale of creation and is born with certain gregarious instincts, this does not mean that his inherent social qualities and attributes do not need to be encouraged and exercised if they are to develop to the fullest extent. One of the best ways to become a social person is to learn to know people, as they really are, through playing games and sports with them. In playing sports together peo

ple stand on common ground; artificial barriers and conventional formalities are dispensed with; people are unmasked, as it were, and appear before others as they really are.

Life is, in a sense, conquering new situations, meeting many different types of people and having a variety of relationships with the world. It is a broadening experience to know people who bring out particular elements in one's own personality that perhaps have been hitherto undiscovered. It is stimulating, too, to have friends. that are attractive for different reasons: some for their intelligence or fascinating personality; others for their sheer technical accomplishment in certain skills that make them welcome members of a play group. Somehow an understanding comes between friends who have taken a long hike together, who have played on the golf links, who have hunted to hounds, who have been roped together climbing mountains, who have sat for long silent hours over a game of chess, who have talked over each others collections or exchanged bulbs or plantings from their gardens. There is an overlapping of experience in all these relationships that binds people closer together. Brothers and sisters who have played with the same toys or families who have the habit of spending some time together in a particular game or recreation are throughout their lives kept closer together, and this tie is deep-seated and lasting.

What Is a Social Game?

A social game is an activity the outcomes and motives of which lead toward better understand

ing and promote mutual enjoyment, with the ultimate purpose of establishing the highest possible type of friendly relations. A true love for sports is best acquired by actual participation in them. A social game is not necessarily always social because it is played by two or more people, for definite attempts have to be made in that direction if the influences of the game are to be social in nature. A social game is, in itself, a small human emergency that calls forth an interest in the other person or team, and generates a constant interplay of response which leads to better understanding and finer human appreciations.

When Are Social Games Not Social? Unfortunately, many games that are intrinsically excellent for creating desirable social relations and that afford exercise in quickening a player's reaction time and allowing interplay of emotional reactions, have, through preventable causes, been made a-social and many of their inherent valuable qualities are lost. Games in this country got off to a bad start because they sprang up without educational supervision and the competitive element was emphasized so greatly that many of the finer sensitive qualities were neglected. Some schools and communities have "sold" one of their more important birthrights for developing youth in wholesome channels because they wanted to be personally entertained at competitive ball games, or to climb, as a community, over the hard-won laurels of young people. In their highly organized competitive programs they often deny adolescents the opportunity to develop into the useful, happy citizens it is their lawful right to become. Such communities are still so near-sighted that they look for immediate results as expressed in the final numerical score on the bulletin board or in the morning headlines.

It is a different matter, however, when communities conduct their competitions and rivalries in the interests of public health. Thus one town might choose to meet the record set by another

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in the elimination of preventable diseases, or might boast of having a better water supply, or more park space, or playgrounds, or game areas. Through such generous acts communities are affording their members opportunities to socialize social games. This type of rivalry is to be commended.

Basketball, for instance, as a team game is as highly organized and skilled as any on the extensive list, and has had a high peak of popularity in schools and colleges throughout the country. It therefore comes under the spotlight for many of the undesirable practices and a-social results that have sprung from the game. For example, a girl recently told how a six-foot center in a certain basketball game picked her up and shook her much as a cat shakes a rat, because she was outplaying her taller opponent. In another instance a home team who lost a game refused to keep their promise to provide sleeping accommodations for the visiting team, who were forced to spend the night in a dingy waiting-room of a small railroad station. These young girls were left to their own devices in a situation which never would have occurred, if the school had provided an adequate recreation program under professionally trained educational leaders.

One likes to feel that such tales as these are exploits of the imagination and that such unsatisfactory states do not exist in the world of sports. One shudders to think of teen-age experiences of this nature, and yet only fifteen years ago these conditions were fairly prevalent. The majority of schools now, however, do not tolerate or sanction playing games under such conditions. It is hoped that schools will never permit such standards to creep back. It is esssential that a country have organized sports programs under trained leaders who understand the needs of youth and adultstheir interests and their physical make-up. Youth is the time for boys and girls to develop skills and learn to conquer to the point where they will be able to take up new sports with zest during later life. Incidentally, they will thus avoid agonizing moments that come to the untrained when the gang says, "What shall we play?"

Communities should be so planned that they will provide opportunities for all to indulge in their favorite recreations. Already there are encouraging signs that this ideal may soon materialize. The very fact that we are now popularizing such games as softball baseball and touch football shows that we are attempting to take the

sting out of the ball and the fierceness out of the tackle; that we are reducing the cut-throat element in the competition motive and accommodating the game to suit the majority of people rather than to favor the few professionals or experts who play. The ideal today is to get away from the kind of situation in which the younger players in a family have no opportunity to play tennis with a brother or sister who is constantly preparing for "match" play and can not risk spoiling his tournament chances by playing a single game with a mere beginner. In this as in many other matters, a happy medium is desirable-not to be either too good or too inexpert at a game. Maribel Y. Vinson in her article, "Trained Seals," said that in looking back on her Fourth Olympic Winter Games she felt ever more strongly that "as the Games become larger and more popular, they are more and more entertaining for the spectators and less and less fun for the competitors."

All kinds of modifications have taken place in sports in order that larger numbers of boys and girls and men and women may continue to enjoy playing various group games. In the Pittsburgh summer playgrounds on any summer night thousands of families can be seen making their way to the playing fields to watch different baseball games that are being played-all with soft balls. All ages join in volley ball games and informal soft ball play, but the majority of those who take part in the organized group games are those who played when they were in school and are not afraid to enter into the sport regardless of any lack of skill.

How Games Develop Social Qualities Play constitutes the major part of the young child's life. Often his first lessons of give and take, sharing, kindness, thoughtfulnes, and cooperation are learned through play with his parents, his brothers or sisters, other children, or grown-ups. If a child develops along normal lines he will take a decided interest in his playmates or in living things, such as animals or pets, because he is continually being tested by their ever changing and unpredictable responses. At this period the desirable law of competition enters in; and the competition element from then on continues to be the biggest factor in every game the child plays. Because he requires competition, he abandons lifeless objects in favor of games that furnish a live, ever refreshing elementa reaction from someone else which he can not figure out before

hand and which is therefore ever interesting to him. Human beings furnish the surprise quality that keeps one constantly stimulated in activities of a social nature. This interest develops into the childhood and adolescent love for team games.

There are, of course, those who exercise alone and like it, but many such attempts are shortlived. It is generally the social element in games that makes them outlast the generations that play them.

Why does one find sixteen hundred people gathering to play shuffleboard each day at St. Petersburg, Florida? As a game it is not too strenuous or difficult for older people or the unskilled of every age, and it has the advantage of being a competitive game that can be played outdoors in the sunshine, and offers a constant challenge with every play; yet above all, its popularity is no doubt due largely to the fact that it offers social contacts and is essentially a social game. It affords an occasion for people to get together in a pleasurable way.

A class of home women used to come regularly to their community center each Friday afternoon; they would tell their leader all the housework they had done that day before coming to class. She realized that these women did not come for the sole purpose of exercise, for most of them had used every muscle at home during the day. What did they come for? They came for sociabilitythe carefree feeling of release offered by the program. It provided an outlet for their emotional energies and an escape from working in solitude in their homes. They forgot petty annoyances and temporary irritations at the first run around the gymnasium; they loved feeling foolish in some of the humorous folk dances. They seemed to cast away their troubles with the first serve of the volley ball or at the first jump for the cage ball, and by the time they emerged from the swimming pool they felt completely refreshed and relaxed; they were actually rested, and their spirits and strength were renewed.

The business man or woman often finds recreation in doing the opposite of what he or she has been doing throughout the day. Those who lead a sedentary life should cultivate sports that exercise large muscles. On

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the other hand, people whose work is active and consists in seeing people through the day may seek solitary diversions. The history of the dance reveals that in ages past those who did fine needlework or other intricate tasks concentrated on social dances involving nothing more difficult than the waltz and the two-steps. It was quite the opposite with those who worked in the fields. They enjoyed working out intricate patterns in their dancing, and developed such forms as the highland fling and the sword dance.

Advantages of Social Games

If people resorted more to forgetting their worries through social contact with a group absorbed in the same game many would need no other cure for nervous tensions and disorders. When one's enthusiasm for a sport is sufficiently great to absorb one's interest, for the time being that person is an integrated personality. For allround development and balance, more such joyful experiences are needed. There is a beneficial physiological stimulation that comes with joyous experience that renews and refreshes and everyone needs at times to escape from the humdrum of daily cares. One can do little worrying about the budget while sporting with the waves, dribbling a hockey ball down the field or shooting for a basket. To make a new low in one's golf score or suddenly to be able to volley the tennis ball more times than ever before does something to the spirit.

A socially successful girl today is one who can enter into sports and thereby make herself an asset to any group. Sports or accomplishments, like social dancing, are often the common ground on which new friendships are made. The social values in games cannot be over stressed, and more opportunities are needed for social games.

Men who have been brought up with baseball on the backlot as a daily diet never cease to love the game. There are cities where men in the Quarter of a Century Club still pursue the game. Citizens in these communities continue to wrestle and box, do square and round dancing, play in highly organized team sports because the space, the supervision, the conditions exist (Continued on page 506)

C

HILDREN played thou

sands of years ago;

they still play and

always will because play is a fundamental instinct which

With

must be satisfied in some wholesome way. the forty hour week and more time for leisure, the importance of recreation for adults as well as children becomes more vital than ever before. Millions of dollars are spent yearly by spectators in witnessing prize fights, ball games and the movies. Great numbers of people have sought their 'recreation by being spectators and not participants. They have lost in part the joy of participation and have failed to realize that recrea-` tion is really re-creation, a revitalizing of the cells of the human body.

During the past few years great progress has been made in the construction of municipal recreation facilities, but have we considered that these facilities must be maintained, that they must be supervised? Have we given sufficient thought to the permanent value for manhood and womanhood of these great assets? Have we made an effort to appropriate sufficient funds for these activities after federal emergency leadership and funds

have ceased to function?

Have we realized that recreation is now as important as ed

ucation and

that unless we provide playground directors or teachers our young people are lia

ble to seek recreation in an unwholesome environment?

The Challenge to Society In our schools today, we spend millions of dollars teaching art, music, crafts, dramatics, sewing, health education. We emphasize education and its aim to train for leisure yet spend comparatively a small amount of money for continuing these interesting activities after school hours. Thousands of children are released from the school system each year after being graduated or after receiving employment certificates. Some go to college, but a great number receive temporary employment of one kind or another and a still greater number are unemployed. All this occurs at an age of sixteen or seventeen years which sociologists call the age of apprenticeship and at a time when young people need special guidance, at a time when they need encouragement, at a time when there is a tinge of romance, a search for a vocation. We all know what will happen when they are not given an opportunity for wholesome recreation. The records.

of police courts, prisons and reports of probation officers, teachers and pa

role officers tell the true story. Every judge, educator or sociologist will tell you that there is a direct correlation between juvenile delin

quency and crime and wholesome

recreation.

The records

of your city probably will

show that most criminal offenders are between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one years.

What are we doing to save these young people? What are we doing to guide them over the dangerous, adolescent period? Have we awakened the parents, teachers and city authorities to the importance of the problem? Have we opened every suitable school building for community and recreational purposes after 3 P. M. - have we lighted our playgrounds for adult recreation? Have we year-round playgrounds or just summer playgrounds?

You will say that this would cost thousands, yes, millions of dollars. Yes, it would. But do not your police, prison, parole and judicial departments cost millions of dollars? Is it not reasonable to expect a decrease in crime if we provide wholesome recreation for these young people? According to statistics, few athletes or members of boys' and girls' clubs get into trouble with the police. Those who get into trouble usually have had no opportunity for wholesome recreation.

I need not tell you the facilities available in many large cities. We have schools, parks, recreation piers, boys' clubs, swimming pools, golf courses, gymnasiums and municipal stadiums. But are these facilities being used as widely as possible? Are our schools open after 3 P. M.? Have they provided facilities for recreation for adults? Have they special rooms with suitable furniture comfortable for adults rooms which could be used as club rooms by adolescents and adults? Have we constructed our school buildings with the idea that they are merely to be used for the education of children, or have we given consideration. to the possible use of these facilities for recreational and community activities? Have we stressed the educational use over and above the community and recreational use? Is it not possible to have separate wings of school buildings for community and recreational use-separate and apart from the school proper? May we not have air-conditioned basements of school buildings which could be used for recreational purposes? Is it not possible to have pool tables, billiard rooms, handball courts in school buildings? Why may not young men be permitted to use the school workshop after school hours?

It "Can Happen Here"!

All these things are possible. It depends upon local organization and administration whether the possibility will become a reality-a reality which

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depends upon the cooperation of municipal authorities who realize the importance of this subject of municipal recreation. If we were further to analyze the problem, we would find that it is not necessary that all recreation be entirely free. Small charges are sometimes made for dances, festivals, entertainments, swimming pools and tennis courts. Children may be permitted to take lessons in music, dancing, arts and crafts, at a nominal fee. I believe the time will come when every large city will make arrangements to permit children and adults to receive instruction in music and all the arts at a very small cost. I think the time will come when every school building will be constructed by school architects for not only education from 9 A. M. to 3 P. M. but also for community and recreational activities from 3 P. M.

to 10 P. M.

As I see it, every school yard will be lighted at night for adult recreation. Every playground will be lighted and will be used for dances, festivals and games. No longer will the school yard be unattractive but made beautiful with a border of shrubbery and a few trees. The school building will become the center of community life. We shall have paid supervisors and a volunteer system. There will be cooperation between city departments to bring about the widest and best possible use of all community recreational facilities. Adjacent to every school building will be a park or playground of suitable size. Parents and children will come to the school building to seek their recreation. Each neighborhood will boast of its track team, football team or baseball team. School movies for children at low cost will take the place of some of the commercial movies unsuited, in some cases, for children to see. School gardens, backyard gardens will be promoted by local communities. Real estate operators will realize the importance of having either a private or public playground adjacent to an apartment house. As I see it, there also will be greater consideration given to multiple use of particular areas as wading pools for basketball courts and movable posts for tennis courts so that the area may be used for diverse purposes. Concrete or colprovia tennis courts will replace many of the clay or grass tennis courts. Roofs and backyards of apartment and tenement buildings will be used for play and recreational purposes.

So far, I have not emphasized the recreational program which must include all recreational in(Continued on page 507)