real progress is being made. In the elementary schools of many cities 30 minutes per day is provided; this time allotment not including the 10 minutes of recess nor the four 2 minute relief drills in the classroom. The average over the country is 20 minutes for health and physical education per day not counting recess. However, there are some cities that have four 50 minute periods or 200 minutes per week devoted to health and physical education in the elementary schools.

The time allotment over the country for junior high schools averages four periods per week; three for activity programs and one period per week for health and safety education. However, many cities give a daily 60-minute period. The time allotment in senior high schools is steadily increasing. Some cities give four 60-minute periods; others three 75-minute periods; others five 45-minute periods. It is interesting to know that the National Education Association Department of Superintendence Year Book for 1928 will have a report recommending a daily 60-minute period for both junior and senior high schools for health and physical education.

Because of the importance of personnel, it is gratifying to find that it is both increasing and improving. In the last five years a number of states announced as high as 300% increase in the number of special teachers employed as health and physical educators. Massachusetts, for example, shows an increase in the teaching staff as follows: High School

1922 1927

Junior H. S. 1922 1927

197

Elementary 1922 1927 62 180

83 409 56 Not only has there been progress in facilities, in time allotment and in personnel, but teacher training has greatly improved. State teacher certification requirements are much higher and the majority of physical education teachers are receiving their academic degree. Normal schools are increasing their training departments from two to three and four year courses.

Space forbids a discussion of the improvement that has taken place in the program of activities. They are well rounded, better balanced and better organized programs. Another sign of progress is the fact that some universities give accredited unit value for physical education.

Thirty-five states have compulsory physical education laws, twenty-nine have state programs with state syllabi, and nineteen have state departments with staff, program and budget. In spite of

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the splendid accomplishments and signs of growth, there is yet much to be done. To universally attain throughout the country the standards quoted in this statement, it is necessary to do three things; educate the general public, educate the general educator, and educate the physical educator as to the educational possibilities in this field of education.

Rural Recreation

By

JOHN F. SMITH, Berea College

In planning recreation programs for the country folk, it would, in my judgment, be wise to perpetuate the things which the people already have. Encourage hunting, and throw every influence in favor of a program that will assure something to hunt. Even the boy who twists a rabbit from under a rock with a stick, or smokes a groundhog from his den acquires besides the game something infinitely more worth while to a well-rounded life than does the boy who sits with his parents through two long hours at the movie watching some screen hero capture a pirate ship, and seeing men shot and stabbed and blown into atoms without batting an eye of conscience. It's a bit hard on the groundhog, but it's mighty fine for the boy.

Encourage folk dancing and other forms of wholesome dancing.

Encourage hiking and strolling, fishing and swimming, other pastimes that bring ears and eyes, mind and spirit and muscle into play. Herein lies salvation for millions of our youth.

Encourage pageantry and stories, singing and instrumental music, and apparatus boys may easily construct from materials at hand.

Guard carefully against the urbanization of the play of the country child. The countryside already has at hand most of the material and equipment which the rural child needs for his recreation. If rightly employed it will serve the young people of the farms quite as adequately in the future as it has in the past. It would be well to take the goods the gods provide and set them to work at the magnificent task of developing superior men and women.

The country child and the material he has at hand challenge us to action.

The movement for playgrounds is not new in Poland, although the associations which are organizing it were until the present not united under the same direction.

The pioneer of the playground movement in Poland was Dr. Jordan, a physician, who lived in Kraków at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1889 he got from the magistracy of Kraków a large ground at the extremity of the town and established on it a big park for children and youths, taking all expenses upon himself. arranged in this park eighteen playgrounds of different size and built also a big gymnasium with the necessary gymnastic equipment. He gathered a corps of young men, especially students from the university, and he established plays and exercises for some hundreds of children.

He

This was during the time when the idea of physical development was very much neglected in middle Europe. In fact the boys drilled in gymnastics indoors, but beyond hours of gymnastics there was nothing more, neither plays and games, nor the free training in open air.

So it was a great merit in Dr. Jordan that he showed, how one should educate children by physical training. He organized team games, individual plays, gymnastic hours and sport. Polish handball, football and tennis were born in the park of Dr. Jordan. Dr. Jordan was a very good organizer and the whole conduct in his park was very carefully worked out.

The action of Dr. Jordan was soon imitated by other towns not only in this part of Poland, which, like Kraków, belonged to Austria, but also in the part, which was governed by Russia, as in Warsaw, Lublin and many others. A committee on play for children, formed in Warsaw, established there nine playgrounds, building on some of them gymnasiums.

Not only Polish towns began to imitate Dr.

Jordan's action; the fame of his work reached other countries. Many foreigners, especially German, came to visit Dr. Jordan's park, which gave the impulse to form such gardens and playgrounds in Germany and other countries.

The difficult conditions, in which the Polish people live, divided into three groups under strange governments, which so often persecuted the Polish social organizations, prevented the development of Dr. Jordan's plans.

In free Poland the economical conditions were very difficult during the first years after the great war, so, that only these last years has the movement for physical education become active.

Let us avoid the problem of physical education in schools and in numerous associations, which have in their program physical training, and consider only the playground problem. In almost every town there are sport clubs, which have their own stadiums. Youths, especially students. can get there training in light athletics, handball, football, hockey. The clubs have also swimming pools and boat landings on rivers. But the area of all these sport stadiums is insufficient for the wants of all inhabitants. There are too few municipal and school playgrounds.

On account of this the last congress of the representatives of all Polish towns decided to give a sufficient area of grounds for playgrounds, stadiums, kindergartens, swimming pools, gymnasiums. The necessary area is about thirty square feet for each inhabitant; from this eight square feet specially for children. The realization of this ideal is very difficult and we are aware, that it must be stretched out for several scores of years.

The movement of playgrounds for children begins now to develop in the whole country. As there are few kindergartens and other special playgrounds, we use school playgrounds and even dif

ferent vacant spaces between houses in town to organize plays and games for children. There are many social organizations which have in their programs children's protection and they organize for children training in the open air.

For instance, in Warsaw, the capital, there are some associations, which do it. The first place among them is kept by the School League against tuberculosis. In summer it has established plays and games for more than twenty thousand children. There were very poor children, who were unable to spend the summer out of town and were obliged to pass the holidays in dirty gutters of the streets. Thanks to the efforts of the League they had the opportunity to spend the whole day playing games under the supervision of teachers. They received daily two meals consisting of milk and bread. The plays were organized on the school playgrounds and in numerous vacant spaces in all parts of the town.

Children received balls and

some other instruments. Poles with baskets for basketball, a net for volley ball and sandboxes for young children; these were nearly the only arrangements on most playgrounds. Yet the children played with enthusiasm and the result of this system on his health was excellent. League organized also swimming and rowing on a lake and on the Vistula and many excursions in the surroundings of Warsaw.

The

Now the Governmental Office for Physical Education is trying to unite the activity of all these associations in one organization under the name "Union of Jordan's associations" (in memory of Dr. Jordan's action).

We are also trying to arrange a model kindergarten in Warsaw as a standard for all towns.

Paying so much attention to the problem of children playgrounds association we try to learn the system of each country, especially that one of the U. S. A., because we believe that the P. R. A. A. is the best organization in this sphere.

Top Tournaments

"Wabash, Indiana, is a great marble playing and top spinning town," writes W. C. Mills of the Wabash Scout Council, who has devised the following rules for a city-wide tournament:

Each grammar school of the city has a champion, one from each of the four upper gradesfifth, sixth, seventh and eighth; these twenty preliminary winners compete in the finals at the

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The first step is the laying-out of seven concentric circles ranging in diameter from 6 inches to 72 inches. The inner circle counts for ten points; the next, one; the third, two, and so forth. up to seven.

A. At signal all boys spin tops and the three spinning longest win five, three and one points respectively. The spinning need not be done on circles but on any large smooth surface.

B. Each contestant is given three spins at the circles and the value of the circle in which the top strikes is credited to the spinner. In this test the circles are 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 in value. Before each spin the spindle of the top is dipped in India ink so there will be no uncertainty as to where the top strikes the circles. The ink mark is immediately rubbed off after each spin. Contestants spin tops in regular order, each one making his three throws before the next one starts.

C. Each contestant is given three spins at a live top. If he hits it a glancing lick and it keeps on spinning, he is awarded three points; if he hits a square lick and kills it (stops its spinning) he is awarded five points; should he hit it with enough force to split it, he is given ten points. The spinner's top must continue to spin, or no points are given. These target tops are of uniform size and are spun for each contestant in order by one of the waiting contestants.

D. Each contestant is given three spins at six dead tops which are arranged in a circle within the six-inch circle. A well aimed spin will scatter these tops into adjoining circles and the value of these circles into which the tops are knocked are credited to the spinner, provided his own top, after the strike, continues to spin.

In tests B. and D. if the spinner's top strikes the line of a circle or any of the five dead tops stop on the line of a circle, the points in the higher circle are awarded.

Each competitor is allowed to use his own choice of tops, but no top is to be loaded.

Democracy demands the type of leadership springing out of athletic sports, which call for initiative and an intense exercise of the reasoning powers. The principles of democracy have always been a success in nations where schools strive for a conformity to high standards of personal conduct, fair play and good sportsmanship. The acid test of sportsmanship is in the yielding to an official's decision. It is thus that the whole structure of society is built upon team work.-GAIL F.

In writing or even in thinking of South Africa one must always remember that the total white population of the whole of the Union of South Africa is only 11⁄2 million, just the number we have in the city of Los Angeles. All they have built up, all they have accomplished, must be viewed in this light. Another thing to be remembered is that this nation is not one harmonious race, but two peoples-English and Dutch, with two languages and two ideals which make a clash of opinions and decisions. It is a most unhappy and difficult situation and I marvel at what has been done under such trying conditions. Much has been accomplished in every line of endeavor in a very short period of time. It is a great triumph over obstacles and speaks volumes for the persistence of its people.

In Cape Town

Capetown is the legislative capital of the Union of South Africa. Its situation is one of the finest in the whole world. With Table Mountain, Lion's Head, and Devil's Peak, the harbor is wonderfully and beautifully defended. There is here a white population of 112,059 and some 93,000 colored people. The city is made up of numerous municipalities giving a metropolitan area of 33,871 acres. Each suburb has its recreation system of tennis courts, ball fields and playgrounds. Many of the large homes have their own tennis courts and swimming baths. There are literally thousands of tennis courts and young and old keep in good physical condition with their daily exercise. The two splendid public baths are much frequented.

Capetown, having a University, has all the sports that are common to such institutions. The Green Point Commons has a golf course with Club House, cricket pitches and football ground. There have recently been acquired fifteen acres which are to be arranged for sports of all sorts. The school sports are well organized, with interschool and college games. Boxing and swimming are also popular. There is not much tennis in the schools but very much outside.

No article on sport or recreation in South Africa would be complete without a detailed account of the activities of the Dioscean College at Rondebosch near Capetown, affectionately known as "Bishop's," for the fame of its students has reached around the world. Some of the most famous men of this new land were either interested in it or educated there. The College was founded in 1849 by Bishop Gray and is probably the oldest school in South Africa. A year before his death Cecil Rhodes gave to this institution the first Rhodes scholarship. Every year one man goes to Oxford on this scholarship. Of the Rhodes scholars from the College many have been distinguished in various fields of endeavor. During the Great War, 1,000 boys of this school served; one hundred and ten gave up their lives, and in their memory a War Memorial Chapel was erected to seat 800. Here many of the community activities take place. Fine concerts are given and a community orchestra composed largely of students is making music a community effort. Rugby, football and cricket are the games most played and many of the famous men of the school were footballers and cricketers of this College.

In Stellenbosch

Stellenbosch is, next to Capetown, the oldest town in South Africa. I found there, as in Capetown, the recreational activities of college institutions. The Y. M. C. A. had its usual athletic program. As there are a number of small towns within a few miles of each other they have developed inter-community games. Tennis here, as everywhere in South Africa, is the great game. I counted fifty tennis courts in the little town. There was a golf course and special tennis courts and football fields for the colored population.

In Wellington

At Wellington, the next town as one goes on the Garden Route, there is the Hugenot Girls' Seminary and College and a High School. There is much interest on the part of the girls in basket.