Easter Egg Hunts

If all of the eggs used by Lions' Clubs in their Easter Egg Hunts last year were placed end on end and if all of the children who took a part in the Lions' Club Easter Egg Hunts were standing side by side holding hands-in some such fashion. a rabid statistician might describe this activity which has taken hold of the clubs in the association like wild fire. In order that the record may be cleared, however, more than 150,000 eggs were hidden by Lions' Clubs and hunted for by closely 50,000 children during the Easter Season of 1927.

In Spokane, Wash., interest in the egg hunt was sharpened by a facsimile letter from a legendary boy who signed himself "your friend, Sammy," and addressed his communication to "Dear Mr. Lions." Starting the letter, "Us kids seen a ad in the chronicle the other night saying as how the Lions' Club was going to give the kids that ain't got no father and no mother a chanct to hunt for Easter Eggs, and everything." The letter brought results, for the Spokane Club hid 110 dozen eggs in the hunt which was conducted especially for three hundred children in the four orphanages of the city.

In Benton, Mo., which boasts of being the smallest town with a Lions' Club, the children were organized in the Community Building and marched out to the place where the hunt was to be conducted and in this way all were given an equal chance at finding the eggs. Prizes were donated by the merchants of the city and given to the lucky children, who carefully searched a twenty acre tract for the right to claim the trophies. Four Missouri counties were represented by the children who had been gathered in from the trade territory surrounding the city.

In Mechanicsburg, Pa., some valuable lessons on the staging of Easter egg hunts were learned by the Lions. While a party of grammar school children was being rounded up some rowdies got into the grounds where the eggs were hidden and made away with a good share of them. However, enough eggs were left to provide a pleasant afternoon for the five hundred children who took part in the real hunt. Rabbits, which had been provided by the club, were not sufficiently impressed by the large crowd of children who were supposed to chase them and refused to budge from their tracks and the rabbit chase resolved itself

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The Easter egg idea was put to a different purpose by the Lions of Canton, Ohio. Instead of the customary egg hunt for all children, a theatre party, with the motion picture "Slide, Kelly, Slide" as the attraction, was staged for the young people of the city, admittance being charged at the rate of one egg per child. The eggs so gathered were then used by the Canton Lions' Club in staging an egg hunt for the nurseries, missions and other institutions and for the distribution in many private homes where the joys of an Easter egg hunt would otherwise not have been known. The entire affair was given in cooperation with the Canton Welfare Confederation and more than two thousand five hundred children paid their novel admission to the benefit show.

Camp Fire Girls, Boy Scouts and all children in or below the grammar school age, were guests of the Auburn, Ala., Lions Club in their egg hunt, which was held on the grounds of the Alabama Polytenic Institute.

Texarkana, Arkansas, reports the hunt of their club as a huge success. With well organized committees for publicity, prizes, rounds, lost children and patroling, the Texarkana Lions were not to be daunted, although rain threatened to disrupt their plans. Two thousand candy eggs, each in a small paper bag, on which was printed the Lions' emblem, were hidden. Several of these bags contained coupons which were redeemed by members of the club. The entire cost of the hunt amounted to twenty-one dollars and fifty cents.

In practically every case where hunts were staged, reports are enthusiastic in their praise of the event and the recognition which it has brought to the Lions Clubs on the part of the youngsters, as well as the elders.

La Junta, Colo., recommends the use of candy eggs because of the success which attended their own hunt this year. Cape Girardeau, Mo., was especially fortunate in choosing candy eggs because of having to postpone their hunt on two successive week ends. They feel that had the thirty thousand eggs, which they used, been other than candy eggs the hunt would not have been held because of spoilage. Longview, Wash., states, "the club used candy eggs this year in lieu of hen eggs and found them much more desirable and sixty per cent cheaper." Their hunt was limited to children of ten years of age and under and in order to entertain the older children a kite flying contest was staged for the boys and a doll

week's visit at a summer camp. The winner of second place was permitted to chose a year's subscription to a monthly magazine.

Easter Monday in

Baltimore

The Easter Egg Rolling Contests held on Easter Monday in the parks of Baltimore, Maryland, have become increasingly popular. Last year over 8,000 children took part and over 9,000 friends and relatives enjoyed the delightful

scene.

In Druid and Patterson Parks the contests were conducted under the auspices of the Playground Athletic League and the East End Improvement Association. The opening of the contests was preceded by a dance given by eight small children dressed as bunnies on the green slope in front of the Mansion House, where 2,000 bright colored eggs had been placed in huge nests.

On different parts of the field eight large pennants were set up, the colors corresponding to those of the eggs. Each child chose an egg and then ran to the pennant of the color matching his egg. In this way the children were divided into groups of eight and each group had its race. In each race the eggs were started at the top of the hill and the children whose eggs went the greatest distance won a prize. The prizes were gold and silver eggs; a gold egg to the child whose egg went farthest and a silver egg to the second one in each group.

White rabbits selected from the various playground groups and costumed by the Playground Athletic League for the occasion added to the artistic effect of the scene. These rabbits assisted by showing the children participating in the races how they were to be run. After the first event the children were let loose in the grounds where the eggs lay and playground directors held three contests for prizes. These consisted of hop and run races, circle games and spoon races.

This will be the fourth year that Baltimore children have celebrated Easter by rolling eggs on Easter Monday. This early spring custom is followed in many cities all over the world going back to the custom in old England when the people celebrated by rolling down Greenwich Hill.

Rich Men and Key
Men*

For what reason, through the ages, have men been given rest from work? They have been given rest in order that they might come back refreshed to do more work. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." The more sweat, the more bread. The more work and the less rest, the more goods to use. These rules have held from the very beginning until just yesterday. These laws have governed throughout all the ages of scarcity; they have obtained during all this time that there was not enough to go around. America was destined to make the first change in the laws. Amalthaea's horn fitted with electric motors, a power plant installed in the cornucopia, machinery set up in a land of milk and honey-the result was bound to be profusion, more than enough to go around. New conditions teach new laws; there are bound to be new rules to fit the new condition of more than enough to go around.

In the profusion circumstance, work is no longer the chief necessity. Leisure becomes a necessity, too, a necessity that is at least coordinate with work. Leisure is no longer important just in terms of work. It is important on its own account. Today there are two pillars to industry where yesterday there was but one; one pillar is still the worker's work, the other is the worker's leisure.

No matter what our workers think to get with their eight-hour day, their seven-hour day, whether it be time for physical recreation, whether they want mere negative escape from the grind of machinery or opportunity for reading and general culture-whatever the conscious aims, we can be sure of one thing their leisure is to bring. There is no longer any question what is the purpose that will be served when they have succeeded. in setting the Creator an example and resting from their labors on two days out of the seven instead of only one. The five-day worker will have two full days in which to use the goods he has been making, to wear out his automobile, to use up tires and gas, making place for more automobiles, tires and gas, and all those other things, vegetable and mineral, which industry must keep turning out,

*Courtesy of The Atlantic Monthly.

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which must be taken away from the mouth of the machine if the energy stored there is not to be dammed up and an explosion to follow. We can no longer spare the spare time. Leisure efficiency is to be as important as labor efficiency-there can be no doubt of that.

The money-maker could operate labor efficiency. It is impossible for him to operate leisure efficiency. The money-maker's talents matched the scarcity circumstance. He knew how to function. usefully, even if ignobly, in the periods when work was the thing to which an employer kept his eye ever single. An economic age in which leisure is an asset is as different from an economic age in which leisure is a liability as politics is different from navigation. The talents to the front of industry when the highest prosperity is conditioned on the most possible work to be got out of men are not the talents to show the way when the highest prosperity depends on the most possible leisure to be allowed men.

To these new men I am describing, leisure appears so right and natural that they are not conscious of it any more than a fish is conscious of the water or a bird of the air. The parts in them are geared to this driving force of the Industrial Age. They could not function at allindeed, they did not function at all-in any other age. They were born with the leisure sense, the profusion sense, the new industrial sense. It will never bother them that workers watch the clock, for when the hand marks the end of the production day it is also pointing to the beginning of the consumption day. It will not fret them if men come to work only four hours and rest twelve hours out of the day, if four-twelve be the combination which opens the door of the profusion chest.

Their

We saw that those who were to point the direction had no designs upon our liberty; their eyes were not on our pockets; they had no interest in "taking the bread out of our children's mouths," in "enslaving us." For that matter they had no interest in keeping us free, either, except as we must be free to consume goods. business, their aims, ambitions, purposes, passions, their function-all were in terms of things, all were centered in things. Their interest was in things and not in us. Their power was over things and not over us.-From Rich Men and Key Men, by Samuel Strauss, published in the Atlantic Monthly, December, 1927.

Dramatics are now considered an essential part of the Boys' Club program. As manual work develops, the dexterity of hand and eye, athletics the coordination of the body, dramatics "strengthens the memory, moderates the tone and emphasis of voice and pronunciation, procures good assurance and likewise insureth youth to the faces of men." We cannot ask any part of our program to furnish more to the boy than will his participation in some of the many forms of dramatics.

It is the opportunity of the Boys' Club movement to bring to the underprivileged boy, whom it so effectively reaches, that stimulating force which is likely to be crushed out: namely, his imagination. The boy very seldom rises beyond the height of the picture which he has created in his own mind of his place in the world. Success without imagination is impossible, and if we give dramatics its proper place in the program for the underprivileged boy we can develop an appreciation of literature, history, and his country. Through dramatics we can offer him the chance, if only for a little while, to be the character he has dreamed. We can offer him the chance to feel the emotions of the men of history, and allow him to live in the yesterdays and the tomorrows. It has been said, "The Boy is dramatic as if his whole vocation were endless imitation."

The attractiveness of successful programs for boys, such as scouting and woodcraft, lies in their dramatic appeal to the boy's imagination. It is not the mind or the body alone which this dramatic program aims to train, but rather the man that is the boy. Baseball and basketball are considered particularly valuable because they develop cooperation, fair play, and quick thinking. Dramatics teaches all of these. A play is a team game, impossible of success without the finest cooperation and support of every individual. In no game is each player so dependent upon the other as in a play. The long hours of rehearsals necessary

*Excerpts from a lecture given at Teachers College, Columbia University, October 26, 1927. The course was given in cooperation with the Federation of Boys' Clubs.

before a presentable public appearance can be made requires stick-to-itiveness, self-sacrifice, and the ability to sustain difficult work. All of which. is as excellent training in carrying on under difficulties in the game of life as is an athletic con

test.

HOW TO INTEREST THE BOY IN DRAMATICS

"How can I get the boys interested?" is a question always asked the writer whenever he has talked to a group of active workers with boys. The old-fashioned acting charade is a good place to start the younger boys in dramatics. The next step is the pantomime which can be used in a competitive form. The story-acting method is very good also. The boys are told a story and encouraged to reproduce it in their own way. Among boys there is always a demand for athletic material and the leader might suggest that funds could be secured by giving an entertainment. If some settlement or other organization is presenting a play, have the boys whom you want to interest in dramatic work visit this play and suggest that they might like to give a play themselves. Invite some other boys' organization to give a play at your club house and have your boys give an entertainment in return.

To interest the older boys in a dramatic program, the first play must be made a success, and from then on the boys will consider it an honor to play with your organization. Have the boys visit a play which you feel they are capable of giving, and arrange to have them meet some of the actors after the performance. A well-known professional can always interest the boys if he will come and talk to them. Secure an invitation from some of the advanced amateur organizations to have your boys attend their dress rehearsal. Utilize the few boys you have who may be inclined to dramatics as a nucleus to build up a dramatic group. When they have started the play, be sure to let your friends know about it.

This advertising will help to secure the boys' desire to make a good showing.

The first worthwhile play given by the Madison Square Boys' Club was started as a result of a suggestion by a group club member that the club give Strife, by John Galsworthy, a play which this boy had read. The boys voted that this was the play they wanted to give, and the leader of the club, realizing the difficulties of the play but not wanting to destroy their interest, suggested that since it would be an expensive undertaking the boys should underwrite it to the extent of five dollars each. The group did this and the play was enthusiastically received by a critical audi

ence.

DRAMATICS AS AN EDUCATIONAL ASSET

If vocational classes exist for the purpose of discovering the latent talent of the boy and finding for him the work at which he will be the happiest, then dramatic work has a definite place in the educational program of a boys' work organization. Not only do we want to discover in the boy his talent for manual trades, but also his talent for salesmanship, business, the stage and the professions.

Dramatics is one of the best ways in which the boy can be taught proper English, poise, public speaking, and appreciation of the beautiful and worthwhile. The boy is underprivileged who does not have a chance to take part in a play in which he has the opportunity to become familiar with the best there is in that line and to accustom himself to appearing before the public. Francis Bacon has said, "Good plays are the best remedy to expel sub-rustic bashfulness, unresistible timorousness, which is apt in riper years to drown many good parts in men of singular endowment."

The list of plays produced by boys' clubs reads. like the productions of the Art Theatres; Dunsany, Galsworthy, Tarkington, and Shakespeare are not unfamiliar names to the boys' club players. The dramatic presentation of his thoughts is natural to a boy. If simplicity is the keynote of art, then the best work of modern authors is possible for boys' clubs. It is not surprising to find the Union League Boys' Club of Chicago starting their dramatic life with As You Like It, since we know that boys were so adept at dramatics in the fifteenth century that they displaced the adult entertainers at the royal courts by producing plays entitled Iphigenia, Alemaeon, Scipio, and Ency

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clopedea-Viva. The best plays are none too good for the boy.

RECREATIONAL VALUE OF DRAMATICS

From a recreational angle dramatics are an asset to any program working with boys. Organizations as a rule work through groups which have a common interest and which may be social, educational, athletic or industrial. It is a common practice to have these groups assemble en masse once a week. At these large assemblies lectures are given, motion pictures are shown, and an entertainment is furnished by professional talent or artists of note who have volunteered their services. The expense involved in these entertainments is large and the only return for it is the amusement of the boys. Dramatics will be a great asset to the boys' work program if the talent of the boys rather than that of hired performers is used to furnish entertainments for these occasional assemblies. Such a method has been used with success by assigning to one of the club groups the job of entertaining the rest of the club for half an hour, allowing them time enough to prepare a good entertainment. The Scouts, Woodcraft League, Rangers, Pioneers, gym classes or other groups can very readily furnish from twenty to thirty minutes of an entertaining nature which will hold the audience and at the same time give the boys something to do which is both amusing and educational and which costs a great deal less than any other form.

The larger units in an organization, such as the men's club, senior club, intermediates, and juniors, can be given a night when they, as a whole, can be put on the program. These various groups can be scheduled so that there will be a regular program of entertainment furnished by the boys, each knowing far enough ahead so as to have time for preparation. An entertainment by the boys. and for the boys develops initiative, cooperation, and allows a larger number of boys to take part in the club activities, stimulating the esprit d'corps and costing much less than paid entertainers.

Dramatics carried out in this way not only furnishes a recreational program but gives the group clubs something to do at their meetings. Volunteer workers are frequently at a loss to know what to do with a group of boys whom they have to meet each week, for an hour or two in a small How to hold and interest these boys in worth while things is a severe task to assign to