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TIME

0*1

A Report on Leisure, Recrea-
tion, and Young People

By C. GILBERT WRENN
and D. L. HARLEY

A HIS BOOK considers the leisure-time
needs of youth against the background of modern
social changes and the functions of recreation
they create. It reviews the recreational status of
young people and discusses how the situation
needs to be altered.

After examining the new meaning of recrea-
tion, the authors proceed to appraise the kinds
and amounts of recreation that youth receive,
considered in relation to their real needs and
their environment today. From this point on, the
report is concerned with the part that the princi-
pal recreation agencies take and might take in see-
ing that these needs are adequately filled. Schools,
other public agencies, various private community
organizations, the state, and the federal govern-
ment are in turn reviewed.

A summary chapter lists the major objectives
for recreation planning and makes specific rec-
ommendations as to public policy involving local,
state, and federal relationships to the problem.

This comprehensive study should be of value
as a basis for discussion and action in this field
of increasing importance.

C. Gilbert Wrenn is professor of educational
psychology at the University of Minnesota. D. L.
Harley is author of Youth . . . Finding Jobs, pub-
lished by the United States Office of Education.
He is also the author or coauthor of a number
of publications issued by the American Youth
Commission.

PRICE, $2.00

"The report appears to cover the problem of
recreation in a broader and more incisive
way than any other volume on the subject
that has come to my attention. The authors
of the volume have completed an extremely
valuable job; one which ought ... to fill an
important and serious gap in the literature
of youth problems." — William G. Carr, Secre-
S tary, Educational Policies Commission

From the collection of the

o Prejinger

v JJibrary
p

San Francisco, California
2006

COORDINATING COUNCIL
Room 114, 101 Grove Str««t

TIME ON THEIR HANDS

MEMBERS OF
THE AMERICAN YOUTH COMMISSION

Appointed by the American Council on Education

OWEN D. YOUNG, New York
Chairman

HENRY I. HARRIMAN, Boston
Vice Chairman

MIRIAM VAN WATERS, Framingham, Massachusetts
Secretary

WILL W. ALEXANDER, Chicago

CLARENCE A. DYKSTRA, Madison

DOROTHY CANFIELD FISHER, Arlington, Vermont

WILLARD E. GIVENS, Washington

GEORGE JOHNSON, Washington
MORDECAI W. JOHNSON, Washington
CHESTER H. ROWELL, San Francisco
WILLIAM F. RUSSELL, New York
JOHN W. STUDEBAKER, Washington
HENRY C. TAYLOR, Chicago
MATTHEW WOLL, New York
GEORGE F. ZOOK, Washington

FLOYD W. REEVES, Director

TIME ON THEIR HANDS

A Report on Leisure, Recreation,
and Young People

By
C. GILBERT WRENN

and
D. L. HARLEY

Prepared for
The American Youth Commission

AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION
Washington, D. C., 1941

.Brief parts of this report may be quoted without special
permission provided appropriate credit is given. Permission
to quote extended passages may be secured through the American
Council on Education, 744. Jackson Place, Washington, D. C.

FOREWORD

HEAR it said often these days that American
youth are "soft" and must be "toughened." Frequently this
charge simmers down to the assertion that our young people are
content for the most part to sit on the sidelines, enjoying by
proxy the exertions of others. Though many such statements are
made with more vehemence than discrimination, their very recur-
rence has caused thoughtful persons to reassess youth attitudes
and the opportunities (or lack of opportunities) from which in
large measure they stem. Particularly is this true of the use of
leisure time.

Whatever may be said of youth attitudes, the use of leisure in
modern days has taken on great significance because the amount
of time which must be devoted to earning a living is constantly
decreasing. Young people are particularly aware of this fact
because they enter the world of work much later in life than did
their grandfathers and grandmothers, or even their mothers and
fathers. When they do succeed in making an entry, they are
likely to find themselves performing over and over a simple task
which gives them little personal sense of achievement and makes
satisfactory use of leisure a necessity.

In a period of national emergency like the present, the use of
leisure by youth is of special importance to our country. The
American Youth Commission has frequently pointed out that
only as youth feel they have a stake in our democracy will they
be eager to defend it. They can hardly be expected to respond
with enthusiasm to demands for special effort in creating and
maintaining our defenses if no attention is given to their own
pressing needs, one of which is healthful recreation. Further-
more, from the viewpoint of conserving our resources, failure to
provide facilities for developing the highest potentialities of all
our future citizens may prove a costly error.

VI TIME ON THEIR HANDS

The present study seeks to present an overview of the use of
leisure in modern life, particularly the opportunities and facilities
available to youth in the United States. Its authors are well
fitted to make such a presentation. C. Gilbert Wrenn, professor
of educational psychology at the University of Minnesota, has
had a considerable amount of experience in counseling and guid-
ance of young people, with special interest in their use of leisure,
and has written widely on these subjects. D. L. Harley, a mem-
ber of the staff of the American Youth Commission, has been
author or coauthor of a number of its publications, notably
Surveys of Youth: Finding the Facts and How Fare American
Youth? He formerly served on the staff of the Committee on
Youth Problems, United States Office of Education, for which he
wrote Youth . . . Finding Jobs. Professor Wrenn initiated the
present study and devoted three months in 1939 to the collection
of information and the preparation of a preliminary report.
After it became necessary for him to return to the University of
Minnesota, D. L. Harley was assigned to work on the study.
Mr. Harley considerably expanded the report and brought it to
completion in collaboration with Professor Wrenn.

The American Youth Commission was established in 1935 by
the American Council on Education from which it received a
mandate to:

1. consider all the needs of youth and appraise the facilities
and resources for serving those needs;

2. plan experiments and programs which will be most helpful
in solving the problems of youth;

3. popularize and promote desirable plans of action through
publications, conferences, and demonstrations.

As in the case of other staff reports prepared for the Commis-
sion, the authors of the present volume are responsible for the
statements which are made; they are not necessarily endorsed
by the Commission or by its Director. The Director does take
responsibility for the organization of all research projects, the
selection of staff, and the approval of staff reports as meriting
publication. The Commission is responsible for the determina-
tion of the general areas in which research is conducted under its

FOREWORD Vll

auspices, and from time to time it adopts and publishes state-
ments which represent specifically the conclusions and recom-
mendations of the Commission.

Recreation for youth has been an essential element in a number
of statements by the Commission, notably in Next Steps in Na-
tional Policy for Touth (January 1941) and also in A Program of
Action for American Touth (October 1939) and Youth, Defense,
and the National Welfare (July 1940). These statements were
published in pamphlet form.

FLOYD W. REEVES

Director

PREFACE

THIS BOOK considers the leisure needs of youth against
the background of modern social changes and the functions of
recreation they imply. It is neither a detailed study of present
organizations nor a technical treatment of procedures. It is a
review of the recreational status of young people and a discussion
of how the situation needs to be altered and what part various
agencies can take in effecting the necessary changes. Its primary
concern is with young people between the ages of 16 and 25, but
the authors recognize that in some respects recreation for youth
cannot be considered apart from recreation for children and for
adults.

The general nature of the approach adopted in this book will
be apparent from the table of contents. It need not be consid-
ered here except to invite attention to the fact that the final chap-
ter consists of a summary of the recommendations toward which
the discussion in the text has pointed. The only further informa-
tion that the authors feel should be conveyed by way of preface
is a concise statement of a few fundamental beliefs to which they
have held throughout their volume. These are:

1. That in all recreational planning for youth the determining
factor should be the needs of young people themselves rather
than the functional structure of existing agencies.

2. That the greatest possible use should be made of existing
facilities and the fullest measure of coordination be effected
among them.

3. That broad-scale recreational planning is urgently required
at every level of recreational administration — community, state,
and national government.

These are principles that the authors believe must underpin
any realistic attempt to improve the situation of young people
in what concerns leisure and recreation.

C. GILBERT WRENN

D. L. HARLEY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1 HE AUTHORS are extremely conscious of the extent
to which they are under obligations to others for whatever virtues
the present volume may possess. They would acknowledge three
levels of indebtedness.

In the first place, they owe much to the specialized literature
of the various fields touched upon and particularly the rapidly
accumulating literature of youth problems. It is desired to
emphasize this indebtedness here because detailed references
have been held to a minimum in the present work. This is not a
reference book, and it was felt that most readers would be as-
sisted by the absence of a documentary apparatus that would
necessarily have been heavy. The American Youth Commission
has for five years been assembling and analyzing data on the
situation and needs of young people. Persons who may wish to
examine source materials drawn upon in the preparation of this
volume should consult the Commission's published reference
works on the literature of its field or inquire directly of the Com-
mission. The brief bibliographies given at the ends of the chap-
ters of this volume will suggest the authors' major obligations of
this nature, though they are presented simply with the intention
of helping the reader who may desire to explore a particular
subject further.

In the second place, the authors are indebted to various individ-
uals who generously supplied information and advice on special-
ized matters with which they are particularly competent to deal.
Among individuals who rendered assistance of this kind may be
mentioned George D. Butler, of the National Recreation Associa-
tion; Charles F. Hoban, Jr., Director of the Motion Picture Project
of the American Council on Education; Kenneth Holland, direc-
tor of the Civilian Conservation Corps study of the American

Xll TIME ON THEIR HANDS

Youth Commission, and R. E. Iffertof his staff; M. M. Chambers,
of the American Youth Commission; and Charles E. Hendry, of
the Boy Scouts of America. The services of Mr. Chambers and
Mr. Hendry were particularly valuable in connection with the
chapter on privately supported community agencies. In prepar-
ing this chapter valuable help was also obtained from an unpub-
lished study of this field made for the American Youth Com-
mission by Richard R. Brown.

Lastly, the authors have to thank all the other persons — a
dozen or more — who read the volume in manuscript and com-
mented upon it with reference to their own special fields or in-
terests. It is desired to acknowledge a particular obligation to
the following, who sent extensive and detailed comments: George
D. Butler and Charles E. Hendry, previously mentioned; Grace
L. Coyle, pf Western Reserve University; George Hjelte, super-
intendent of the Playground and Recreation Department of Los
Angeles; Eduard C. Lindeman, of the New York School of Social
Work; N. P. Neilson, executive secretary of the American Associa-
tion for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation; and Irma
Ringe, of the National Youth Administration. The criticisms
of these persons have not only resulted in the elimination of many
things from the present work that would have detracted from its
usefulness but have also contributed much in a positive sense.
It need hardly be said that the authors themselves must be held
responsible for the shortcomings of their book.

C. GILBERT WRENN

D. L. HARLEY

CONTENTS

Foreword v

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xi

The New Meaning of Recreation xv

I. Recreation Needs of Youth 1

II. The Need for Guidance in Cultural Recreation 25

III. Recreation in the Modern World 45

IV. Recreation through Publicly Supported Community

Agencies 66

V. Recreation through Privately Supported Community

Agencies 106

VI. Community Planning for the Recreation Needs of

Youth 156

VII. State Recreation Functions and Agencies 184

VIII. Federal Recreation Functions and Agencies 202

IX. Major Objectives and Recommendations for Recrea-
tion Planning 247

Index.. 257

THE NEW MEANING OF
RECREATION

\VHAT is recreation? What is it good for? Why
should people spend so large a part of their time and resources
in search of it? Why should society trouble to make it easier
to obtain?

The subject of recreation has been much examined by philos-
ophers, psychologists, and other social scientists, and many
attempts have been made to explain what recreation is and how it
functions. To define recreation is more difficult than might be
supposed, for one man's recreation can be another man's work.
Perhaps as good a definition as any is the simple one that recreation
is what a person finds pleasure in doing when he is not paid for it
and does not feel any other kind of obligation to do it. Recreation
implies freedom of choice and action and has the quality of bring-
ing immediate personal satisfaction. It is sought for its own sake.
Its direct and immediate values are as important as the indirect
benefits it confers.

i
TWO COMPLEMENTARY THEORIES

None of the efforts to explain recreation would satisfy everyone
who has inquired into the problem. Numerous theories have
been advanced, most of them with some degree of plausibility.
Two, however, deserve particular attention. One of these em-
phasizes the re-creative functions of recreation, the other its
creative functions. The former, which may be called the relax-
ation theory, stresses the usefulness of recreation in repairing the
wear and tear inflicted by the ordinary routine of life. Recreation
renews our energies, revives our wilted spirits, and sends us back
to our usual occupations refreshed and strengthened in mind and

XVI TIME ON THEIR HANDS

body. According to the second interpretation, the primary
value of leisure pursuits is in the experience they contribute to
our lives that the ordinary round of existence does not afford.
They perform a creative function.

There seems to be no reason why these two theories of the
functions of recreation should be regarded as in conflict with each
other. Either is incomplete by itself. Each must take into
account elements of the other. The relaxation theory embodies
the older and more generally recognized interpretation of recrea-
tion, and the experience of everyone witnesses that to some extent
it is certainly true. It is more satisfactory as an explanation of
the appeal of social activities and of pastimes having a large
element of physical exertion than when applied to other types of
recreation. But it does not wholly account for the pleasure to be
derived even from these two leisure interests. Social activities
play an important role in the development of personality, par-
ticularly where young people are concerned. And, under modern
conditions of work and living, activities that are primarily phys-
ical may have definite creative values. So much of our time is
spent indoors, and so much of our labor has been taken over by
machines, that the physical benefit of games, sports, and other
strenuous forms of recreation is often likely to lie less in renewing
energies that work has consumed than in building for the first
time fitness which there has been no other opportunity to develop.
Pastimes that may be either primarily social or physical have also
a recognized value in preserving mental health, as indeed all forms
of recreation do.

We see, therefore, that the relaxation theory does not fully
account for the benefits obtained even from those forms of recrea-
tion in which relaxation appears to be most prominent. If we
further consider the great variety of the activities that people
carry on during their leisure hours and the energy and tenacity with
which these are often pursued, we are likely to conclude that the
relaxation theory of recreation will hold only up to a certain
point. It is difficult to avoid the belief that in many instances
people engage in recreational pursuits not to forget their work but
mainly, if not wholly, because they find these things pleasurable

THE NEW MEANING OF RECREATION XV11

in themselves. Thus the creative theory of recreation appears
essential. It interprets recreation as supplying values in people's
lives that otherwise would be missing.

IMPORTANCE OF CREATIVE RECREATION

Inevitably the development of recreation in the modern world
will tend more and more to be along creative lines. It is well
recognized that modern inventions and modern business practices
have taken hold of a great deal of work that used to afford op-
portunity for the exercise of skill or ingenuity and have broken it
down into relatively simple jobs like pulling levers or punching
keys or thumbing file indexes. However useful the end product
of such work may be, it usually affords the individual worker little
satisfaction. His contribution to the final result is often so small
that it must appear insignificant to him.

It is true that a few fortunate people find their work so absorb-
ing that they are not conscious of a need for outside interests.
It is also true that the creative element in work is not restricted
to manipulative occupations, where the effect of technological
change has been most severe. For instance, there is something
creative in the planned modification of behavior through group
experience which is so considerable a part of modern social work.
However, notwithstanding these reservations, it can be said of a
large and increasing proportion of workers that if they are ever
to experience the feeling of creating or achieving something inter-
esting and worth while in itself, it must be outside their work.

The objection may be raised that work never has afforded the
majority of people the satisfaction of accomplishing anything
significant in itself. This is very likely true. Except for a
favored minority it is probable that the work of civilized nations
always contained a large element of routine and made limited
use of the potentialities of the worker. It has also been pointed
out that many people seem well content to earn their living by
routine, monotonous tasks and are happier in work that does not
require initiative or the exercise of responsibility. This, too, is
undoubtedly a fact. But these circumstances do not lessen the
desirability of encouraging leisure pursuits of a creative nature.

XV111 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

The need for such activities rests upon broader grounds than the
limited range of modern work experience.

Human beings cannot be adequately described or evaluated in
terms of their work. Although we are to a certain extent what
our employment makes us, practically all persons have latent
talents and the capacity for developing themselves in directions
not required by their usual work. They may have within them
the ability to act, or sing, or paint, or dance, or write, or make
music. It may be only the germ of an ability, and they may not
even be conscious of it. But often they can be helped to discover
and nourish a rudimentary talent. Though the results may add
little to the world's notable achievement in these fields, they can
do much to enrich the lives of the individuals concerned.

The experiences life affords can in general be classified as active
(including creative) and passive. The line between them is often
difficult to draw, and certainly both are valuable. But it is a
matter of common observation that the most pleasurable experi-
ences are those in which one takes an active part. It seems to be
especially satisfying to create something through one's own efforts,
even if it is only a pleasing noise, a good impression, or a birdhouse
knocked together out of cigar boxes.

There are other experiences besides strictly creative ones that
in the past have been foreign to the lives of most people but which
it now seems reasonable to expect them to share. These include
the interpretation and appreciation of subjects of a higher cultural
level. Within recent years the cost of becoming acquainted with
the finer achievements of civilization — philosophy, science, art,
music, literature, and so on — has been greatly reduced. This has
come about through the spread of public libraries, inexpensive
editions of good books, the mechanical reproduction of music and
art, and other means of adult education. As long as the appre-
ciation of these subjects was so expensive that it was automatically
restricted to persons of wealth, the great majority of people could
not hope to enjoy them. But now that the cost has become
moderate the public is entitled to look for an early solution of the
problems of distribution, that these good things may become
generally available.

THE NEW MEANING OF RECREATION XIX

The case for encouraging and assisting the individual to develop
creative and cultural leisure-time interests need not be left to rest
simply on the pleasure these produce or even on the obvious value
to society of having its citizens happy and contented. Human
beings, whatever we may sometimes think of their actions, are
the highest form of life of which we have direct knowledge. To
develop their personalities, enrich their lives, and in any way to
help them realize the full extent of what they are capable of being
and doing must be considered one of the most commendable uses
to which human endeavor can be put. This recreation can
accomplish.

In our leisure time we may enter a new world, a world
from which the hindrances and limitations that ordinarily
surround us have largely vanished, a world in which our indivi-
duality expands and in which we feel freer and easier. Of course
we must inevitably come back to our ordinary routine existence,
but to be out of it for a while, to feel ourselves something like
the free agents that human beings were intended to be, is an
experience worth having. We have caught a glimpse of the dimly
seen pattern of ideal human existence. Whether we consider
that pattern divinely established or primarily of aesthetic value,
or interpret it in some other way, we can probably agree that any
effort which brings us closer to it is worth making.

BENEFITS OF RECREATION

We are now in a position to summarize what recreation offers.
From the point of view of the individual, recreation is a thing
to be regarded as good in itself and worthy of being sought for its
own sake. Those who find it difficult to think of any experience
as being self-justifying may substitute here, "for Man's sake."
The primary virtue of recreation is not any of its various utilita-
rian values but its direct and immediate effect of increasing the
stature of human life. Beyond this, recreation performs a number
of useful services to the individual, depending upon the char-
acter of the activities selected. It may be the means of acquiring
physical fitness and preserving mental balance. It can offer
opportunities for developing social graces, for learning how to

XX TIME ON THEIR HANDS

make oneself more agreeable to other people and how to bring
out the best in them. It can provide cultural and creative experi-
ences which make life fuller and more interesting and help to
round out personality.

To society, the benefits of recreation are likewise numerous.
In the first place there is the cumulative effect of the services to
individuals, already discussed. The welfare of society is simply
the sum total of the welfare of its members, and any kind of
activity that benefits a large proportion of them has contributed
something to the whole. However, there are certain benefits
of recreation that may be regarded as rendered to people collec-
tively because their effect is to make easier the operation of
functions essential to the continuation of the structure of society.

Perhaps the most continuously necessary of these, and one that
particularly concerns young people, is the promotion of marriage.
All young men and women need opportunities to meet young
people of the opposite sex in circumstances that will allow the
easy formation of friendships. Such opportunities are offered
them by the many social varieties of recreation. Since many
marriages result from the social contacts afforded by recreation,
it is in the country's interest to provide as many opportunities
for recreational activities as possible. With our declining birth
rate and the rising age structure of our society, the mere mainte-
nance of the population will presently require that no young
person remain single for lack of an opportunity to find a suitable
mate.

Another social effect of recreation primarily evident among
youth is the reduction of delinquency. In the past much has
been made of this as an argument for the provision of public
recreational facilities. It is possible that on the whole the em-
phasis upon this secondary advantage of recreation has done more
harm than good. The really important argument for making
adequate recreation available to young people has been obscured
by it. As long as we deny the youth of America the opportunity
to develop into healthy, useful citizens we shall be depriving so-
ciety of something of far greater value than material or human
losses caused by ill-adjusted youngsters. Still, the delinquency

THE NEW MEANING OF RECREATION XXI

prevention function of recreation is a real service to society, and
for what it is worth it deserves to be cited from time to time.

A third social use to which recreation can and should be put is
the mitigation of the effects of unemployment. Recreation is no
substitute for a job. But people who are obliged to remain job-
less for an indefinite period have a serious problem in maintaining
their morale. Recreation can be of great assistance to them in
doing this, and it may even be possible through intelligent use of
leisure time for them to improve their employability. Though
in such instances the primary benefits are to the unemployed
individuals, the relief that recreation is capable of affording the
general problem of unemployment is of much importance to
society.

RECREATION AND NATIONAL DEFENSE

Finally, there is for the nation as a whole the "preparedness"
value of recreation. To many it may seem that a healthy, con-
tented, and informed population is so clearly desirable in itself
that as a national goal it can gain little in importance from the
reappearance of armed force as a major factor in international
relations. Though this may well be true, we can also recognize
that the danger of our country's becoming involved in war
does offer an additional reason why we should try in every way
to make more useful citizens of our young people.

It is not simply recreation's function of promoting physical
fitness that is important. Any use of leisure time that stimulates
the mind and adds to our knowledge of the world in which we
live is likely to increase the efficiency of our youth for whatever
emergency service their country may require of them. Any
creative or cultural values we can add to their lives should give
youth a bigger stake in American civilization and leave them the
more anxious to defend it from all enemies, within or without.
Recreation has a real contribution to make to national prepared-
ness. It can increase the physical, mental, and spiritual fitness
of the people upon whom the defense of our country rests. No
element is more important in national defense than the quality
of the individuals who bear the responsibility for that defense.

CHAPTER I

RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH

PETER HILL was a boy who graduated from high school
in a village 130 miles from a large eastern city and went to that
city to look for work. After a discouraging period of making the
rounds he was hired as an order clerk in a large wholesale house.
There, from eight-thirty in the morning until five in the afternoon
he checked order slips. It wasn't interesting work, but Peter
considered himself fortunate to have a job at all. He had found
it only through the friendship of a businessman he had met the
previous summer. This man acted as a sponsor for Peter when
he came to the city.

During the six weeks of uncertainty and discouragement in
looking for work Peter had felt that the world would be a fine
place to live in if only he could get a job. Now, after two years
at seventeen, eighteen, and finally twenty dollars a week, Peter
wasn't so sure that life was satisfactory. In high school he had
taken part in many interesting activities, but all that had stopped
short when he came to the city. His business sponsor had been
helpful in employment matters, but as a man thirty years Peter's
senior he knew little of how to help him spend his time outside
working hours.

Twenty dollars a week enabled Peter to be self-supporting and
even to send a little money home occasionally, but it did not leave
much for social life or other recreation. He couldn't afford
"dates" — even if he had known how to meet the kind of girl he
might have been interested in. He went to the movies more
often than he could afford — it was the easiest way out of a dreary
evening. But after two years Peter had become pretty dissatis-

2 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

fied with the pictures he saw. Pulp magazines were a plentiful
and cheap means of spending time, but he could predict the
outcome of almost any story after reading the first page. The
public library was a long way from where he lived and seemed a
pretty stuffy sort of place.

Neither movies nor reading afforded him action, and Peter
wanted something to do. He would have liked to play pool or
bowl, but those things ate up money. His job certainly didn't
call for much imagination or thought — indeed he sometimes
wondered whether he was worth twenty dollars a week. If only
he had some pastime that would give him a feeling of amounting
to something. If only he knew some lively and interesting young
people about his own age. The satisfaction he had thought he
would get out of his job hadn't lasted, and Peter was restless and
discontented. Sometimes he thought he ought to give the job
up and look for one that paid more and had more responsibility.
He didn't know.

THE NEED TO "DO SOMETHING" IN LEISURE

TIME

Peter is a reasonably typical young fellow. There are thou-
sands like him in our towns and cities and thousands facing
comparable difficulties in country and village. The business of
living each day in an adult world is perplexing to youth. They
don't understand or approve of all that makes up that world. At
the same time, each twenty-four hours must somehow be spent.
Everywhere today in our cities, towns, villages, and on farms
young people face the difficulty of what to do with their spare
time. They haven't jobs, or they have jobs that take up only a
few hours a day. Home is usually little help. Too often it is
not even a place of refuge. Home is run by adults for adults, and
youth like the companionship of their own kind. With little
money to spend, "What to do?" becomes a very real problem. It
is almost as puzzling as how to get a job. In one study, made in a
Wisconsin rural community, youth ranked the need for more
recreation above even the need for more employment.

Before the days of high-priced water frontage, barbed wire, and

AHIGHW

RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH 3

"No Trespassing" signs, city youth could turn for recreation to
the swimming hole and the baseball sand lot. Before automobiles
came, streets made fair playgrounds. On special occasions there
were family picnics or hikes in the country. Now city youth read
and go to the movies. They frequent parks when they can find
them, loaf or play about in congested, dangerous streets when
they cannot. Country youth used to be content to seek social
recreation at a box supper, square dance, or Sunday school. For
more strenuous pastimes there were hunting and fishing, barn-
raisings, cornhuskings, and contests of skill and strength. That
was in the days when the radio, the motion picture, and the
automobile had not arrived to vary their interests and broaden
their horizon. Now they read and take part in such sports as
they can organize. They go to community centers and clubs —
if any exist. They would engage in hobbies and handicrafts if
encouraged and shown how. They would arrange their own
group recreation if they had places to come together.

The survey of the youth of New York City conducted in 1935
by the Welfare Council of New York concluded that only one boy
in five and one girl in ten had a satisfactory leisure life, "measured
from the point of view of a balanced ration." The poverty of the
leisure of many young people is indicated by the responses to the
question of what they did with their spare time given interviewers
in a study conducted in Maryland by the American Youth Com-
mission. Among the answers were:

"Just walk around like the other girls do." (A single girl, 21 years
old, who left school at the completion of the third grade.)

"Read, movies, and dance. We sled-ride down the main street in
the winter, if they don't catch us." (A railroad crosses the main
street.)

"Go around and gossip."

"Ride on the beer truck, ride in a car, loaf."

"I think."

"Walk around and walk around and go home and go to bed ... all
my time is spare." (A Negro boy, 21 years old.)

"Gamble, shoot craps, read, and play pool." (A 17-year-old white
boy, out of school and unemployed.)

"See what devilment we can get into. We generally get a bottle of
whiskey and all get canned."

"Lay under a shade tree in the summer. Nothing in the winter."

4 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

Young people would rather participate in organized play than
hang around the pool hall; they would rather get into clubs than
into trouble with their elders; they would rather do something
than nothing. What they want is not so much to have things
done for them as to have direction and the means of doing some-
thing for themselves.

What can we do for and with youth so that they can do more
for themselves? In the American Youth Commission's largest
field study this question was asked of 13,000 Maryland youth.
Their answers were specific. They wanted more parks and play-
grounds; meeting places where they could have group games,
music, handicrafts, dramatics, and discussion groups; swimming
pools; and organized sports. They would prefer these active and
creative outlets for their energies to a restricted diet of reading,
motion pictures, radio, automobile riding, and other equally
passive diversions. When asked what could be done to help
young people get together they suggested community centers,
social clubs, and dances. Asked what the community could do
to keep young people out of trouble, three-fifths of them said
"provide more recreation facilities and leadership." Seven out
of every ten thought the recreational opportunities of their com-
munities were inadequate. Among village and town youth,
four out of five were of this opinion.

If we consider the wants expressed by youth against the back-
ground of the fundamental social changes of the present century
and in the light of known psychological and physiological facts
about young people, we can arrive at a kind of inventory of the
unmet recreational needs of youth. These needs fall into three
main classes. In the first place, nearly all youth need more
opportunities for certain essential types of leisure activities.
Then the problem of providing leisure-time activities for a num-
ber of groups of youth who are especially underprivileged in
recreation demands particular attention. Finally, there is need
for guidance in the use of opportunities for cultural recreation.
We shall consider the first two of these categories in the present
chapter, and the third in the following chapter.

RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH 5

LEISURE ACTIVITIES THAT ARE INADEQUATE
FOR NEARLY ALL YOUTH

There are four kinds of recreational opportunities that nearly
all youth should have in greater degree. These are: (1) opportu-
nities to participate in games, sports, and other outdoor activities;
(2) opportunities for creative experiences; (3) opportunities for
fuller social life; (4) opportunities for recreation at home. These
categories are not mutually exclusive. Activities that are pri-
marily physical in nature may have distinct social and intellectual
values. Likewise, social recreation may involve considerable
physical activity. Nevertheless, in most instances an emphasis
in one direction or another will be evident.

PHYSICAL RECREATION

No kind of recreation is less in need of justification than out-
door games, sports, and similar pastimes. Its benefits are under-
stood by the public. It is the type of recreation youth want most
and the kind that they engage in most frequently. Indeed there
are people, both young and old, to whom any pastime not involv-
ing a considerable degree of physical exertion is hardly recreation.

We are a nation of sport lovers. The past several decades
have seen a remarkable expansion in the opportunities of ordinary
people to take part in games that originally were available only
to the favored few — tennis and golf, for example. Nevertheless,
in spite of the great and increasing popularity of active forms of
recreation, there are many American youth to whom they are
not sufficiently available. In a study conducted by the American
Youth Commission in Dallas, Texas, the following groups of
youth were found to lack regular physical recreation: 20 per cent
of single boys and young men, 50 per cent of married boys and
young men, 62 per cent of single girls, and 76 per cent of married
girls. These percentages accounted for half of all young people
between 16 and 24 included in the study.

If the effort that has gone into popularizing athletic spectacles
had been used to encourage and enable more people to participate

4 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH 5

LEISURE ACTIVITIES THAT ARE INADEQUATE
FOR NEARLY ALL YOUTH

PHYSICAL RECREATION

If the effort that has gone into popularizing athletic spectacles
had been used to encourage and enable more people to participate

6 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

in games and sports, there would be a different story to tell. As
matters now stand, however, the active, outdoor life of great
numbers of young people is on a catch-as-catch-can basis. Far
too often this means that the only outlet their natural interest
in physical activity can find is to follow the fortunes of professional
athletes — from the sidelines if they can afford it, otherwise
through the newspapers and radio.

The opportunity for athletic participation that school offers
the average young person has been comparatively small. If a
boy has a natural aptitude for some sport, he can develop it
through the school team. But such a lad has relatively little
need of organized physical recreation. On the other hand, the
youngster who would benefit most from practice in games and
sports is not likely to add to the school's prestige in this field, and
he has consequently been neglected. There has been some
improvement in recent years, but we are still far from the point
where schools will accept the responsibility of seeing that all their
students have an equal opportunity to take part in the more
physically beneficial forms of recreation.

Out-of-school youth have even less chance of filling any sub-
stantial portion of their leisure with sports and outdoor activities.
For the most part, such pastimes require facilities they do not
have, and there is no agency or combination of agencies that has
yet been able to make them generally available. Commercial
interests offer poolrooms and bowling alleys, less frequently
skating rinks and swimming pools. The former are often un-
desirable places for young people to congregate, and all cost
money. In the larger cities there are public playgrounds and
sometimes facilities for swimming, tennis, and other sports. So
far as these go, they are very valuable. But hardly any com-
munity offers sufficient opportunities for public recreation to
meet the need, and the great majority of communities make little
or no provision for this function. There are private agencies,
such as the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A., that offer indoor athletic
facilities. There are others, such as the Scouting organizations,
that promote outdoor life among young people. Still other
groups are aware of the need and do what they can to meet it

RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH 7

with very limited means. However, no organization working
in this field reaches more than a small percentage of the youth
who would benefit from its services, and their combined efforts
still leave the great majority of youth to work out their own plan
of physical activities as best they can.

The result is that children and adolescent youth play on side-
walks, in streets, and in vacant lots. As they grow older, they
simply stand around street corners or get together in poolrooms
and bowling alleys. Lacking the means of doing things that
would release their physical energy, they gradually accustom
themselves to doing nothing. The sporting pages of the daily
paper become their substitute for activity. How keen the urge
for normal, active recreation can be is shown by the case of a
young man reported in the newspapers. He had recently been
discharged from prison and shortly afterwards held up a police-
man at the point of a pistol. His explanation was: "I want to go
back to Sing Sing. Down here I'm just a bum, but up there I was
on the ball team."

Rural youth are scarcely better off in this respect than youth in
towns and cities. True, they have sufficient open space, but they
lack direction and leadership that would assist them to find
satisfaction in the simple facilities available to them. A recent
study of young people 16 to 29 years old in forty villages through-
out the country showed that only one-half of the boys or young
men and only one-third of the girls or young women took part in
outdoor sports, even in summer.

We should not make the mistake of thinking of physical recrea-
tion exclusively in terms of games and sports. We may well
believe that as long as these activities occupy so prominent a
place in our national life everyone ought to have an opportunity
of participating in them. There will also be no difficulty in
agreeing that it is better for youth to play games than simply to
sit and watch them. But competitive games tend to produce
attitudes not wholly desirable in a complex civilization such as
ours. Young people need to learn habits of cooperation as well
as of competition. There are forms of outdoor activity, such as
hiking and camping, that have a natural appeal to most youth

8 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

and are well suited to developing desirable traits of character.
They are especially valuable in widening the experiences of urban
youth, who generally have had little contact with nature. In-
deed, to make the country accessible to youth from the cities
would be one of the greatest recreational advances that could be
achieved.

The primary social end which justifies us in asking that all
young people be given opportunities for active types of recrea-
tion is the physical fitness of our population. Recreation is one
avenue to normal physical growth and development. The
contribution it can make should not be withheld from any of our
citizens.

(CREATIVE RECREATION)

All students of mental hygiene recognize that youth need
creative activities. To produce, with one's own hands or mind,
things or ideas or lovely tones or dramatic effects is an experience
particularly valuable to young people. Youth is a transition
period, and the psychological goal toward which boys and girls
who pass through it are groping is the feeling that they are some-
one, that they have become unique personalities in the world of
adults and have a distinctive contribution to make. For most
youth a sense of uncertainty develops at about this time of life.
It occurs whether they are in school or at work, and it is doubly
likely to come if they happen to be unemployed for any length of
time. These facts present a problem for both educational and
recreational agencies, but recreation is better able to stress crea-
tiveness because it is the freer from tradition.

To youth in school, recreation should offer creative activities
in order that they may have valuable experiences not provided
by the conventional school program. Most psychologists agree
that a feeling of success and achievement in one thing provides
overtones of well-being stimulating to other kinds of endeavor.
May teachers and parents soon learn the lesson that encourage-
ment and success are keys to good behavior and rapid progress !

To employed youth, creative recreation affords a means of
escaping from the monotony of the dull, routine work by which

RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH 9

so many young people today must earn their living. We shall
consider this function of recreation in the next chapter.

To unemployed youth, creative recreation has a special value.
Probably no one but a young person long without work can appre-
ciate the weariness and loss of confidence that comes from being
told day after day, "Nothing for you just now." He grows to
feel that he is lacking in something or that the world has no place
for him. He needs to regain a sense of uniqueness, of being a
distinct "I." He also needs to acquire a sense of worth, to be
able to say to himself, "I can do something." Creative forms of
recreation help him gain this confidence.

The need for creating is thus psychologically a national neces-
sity. It is fully as real as, for example, the social need that all
youth be provided with equal educational opportunity or the
economic need to conserve our natural resources.

The forms of creative recreation are many. To paint, to make
things with clay or wood, to play an instrument, to sing, to act
in a play or pageant, to build and operate puppets, to develop
strategy in games — all of these require skilled teaching and more
or less equipment, but they pay dividends to the individual and
to society. In a county survey of rural youth, "playing a musical
instrument" was tenth on the list of things that youth actually
did but first on the list of those they wanted to do. One state
survey of youth revealed the following preferences for activities, ,
in the order given: glee club, orchestra, dramatic club, young /
people's forum. Surely youth with such creative ambitions as/
these deserve to be helped to realize them.

Unfortunately, from half to three-fourths of our young people
appear to have no hobbies or other forms of creative recreation.
The Regents' Inquiry in New York State reported that 45 per
cent of the high school graduates were without hobbies. In the
American Youth Commission's Dallas study only 9 per cent of
the youth mentioned hobbies or cultural activities as among their
three principal leisure-time activities. Frequently young people
are found unable to mention as many as three leisure interests.
In a survey of youth in a rural county of New York, 19 per cent
reported no second-choice recreational activity and 64 per cent

10 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

gave no third choice. We must face the inescapable fact that an
education-recreation program will have to assume the burden of
introducing creative experiences into the daily lives of youth.

ASOCIAL RECREATION^)

Young people need social recreation just as certainly as they
need creative recreation. It can be equally helpful in over-
coming the sense of personal inadequacy that so often troubles
the adolescent. Probably more feelings of inferiority arise from
uncertainty in social relations than from any other cause. We rub
elbows with so many people and are able to carry on an intelligent
conversation with so few of them. Merely "getting along" with
others gives us a feeling of having achieved something.

One striking inference to be drawn from the Maryland study
of the American Youth Commission is that young people engage
so extensively in solitary recreational activities because there is
little else available. The principal recreation of from two-thirds
to three-fourths of the groups studied was individual in char-
acter. Yet the majority wanted more group activity. Seventy-
two per cent of the white youth and 86 per cent of Negro youth
in Maryland did not belong to clubs of any sort. In a survey of
8,000 girls in California it was reported that only 15 per cent were
members of clubs.

It is easier to leave youth to find their own solitary recreation
than to plan a balanced program of activities involving crea-
tive, social, and physical values. Because our vision has been
limited, we have allowed our youth to depend too largely upon
spectator sports, reading, movies, and the radio for their recrea-
tion. These are all worth-while activities in reasonable amounts,
but when taken as a steady diet they can bring on recreational
malnutrition.

Once boys and girls leave school they have less and less chance
of belonging to a club or other social organization. On the other
hand, the longer they stay in school the more likely they are to
keep up their membership in such groups after leaving school.
In the Maryland study, one-half of the out-of-school youth who
had continued their education until the sophomore year of college

RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH 11

belonged to one or more clubs, while only one-sixth of those who
had dropped out at the end of the eighth grade were members of
any organization.

Youth need help in getting out of the social "back pockets"
into which so many of them have slipped. They need commu-
nity centers, clubs, forums, and the opportunity of meeting young
people of the opposite sex under wholesome conditions. More-
over, these organizations should be adapted to the interests of
youth. One 18-year-old girl complained that the community
center of her town might better be called a "reducing center."
"Who wants to go up to the gym and see a lot of fat old married
women doing calisthenics!" This was not a complaint about
active, physical forms of recreation. Indeed these must be the
core of almost any leisure-time program that is to hold the interest
of young people. It was a heart-felt protest against a formalized
program centered about the needs and desires of adults rather
than youth. A community center fills needs so varied and vital
that its success ought not to be endangered by unimaginative
organization.

In a rural community of the Midwest, 60 per cent of the youth
said they would like to meet other young people of both sexes
at some central spot for recreation and discussion. This is one
function of a wide-awake community center. Can we expectv
normal relationships between the sexes so long as boys and girls \
can meet each other only in movies, automobiles, dance halls, or
beer parlors?

Social recreation ministers to a psychological need in providing
a means of developing social competence; it helps to give youth a
feeling of "belonging"; and it promotes healthy relationships
between the sexes. These are important functions in our imper-
sonal society. In performing them recreation advances demo-,
cratic culture and encourages intelligent citizenship.

HOME RECREATION

The emphasis upon public recreation has obscured the need for
restoring leisure activities to something like the place they once
held in family life. We have been so preoccupied with the neces-

12 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

sity for improving our public social and educational services that
we sometimes appear to overlook the fact that many of the
conditions these agencies are intended to correct arise from defi-
ciencies in the home which receive scant attention.

The home used to be the center of most of the recreational life
of all members of the family. It is still through the home that
the recreational interests and activities of youth receive their
early direction. The home has youth longer each day than any
other agency has; and despite the growth of professional services
in the care and education of young people, parents are still very
influential individuals in the lives of their children. If youth
are to learn how to spend their leisure wisely when they become
adults, there can hardly be a stronger influence in shaping the
pattern of their life-time recreational interests than memories of
pleasant hours at home. We should begin at the "source" of
youth^ daily life and give encouragement and direction to family
leisure-time activities.

Recreation in the home can also be used as a bond to deepen
the companionship between young people and their parents.
No need is more urgent, more frequently talked about, less acted
upon. Parents may feel uncertain in the child's educational
world. They may have forgotten their algebra and their history.
But if the occasion offers they can still recapture that state of
mind known as "youthful enthusiasm." If we wish to keep the
home a vigorous social influence, there is hardly a better way than
to strengthen it as a center for the worth-while use of leisure.

Forms of recreation that parents and youth can "do together"
include hobbies such as model building, stamp collecting, or pho-
tography. Nature study can be equally engrossing to father
and son. The entire family can engage in prize contests, par-
ticipate in folk dances at the community center, or cultivate a
home garden. Games and group music can bridge the gap be-
tween the two generations, as can many other forms of activity.
The New York Times for January 22, 1939, carried an article on
the possibilities of puppets in the home:

One of the most important characteristics of the Ideal Family is that
they are supposed to have interests in common. This sounds a lot
easier than it works out. It's pretty hard to organize a family group

RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH 13

when Johnny wants to carve wood, Mary Jane wants to make doll
clothes, Willie is unhappy if he's separated from his paint box, and
Father and Mother have their own ideas of entertainment too. The
current puppet exhibition ought to suggest a solution to all this. . . .
It is obvious that there never was anything so clearly designed to unite
a disjointed family as a puppet theater.

At present family recreation is mostly passive and casual. One
study of two small towns in Minnesota described it as "limited
mainly to such activities as going to the movies, listening to the
radio, and automobile riding." A study in a rural county of
New York State reported that the proportion of youth whose
"families do not provide facilities or consciously try to carry on
'sociability' activities for the family as a group" was 87 per cent.
The home cannot be preserved as an important agency in the
recreational life of youth without more imagination and planning
than is revealed by studies such as these.

It is true that the small amount of spare room in many homes
is a serious hindrance to their use for recreational purposes. In
planning new homes we must be careful to keep leisure needs in
mind. Meanwhile, we should do all that we can with the means
already available in order to strengthen the part the home can
play in the recreational lives of our young people.

YOUTH GROUPS THAT ARE ESPECIALLY LACKING
IN RECREATIONAL ADVANTAGES

Certain classes of young people are especially lacking in recrea-
tional advantages; among them are rural youth, youth of low-
income families in general, Negro youth, girls, and the older
adolescents. These young persons should be helped to obtain
more recreational opportunities of all kinds. In particular
they need opportunities that will suit their environment and that
will counteract the disadvantages under which they live.

RURAL YOUTH

What happens to rural youth is of national importance. Not
only do half of our youth live in rural areas, but the cities depend
upon the country for a considerable share of their young adults.

14 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

It has been estimated that the rural parts of the nation spent
$14,000,000,000 on rearing and educating the youth who were
absorbed by the cities in the ten years between 1920 and 1930.

The greatest leisure-time need of rural youth, whether in small
town or village or on the farm, is for social recreation. They
have ample space for physical activities and sports, though these
often need to be developed and adapted to rural situations.
They may already have a fair number of hobbies and collecting
interests. But what they want above all else is social groups and
community centers.

It has been pointed out earlier that this need is especially
acute among village youth. There is no section of our population
that lacks more of the elements of a recreation program than
youth in villages and small towns. They have all the disad-
vantages and dangers of fairly close human contacts while en-
joying none of the advantages either of the large open spaces of
the farm or of the cultural facilities in cities. It is in these small
rural communities that gangs and other undesirable social pat-
terns will form quickly among young people — possibly even more
readily than in cities — unless opportunities for wholesome recrea-
tion are available.

In one large rural survey, including 11,000 unmarried youth,
the only agencies found to be offering young people any consider-
able opportunity for social recreation were the 4-H clubs and the
Grange. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and the Christian Endeavor
each reached about one-sixth of the total group. Due recogni-
tion must also be given the rural church for its influence in the
social life of young people. In general, however, the efforts of
all agencies concerned have so far done relatively little to elimi-
nate the disadvantages that beset our 10,000,000 rural young
people in their use of leisure.

It is clear that to remove the recreational handicaps under
which rural youth live will require energetic and sustained action
from two sources. On the one hand, the agricultural interest
groups and the national agencies working for youth must give
more attention to the need of rural young people for social
activities. On the other hand, we must not lose sight of the fact

RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH 15

that the local community has the strongest obligation to do all
in its power to solve the problems of its youth. It is true that
many rural areas are impoverished and suffer the additional handi-
cap of having lost much of their potential leadership through
migration. However, what the local community can do it should
do. There are many leisure activities suitable for local develop-
ment in rural areas. Amateur orchestras, group singing, handi-
craft classes, dramatic clubs, motion pictures, circulating libraries,
dances, forum discussions, and a community center to house such
activities — these are examples of what a community can accom-
plish if it is awake to the needs of its young people. Local ini-
tiative, together with joint action by all interested bodies, will
be found the key to the situation.

YOUTH IN LOW-INCOME FAMILIES

One of the factors complicating the recreational problems of
rural youth is that they have so little money to spend. But lack
of money is characteristic of many youth everywhere, in the city
as well as in the country. The recreational handicaps that young
people suffer because of this circumstance are so serious and so
widespread that youth in low-income families stand out distinctly
as a group with special problems in their use of leisure time.

In recreation, as in nearly every other field, the youth whose
family is on a low economic level is at a marked disadvantage.
His participation in any activity for which money is essential is
narrowly restricted. Often he cannot accompany his friends to
places of commercial amusement or attend social events where
his clothing would make him conspicuous. He may not even be
able to afford transportation to the open country, where he could
pass the day cheaply and profitably.

It is a significant characteristic of the great expansion of recrea-
tion which has taken place in this country over the past half
century that it is the relatively expensive ways of passing leisure
time that have become most sought after. In many instances
this has led to a reduction in their expense, but the cost of some
of our most popular amusements still places them beyond the
reach of great numbers of youth. It is hardly surprising that

18 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

which to pass leisure time. This is particularly true for youth
who must live in city slums.

The means best adapted to overcome these disadvantages is a
development of public recreational resources and facilities.
Youth from poor families must be enabled to find wholesome
recreation outside of the home until their parents can be helped
out of their economic rut. An even better and more direct
way of assisting them would be to see that they get work. If
these youth could earn their own pocket money they would be
able to participate on more nearly equal terms in the recreational
life of other young people of their age. They would have less
need of measures especially designed to benefit them.

An opportunity to improve the leisure surroundings of youth
in low-income families arises when housing projects are being
planned. Though public housing does not yet reach many
families on the very lowest economic level, it serves a class whose
home recreational facilities are wholly inadequate. If sufficient
room for family leisure enterprises is included in the individual
dwelling units, and suitable space — outdoors and indoors — is
set aside for public recreation in connection with each building
or group of buildings, a beginning will have been made for a
wholesome development of leisure activities.

The United States Housing Authority has set up detailed
standards and requirements governing the provision of recrea-
tional facilities and programs in local housing projects in over
200 cities. Residents of housing developments are not the only
ones who will benefit by the observance of these standards. It
has been found that the programs function best when thrown
open to all members of the community in which the housing
project is situated. These persons are frequently as much in
need of recreational assistance as the more direct beneficiaries
of the project. When the leisure program is operated in this
fashion, assistance can often be obtained from the municipal
recreation department, which may undertake to supply leaders.

Despite the obvious need for planning for leisure in connection
with housing developments, there are instances where this factor
has been neglected. It will be advisable for those interested in

RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH

the matter to keep constantly in touch with the public housing
authorities of their city in order to ensure that recreational needs
receive due attention in their projects.

NEGRO YOUTH

One out of every ten young persons in America is a Negro.
The Negro youth belongs to a group that suffers from the double
handicap of extremely low average incomes and being a racial
minority. In every field of human welfare this circumstance
operates to his disadvantage. In recreation its effects are pain-
fully apparent.

The young Negro is usually a slum dweller, whether he happens
to live in the city or country. His use of leisure time is accord-
ingly subject to all the limitations that an inadequate environ-
ment imposes. Wholesome recreation is often an impossibility
for him at home, and when he turns to public playgrounds or
community centers in certain states he will find them closed to
him. If he attends school in these states the recreational service
and equipment available will usually be of the most meager sort,
and even these he will lose sooner than a white person would,
because of the early age at which he drops out. If he is lucky
enough to get a job, living expenses will probably absorb all his
small pay. He can seldom afford commercial amusements. He
is reduced to playing in the streets or loafing about on corners or
running with gangs. Small wonder that his chance of falling
into antisocial ways of employing his leisure is relatively great.

A young person in a Negro family that has achieved middle-
class status is hardly less beset with recreational handicaps.
Social pressure will not allow him to descend to irresponsible
street play and rowdyism. Yet he finds that most opportunities
to use his leisure in ways that have the approval of his group are
closed to him. He cannot go to the downtown motion picture
theaters unless his skin is fair enough to enable him to pass for
white, and then if he does he will lose the respect of his fellows.
He is barred from the best restaurants and roadhouses. There
will be few tennis courts or swimming pools open to him.

The impact of these discriminations upon sensitive middle-

20 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

class Negro youth is likely to be even greater than upon those of
lower social strata. Youth in the lowest income families, what-
ever their race, are constantly discriminated against because of
their inferior economic status. The disadvantages are hardly
greater for Negroes than for whites. But young Negroes whose
families have risen some distance on the economic scale see them-
selves denied the social advantages of the dominant race and
realize that the cause is not economic status — which they might
conceivably be able to better — but the accident of race, before
which they are powerless.

Given anything approaching decent conditions of life, Negroes
are folk with a talent for sociability and group forms of recrea-
tion. They have a genius for some forms of artistic expression,
as shown in their folk songs. It is a great pity that people natu-
rally inclined toward the wholesome use of leisure should be so
limited and confined in their recreational life by artificial re-
strictions and community prejudice.

Negro youth have a special, psychological need for recreation,
in addition to the desirability of bringing out their natural
aptitudes. The many handicaps — social, economic, and polit-
ical— imposed upon their race make Negro youth particularly
likely to develop attitudes unfavorable to their own welfare and
to the welfare of society. Feelings of inferiority, resentment,
and aggression will often arise inevitably in Negro adolescents
as they become aware of what it means to be Negroes in a white
man's world. There is nothing like wholesome recreational
activity to work these attitudes out of the system. Recreation
has for Negro youth in our society a potential healing and cor-
rective power similar to that which it affords unemployed youth
of all races. It is, however, a power that can only be exercised
through social planning. Up to the present it has remained
largely undeveloped.

Public recreational facilities for Negroes have been expanded
during the past decade but are still very inadequate. We need
more of them — many more, and better. At the same time we
must realize that the provision of special facilities on a racial
basis, often impractical and always expensive, cannot be a

RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH 21

complete solution to the recreational difficulties of Negro youth.
These difficulties will never be wholly overcome so long as Negroes
are regarded and treated as people for whom the leftovers and
the second-bests of everything are sufficient. We must banish
from our social thinking the attitude that any class of our youth
is less worthy or less deserving of the benefits of our civilization
than another.

GIRLS

Girls are our largest group of recreationally underprivileged
youth. There are 11,000,000 girls between the ages of 16 and
24, but of these only about 2,000,000 are touched by any agency
serving adolescents, other than the church or school. True,
youth-serving organizations have not been vastly more suc-
cessful in reaching boys, but the special restrictions that hedge
the recreational life of girls and young women make it particularly
necessary that they receive assistance in employing their leisure
wisely.

Girls have hardly less need than boys for physically active
forms of recreation, but aside from public school programs they
encounter more difficulty in obtaining them. It is only in com-
paratively recent years that girls and young women have won
the right to develop their bodies through games and sports. In
many communities they still lack much of the freedom young
men enjoy. Girls are more dependent upon organized recreation
and special facilities. If there is not a Y.W.C.A. available with
its gymnasium and other athletic equipment, and if there are
no public tennis courts or swimming pools, out-of-school girls
are almost reduced to walking for exercise. They cannot very
well play on vacant lots. They have less opportunity for camping
than boys.

Girls have a special need for social recreation. They need it to
counteract the tendency to seclusion that has still not wholly
vanished from the feminine upbringing. Even more they need
it because it is the most important way of meeting young men
and forming friendships that eventually will result in marriage.
Yet girls can seldom take the initiative in seeking social recrea-

22 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

tion. If they are to go out with boys, they must wait to be asked.
If they go out with other girls, they damage their chances of
pairing off with boys. There are few places where they can go
alone and meet young men.

The creative and cultural life of girls has also suffered in
some ways from modern trends. Girls used to spend much of
their time learning household arts, but today small families and
apartment living have lessened the opportunity for practicing
these skills. Many young women grow up without knowing
how to cook or sew. The social pressure upon girls to be able
to exhibit some artistic accomplishment has also slackened.
It is no longer necessary for them to spend tedious hours learning
to play the piano or to do embroidery. It is undoubtedly a
gain to be relieved of the necessity of doing these things. But a
girl needs creative interests and hobbies as keenly as a boy does,
and she should now learn to pursue them because they can be
interesting in themselves.

What girls can do with their leisure in view of the many re-
strictions upon their activities has become a real problem. To
a greater extent even than boys they have cultivated the art of
just sitting around and waiting for something to happen. In
one survey of girls' interests, dancing, letter writing, and shopping
ranked first among the things they liked to do. They make liberal
use of the radio and go to the movies as often as they are able.
In the latter pastime, however, they are often handicapped by
lack of pocket money, since they usually cannot obtain odd jobs
as readily as boys. The recreational life of all young people
needs to be improved in many respects, but the half of our youth
who are girls or young women deserve particular consideration.

THE OLDER ADOLESCENT

Youth from 16 to 21 are stranded between the recreation pro-
grams of school and community. In the American Youth Commis-
sion's Maryland study it was found that participation in organized
recreation drops sharply after 16, the most frequent school-
leaving age. This is an indication of the loss in recreational
opportunity that must be felt by the out-of-school-but-not-yet-

RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH 23

adult young person. Delinquency rates and what we know of
the psychology of the individual both show the period from 16
on to adulthood to be a most critical one.

There is an urgent need for more educational and recreational
programs designed for the older adolescent. He is neither fish
nor fowl so far as the community is concerned. Schools and
nonschool community organizations are each likely to think the
other responsible for the youth of this age. Not even the private
agencies are very successful with youth above 16. Only a rela-
tively small part of the membership of most national organizations
for young people is made up of persons between 16 and 21.

Several recent surveys of social agencies have criticized the
public recreation authorities for aiming their programs at the
adult (taxpayer) level and have at the same time criticized the
schools for not giving attention to the recreation needs of youth
beyond the compulsory school age. Nothing can possibly be
said against having well-developed leisure-time programs for
adults; these programs should not, however, be permitted to
operate to the exclusion of programs for youth, who will soon be
adults and taxpayers.

Youth of the late teens are the forgotten youth of the country.
Yet it is especially at this period that the kinds of recreation con-
tributing most to the development of individuality assume their
maximum importance. Youth of this age have a keen need for
social recreation and wholesome opportunities to mix with
members of the opposite sex. They need discussion groups and
youth forums. They need to develop hobbies that will last
throughout adulthood. When youth leave school there is gen-
erally an abrupt stop to many of the recreational activities in-
volving the use of expensive equipment and careful organization.
They are thrown back upon a leisure life of reading, attending
movies, listening to the radio, and being spectators at athletic
events. They need to learn new types of sports that require few
participants and only simple equipment, such as badminton,
skating, and volleyball. They need to learn other satisfying
ways of passing leisure time, not involving strenuous physical
exertion.

24 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

When a list of the activities youth want is compared with a
list of those they engage in, it is nearly always found that such
things as playing a musical instrument, working at handicrafts,
and playing "quiet" games all move up five to ten places in rank.
These are activities that have a high carry-over value. The
school may well assume a major responsibility for making young
people familiar with them. If Elbert Hubbard's statement,
"Boys are the only things in the world out of which men are
made," ever needed quoting it is with reference to late adoles-
cence. A young person is here at the transition stage where he
is neither child nor man but will revert to one or grow into the
other.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

BELL, HOWARD M. Youth 'Tell 'Their Story. Washington: American Council on Educa-
tion, 1939. 273 pp.

BOWERS, ETHEL. Recreation for Women and Girls. New York: A. S. Barnes and Co.,
1934. 425 pp.

DAVIS, ALLISON, and JOHN DOLLARD. Children of Bondage: The Personality Development
of Negro Touth in the Urban South. Washington: American Council on Education,
1940. 299pp.

ECKERT, RUTH, and THOMAS O. MARSHALL. When Youth Leave School, Regents'
Inquiry Study. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1938. 360 pp.

McGiLL, NETTIE PAULINE, and ELLEN NATHALIE MATTHEWS. The Youth of New York
City. New York: Macmillan Co., 1940. 420 pp.

MELVIN, BRUCE L., and ELNA N. SMITH. Rural Youth: Their Situation and Prospects,
Research Monograph XV, Works Progress Administration. Washington: U. S. Govern-
ment Printing Office, 1938. 167 pp.

WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE ON CHILDREN IN A DEMOCRACY. Children in a Democracy:
General Report Adopted by the White House Conference on Children in a Democracy,
January 19, 1940. Children's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor. Washington: U. S.
Government Printing Office, 1940. 86 pp.

CHAPTER II

THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE IN
CULTURAL RECREATION

In addition to opportunities that are not now sufficiently avail-
able to them, youth need guidance in using some of the opportu-
nities they do have. It is particularly important that they be
assisted to make satisfactory use of the three great recreational
media that occupy so much of their leisure time — motion pictures,
the radio, and reading.

THE MOVIES

There are approximately 20,000 motion picture theaters in the
United States, and the influence they exert upon the mental habits
of a large part of our population is probably immense. Upwards
of 60,000,000 people attend motion pictures each week, and sample
studies suggest that nearly a fourth of them may be between the
ages of 16 and 24. This means that youth average about one
attendance at a motion picture weekly. From surveys we know
that the majority of city youth go twice a week. Movies are
undoubtedly one of the most popular forms of recreation with
youth.

The problems raised by the attraction motion pictures have for
young people are exceptionally difficult. The least that can be
said against frequent attendance is that it uses up time and money
which might usually be made to earn greater recreational divi-
dends if spent in other ways. Merely on a basis of leisure hours
consumed, the movies are expensive; and too often the quality
of the recreation they offer does not justify this expense.

Entertainment has its uses, and no one would wish to deny it a
reasonable place in the leisure of all persons. However, young
people probably have less need for entertainment pure and simple

26 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

than adults do. It is particularly desirable that they should
engage in leisure-time pursuits that will expand their interests
and develop their personalities. There is little to be gained in
these directions from the average motion picture. One young
man in the American Youth Commission's Maryland study said
to the interviewer: "A movie is something to get your mind off
things . . . something you don't have to think about and which
you don't think much about afterward."

The criticism is frequently made of motion pictures that they
fail to do a good job even within the restricted field of their
specialty — entertainment. The results of the Motion Picture
Research Council's study of 1938 indicate that only slightly
better than one out of five films is suitable for children. It may
be supposed that youth do not need to be so carefully shielded as
children. Yet the adolescent and even the young person of a
more advanced age is still very impressionable. He is not at-
tracted by what interests a child most keenly, but in the things
that are uppermost in his own mind he is hardly less readily
influenced.

Statements from youth themselves suggest that films may easily
have an unfavorable effect. One young person is reported as
saying: "The movies have made me dislike restraint of any kind.
They have also made me dislike work." Another youth is more
explicit about the reasons for his discontent. "Fine clothes, cars.
Poor people want these things too and they ain't got them.
Then it's soon over and you come out on the street and it's the
same old thing for you." Such comments suggest that even
quite unobjectionable topics may be presented in ways that will
raise unexpected problems for young people.

It is probably in the love-story type of film that the movies
appear at their worst. We are all familiar with the modest
superlatives in which each season's crop of romantic films is
advertised as more breath-taking, heart-rending, and soul-search-
ing than the last. If these pictures came anywhere near their
descriptions, young people ought not to be allowed to see them.
The effect of the promised emotional debauches could not fail to
be harmful. But in fact we know that they turn out to be a great
deal less exceptional than the claims made for them.

THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE 27

The real danger in motion pictures is not that they will lead a
young person into immorality or crime but that they may give
him warped values and false impressions of life. Moviegoers are
encouraged to form naive conceptions of love and exaggerated
notions of the place of romance in the lives of ordinary people.
They are shown how to think and express themselves in stereo-
typed phrases, to reduce human relationships to a few stock
patterns to which they can respond along predetermined lines.
They are in danger of attaching excessive importance to the
trivial things in life and of never learning how to deal with or even
recognize the really important things. In a word, they run the
risk of coming to interpret life in terms of the movies.

It is difficult to say how far young people yield to these influ-
ences. There is evidence that they are well aware of the make-
believe nature of the ordinary Hollywood feature. Indeed the
skepticism they seem to have built up toward the commercial
film is a drawback to the use of the movies for educational pur-
poses. But constant repetition can hardly fail to have an effect,
and it is not likely that youth can avoid being unconsciously
influenced by movies simply through being aware of the unreal
character of much that the movies show them. There is abundant
evidence that motion pictures do have a great influence both on
youth and on other persons.

What can we do to shield youth from the effect that undis-
criminating attendance at motion pictures may have upon them ?
We shall not accomplish much simply by telling them to go less
frequently. Neither can we expect producers to make better
films simply because the shortcomings of those they now prepare
may have been pointed out to them. It is true that recent years
have seen a small but significant increase in films which contrive
entertainment of the first rank out of nothing more promising
than the imparting of information (the "documentary" film) and
also a few films having what is termed "social significance." But
these developments have been long overdue, and we can hardly
expect them to become permanent and substantial characteristics
of the film world while it remains profitable to fob off the public
with cheap excitement and gaudy spectacles.

If a community feels that its young people spend too much time

28 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

at the movies, the obvious remedy is to provide other forms of
recreation that have equal or greater attraction and are better
suited to the leisure needs of youth. This, however, is no full
or final solution to the problem. Motion pictures are with us to
stay, and they are likely always to be among the principal recrea-
tional interests of youth. Moreover, the movies are not in-
herently bad. Particular films may be judged to be unsatis-
factory as a way of spending time, and the proportion of such
films offered for exhibition may seem high. But it need not re-
main so. The community must accept the fact that its young
people will continue to see movies and turn its attention to im-
proving that influential part of their environment provided by
films.

There are several lines along which progress can be made. One
is to organize community support for "good movies" for youth.
It rather frequently occurs that films of acknowledged cultural
merit turn out to be box-office failures. This fact naturally tends
to make producers reluctant to depart from the tested and proved
formulas for money-making films. Nothing would be more
likely to encourage an experimental attitude on their part than
knowledge that local communities are prepared to give active
support to films that deserve encouragement.

Local endorsement of good movies, as they are produced and
as they are exhibited in local theaters, can be arranged through
all sorts of community agencies. The church, the library, the
school, welfare agencies, young people's organizations, and other
youth-serving groups can all join in common action. In many
communities, neighborhood theaters have set aside Friday and
Saturday for children and youth. Programs on such days vary
considerably but frequently do not rise above the "western" film.
This type, though probably harmless, has little of value to offer
youngsters. With cooperation between community organizations
and theater managers it should be possible to work out a movie
diet for "youth days" in which the kinds of films the community
believes good for its young people would be given in increasing
doses. Youth do not like preaching, and programs intended to
appeal to them must be kept at a high entertainment level. But

THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE 29

some films have filled the double requirement of popularity and
inherent value. If difficulty is found in keeping supplied from
current productions, there could be a revival of older classics
that youth have not seen.

A second course of action is to increase the opportunities for
seeing noncommercial films. Over 10,000 schools have sound
projectors, and there are 15,000 silent projectors in the classrooms
of the country. Combined, these are more than equal to the
number of commercial theaters. Many private organizations
concerned with the leisure of youth are also equipped to show
films. If all these agencies were willing and able to make full
use of their motion picture equipment there would be created a
powerful means of turning youth's enormous interest in the
movies into more wholesome paths. Such noncommercial activ-
ity would not usually compete with the established picture
theaters in the nature of the films exhibited, but it would be in
direct competition with them for the leisure time of the young
person — and very properly.

There is now a larger accumulation of acceptable motion picture
material for educational purposes than is realized by many who
might wish to use it. The Motion Picture Project of the Ameri-
can Council on Education reports that at least 3,500 films of good
caliber are available for use in 16-mm. projectors and that at least
500 are excellent both in technical quality and educational char-
acter. Over 100 different agencies distribute these films to
schools, colleges, and community groups. Some 500 short com-
mercial films of educational value have been made available by
Hollywood producers for showing in schools. Interesting work
is being done by the Commission on Human Relations of the
Progressive Education Association in editing commercial feature
pictures for school use.

The use of selected films in schools is not only a good educa-
tional technique, it also serves the valuable purpose of accustom-
ing young people to good films in other than entertainment forms.
Indeed, there are experimental data to indicate that the wise use
of educational films in school tends to produce discrimination
toward movies shown in the theater. In the development of an

30 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

educational film service the aims and methods of education and
recreation draw so closely together that they practically merge.

While we are making films of educational and cultural value
more easily available to young people we might also try to bring
them an occasional flesh-and-blood theatrical performance.
There are many boys and girls who have never seen a play put on
with professional actors. Most young people have never been
to an opera. If every now and then they could have the experi-
ence of attending firsthand productions of worth-while works
competently performed it might take the edge off their appetite
for movies. It would certainly give them a better background for
their movie going. The commercial road show, for what it was
worth, has almost vanished from the American scene. The cost
of nonprofit professional performances is usually prohibitive.
Nevertheless, promising experiments have been undertaken in
this direction.

The accomplishments of the nonprofit organization known as
Junior Programs, Inc., are particularly worthy of study. This
institution is bringing annually to half a million school children
in a hundred towns throughout the nation the chance of seeing
real plays and real operas, performed by professional actors, at an
admission fee of ten to twenty-five cents. It began with a group
of mothers who wanted to provide their children with better
cultural opportunities than the movies or the radio offered. It
has developed into a booking and producing agency that signs up
opera singers, ballet dancers, and actors. It books and endorses
marionette shows, scientific lectures, educational films, and
symphony orchestras. These it will send into local communities
at the cost of production.

The performances arranged by Junior Programs are usually
given in the school auditorium and sponsored by the Parent-
Teacher Association, the college women's club, the Junior League,
or any of some fifty other community and civic organizations.
An unusual feature is that school correlation work is supplied
with all productions. This is incorporated into the school cur-
riculum and has distinct educational value. The cost of per-
formances runs from $150 to $300 for an opera, play, or ballet,

THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE 31

and considerably less for other attractions. Children and young
people seem to derive intense satisfaction from the performances.
If more communities would avail themselves of services of this
kind, a real step would be taken toward overcoming the cultural
poverty that drives young people to the motion picture theater
as their chief form of amusement.

A third line that the community may profitably follow to
encourage youth to turn their interest in movies to advantage is
to develop in them the ability to make well-informed judgments
on the pictures they see. There is reason to believe that consid-
erable latent dissatisfaction exists among youth with the fare
they ordinarily receive in the motion picture theater. But they
have not the critical equipment to focus their discontent and use
it to guide their movie going. The teaching of motion picture
discrimination should be recognized as an important need of
youth, and specific provision should be made for it in every second-
ary school.

By analysis and class discussion it is possible to put young
people beyond the influence of the Hollywood publicity agent.
They can be brought to understand that the least important
things about a picture are the amount it cost and the number of
big-name actors who appear in it. They can learn to judge a film
on its merits — according to its story, its acting, and especially its
direction. They can be taught to compare it with life when it
invites comparison and to decide whether they ought to accept it
at face value. When they have learned these things they will be
able to enjoy the good parts of any picture and ignore its mediocre
aspects. The danger of uncritical movie viewing will then have
been largely overcome. There is no reason why this process
should impair the spontaneous enjoyment which is a character-
istic of recreation.

In recent years motion picture appreciation has become a fairly
common subject of instruction in high schools, where it is often
introduced informally in the classes on literature. It is the
opinion of those who have studied this movement that there is
need for a reconsideration of its aims and a revision of the ways
and means by which motion picture appreciation is to be devel-

32 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

oped. Instruction of the type so far given seems to have suc-
ceeded in getting young people to use the movie reviews in
newspapers and magazines as guides for their selection of movies,
but it does not appear to have succeeded in developing a set of
criteria by which youth can satisfactorily appraise movies for
themselves. This is probably because such standards have not
yet been clearly formulated either by the movie producers or by
the critics.

The motion picture appreciation movement, left to steer its
own course in uncharted waters, has developed two undesirable
tendencies. One is a type of criticism that may be characterized
as propaganda analysis applied to movies. Its disadvantage is
that it is likely to descend to callous skepticism and produce social
allergies rather than social sensitivity. The other tendency is
to use the course to advertise the local movie theater. This is
done by supplying schools with "study guides" on films currently
showing or about to be shown. They are furnished at little or
no cost and are generally worth no more than is asked for them.
There is a real need for a re-examination of the processes by which
the schools can best encourage in young people a healthy taste
for good motion pictures.

THE RADIO

Few ways of spending time occupy more of young people's
leisure than the radio. In the average home the radio is turned
on five hours daily. The Regents' Inquiry reported that high
school youth in New York State listen to it nearly two hours a
day, and other studies agree with this finding. They let the radio
run while they get their lessons; they play it when they have their
"dates"; it stays on during mealtime; there is a radio in the family
car; there is one in the corner drugstore. There are more radios
than telephones: 30,000,000 homes have them. Few places
where young people spend their leisure are beyond reach of the
loudspeaker.

The radio affords numerous ways of increasing the satisfaction
a young person can get from his spare time. As a means of keep-
ing abreast of current events it offers up-to-the-minute news and —

THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE 33

at least in the foreign field — more intelligent commentary than
many daily papers provide. Through forums, addresses, and
interviews it presents all (or nearly all) sides of public questions
and endows them with the listener-attracting power of prominent
names. By means of special features it encourages an interest
in and understanding of the work of the world, bringing before
the microphone persons engaged in supplying services about which
the public would otherwise seldom obtain firsthand information.

There is much good music to be heard over the radio, some of
it by the best artists. Radio plays are frequent, and when cast
and produced with care they can provide as genuine a dramatic
experience as could be desired. The radio performs a legitimate
amusement function through its variety shows, the best of which
are done with high competence. Various other amusement tech-
niques bring pleasure to many people, particularly the amateur
hours and "quiz" programs currently so much in favor. The
popular music that floods the air channels is much appreciated
by young people because they can use it for dancing. Some of it
may be considered to deserve a sympathetic hearing in its own
right, and most of it is acceptable for purposes of relaxation or
as a background for social activities or other domestic pursuits.

Although radio thus contributes in many ways to the enjoy-
ment of leisure, one cannot say that its leisure possibilities have
been adequately developed or even that its present offerings are
fully utilized. No particular broadcasting policy or set of policies
could satisfy everyone. But there are aspects of the radio that
repel many people accustomed to exercise discrimination in occu-
pying their leisure hours. Perhaps the most general complaint
is against the triviality of so much of what is sent out over the air.
It is true that programs must be very largely conditioned by the
interests and tastes of the public. But radio has tremendous
potentialities for diversifying interests and raising tastes. It
must be a source of keen regret that these potentialities have not
been realized to a greater degree.

If the radio is used discriminatingly, the more trivial programs
can be avoided. But it is a matter of common observation that
many people, and particularly young people, do not resort to the

34 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

radio to hear preselected programs but turn it on at random and
passively accept what it brings them. It thus comes about that
day by day the radio contributes an element to the environment
of youth that may well be having the effect of dulling their appe-
tite for better things.

There are many who believe that the public in general, and
youth in particular, have a greater capacity for appreciation
than they are credited with by the persons who prepare radio
programs. They believe it to have been demonstrated that the
public will recognize intelligently presented programs of superior
merit if they are given sufficient opportunity. The real danger
is probably not that programs will go over the heads of listeners
but that they will perpetuate in adults the mental immaturity
characteristic of the 13-year-olds at whom they so often seem
to aim.

There are people who believe that the commercial sponsorship
of broadcasting is a serious obstacle to exploiting the educational
and cultural possibilities of radio. Programs that would be
enjoyed by many are often given at inconvenient hours simply
because they cannot obtain a commercial sponsor. Ours is the
only great nation in the world that allows the best listening hours
of the day to be occupied by private agencies seeking to sell
things to the public. Among unsponsored programs of cultural
value, the few that are allotted good listening time tend to em-
phasize big-name artists. It is fairly clear that when such
programs are presented by the broadcasting companies it is less
from a wish to provide the public with good music or drama than
from a desire to gain a reputation as patrons of the arts. The
amount sometimes spent on a single concert by a top-rank or-
chestra and conductor would provide several broadcasts by less
widely publicized performers so little inferior that not one listener
in a hundred could tell the difference.

Commercially sponsored programs in general are distasteful
to many people because of the excessive advertising matter they
contain. And as applied to such things as music and drama,
commerical sponsorship has an added objection. It invites the
the public to acquiesce in what many feel to be a degrading con-

THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE 35

ception of the place of culture. It might be supposed that in a
rich and enlightened country such as ours the aesthetic experi-
ences that the radio can bring would be provided as the privilege
of free citizens. Instead, they" come most often as favors from
commercial interests, given in advance for the good will expected
in return. They are reduced to the status of window-dressing.
This hardly seems the best training in values for young people
of a democratic society.

It is desirable that the defects of radio should be known and
discussed. Some part of them, at least, can be attributed to the
fact that the broadcasting industry has grown rapidly and is
still relatively new. However, it would be unrealistic to suppose
that we are likely soon to see basic changes of a degree and extent
that would remove the handicaps now limiting the usefulness of
radio for the enrichment of leisure. The problem facing persons
concerned with the welfare of youth, therefore, is this: Given a
vast and powerful instrument for occupying leisure, and realizing
that it does not always operate in the best interests of youth,
what is it practical to do to improve the situation? The answer
that will be suggested is: Teach youth to make better use of
what good programs the radio does afford. Some programs can
be recommended with little reservation, and even among those
that are mediocre or worse, good features can often be found.

The process of helping young people discover what an intelli-
gent listener should expect of his radio and where to look for
worth-while programs is an activity appropriate to the school.
More than 300 colleges and universities are now giving courses
in the preparation of radio programs, and at least one instructor
who conducts such a course has said that its chief value is in
teaching his students how to judge the programs they hear.
There seems to be no reason (aside from the already crowded
curriculum) why instruction in how to be a good radio listener
should not be widely offered in high schools, either alone or in
connection with other subjects. A combination course in radio
and motion picture discrimination might be an ideal arrangement.
The school has always recognized its responsibility for advising
young people on their reading. Why should it not accept a

36 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

similar responsibility for the time they spend within earshot of
the loudspeaker? There are few matters in which guidance
would be of more practical value.

It is worth while to distinguish between radio programs.
The broadest useful distinction that can be made is between
those classified by the broadcasters as "educational and cultural"
and the rest. Admitting that great strides can be made in
improving the quality of educational broadcasts, it is still true
that the programs which set out to be educational or cultural
should be a larger element in a wholesome radio diet than any of
the other varieties. They are often not so palatable, but some
are on subjects of such intrinsic interest that any intelligent youth
would find it hard to be bored by them.

The proportion of educational programs is small, but the
number is probably larger than is generally realized. A con-
siderable variety of public and semipublic organizations present
educational programs more or less regularly over the commercial
broadcasting stations. Universities, museums, libraries, women's
clubs, parent-teacher associations, health agencies — all have
messages for the public. Moreover, educational broadcasting
is not wholly dependent on commercial facilities. Many uni-
versities have their own stations, and some stations belong to
states or municipalities. In all, there are thirty-eight publicly
owned stations. Twenty-six of these broadcast no programs of
a commercial nature, and the rest carry only a small amount of
advertising. The extension activities conducted over the radio
stations of state universities are likely to be particularly valuable,
and young people will be well advised to make the most of these
programs when they are available. Broadcasts by schools and
colleges are increasing rapidly, even among institutions that do
not have their own stations. Several years ago the United States
Office of Education reported that more than 700 local groups in
schools and colleges were producing educational programs.

Recent developments in radio have brought with them the
likelihood that the number of noncommercial stations will soon
be greatly increased. Frequency modulation broadcasting, now
apparently on the verge of rapid expansion, has a limited range—

THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE 37

usually no more than seventy-five to a hundred miles. To ob-
tain adequate coverage, broadcasting stations will have to be
multiplied many times. The Federal Communications Com-
mission has lately set aside for educational broadcasting "FM"
bands that will, it is estimated, enable 3,000 local stations to be
established. The cost of erecting and operating one of these
stations is reported to be moderate in comparison with present
facilities. Estimates are in some instances lower than $5,000.
Although the noncommercial development of these new air
channels may not rapidly increase the amount of educational
broadcasting available to the listener — because of the limited
carrying power of the new stations — it would greatly increase the
production of educational programs. This should provide a
much needed stimulus to the whole field of noncommercial
broadcasting.

There are said to be 17,000 different programs on the air
each day in the United States. If, as is estimated, 22 per cent
are educational, there would be 3,740 such programs broadcast
somewhere, sometime, every day. Naturally the majority of
these could not be received from any one particular location with
the average set, and many would be given at times when young
people are in school, at work, or otherwise engaged. But if
only one-half of one per cent were available to a young person,
he would have fifteen or twenty programs from which to select
his day's listening. This is not a bad working basis.

An analysis of the radio programs during one recent week
shows that there were to be heard on the air:

James Rowland Angell Robert M. Hutchins

Nicholas Murray Butler Thomas Mann

Stuart Chase Robert A. Millikan

John Dewey Franklin D. Roosevelt

Livingston Farrand Ray Lyman Wilbur

William Hard Matthew Woll

A broadcasting system that makes it possible to hear so many
distinguished persons in so brief a period is not wholly lacking in
opportunities for the discriminating use of leisure. If there has

38 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

been awakened in young people a desire to get the best out of the
radio, they will discover that the available resources are ap-
preciable.

Youth will not find it as easy to hear about educational pro-
grams as about commercial ones. The space given to radio news
by nearly all papers is absurdly small considering the important
place this service has come to occupy in our national life. Usually
only the names of programs are printed, and it is often impossible
to form any adequate idea of the content merely from the name.
Even this information is ordinarily available only on the day of
the broadcast. The more popular commercial programs have
built up substantial audiences, and this is also true of a few
recurrent educational programs. But the great majority of
educational broadcasts occur at irregular intervals and lack the
attracting power of big names. The consequence is that many
excellent programs are missed because information about them
is released too late to be widely disseminated or is buried in an
obscure announcement.

The broadcasting companies themselves must share with the
newspapers the responsibility for continuing this unfortunate
situation. If the press has been inclined to minimize the im-
portance of what it regards as a competing medium, the broad-
casters for their part have been reluctant to take the time and
trouble necessary to provide detailed, informative programs far
enough in advance to be really useful. The absence of such a
service handicaps millions of individual listeners. It also prevents
the schools from using the educational offerings of radio to the
extent that they should. Unless they are informed of the con-
tent of programs well ahead of time, it is usually impossible for
them to fit broadcasts in with schoolwork. There can be little
doubt that providing adequate advance information of programs
is essential to the operation of radio broadcasting in the "public
interest, convenience, and necessity" — the condition under which
the broadcasting companies hold the use of the air channels.

One device that might be more widely employed to offset
inadequate radio publicity, as well as to enhance in other ways
the educational values to be obtained from broadcasting, is the
listening group. The urge to organize for mutual benefit is a

THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE 39

prominent feature of present-day life, and it has not passed the
radio listener by. Recently it has manifested itself in the forma-
tion of "I-am-not-listening" clubs. These consist of persons
dissatisfied with the quality of many radio programs and particu-
larly with the admittedly puerile "family" serials designed to
hold the housewife's attention during the afternoon hours.
These people associated themselves for the purpose of not listen-
ing to bad programs. There are also advantages to be gained
through forming associations for the purpose of listening to good
programs.

A listening group will be likely to identify more worth-while
broadcasts than one person acting only on his own information.
The enthusiasm of a common enterprise should stimulate effort
and heighten enjoyment. Many educational programs are of a
kind that readily give rise to discussion; a listening group will
be able to exploit this characteristic to the benefit of its members.
Furthermore, the knowledge that a regular clientele for good
programs is being built up should be an incentive to the broad-
casters to provide more of the kind of programs this audience
desires. They should also be more readily disposed to issue
program guides, reading lists, and other supplementary matters
that will assist in developing interests the broadcasts may have
aroused.

Listening groups are already fairly numerous and seem to be
increasing rapidly. A recent study by the American Association
of Adult Education estimated that there are approximately 15,000
formally organized radio listening groups in the United States
and that their total membership is between 300,000 and 450,000.
Their preference appears to be for programs dealing with public
questions or family problems. These are fields in which young
people have a developing interest, and they might well be en-
couraged to come together for the purpose of cultivating this
interest with such assistance as the radio provides.

The problem that the radio poses for youth resembles many of
the other problems they face. Large parts of it are beyond the
control of young people themselves, but there are things they
can do to make the best of a bad situation, and they deserve to
be helped to do what they can.

40 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

RECREATIONAL READING

Young people, those out of school as well as those in school,
spend a large part of their leisure in reading. This fact offers
an exceptional opportunity for encouraging a valuable form of
recreation. Though reading resembles the motion picture and
the radio in its solitary nature, its substance can be controlled by
the individual to a much greater extent. And though solitary, it
need not be passive; indeed intelligent reading never is.

A great deal of what youth read is fiction. In St. Louis, a
record kept of the books borrowed by young people in their
twenties from public libraries and from friends showed two out
of three to be fiction. In the American Youth Commission's
Dallas study three-fifths of the library books borrowed by youth
were found to be fiction. In the study conducted by the Com-
mission in Muncie, Indiana, the proportion of fiction books among
all the books read by the groups of youth surveyed varied from
65 to 80 per cent. Because youth show such a preference for
fiction, especially fiction in which adventure or romance is the
chief attraction, their recreational reading is frequently con-
demned. It is said to be a flight from reality, a means of tem-
porary escape from the unpalatable facts of everyday living.

Undoubtedly young people are attracted by reading that takes
them out of themselves, and it is clear that overindulgence in
this, as in any other form of activity, may have undesirable
effects. However, it can be argued that most adolescents have
a real need for "escape." They need to escape from the in-
adequacy of their restricted environments. In spite of the fact
that there has grown up an unfavorable implication around this
word, everyone at some period of life needs an escape of some
sort. Hobbies are often escapes. The adolescent feels a natural
urge to expand the horizon of his experience. It is not more
knowledge that he wants so much as more and different sensations.
Reading gives him these vicariously and gives them to him more
quickly and in a more concentrated form than he could come by
them in actual life.

What really is wrong with the greater part of the fiction youth
read is not that it provides an escape, but that it provides a poor

THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE 41

quality of escape. There can, of course, be no objection to fiction
as such. Good fiction besides being a pleasure to read enlarges
one's mental horizon and affords insight into human nature;
instead of weakening the ability to face reality, it is an aid to
acquiring a broader and quicker acquaintance with reality
than most youth could get in any other way. However, it is
well recognized that much of the great volume of fiction published
today has slight value and serves principally to while away time.
An analysis of the fiction books borrowed by young people of
St. Louis from public libraries and friends reports only one in
three as "good." In the American Youth Commission's Muncie
study only 7 per cent of the fiction books read by youth were
rated as "superior"; 48 per cent were described as "medium"
and 45 per cent as of inferior quality. The Regents' Inquiry in
New York State estimated that nearly half of the fiction read
by recent high school graduates, and a larger portion of that
read by nongraduates, "was to be classified as inferior and most
of the rest as only mediocre."

A further indication that young people's recreational reading
is not as profitable as it might be is the fact that they read rela-
tively few books. In 1935 an inquiry among the students of the
seventy-two emergency junior colleges in Ohio showed that they
had read an average of two and a half books during the previous
year. In Houston a fourth of the out-of-school youth had read
no books during the previous year, and an additional fifth were
unable to give any answer to the question as to which were the
most interesting books they had read in that time. Over two-
fifths of out-of-school rural youth in an Iowa study had read no
book during the previous year.

Much the greater part of youth's reading matter consists of
periodicals. In a large study of high school graduates it was found
that over four-fifths read magazines regularly. The St. Louis
investigation of the reading of young adults found that more than
three-fourths of all their reading matter from any source was
magazines. Though from time to time a considerable amount of
worth-while material appears in periodical form, magazines also
offer unequaled opportunities for useless reading. An interest

42 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

in the better class of periodical literature is seldom kept alive
apart from an even greater interest in good books. We should
hardly expect to find that young people who have slight interest
in books make intelligent use of periodicals.

The kinds of magazines most popular among youth are known
from numerous studies. They belong almost entirely to the class
that may be described as "home" magazines. These include
the half-dozen organs with the largest national circulation, whose
contents are principally short stories, success articles, partisan
polemics, flippant commentaries on current events, and pictures.
It is some comfort to learn that the "pulp" periodical — the
film star, snappy story, thriller type of magazine — seems to have
less following among youth than is often pessimistically suggested.
But that the staple brain food of high school graduates should be
provided by our mass circulation magazines is a sad reflection
on the standards of taste and the critical faculties with which
these young people are turned out into the world. The status
of the recreational reading of youth can be summed up by the
assertion that three-fourths of their reading matter is magazines
and three- fourths of what they read in magazines serves only to
kill time.

The hopeful element in this situation is that young people
themselves are not satisfied with their reading. Studies com-
paring the things youth do in their leisure with the things they
would like to do always show that they read more than they want
to. In one survey of rural youth, reading dropped from first
place among things actually done to fifth place among activities
desired. What these particular young people wanted to do more
than anything else was to learn to play some musical instrument.
In another rural survey the number of youth who checked reading
as a hobby was barely half the number who checked it as a means
of spending time.

The problem of too much reading being done from simple
boredom can partly be met by providing forms of recreation that
will be more interesting to youth not studiously inclined. How-
ever, almost any young person who reads at all is capable of
having his tastes developed and turned to advantage. Young

THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE 43

people are willing to read, and this is an asset that should be
exploited to the full. With a little encouragement and assistance,
curiosity can be aroused in many subjects. Youth would be glad
to learn about the books written in the fields of their own half-
awakened interests and hobbies — books they would find fascinat-
ing if only they were introduced to them. The need for guidance
of this kind is tremendous. In a survey of 10,000 New Jersey
youth between 16 and 24 an attempt was made to discover their
intellectual interests by asking the question, "What would you
like to study if you had an opportunity ?" The answers were
very revealing, but in a different way from what had been ex-
pected. Most of the young people either made no response or
else told what occupation they would like to prepare to enter.
Very few of them seemed ever to have thought of studying any-
thing simply for the pleasure to be had from learning.

Young people ought also to be assisted to become better ac-
quainted with good literature. If more schools taught literary
courses for the enjoyment they can give, rather than as plots to
be dissected and authors' lives to be memorized, the problem of
time wasted on third- and fourth-rate fiction would almost solve
itself. The school should do a better job of habituating youth
to using the library for pleasure. They must be helped to dis-
cover that books can be fun and the library something more than
a source of instruction.

CONCLUSIONS

Youth have a vital need for recreation. It is a need that for
the most part is still unmet. The problem of how to bring a
satisfactory leisure life to young people is so complex that no
single approach can be expected to succeed. It must be at-
tacked from many angles. The most important of these have
been reviewed in the last two chapters: more adequate oppor-
tunity for essential types of leisure needed by all youth, guidance
in cultural recreation, and provision of leisure opportunities of
types suited to overcome the particular handicaps of certain
youth groups who are notably lacking in recreational advantages.

44 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

If we are to assist young people to overcome the difficulties
that stand in the way of worth-while use of leisure, these specific
recreational needs must be kept clearly in mind. Organized
activity sometimes has a tendency to become a goal in itself.
We can ill afford to waste effort through allowing our objectives
to become obscured. The task before us will require great
energy and continuous attention. Though we must not expect
to make progress in all directions at once, one or more avenues
will always be open, even if others appear temporarily blocked.
Eventually all can be made to yield.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION. Libraries and Adult Education. New York: Mac-

millan Co., 1926. 284 pp.
CHARTERS, W. W. (editor). Motion Pictures and Touth, Payne Fund Studies. New

York: Macmillan Co., 1933. 66 pp.
The Motion Picture in Education: Its Status and Its Needs. Washington: American

Council on Education, 1937. 24 pp.
"The Radio in Education," Phi Delta Kappany XXI (March 1939), entire number.

CHAPTER III

RECREATION IN THE MODERN

WORLD

ALTHOUGH at all periods of history there have been
persons who appreciated the true value of recreation, popular
opinion has frequently been lacking in sympathy toward those
who employ leisure for other than strictly utilitarian purposes.
This has been true of our own country as well as of others. It
has not always been considered respectable for American youth
to have spare time or to use it as they please. The Methodist
Discipline of 1792, outlining the policy of Cokesbury College
toward leisure, says:

We prohibit play in the strongest terms. . . . The students shall rise
at five o'clock . . . summer and winter. . . . Their recreation shall be
gardening, walking, riding, and bathing without doors, and the car-
penter's, joiner's, and cabinet-maker's bench within doors. ... A person
skilled in gardening shall be appointed to overlook the students . . .
in this recreation. ... A master shall always be present at the time of
bathing. Only one shall bathe at a time and no one shall remain in
the water above a minute. No student shall be allowed to bathe in
the river. . . .The students shall be indulged nothing that the world
calls play. Let this rule be observed with the strictest nicety; for those
who play when they are young will play when they are old.1

If the elders who imposed these Spartan regulations could
survey the present-day scene, they would be astonished at the
extent to which play is tolerated and actually encouraged. They

1 Youth Leaders Digest, I (December 1938), p. 195.

46 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

would find the idea generally accepted that it is normal for people
to wish to relax from their usual labors and to pursue various
activities for which their ordinary occupations offer no scope.
They would discover, no doubt with dismay, that the cultivation
of leisure interests is not only looked upon as harmless but is
considered to have definite values to the individual and to society.
They would find these values so highly esteemed that supplying
the means of recreation and guidance in their use has become an
accepted function of all levels of government. It is also under-
taken by a great variety of private agencies, such as churches,
as well as by commercial enterprise. In 1930 the people of this
nation spent $10,000,000,000, or one-eighth of their income, for
recreation. In short, the whole public attitude toward the use
of leisure is no longer what it used to be, and the new attitude
has fostered a large and constantly increasing volume of activi-
ties, both public and private. We may survey briefly the
extent and character of these activities.

THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN RECREATION

Provision at public expense of municipal recreation facilities
is a modern development which at first centered around parks
and playgrounds. Boston is credited with beginning the public
recreation movement about fifty-five years ago, although New
York City had purchased the now famous Central Park for public
purposes as early as 1853. In the intervening half to three-
quarters of a century municipal recreation has grown to large
proportions. The provision of facilities has gone far beyond
playgrounds for children and parks to be quietly enjoyed by
adults. A well-developed municipal recreation program now
offers to persons of all ages the principal means of taking part in
a variety of games, sports, and other more or less strenuous
pastimes, as well as facilities for social intercourse and for ac-
quiring and practicing skills in the arts and crafts. Tennis
courts, swimming pools, beaches, golf links, ski runs, tobogganing
slides, bowling greens, and community centers with gymnasiums,
social halls, and craft rooms are all now frequently provided by

RECREATION IN THE MODERN WORLD 47

urban communities of some size. Such cities are making a real
effort to encourage a better use of leisure time among their
citizens.

There are now approximately 1,300 communities having public
recreation programs conducted by agencies that report to the
National Recreation Association.2 Few as these are in relation
to the need, they have resulted in a substantial increase within
recent years in the resources available to the public. The number
of municipal recreation buildings quadrupled in the period
1925-35. In addition to emergency recreation workers, there
were 24,000 municipally paid part- and full-time recreation
workers in 1938, an increase of more than 25 per cent since 1935.
In a number of instances budgets for recreation amount to several
hundred thousand dollars a year. Minneapolis, a medium-sized
city of half a million population, had, for example, a public
recreation budget of $310,669 in 1938 and more than 6,000,000
participations in municipal recreation activities. Large cities,
such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, have park and
recreation budgets (combined) of several million dollars each.
In 1938 a total of over $60,000,000 in local and federal funds
was spent for recreation in communities having municipally
supported programs.

Among local government agencies not primarily concerned
with the use of leisure, the public schools have made an appreci-
able contribution to the development of public recreation. Al-
though most educators have been so occupied with the other
problems of their own rapidly growing profession that they have
not fully realized the extent to which recreation and education
serve the same end, there have been notable exceptions. Certain
school leaders hold a position of considerable historical importance
in the expansion of public recreation, and in some places the
schools have accepted and are discharging a large measure of

2 Although for simplicity these programs are here referred to as municipally conducted,
actually 14 per cent are conducted by private agencies. A further 18 per cent are con-
ducted by the public schools. The reader should also note that communities reporting to
the National Recreation Association do not include those in which only WPA recreation
programs are in operation. The WPA conducts recreation programs in some 7,000 com-
munities; less than 1,000 of these have programs of public recreation maintained wholly
by local support.

48 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

responsibility for the development of a community recreation
program. As a whole, the educational profession is beginning to
throw off its shackles of isolation and formalism and is becoming
an important factor in encouraging better and more extensive
use of leisure time both among young people and among adults.
Schools must assume a fundamental responsibility for the recrea-
tion of the future.

At the state level of organization we find that since 1933 twenty-
four states have established agencies to acquire and administer
public parks, bringing the total number of states having such
agencies to forty-seven. The combined operating budgets of
these new state parks amounted to almost a million dollars in
1937-38. Nearly all of the states have created state planning
boards, and at least half of these bodies are giving consideration
to recreation needs. Over half of the states have passed en-
abling acts to encourage cities, counties, or school units to use
public money for recreation purposes.

During the five years from 1932 to 1937 the federal government
is estimated to have spent in the neighborhood of $1,500,000,000
in constructing and improving permanent recreation facilities.
One federal agency alone, the Work Projects Administration, in
the last two years of this period built 10,000 new recreation units
in rural and urban areas, improved 9,000 existing units, and
supplied 35,000 recreation workers annually to local communi-
ties. The Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Youth
Administration have also carried out numerous work projects
involving the construction of recreational facilities. In 1938
the federal government spent $31,000,000 from emergency funds
to supplement recreation services and facilities in municipalities
having their own programs.

The oldest and best established recreational function performed
by the federal government — the acquisition and preservation of
lands having present or potential recreational value — has pro-
gressed over half a century to the point where 15,000,000 acres of
park land and ten times that area of forests have been acquired.
Within quite recent years the task of securing maximum recrea-
tional use of these lands has come to be accepted as an objective

RECREATION IN THE MODERN WORLD 49

paralleling their conservation. The federal government is now
undertaking, through its National Park Service, an extensive
survey of the means to be utilized in making both state and
national recreation areas available to a larger part of the public.

Paralleling, and indeed preceding, the development of recrea-
tion through public agencies has been the equally significant
activity of private organizations. The various networks of com-
munity agencies designed to further the welfare of young people
by cultivating moral and spiritual values — the Scouting organiza-
tions, the young people's Christian associations, the boys' clubs,
and so on — have all leaned strongly upon recreational activities
to hold the interest of young people and develop in them the
qualities they wish to promote. These social, religious, and
educational agencies, supported by private contributions, have
pioneered in many phases of recreation. They have also made
the public more aware of recreation needs and have given thous-
ands of individuals the opportunity to participate in the work
being done to meet these needs. "Vacation schools" for in-
formal summer study and play were begun by churches and wel-
fare agencies some time before public recreation got under way.
The camping movement, which now enrolls hundreds of thousands
of children and youth each summer in public and private camps,
originated in the early interest of private agencies in the under-
privileged city child. Settlement houses have long provided
playgrounds and indoor programs.

Among private agencies of more than local scope that have
been active in forwarding the 'cause of recreation, the most
prominent is the National Recreation Association. Founded
some thirty years ago, this organization has been the principal
coordinating influence in the development at the community
level of nonprofit activities for guiding and satisfying leisure
interests. The association is supported by private contributions.
It has a large field staff that devotes its efforts to assisting all
agencies working in the field. The American Camping Asso-
ciation performs similar functions for a specialized and increas-
ingly popular branch of recreation. The American Association
for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation is concerned with

50 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

promoting certain leisure activities in the school, particularly
those connected with sport and physical education. The Ameri-
can Youth Commission's handbook of youth-serving agencies3
lists thirty-seven national, nongovernmental organizations as
having a substantial interest in promoting recreation for youth.
Discussion of recreation has kept pace with expanding facili-
ties. Increased attention is devoted to it by newspapers, maga-
zines, and the radio. Hundreds of pamphlets and books on
particular recreational skills or activities have appeared, and
there has been a thin but vigorous stream of critical comment
endeavoring to interpret the place of recreation in our national
life.4 Among such commentaries, special mention should be
made of Eduard C. Lindeman's Leisure — A National Issue:
Planning for the Leisure of a Democratic People,* which may be re-
garded as the epitome, if not the culmination, of a decade of
social thinking in this field. Colleges and universities not only
continue to train students for service in recreation work but are
also beginning to give attention to the social significance of
leisure. There is a growing body of private research concerned
with recreational matters. A recently published and highly
condensed summary of such research runs to forty-six pages
and covers more than 300 items.6

THE PLACE OF COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE IN
THE RECREATIONAL SCENE

To complete this brief view of the extent and character of the
resources that now exist for ministering to the leisure needs of the
population, a word must be said about commercial recreation.
Paralleling the growth of public recreation there has been an
enormous expansion of recreational services developed by private

8 M. M. Chambers, Youth-Serving Organizations: National Nongovernmental Associa-
tions (Washington: American Council on Education, 1941).

4 Annotated references to 200 recreation publications appearing largely between 1933
and 1938 are included in: Louise Arnold Menefee and M. M. Chambers, American
Youth: An Annotated Bibliography (Washington: American Council on Education, 1938).

6 New York: Association Press, 1939.

0 Recreational Research^ by G. M. Gloss, of Louisiana State University. Baton Rouge,
privately printed [1940].

RECREATION IN THE MODERN WORLD 51

enterprise and offered to the public for profit. Indeed, the ac-
quiring of respectability by recreation may be said to have coin-
cided roughly with the discovery that there was a great deal of
money to be made in stimulating and catering to leisure interests.
Commercial amusement has grown to tremendous size and its
influence permeates our lives. Motion pictures, the radio, pulp
magazines, public dance halls, professional athletics, poolrooms,
and amusement parks engage the interest of millions of young
people weekly. Only a small proportion of youth in the United
States reach maturity without coming in contact with these
agencies not once but countless times.

Since so large a part of the leisure activities of youth is ac-
counted for by commercial diversions, it might be thought that
any discussion of constructive recreation would be largely con-
cerned with commercial interests. The present work recognizes
the great influence of commercial recreation upon young people.
It has already discussed the problems raised by the three media
of commercial recreation bulking largest in their use of leisure —
the radio, the motion picture, and reading — and has recommended
educational measures that will enable youth to make intelligent
use of these attractions. Later in this chapter the modern ex-
pansion of commercial recreation is considered as one of the
principal social trends affecting the leisure needs of youth.
Further than this, commercial recreation will not be emphasized
in the present volume.

Our concern here is with what can be done as a matter of public
policy to ensure opportunities for worth-while recreation for all
youth. Commerical recreation cannot be directly controlled by
the public except to the limited extent involved in the exercise
of the police power. It does tend over a period of time, however,
to accommodate itself to public opinion. We may hope and
indeed expect that as the public becomes more fully aware of
what constitutes desirable recreation, and of the value that leisure
can be made to yield, it will exert a steady and beneficial pressure
upon the commercial interests that seek to occupy its leisure.

It is well recognized that the nature of commercial recreation
places upon it certain handicaps that interfere with its being a

52 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

satisfactory medium for supplying the recreational needs of
young persons. These may be described briefly as follows.

1. Commercial recreation does not and cannot reach all youth.
Since forms of recreation costing money are usually regarded by
the individual as a luxury, the proportion of young people whose
financial resources will not enable them to purchase any sub-
stantial amount of the recreation commercially available to them
must be even greater than the third of the population commonly
said to be ill-fed, ill-housed, and ill-clothed.

2. Commercial recreation is characterized by a one-sided de-
velopment, with emphasis on passive entertainments of the
spectator type. It is unlikely that commercial interests will
ever be able to offer a well-rounded recreational program. Be-
cause of their very nature they can supply only those goods and
services that it is practicable to offer at a profit, and many of the
most valuable recreational activities are not capable of being
made widely available on this basis.

3. Since its motive is profit, commercial recreation has little
internal resistance to the multiplication of leisure activities of
slight genuine recreational value. There is even a tendency, not
always successfully resisted, to furnish amusements that may
actually be harmful to young persons.

Much can be done to increase the contribution that commercial
recreation makes to the constructive use of young people's leisure
time. As costs are lowered, a larger proportion of youth will
be able to take advantage of the worth-while forms of commercial
recreation. As knowledge of the better uses of leisure time be-
comes more widespread, a greater demand for the more desirable
kinds of recreation should develop, and it may become easier to
supply them on a commercial basis. Questionable forms of
commercial recreation must always be the object of community
concern. But in general such activities, as well as the greater
number that are merely time-wasting, can most effectively be
eliminated by providing something better to take their place.
A positive and constructive attitude toward the opportunities
afforded by leisure time is bound to be more successful than an
attitude which is negative and repressive.

RECREATION IN THE MODERN WORLD 53

As recreation comes to occupy a larger place in our national
life, the functions of supplementing commercial recreation and
counteracting its undesirable effects are bound to become in-
creasingly important, whether they are promoted by public or
private agencies. There is also useful work to be done in train-
ing young people to make intelligent use of the variety of com-
mercial facilities competing for their leisure time. When we
add to these tasks the opportunity for pioneering in the develop-
ment of new techniques, it is evident that there is room for much
activity through other than commercial channels to promote a
wholesome recreational life among young people. Public author-
ities and private nonprofit-seeking organizations have a distinc-
tive contribution to make. Although their field is small in rela-
tion to the whole volume of recreational enterprise, it has an
importance far beyond its size.

Although profit-seeking and nonprofit-seeking recreation have
fundamentally different aims, their methods need not be so
dissimilar as is sometimes supposed. Indeed, public and private
nonprofit recreation have much to learn from the commercial
agencies. It is possible to discover certain constructive prin-
ciples in the operation of these agencies which contribute not a
little to their appeal. For example, there is the opportunity
given young people to meet members of the opposite sex on so-
cial occasions, such as dances. There is also the freedom to just
"hang around" and be active or not as one wishes. Noncom-
mercial recreation would do well to consider the techniques of
agencies that succeed well enough to cause people to spend their
money freely.

The really unsatisfactory feature of the present relationship of
commercial recreation to noncommercial, organized recreation
is the disproportion in the amount of support they receive. If
we take the estimate for 1930 made by the President's Research
Committee on Social Trends and disregard the very large amounts
represented by goods and services produced commercially but
put to recreational use by the individual (over $7,000,000,000,
without counting books, magazines, or newspapers), we are still
left with more than $2,000,000,000 as the cost of the commonly

54 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

recognized forms of commercial amusement — motion pictures,
radio, athletic exhibitions, night clubs, cabarets, and other en-
tertainments of various kinds. To compare with this, we have
as the total cost of recreation under public auspices in 1930
less than $200,000,000, and as the cost of recreation provided
by private nonprofit-seeking organizations less than $400,000,000.
Commercial recreation, even when narrowly defined, appears
to have received over ten times the sum spent for public recrea-
tion and nearly four times the amount that went to all organized
forms of noncommercial recreation. It is true that the schools
should be credited with the money they spend in teaching rec-
reational skills. However, this factor, though it cannot be
closely estimated, is certainly small. The whole annual cost of
maintaining public education in this country is equaled or
exceeded by the sums spent on the commercial recreations just
mentioned.

There need be no serious objection to the magnitude of com-
mercial recreation, though there is no doubt that much of the
money it commands could be spent to better purpose through
other recreational channels. The real grievance is that there
should be so little available for nonprofit-seeking forms of recrea-
tion, whether under public or private auspices. In view of
the genuine need for expanding services of this type, it can be
only a cause for wonder that as a nation we see fit to allot to them
only a fourth of our expenditure for organized recreation or a
mere 6 per cent of the amount we pay for all kinds of recreational
services and goods.

One way or another recreation has come to occupy a place of
major importance in the lives of great numbers of our people.
It is being promoted through sizable expenditure of public funds
at all levels of government. An intricate and extensive network
of private nonprofit agencies endeavors to make it more widely
available, particularly to young people. A vast assortment of
commercial interests has capitalized upon the widespread desire
for recreation. The social problem created by this interplay of
forces is how to use the immense but largely uncoordinated re-
sources they represent to bring to the average citizen — especially

RECREATION IN THE MODERN WORLD 55

to the average young person — opportunity for a full, satisfying,
and constructive use of leisure. It is a formidable task, but it
should not prove beyond our collective ingenuity.

SOCIAL TRENDS AND RECREATION

In beginning this chapter we noted that a new attitude toward
play and the pursuit of recreation has grown up in this country.
We have now briefly considered the vast development of organ-
ized recreational activity that this new attitude has permitted.
In order fully to appreciate how recreation has become so deeply
rooted in our national life and why it presents such problems for
the well-being of our young people we need to consider some of the
social changes of modern times that have made recreation more
important than it ever was before.

Among the important social changes that have altered forms
of recreation and recreational needs are: technological develop-
ments, the growth of commercial recreation, the accessibility of
urban amusements to village and rural youth, and the prolonged
economic dependency of young people. Improved transporta-
tion, besides making city pastimes closer to the country, has
brought other recreational changes. In addition, recreational
opportunities and desires have been influenced by changes in
religious views regarding the use of leisure, by changes in con-
ceptions of activities suitable for women, and by changes in
standards of living.

TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS AND LEISURE TIME

One of the most far-reaching of social changes affecting leisure
has been technological advance. The continual improvement of
production processes is a striking characteristic of our civilization.
For many decades it has proceeded rapidly both in industry and
in agriculture. This development has had several implications
for the recreational life of the nation. It has reduced the costs
of production and made it unnecessary for the worker to put in
as long hours as he formerly did in order to turn out a given
amount of goods. Consequently, most people now have more

56 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

time to spend outside their work than people used to have. It is
said that over the past half century the average worker-has gained
twenty hours of leisure a week. Another effect has been to create
a considerable amount of involuntary leisure through unemploy-
ment. Though it can be argued that in the long run technological
improvement may create more employment than it displaces, yet
it is certain that many individual workers are rendered at least
temporarily unemployed by its advance and find that all their
time is spare time.

Another important effect of technological advance upon recrea-
tion is that for many people it has altered the emphasis that needs
to be given the use of leisure. If a person's work involves con-
siderable physical exertion like the day laborer's, or sustained
mental effort like the professional worker's, or some combination
of the two like the skilled craftsman's, he may be content to
spend most of his spare time in mere relaxation. But with the
simplification of industrial processes there has come an enormous
increase in the number of machine tenders. Very many people,
and especially young people, are now employed in factories where
they engage in routine, monotonous tasks often requiring little
physical exertion or skill and almost no mental effort. Much the
same is true of many office workers and store clerks, whose num-
bers have also increased greatly in recent years. In their leisure
time these people wish to escape from their work, but their work
has not taken enough from them to leave them satisfied simply
with relaxation. Neither has it given them the social, cultural,
or creative experiences without which most people feel their lives
to be incomplete. It is during their leisure that people like these
must now look for satisfactions that in other days they would
have found in their work or else would have had no time for.
Their leisure problem is not how to rebuild what work tears
down but how to obtain what work does not afford.

GROWTH OF COMMERCIAL RECREATION

A second major social change that has increased the difficulty
youth have in obtaining a satisfactory recreational life is the enor-
mous development of commercial recreation during the last few

RECREATION IN THE MODERN WORLD 57

decades. Young people naturally tend to patronize the kinds
of recreation most accessible to them and seldom- worry about
whether their recreational "diet" is well balanced. But, although
it may not bother them at the time, much of the recreation they
obtain from commercial sources is of little real value and indeed
belongs to the very type for which people now have least need.
Social contacts, cultural experiences, and creative activities have
become especially necessary to supplement the limited opportuni-
ties for mental and spiritual growth that the daily work of many
people now offers. But these are just the kinds of opportunity
that commercial recreation presents least often or does least well.

Consider the limited opportunity for social activities that
commercial recreation affords young people. There is, of course,
a social element in cabarets, roadhouses, and even soda fountains.
Movies, skating rinks, and sometimes bowling alleys and swim-
ming pools are also places to which young people of both sexes
may resort. But as a rule boys and girls who associate in these
places have paired off beforehand. What young people need
and what they really want is some place where they can go to
make the acquaintance of other young people of the opposite sex.

The cultural opportunities that commercial recreation affords
are also limited. Hardly anywhere in the country can there be
found an orchestra, art gallery, or museum that supports itself
from admission charges. The books stocked by rental libraries
appeal mainly to the reader in search of relaxation. There is
little regular theater outside New York. Motion pictures do
have an enormous influence upon the cultural tone of the popula-
tion, but for the most part it is indirectly exerted, and certainly
it is not in all respects for the best. The radio offers numerous
opportunities for self-improvement; however, a variety of factors,
mentioned in the previous chapter, often combine to render them
relatively ineffective.

As for opportunities for creative experiences, commercial recrea-
tion is almost wholly devoid of them. Amateur hours on the
radio offer a few gifted individuals a chance to exhibit talents
that are already well developed. But to the average young
person who would find it interesting to acquire an elementary

58 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

form of some skill, organized commercial recreation offers very
little.

In short, by far the most prominent element in commercial
recreation is passive amusement. Though few people nowadays
object to amusement in itself, its recreational value lies almost
entirely in the relaxation it affords. However, as we have seen,
the average worker's need for relaxation pure and simple grows
constantly less as machines take over more and more of the
physical or mental effort of his employment. We therefore have
a situation in which the changed conditions of modern life call
for a new emphasis upon certain kinds of recreation that we know
to be particularly valuable to young people and of which they have
too little. Instead of offering these activities, commercial recrea-
tion, for the most part, devises new and ingenious ways of supply-
ing more and more of its usual types of recreation, and for these
types young people have less and less need.

It is possible that commercial recreation can be expected to do
no more than it does. The new kinds of opportunities that need
to be developed may not offer much prospect of rapid financial
return. But if commercial recreation cannot organize itself to
supply services more in line with what young people need, is it not
clear that the problem of an adequate solution — a problem in-
tensified by the tremendous increase in opportunities for com-
mercial recreation — becomes more pressing than ever ?

GROWTH OF CITIES

A third line of social change making it urgent that we take spe-
cial steps to ensure every young person in the United States a
chance to obtain adequate recreation is the increasing proportion
of our population living in towns and cities. A half century ago
nearly two-thirds of the people lived in the open country or in
villages. In 1940, 57 per cent of the population was urban. This
change has brought recreational problems to youth in all types
of communities.

In cities overcrowding has resulted and with it a tendency to
eliminate forms of recreation requiring any considerable space.

RECREATION IN THE MODERN WORLD 59

This is true not only for the numerous youth who live in slums
but also for apartment dwellers and indeed for all youth except
the favored ones whose families can afford detached houses with
space about them. In theory, outdoor recreational activities can
be transferred to public playgrounds; but in practice these are
everywhere inadequate, especially for older youth, who are usually
left to stand about street corners hoping that something interest-
ing will "turn up."

Another recreational hazard that city youth are particularly
likely to encounter is overexposure to commercial recreation.
The one-sided development of commercial recreation has already
been mentioned, and in cities it is found in its most severe form.
A further disadvantage of living in a city is that there are special
difficulties in the way of organizing any group activity that might
supply the opportunities neglected by commercial recreation.
The very number of competing commercial attractions, for exam-
ple, is a handicap. Another is often the problem of getting
acquainted. In the country one at least knows his neighbors.
But in the middle-class residential areas of large cities the neigh-
borhood spirit has often declined so greatly that a young person
may well find his friends and acquaintances limited to those he has
made in high school or at work. Frequently they live in such
inconvenient places that much of the time that might be used in
social activity is spent simply in coming together. Of course
transportation difficulties are not peculiar to urban youth. Rural
young people have them too. But their problems are not so
complicated by the difficulty of getting to know their neighbors
or by heavy competition from commercial amusements.

Rural youth do, however, live under severe recreational handi-
caps arising out of the drift to urban centers. The lack of eco-
nomic opportunity in rural areas makes it necessary for many
rural youth to seek their fortune in town or city. We do not
know that these young people are any abler or more energetic
than those who stay; but when they leave, the country undoubt-
edly loses much native talent and ability for leadership that it
could well have used.

The pull of the city also makes itself felt upon those rural

60 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

youth who never leave their homes. Town and city people are
much the most articulate part of our population. They write
the newspapers and magazines, direct the motion pictures, pro-
duce the radio programs, and compile the mail order catalogues.
Even before a majority of our population was urban, city ways
of life and thought had become the characteristic patterns of our
civilization. Country people look toward the city and feel that
they have enriched their lives to the extent that they adopt urban
manners and acquire urban conveniences. This is natural. It
is understandable that rural folk should wish to share in the
material benefits of a civilization to which they make so large a
contribution. However, the rapid growth of the city and the
hold it takes upon the imagination of country people and espe-
cially country youth has brought to a state of serious decay a
native rural culture that once flourished in this land.

There used to be many characteristic forms of rural recreation
that had grown up naturally and were well adapted to country
life. In large part these are no longer practiced, and the main
reason for their disappearance is the growth of urban-mindedness
among rural people. Many farm and village youth now find it
easy to drive to the city and seek out some form of commercial
recreation. Or, if they spend their leisure time at home, it is
likely to be occupied with city-made recreations like the radio or
motion pictures.

The urbanization of our population has made the recreational
plight of village youth even worse than that of youth on farms.
It is possible to discover fairly prosperous farming areas, but
almost everywhere throughout the country the economic re-
sources of villages are approaching the vanishing point. Towns
and cities can now be easily reached by so large a portion of farm
people that the economic basis of village life has in great part
been removed. The village has become a place where the farmer
stops to fill his gas tank on his way to town. Often he does not
even do that. Village youth are still less likely to have money to
spend on commercial recreation than the farm youth, but a
position midway between open country and the town makes them
feel the pull of the city even more keenly. This stronger attrac-

RECREATION IN THE MODERN WORLD 61

tive force places great difficulties in the way of organizing any sort
of cooperative local recreational enterprise that might help them
overcome the barrenness of their environment. Villages, in fact,
are facing the decay of the small rural unit of population and the
consequent stagnation of all forms of social activity.

It is possible to rebuild a satisfying life for rural America. It
is possible to develop among rural young people forms of recrea-
tion which they themselves can provide and which will give them
more genuine satisfaction than they find in the citified amuse-
ments available to them. This is now being successfully done in
certain places, and there is every reason why rural communities
generally should follow suit. But the task is not an easy one, and
we cannot afford to lose time in undertaking it.

PROLONGATION OF ECONOMIC DEPENDENCY

A fourth major social change that has helped to make recrea-
tion a more pressing problem for young people is the lengthening
of what may be described as the period of "economic infancy."
In the days when youth left school at 14 or 15 and went to work,
they began to earn their pocket money at a fairly early age, and
within limits they could buy the kinds of recreation that appealed
to them. Moreover, as soon as they started to work their leisure
time was considerably shortened, so that the problem of filling
it satisfactorily was reduced at least quantitatively. Today, with
nearly half our young people staying in school until 18 and hun-
dreds of thousands each year going on to college, the day when a
young person becomes self-supporting or even when he can afford
to pay the costs of his own recreation has been considerably post-
poned. This circumstance results in more young people having
more leisure hours and less money to use during them.

Though lack of money to spend on commercial amusements
may to some extent be a blessing in disguise, young people them-
selves regard it as a real hardship. If the alternative is just
loafing around, as too often it is, perhaps they are right. More-
over, even noncommercial recreation often involves some personal
expense. Games require equipment. Dates have to be financed.

62 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

One way or another the pocket-money needs of boys and girls
undergo a considerable expansion about high school age, and the
fact that for some years yet parents must be relied upon to meet
these needs further complicates the difficulties which young people
face in putting their spare time to good use. Desirable as the
extension of education is, we must recognize that the continuation
for several additional years of the long hours of after-school
leisure, together with the prolongation of financial dependence
upon parents, tends to make the need acute for more leisure-time
planning on behalf of youth.

The lengthening of "economic infancy" is by no means wholly
the result of the rise in the school-leaving age. A very important
factor is the exceptional difficulty in finding work that young
people have experienced during the past decade. There are now
2,500,000 more youth in high school and college than ten years
ago. But until quite recently there were more than twice as
many out of school and unemployed as there were in 1930 — or
some 4,000,000 youth 16 to 24. Even now the number undoubt-
edly remains high. The large volume of unemployment among
youth is partly owing to the fact that under conditions prevailing
in recent years there do not seem to be enough jobs to go around.
But youth have been at a particular disadvantage in having to
compete with large numbers of unemployed adults, whose skills
and experience tend to make them more efficient. It is true that
young people will frequently work for less money, but there are
increasing indications that many large employers of labor have
little use for youth under 18 and prefer not to hire them under 20.

Clearly, young people who leave school and cannot find work
within a reasonable period have special and particularly difficult
recreational problems. Technically, all their time is leisure, and
although no one would suggest that they ought to devote it all
to recreation, yet even allowing for time spent in job hunting and
in doing what they can to preserve their skills and prepare them-
selves for employment these youth have a good deal of spare time
left. It is especially important that this time be put to good use
in order that morale may not degenerate and employability be
impaired. But it is just the youth in this unfortunate position

RECREATION IN THE MODERN WORLD 63

who are least able to employ their leisure satisfactorily. They
lack money, and they are so occupied with their own immediate
worries that they are unlikely to take the initiative in working
out inexpensive recreational activities. There are many youth
such as these, and they are a standing challenge to us to solve the
serious problems that have been created by the prolongation of
the period of economic dependency.

OTHER SOCIAL FACTORS

There are a variety of other social factors that combine with
the four already discussed to lend a new importance to recreation.
In the main their effect on young people's use of leisure is so plain
that they call for little discussion.

Improved transportation. The geographical area in which
recreation may be sought has been greatly extended by modern
means of travel. We have already remarked how comparatively
easy it has become for rural youth to seek out the commercial
recreation establishments of towns and cities. It is also easier
than it used to be for city people to get to the country. As better
roads are built and more and more automobiles are bought, the
volume of recreational touring steadily increases. The attend-
ance at national and state parks continues to mount. Perhaps
young people do not engage in long-distance motoring as much as
their elders do, but everyone knows how useful boys and girls
find the family automobile. There have also been new develop-
ments in recreational travel by other means. The skiing excur-
sions the railroads find it profitable to organize draw their
patronage very largely from among youth.

Declining religious opposition. The growth of recreation has
been made considerably easier by a relaxing of the strict opposi-
tion to worldly pleasures that has been an historical characteristic
of certain faiths. Not only have many people gained, in Sunday,
the better part of a day to follow recreational pursuits, but most
churches sponsor some leisure-time activity and lend their prem-
ises to young people's groups throughout the week.

Recreation for women. The social emancipation of women is

64 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

another factor that has had a great influence upon the expansion
of recreation. It has vastly increased the number of people who
are able and willing to take part in recreational activities. It has
also helped to bring about a change in the kinds of recreation that
people wish to have. Now that it has become respectable for
girls and women to engage in vigorous outdoor pastimes, there
is a greater demand for things which boys and girls can do to-
gether. Tennis, badminton, golf, swimming, riding, and hiking
have increased in popularity. Indeed all but the most strenuous
kinds of pastime have benefited from the growth of corecreation,
for in addition to the intrinsic appeal they already had there is
now the attraction of doing something in company with members
of the opposite sex. The advent of women upon the recreational
scene has also increased the popularity of quieter forms of activity,
particularly those that employ leisure time for purposes of self-
improvement. Young women are perhaps the most numerous
participants in all kinds of adult education.

Higher standards of living. Finally, there may be mentioned
another factor of social change — the gradual improvement of
standards of living. As long as the greater part of our recreation
involves some expense, the more prosperous our population
becomes, the better able people will be (within limits) to provide
a useful recreational life for themselves. We should not feel,
however, that we can afford to sit back and wait for further im-
provement in standards of living to solve the recreational problems
of our youth. Too many factors are involved to make this
possible, even if there were no large-scale program of national
defense diverting attention and resources into other channels.
Any additional rise in standards of living that may be possible
under conditions now facing us will further emphasize the role
of recreation in our national life. But we cannot expect this
event alone to overcome the many difficulties that prevent
American youth from enjoying a full and satisfying recrea-
tional experience.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

BURNS, C. DELISLE. Leisure in the Modem World. New York: D. Appleton-Century

Co., 1932. 302 pp.
CUTTEN, GEORGE B. Challenge of Leisure, Modern Problem Series. Columbus, Ohio:

American Education Press, 1933. 19 pp.

RECREATION IN THE MODERN WORLD 65

FRANKL, PAUL F. Machine-Made Leisure. New York: Harper and Bros., 1932.
192 pp.

LINDEMAN, EDUARD C. Leisure — A National Issue: Planning for the Leisure of a Demo-
cratic People. New York: Association Press, 1939. 61 pp.

MITCHELL, ELMER O., and BERNARD S. MASON. The Theory of Play. New York:
A. S. Barnes and Co., 1934. 545 pp.

NEUMEYER, MARTIN H., and ESTHER S. NEUMEYER. Leisure and Recreation. New
York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1936. 405 pp.

PACK, ARTHUR N. The Challenge of Leisure. New York: Macmillan Co., 1934.
244pp.

PRESIDENT'S RESEARCH COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL TRENDS. Recent Social Trends in the
United States. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1933. 1568 pp.

RIGGS, AUSTEN F. Play: Recreation in a Balanced Life. New York: Doubleday, Doran
and Co., 1935. 239 pp.

STEINER, J. F. Americans at Play: Recent Trends in Recreation and Leisure Time Activi-
ties, Recent Social Trends in the United States Monograph. New York: McGraw-Hill
Book Co., 1933. 201 pp.

. Research Memorandum on Recreation in the Depression. New York: Social

Science Research Council, 1937. 124 pp.

CHAPTER IV

RECREATION THROUGH PUBLICLY

SUPPORTED COMMUNITY

AGENCIES

A VARIETY of public agencies are employed by local
communities to help their young people make better use of spare
time. Most metropolitan areas, many towns, and some rural
districts have departments of recreation. These promote out-
door and indoor programs for persons of all ages. Many more
communities have public libraries, which offer assistance in culti-
vating the numerous leisure interests that depend upon books and
magazines or that can be enriched through their use. Less
frequent but in the same category of semieducational institutions
competing for the free time of all sections of the population are
museums, art galleries, zoos, aquariums, and botanical gardens.
Finally, there are the public schools.

The schools occupy a unique position in the recreational life
of youth. Though they are neither voluntary agencies nor
mainly concerned with recreation they probably contribute more
to the wholesome use of leisure by young people than any other
institution. There is a school in every community. In many
places it is the only agency devoted wholly to the service of young
people. Few of the 7,000,000 high school youth pass through
school without studying some subject that can be made to increase
the enjoyment they obtain from their spare time. Few do not
have an opportunity to cultivate some desirable extracurricular

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 67

interest. Although these school services are by no means as
fully developed as they might be, in the bulk they are already
impressive. The extension of school recreational facilities and
services to out-of-school youth is a field of usefulness that has
barely been explored. Another is the developing among students
of discrimination in recreation and an appetite for the uses of
leisure that will bring satisfaction throughout life.

The schools, then, are an important factor in recreation for
youth both because of what they do and of what they might do.
It should not be taken to imply lack of appreciation of the recre-
ational accomplishments of other public agencies of the com-
munity that the major emphasis of the present chapter is upon
the role of the public schools. The great numerical superiority
of schools among youth-serving agencies, their special concern
for young people, and their exceptional opportunities for perma-
nently influencing the individual's use of leisure combine to place
them in a strategic position for developing recreational services
to youth. This fact warrants the fullest possible consideration
of their recreational functions.

THE SCHOOLS

All evidence points to a broadening of the concept of education
until it ultimately includes recreation as a normal function of the
public schools. Only educators who take a very narrow view of
their profession and people who do not understand that all uses
of leisure have an educational effect, for better or for worse, will
deny the responsibility of the school to help young people employ
their spare time profitably. Yet, while we may be quite sure of
the truth of this statement, it would be unrealistic not to recognize
that there are a number of circumstances that hinder the schools
from fully accepting and discharging their responsibility for
recreation.

MAKING RECREATION A NORMAL FUNCTION OF EDUCATION

Although many school authorities are aware of the leisure
needs of youth, there are serious difficulties to be faced in making
recreation a normal function of education. The first of these is

68 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

an outworn notion of what education and recreation really are.
The traditional view of education has long been that it is prepara-
tion for life — "life" being interpreted to mean something that a
youth plunges into when he leaves school. The traditional view
of recreation has been that it consists of having a good time — now.
This notion that education is concerned exclusively with getting
ready for experiences to come and recreation wholly with present
experiences has been a powerful influence in keeping the two
apart. Many educators still look upon recreation as an after-
school and vacation appendage to education, useful in preserving
youngsters from mischief but not to be compared in importance
with what goes on in the classroom. They are willing to help
community recreation agencies by allowing them to use school
buildings for a few hours at certain times, but they do not feel
that the schools should accept any fuller responsibility for leisure
activities, even though the beneficiaries are young people of school
age.

This attitude, unfortunately still widespread, is an indication
of how far behind the times many school administrators are.
The purpose of public education for youth is no longer to prepare
them for college. It is not even primarily to prepare them for
jobs — important as that has become. It is to prepare them for
living, and living is the sum of what is happening to youth every
day and every hour. Leisure is a part of life, and learning how
to put it to the most satisfying use is part of learning how to live.
The more education concentrates upon preparing young people
to live successfully, the more it will resemble an intelligent recrea-
tion program. As recreation builds more solidly upon the psycho-
logical and social needs of youth, it in turn will take on the appear-
ance of a good educational program. The aim of both services
is the same, and their methods are coming more and more to
overlap.

Already most schools sponsor a variety of extraclassroom
activities for their students. Although in some places these are
still looked upon as educational "frills" and merely tolerated,
it is becoming generally recognized that they do contribute not
only to the physical growth of young people but also to their

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 69

mental and spiritual growth. If classroom work and intellectual
exercises were really the only respectable activities for schools
to promote, then the distinction between education and recrea-
tion ought to be made even sharper than it now is in practice.
These two areas of human experience should then abandon their
hesitant courtship and reconcile themselves to paying the
bachelor and old-maid taxes that society will demand of them.
It is clear, however, that events are moving in just the opposite
direction.

The wall between curricular and extracurricular work is break-
ing down. We are coming to see that the only curriculum worth
talking about is the sum of the young person's experiences in his
school environment. The more closely related these experiences
are to his life outside school and to the life he will have to lead
in the years ahead of him, the more realistic and useful will the
curriculum be. The distinction between formal education (class-
room experiences) and informal education (all other experiences
and influences to which the young person is subject) is at bottom
quite artificial.

A second hindrance to the effective union of recreation with
education is the great difference in the present stage of the his-
torical and administrative development of these two services.
Public schools have existed much longer than public recreational
agencies, and to a considerable degree their functions have become
crystallized. Schools are "accepted," while recreation is a recent
upstart among public responsibilities.

Furthermore, states are to an increasing extent taking measures
to ensure that the quality and quantity of the public education
offered by their local communities is kept up to acceptable stand-
ards. All states contribute to the cost of general education in at
least some localities, and there are eleven state governments that
provide for more than half of all the expenditures of the local
school boards within their borders. Community recreation, on
the other hand, is still almost entirely a responsibility of local
government. Such outside aid as it has received has consisted
mostly of federal subsidies, granted for the emergency employ-
ment of individuals and subject to being withdrawn at any time.

70 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

The financial status of public recreation is in process of change,
but it is likely that for a long while the great difference in the age
of the two functions will oblige recreation to subsist on a different
and more precarious basis than if it had grown up parallel with
public education.

A third difficulty tending to keep education from giving ade-
quate attention to the leisure-time needs of young people is that
many schools are not yet alert enough to plan and direct a useful
recreation program. Recreation has its handicaps, too; but in
spite of inadequate financing, a limited variety of activities, and
the lack of trained leaders, it is probable that the average recrea-
tion program is still operating closer to the known needs of its
constituents than are most schools.

There is no inherent reason why the school should not be able
to conduct satisfactory recreation programs. There is no flaw
in the philosophy that recreation is one means through which
modern education achieves its ends. There is no administrative
obstacle to incorporating recreation into the school program that
cannot be overcome. However, if a working union is to be
achieved it is absolutely essential that the schools be able to as-
sume responsibility for recreation without formalizing its activi-
ties. They must not read "academic respectability" into the
functions to be performed. The motto of far too many schools
is still "to teach" or "to tell." In recreation the core of the
program is "to practice," "to do." This gap must be bridged.
Perhaps both institutions should move somewhat away from
their present practices — the schools from "telling" and recreation
from mere "recreating." More unified and satisfying daily
living should be the goal of each.

In many school systems the obstacles to a complete under-
standing between education and recreation are by no means so
serious as the above analysis may seem to imply. There is no
question but that the leaders of public education deeply desire
to meet the contemporary needs of children, youth, and adults.
Many of the recreational needs of young people discussed in the
last chapter have repeatedly been pointed out by educators.
Many leaders in physical education are planning broadly con-

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 71

ceived recreational programs instead of remaining content simply
with moving people about.

An early and representative example of what realistic school
authorities have thought on this subject is the following state-
ment by a man who was the administrator of public instruction
in the largest city of the nation. In 1903 Superintendent William
Maxwell of New York City said of community centers:

The word "recreation" as applied to this activity means far more than
amusement. While the play spirit is prominent in every center, fun
is only a segment of the circle. To give occupation to the idle, enter-
tainment to the weary, and training for future citizenship by developing
the body, the mind, and the heart, is really creating a new life, and this
is the aim and purpose of the recreation center.

This statement might have been made in 1941 and by a recrea-
tion official. Educators, at least the leaders among them, are
aware that youth have leisure needs, and they are far from an-
tagonistic to recreation agencies. The trouble is often in the
time lag that exists between the educator's understanding of
needs and his taking the steps necessary to meet them. This is
characteristic, of course, of all social institutions. It can be seen
in recreation agencies as well as schools.

COMMON RECREATION SERVICES OF SCHOOLS

Most secondary schools are already contributing in various
ways to the recreational life of their students and in some degree
to that of the community at large. The ways in which they most
frequently do this are:

1. By teaching curriculum subjects having recreational value
and by encouraging extraclassroom activities.

2. By making school recreational facilities available to the
community.

Certain subjects of instruction that have long formed part of the
school curriculum are plainly capable of having a beneficial in-
fluence upon the students' use of leisure time. Ten years ago
the National Survey of Secondary Education found that physical
education was required during some high school year in approxi-

72 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

mately three-fourths of secondary schools. The most common
period was twice a week. This does not approach very closely
the standard set by the American Association for Health, Physical
Education, and Recreation — a class period in physical education
each day for each pupil. Manual training is widely taught in
secondary schools. Many youth who take this work must later
find that it has a distinct recreational value. From a recreational
point of view it is regrettable that more youth who do not expect
to earn their living at a manual trade do not take advantage in
high school of the opportunity to learn how to shape materials
with their hands. Courses in art are sometimes available in
high school, and simple instruction in music is frequently re-
quired. Some effort is always made to teach the appreciation
of drama and other forms of literature.

The extraclass activities most often sponsored by secondary
schools and having perhaps the most obvious recreational impli-
cations are athletic games and sports. Here, however, we at
once encounter the twofold difficulty that a very large proportion
of students have no opportunity to participate in school sports,
and that most of those who do are cultivating an activity which
experience shows will soon drop out of their lives.

The interest in team games begins to fade in the junior high
school, the decline becoming more noticeable at the senior high
school level. It is about this time of life that young people
become increasingly interested in outdoor sports that can be
engaged in by one person alone, or by two, or at most without the
necessity of assembling any fixed number of participants. Swim-
ming, archery, golf, tennis, boating, riding, and hiking are activi-
ties in which older adolescents would like to engage in if they had
more opportunity. They also have greater carry-over value,
since they are things in which adults remain interested for many
years. In one survey of recent high school graduates nearly 70
per cent said they thought that more students should be given
an opportunity to participate in sports, and that instead of con-
centrating on football and basketball it would be better to stress
the kinds of physical activity that students would find of recre-
ational value after leaving school.

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 73

The director of physical education in the schools of New York
State has estimated that about 70 per cent of city high school
boys and 47 per cent of those in central rural schools "have no
chance to participate in interschool sports." The situation in
colleges is much the same, although quite recently some improve-
ment has been reported. In the American Youth Commission's
study of the health of college students it was found that of a
thousand students who in 1935 were freshmen in fifteen colleges
and universities nearly half had little or no athletic activity.

The variety of nonathletic activities permitted and often en-
couraged by secondary school authorities is considerable. In
1930 the National Survey of Secondary Education studied two
dozen high schools where such activities were well developed and
found an average of twenty-five organized groups in each. Of the
total of 606 organizations, 30 per cent could be described as hobby
clubs, one-fourth as departmental clubs, one-fourth as affording
opportunity for the practice of writing, acting, public speaking,
or music, and one-fifth as devoted to the personal improvement
of the student through encouraging leadership, school service,
or the development of desirable moral traits, social manners, and
so on. All of the four categories in this classification obviously
have recreational value in varying degrees.

A second way in which schools frequently help young people to
spend their leisure profitably is by allowing community organiza-
tions to use school buildings for meetings and leisure activities
of various kinds. There has been a steady growth in the use of
schools for civic purposes since the experiment of Rochester, New
York, in 1907, where funds were appropriated to permit several
schools to act as civic centers for a trial period of three years.

The number of schools taking advantage of their facilities and
their local prestige to serve their communities as widely as pos-
sible is still very small indeed. However, a great many schools
have made some tentative steps in this direction. An inquiry by
the National Recreation Association in 1937 found that four-
fifths of 135 community recreation agencies used indoor school
properties and that slightly more used outdoor school properties.
New York City has been an outstanding example of a school

74 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

system that has developed community use of its facilities. In
1939 the public school buildings of New York were used by
2,300,000 persons after school hours. This represents more than
100,000 sessions. It is unfortunate that schools often find it
necessary to charge for the extra custodial service required to keep
their buildings open evenings. Even the small expense which
this involves is beyond the means of many groups that could make
worth-while use of school property.

Everything possible should be done to increase the value the
community gets from its school buildings and equipment. Ac-
cording to an authoritative estimate, the high schools of one of our
most progressive states are using their facilities for physical
activities during only 10 per cent of the sixteen waking hours of
each day. A board of education jealously guarding its facilities
for "school" purposes would be taking a very narrow view of its
functions. As a West Coast supervisor of physical education
has written to the American Youth Commission, "The school is an
agency of society, and society should be permitted to use its
facilities to the maximum, not about 40 per cent as at present.
Nearly all schools should remain open from eight in the morning
until ten at night."

Friction between school boards and other community organiza-
tions, public or private, is one of the most harmful results of
"agency-mindedness." No attitude of superior aloofness to
community recreation needs or the efforts being made to meet
them can be justified. It should be accepted as a working prin-
ciple that the community getting the best return on its school
investment is the community that uses its school buildings the
most hours of the day. As has been well said by the director of
recreational and community activities for the New York City
public schools, "It is just as much a symbol of patriotism to have
the nation's schools lighted at night as to have flags flying over
them in daytime."

LESS FREQUENT RECREATION SERVICES OF SCHOOLS

There are several other means of promoting recreation among
youth, less commonly adopted by school systems. One is to
open the playgrounds for use, under supervision, at other than

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 75

regular school hours. Such an opportunity is particularly valu-
able to school youth in summer, when their spare time is greatly
increased and they are left to fill it up as best they can. The
fact is, however, that the proportion of schools making any effort
in this direction has been quite small. In 1930 the National
Survey of Secondary Education found that only 18 per cent of the
high schools it studied provided playground supervisors during
the summer. Only a fourth of them provided playground super-
visors for after-school hours and a mere 5 per cent for Saturdays.
An educator relates that one Saturday as he happened to be
passing a school playground in one of our largest cities his atten-
tion was attracted by noise from inside. Looking through an
opening in the fence he saw a group of boys that he estimated at
250 engaged in unsupervised play. The gates were locked, and
they had all got in by climbing over!

A study made in 1932 reported that in only half of 416 commu-
nities of more than 5,000 population for which information was
secured were summer playgrounds being conducted under any
auspices whatever. Doubtless the situation was even worse in
smaller towns and rural districts. In recent years the Work
Projects Administration has put many hundreds more play-
grounds into summer use, and it is earnestly to be hoped that we
are well on the way to a reasonably full utilization of school out-
door recreational facilities.

A second type of arrangement that results in more intensive
community use of school recreational facilities is the conducting
of a recreational program on school playgrounds and in school
buildings by a public authority other than the schools. It some-
times happens that in a community where there is an active public
recreation authority other than the board of education, that
authority will arrange with the schools to carry on a recreational
program on school property during the summer vacation. Occa-
sionally the arrangement will be extended to include use of school
facilities after hours and on Saturdays during the regular term.
The following example of apparently successful cooperation of this
type has been sent to the American Youth Commission from a
western city:

76 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

In brief, the agreement has been that the board of education equips
the school grounds, keeps them in repair, furnishes the necessary supplies
to operate the physical education and school playground program on
school days and to pay the salaries of the playground supervisors on
these days. The board of playground directors is to pay the salaries
and furnish the supplies necessary to operate these school grounds on
nonschool days. This includes Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, and
vacation periods. . . . Evening gymnasiums are turned over to the
recreation department to issue the permits. All light, heat, water,
and custodian service are taken care of by the school department,
while the recreation department supplies the supervision. Baseball
diamonds are handled in the same manner.

Another example shows that when responsibility for program
and facilities is divided, harmony does not always result:

Occasionally we provide buildings or grounds for the use of the recrea-
tion department, but our experiences have not been too satisfactory.
For example, the recreation department had the use of one of our school
grounds in a slum area and nearly $300 worth of windowpanes were
smashed that summer compared to a normal breakage of $25. Where
recreation is under the board of education or where recreation and educa-
tion have been deliberately planned to function together there is no
reason why school buildings and grounds should not be used in the
afternoons and evenings.

The opportunities for administrative friction in situations such
as these are obvious. Wherever the desired result can be gained
by a school's accepting responsibility for developing the maximum
recreational use of its own equipment, this simpler plan should be
preferred. Nevertheless, any arrangement that increases the
recreational opportunities available- to young people is better
than nothing.

In a few instances school systems have undertaken the task of
organizing and operating a recreational program for the whole
community. A sixth of the thousand municipal recreation
agencies reporting to the National Recreation Association in
1938 were educational authorities. The public schools in the
communities served by these authorities controlled more than
two-fifths of the playgrounds and athletic fields operated under
leadership in the whole nation during 1938, more than two-thirds

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 77

of all indoor recreation centers, and more than four-fifths of indoor
swimming pools.

Milwaukee, known as "The City of Lighted School Houses,"
has a department of recreation and adult education, headed by an
assistant superintendent of schools. It employs almost a thou-
sand full-time and seasonal recreation workers, has a budge^of
over half a million dollars, and draws a yearly attendance of more
than 7,000,000 at playgrounds and indoor centers. In Newark,
New Jersey, a city three-quarters the size of Milwaukee, the
recreation department of the board of education employed in
1938 more full-time recreation workers than did Milwaukee and
had a budget of over a quarter of a million dollars.

In St. Louis County, Minnesota, the board of education has a
leisure education department that provides an extensive recrea-
tion program for over a hundred rural communities, using the
public schools in each case as a focal point. These programs grow
naturally out of rural interests and surroundings. They consist
of folk dancing, group athletics, Pioneer's Day, potato blossom
festival, music week, traveling art gallery, rural flower show,
and scores of similar events, together drawing in nearly a third
of the rural population of the county. Situations such as these
prove that "it can happen here."

WHAT SCHOOLS CAN DO ABOUT RECREATION IN
THEIR PROGRAMS

Regardless of what degree of responsibility the schools eventu-
ally accept for community recreation they should do more than
they usually do to meet the leisure-time needs of the youth they
enroll. A necessary first step is to complete the breaking down
of the barrier between classroom and extraclassroom activities.
This will publicly acknowledge the educational value of leisure-
time interests and clear the way for guidance in their develop-
ment. The kindergarten and the elementary school have already
gone far in demonstrating how valuable extracurricular activities
can be. It is possible to unify the whole school program effec-
tively. Progressive schools at elementary, secondary, and college

78 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

levels are showing daily that formal and informal education can
become almost indistinguishable.

Only a comparatively few schools organize the nonathletic,
nonscholastic activities of students as part of the curriculum,
requiring participation in a certain number. It is doubtful that
such activities should be placed on a compulsory basis, but clearly
more young people ought to participate in them than now do.
In the Muncie study of the American Youth Commission 85 per
cent of the out-of-school youth who had taken part in some extra-
curricular school activity thought they had benefited from the
experience, but less than half of all the out-of-school youth had
ever participated in such activities.

That more young people do not receive the benefit of the in-
formal educational activities conducted in high schools is largely
the result of the unimaginative attitude toward these activities
of faculty members who are assigned to sponsor them. The
study of nonathletic extracurricular activities made in 1930 by
the National Survey of Secondary Education uncovered a number
of significant facts illustrating the small extent to which the use-
fulness of these organizations had been developed. It found that
instead of welcoming the opportunity to guide young people's
interests and assist them informally to develop their abilities, "a
large number of sponsors feel that they are hindered in their work
by the provision of too many extracurricular activities." It
found that although "the developing of skills and abilities" was
an acknowledged aim of over three-fourths of a group of 221
clubs studied, four sponsors in five indicated that they made no
attempt to secure as members pupils who had little or no ability
in performing the activities of their clubs. Similarly, although
as many as one sponsor in three said that the clubs aimed at
"arousing interest on the part of high school pupils in specific
fields of activities," not one in five indicated that any attempt
was made to induce pupils to join who had little or no interest in
the activities and purposes of the clubs.

In the important work of developing leadership, which extra-
curricular activities are supposed to perform, not two sponsors
in five indicated that they attempted "to secure as officers those

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 79

pupils who would undoubtedly benefit by contact with the respon-
sibilities of office holding." It is clear that valuable as extra-
curricular activities undoubtedly are to the young people who
take part in them, the youth who join and the youth who are
elevated to positions of leadership are in general not the youth
who have the greatest need for these experiences. If informal
methods of education are recognized as having possibilities equal
to the traditional classroom practices, we must find means of
bringing these advantages to all youth in school.

In defense of the teachers charged with guiding the leisure
activities of pupils, it must be said that a teacher can hardly
be expected to remain permanently enthusiastic about extra-
classroom work when it must be carried on after teaching six
hours a day. A well-rounded and well-conducted school recrea-
tion program will require more teachers. This fact cannot be
too strongly emphasized, for it is perhaps the chief factor in the
present unsatisfactory state of recreational work in the schools.

Nevertheless, simply providing additional teachers will not in
itself solve the difficulty. There is also needed a new attitude
on the part of teachers. This problem must be attacked at its
source, in the teacher training institutions. We should have a
different type of preparation for teachers who are expected to
help pupils improve their leisure opportunities — and this is a
function for which every teacher should be qualified. The begin-
ning teacher must enter upon his or her profession prepared to
regard extracurricular work not as a bothersome chore but as one
of the principal means of achieving the ends toward which all
school effort is directed. We cannot, of course, afford to neglect
measures to strengthen this point of view among teachers already
in service. But until teacher training institutions realize the
importance of initial preparation for recreational leadership, the
schools will fall short of the full contribution they can make to the
worth-while use of leisure by young people.

When the barriers between classroom and extraclassroom activi-
ties have been removed, the next step for the schools will be to
develop among their pupils a well-rounded recreational program.
This program should consist of physical activities for all pupils;

80 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

social activities for all pupils; guidance for all pupils in the wise
use of leisure; arts and crafts, nature study, music, dramatics,
and other special subjects for pupils who are sufficiently interested
or can be made sufficiently interested to devote part of their
leisure to these things. The program should be carefully designed
to meet the recreational needs of the disadvantaged young people
described in the second chapter, in so far as these needs can be
met through school endeavor for school youth.

The physical education activities ought not to emphasize skill
in sports or the glory of being on a winning team, but physical
fitness, healthful, outdoor living, and the fun and comradeship
that active games can afford. They should make the young
people familiar with a variety of sports that need little equipment
or organization and that will hold their appeal well into adult life.
The social activities ought to be the kind youth really want, not
just the kind school teachers and administrators think they ought
to want. The activities should come often enough to be effective,
and they should be run with sufficient imagination to enable them
to compete successfully with commercial amusements. They
need to be supplemented by opportunities for obtaining tactful
advice on the various aspects of personal improvement — things
that young people are often outwardly scornful of but inwardly
eager to learn, such as how to show good manners, how to dress
well, how to make the most of one's looks.

Guidance in the use of leisure should teach youth how to place
a proper value upon the entertainment offered them by the motion
pictures and the radio as well as how to make intelligent use of
reading. The various hobbies, creative activities, and special
interests of pupils ought to receive encouragement and full support
from school authorities rather than mere toleration. Teachers
should recognize them as an educational influence equal and often
superior to classroom instruction. Special consideration will be
necessary for the student who does not readily develop extra-
curricular interests. The cause of his backwardness must be
discovered, and he should be helped to overcome it. Apparent
absence of abilities and skills ought not be accepted as conclusive.

The emphasis should be upon discovering and encouraging tal-

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 81

ents the young person himself does not realize he possesses rather
than upon forcing aptitudes that are already maturing satis-
factorily. In this area, as with physical activities, there ought
to be a special effort to develop interests and skills that will carry
over into later life. Finally, the whole program should be made
to dovetail with the recreation opportunities afforded by the
community and the home.

WHAT SCHOOLS CAN DO DURING VACATION

There is a third step that the schools need to take in order to do
what can reasonably be expected of them to ensure an adequate
recreational life for their pupils. They should help young people
spend vacation time to good purpose. A vacation program for
school youth is a necessity, especially since young people are now
to a large extent denied the opportunity of working during vaca-
tions. Summer offers exceptional opportunities for outdoor
activities, and these require guidance and direction if they are
to be as beneficial as they can be. In part the situation can be
met by keeping the school playgrounds open for the summer, with
supervision. As was noted earlier this is done by only a small
fraction of high schools. It is, however, one of the simplest
measures which can be taken. Every board of education should
earnestly consider whether it can afford to close its facilities for
promoting physical activity during the very months when the
pupils need them most.

Another means of contributing to the recreational value of the
summer vacation, and one that schools cannot be too strongly
urged to adopt, is the summer camp. To the educators of the
future a major mystery of the development of their profession
in the first half of the twentieth century will surely be the slow-
ness with which camping was adopted as a functional part of the
school system. The values of camping have long been recognized
by leading educators. Charles W. Eliot described organized
summer camping as "the most significant contribution to educa-
tion that America has given the world." The present United
States Commissioner of Education has said/ 'The summer camp is,

82 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

or should be, an adjunct to the public or private school." Objec-
tives of camping, listed by the American Camping Association,
are:

1. Having a good time while getting certain new and adventurous
experiences.

2. Adjusting to groups and social situations, including sharing and
planning with others.

3. Developing and understanding social objectives in terms that the
children can appreciate.

The educational value of each of these goals is obvious. Learning
about nature from firsthand contact would be a new experience
to millions of our city youth. Vigorous outdoor activity and
practice in living with other young people can certainly help in
developing the "whole youth" which schools rightly profess as
their aim.

There are more than 5,000 organized camps in America. Some
city school systems have established summer camps, and some
camps are operated by private schools. However, the total
number of camps conducted by or in connection with schools is
very small. There is no doubt about the interest of young
people in camping. A survey of one midwestern city reported
that 87 per cent of 9,000 school children desired to go to a summer
camp. Only 13 per cent had attended one. There is an acute
need for publicly owned sites and facilities for organized camping.
The recreation demonstration projects of the National Park
Service are showing how these facilities can best be planned and
how eager the public is to use them. A few public school systems
have achieved notable results. The schools of Atlanta, Georgia,
operate a camping program using facilities constructed by the
federal government, and the superintendent has announced that
his objective is "a camping experience for every school child."
The board of education of New York City recently appointed a
commission to study camping opportunities for school children.

At present the cost of camping is a formidable obstacle to de-
veloping large-scale projects. As permanent camp sites are
established and equipped for public use by the local, state, and
federal governments this hindrance will tend to be overcome.

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 83

The rental of nonprofit camps can be set at quite a low figure, and
the cost of maintaining young people in camp compares favorably
with what it costs to maintain them at home. Camps operated
by such organizations as the Y.M.C.A., the 4-H clubs, and the
Boy Scouts ordinarily charge in the neighborhood of a dollar a
day. However, in a number of forest camps in Florida for under-
privileged children the cost of food has at times been reduced to
$2.50 a week by purchasing a large part of the supplies through the
Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation.

Many parents would be able and glad to meet the expense of
sending their children to a school-conducted summer camp for a
fortnight. The cost for those children whose parents could not
afford to give them this experience should not be beyond the
means of the community. Day camps can offer nearly as effective
an educational experience as resident camps and are rapidly
growing in popularity. When suitable locations are available it is
possible to effect a considerable saving by setting up this type
of camp.

There is little question but that school boards have the power
to conduct programs of recreational activities for their pupils
during the summer, including playground and camp programs.
The courts recognize that our conception of what constitutes a
good education has expanded and must continue to expand.
They have upheld the right of school authorities to conduct extra-
classroom activities having educational value. There is no
activity of this nature for which a better case can be made out
than the school camp.

WHAT SCHOOLS CAN DO ABOUT COMMUNITY RECREATION

We have been discussing what may be regarded as the minimum
defensible program that the schools may undertake to better the
recreational life of youth. It is the least that we can reasonably
expect of the schools because it is confined to the youth who are
in school. Considered only in relation to these young people,
the measures suggested are intended to represent a fairly adequate
program. It is, however, very doubtful that a program which
stops short with youth who are in school can be justified.

84 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

The school has an educational responsibility toward all the
youth of the community. The fact that it is able to discharge
this obligation, so far as formal education at the high school level
goes, in only one case out of every two does not release it from the
obligation to reach as many as possible of the remaining 50 per
cent of young people who do not graduate from high school.
Informal education is the only means of doing this, and com-
munity recreational activities are one of the best kinds of informal
education. Need for education does not stop at any point in the
individual's life. The community is entitled to expect its schools
to concern themselves with all its young people, indeed with all
its members, young or old.

In some communities, as has already been mentioned, the
schools are the sole public recreation authority and are responsible
for whatever leisure-time program is conducted under public
auspices. The circumstances of communities and the location
of potential leadership vary so greatly that it is not practical
to advocate any one plan of organizing and administering public
recreation. However, it can be safely asserted that there are
certain things every school system should do to make itself more
useful to its community generally and especially to the young
people it has failed to hold.

One of the most obvious needs is that schools should maintain
an interest in the welfare of their former students, whether gradu-
ates or not. There is every reason why young people should not
be "dropped cold" when they leave school. Their recent asso-
ciation with the school should make it easier to draw them into a
school recreational program, and it is only economy to take
advantage of this circumstance. During their first few years out
of school, while they are hesitatingly adjusting themselves to the
responsibilities of adult life and finding their place in the com-
munity, they have a greater need for recreational opportunities —
particularly for social recreation — than at any other time in their
lives. An extension program of afternoon and evening activities
would save many an unemployed, partially employed, or newly
employed young person from a life almost destitute of wholesome
recreation. It would be especially valuable to young married

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 85

couples, whom numerous studies have shown to be one of the
most recreationally impoverished groups of all young people.
Moreover, the schools themselves could hardly fail to benefit
through re-establishing a contact with their former students.
It should quickly become apparent what things the schools are
not doing that the contemporary needs of youth require.

The logical next step for the schools to take in extending recrea-
tional services to all youth and the whole community is to interest
themselves in the development of the family as a recreational unit.
Youth in school and youth who have recently left school are the
natural link by which the adult portion of the community can be
drawn within the orbit of the schools' recreation programs. This
can be accomplished in two ways. The schools should become
community centers, whether or not they develop accompanying
programs of supervised recreation. They should be places where
young and old may come together and take part in activities that
interest them both but require more space than the ordinary home
affords. Classrooms should be available for meetings of special
interest groups; workshops should be open to hobby clubs; audi-
toriums and gymnasiums should be used by the community for
games, dances, dramatics, and forums.

In the second place, the schools should teach both youth and
adults recreational skills that can be practiced in the home. Not
all leisure activities the family may engage in as a unit demand
extensive space. There are still simple forms of recreation that
can have much appeal to young and old but that are often neg-
lected because of the competition of other interests. The
schools should lead the way in reviving these. Through the
recreation program for their own pupils they can introduce
knowledge of family recreation activities into many homes.
Adults and out-of-school youth can be reached as they respond
to the schools' offer to make facilities available for after-school
use. One way or another the schools should be able to do much
to restore the recreational functions of the family. Few of the
services they can perform for their constituents will be more
useful.

Finally, the schools should adopt a benevolently aggressive

86 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

attitude in cooperating with other community agencies concerned
with the leisure time of young people. They should take par-
ticular pains to see that maximum use of school facilities is ob-
tained. In 1939 only 1,500 school buildings were being used for
the recreation projects conducted by local sponsors with assistance
from the Work Projects Administration. Yet there are more
than 25,000 high schools in the United States and a far greater
number of elementary schools. Boards of education should offer
school premises freely for legitimate leisure uses; they should not
wait to be argued into cooperation. Even though they do not
assume primary responsibility for community recreation they
should actively assist in the preparation of programs, in working
out administrative details, and if possible in financing activities.

When new school buildings are planned they should be designed
to meet community recreational and educational needs in addi-
tion to ordinary classroom requirements. Indeed a primary
reason why we must continue to erect new school buildings though
the population of school age is decreasing is that schools need to
equip themselves to serve the whole community. We should
have many buildings of the E type, with the middle wing contain-
ing auditorium, gymnasium, and music and shop rooms that are
accessible to the community and can be shut off from the class-
rooms. The troublesome problem of carelessness with instruc-
tional materials and damage unintentionally done to school
property during recreational use can partly be met by designing
school buildings with their recreational functions in view.

Schools are agencies of the community and of the state, estab-
lished to promote the well-being of the people. They should not
assume that the contribution they can make toward this general
end has been exhausted when they have arranged to discharge
their responsibilities for the formal education of young people.
The schools should bear in mind that they are only one of many
community agencies interested in youth and that the broad
purpose for which they exist can also be effectively served by
contributing to the success of other organizations working for the
welfare of young people. Schools must not only accept but invite
the assistance of every agency that can help increase their effec-
tiveness.

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 87

THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Next to the schools the community agencies that have most to
do with the leisure time of youth are the libraries. There are
6,000 public libraries in the United States, and, though this is
only one-fourth the number of high schools, no other public
agency with a major interest in recreation comes closer to the
coverage achieved by the schools. Only forty towns or cities of
over 10,000 population lack public libraries. To a large extent
the libraries are educational institutions, but unlike the schools
they must depend entirely upon informal methods. They cannot
function without the good will and cooperation of the persons
they seek to educate. This fact makes their necessary connection
with recreation closer than that of the schools, some of which
have been slow to exploit fully the educational values in volun-
tary learning. If it would not be accurate to say that the whole
concern of the public libraries is with recreation, it is certainly
true that the community libraries are mainly concerned with
leisure.

The kinds of leisure activity that libraries promote are restricted
to those in which reading is a major element or that can be use-
fully supplemented by reading. This area, however, is large
enough to take in many of the interests that fill young people's
spare time. It covers reading for self-improvement as well as
for simple pleasure. It spreads over nearly the whole of cultural
and creative experiences. Many libraries, for instance, organize
art exhibits and have lending collections of phonograph records.
Indeed when we consider that there is hardly any activity known
to man about which someone has not written a book telling how
to do it better, it is apparent that no limits can be set to the
contribution reading can make to the worth-while use of leisure.

USE MADE OF LIBRARIES BY YOUTH

Youth have a special stake in the public libraries. They are
the principal users. An extensive study of reading in St. Louis
showed that over two-thirds of the reading matter obtained from
public libraries was borrowed by persons under 30. In a similar

88 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

study in South Chicago the proportion was over three-fourths.
The public libraries are often the only source of reading materials
varied enough to attract and hold young people's interest. Cer-
tainly the average American home is poorly equipped to provide
suitable and sufficient reading for boys and girls. Of 18,000
Pennsylvania youth investigated in one of the American Youth
Commission's early studies, two in five were found to be in homes
having no more than fifty books — if so many. One knows the
contents of most collections such as these. A mail order en-
cyclopedia and a set of the World's Classics, unopened, would
account for forty volumes. The remainder would be fifteen-
year-old fiction. School libraries are improving, but the great
majority are pitifully small. Their limitations can be inferred
from the fact that though they are five times as numerous as
public libraries the number of books contained in all of them
together is only one-fourth the total in public libraries.

A study of the reading habits of 40,000 representative adults in
Chicago, New York, St. Louis, and other communities showed
that the public libraries were the most important single source
of books. Forty-three per cent of all books read by these people
came from public libraries, which was more than half again as
large as the proportion obtained anywhere else. And this was in
metropolitan areas, where the competition among agencies of
book distribution is keen. In many smaller places the public
library accounts for an even greater proportion of the reading
people do. The Lynds, in Middletown, found that "book reading
. . . means overwhelmingly the reading of public library books."

SHORTCOMINGS IN SERVING YOUTH

Despite these signs of popularity, public libraries are not nearly
the effective influence in young people's use of leisure that they
should be. The libraries have two principal shortcomings.
There are not enough of them, and those we have do not make
themselves sufficiently attractive to youth. Forty million people,
or nearly a third of our population, have no library service at all.
In twenty states, libraries are not accessible to over half the

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 89

people. Of the 3,100 counties in the United States, more than
1,000 have no town, city, or county library within their borders.
Among people who live in the country, three out of four are be-
yond reach of a library. This is true of less than one in twelve
of the urban population. It has been aptly said that we have
many libraries but no library system.

The scarcity of library service in rural areas is being gradually
relieved. Where people cannot come to the library, the library
is being taken to them. In the last five years the Work Projects
Administration has made library service available to 10,000,000
persons who never had it before. In the mountains of Kentucky
it has 350 pack-horse library carriers, who stuff their saddlebags
with books and magazines and ride trails and creek bottoms,
bringing the library to the mountaineer's door. More prosperous
areas are able to extend library service throughout their rural
parts by means of the book-automobile.

Progress, however, is slow. What has been done is merely
enough to demonstrate how the problem can be solved when we
decide to solve it. Nearly everywhere the city or town, rather
than the country, is still the basis for library service. The third
of the nation that does not have access to a public library con-
tains well over a third of our young people. If we believe that
library service is an important means of public enlightenment and
a standing encouragement to the worth-while use of leisure we
should act upon our faith. We must bring this advantage within
reach of all our youth and all our citizens.

The American Library Association has proposed a plan for a
national system of library service, based upon the development
of state services that will make libraries available to all parts of
each state and all classes of the people. The federal government
would assure the adequacy of the plan by furnishing leadership
and such financial aid as might be necessary. Some measure
embodying these general features will be found essential to remove
the glaring inequalities in our library service.

Good libraries must be made available to youth, but that in
itself is not sufficient. They must be the kind of libraries that
young people will use. A defect in much of present library service

90 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

is that not nearly enough youth are attracted by it. In the
American Youth Commission's Maryland study it was found that
half the young people having libraries available to them did not
use these libraries. In the Commission's Dallas study 78 per
cent of the white youth had not used a public library in the month
preceding the interview. Similar findings have been reported by
other studies. In Detroit, a youth survey showed that 40 per
cent of young people 16 to 24 did not make even occasional use of
a public library.

If there were any large proportion of youth genuinely incapable
of taking an interest in reading, these findings might not reflect
on the libraries. But there are few youth who do not read,
though there are many who read little that is worth while because
they seldom come into contact with books that are both good in
themselves and suited to their tastes. When young people do
not come to the libraries it may be taken for granted that they are
getting their reading matter elsewhere, generally from sources
where the chances of becoming acquainted with things worth
reading are small. In a Chicago study the public libraries were
found to be furnishing less than 6 per cent of the reading matter
of young adults in their twenties.

HOW CAN PUBLIC LIBRARIES SERVE YOUTH BETTER?

The cooperation of the schools has proved to be invaluable in
getting young people to form the "library habit." Classes are
taken to visit the nearest branch. There they learn that the
library is a friendly place and are assisted to join with a minimum
of red tape. After such an introduction many of the youth will
return voluntarily.

It is not enough to bring the young person to the library. He
must be made to feel that he will find there the kinds of books
he wants. Otherwise he will not make a habit of coming back.
The kinds he wants may not be what the library is accustomed to
regard as very good kinds, but unless it is willing to supply them
it may lose the opportunity of introducing him to something
better. Librarians must not only know what young people

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 91

like to read, but also what boys and girls can learn to like and
how the transition in their tastes can be effected. They must
know how to advise a young person without seeming to want to
"improve" his reading habits.

Most libraries do not display the books they have to best
advantage. Young people can quickly develop a taste for read-
ing about hobbies and wild life. An interest in adventure tales
comes naturally to them, and biographies easily hold their at-
tention if properly selected. Libraries need to advertise their
wares. One of the large public libraries that is most successful
in serving its community has a dozen show windows fronting on
the sidewalk and dresses them with book displays that compare
favorably with the downtown shops in ability to attract the
attention of passers-by. The library is in legitimate competi-
tion with commercial forms of recreation and it ought to employ
every suitable means of advertising the services it offers the public.

In a score or more of our larger cities the public libraries have
established a separate department for youth, in charge of a
special young people's librarian. Other libraries that cannot yet
arrange for a separate department have a young people's collec-
tion in a corner of the adult department or perhaps in the brows-
ing room. These collections are built up from annual lists of the
books that have proved most popular with boys and girls. The
library that has a young people's librarian and a young people's
book collection is well on the way to serving the youth of its
community.

To a considerable extent the failure of libraries to attract more
young people may be laid to the niggardly fashion in which they
are commonly supported. Librarians know the measures they
can take to make their collections appear more desirable to youth,
but a certain amount of extra expense is usually unavoidable and
the budget is almost certain to be strained already. The Ameri-
can Library Association estimates that the average minimum
annual income upon which reasonably adequate library service
can be maintained is equivalent to one dollar per capita. In
towns and smaller cities the figure will be higher. The present
amount spent for public library service for the entire country is

92 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

thirty-seven cents per capita. It is fifty-nine cents for those
portions of the country that actually have library service. In
number of booksvthe association recommends standards of from
one and one-half to three books per capita, depending upon the
size of the community. In practice, the median in cities of over
200,000 population is less than one volume per capita.

We are not getting full benefit from the libraries we now have
through failure to keep them open sufficiently. A public library
should no more be regarded as a part-time institution than a
public school. Yet in many a community whose resources
would allow it to maintain a full-time staff the library is open only
a few hours a day, a few days a week. The public may reasonably
expect to use the library every day, including Sundays. When-
ever possible the library should remain open all evening. It is
often the only place where a young person can go in the evening
for free entertainment, yet the common closing hour of nine
o'clock is too early to solve the youth's problem of how to spend
his time. "Libraries deserve financial support that will enable
them to be open whenever there is a substantial demand for their
services.

Another way in which libraries can be more valuable to young
patrons is to increase the number of outlets through which books
are distributed. Here the pioneer work of the librarians of the
Tennessee Valley Authority deserves to be widely imitated.
Too many libraries are primarily places to store books against the
possibility that someone may want to look at them. But in the
Tennessee Valley the library leaves its books all over the com-
munity, wherever people are likely to see them. It places book
boxes in schools, in barber shops, in construction camps, in all
manner of places where people are employed or where they con-
gregate during their leisure time. There is no reason why taking
the library to the reader should be confined to rural areas or to
libraries that can afford a book-automobile. This is a service
that every library could perform, and nothing would go farther
toward increasing its usefulness to its constituency.

The fact that half of our youth read but do not make use of the
means the public libraries offer to increase the pleasure and profit

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 93

that leisure can be made to yield is a standing challenge that the
libraries cannot afford to ignore.

COMMUNITY RECREATION AUTHORITIES

There is a third means by which society attempts to influence
the use young people make of their spare time. In many com-
munities a special agency of local government has been created
to promote recreation among the public in general and its younger
members in particular. This local recreation authority takes
various forms. It may be a recreation commission or board,
elected by the people and supported by the proceeds of a special
recreation tax. It may be a committee or council with the
members appointed by and representative of various existing
government agencies, such as the school board, the park com-
mission, and the mayor's office, but exercising independent
authority. Or it may be a recreation department forming part
of the municipal administration and responsible solely to the
mayor and city council. Sometimes the job is turned over to an
already existing agency. Frequently this is the authority ad-
ministering the public parks, though as we have already men-
tioned the schools conduct a small share of public recreation pro-
grams.

SERVICES RENDERED BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES

Local recreation authorities differ greatly with regard to the
responsibilities they undertake. Some do little more than equip
a few playgrounds and provide custodial service for them. Others
conduct an elaborate program with a variety of supervised ac-
tivities for all members of the community. The majority fall
somewhere between these two extremes, as local resources and
initiative determine.

It used to be thought that a community which provided a
public park where people could take their ease amid the peaceful
surroundings of nature had done all that might reasonably be
expected of it to help its citizens spend their leisure agreeably and
profitably. Then, in 1872, Brookline, Massachusetts, passed

94 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

the first legislative measure establishing public playgrounds.
Other cities adopted this innovation, and eventually playgrounds,
more or less fully equipped and operated either in connection
with the park system or separately, became a standard part of
any large city's provision for the welfare of its young people.

In 1906 the movement received an impetus from the organiza-
tion of the Playground Association of America, now known as
the National Recreation Association. Little by little progressive
communities added facilities for outdoor sport and physical
activity. The conception of public recreation expanded to
include the interests of older youth and of adults. A temporary
setback was caused by the depression, but in recent years the
provision of recreational facilities and services has resumed its
steady advance. It has been particularly aided by the stimulus
of federal emergency employment measures, to which must be
attributed the fact that many communities were able to keep
a program going at all.

Recreation buildings have more than tripled since 1930, and
there are now 1,500. In addition, there are 4,000 indoor recrea-
tion centers (buildings not used exclusively for recreation but in
which a recreation program is carried on under leadership for
community groups). By 1938 the public recreation movement
had reached a point where 24,000 recreation workers were being
paid from municipal funds — 3,200 of them on a full-time basis.
In addition, there were 40,000 WPA workers, paid from federal
funds, conducting community programs. There were also nearly
10,000 volunteer workers. Total expenditures for municipal
recreation were in excess of $60,000,000, and total participations
were in the hundreds of millions. Public recreation gives the
impression of assuming sizable proportions.

It is difficult to suggest the nature and extent of the activities
carried on by a typical recreation department because local cir-
cumstances vary greatly and the field to be exploited is much
broader than any single program yet developed. However, a
large city with an aggressive, well-supported recreation depart-
ment is now likely to offer services along most of the following
lines.

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 95

The core of the program will usually be the city's playground
facilities. These may include the school playgrounds, operated
under leadership by the recreation department after school hours
and over week ends. They will also include municipal play-
grounds, situated in the public parks or elsewhere. Such play-
grounds are likely to be larger than school grounds, to be open
all day, and to offer a fuller program of activities. A consider-
able variety of play apparatus will be provided and there will
be all the usual games and sports. In addition, the leaders will
organize groups in storytelling, dramatics, nature lore, handi-
crafts, and other pastimes adapted to children's interests and the
playground's resources. There will be special events such as
kite-flying tournaments, treasure hunts, and excursions.

For use by youth and adults, a few larger areas designated as
playing fields will be maintained. These are suited for outdoor
team games requiring considerable space. Football fields, base-
ball diamonds, running tracks, areas for hockey, soccer, lacrosse,
and archery will be provided, as well as numerous tennis courts,
bowling greens, handball courts, horseshoe pitches, and the like.
There will be a field house with showers and perhaps game rooms
to which activities can be transferred in wet weather. There
may be a pavilion for open-air dances.

During the winter the emphasis will be shifted to community
centers, which may or may not be operated in connection with
playgrounds. In any case, if they are well equipped they will
be provided with gymnasiums and swimming pools so that a
minimum program of physical recreation can be carried on in-
doors. They will also have numerous rooms where special
interest groups can meet, shops with machinery for working
in wood, metal, and so on, and perhaps an auditorium with
stage and motion picture apparatus.

These centers will serve as focal points for a host of activities.
Every member of the community, young and old, can find here
opportunity for developing some interest that will appeal to him.
Music groups will gather for informal singing, or to make simple
instruments, or merely to listen to records. Arts and crafts
groups can explore an almost limitless range of fascinating hob-

96 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

bies, from block printing through quilting and model making to
snow sculpture. Persons with a taste for drama can experiment
with marionettes or work up impersonations, minstrel shows, or
even full-length plays. The center can be used as a base for
nature expeditions and a repository for collections of flowers,
fossils, and minerals. Astronomy and microscope study are
hobbies that can be developed on the premises. Book clubs,
debates, forums, spelling bees, and similar activities can be
organized.

In addition to the routine function of conducting play activities
during the summer and community centers during the winter,
recreation departments characteristically provide a number of
special facilities and guidance in their use, varying according to
local conditions and resources. If the climate is suitable, winter
sports are likely to be developed. Playing fields may be flooded
for skating, or indoor rinks may be provided. A toboggan run,
coasting hill, or ski jump may be built and snowshoeing expedi-
tions organized. Iceboating can be developed if a frozen lake
or river is near by.

The proximity of natural bodies of water affords opportunity
for maintaining swimming facilities for summer use. Beaches
will be improved, or in some instances created, bathhouses will be
erected, and supervision provided. If boating is practicable, a
clubhouse may be built and craft rented. Other special facilities
that recreation departments sometimes find it possible to furnish
are: municipal golf courses, bandstands and orchestra shells,
outdoor theaters, rollerskating rinks, and stadiums.

Besides supplying special facilities, recreation departments
often organize or contribute to special events, these occasions
marking high spots in the year's program. Historical pageants,
folk dance festivals, and winter sports carnivals are typical of such
enterprises. Less spectacular but equally popular are the Christ-
mas carolling services conducted in many cities. Summer camps,
both for families and for boys and girls, are maintained by dozens
of recreation departments, and organized camps in the city parks
for day or week-end use are more and more frequently promoted.
Some departments are active in encouraging industrial recreation

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 97

and in sponsoring leisure associations among employees of busi-
ness firms. These associations are often particularly interested
in athletics and hold annual sport events with parades, exhibits,
and contests. A further special service offered by some recreation
departments consists of maintaining contact with old people,
invalids, and physically handicapped persons, conducting pro-
grams in institutions, and in other ways aiding shut-ins to culti-
vate leisure interests.

The more elaborate programs of public recreation are naturally
found in the larger cities, where material resources are greater
and civic-mindedness is likely to be more prevalent. This does
not mean that effective and diversified programs for youth or for
all citizens can be developed only in large urban centers. Among
the communities reporting to the National Recreation Associa-
tion are numerous towns and even villages and rural areas. The
programs they conduct are often as remarkable, considering their
size, as any to be found in the larger cities.

Crawfordsville, Indiana, a town of 10,000 inhabitants, supports
a symphony orchestra of fifty-five or sixty. The players range
in age from 15 to 61 and are nearly all recruited locally. Hast-
ings-on-Hudson, New York, a town of 7,500 inhabitants, con-
ducts a year-round recreation service on a budget of less than
$6,000. In 1937 its total attendance at activities during the year
was nearly ten times the population of the town.1 It is true,
however, that the greater the size of a community the more
likely it is that some public effort will have been made to promote
recreation. Of the municipal recreation authorities known to
exist in 1938, nearly a fourth were in city or county areas of over
50,000, though only 6 per cent of all urban communities are of
this size.

THE NEED FOR ADDITIONAL PROGRAMS

Perhaps the most important fact about public recreation pro-
grams is that there are so few of them. Numerically they are a
poor third among the means employed by society in its effort to

1 For a detailed description of the Hastings-on-Hudson program, see George D. Butler,
Introduction to Community Recreation (New York: Macmillan Co., 1940).

98 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

guide the uses to which people put their leisure. We have 25,000
public high schools and 6,000 public libraries, but the number of
communities reporting public recreation service is barely 1,300.
Nearly all communities of more than 50,000 population have
taken some step to make available to their members activities
of the kind usually promoted by a public recreation authority.
Among communities of smaller size, however, many have not yet
recognized their responsibility in this direction.

Consider, for example, the population range from 10,000 to
50,000. It contains a large and important group of American
cities — nearly 800 in number. Almost any community within
these limits should be able to discover among its citizens the
leadership necessary to bring about community acceptance of and
support for a program of public recreation. Yet in 1938 approxi-
mately half of these cities were not known to have any local
authority — public or private — conducting a recreation program
for the community, with the exception of emergency activities
undertaken with the aid of the WPA. Of communities from
5,000 to 10,000 population, less than one in four had its own
program of public recreation.

The Work Projects Administration has made it possible for
locally sponsored recreation programs to be conducted in many
communities that would not otherwise have had them. Hun-
dreds of additional small communities receive recreation services
from county authorities. However, the overwhelming majority
of towns and small cities have no program of public recreation,
and this situation is practically universal in rural areas. Yet
there are self-supported programs functioning usefully in com-
munities of only a few hundred. The smallest area can demon-
strate a sense of civic responsibility.

It is impossible to say how large a community may grow before
a public recreation program becomes a necessity. Any com-
munity will be the better for helping its members to use their
leisure wisely, and experience shows that enterprise and resource-
fulness can accomplish remarkable results wherever they are
applied. The only certain thing is that three decades of growth
have left the public recreation movement still small in relation

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 99

to the need. The facts available to the National Recreation
Association indicate that less than one-half of the population of
the United States is served by any form of public recreation
program, exclusive of emergency services.

INADEQUACIES IN EXISTING PROGRAMS

It is a further defect of municipal and county recreation authori-
ties that even where they do exist they have generally been able
to satisfy the needs of their communities only very incompletely.
They suffer heavily from the financial undernourishment which
afflicts all social services. The National Recreation Association
suggests that any American city should spend annually at least
$1.50 per capita for the services ordinarily provided by a munici-
pal recreation department and an equal sum for such leisure
services as the maintenance of general park areas, operation of
museums, and provision of special events. In 1937 the suggested
standard of $3.00 was reached by only two of our ninety-four
cities of 100,000 or more. The average per capita expenditure of
this whole group of cities was $1.54. Other standards exist by
which the adequacy of such facilities as parks and playgrounds
can be estimated, but it is the exception rather than the rule for
them to be met.

The National Resources Planning Board has recommended
that municipalities of more than 10,000 population provide a
minimum of one acre of park space for each 100 inhabitants. Yet
throughout the country in 1930 there was an average of 208
persons to each acre of park space — in communities having parks.
That the recommended standard is not unreasonable is shown
by the fact that 268 selected cities have an average of only sixty-
four persons to each acre of parks.

It is conservatively estimated that our municipal park acreage
will have to be doubled to meet the requirements of the present
urban population. Moreover, many of our present city parks
are not readily accessible to the people who need them most.
Areas beyond the city limits now comprise one-third of all munic-
ipal park lands. In 1930 a study by the National Recreation

100 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

Association found that over three-fourths of the total park area
in cities of 5,000 and over was in large parks and outlying reserva-
tions or forest parks. Local communities now own and manage
more than 1,500 forest areas, containing approximately 3,000,000
acres. Such recreational lands have definite uses, but they are
not a substitute for smaller areas more conveniently located.
Lack of balance and adequate planning characterizes far too
many of our city park systems. There should be a recreation
park in every major section of a large city and a neighborhood
park of from a few to twenty-five acres for at least each square
mile.

There is a particular need for children's playgrounds and play-
fields, and little progress has been made toward providing them.
According to the National Recreation Association there should
be a supervised playground within easy walking distance of every
child (a half mile at most and the way not barred by arterial
streets). Single playgrounds should be from three to seven acres,
and one acre to every 1,000 of the population is a reasonable
standard. There should be supervised neighborhood playfields
of from ten to twenty acres within a mile of every home, and one
acre to every 800 of the population is regarded as a reasonable
allowance. We have only to look about our cities to see how far
they fall short of such standards as these.

Leadership in connection with municipal recreation facilities
of all kinds is another pressing need. It is a remarkable fact that
cities that have been willing to invest heavily in recreation areas
often begrudge a small additional expenditure for trained person-
nel to stimulate the use of these areas. Nothing will contribute
more to the pleasure and profit the public obtains from its recrea-
tional facilities than guidance in their use. In Fairmont Park,
Philadelphia, the introduction of leadership activities increased
attendance twelvefold the first year.

The various deficiencies of public provision for recreation are
reflected in a study the National Recreation Association has made
of twenty communities that do have public recreation authorities.
It was concluded that on the whole the efforts of these authorities
are no more than 60 per cent adequate. Coupling this fact with

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 101

the high proportion of communities that do not even make an
effort in this direction, the association estimates that communi-
ties where reasonably adequate programs of public recreation are
in operation probably contain well under a fifth of our people.

WHO SHOULD ADMINISTER A PUBLIC RECREA-
TION PROGRAM?

We have seen that there are three principal agencies through
which progressive communities attempt to direct the leisure activ-
ity of youth into useful channels. There is first the school. This
institution has the advantage of being the most widespread of the
three. It is found in nearly every community of the land. Often
it is the only nucleus around which any recreation program can
be built. It is not primarily a recreational agency, but its poten-
tial interest in the leisure of young people is very great. Though
it is true that in many places this interest is little developed, the
trend of the times is unmistakable. Schools will inevitably as-
sume a role of major importance in the work of bringing to youth
opportunity for a satisfying leisure life.

Then there is the library. This institution, while not so widely
distributed as the school, is found in most urban districts of any
size, and there are signs that it will not be long delayed in achiev-
ing a fairly complete coverage of rural areas. Like the school,
it is not wholly concerned with recreation, perhaps not even pri-
marily. But the informal conditions under which it operates
oblige it to accommodate itself more closely to the interests and
needs of the individuals with whom it works than many schools
yet do. And while the scope of the interests it cultivates is
somewhat restricted compared with the concern for all aspects
of young people's leisure that may be expected of schools, there
is no doubt that it often exerts a greater influence upon the leisure
of the youth who come in contact with it than do many schools.

Finally, there is the municipal or county recreation authority —
which in a few cases may actually be the school board — whose
function is to provide facilities for public recreation and guidance
in using them. It has the advantage that it is the only one of the

102 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

three agencies to be wholly concerned with recreation. Its efforts,
however, have not been equally distributed among all leisure
interests but have tended to be concentrated upon outdoor activi-
ties and sports. As a potentially dominating influence in the field
of leisure it suffers from the further disadvantage of having
arrived late and achieved only a moderate development to date.

Where these three agencies exist in the same community they
are usually independent of one another. Occasionally they co-
operate to some extent, but each is ordinarily responsible only
for its own program. No one agency has the duty of seeing that
all the leisure needs of youth and of the community are well met.
The question inevitably arises whether it would not be good
policy to have a single agency charged with this function.

The point at issue can be narrowed by assuming that there
would be no great obstacle to placing the school and the library
under a unified control. They are both educational institutions,
and they both achieve their ends largely through teaching young
people good reading habits and the intelligent use of books.
Tradition, inertia, and the technical difficulties of administration
keep them apart, and with good will these hindrances can be
overcome. In several important cities the school and library
services have long been administered by a single agency. This
arrangement may also be observed in the communities that have
grown up around the projects of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
It appears to work well.

The point over which there is likely to be a real difference of
opinion is whether the functions now exercised by schools and
departments of public recreation should be administered by the
same authority. There are things to be said on both sides of this
question. The advantages of uniting the functions of public
education and public recreation may be summarized as follows.

1. It is usually less difficult to secure public acceptance of
responsibility for some new function if the administration of it is
assigned to an existing agency. The relation of recreation to
education is close enough to justify such a step. The school is
already accepted by the community as a tax-supported agency,
and the public is more or less reconciled to education's being
interpreted in increasingly broad terms.

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 103

2. In a school board we have a body of laymen who should be
able to take a broad social point of view and who have had experi-
ence in promoting community welfare through public action.
It is only administrative expediency to utilize the talents of this
group in establishing a new community service so closely related
to the field of their competence.

3. The most effective use of school property for community
recreation is likely to result only if education and recreation are
administered by a single authority.

4. The school buildings tend to be strategically located with
respect to the distribution of the population. But new recreation
sites, such as an independent recreation authority might be
obliged to acquire, can often be found only in inconveniently
situated places.

On the other hand, there are considerations that can be ad-
vanced against extending the school's duties to include conducting
a public recreation program. Though in theory recreation should
not and indeed cannot be sharply distinguished from education,
there are practical difficulties to uniting administrative respon-
sibility for the two services. Some of these were discussed earlier
in this chapter as obstacles that hinder schools from giving ade-
quate attention to the recreational needs of their pupils. The
points which seem to weigh most heavily against the school's
taking charge of recreation for the whole community are:

1. Many schools are not yet discharging their present educa-
tional functions adequately, and we should not risk dissipating
their energies and resources by placing further community re-
sponsibilities upon them.

2. Too many individual schools lack the point of view neces-
sary to vigorous leadership in recreation. There is danger that
they will formalize a program that must be kept close to con-
temporary needs, as they have done with education. They may
not promote recreation with sufficient energy because they do not
adequately appreciate its importance.

3. Two agencies conducting distinct programs are likely to meet
with less tax resistance from the public than one agency perform-
ing two functions not clearly differentiated.

4. Public recreation is a function of sufficient importance to

104 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

have its own independent organization. This is perhaps the
strongest argument of all.

In view of what there is to say on either side of this matter, no
hard and fast principle can be laid down to govern the relationship
between the school and the other community agencies ministering
to young people's recreation needs. It can certainly be said,
however, that if the expanded school recreation program recom-
mended earlier in this chapter shows a tendency to develop into
unified control of all the community's public agencies working in
the field of leisure interests, such unification should not be re-
sisted so long as it is evident that the full development of all
recreational services will proceed unhampered.

It is important that nothing be done that would restrict the
freedom essential to the proper functioning and continued growth
of public recreation. No school board should assume responsi-
bility for community recreation unless its own educational philos-
ophy is as realistic as that underlying modern recreation practice.
There must be no lessening of the emphasis that recreation places
upon learning through doing and upon participation because of
enjoyment rather than for the sake of "marks" or external re-
wards. Activities must continue to arise out of individual in-
terests, creative values must retain their primary importance, and
compulsion must have no place in the program. Of course many
progressive schools accept these principles as part of their own
educational philosophy and incorporate them as far as possible
in their practice. We must see that they are accepted by any
school that undertakes a major responsibility for community
recreation.

Though it is not possible at the present stage of development to
devise a formula by which administrative responsibility for a
community recreation program can be fixed, it is possible to
identify a central tendency and suggest that communities work
toward it. The Educational Policies Commission of the National
Education Association foresees that in communities of appropriate
size there will eventually come into being a Public Education
Authority, charged with the responsibility of conducting the
activities now carried on by the school board, the library board,

PUBLICLY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 105

and the public recreation department. As a goal for the not too
distant future this seems desirable. Small communities, in
particular, ought to find such an arrangement beneficial. Its
theoretical advantages are evident from what has already been
said. Of course the union would have to embody a high degree of
flexibility to ensure that the best values of all three services are
retained. But this should not prove impossible. The obstacles
are either administrative details or lack of public understanding
of the importance of the issues involved. These difficulties,
time and intelligent effort can remedy. Both economy and
social need call for a unified program of cultural and leisure-time
activities for citizens of all ages and at every economic level.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

BUTLER, GEORGE D. Introduction to Community Recreation. New York; Macmillan
Co., 1940. 550 pp.

"Camping Education," Phi Delta Kappan, XXI (December 1938), entire number.

CHANCELLOR, JOHN. The Library in the fVA Adult Education Program. Chicago:
American Library Association, 1937. 75 pp.

Educational Policies for Community Recreation. Washington: Educational Policies Com-
mission, 1940. 31 pp.

HJELTE, GEORGE. The Administration of Public Recreation. New York: Macmillan
Co., 1940. 416 pp.

JACKS, L. P. Education through Recreation. New York: Harper and Bros., 1932. 155 pp.

JOECKEL, CARLETON B. Library Service, Staff Study No. 11, Advisory Committee on
Education. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1935. 107 pp.

LIES, EUGENE T. The New Leisure Challenges the Schools. New York: National Recrea-
tion Association, 1933. 326 pp.

Social Services and the Schools. Washington: Educational Policies Commission, 1939.
147 pp.

CHAPTER V

RECREATION THROUGH PRI-
VATELY SUPPORTED COM-
MUNITY AGENCIES

1 HE RECREATIONAL services supplied by schools,
libraries, and other public authorities are only part of the pro-
vision that communities commonly make for the leisure of their
younger members. Balancing the various recreational activities
that people promote through their public agencies is a host of
leisure-time enterprises that they sponsor in their capacities as
individual citizens or members of private organizations. Nearly
a quarter of all community chest funds, it is estimated, are used for
some kind of leisure service. This is only a little less than the
proportion going to the field of activity that receives the largest
allotment. Private philanthropy annually contributes large
sums for recreational work through numerous other channels.

Nearly everyone is acquainted in a general way with two or
three of the larger voluntary agencies for occupying the leisure of
young persons. Most people will also know of instances of useful
service being rendered by private agencies whose recreational
work with youth is not so widely appreciated, such as a church
or a businessmen's club. Few persons, however, realize how
numerous are the private agencies concerned with the leisure time
of young people and how varied are the activities they foster.
There are easily forty or fifty of what may be described as "com-
munity" agencies that have a substantial interest in promoting

106

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 107

recreation among youth. No community is likely to have all of
them, and many communities, even of fair size, have few indeed.
But these agencies represent potential resources that a com-
munity can develop for the benefit of its young people. If they
were better known they would be more widely utilized.1

Part of the difficulty of obtaining an adequate picture of the
private recreational services available to youth is the extraordi-
nary complexity of this area of social service. There are leisure
organizations of young people that are simply offshoots of organ-
izations for adults — such as church societies. Other organizations
of young people may be unaffiliated with any adult organization
but still led principally by adults; examples are the Scouts and
the Young Men's Christian Association.

There are a few organizations that are not only composed
wholly of youth and unconnected with any adult organization,
but are directed entirely by the young people themselves. How-
ever, the only agencies of this kind having a major interest in
recreation are the so-called "cellar clubs." These are voluntary
associations which exist to provide their members with facilities
for social activities free from adult supervision. They derive
their name from the typical location that their meager resources
usually oblige them to seek. These clubs are numerous in our
large cities, but it is questionable whether in their present state
they should be regarded as a community asset.

Finally, there are organizations of adults, such as businessmen's
clubs and women's clubs, whose interest in the leisure of youth
usually takes the form of supplying facilities or encouraging public
action to provide facilities, rather than working directly with
young people themselves. These various levels at which private
youth-serving agencies function need to be kept clearly in mind
whenever an effort is made to assess the community's recreational
resources.

It is characteristic of community organizations attempting to
influence young people's use of leisure that recreation alone is

1 The American Youth Commission has recently prepared a new edition of its hand-
book, Youth-Serving Organizations: National Nongovernmental Associations. This volume
has been found to be a valuable guide in obtaining a view of community resources in all
fields of youth welfare.

108 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

seldom the primary goal of their efforts. Often they do not even
acknowledge it as a major objective. Their avowed ends are
things that they consider more important or that are thought to
have greater ability to attract community support. This fact
increases the difficulty of obtaining a clear view of the recreational
resources represented by private agencies. Cellar clubs are
almost the only youth-serving organizations that claim mere
recreation as their principal function, and these groups do not
depend on community support but upon the resources of their
own members.

When the reader looks about his community with the object
of identifying the private agencies and groups of citizens whose
expressed purpose is to enable young people to find more and
better opportunities for recreation, he should not be discouraged
to discover them few in number. The conception of recreation
as a normal, enjoyable, and important part of people's lives, rather
than as a means of cultivating desirable characteristics or sup-
pressing undesirable tendencies, has been so slow in gaining
ground that there is almost no private agency in the community
which bases its philosophy upon it. There are, however, any
number of agencies that for one reason or another are making or
would be willing to make significant contributions to young
people's use of leisure. The fact that such agencies exist and are
an element in the community's recreational resources is more
important than the motives which prompt their contribution.
For our present purposes they may be regarded as recreational
agencies, whatever their primary aim. In this chapter we shall
attempt a brief description of the agencies of this type most likely
to be found in the local community. First, however, it will be
desirable to consider briefly the place of private recreational
agencies.

THE PLACE OF PRIVATE AGENCIES

It is now no longer in doubt that our society must accept the
responsibility of assuring adequate opportunity for recreation to
all its members. We have already made some progress toward

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 109

this goal, and when we shall achieve it is a question of time rather
than principle. A large expansion of recreation under public
auspices is necessarily involved in this conception of our
obligation.

To some individuals, increased provision for public recreation
has seemed to imply the decline and possibly the eventual elimina-
tion of the recreational activities now conducted by private
agencies. Both must compete to some extent for participants,
and the persons who now provide the financial support for private
recreation will be required to contribute to public recreation as
well. It is possible they may conclude that they would not be
justified in assuming the double burden.

Such a conclusion, however, would be unwarranted. Public
and private recreation perform functions sufficiently distinct to
justify the continuance of both. The greater part of recreation
services are still provided by private agencies. A Children's
Bureau study in twenty-nine cities recently showed that on the
average only two-fifths of leisure services were financed from
taxes (excluding federal emergency expenditures for wages only),
and the range was as low as 13 per cent. There is no reason to
believe that the portion of this total load assumed by private
agencies need ever become negligible. Historically, public and
private recreation are found to supplement each other.

Private agencies can continue to serve their communities
usefully in the face of the growing demand for public recreation.
One in seven of the recreation authorities reporting to the Na-
tional Recreation Association in 1938 that they were conducting
a program of community recreation was a private agency. The
most numerous were bodies created for the particular purpose of
operating a recreation program, such as playground and recreation
associations. There were sixty-three agencies of this type.
Twenty-six private community houses and similar institutions
were conducting public recreation programs. Luncheon clubs
were known to have twelve programs in operation; Y.M.C.A.'s,
four. Other sponsoring bodies were welfare federations; civic,
neighborhood, and community clubs; the American Legion;
chambers of commerce; and industrial plants. These were not

110 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

agencies with programs simply for their own members. They
were private agencies conducting community recreation programs.
There are useful characteristics of private agencies that can
seldom be matched in public organizations, and there are areas
of recreational need to which private agencies can minister better
than public enterprise. The following is a partial list of advan-
tages that private recreational agencies possess in a higher degree
than public agencies.

1. The private agency can often move with greater boldness
and dispatch toward meeting a new recreation need or trying out a
new procedure than a public agency can. It can act as a "prov-
ing ground" for demonstrating the worth of new developments.

2. The private agency may solicit funds for the needs of a
special group or for functions demanding more highly individ-
ualized attention than can be provided by an agency that must
serve all the people.

3. The private agency can maintain a closer relationship with
religious organizations without infringing the constitutional
restrictions that affect a public school or other public recreation
agency.

4. The private agency gives the benefactor an opportunity to
indulge his altruistic impulses more directly than is possible
through the impersonal medium of taxes.

5. The private agency can take vigorous action to initiate and
support public recreation without danger of its motives being
suspected.

Considerations such as these provide ample justification for the
survival of the private recreation agency. Communities should
realize that public and private recreation are not opposed to each
other in any essential respect and that it will be to their advantage
to support both.

We turn now to the particular community agencies and types
of agencies that have been most active in promoting recreation
for youth, other than those supported by local government funds.
The number of organizations of this type whose members are
young people themselves is large. Few agencies that have been
successful in organizing many youth for any purpose have neg-

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 111

lected the recreational approach. Organizations that do not
admit youth to membership but do make some contribution to
their opportunities for recreation are also numerous. We shall
first consider separately the independent youth-membership
organizations that have been most successful in promoting
leisure interests, dividing these into adult-led agencies and those
in which youth themselves supply the leadership (cellar clubs).
We shall then take up by type of organization the adult agencies
of the community that exhibit a particular interest in recreation
for youth, dividing these into agencies that develop youth organ-
izations of their own and those that contribute to young people's
leisure in other ways. Finally, we shall consider the agencies —
youth and adult — serving rural young people.

ADULT-LED, INDEPENDENT ORGANIZATIONS

FOR YOUTH

There are a number of community organizations for youth that
are not outgrowths of any adult agency but exist solely for the
benefits they endeavor to provide young people. While not
sponsored by adult organizations, nearly all of these groups are
adult led, though in some of them youth are encouraged to accept
varying degrees of responsibility. This class of youth organiza-
tion includes some of those best known to the public at large.
The following pages give some description of these agencies.
Questions raised are confined to points believed to apply particu-
larly to the agency in question. After consideration of the
individual agencies, attention is directed to certain deficiencies
which characterize the agencies as a group. Finally, there will
be found a discussion of certain promising developments in this
field.

BOY SCOUTS

The Scouting movement endeavors to guide character forma-
tion by developing self-reliance, wholesome outdoor interests,
and a spirit of public service. The local organization takes the
form of a "troop" of from eight to thirty- two boys, subdivided

112 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

into "patrols" of eight. In rural areas patrols may be organized
with as few as two boys, and isolated individuals may join the
movement as Lone Scouts under the guidance of an adult. Each
troop is sponsored by a school, church, or other community organ-
ization, which furnishes a troop committee of adults, a volunteer
scoutmaster, and a room for the weekly meetings. Scouting is
organized on three age levels: boys under 12 are known as Cubs,
boys 12 to 15 simply as Scouts, and boys over 15 as Senior Scouts.

Scouting captures the imagination of boys by uniform, drill,
and nature lore. An elaborately worked out program of sug-
gested activities is furnished to local groups by the national
office and graded according to age and abilities. Youth are
introduced to an intricate and extensive assemblage of leisure
pursuits, among which they may choose to suit their interests.
Camping, hiking, and other aspects of woodcraft are empha-
sized. Handicrafts and scores of special skills may be developed
under the stimulus of prescribed minimum standards and awards
for superior achievement. There are 106 different merit badges
that a boy may earn and various degrees of rank to be attained.

The Scouts are one of the largest youth organizations and
continue to add substantially to their numbers from year to
year. There are nearly a million and a half Scouts in the United
States, of whom 30 per cent are over 15. There are also a third
of a million volunteer adult leaders, many of whom are under 25.
In all, 2,000,000 boys who are now between the ages of 15 and 21
are or have been Scouts.

It should be said that certain of the characteristic features of
Scouting that contribute most to its appeal to boys embody also
the defects of their virtues. The system of awards and merit
badges has in the past operated to stimulate a competitive
spirit. Current trends in the movement emphasize competition
with one's own standards, a type of endeavor less open to ob-
jection. However, it would seem that more effort might be
devoted to the development of cooperation along the lines neces-
sary in our modern life. Drill can readily lend itself to over-
emphasis in the hands of unimaginative scoutmasters, who may
use it as a substitute for more worth-while but less easily organ-

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 113

ized activities. Scouting, through its training program for
leaders, has been endeavoring to reduce the possibility of this
unfortunate occurrence. A recent study2 has criticized the move-
ment for employing emotional conditioning and indoctrination
rather than promoting intellectual insight. This study also
discerns in Scouting a tendency to believe that social improve-
ment can be attained merely through the regeneration of in-
dividuals. There seems to be reason for questioning whether
on these points the movement has been meeting the social chal-
lenge of modern American life.

GIRL SCOUTS

The aims of the Girl Scouts bear considerable resemblance to
those of the Boy Scouts and their form of organization has been
along similar lines, though the two agencies are not affiliated.
The program is divided into three age groups: Brownies, aged 7
to 10; Girl Scouts, 10 to 14; and Senior Girl Scouts, 14 to 18.
The basic local unit is the troop of from eight to thirty-two girls.
It is under the immediate sponsorship of a troop committee of
interested adults, and in communities of some size there will also
be a local council of adults to supervise and further the activities
of all nearby troops. There is a volunteer leader and assistant
leader to each troop. Until recently the patrol of eight has been
the standard subdivision through which program activities were
developed. There are now over half a million Girl Scouts organ-
ized into' 24,000 troops in some 5,000 local communities. The
great majority of them are between the ages of 10 and 13.

The organization takes advantage of the group interest of the
early teens to foster good fellowship among girls, teach them how
to assume and delegate responsibility, and encourage self-govern-
ment. The seventy-two proficiency badges cover a wide range
of interests. Homemaking and health-and-safety have been the
most popular fields, but lately they have been closely approached
by arts and crafts and cultural subjects. Among Senior Girl
Scouts considerable emphasis is laid upon vocational exploration.

2 Edwin Nicholson, Education and the Boy Scout Movement in America (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1941). ' & V

114 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

Camping and hiking are leading activities. There are 1,400
permanent Girl Scout camp sites in the United States and 1,800
troop camps, which are sites for shorter outings. Girl Scouts
pioneered in developing the day camp, where young people go
for a few hours to study nature, cook, tell stories, or play games
about a campfire. They now have 488 such camps, and are
playing a leading part in advancing this popular movement.

Two years ago the national office of the Girl Scouts instituted
a revised program for the conduct of activities in local troops.
The patrol system, which had been regarded as the chief instru-
ment for encouraging the spirit and practice of democracy within
the troop, was judged to be inadequate for this purpose and was
abandoned. The national office now makes no effort to pre-
scribe the details of troop government. Troops are advised to
organize committees or interest groups of any size that may
seem desirable. Rules and regulations have been abandoned and
procedure is to be devised by the local groups in accordance with
a few general principles formulated by the national office. Awards
for rank and special merit are no longer to be made solely on the
basis of proficiency but are to take into account each girl's
ability, experience, and effort. Formal testing has been aban-
doned. It is believed that the maximum development for each
girl will be achieved through participation in small groups rather
than by directly cultivating individual proficiency. The trend
of the new program is thus toward breadth and flexibility.

CAMP FIRE GIRLS

The Camp Fire Girls enroll 274,000 members in 13,500 local
groups, or "Campfires," in 1,300 communities of the United
States. They are for the most part between the ages of 8 and 16.
Campfire groups may be attached to a church or school, though
a large proportion exist independently. Each is under the di-
rection of a volunteer adult leader known as the "Guardian."

The aim of this agency is to develop the initiative, resource-
fulness, and self-reliance of girls and to help them make a happy
adjustment to life. As in the Scouting organizations, there is a

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 115

system of good deeds and proficiency awards and a strong interest
in woodcraft and camping. Somewhat more emphasis is prob-
ably placed upon artistic values and the making of beautiful
things. There is an equal emphasis upon health and the home.
A distinctive characteristic of the Camp Fire Girls is an elabor-
ate ritual incorporating elements from Indian legend. This is
intended to stimulate imagination and invest the ordinary rela-
tionships of life with beauty and a new significance. Girls do
not buy ready-made uniforms but instead have ceremonial
garments which they are expected to make themselves. The
various ornamental designs these embody are given esoteric
meanings. The ceremony is meticulously prescribed by the
national office, but local groups have freedom in arranging their
other activities.

THE YOUNG MEN*S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION

The Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations
have been defined as "at their best, and essentially, fellowships
of men and boys, women and girls, seeking to develop person-
ality, commonly conceived as 'fourfold' — actually, of course,
multifold — in accord with character ideals based upon the New
Testament and particularly upon the personality of Jesus."3
The fourfold conception of personality referred to in this defini-
tion comprises the mental, physical, moral, and social aspects
of human behavior. We are not here concerned to estimate the
extent to which either of these organizations has achieved its
primary aim of character building. For the Y.M.C.A., a thorough
inquiry into this question is now available in the remarkable study
by Pence.4 A somewhat similar study of the Y.W.C.A. also
exists.5 We are concerned merely to indicate the place occupied
by the two "Y's" as community recreational resources and insti-
tutions with an interest in developing the fuller implications of
the leisure of young people.

3 International Survey of the Young Men's and Toung Women's Christian Associations
(New York: Association Press, 1932), p. 353.

4 Owen E. Pence, The YM.C.A. and Social Need (New York: Association Press, 1939).
6 Mary S. Sims, The Natural Hi story of a Social Institution— The YW.C.A. (New York:

Womans Press, 1936).

116 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

There are 700 community associations of the Y.M.C.A. in the
United States and an additional 600 connected with colleges or
other institutions. The average association has 1,150 members,
and the total membership is given as a million and a third, with
approximately a million additional persons estimated to partici-
pate annually in various activities. Of the members, roughly a
third — or about 435,000 — are boys and young men between 16
and 24 years of age; another third are men of 25 or more; the
remainder are boys under 16, with the exception of a group of
girls and women constituting 9 per cent of the total membership.
The constituency of the Y.M.C.A. may be described as drawn
from the middle and lower-middle classes, particularly from
men and boys engaged in trade and commerce and having Pro-
testant backgrounds.

The facilities offered by the average "Y" are generally familiar.
The association is one of the better financed youth-serving organ-
izations and over the lengthy period of its history has accumulated
considerable property assets. The center of activities will be
a building varying in size and accommodations with the resources
of the community but likely to surpass that of any other organiza-
tion conducting a comparable program. Gymnasium, swimming
pool, bowling alleys, clubrooms, and a dormitory are usual
features.

The organization for working with young people is a combina-
tion of the traditional departmental structure and the newer
group work approach. The retention of departmentalism has
seemed necessary, although it is known to be the less effective
means of achieving the association's primary aim, because the
association has taken on a number of service functions in the
community and can only discharge them in this way. How-
ever, the typical "Y" program contains an assortment of young
people's clubs, either of specialized interest or intended to promote
general, all-round development. There are said to be over 15,000
of these groups for young men.

Hi-Y clubs enroll 200,000 members in 6,500 local units. They
encourage voluntary activity among boys for the improvement of
school and community life. State, regional, and national camps

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 117

are popular parts of their program. Some attention is given to
social affairs, sports, and hobbies. Father and son groups called
Indian Guides exist in eleven states. Youth just beyond high
school age have a more diversified program of meetings, classes,
teams, and other joint activities. They are formed into various
groups that maintain national contact through a loosely organ-
ized Young Men's Council. Phalanx clubs are a popular form
of older-youth group among young men past high school age.
They are sometimes organized along the lines of a social frater-
nity, complete with ritual. There are some 250 such groups, with
more than 5,000 members. The "Y" also has men's clubs,
made up of young leaders of association activities who are be-
tween 20 and 35 years of age; these young men perform the leader-
ship services not provided by the professional staff. There are
special "Y" programs for colored youth.

The triple requirement of mental, physical, and social develop-
ment, which together with moral growth defines the associa-
tion's goal, gives promise of a well-rounded approach to the
problems of leisure. However, it is fair to say that for many
years the association's program emphasized physical recreation
to the detriment of the intellectual and social uses of leisure.
There is little question but that considering the somewhat special-
ized character of the Y.M.'s clientele a valuable service has been
performed by endeavoring to modify habits of individual compe-
tition with patterns of teamwork and group participation in
games. However, many of the boys and young men attracted
by athletics have displayed no interest in the other activities
the "Y" offers or might offer. This emphasis eventually reached
a point where local branches of the "Y" sometimes appeared to
be little more than athletic clubs for young men of moderate but
appreciable means.

Recently a number of Y.M.C.A.'s have been stressing other
uses of leisure than those mainly physical. Social events are
more numerous and better attended. A considerable number of
girls and young women now hold membership in the men's
association, and activities that they can join in with men and
boys are popular with both sexes.

118 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

The intellectual uses of leisure have perhaps been slower in
coming into prominence in the association's program. The
Y.M.'s traditional attitude has been to discourage interest among
its members in topics of current importance that might be con-
sidered subject to controversy. However, "realization has
steadily grown in recent years that religious living and interest
are so gravely conditioned by the total social experience that the
two cannot be dealt with separately/'6 In 1935 the National
Council of the association took the significant step of creating
its own Public Affairs Committee. The way is now open for
local associations to encourage the free discussion of social,
economic, and political issues affecting the welfare of their
members.

Many Y.M.C.A.'s have developed substantial programs of
informal education. Some of these programs are known as
personal growth institutes, others as social education, personal
progress, and the like. Occasionally they are coeducational.
Many are open to other than "Y" members. Boston, for ex-
ample, has an informal education program including crafts,
dramatics, dancing, choral singing, forums, occupational guidance,
and courses in preparation for marriage. Dayton, Ohio, has a
Youth Council whose leadership institutes and discussion groups
on topics such as world affairs, politics, and problems of marriage
are balanced by dramatics, archery, low-cost dances, and hobby
clubs. Portland, Oregon, has social education nights with weekly
dinner sessions where the discussion ranges from etiquette,
hobbies, and gardening to "adventures in thinking" and "modern
marriage." These are only a few examples of activities that
are becoming recognized parts of the typical program of local
Y.M.C.A.'s.

In common with the majority of youth-serving organizations,
the Y.M.C.A. has not been conspicuously successful in bringing
its advantages to the young people of the poorer sections of the
population. Yet there are communities where notable efforts
have been made. In New York, the Uptown Branch in Man-
hattan conducts a centralized program of recreation leadership

6 Pence, The YM.C.A. and Social Need, p. 315.

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 119

and guidance for about 100 social clubs. For twenty years the
South Side Branch in St. Louis has carried on a comprehensive
program with gangs and cellar clubs. Organization begins with
boys 10 to 12 years old and ranges through junior rank to the
seniors, who are 20 to 25 years of age. Some girls' clubs are
included. At present sixty boys' groups, with over 2,000 mem-
bers, and ten girls' clubs participate in federated activities.
Each club is given assistance and guidance in its own program.
On Saturday nights the club members are permitted to use the
facilities of the association building without charge. In 1938
ninety-three athletic teams were active. The association accepts
the responsibility for training forty to fifty volunteer leaders —
business and professional men — who work with the clubs or their
athletic teams at least two nights a week. There is said to have
been a marked decrease in delinquency among boys who have
become members of the affiliated clubs, and the juvenile courts of
St. Louis frequently parole boys who are not members to leaders
of the clubs or to the clubs themselves. The work of the South
Side "Y" Brotherhood in St. Louis is an example of what can be
done for boys in underprivileged areas and what might well be
done more often.

THE YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION

Like the Y.M.C.A., to which it is not affiliated but whose gen-
eral objectives it shares, this women's and girls' organization is
composed of locally autonomous associations. Its resources
have never enabled it to develop physical plants equivalent to
those maintained by the Y.M.C.A., but it has over 400 units in
cities and towns, in addition to various college groups. Mem-
bership is not essential to participation in the program, and in
fact less than one-seventh of those who take part are members of
the association. Local units are rendering a wide and increasingly
varied service to their communities and affect many more persons
in proportion to the size of the membership than is usual among
youth-serving organizations. In 1940, 3,000,000 persons are
estimated to have taken part in programs of the Y.W.C.A.

120 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

The ages of members and other clients are largely between 15
and 35, with probably a majority under 25.

The three divisions of local Y.W.C.A. programs that are chiefly
concerned with youth are those for girls of high school age, for
business and professional women, and for women in industry.
The first is embodied in the Girl Reserves, an organization for
girls under 18, which has some 333,000 members in more than
2,400 communities. It provides such educational, religious, and
social activities as local facilities permit and the needs of members
suggest. The program differs from those of the Girl Scouts and
Camp Fire Girls in its function of preparing for permanent
membership in a senior organization — the association. It can be
distinguished from those of the comparable boy organizations by
the fact that it relies upon the appeal of certain ideals and
standards for its emotional drive rather than upon an intensifica-
tion of group loyalty.

About 54,000 women and girls participated in the Business and
Professional Women's Department in 1938, and nearly 33,000
in the Industrial Women's Department. These two units are
devoted to the interests of girls of modest means who are without
relatives or friends in the city, and to alleviating the condition
of underprivileged girls and poorly paid young working women.
Recreational and educational programs are adapted to the needs
of the particular groups and are largely self-determined. The
Y.W. has separately organized clubs for unemployed girls, en-
rolling over 10,000.

In addition to these rather sharply marked sections of its pro-
gram, the Y.W.C.A. in many cities and towns is rapidly taking
on the functions of a community center, serving chiefly women
and girls but also men and boys in some of its programs. The
typical city association maintains a residence hall, serves low-
cost meals in a restaurant or cafeteria (usually to both men and
women), affords the customary facilities for indoor physical
recreation, and has clubrooms and classrooms where a wide
range of other leisure activities such as music, drama, and crafts
are conducted.

The Y.W. avoids special emphasis upon athletics. The tend-
ency is to develop physical recreation as a means of enjoyment and

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 121

self-expression. Little effort is made to utilize group loyalties
for the purpose of building up winning teams. Indeed it may
be said that the Y.W.'s program of physical education is some-
what more realistic than that found in the average Y.M. In
place of aggressive competition in strenuous games it stresses
personal hygiene and the basic relationship of temperate habits
and a healthy body to mental and spiritual achievement.

Classes in current events, social practice, and dozens of other
fields are available at the Y.W. The charges for these ac-
tivities are on a basis less likely to discourage participation than
is the case with the men's association. Instead of a substantial
annual membership fee intended to cover most services, the
Y.W. membership fee is nominal and optional. The various ac-
tivities are supported by separate charges, moderate in amount.
Discussion groups on many subjects are often a valuable part
of the program. Public housing, pure food regulations, com-
munity and national health programs, federal wages and hours
legislation, civil liberties, and the Negro's place in the occupa-
tional world are among the topics debated. Indeed, one of
the most distinctive characteristics of the Y.W. is the freedom
of discussion possible under its auspices, even on distinctly
controversial matters.

Sincere efforts are made by the association to encourage youth
initiative by allowing the girls to plan their own activities, develop
their own policies, and cooperate with outside organizations quite
as they choose. Though participants in the various "Y" pro-
grams have the opportunity of seeking advice and direction from
adult workers, they supply their own leadership to a large extent.
The Y.W.C.A. is noteworthy among community organizations
for the degree to which it has developed volunteer leadership.
It also renders a real service to the community by providing a
meeting place for youth groups unable to afford or secure com-
mercial assembly halls.

BOYS CLUBS

The community organizations known simply as Boys' Clubs
are among the few agencies for youth that concentrate upon
serving the underprivileged young person. In 1930 it was re-

122 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

ported to the White House Conference on Child Health and
Protection that 80 per cent of the members were in this category.
Approximately 350 local institutions in 194 cities of thirty-seven
states are affiliated with Boys' Clubs of America, the national
association. The members of these constituent organizations
number 296,000. They are for the most part from 12 to 16
years old, but nearly 40,000 are reported to belong to senior
groups ranging in age from 18 to 25. The number of boys in a
single club will vary from 100 to 1,000.

Boys' Clubs attempt to provide a more nearly continuous type
of service than organizations that bring youth together for only
a few hours a week can offer. All clubs are urged by the national
association to remain open at least three hours a day, five days
a week, nine months a year. Clubs ordinarily have their own
buildings and endeavor to provide space for all kinds of activities
that interest boys. Reduction of delinquency is a major aim
of the clubs, and physical activities of various kinds are an
important means to this end. These include swimming, gymna-
sium games, camping, scouting, and other outdoor pursuits.
There is, however, no standardized program such as other youth-
membership leisure agencies with national affiliations possess.

Though circumstances vary widely with the individual Boys'
Clubs, it can be said in general that these agencies labor under a
handicap in having an unusually large proportion of their re-
sources tied up in buildings and equipment. The physical plant
is sometimes so elaborate that it appears strikingly out of harmony
with the environment in which it is situated and the circumstances
of the boys who use it. Along with this emphasis upon material
equipment has gone a seeming hesitancy in developing a planned
program and providing effective leadership. The professional
leader has not been especially prominent in boys' club work, and
the training of indigenous leaders appears to have been neglected.

It is probable that these circumstances arise less out of any
inherent limitation in the boys' club idea than from lack of
guidance and promotion efforts on a national scale. This is not
a criticism of the performance of the national office but rather of
the frame of reference within which it has chosen to work. It

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 123

is believed that the national agency limits its functions by choice
to those of a service bureau, giving much advice on building plans,
equipment, and so on, but considerably less with reference to
program. It thus occurs that on vital aspects of their work the
local Boys' Clubs have probably received less assistance from
their national association than have the constituent members of
any other major youth-serving agency. The policy of the
national office is, of course, adhered to in the interests of local
autonomy. It is doubtful, however, that it has worked to the
advantage of the youth whom the clubs are designed to serve.
Individual clubs are coming more and more to stress the need
for providing every boy with opportunities to develop all his
interests and capacities in order that he may grow into an effi-
cient, useful citizen. In support of this wider aim a tendency
can be noted to build up a varied program of social, recreational,
and educational activities supplementing the more common
emphasis upon athletics. Bands, orchestras, choral groups, and
other musical ventures are of great interest to many youth with
the limited opportunities of the Boys* Club clientele. Dramatics
and newspaper production vary the educational program. It
is not unlikely that quickening influences now manifesting them-
selves among other leisure-time agencies will before long result
in development by the Boys' Clubs of a program of service
worthy of their exceptional material facilities.

•

SETTLEMENT HOUSES

Settlements are a type of agency that should not be overlooked
in assessing the community's private resources for improving the
leisure of its youth. Although their aims are wider than those
of the character-building agencies and involve the spiritual and
material welfare of the whole community, settlements have long
found a varied development of recreational opportunities to be
a direct means of accomplishing at least a portion of their task.
Though their work lies with persons of all ages, they have a
special concern for children and young people. The fact that
many settlements are in areas of foreign-born population affords

124 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

them unique opportunities for utilizing recreational skills native
to other cultures. The fact that all settlements work among
poor people means that their leisure services are sorely needed.

The recreational facilities provided by settlements vary accord-
ing to resources, as with other institutions. If space is available
a gymnasium will usually be fitted out. A swimming pool, when
possible, is a welcome addition. There will be classrooms and
clubrooms and perhaps craft rooms and a studio. Scores of
settlements are listed as conducting boys' clubs. Not only do
settlements provide general recreational facilities where practi-
cable but some of them are noted for specializing in particular
leisure activities, usually of a cultural nature. There are settle-
ments that have earned a reputation by their work in art or music.
These centers are likely to cultivate their particular fields both
extensively and intensively, securing wide community partici-
pation of persons with an appreciable talent and also giving ad-
vanced instruction of a high quality in painting, singing, or
instrumental playing.

The drama is particularly popular among settlements, and they
are known for their early work in developing the little theater.
There are many instances of settlements that have used creative
and artistic leisure pursuits to relieve the clamor and dinginess
of slum neighborhoods. The Graphic Sketch Club, Hull House,
Hudson Guild, and Greenwich House are names that will be
remembered in this connection. These are, however, simply
outstanding examples of a type of activity that many if not most
settlement houses are carrying on creditably.

Leisure services similar to those provided by settlements are
being offered young people by many neighborhood houses and
community centers operated under private auspices.

SALVATION ARMY

A third organization making a valuable contribution to the
leisure opportunities of underprivileged youth is the Salvation
Army. This agency aims to effect the physical and moral re-
generation of all who need its help, particularly the poor, the

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 125

degraded, and the vicious. It maintains a vast and diversified
system of social service, embracing in the United States 1,647
constituent units. Over a period of years it has developed a
comprehensive program of work with children and youth. A
number of junior organizations are maintained for boys and girls
of various ages. They include more than 50,000 youth between
11 and 18, as well as others up to 25. The largest is known as
the Young People's Legion.

These junior organizations provide instruction and practice in
handicrafts, drawing, woodcraft, games, and group singing, as
well as religious training. Many of the city centers maintained
by the Army have gymnasiums and swimming pools. There
are thirty-four summer camps for boys and girls. The Army
also maintains a number of full-time boys' clubs, known as
Red Shield Clubs, which are provided with separate buildings
and leaders. In these it conducts a program of individual and
group athletics, hiking, vocational training, artcraft, nature
study, instrumental and vocal music, first-aid instruction, civics,
and community service activities. It also allows part-time use
of the facilities of its neighborhood centers to many other boys'
clubs. Scout troops are sponsored by the Army among the less
privileged youth, and it maintains an organization for girls with
a program similar to that of the Girl Scouts. In numerous ways
the Salvation Army manifests an increasing awareness of the
role that leisure and recreation can play in its work.

SOME DEFECTS OF ADULT-LED, INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY
ORGANIZATIONS FOR YOUTH

From the foregoing view of the adult-led, independent com-
munity organizations for youth it is easily apparent that they
exhibit several characteristics that seriously limit their useful-
ness. In the first place, it will be noted that all are relatively
ineffective in reaching rural youth. There are, it is true, organiza-
tions of this type intended specifically to serve rural youth.
These we are reserving for consideration in a later section. But
the agencies we have reviewed do not purport to be specifically

126 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

for the youth of large urban centers. Nearly all make some effort
to operate in at least the smaller cities and towns, and none would
be likely to admit that the services they endeavor to supply are
fundamentally unsuited to rural young people. Yet all that have
attempted to develop the countryside report slight success.

The Boy Scouts appear to have taken more pains than other
agencies to build up a rural following. They have provided for
the establishment of rural patrols with as few as two youngsters,
and one boy by himself may become a Lone Scout if guidance is
available from a suitable adult. Yet the Scouts are recruiting
only one rural youth out of every ten who come of Scouting age —
even though they report that 80 per cent of rural boys want
to be Scouts. In small cities Scout recruiting is five or six times
more successful than this.

The Girl Scouts have adapted their organizational requirements
to allow for the formation of troops in towns but do not yet seem
to have reached the village or open country. The Y.M.C.A.
has in the past made considerable effort to adapt itself to rural
conditions, but it has not yet found it possible to overcome the
handicap of its gymnasium-centered program. Only one in
twenty of its members lives in a rural community. The same
difficulty obviously prevents Boys' Clubs from attaining any
growth outside thickly populated areas. Nor have settlements
yet found a means of ministering to the rural slum. The
Y.W. has developed a plan to permit the forming of its Girl
Reserve clubs in communities too small to support a full asso-
ciation, and many such clubs have been begun. However, in
sum and even in combination with the accomplishments of the
other agencies we have mentioned, they hardly make an im-
pression upon the rural need.

In the second place, it is apparent that none of these organiza-
tions reach many older youth. Memberships drop off rapidly
after 16 years of age, and at 18 only a relatively small percentage
remain. This is not strictly true of the Christian associations,
half of whose members and participants appear to be over 16.
But it is true of the national-membership groups within the asso-
ciations. Though a substantial portion of young people retain

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 127

membership in the association after dropping out of intra-
organization permanent groups, it seems likely that they have
come to look upon the association more or less as a service center
and regard membership merely as an essential technicality.

In the third place, relatively few youth on the lower income
levels are being reached. The majority of adult-led, youth-
membership organizations draw their members from the middle,
or at most the lower-middle, economic strata. Several years
ago a careful study of the Boy Scouts concluded that its re-
cruits came from better than average homes and had better than
average intelligence. The national headquarters of the Boy
Scouts is increasing its efforts to introduce Scouting into "less-
chance" areas, and some degree of success will no doubt be
attained. However, it is plain that lack of money is a serious
obstacle to active membership in such movements as Scouting,
where the eventual purchase of a uniform is necessary and mem-
bers are encouraged to invest in a variety of other useful but
relatively costly equipment.

Not only are the financial requirements of membership in youth
groups difficult for many young people of poor families to meet,
but it appears that organizations of the Scouting type also set
up personal standards which effectively bar many youth from the
lower income levels. Prospective recruits are not taken into the
organization until they have undergone a period of probation
during which they must measure up to standards of character,
conduct, and ability. These standards naturally tend to an
inbreeding upon the social strata characteristic of the majority
of members. But it is the youth who cannot at first meet such
standards who would be likely to benefit most from membership
in a character-building organization. As matters now stand,
they must usually seek one that bears the reputation of working
mainly with underprivileged youth, and this they may well feel
to be a form of discrimination.

The occurrence of a financial barrier is not characteristic of
any one type of organization. It is certain that dues and inci-
dental fees prevent many youth from using the facilities and
services of the Christian associations. The good work done by

128 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

the organizations whose special field of action is underprivileged
youth should be fully commended. But the Boys' Clubs, the
settlements, the Salvation Army, and all similar agencies do not
together satisfy more than a small part of the need for adequate
recreational opportunities among the youth in the submerged
third of the population.

Finally, it can be said of most adult-led, youth-membership
organizations that they have suffered from too detailed management
by their adult leaders. There are noticeable differences among the
various agencies in this respect, particularly when current trends
are taken into account, but in general the observation is believed
to be true. There is, of course, no character-building organiza-
tion that does not include in its aims the development of personal
responsibility and initiative or that cannot point to measures
specifically designed to give effect to this intention. However,
competent observers gain the impression that rather frequently
the intended development miscarries. The Girl Scouts regarded
their patrol system as the instrument through which training
in democracy was to be achieved, but after an intensive self-
study they concluded that it failed to accomplish that purpose.
Their new plan of organization promises more freedom for the
development of real youth leadership. A minimum amount of
control from adults has been characteristic of the Y.W.C.A. in
its relations with young people. However, other youth organiza-
tions— and among them those with the largest enrollments —
give the impression of continuing to fall short of their full po-
tentialities partly through failure to let their young members
have the invaluable experience of managing their own affairs
with the least possible interference from adults.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS FOR YOUTH

To balance the less favorable aspects of the agencies we have
been considering, it can be reported that there have been major
developments over the last decade furnishing good reason for
believing these organizations will continue to take the prominent

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 129

role in the welfare of youth that has fallen to them in the past.
One is the breaking down of institutional lines. Charles E. Hendry
has pointed out that at least five factors have been responsible
for this occurrence:7

(1) The impact of the depression, which brought agencies closer
together in the struggle for survival. A striking testimony to the reality
of this influence was the appearance of a small booklet, Speaking Up
for the Character-Building Agencies* prepared by a committee represent-
ing all the major agencies.

(2) Diffusion of knowledge of social science. As organization leaders
came to understand more about the nature of leisure and of leadership
it became clear that no agency had a monopoly on the most effective
techniques.

(3) Joint financing. Using the Community Chest as a channel of
finance has in some cases involved determining what common standards
could be applied to the various "character"-building agencies.

(4) The fact that an increasing number of professional workers in the
leisure field have had employment experience with more than one of the
major agencies.

(5) Increasing consciousness of professional solidarity among workers
for different leisure agencies.

The evidence that these various forces have produced a real
drawing together of agencies whose programs formerly seldom
touched is convincing but too extensive to cite here. As a par-
ticularly striking instance, however, there may be mentioned the
partial merging of constituencies that has been going on between
the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A. A hundred thousand girls
and women are now members of Young Men's Christian Asso-
ciations, and nearly a quarter of a million more are said to be
enrolled in one or another form of group activity sponsored by
that institution. Similarly, very many men and boys are taking
advantage of the numerous special offerings of the Y.W.C.A.
in communities where a broad program has been developed. The
Y.W.'s are constantly experimenting with a greater variety
of activities in which boy friends and husbands can be included,
and programs jointly sponsored by local branches of the two

7 An unpublished manuscript prepared for the White House Conference on Children
in a Democracy and kindly shown the present authors.

8 National Social Work Publicity Council, New York, 1932.

130 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

organizations have proved successful. Numerous instances
exist of a rapid, wide growth of cooperation and coordination
among other agencies.

A further development of the highest significance is the appear-
ance among character-building agencies of a new capacity for
self -criticism. The depression years were the occasion of much
searching of hearts among leaders of youth-serving organizations,
and studies designed to reveal how an agency could serve its
constituency better and with less waste soon began to multiply.
This process has now been carried to a point where scarcely one
of the major organizations in the field has not subjected itself to
a thoroughgoing scrutiny.

Examples of the more prominent among these studies are the
six-year "Standards Study" of the Y.W.C.A.; the "Program
Study" of the Girl Scouts, which resulted in a complete revision
of the methods of that organization; and Pence's The T.M.C.A.
and Social Need. There have also been numerous local studies
by councils of social agencies, community chests, and other in-
vestigators that throw light on the local branch of the national
agency in its community setting. Representative of the more
intensive of these is Between Spires and Stacks, by Charles E.
Hendry and Margaret Svendsen, a study of boy life in a sixty-
four block area in the steel mill section of Cleveland. Special
inquiries of many kinds have burgeoned, such as Rooms of Their
Own, a study of young people's social clubs on the Lower East
Side in New York. This interest on the part of social agencies
in discovering their own shortcomings is a healthy symptom and
suggests the likelihood that much additional improvement may
be expected.

Finally, there may be mentioned a trend that was well es-
tablished before the depression but that has gained momentum
in the interval. The group work concept continues to be clarified
and increasingly accepted. It has been thirty-five or forty years
since modern educational and psychological thought began to
reveal the possibilities for individual growth and remedial in-
fluence in the act of associating with other persons in a small group
under skilled direction. The potential usefulness of this tech-
nique in developing the character of young people was soon

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 131

realized. A program of diversified activities, integrated through
a dominating interest and providing a channel for self-expression,
came to be regarded as the factor embodying the primary values
in camping, club work, and other forms of controlled group
activities. With increasing understanding, the useful range of
this concept has constantly expanded, until now group work
is recognized as a principal therapeutic and educative instrument.
It has supplanted the old departmental technique, which aimed
at but did not produce a well-rounded development. And it is
being accorded a status complementary to modern psychologic
and psychiatric case work.

The concept of group work continues to gain influence and has
been an important element in certain forward-looking events of
the past decade that have enhanced the value of leisure planning.
It has hastened the appearance of a genuine professional litera-
ture. The agency publications that formerly held the field have
been supplemented and may eventually be supplanted by a new
literature emphasizing the areas of experience that the principal
leisure agencies have in common. It has contributed to the
inauguration of important programs of professional education.
It has provided the basis for the creation of a new association—
the Society for the Study of Group Work — which cuts across
agency lines and even includes laymen among its members.
It has been an important element in the founding of a new pro-
fessional organization — the Association of Leisure-Time Edu-
cators. There is every reason to suppose that this major aspect
of modern social work will be reflected in increased vitality among
leisure and recreational agencies for many years to come.

YOUTH-LED LEISURE ORGANIZATIONS:
THE CELLAR CLUBS

Of recent years there have developed in urban centers leisure
clubs for young people that have unusual interest. They are
almost the sole example of a genuinely youth-organized and youth-
led recreational activity existing on any considerable scale.
Other youth-led organizations attract attention from time to
time, but it can usually be said that they exist chiefly for political

132 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

ends or other special purposes not of a conspicuously recreational
nature. "Cellar clubs," as the groups we shall now consider are
termed, can be found in all large and many small urban communi-
ties. New York City alone is estimated to have 6,000 of them.
They spring up spontaneously and seldom have even local affilia-
tion with one another. The most common unifying factor is the
neighborhood in which the members live, though similar ethnic,
racial, or foreign language backgrounds may serve to bind to-
gether youth from different areas.

As boys grow into adolescence and begin to range farther than
their home block, they soon find need for a regular meeting place
where they can be free from the supervision of parents, where
they are not "moved on" by policemen, and where they can en-
tertain girls and thus obtain a social status not possible in the
home of the average youth living in a crowded city area. Pooling
their limited funds, they look for a vacant store, cellar, or loft
and bargain with landlords. Often they can get occupancy of
the premises rent free by painting and cleaning them up. Parti-
tions are installed to produce the satisfying illusion of more space.
Furniture is purchased secondhand or made by the members.
A name is chosen — Club Invincible, Club Mirage, Club Casa-
nova, Club Titans — and the club becomes an actuality.

A cellar club usually consists of from twenty to a hundred boys.
They may range in age from 16 or 17 to well past 25. They will
be in school and out of school, employed and unemployed, reli-
gious and irreligious, socially ambitious and socially indifferent,
high and low in intelligence. They pay dues varying from
twenty-five to fifty cents a week, but almost all clubs have other
fund-raising devices. Dances for members and visitors (who pay
for admission) are held in the clubroom, if it is large enough, or in
a commercial dance hall. Minor forms of gambling are occa-
sionally used, with the "house" taking its "cut" from the "pot."

STANDARDS OF CONDUCT

Most of the cellar clubs are respectable and try sincerely to
preserve an appearance of respectability. Fear of being evicted
by landlords, closed by the police, or disapproved by the parents

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 133

of their girl friends leads members to exercise considerable vigi-
lance over their corporate behavior. However, it is not uncom-
mon for officious or unfriendly neighbors to resent the existence
of a club, and when ill will is present a pretext for complaint is
not difficult to find. The most common charge is disorderliness
and the most serious is improper sex conduct. Once the police
have been called in, it is generally not difficult for them to dis-
cover some technical infraction of the law, such as a violation of
the building code or sanitary ordinances.

Club members feel that charges such as these are merely ex-
cuses for closing their premises. They also complain that their
clubrooms are entered by the police without a warrant, that they
themselves are lined up and searched for weapons as if they were
recognized criminals, and that they are sometimes ordered to
vacate their rooms on short notice — possibly a matter of hours.
The available evidence suggests that the number of clubs that
deserve such treatment is very few. A representative of the
American Youth Commission visited dozens of cellar clubs in
six large cities and never saw any pastime worse than a game of
penny ante or heard any disturbance worse than a blaring radio-
both of which may be found in the most respectable college
fraternity houses.

The willingness of cellar clubs to discipline themselves is sug-
gested by the experience of the Federation of East Side Clubs in
New York City. A code of conduct has been drawn up volun-
tarily by the various clubs, and all members subscribe to it.
Clubs agree to keep their premises clean and to obey the city
sanitary code. Loud radios and profane language are banned,
and a curfew hour is set for members and guests. Persons of low
character are not permitted to enter the clubs, and conduct that
is lewd or not in keeping with the law and with the character
of a gentleman is barred. Girls under 18 years of age are not
allowed in clubrooms. The code prohibits darkened rooms and
sleeping at the club except in case of emergency.

Although serious infractions of such a code of conduct as the
above are probably infrequent, cellar clubs sometimes furnish
the occasion for other undesirable practices that receive less
publicity. Frauds may be operated in connection with the

134 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

financing of clubs. Tickets are sold for dances that never
materialize. Clubs occasionally cooperate in selling tickets for
each other's dances, and sometimes threats of violence or of
informing the police are used by one club toward another to
enforce the purchase of tickets or other financial contributions.

POSITIVE VALUES AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

The problem that the cellar club movement creates is not how
to do away with the clubs but how to eliminate their undesirable
characteristics without destroying their real values. In part the
urge that has given rise to the clubs may be met by better public
recreational facilities. Abolition of slums, extension of aid to
more needy students, and improvement of the general economic
condition of the country will provide for some of youth's needs
now catered to by the clubs. But even if these needs were met
in these ways, it is highly improbable that cellar clubs would
cease to exist, for they fulfill one of the adolescent's strongest
desires — to manage his own affairs, safe from adult interference.

There are various other useful services performed by cellar
clubs that tend to justify their continued existence. Almost
invariably clubs draw up a constitution and bylaws of a sort;
sometimes they seek the additional glory of a charter of incorpo-
ration. The training in organization that this experience affords
and the practice in parliamentary procedure gained in business
sessions are certain to be helpful. The use of manual skills in
furnishing the clubroom provides a satisfying opportunity to
work with tools and materials.

A few clubs have attempted, with varying degrees of success,
to provide discussions and lectures on cultural or vocational sub-
jects for their members and occasionally for parents and visitors.
Physicians, social workers, government officials, and teachers
have been asked to discuss sex and marriage, health, housing,
relief and unemployment, science, current affairs, and similar
topics. Sometimes clubs undertake community service projects.
A club of Jewish boys in Coney Island remodeled a basement into
a clubroom for the younger boys of the community and fitted up

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 135

a room where a girls' club could meet independently. The
St. Louis Youth Council enlisted the cooperation of a number of
cellar clubs to obtain public recreational facilities. Instances
such as these appear to be few at present, but they suggest that
club members might successfully be encouraged to find satis-
faction in activities that would enrich the leisure resources of
their communities.

HOW ADULTS CAN HELP

The natural hazards to cellar clubs are numerous. Violent
quarrels between factions, a developing interest in girls, and the
simple circumstance of growing into adulthood have been the
end of many a club. About such difficulties little can be done.
However, at least two of the heaviest causes of mortality among
cellar clubs could be effectively combated under adult guidance.
These are the problems of finance and the danger of eviction by
the landlord or the police because of complaints from the neigh-
bors. Cellar clubs have shown little inclination to cooperate
with one another except under stimulation of adult impetus.
The police have not been particularly useful in this respect.
Their attitude toward the cellar clubs has been regulatory rather
than helpful. The most prominent examples of cooperative
action among clubs for their mutual benefit are those sponsored
by social work organizations.

The Stryker's Lane Community Center, in New York City,
located at a focal point of club activities, has developed a house
council of social clubs with two representatives from each of the
older-youth clubs. The council sets standards for the clubs and
makes rules for their conduct. It collects rent for clubrooms
and deals with landlords in their behalf. Police complaints are
handled by the council. The center opens certain rooms for
the use of clubs and occasionally furnishes small subsidies when
they cannot meet their bills. Thus it offers them aid without
attempting to dominate their activities.

The Henry Street Settlement has made somewhat similar
attempts to foster the values of cellar clubs. It has sponsored

136 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

the Federation of East Side Clubs, previously mentioned, and
has described their problems in the brochure Rooms of 'Their Own.
It helps them to adjust difficulties arising from complaints and
allows use of its rooms for federation meetings. The Federation
of East Side Clubs is an excellent example of cooperation for
mutual protection and improvement. The code already summa-
rized was adopted by the member clubs in order to raise their own
standards and turn public opinion in their favor. Attempted
extortion, robbery, or violation of the law by club members are
reported to the federation, which informs the proper authorities.

The Youth Service Division of the adult education activities of
the Work Projects Administration in New York City had as one
of its major objectives during 1938 and 1939 an attempt to reach
unaffiliated cellar clubs. It sought to act as a clearinghouse
for club problems. Fifty unemployed teachers worked with
clubs to improve their methods of financing and their recreational
and cultural programs. Library services were also made avail-
able. The Youth Service Division was a staunch supporter of
clubs and frequently appeared in their behalf in conflicts with
the police or with neighborhoods. It sought to end petty racket-
eering and other unwholesome features of club life. All this
was done in the hope that a federation of clubs might be formed
which would help them to achieve the status of a youth agency
and to meet public criticism.

Since the beginning of 1940 the WPA has steadily withdrawn
the funds of its Youth Service Division. The result, according to
the former supervisor of aid to the clubs, has been "tragic."
He thinks the 332 groups helped by the WPA will revert to their
former unsupervised state and again become the object of fre-
quent police attention. He sees a need of forming an adult
group sympathetic to the clubs, that would help them continue
the good part of their program.

The experiments of the settlement houses show that cellar
clubs will voluntarily impose their own controls on conduct and
procedure if they have counsel from sympathetic adults. Ad-
justments can be made that will retain the positive values of the
clubs and still allow them a considerable measure of autonomy.
Such action is now called for on a large scale. It is necessary

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 137

in order to preserve a recreational agency of much potential value
to young people and one that may be our most truly youth-led
organization.

YOUTH GROUPS AND SOCIETIES CONNECTED
WITH ADULT ORGANIZATIONS

The youth-membership groups we have so far considered are
independent organizations, though — with the exception of cellar
clubs — adult led. There are, however, a large number of youth
organizations that are sponsored by adult agencies, either as a
means of recruiting their own membership or in order to promote
among young people attitudes that the parent body considers
particularly desirable. Many of these organizations have sub-
stantial recreational activities. The most numerous youth groups
of this class are those sponsored by religious bodies.

CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

The church was at one time a leading recreational center for
young people and it still occupies a significant place in the leisure
of many of them. The organizations of young people sponsored
by churches make up a complex aggregation. Many are com-
paratively unknown to persons outside the particular denomina-
tion to which they belong. Others are probably more wide-
spread than any other type of youth-serving agency. The
youth organizations of particular churches vary in national
membership from a few hundred to half a million. In all, they
include several million young people of every shade of religious
conviction.

Many church organizations for youth are purely devotional
or concerned wholly with promoting religious education. Others
conduct recreational activities varying from the simplest to the
most highly developed programs. The age range of members is
often wide, sometimes beginning as low as 8 or 10 and having no
upper limit. In such cases the membership of local groups is
usually divided into junior, intermediate, and senior sections,
each with programs suited to their interests.

Among the youth organizations of Protestant churches the

138 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

largest is the interdenominational Christian Endeavor Society,
which has 4,000,000 members in 80,000 churches of eighty-seven
denominations in all parts of the world. There is usually a
Young People's Division for youth 18 to 24. Some extrareligious
aims of the society are: to enable the youth of the church to
become better acquainted with one another, to promote educa-
tion in citizenship, and to promote world peace. Local groups
usually meet weekly, and each has its social and recreational
program.

Nearly all of the leading Protestant churches have formed
special organizations to strengthen religious sentiment among
their younger members. Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans,
Methodists, Unitarians, and numerically smaller denominations
have such groups, and many individual churches have their own
local organization of young people not affiliated with any national
order. The programs of church youth groups frequently include
a substantial element of nonreligious leisure activities as an aid
to holding the organization together. Summer camps are often
conducted. There may be sports, outings, nature study, handi-
crafts, and other hobbies. Dramatics are frequently encouraged.
Study and discussion groups are held on a variety of subjects,
such as world peace, interracial friendship, personality develop-
ment, the movies. There are parties and other entertainments,
sometimes including dances. No single local group is likely to
engage in all of these activities. But these are the kinds of
leisure enterprises that church organizations for youth conduct.
If a community finds its recreational resources inadequate to
meet the needs of its youth, it should consider whether they can-
not be supplemented by organized action on the part of its
churches.

The Roman Catholic Church is not lacking in provision for
assisting its young people to use their leisure wisely. It has
many widespread organizations for boys and girls in which a
variety of spare-time interests are cultivated. Physical exer-
cises, athletics,, sports, outings, and parades are emphasized in
the work with boys, but not to the exclusion of cultural, social,
and physical improvement. Girls, too, are encouraged to engage

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 139

in friendly competition both in athletic and educational matters.
There are glee clubs, orchestras, and classes in sewing and cooking.

The Catholic Church also has, in the Sodality of Our Lady, what
may well be the oldest organization for young people in the world.
It was established in 1583. Its units, which are found in all
countries, are organized as young men's and young ladies' groups
in communities, in colleges, in high schools, and in other institu-
tions. The numerous groups in the United States maintain a
program which, in addition to religious and charitable objectives,
includes the study of social, economic, and literary subjects;
forums, writing, drama, and art work; and numerous other edu-
cational and recreational uses of leisure. In addition to national
organizations of Catholic youth, there are hundreds of local and
regional groups with recreational interests. Some of them are
very large and vigorous. Under this head come the agencies
officially known as Catholic Youth Organizations, which have
been formed in twelve dioceses. These agencies sponsor all the
leisure activities usually conducted by church groups and seem
able to develop a more intensive and detailed program than most
such groups.

The Jewish faith has a variety of organizations for ministering
to the recreational needs of its young people. Among the largest
of these are the Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew
Associations, which function through the community centers
operated by the Jewish Welfare Board in hundreds of cities.
The board estimates that a quarter of a million of those who
participate in its programs are between the ages of 12 and 25.
The usual forms of recreation are cultivated to a high degree in
many of these centers. There are other organizations aiming to
promote the mental, moral, and physical development of Jewish
youth and to foster a spirit of good fellowship. Their programs
include dances, plays, banquets, debates, oratorical and essay
contests, and a great variety of other cultural, social, and athletic
activities. The numerous Zionist organizations often have
branches for young people. In addition to lectures, discussions,
and debates on Jewish history, some have recreational programs.
These include Hebrew dramatics, songs, and dances.

140 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

The Mormon Church, though regional in extent and not to be
counted among community resources over the greater part of
the country, deserves to be mentioned for the very complete
program it conducts for its youth. This is administered through
a Young Men's and a Young Women's Mutual Improvement
Association, serving 140,000 young people of all ages. There
are 30,000 between the ages of 17 and 24 and an additional 8,400
from 25 to 35. The Mutual Improvement Associations are
concerned with all aspects of the lives of their members. Much
recreation and wholesome amusement is provided. There are
indoor and outdoor sports of all kinds. Dramatics and public
speaking are integral parts of local programs and there is a well-
trained choral group of youth in each church.

The attracting power of the church organizations of this de-
nomination is impressively demonstrated by the fact that 55
per cent of their total membership is present at the weekly
meetings. Mormon churches are real community centers, often
well equipped for the purpose. The maintenance of so elaborate
and beneficial a program for young people is in part made possible
by the fact that Mormons practice tithing, a financing method
that has been relinquished by most other denominations. How-
ever, the energy and forethought with which Mormons have
provided for the recreational life and other experiences affecting
the well-being of their youth is a conspicuous example of what
a church can do for its young people if determination is present.

YOUTH GROUPS IN FRATERNAL ORDERS AND LABOR UNIONS

The fraternal system of America has over 250,000 lodges and
more than 20,000,000 members. Many of the individuals who
compose these societies have children of their own. All of them
are men for whom the principles of fellowship and mutual assist-
ance may be supposed to have more than ordinary appeal.
We should expect them to be unusually responsive to the needs of
the young people of their communities. In many instances
this has proved to be true. Not only do local lodges render a
considerable amount of unobtrusive service to individual boys
and girls, but some of the fraternal bodies have endeavored to

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 141

extend and systematize their work for young people by forming
national organizations of the young.

The Elks have a junior order. The Masons sponsor two organ-
izations for boys and one for girls. It is not necessary for young
people to be related to members of these fraternities to be eligible
for membership. All of the youth groups have various recrea-
tional activities of the kind ordinarily favored by young people.
There are athletics, drill teams, hikes, and picnics. Indoor
pastimes include dramatics, debating, dancing, and other enter-
tainments. There is sometimes a particular emphasis upon
citizenship training, as is the case with the Order of DeMolay,
sponsored by the Masons. The Sons of the American Legion
may also be classed among the junior orders of fraternal groups.
They endeavor to teach patriotism and citizenship, but there are
also a variety of recreational and social service activities. Summer
camps are a particular objective.

Labor organizations are likely to contain a substantial propor-
tion of young workers. Awareness of special needs of the younger
members sometimes makes itself evident in programs designed
particularly to appeal to them and sometimes in the sponsoring
of special youth branches of the parent organization. The chief
purposes of such groups appear to be the development of a
spirit of solidarity among working people and sometimes the
provision of mutual aid through insurance benefits. Recreational
activities, however, are very frequently conducted as a means of
keeping up interest.

One youth section of a labor organization has as its aim "to
offer youth an opportunity for physical, intellectual, social, and
ethical development in an atmosphere sympathetic to the ideals
of the labor movement." The leisure interests of the local
groups of this body include organizing lectures, debates, sym-
posiums, dramatics, music; and promoting sports, gymnastics,
and mass calisthenics. It is reported that in Detroit the young
people of the junior branch of the International Workers' Order
assumed leadership in bringing pressure to bear on the recreation
groups and city officials to fight the mayor's proposed plan to
slash the recreation budget. Their efforts helped to achieve an
increase of $50,000 in place of a reduction.

142 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

ADULT COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
INTERESTED IN YOUTH'S LEISURE

The leisure organizations for youth that are formed and main-
tained in local communities by adults or by adult agencies do not
by any means exhaust the resources of good will that the com-
munity can draw upon in its effort to provide a better recreational
life for young people. There are many community organizations
of adults that neither sponsor youth groups as "feeders" for their
own membership nor have a primary interest in the welfare of
youth. Yet very often these organizations can be induced to
undertake some good work for young people as a public service to
their communities.

It will not be easy to secure private support on the scale likely
to be necessary. It is true that where an unquestioned need
can be shown, funds and volunteer effort are likely to be forth-
coming. Difficulty, however, will be encountered in awakening
a sense of community responsibility for the ordinary, undramatic,
everyday necessities of young people, among which recreation
must be counted. It is a comparatively simple task to find a
civic organization that will send food baskets to a starving family,
or pay the hospital bill of a crippled child, or provide a scholar-
ship for a poor but promising youth. It is more difficult to con-
vince people that special action is required in order that all
youth may have a fair chance of growing up as youth ought to
grow up.

An appeal to provide recreational facilities for youth is likely
to meet with greater favor from civic groups if emphasis is laid
upon the probable reduction of delinquency, the saving in the
cost of law enforcement, and so on. These, however, are not the
true reasons why young people should have an opportunity for
wholesome play and self-improvement. They can be advanced
for what they are worth when they seem likely to yield results,
but no adequate or lasting program for young people will be
developed from negative arguments. Every effort should be
made to overcome the community's apathy toward the situation
of its ordinary, unexceptional young people and to convince it
of the necessity of affording physical and cultural advantages to
the normal boys and girls who have left school.

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 143

BUSINESSMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS

Among the adult agencies most likely to have a contribution to
make to the recreational life of youth are businessmen's organiza-
tions. Junior Chambers of Commerce often take a considerable
interest in youth welfare. A substantial proportion of their
60,000 members, aged 18 to 35, are themselves under 25. The
national organization has standing committees on public health,
city planning, crime, safety, juvenile welfare, and sports. All
of these have obvious connections with the community's pro-
vision for the leisure of its youth. Many of the local chambers
have adopted juvenile welfare as a major goal for their projects.
Activities include Christmas parties for underprivileged children;
forming juvenile details in police departments; sponsoring com-
munity dances, athletic leagues, boys' clubs, and Scout troops;
and establishing recreational centers.

Luncheon clubs frequently promote recreation as a phase of
their public service activities. They are especially likely to
undertake work on behalf of underprivileged children. Clubs
cooperate with the juvenile court authorities by helping to
provide the kind of environment that will keep youth from re-
lapsing into delinquency. They provide memberships in the
Y.M.C.A. and similar organizations for youth who would other-
wise be unable to obtain them. They sponsor Boy Scout troops,
work with boys' and girls' clubs, and promote summer camps.

Recreational facilities open to all the youth of the community
are also among those which luncheon clubs are frequently instru-
mental in providing. Swimming pools, beaches, skating rinks,
tennis courts, and playgrounds are acquired or equipped through
their efforts. Cultural uses of leisure are not overlooked. Clubs
have been known to organize musical activities, sponsor open
forums for the nonpartisan discussion of current problems, and aid
public libraries. All of the luncheon clubs — Civitan, Kiwanis,
Lions, National Exchange, Optimist, and Rotary— report some
activities of the nature of those just mentioned, and the Kiwanis
clubs in particular appear to deserve praise for the number and
variety of the leisure enterprises for young people they have
promoted.

144 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS

Women's organizations often take a substantial interest in
assisting youth to spend their leisure in approved ways. The
General Federation of Women's Clubs, which ties together 14,500
local organizations, has a Conservation-of-Youth Committee
that proposes specific study and activity programs for member
clubs. Among the matters on which this committee endeavors
to center interest is recreation. The federation also has a de-
partment of public welfare incorporating a community service
division. This unit is concerned with sponsoring local groups of
the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Camp Fire Girls and cooperating
with other recreational agencies.

The National Federation of Business and Professional Women's
Clubs, some thousands of whose members are themselves under
25, recommends that each local club have a youth council to
coordinate its work for young people. Clubs often sponsor or
help Girl Scout troops and other character-building agencies.
Women's luncheon clubs have community service interests
similar to those of the parallel organizations for men already
described. Altrusa, Quota, Soroptimist, and Zonta clubs include
among their aims the encouragement of participation in com-
munity and public affairs of a nonpartisan character. Typical
of the recreational activities they foster are annual hobby fairs
where girls may exhibit the products of their leisure.

The various Junior Leagues are well known for their volunteer
social work. The ages of members are from 18 to 40, and a
considerable number are young people themselves. The national
office has a welfare department whose function is to make contacts
between the local leagues and the local professional social workers.
It also puts members in touch with the specialized national
agencies, advises local leagues on social work, and offers training
courses in this field. An arts department stimulates and fosters
interest in cultural activities among local leagues and individuals.
Branches and their members perform volunteer social work of
many kinds, including community organization, recreation, and
neighborhood activities. They also promote many enterprises
in the fields of music, art, drama, and civic planning.

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 145

OTHER COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS

A variety of other community organizations have an interest
in the welfare of young people. Often this interest can be led to
express itself in promoting worth-while recreational opportunities.
Parent-teacher associations have been formed in thousands of
communities throughout the country. One of their aims is to
promote child welfare in home, school, church, and community.
The national organization has a number of committees, of which
the following have a major concern with the leisure activities of
young people: library service, motion pictures, recreation, art,
music, juvenile protection, radio, safety, and health.

Councils of social agencies are found in most communities of
considerable size. Usually they function only as coordinating
bodies, but occasionally they work directly with youth. In
some instances this work is related to leisure-time needs. In
Chicago there is a Youth Social Problems Club formed under the
auspices of the Council of Social Agencies. Its large membership
is made up of youth from local groups. The monthly meetings
are devoted to discussions of various social questions, from war
to delayed marriage. There is an active entertainment program
with emphasis on hikes and picnics.

American Legion posts throughout the country organize or
sponsor local branches of such recognized youth groups as Boy
and Girl Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, Sons of the American Legion,
and boys' athletic clubs. Many posts observe National Boys'
and Girls' Week. The national headquarters of the Legion has
an active Child Welfare Division which works through similar
divisions in the state organization and brings to the attention
of local posts the best information concerning standards for child
care and protection. The division seeks to educate members of
the Legion and citizens at large concerning the condition and
needs of children in the United States. Its entire child welfare
program is built upon cooperation with existing agencies in the
communities and states.

In many cities the police have developed a program of work
with boys designed to make them feel that the law is a friendly
influence rather than repressive. Some of these programs grew

146 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

out of attempts to substitute wholesome activity for vandalism
at Halloween and other times. They are variously named Boys*
Clubs, Police Athletic Leagues, Junior Police Reserves, and so on.
Usually they are financed outside the city budget and the com-
munity chest. Shows, tournaments, auctions of confiscated
property, and personal solicitation by policemen are the chief
sources of income.

Police programs are often elaborately worked out and include
athletics, indoor games', handicrafts, and hobbies. In many
cities police precinct stations are used as meeting places for the
groups. Churches, fraternal halls, and community centers are
frequently used for the same purpose under the sponsorship of
police. Occasionally a special building is constructed with funds
collected by police. Streets are reserved and vacant lots are
designated as play areas with volunteer or part-time paid super-
visors keeping a more or less watchful eye. These areas, usually
in sections where recreational facilities are limited or nonexistent,
supplement the playgrounds financed by the city. Tournaments
and contests between clubs in various areas of the city help to
stimulate the interest and participation of the boys.

When police departments undertake work of the kind that the
various character-building agencies have long promoted they
expose themselves to the criticism that they are venturing into a
rather highly specialized field for which their own training has not
particularly equipped them. It may seem ungrateful to raise
such an issue in the face of the good will to which their efforts
testify. Success can be claimed for some of these efforts, and the
need for such work greatly exceeds all the resources that have been
mobilized to meet it. However, the criticism is not without
weight. We do not expect the post office or the sanitation de-
partment to promote boys* clubs, yet it is not clear that the police
department is any better qualified for such work.

Police do have an oblique interest in extending social services
to underprivileged youth. These services are believed to reduce
delinquency and hence can be expected to lighten their task.
However, this connection is somewhat beside the point. Cer-
tainly all practicable steps to prevent delinquency and crime

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 147

ought to be taken. But work with boys is a profession in itself,
requiring special types of individuals and special kinds of training.
Satisfactory results are most likely to be obtained if individuals
with these qualifications are employed. The public pays the bill
either way and should expect the job to be turned over to the
persons best qualified to carry it out successfully. The boys, for
their part, are entitled to pass their leisure in an atmosphere free
from the suggestion of repression that can hardly be dissociated
from the police even when they are engaged in benevolent work.

RURAL ORGANIZATIONS WITH YOUTH
MEMBERSHIP

In a rural county surveyed in a midwestern state, 92 per cent
of the youth reported they would like to belong to a young people's
organization. Yet 44 per cent of the youth stated there was no
organization available to them. This is typical of the situation
in many parts of the country. The agencies ministering to the
leisure needs of rural youth are notably fewer than those whose
services are available to youth in urban areas.

The disproportion is not quite so great as the small number of
organizations to be described in this section would suggest, for
many of the agencies most active among city youth also make
some effort to carry their programs to young people in the coun-
try. The larger church organizations for youth have numerous
branches in rural areas. One Boy Scout troop in five is in a
village of under 1,000 population or in the open country. Among
urban organizations that sponsor branches of the 4-H clubs and
the Future Farmers of America are the Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions,
National Exchange, and Optimist clubs; the American Legion;
and various business and professional women's clubs. The Junior
Chamber of Commerce has an interesting cooperative program
for making city and country youth better acquainted with one
another.

Rural young people also have at their service an agency with
great resources for which no parallel exists in cities — the Extension
Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. This

148 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

is the largest and most important system of agricultural education
in the world, and its comprehensive purpose is to make rural
America a better place in which to live. It has a permanent staff
of 8,500 persons and over 400,000 part-time volunteer workers.
The county agricultural agents and home demonstration workers
are the channels through which the knowledge possessed by
government experts on all phases of rural life is funneled down
into the local community. Information on agriculture, farm
economics, home management, and social organization is dis-
seminated by them in easily understandable terms, and they assist
in the practical application of this knowledge to the daily life
of the farmer and his family. In numerous ways the Extension
Service aids rural young people, directly as well as indirectly.
In some counties there are special agents who work only with
youth.

BOYS* AND GIRLS' CLUBS WITH RURAL INTERESTS

One of the most important means through which the influence
of the Extension Service is exerted is its clubs for rural youth.
The United States Office of Education also sponsors clubs among
high school students of vocational agriculture.

The 4-H Clubs

These organizations are a phase of the agricultural extension
service of the United States Department of Agriculture, working
through the state agricultural colleges and the county agricultural
agents. They enroll 1,380,000 youth between the ages of 10 and
20, of whom about a fifth are 16 or over. The clubs are organized
and guided by the county agricultural agent, and each is under the
immediate leadership of an unpaid adult. In 1939, 6,500 county
agents were engaging in full or part-time activities with 4-H clubs,
and over 147,000 local adult leaders were giving volunteer services
to 78,000 clubs in every state.

The aims and methods of 4-H work are so well known in the
parts of the country the clubs are designed to serve that there
would be little point in describing them in detail here. For city
people, who may not be so fully acquainted with the clubs, it may

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 149

be said that the four "H Y' are Head, Heart, Hand, and Health.
Among the purposes the clubs accomplish are teaching rural boys
and girls to appreciate the environment in which they live, and
training them in cooperative action, in healthful living, and in
intelligent use of leisure. The clubs develop self-determined
programs based on the immediate needs and interests of mem-
bers. They include numerous social and recreational activities.
In nearly all states there are annual state camps or conventions
of 4-H club members at the agricultural colleges. In 1935 there
were approximately 2,000 county 4-H club camps, with an aggre-
gate attendance of 150,000 young people.

Future Farmers of America

This is an organization sponsored by the Vocational Education
Division of the United States Office of Education for high school
students of vocational agriculture. Local chapters, of which
there are 6,300, are formed and conducted by teachers. There
are over 225,000 members. Among the aims of the organization
are the creation and nurturing of a love of community life, the
improvement of the rural home and its surroundings, and the
encouragement of organized recreational activities. Similar
groups are sponsored for Negro youth under the name of New
Farmers of America.

YOUTH GROUPS CONNECTED WITH ADULT RURAL
ORGANIZATIONS

In addition to the boys' and girls' clubs discussed above, there
are a number of rural agencies with recreational interests, mem-
bership in which is open to both youth and adults. Four of
these organizations and their programs are briefly described here.

The American Country Life Association

This organization composed of rural sociologists and other
persons interested in improving country life has an active Youth
Section. Its object is to work for "a worthy country life in
America" and it emphasizes not merely economic improvement,
but also social development. The Youth Section aims principally

150 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

to integrate the activities of existing youth groups rather than
to be an organizing force. It will, however, help to form groups
of young people where none exist. Its affiliated organizations
comprise some eighty youth groups in colleges and rural commu-
nities, enrolling 10,000 to 15,000 young people between the ages
of 16 and 25. The groups vary in size from a few members to
county groups including some 300 persons. Usually they are
sponsored by county extension agents, teachers of vocational
agriculture, or home-room teachers. Some of these groups are
already branches of national organizations for rural youth.
Others, such as clubs of 4-H alumni, have little connection with
the organization from which they arose. Still others are county
or community groups of older youth not affiliated with any na-
tional body other than the American Country Life Association.
At typical meetings of these groups there will be speeches and
discussions of the rural community and its problems, followed by
a social hour. Recreation in the form of handicrafts and dra-
matics is developed by some groups, and such activities as skating
parties and picnics are very popular.

The American Farm Bureau Federation

The purpose of this organization is "to advance agriculture and
everything involving the welfare of farmers and their families."
Families join as a unit, and 600,000 individuals — or half of the
membership — are under 25. There is, however, no general policy
of organizing young people into a separate division. In a few
states Junior Farm Bureaus have been formed, but the young
people themselves must request and arrange for such organization.
In Michigan, where a junior bureau has been in existence since
1934, the members range from 18 to 28 years of age and are for
the most part former students of vocational agriculture now work-
ing on farms. The junior bureau's aims include bridging the gap
between youth and adult participation in the Farm Bureau and
providing a program of continuing education and other activities
for rural young people. Recreational functions include picnics,
excursions, camping, hiking, and community singing. Such
quasi-organizations for young Farm Bureau members enroll 2,000

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 151

youth in Michigan, 3,000 in Iowa, 3,000 in Ohio, 8,000 in Illinois,
and 8,000 in Indiana.

National Grange

The Grange is a rural fraternal organization aiming to promote
cooperation among the farmers of America and generally to im-
prove life in rural communities. It takes an interest in churches,
schools, playgrounds, and every other rural agency occupying an
important position. Its chief distinctive feature among rural
organizations is its fraternal character and its secret ritual, which
includes "degree work." The Grange does not attempt to
develop a special youth program. It seeks to interest young
people in sharing the responsibilities and social life of their elders.
Youth are eligible to full membership at 14 and are urged to join
along with the whole family.

The Grange endeavors to give young people a substantial share
in the management of the organization and to see that the program
is attractive to them. The national office urges that local Granges
place at least one young member on each important committee.
Special effort is made to see that youth talent is used in a variety
of ways both within the organization and in public relations.
The Grange has always sought to better local communities by
providing drama, music, and debating to enrich rural social life.
Grange halls, of which there are over 3,600, are used for rural
entertainment. Responsibility to the community is made espe-
cially clear to young members.

The young people of the Grange frequently organize special-
interest activities, such as dancing, athletics, and hiking. One
state official reports:

About half of our Granges do a great deal for youth. A typical local
Grange, and one that has many young people among its members, has
two tennis courts on the grounds adjoining the hall, ten miles out in
the country. It has a Softball team entered in a league that plays city
teams, it maintains an orchestra, promotes 4-H clubs, and has numerous
other activities of special interest to youth.

It is worthy of note that such programs are initiated and devel
oped by the young members themselves.

152 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

The Farmers7 Educational and Cooperative Union of America

This organization endeavors "to build toward a cooperative
society wherein service and use, rather than profit, are the motives
of business." It has a special division — Farmers' Union Juniors
— for young people between the ages of 16 and 21. About 250,000
youth are eligible to be Farmers' Union Juniors through the
membership of their families in the parent organization. Sixteen
states now have functioning junior programs. The educational
activities consist of classes that each year are centered around a
topic of national importance, such as the cooperative movement,
money and credit, the Machine Age, and world peace. Kits of
reference material and study outlines are sent out by the national
office, and volunteer leaders provide the instruction. Winter
cooperative institutes are conducted as a part of the junior and
adult education program. Classes are held over a period of from
three to four weeks. Cooperative recreation is carefully studied
in an effort to enrich the life of the individual and the community.

Recreation is an integral part of the juniors' program. Some-
times the young people are made responsible for the recreational
features of the program of the senior division. Numerous activi-
ties are organized. One state leader expresses the philosophy of
his program thus: "We believe there is a great need for a rural
culture that can be developed through the introduction of folklore,
games and song, handicraft, and drama. Thus we are encourag-
ing this type of leisure-time activity."

The educational and recreational enterprises of the local groups
are supplemented by summer camps and institutes. The state
camps usually have from 100 to 150 boys and girls between 16
and 21. Camp life is cooperative, the campers washing dishes
and serving meals. Camp classes are sometimes conducted on
the project basis, the end product being a pamphlet summarizing
the discussions. Farm Youth Talks About War> a forty-seven
page booklet, was written by the world problems class in the all-
state camp of 1937.

CONCLUSIONS

Three facts stand out distinctly from the foregoing review of the
private organizations of the community whose interests include a

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 153

concern for the recreational life of young people. One is the
enormous amount of good will and voluntary effort represented
by these agencies. The 147,000 unpaid adult leaders of 4-H
clubs and more than 300,000 Scout leaders, many of whom serve
an average of eight hours a week, are only two among the many
impressive examples of this spirit of community enterprise. In
all, probably three-quarters of a million men and women are
giving their time and efforts to help the young people of their
communities employ their leisure in wholesome and profitable
ways — and this estimate relates only to the larger national youth
organizations with local branches. These people willingly con-
tribute their experience, long hours of laborious work, and often
their money because of a desire to better their communities and a
regard for young people. It is evident that they and the organ-
izations they represent must have a prominent part in any
comprehensive community program for the welfare of youth.

The second fact that emerges from this chapter is the com-
plexity of the private-agency structure for ministering to the
recreational needs of the community's young people. This is
important, for it carries with it a strong probability that there is
considerable lessening of the efficiency with which the community
might be applying the effort it puts forth. Making all possible
allowance for interagency good will and for the working agree-
ment that leaders of the various youth-serving organizations have
established among themselves, it is still quite clear that a great
many community agencies are endeavoring to do very much the
same things for the same young people. ;V

There is no inherent reason why a number of agencies should
not be engaged in trying to bring similar benefits to youth. The
task is certainly great enough for all. Moreover, it is quite rea-
sonable to suppose that their methods will bear a family resem-
blance to one another. It is important, however, that duplication
of programs and overlapping in the groups served shall not accu-
mulate to a degree that will impair the total service rendered by
community agencies. The complexity of our private-agency
structure is now such that we are in danger of finding ourselves
in this position. If nothing more fundamental than the prestige
of the agencies themselves were concerned the matter would not

154 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

be serious. But we must face the fact that the real victims of
unwieldy organization of private agencies are young people, who
are not receiving the quality of service that the community
believes itself to be giving. Many of them are not receiving any
service at all.

This brings us to our third conclusion: that the sum of all the
efforts of private organizations working to improve the uses to
which youth put their leisure is notably inadequate to meet the
need for the kind of services they are supplying. As nearly as
can be determined from available information, the total enroll-
ment in all the youth-membership organizations described in the
preceding pages approximates 13,000,000. This is a large figure,
but it represents persons from 8 or 10 to upwards of 30, and the
greater portion consists of boys and girls around 12 to 15. If we
attempt to confine it to youth between the ages of 16 and 24 we
arrive at a probable total of only about 5,000,000. Even this
figure is too large, for there is overlapping in memberships.

In the Maryland study of the American Youth Commission
it was found that the young person 16 to 24 who belonged to any
club or organization belonged to an average of 1.4. Reducing the
total youth enrollments in national, youth-membership leisure
organizations to allow for this factor, we obtain a figure approxi-
mating 3,500,000. This may be taken as a rough estimate of the
number of young people 16 to 24 who are members of groups of
this type. But there are 22,000,000 youth between these ages
in the United States, which means that only one in six is being
served by the agencies we have been considering.

It is true that there are many purely local organizations whose
activities relate to young people's use of leisure and that often
these are doing excellent work. But the bulk of organized recrea-
tional service to young people is probably supplied by the agencies
with national affiliations. The fact that all youth-serving organ-
izations, national or local, public or private, enlist the regular
participation of only a small portion of young people over 16 has
been repeatedly demonstrated in recent years by surveys. Typ-
ical of the evidence obtained is the finding of the Commission's
Maryland study, which reported that only one young person in

PRIVATELY SUPPORTED COMMUNITY AGENCIES 155

four between the ages of 16 and 24 had an organizational affilia-
tion of any kind.

If growth is an indication of vitality, privately sponsored com-
munity organizations for American youth are in a healthy condi-
tion. During the past decade the Girl Scouts more than doubled
their membership, the Y.M.C.A. nearly doubled theirs, the Boy
Scouts increased by two-thirds, the Camp Fire Girls by a third.
The time has come, however, when we must recognize that the
condition of the young people of our country cannot be adequately
measured by the extent to which organizations serving them flour-
ish. Most out-of-school youth are left to work out their leisure
life as best they can. In view of the scanty preparation the
schools give them for this task it would be a difficult one under
any conditions. Faced as many of them are with prolonged
idleness, and surrounded as all of them are with the cheap and
tawdry attractions characteristic of many commercial amuse-
ments, it is hopeless to expect a majority to achieve anything
like the full development of interests, skills, and personality that
leisure can be made to yield. They desperately need assistance.

To be effective, assistance must take some organized form.
Youth want to belong to groups that will help them live more
enjoy ably in their spare time. The surveys have demonstrated
this. The cellar clubs that give their elders so much concern are
additional evidence. But youth deserve to be helped to develop a
more satisfying leisure life than expedients such as these afford.
The problem of organizing the private resources of the community
to give youth wholesome opportunities for recreation can no
longer be put off with half measures.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

DIMOCK, HEDLEY S. Rediscovering the Adolescent. New York: Association Press, 1938.
287 pp.

HEATON, KENNETH L. Character Building through Recreation. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1929. 230 pp.

PATTEN, MARJORIE. The Arts Workshop oj Rural America. New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1937. 216 pp.

PENDRY, ELIZABETH R., and HUGH HARTSHORNE. Organizations for Touth. New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1935. 357 pp.

Rooms of Their Own. New York: Henry Street Settlement, 1939. 79 pp.

SLAVSON, S. R. Creative Group Education. New York: Association Press, 1937. 247 pp.

STONE, WALTER L. The Development of Boys' Work in the United States. Nashville,
Tenn: Cullom and Ghertner Press, 1935. 188 pp.

CHAPTER VI

COMMUNITY PLANNING FOR THE
RECREATION NEEDS OF YOUTH

JTROM THE study conducted in Muncie by the American
Youth Commission comes this story of a local analysis of a com-
munity problem:

On a Monday after one of the frequent Saturday night dances at
B — - school, some of the boys and girls were asked by teachers where
they had gone after the dance. Most of them said they had driven to
C 's and other places for refreshments. The teachers and the prin-
cipal disapproved. The latter said he was giving the school dances so
often in order to keep the young folks in their own neighborhood and
away from the various "hangouts." But the students protested that
they had to go somewhere afterwards to get something to eat. Be-
sides, the dances were held only once every two or three weeks, and
they had to find places to go on other nights. The teachers countered
with the suggestion that they visit in one another's homes and make
their own refreshments. "But," said one youngster, "our parents
won't let us spoil their quiet evenings at home beside the radio by bring-
ing in a bunch of kids. They think we mess up the house and make too
much noise."

Here in epitome is the recreation problem of youth — sincere
but insufficient efforts by the school, lack of understanding at
home, and nonschool opportunities restricted largely to commer-
cial places of entertainment. What is the youngster to do but
seek amusement where he can find it and hope for whatever
"breaks" home and school will give him? This situation is faced
by the youth of nearly every community in our land. How is it

156

COMMUNITY PLANNING 157

to be remedied ? The community must organize itself to meet the
recreational needs of its young people.

A community can be defined in various terms, according to the
purpose for which it is being considered. For most purposes,
however, it is sufficient to use the simple and homely definition
that a community is "any group of people, living within neighbor-
ing distance of each other and having a common interest/' In
this sense the local community is the meeting ground of all the
recreation agencies we have discussed, as well as of some that re-
main to be mentioned. On the one hand we have the schools,
parks and playgrounds, libraries, the home, the church, the
multitude of other private organizations. On the other hand
we have the recreational interests of the state and federal govern-
ments. All must be utilized in a community program. The
community is also important because, as our definition states, the
individual lives there, and it is with his daily life and needs that
planning must begin. The local community thus becomes the
focal point of recreational planning.

THE WILL TO ORGANIZE

The first necessity toward getting an adequate community
recreation program under way is a full realization of the need.
By this is meant not simply that the deficiencies of the opportu-
nities available to young people should be accurately known.
This too is essential, but there is an even more fundamental
requisite. The community must adopt a realistic point of view
with regard to the economic and social difficulties of our time that
lend emphasis to the need for recreation. Its leaders must accept
the fact that we are faced with long-term problems of social organ-
ization, such as unemployment and overcrowding, which make
the need for a publicly sponsored leisure program both urgent
and lasting. They must understand that the individual growth
and development of the young people of today and tomorrow will
depend very largely upon what they do in their spare time. They
must realize that one of the best uses to which community en-
deavor can be put is to place opportunities in the way of young
people for spending their leisure wisely. In short, there must

158 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

have been aroused in a community the will to assist its youth to
obtain a full and satisfying recreational life. If this is present
there is no other obstacle that cannot be overcome.

These are the realistic considerations that a community must
face:

Life for most youth 16 to 24 is dull, routinized, and congested.

Jobs are not too plentiful and not too satisfying.

Boys and girls have little money to spend, but an increasing
amount of time to dispose of.

After leaving school they have only limited opportunities for
meeting members of the opposite sex under wholesome conditions.

They are unable to travel to national or state parks, no matter
how fine these may be.

Can a community look at this picture and not want to improve
it? Let the reader not think that the picture is biased or un-
naturally gloomy. If he will examine the files of the Maryland,
Dallas, and Muncie studies of the American Youth Commission;
if he will talk with social workers, recreation leaders, and county
agricultural agents; if he will visit the cellar clubs of any city or
the poolrooms of any village — he will be convinced.

FINDING THE FACTS

Assuming that the community has made up its mind to act, it
will then require reliable and detailed information on various
topics relating to the leisure needs of youth and the resources for
ministering to these needs. This information may best be ob-
tained by a series of studies or by surveys. The surveys should
determine the recreational interests of young people, the existing
recreational facilities of the community, and unrecognized com-
munity resources for developing a leisure program.

SURVEYING THE LEISURE NEEDS OF YOUTH

Information on the leisure-time interests and needs of the young
people in a community can best be obtained through a youth
survey, either one conducted for the particular purpose or as part
of a larger study of all aspects of youth welfare. Hundreds of

i^^^ •»

COMMUNITY PLANNING 159

American communities made youth surveys of greater or lesser
scope during the past decade, and recreation was one of the
subjects most frequently investigated. The American Youth
Commission has issued a booklet, How to Make a Community
Youth Survey, suggesting the most suitable methods of approach-
ing this task. Each town or rural area has its own particular set
of circumstances. It is these which should serve as the basis for
developing a program — the needs of youth themselves, rather
than any plan that existing organizations might find it convenient
to put into effect without knowledge of how nearly it meets the
situation. The needs of youth should be known, not merely
guessed.

In carrying out a community youth survey along the lines
suggested in the Commission's booklet it should be borne in mind
that recreation presents various problems different from those
that arise in other fields of youth welfare. Care should be taken
that the information necessary to deal with these is collected.
For instance, the survey should:

1. Regard as somewhat distinct, groups of youth who are in
school and those who are out of school. Both the activities and
the interests of these two groups will probably be found to have
as many dissimilar points as they have points in common. The
needs of out-of-school youth should be studied with particular
care.

2. Attempt to determine the extent to which the school is
providing training in leisure skills that will match the opportuni-
ties available to youth when they leave school and the interests
that they are likely to develop then.

3. Study the extent to which the recreational life of youth
depends upon commercial amusements. Study the implications
that any considerable dependence upon this source must have for
the large majority of young people with little spending money.
These implications are likely to be tragic.

4. Inquire what opportunities there are for boys to engage in
recreational activities with girls, and girls with boys. Find how
much desire there is for corecreation. This should be an im-
portant focal point of the study.

160 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

5. Analyze the extent to which young people's leisure pursuits
involve physical activities (the emphasis varies with age), how
often they are merely of the spectator sort, how much seems to
consist of "escape" activity, and how much could be considered
individually or socially creative.

A point in favor of beginning community action by a study of
youth themselves is that it will help to focus the sympathetic
attention of the community upon youth needs. If the start
were made by studying the organizations through which the
community provides for the leisure of its young people, "agency-
mindedness" might rear its ugly head and endless discussion of
abstract functions could easily ensue. The best approach is to
establish proof of need. Public support for community action
can then be more quickly and effectively rallied. The youth
themselves are the object of the proposed action, and development
of the program should begin with them and revolve about them.
This is particularly true of needs the urgency of which is only
vaguely realized by the public. Recreation is such a need.

SURVEYING EXISTING FACILITIES

One of the soundest principles for developing a program of
recreation is to build upon what you already have. When the
community has determined in which directions it needs to ex-
pand its leisure services for youth it must start out from where it
is in the way of organizations and facilities. It therefore needs
to preface its prospective expansion with a study of what it now
has in this line. It may seem odd that a formal study should be
required in order to acquaint the community with the identity
and resources of the agencies that seek to assist its young people
to occupy their spare time. None of these agencies has any
reason for wishing to remain unknown. They all draw their
clientele from the public and depend upon the public for support.
Nevertheless, it is probable that in a community of any size there
will not be one person who knows the full extent of the leisure
resources, public and private, available to youth.

Only the few agencies with which individual members of the
public come in direct contact are likely to make any lasting

COMMUNITY PLANNING 161

impression upon them. As for the agencies themselves, they are
too busy cultivating their own gardens to spend much time
looking over the fence into their neighbors'. A special study,
then, is necessary to show the community where it stands. In
cities, the number of agencies and facilities may run into the
hundreds. A recent survey of adult education and recreation
opportunities in Buffalo listed 150 organizations.

In smaller communities the study will have less to cover, but
even where there is no perceptible program at all there will be
facilities in the way of school playgrounds, Grange or lodge halls,
and church buildings. The school and the church, in fact, may
well serve as the point of departure for the study of recreation
facilities, particularly in smaller communities. These two insti-
tutions are found everywhere; both are socially-minded; both are
interested in young people; one represents public support, one
private; and, most important of all, both will have at least some
element of a recreation program already in action.

IDENTIFYING UNUSED RESOURCES

It is a pathetic yet hopeful fact that in every community there
are many unused or only partly used facilities that might be
employed to enrich the leisure of young people. Lack of vision
and leadership keeps them from being used. Numerous illustra-
tions of this fact have been uncovered by the employees of the
Work Projects Administration who in recent years have gone into
thousands of communities to lend their assistance to local groups.
One of the most extreme cases reported concerns the discovery
by a WPA recreation supervisor of an unused but fully equipped
library in a southern mill town. It was closed and locked when
the supervisor found it, and no one could tell her why. She
persuaded the advisory committee of the local recreation project
to investigate, then went on to her next community. When she
came again someone had the key and instructions to let her in.
She found a bronze plaque inside the door, recording the gift of
the library to the town by a former owner of the mill in memory
of his father. The plaque read, "To Be a Place of Recreation for
the People." The bank that had been placed in charge of the

162 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

trust had failed. The library had been locked and the key almost
lost. It was an excellent small-town library with a large assembly
room upstairs that could be used for social recreation.

Few towns will wake up to discover an unused library in their
midst, but in every community there are less pretentious facilities
lying fallow — playgrounds idle for portions of the day or seasons
of the year; vacant lots or fields that could be put to better use
than growing a crop of thistles; public or private buildings that
might be adapted to indoor recreation; a school program of sports,
music, dramatics, arts, and social activities that might be broad-
ened to include out-of-school youth. Only enterprise is necessary
to uncover resources such as these.

The interests and energies of the members of the community
are potential resources. In every community there are citizens
with hobbies (collecting, handicrafts, nature study) and skills
(music, art, sports, social games) that can be used in a recreation
program. Their talent and enthusiasm may need only an initial
spark and some direction to be converted into public assets. The
normal possession of recreational interests and abilities by lay
people who love their hobbies and can be induced to share them
is a leisure resource of great significance.

The interests of young people are community assets, too. The
East Side Y.M.C.A. of St. Louis looked upon the boys' gangs of a
section of the city noted for its bad record of juvenile delinquency
and saw in them a community "resource." Intelligent, sympa-
thetic volunteer leadership converted these groups, which had
formed naturally around common interests, into boys' clubs —
forty of them — with educational and recreational programs
adapted to the needs of each group.

Existing agencies and programs are by no means the sum of a
community's resources for recreation. There is always an un-
suspected reservoir of facilities, energies, and interests waiting
to be tapped. These should be studied and weighed before the
community moves to set up a leisure program for its youth. It
should be determined which of the three main fields of recreation
— physical, creative or cultural, and social — volunteer effort and
unused facilities are best fitted to serve. This knowledge will

COMMUNITY PLANNING 163

enable a substantial addition to be made to the organized recrea-
tional resources of the community. It will be particularly valu-
able where expense is a major obstacle, which is nearly
everywhere.

CONSTRUCTING THE PROGRAM

When a community has discovered the kinds of recreation that
its young people are in need of and the kinds that interest them
most, when it has blueprinted the organizations already working
to meet leisure needs and inventoried the latent facilities and
abilities that can be drawn upon to enrich its resources, it is ready
to take the major step toward which all its preparations have led.
It must now utilize the full potentialities both of public and of
private agencies in a coordinated community program.

ADAPTING TO LOCAL CONDITIONS

No single plan for building a unified community recreation
service for youth can be applied everywhere. The circumstances
of communities vary widely, and the approach that will prove
most suitable in any particular instance will depend upon local
conditions. In general, however, it can be said that in rural
areas, villages, and small towns it will not usually be desirable
to attempt to establish a separate recreation authority. Develop-
ment of a community program is best left to whatever existing
social agency or agent is most active in working for the welfare
of young people. County or state support may be solicited to
enable a program to be developed, but the local community should
demonstrate its interest and initiative by utilizing some existing
center of influence. In the open country it may be the school,
the church, the Grange, or the extension agent. In villages, the
school offers perhaps the best possibility of becoming a pc^nt for
expansion. Whoever accepts the position of leadership should
quickly move to secure the close cooperation of all other agencies
concerned with the leisure of young people.

In cities and larger towns the situation is somewhat different.
Here there is less doubt as to where the obligation to develop a pro-

164 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

gram rests. The provision of adequate public recreation should
be accepted by cities and larger towns as a full responsibility of
local government, on a par with their obligation to provide fire pro-
tection and public health services. Our larger cities have long
recognized this responsibility and have agencies that attempt,
however imperfectly, to carry it out. But the hundreds of
American cities of less than 50,000 population have been slow to
provide for public recreation, though numerous small and middle-
sized urban communities have demonstrated that it can be done
and well done regardless of population. Any community that
is big enough to have a fire department and a public health officer
is big enough to maintain its own recreation authority.

The precise form that this authority should take will vary
according to the particular circumstances of the community. In
cities well supplied with parks, the logical place to develop play-
grounds, playfields, and recreation centers will be on the public
open spaces. Accordingly a recreation division may well be
established in the park department, although this will not neces-
sarily be so. The educational functions of playgrounds and other
recreation centers may be considered more important than their
accidental physical connection with parks. In this event, their
design and operation may well be placed in the hands of the school
authorities, always providing that the schools are progressive
enough to administer public recreation along lines that will result
in the greatest public good. In some communities the majority
of the potential facilities for public recreation may be represented
by the school buildings and grounds, or the school itself may have
a well-developed recreation program for its pupils that needs
only to be expanded and thrown open to out-of-school youth to
become a real leisure-time program for the public. In such cases
the board of education is obviously marked out to be the com-
munity's public recreation authority.

Still other communities may find it desirable to create a sepa-
rate and independent recreation authority. This arrangement
has the advantage of freeing the newly developing service from
the immediate influence of long-established and possibly hamper-
ing policies. It has the disadvantage that the new organization

COMMUNITY PLANNING 165

must start from scratch and that certain of the agencies whose
cooperation is essential to it will for a long time be much stronger
and more influential than itself. The intrinsic importance of
public recreation certainly justifies that the organization pro-
moting it be comparable in resources and standing to those
administering the schools, libraries, and parks. However, for
getting the best results with the least lapse of time most commu-
nities will probably be well advised to follow the principle of
of building onto what they have. And the "going" programs
of public recreation will often be found in organizations whose
major interest lies somewhat outside the field of leisure activity.
In canvassing the possibilities of community organization to
promote recreation there should not be forgotten the device,
mentioned in Chapter IV, of a Public Education Authority with
jurisdiction over schools, libraries, playgrounds, and related
provisions for recreation. This form of organization seems to be
designed, practically as well as theoretically, to ensure the coordi-
nation and active development of all the community's public
effort to promote the mental and physical growth of its young
citizens. It is, however, rather an advanced form, and there are
obvious difficulties in the way of securing its wide adoption.
Communities that find themselves in a position to experiment with
it should be urged to do so. Average communities may well
keep it before themselves as a goal toward which their local
governmental organization should be stimulated to evolve.

SECURING COMMUNITY COORDINATION

There are numerous methods and techniques for bringing into
effective coordination the various agencies, public and private,
that have a concern for the way young people spend their leisure.
Whatever the kind adopted, they should be chosen with care and
full knowledge of the local situation. They must be applied with
discrimination and tact. A publication such as the present can
say little that would be helpful regarding the details of the process
in any given community. The initiative may come from any
source, including young people themselves. Agencies such as the

166 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Junior League have some-
times taken the lead in organizing the existing welfare institutions
of their communities into councils for coordinated action upon
youth problems. In many cities the accumulated experience of
community chests and councils of social agencies constitutes a
rich reservoir of information on procedures and other technical
matters and should not be neglected. Some of these organiza-
tions have made studies of local conditions that may well serve
as models for the investigation of youth needs.

Special mention may be made of the coordinating council
movement as it has developed in California. These councils are
interested in the reduction of juvenile delinquency and similar
behavior problems among youth. Recreation is considered to be
one of the most significant factors influencing such phenomena,
and frequent studies are accordingly made of leisure facilities and
organizations with leisure interests. On the basis of these studies,
community programs are developed that have produced concrete
results. The councils are composed of both lay and professional
persons, representing private agencies, civic organizations, and
the departments of the county and city governments most directly
affected. The movement has a central promoting body, Coordi-
nating Councils, Incorporated, which stimulates the development
of councils in all parts of the country. It aids local communities
to set up functioning groups where none exist and gives advisory
service to established councils. Its Guide to Community Co-
ordination will prove helpful to any community considering this
type of organization.

The relationship of existing leisure agencies, public and private,
to any coordinated program of community recreation services
that may be set up invites some comment. It is obvious that
the success of the program depends upon the wholehearted co-
operation of all community agencies. It is equally obvious that
such cooperation will be difficult to secure if those in charge of
developing the program come forward at an early stage with plans
that radically disturb the structure or functions of existing agen-
cies. However desirable such plans may appear on paper, it
will be best to accept the fact that at least in the beginning what-

COMMUNITY PLANNING 167

ever is accomplished will be through skillful and effective handling
of the agencies and personalities already in the field.

The principle governing relationships with other leisure organ-
izations should be that the independence of existing agencies is to
be preserved so far as is consistent with the need for serving all
youth. The single condition that this principle embodies is,
however, an important one. It must never be forgotten that the
sole object of attempting to coordinate the community's leisure
services is to ensure that adequate opportunity for wholesome
recreation is made available to all youth (or, if the wider goal is
chosen, all members of the community). Even more funda-
mental than interagency harmony is the principle that the needs
of no group of youth be left unprovided for.

Here is where the survey of youth's leisure needs should prove
its value. The survey will have indicated what recreational
needs of youth are unmet and what groups of youth are being
neglected. Once these things are clearly determined the extent
of the readjustment becomes obvious. At the same time there
will have been created a powerful force of public opinion working
to bring about the adjustments. The greatest single obstacle
to the revision of services and areas of operation that periodically
become necessary in any public welfare program is the failure
of the public to understand the necessity for revision.

In summary, hasty and overambitious plans for reorganizing
leisure services along ideal lines are above all things to be avoided
in setting up a coordinated plan for community recreation. But
when it is apparent that some measure of reorganization is essen-
tial to reach youth groups or youth needs that are being neg-
lected, there should be no hesitating.

LEADERSHIP IN PLANNING AND
ADMINISTRATION

It is essential to the development of an effective public recrea-
tion program that the responsibility for conceiving it and carry-
ing it out in detail be shared between lay members of the public
and persons professionally trained.

168 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

LAY CONTROL OF THE PROGRAM

According to the generally recognized practice, laymen should
take a prominent part in the control of the program. This is
important because:

1. It will keep the program closer to community needs.

2. It will make financial support easier to obtain.

3. It will encourage volunteer leadership to develop.

The policy of lay participation in control is advocated by the
National Recreation Association and has consistently been applied
by professional recreation leaders everywhere. The history of
public education in America provides evidence of the wisdom of
this practice. In recreation as in education there is need for a
clear-cut distinction between the policy-making responsibilities
of the board of control and the executive functions of the profes-
sional worker or administrator. The board is designed to provide
responsible representation of the wishes of the community and
to determine the extent of financial support. From the profes-
sional worker is expected clear thinking on objectives, detailed
knowledge of procedures, and administrative skill.

THE PLACE OF PROFESSIONAL LEADERSHIP

Administrative responsibility should rest with persons profes-
sionally trained. The organization and administration of recrea-
tion programs are no better suited to amateur efforts than is
school teaching or any other professionalized public service.
This is equally true whether the programs are conducted under
public or private auspices. Recreation service as a profession
has a history of considerable length in this country. Its oldest
association was formed over thirty years ago. There are now at
least four national organizations of professional workers in
recreation, and their leadership is a significant factor in the total
scene. Numerous men and women have by training or exper-
ience acquired the techniques and skills necessary to make recrea-
tion programs succeed. No community should endeavor to
get along without their services unless compelled to do so by
absolute necessity.

COMMUNITY PLANNING 169

There is plenty of room for volunteer effort in recreation, but to
attempt to substitute it for adequately compensated professional
staff members is to endanger the success of the whole program.
In publicly sponsored recreation there is sometimes a tendency to
assign school teachers to carry on recreational activities as side-
lines to their regular duties. But undue dependence upon them
is a grave injustice both to employees who have necessary func-
tions of their own to perform and to the social importance
of leisure needs. Under such conditions recreation invariably
becomes subordinated to other functions or is provided for only
in piecemeal fashion. The next two decades will see public
recreation universally acknowledged as a necessary function of
local government, demanding professional training equal to that
now required of secondary school teachers or even college in-
structors and public health workers. The community will be
wise that sees the writing on the wall and builds its program
adequately from the start.

THE NEED FOR PROMOTING PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

The community should go further than this. It should demand
not only a sufficient proportion of professional workers but also
well-trained ones. If public recreation is to become a major
social function, then the preparation of recreation workers is a
well-defined social responsibility, comparable to the extensive
teacher training activities that have been developed during the
last century. Though there are many similarities between the
vocations of teacher and recreation worker, the differences are
great enough to justify specific attention to the latter.

As is likely to be the situation in any relatively new profession,
many of the present workers in recreation have not had the benefit
of specialized training. They have entered their occupational
field through a side door. It is now time that an adequate front
entrance be provided. The well-trained professional worker in
recreation will be a qualified individual who has at least a bache-
lor's degree, and preferably graduate work, in a recreation cur-
riculum. However, provision should be made for the worker
who has had no college education and perhaps no more than a

170 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

limited amount of any formal training, but who is capable of
performing routine recreation functions such as play leadership.
Junior college or extension training will be best adapted to his
requirements.

Institutions of higher education should be encouraged to study
the local or regional need for recreation workers and to provide
adequate training opportunities. Not every college or university
should develop professional curricula in recreation, but each
region of the United States ought to contain a few institutions
where such training is available. Laymen should be alert to
request trained leaders and to know the kind of service to expect
from them. They should be slow, however, to suggest to an
institution just how the training is to be given. In some uni-
versities the development will come through a college of educa-
tion or through a physical education department. In others it
will come through social work departments, while in still others
the opportunity may present itself to build an independent cur-
riculum drawing upon several departments and colleges for its
resources. New courses will have to be developed, particularly
survey courses and courses dealing with the application of skills
to recreation situations. Explicit and extended consideration
should be given the significance of leisure in modern life.

The training required by a well-prepared recreation worker
may be represented by a triangle. One side consists of the pos-
session of recreation skills and the ability to teach them to others.
A second side will be a thorough knowledge of the type of in-
dividual at whom the recreation program is to be aimed — chil-
dren, youth, or adults — especially their leisure interests and needs
and their growth characteristics. The third side of the triangle
is comprised of an understanding of the social significance of
leisure and of the community setting in which the program is to
operate. To these three qualifications there must be added
much practice and field work in order that the prospective worker
may learn to apply his professional knowledge practically and
realistically. Training programs of the past and present have
not been sufficiently comprehensive. Though each has had its
strong points, all have been weak in one or more of the essential

COMMUNITY PLANNING 171

elements. Very seldom have apprenticeship and field work
arrangements been adequate.

An aspect of professional training that seems to have been
completely neglected by colleges and universities is preparation
for positions of leadership in commercial recreation.1 Practically
all training now given in recreation is pointed toward employ-
ment in publicly sponsored services. Although this field is
potentially large, its present extent is limited and its rate of
growth has been moderate. By comparison, employment possi-
bilities in commercial recreation are vast. Professional services
in many commercial lines have been improved through special-
ized training given by colleges and universities. Commercial
recreation skills, however, continue to be acquired almost wholly
on the job.

There does not seem to be any obvious reason why training
for positions of responsibility in commercial recreation should not
be offered by educational institutions. It is likely that many of
the techniques of public recreation would prove equally useful
in commercial situations. A job analysis of commercial recrea-
tion would probably reveal a core of essential information and
skills that could be imparted through organized instruction. If
colleges and universities could successfully develop professional
and semiprofessional training in this field it would not only tend
to raise the standards of commercial recreation, it should also
provide a stimulus that would act favorably upon our training
provisions for service in nonprofit recreation.

THE PLACE OF VOLUNTEERS

Once competently trained individuals have been secured to
form the nucleus of the working staff of the community's recrea-
tion program, it may be possible to supplement their services by
extensive use of volunteer workers. One of the things that differ-
entiates recreation from other types of social service is that to

1The authors are indebted to George Hjelte, superintendent of the Playground and
Recreation Department of Los Angeles, for the suggestion developed in this and the fol-
lowing paragraph.

172 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

a greater degree volunteer effort is both possible and desirable.
The informal nature of recreation leadership and the fact that
it is so close to the daily lives of people make it unnecessary for
leaders to be clothed in the authority or dignity ordinarily
associated with professional status. Ability in some recreational
field, however small, and a talent for getting on with people,
will often bring success to the amateur leader. Many lay persons
have well-developed leisure skills or interests which they can
communicate to others. Oglebay Park, Wheeling, West Virginia,
uses some 135 committees of volunteers in operating its year-round
program.

It should be noted, however, that not only the possession of
specialized knowledge but also the ability to impart it is essential.
Proficiency in a particular leisure activity is not in itself sufficient.
To get the best results, volunteers must be carefully selected for
their qualities of leadership and should be brought under an
adequate program of supervision. Recreation institutes, con-
ducted by the professional workers, will assist volunteer workers
to assimilate the experience their in-service training affords.

In addition to being possible, volunteer leadership is acceptable
in the light of current administrative practice because recreation
needs outstrip the ability or willingness of many communities to
provide trained and paid workers for all the positions of leadership
that ought to be filled. Further, volunteer service is not only
expedient, it has the positive recommendation that it is desirable
in itself. Volunteer workers are a particularly effective means
of making the public aware of recreation as a normal and con-
structive social function. They are themselves members of the
community, known and respected by the people about them.
To enlist their services in the work of bringing better recreation
to the community is one of the best ways of assuring the public
that it is their own program, not something handed down to them
by salaried officials behind office desks.

LET YOUTH HAVE A PART IN THE PLANNING

In developing cooperation in the service of all youth, the par-
ticipation of young people themselves should be enlisted. Its

COMMUNITY PLANNING 173

purpose should be to lead youth to do better the desirable things
they will do anyway and also to encourage them to engage in a
wider variety and a higher level of activity in the leisure-time
and cultural fields. Youth must feel that they have played some
part and have had some responsibility in the development of
the community program.

It is not a mere gesture to give youth a share in the planning.
It is a common-sense provision for safeguarding the program.
A community service for youth must be kept close not only to
youth needs but to the interests of youth. Although the youth
survey with which planning should begin will reveal what these
are at the time, some provision is desirable for early recognition
of the shifts of interest that are frequent among young people
and for making sure that the program is really working out to
their satisfaction.

Moreover, youth participation in the planning is good public
relations. It is the young person's equivalent of the volunteer
service rendered by the adult group leader. It serves to convince
youth that the program is really their program, not merely some-
thing that adults think they ought to like. It should also help
to convince adults that the program is not simply another ex-
ample of something being done for youth, but that it embodies
a true effort of youth to help themselves.

Young people can perform useful service at all points in setting
up and developing the community program. A particularly
appropriate piece of work for them to undertake is the survey of
youth needs. When recreation boards or central coordinating
committees are formed, youth should if possible be given direct
representation upon them. Failing that, there should at least
be an advisory group of young people attached to the central
organization of the program. In California an interesting recent
development has been the establishment of junior coordinating
councils, composed of representatives of youth organizations,
which work with the adult council of the community and provide
leadership in joint youth activities.

174 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

AN EXAMPLE OF PLANNING BY YOUTH

That youth have the capacity to analyze community problems
and themselves organize action to improve their recreational
opportunities is demonstrated by the following account of young
people's activities in a country town, given in the 1939 Yearbook
of the Department of Rural Education of the National Education
Association.2 It would be the utmost negligence if a community
were not to avail itself of such talents as the youth in this story
displayed.

In one seventh-grade group the problem^ of recreation in the com-
munity was being discussed. Someone asked what the boys and girls
actually did with their time out of school. A survey of the activities
of the pupils in the grade led to a survey of the activities of their school-
mates. They found that many attended motion picture shows fre-
quently, others less frequently because of parental policy or lack of
funds, others read, went driving with the family, played games with
their friends, and engaged in other activities, but the group came to
the conclusion that some inexpensive recreational facility should be
provided in their community. After exploring various possibilities
they decided that a skating rink would meet the need.

The question of financing the building of the rink arose. Immediately
the group began estimating the size necessary for the number of children
to be accommodated, the availability of a lot, the cost of the lumber, the
necessary finishing of the floor, and other details.

After the findings of the survey were in hand and the estimates com-
pleted, some means of providing the rink had to be found. It was
decided that it should be a community affair and, therefore, that the
mayor was the proper person to interview. With their prepared data
a committee visited the mayor and asked him what possibilities he saw
for a town appropriation for building the rink. He was enthusiastic
and appreciative of the suggestions from the boys and girls and promised
his cooperation. The investigation of the pupils and their earnestness
in solving this problem became community news. Commercial in-
terests sensed the possibilities of the need and soon three skating rinks
were built. At the present time skating is available for the payment
of a small sum.

2 Community Resources in Rural Schools, Yearbook 1939 (Washington: National Edu-
cation Association, 1939), pp. 49-50.

COMMUNITY PLANNING 175

THE GUIDANCE AND LEADERSHIP NEEDED

Youth would like to help themselves. What they want is
skilled leadership and facilities. Given leadership they may be
able to manufacture their own facilities. Or the prospect of
material help may be all that is needed to start them on a program
of their own. In small communities a group of young people
can often do much for themselves, aided by a little vision and
support from their elders. This "little" is all-essential, however.
The lack of it is likely to make the difference between an active
group program and stagnation. Youth do not want a great deal,
nor do they want it prescribed. But they deserve mature leader-
ship, minimum facilities, and the opportunity to assist in working
out their leisure-time salvation.

Youth should have training in the democratic procedures of
community organization. To allow them a voice in planning
their own program is a most reasonable step. The trend in
education is toward giving children and young people increasing
responsibility for the decisions of daily life, a responsibility to
be increased gradually as developing intellectual, emotional, and
social maturity justifies it. Certainly programs of activity that
they have helped to plan and toward which they feel some re-
sponsibility will be an effective means of teaching youth how to
use their leisure hours constructively. Recreation, even planned
recreation, must retain the element of spontaneity and freedom
of choice. Let youth help themselves — not through a do-nothing
policy of carelessness and inattention but by providing them with
the material means and the expert guidance that will result in a
program of activities planned by them and for them.

COMMUNITY ACTION SUMMARIZED

The elements of community organization to meet the leisure
needs of youth may be summed up as a realistic approach, a
passion for uncovering facts, and the ability to proceed with tact,
determination, and persistence. The basis of any accomplish-
ment must be an appreciation of the seriousness of the situation
confronting youth in the world of today. Having this, it will

176 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

first be necessary to obtain as complete and accurate a view as
possible of those characteristics of the young people of the local
community that have an important bearing upon their recrea-
tional life. An equally detailed view of the leisure resources of
the community should also be secured. It will then be in order
to proceed carefully but firmly to draw together all the commun-
ity's resources into a coordinated program designed to remedy
the deficiencies that have been discovered.

Particular attention must be paid to the various safeguards that
are essential to ensure the success and continuance of the program.
Control must be in lay hands, but well-trained, adequately paid
professional workers must bear the main share of the planning
and administration. The program must be continually checked
against the interests and needs of participants. Wide com-
munity participation in the form of volunteer service is to be
sought. Every effort should be made to adapt the program to
meet any special circumstances that may exist locally, so long
as its integrity is not compromised. To fulfill these conditions
will not be a simple task. But a lasting program requires a solid
foundation. The effort necessary to build securely will be amply
repaid.

COMMUNITY YOUTH PROGRAMS THAT WORK

Of recent years many communities have taken steps to bring
their resources to bear upon the problem of making a better
recreational life available to their youth. A comprehensive
survey of these developments cannot be attempted here. Readers
who wish an account of this nature should consult such works as
the pamphlet Leisure for Living, issued by the Committee on
Youth Problems of the United States Office of Education. How-
ever, a few examples of programs that have been successful with
only average resources should emphasize the fact that any com-
munity can make real progress toward giving its young people
satisfying recreational opportunities if only it will put forth the
effort. With this purpose in view we give the following brief
accounts of what three alert but representative communities
have accomplished.

COMMUNITY PLANNING 177

DOWAGIAC, MICHIGAN

A notable example of what a community can do for its young
people is afforded by Dowagiac, Michigan, a town of 5,000.
Although the school leaders recognized the problem of commercial
amusements and the lack of opportunity for constructive ac-
tivities, they did not have the public financial support for a rec-
reation program. The youth themselves, upon being asked,
said that they would like to have a recreation center for after-
school hours, with facilities for ping-pong, pool, and billiards.
They also wanted dancing lessons and opportunities for social
dancing. There was an unexpected request for some sort of
forum with speakers and discussions.

The community then went into action. A school man provided
the initiative, a public-minded citizen the first $500 to buy sup-
plies. The school and a church furnished meeting places; the
Work Projects Administration, labor and professional services.
Together they put on a year of activities highly satisfactory to
the youth themselves and to their parents. As a result, these
young people voted for a second year's program, to contain more
social dances, to include instruction in crafts and hobbies, and
with their speaker-forum idea incorporated into the regular school
program.

These are sound lines of growth. If this community does not
eventually broaden its school program and develop a town-wide
recreation interest it will not be because its young people have
lacked ideas when they were once given scope in expressing them.

LISBON, OHIO

Lisbon, an Ohio town of 3,500 population, is conducting a
cooperative experiment in organizing to provide leisure activities
for all the young people of the community. The Lisbon Youth
Association, formed in 1939, is composed of representatives of
all the organized clubs, lodges, and religious and civic bodies in
town. Its forty-one members meet twice a year to hear reports
and pass on policies for the organization. A board of trustees,
consisting of six persons elected annually from among the mem-

178 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

bers, meets once a month to determine activities and pay bills.
It also employs the director.

The association's major achievement so far has been building
and equipping a playground through popular subscription.
There are swings, slides, bars, basketball goals, and a baseball
diamond. During the summer it was supervised by two teachers
lent by the board of education. When school resumed, a full-
time program was begun under WPA supervisors. It includes
play periods for the various age groups, baseball leagues, and
tournaments. A major playground event was a kite-flying
contest. This was followed by a city-wide marble contest for
boys and girls.

Numerous other active pastimes are part of the association's
program. Hikes are conducted. Game rooms have been opened
at the school buildings and in the American Legion hall. An
average of 150 boys use these rooms daily. By arrangement with
the county Scout Council the boys of the community have the
use of its swimming pool, situated a mile from town, twice a week.
During the winter, swimming parties were held in the Y.M.C.A.'s
of nearby towns. Fourteen basketball teams were organized
last winter, representing business organizations and churches.
They played three days a week. An ice rink — a very popular
innovation with the young people of the town — was built on the
grounds of a school with the aid of the volunteer fire department
and the school board. The association provides for cleaning and
supervising the rink. During the past summer two ten-day
camps were held— one for boys, the other for girls. They were
open to any youth in Lisbon between the ages of 9 and 16. There
were also four camps for shorter periods of from two to five days,
and a day camp was maintained for three weeks.

Other interests of young people have not been neglected. The
association has been responsible for organizing a dramatic club
under the leadership of a local high school teacher. The group
builds its own sets and obtains considerable experience in stage-
craft. Courses have been held in handicraft and in group psy-
chology. There are storytelling hours and musical programs.
The big event of the fall season was a Halloween party, arranged

COMMUNITY PLANNING 179

with the help of the Junior Chamber of Commerce. It was held
in the high school gymnasium. Motion pictures, refreshments,
and a costume parade were among the entertainments provided.
Over 500 youth and 200 parents attended. In cooperation with
the local newspaper, the association maintains a community
calendar in which the meetings of all the organizations in town
are listed.

The association has been in operation only a year, and most of
the equipment used in its activities is lent by the school board,
the American Legion, the town council, and various churches.
The WPA supplies recreation supervisors. The budget is only
$2,000 annually, but it is estimated that if equipment and services
had to be fully paid for they would cost in the neighborhood of
$8,000.

Columbus, Indiana, an industrial community of 10,000, has
developed a leisure program for its youth that is recognized as a
model of its kind. Most communities with populations up to
20,000 should be able to adapt it to their situations. Though it
began as an effort to combat juvenile delinquency, the plan was
from the outset designed to meet the recreation needs of all
youth. The initiative came from a group of leading businessmen
who thought growing boys and girls should have wholesome out-
lets for their normal interests. They turned to the superintendent
of schools for advice and assistance. The program that finally
evolved was marked by three stages.

In the first place, the city council levied a special recreation
tax to be spent for juvenile work. It was used to make play-
grounds available where needed, especially to provide super-
vision. Then the board of education granted free use of its
buildings after school hours. Gymnasiums, swimming pool, and
auditoriums, as well as playgrounds, were thus opened to all the
youth of the community. The board also allowed an abandoned
schoolhouse to be used for a boys' club and as headquarters for the
whole program. The third step in coordinating the community's
facilities was to organize the Columbus Foundation for Youth.

180 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

This is a nonprofit corporation with a board of directors of leading
citizens. Its function is to secure the cooperation of local social
and civic groups and of the general public in the joint enterprise.
It raises funds by private subscription, purchases equipment,
operates and assists in supervising the program. A recreation
director was employed as the foundation's executive. He also
serves as director of the City Recreation Commission's youth
activities and as a part-time teacher in the city schools.

The Boys' Club and the Girls' Club are the hubs around which
revolve the wide variety of youth activities sponsored by the
foundation. The Boys' Club accepts members from 9 years up
to 21 or over. Every foot of space in the building is utilized for
some form of activity. There is a junior game room, a billiard
room, a library, a scout room, a gymnasium, and work rooms.
In the yard are open-air courts for basketball, volleyball, and
handball, as well as space for marbles and other boys' games.
The club is organized into special interest groups, such as a glee
club, an airplane modeling club, and various other hobby clubs.
There are boxing, wrestling, and swimming classes under ex-
perienced supervision, and an almost continuous series of ping-
pong, billiard, checker, and other tournaments arranged for
different age groups.

Holidays are excuses for club parties. Those on Halloween,
Thanksgiving, and Christmas have become red-letter days on the
club calendar. The annual watermelon party in early summer is
primarily an open-house occasion, when the boys who have
reached an age of eligibility are shown around the club and made
acquainted with the advantages of membership. Club activities
change with the seasons and with waning interests. The director
and his assistants continually seek to capture youthful imagina-
tion with new ideas or variations of old ones.

There are nominal dues for membership in the club, but no
boy is prevented from belonging by lack of money to pay his way.
Any boy may elect to work out his dues by performing chores on
the club premises. The Boys' Club enrolls more than a thousand
youth from 9 to 17, or four-fifths of all the youth of the com-

COMMUNITY PLANNING 181

munity of these ages. Average attendance is slightly over once
a week.

The success of the Boys* Club led to a demand by local women's
organizations that similar facilities be provided for girls. The
board of education made a second school building available and
appointed the director of the new club as a part-time teacher in
the schools. Going a step further, it arranged for domestic
science instruction to be given in one room of the building, thus
making it possible for the school to provide heat and mainte-
nance. Women's clubs, in turn, contribute sums of money from
$10 a year upwards, according to their size. These funds go
to furnish rooms and purchase equipment. Subscribing groups
use the club premises for meetings. The girls' club has a govern-
ing board of women on which thirty-one local groups are repre-
sented. Club activities include a band, scouting, cooking classes,
athletics, folk and tap dancing, and instruction in music. The
membership is 700, or about three-fifths of the girls of eligible
age in Columbus.

A summer camp for youth has been developed on a seventy-
acre tract five miles from the city. With WPA labor a fifteen-
acre lake was created by damming a stream. A road was con-
structed; an athletic field, a running track, and concrete tennis
courts were installed. Local organizations— the Kiwanis and
Rotary clubs, the Chamber of Commerce, the Elks, the Business
and Professional Women's Club — helped to provide accommoda-
tions by each erecting and equipping a log cabin. A large number
of small donations paid for a general recreation and meeting hall.
Additional gifts made possible numerous other improvements,
until today the Columbus Youth Camp, with accommodations
for ninety young people, is considered one of the finest and most
complete in the nation. About half of Columbus youth have a
vacation at the camp each summer. The premises are used by
boys and girls alternately. The cost for each camper is $6.00 a
week. Many young people whose parents are unable to pay this
sum are sent to camp by local service clubs and other civic groups.
The city welfare department pays for children who are in poor
health or underweight.

182 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

The cost of the Columbus youth program is about $ 10,000
a year. Various sources of support have so spread the load that
it does not weigh heavily on any one group or agency. They also
remove the uncertainty that would exist if the program were
dependent on one source of income. Approximately $3,000 is
raised annually by the special city recreation tax, which goes in
part to pay the salaries of the staff and to maintain playgrounds.
The board of education carries an indeterminate share of over-
head expenses in making school property available after hours,
in providing quarters for the boys* and girls' clubs, and in con-
tributing to the salaries of staff members who have the status of
part-time teachers. About $400 is obtained from membership
dues. The remaining funds needed for equipment, staffing of
special projects, and general operation are raised by private
contributions through an annual campaign sponsored by the
foundation. The amount of the appeal is determined by the
anticipated budget. During recent years it has averaged about
$6,000. Still another source of revenue consists of gifts for plant
improvement or special projects, such as the camp site.

Columbus is an average community with average resources.
It had the normal number of youth-serving agencies, but they
reached only a small portion of its young people. It had its
share of playgrounds, parks, and swimming pools. It had its
outmoded school buildings. It had few wealthy families, but it
did have a quota of public-spirited citizens interested in young
people and ready to support any worth-while effort to solve their
problems. The Youth Foundation plan made it possible to
organize all these resources into a united program for youth.
What Columbus has done other communities can do.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

CHAMBERS, M. M. The Community and Its Toung People. Washington: American
Council on Education, 1940. 36 pp.

Community Resources in Rural Schools, Yearbook 1939. Washington: National Educa-
tion Association, 1939. 109 pp.

FOSDICK, RAYMOND B. (chairman). Report of the New Tork Committee on the Use of
Leisure 'Time. National Recovery Administration. New York: Van Rees Press,
1934. 96pp.

GARDNER, ELLA. Development of a Leisure-Time Program in Small Cities and Towns.
U. S. Children's Bureau. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1933. 13 pp.

COMMUNITY PLANNING 183

GLOVER, KATHERINE. Touth. . . Leisure for Living. Committee on Youth Problems, U. S.

Office of Education. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1936. 126 pp.
A Guide to Community Coordination. Los Angeles: Coordinating Councils, Inc., 1941.

21PP.
HANNA, PAUL R. Touth Serves the Community. New York: D. Apple ton-Century Co.,

1936. 303 pp.
KIRK.PATRICK, E. L. Guideposts for Rural Touth. Washington: American Council on

Education, 1940. 167 pp.

Recreation for Tour Community. American Legion and the National Recreation Asso-
ciation, n.d. 18 pp.
Report of the Second National Conference on the College Training of Recreation Teachers.

Minneapolis, Minn.: Farnum Printing Co., 1939. 64 pp.
Suggestions for Making a Community Recreation Survey, Mimeographed Publication 156.

New York: National Recreation Association, 1938. 13 pp.

CHAPTER VII

STATE RECREATION FUNCTIONS
AND AGENCIES

ALTHOUGH local autonomy in the administration of
public services is an accepted and honored principle of democratic
government, the need for activity on a larger scale becomes in-
creasingly evident. Education, public health, and recreation
are matters of immediate concern to the local community, but
their implications reach much farther. It is important to states,
to geographic regions, and to the whole nation that the young
people of every village, town, city, and county be well schooled,
healthy, and able to find opportunities to develop into normal, use-
ful citizens. We are now realizing that in many instances it is
necessary for the larger units of government to intervene if these
conditions are to be universally achieved.

RECREATION FUNCTIONS

The state has a clear obligation to come to the assistance of
local communities. Since towns and counties and cities are the
political creations of the state, it is particularly fitting that the
state should aid them in their effort to improve the condition of
their youth. In the field of recreation there are four types of
activity that are undoubtedly appropriate for it to undertake.

The state should render advisory and promotion services to
local communities. There are numerous situations where much
can be accomplished by encouragement and counsel from an
experienced outside authority. This may be the stimulus neces-

184

STATE RECREATION FUNCTIONS 185

sary to bring abreast of the times a community that otherwise
would drift along for years without making any effective effort
to organize local resources for the benefit of its young people. If
the state will make demonstration surveys of the recreation needs
of youth in areas where improvement is especially urgent, many
other communities may be stimulated to conduct their own
surveys.

In the second place, states should accept the duty of equalizing
recreational opportunity for young people and grant financial
aid for recreational purposes where aid is essential. There are
communities in every state whose taxable resources are so limited
that even the most energetic leadership will be gravely hampered
unless financial assistance from outside can be obtained. In
practically all states, grants are already made to at least some
local communities for the support of education, and a portion of
these funds may generally be used to provide recreation for youth
in school.

A third state function is inherent in the recognition that
individuals everywhere will benefit from direct recreational
services that require a broader organization than the local com-
munity gives scope for. The outstanding example of this type
of service is the establishment and maintenance of large natural
parks, reserved forests, game preserves in mountain, swamp,
and shore areas, and certain types of historical sites. These
are primarily tasks for the state government. f

Finally, there is need for an agency that can take a broad view of
the recreational requirements of the people of the state and
develop plans for putting all the state's recreational resources to
work in an effort to meet these requirements adequately. There
must be energetic promotion of voluntary coordination of the
welfare agencies within the state, public and private. All the
elements of policy bearing upon the development of a state
recreation program — conservation, finance, agency planning —
must be competently examined. Legislation must be prepared
to give effect to the plans that are finally drawn up. These
things can only be done on a state-wide basis. In some instances
it may be possible for private organizations to undertake them.

186 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

In all cases the cooperation of private interests should be secured.
However, if the development of a broad-gauge program for the
state is not proceeding effectively in other hands, the state govern-
ment should hold itself responsible for exercising this function.
No state yet has a major unit of state government charged with
the general duty of promoting recreation. In all states, however,
there are officials and agencies that are or could be active in
promoting wholesome recreation for young people. The most
important are those in a position to take the broadest view of the
public interest: governors and legislatures, and state planning
boards.

GOVERNORS AND LEGISLATURES

The matters that call for the attention of governors and legis-
latures are numerous and often pressing. Young people are
seldom highly enough organized to compete successfully with
recognized pressure groups for the consideration of lawmakers.
They must depend upon the good will of persons in authority.
They have a right to expect that this dependency shall not work
to their disadvantage. No function of the legislative or executive
branches of government can be more important than helping to
assure the oncoming generation opportunities for developing into
useful citizens. Governors and members of state legislatures
should bear this fact constantly in mind. Theirs is the responsi-
bility for establishing the machinery through which the state
acts to promote the welfare of its youth.

The subject of enabling legislation, to promote the develop-
ment of recreation in local communities, is complex. In general
it is probable that the growth of public recreation would be
materially assisted by declaratory statutes clearly specifying the
extent to which local units of government may use public funds
for recreational purposes. The delegated power of municipalities
and of counties to provide for the local public welfare is sufficiently
broad so that question of their legal ability to promote public
recreation should seldom arise. Nevertheless, there are numerous
instances where a clear statement of the intent of the legislature

STATE RECREATION FUNCTIONS 187

would remove doubts that might otherwise prevent local govern-
ments from exercising their full powers.

School boards need somewhat more explicit legal authorization
if they are to assume the responsibility for public recreation that
their special position in the community warrants. There is no
doubt that schools are justified in spending educational funds for
promoting recreation among their pupils. But if the school's
leisure facilities are to be extended to all youth — whether in or
out of school — and especially if they are to be brought to all the
members of the community, it is essential that declaratory stat-
utes be enacted making the legality of these steps unmistakable.
Over half the states have already passed rudimentary legislation
of this type.

STATE PLANNING BOARDS

State planning boards are a type of agency that should be able
to render particular assistance in promoting the recreational
development of a state. They are expected to take a broader view
of the state's resources and needs than any other special-purpose
branch of the government, and the recommendations they make
for legislative or executive action are likely to carry weight.
Planning boards are of comparatively recent origin, but they are
now found in forty-two states. At least half of the boards are
giving definite consideration to state recreation lands and the
need for a state recreation program. It is true that on the whole
the boards have been more interested in the conservation of lands
than in the conservation of human resources, but there is a dis-
tinct trend toward broadening their interpretation of their
duties.

State planning boards should look upon the well-being of young
people as a matter worth their most careful attention. No
agency is in a better position to study the leisure needs of youth
and to determine how the state may assist in meeting them. An
instance where this has been done may be cited from North
Dakota. There the State Planning Board made and published
a survey of the recreational opportunities and needs of youth in

188 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

the city of Grand Forks. To undertake such functions it is
essential that planning boards receive sufficient appropriations.
It is one thing for a state to have created a central planning
agency on paper and quite another thing to support it adequately.
For the year 1939-1940 only thirteen of the state planning
boards had allotments of over $20,000.

STATE CONFERENCES OF SOCIAL WORK

Among nongovernmental organizations functioning at the
state level, the conference of social work agencies affords notable
possibilities for serving the leisure interests of youth. Nearly
all of the states have such conferences. They exist chiefly for the
purpose of coordinating the activities of the member organiza-
tions, but they may well provide the impetus for a state-wide
consideration of the recreational situation of young people.
There is a definite trend among the conferences toward experi-
menting with new activities of value to the state. Over half
are reported to be participating in the sponsoring, drafting, or
promotion of social legislation.

Conferences of social agencies have the advantage that they
will usually keep human values uppermost in their planning.
To make a survey of the recreational needs of the youth of the
state, to take the lead in coordinating existing recreational
services so that a wider coverage may be achieved, to urge upon
the state government the necessity of developing the state's
recreational resources — these are activities that it would be
highly appropriate for a state conference of social agencies to
undertake.

STATE DEPARTMENTS OF EDUCATION

Among the major branches of state government there is one
whose primary concern is the welfare of youth — the state de-
partment of education. This agency exercises a varying degree
of supervision over the public schools of local communities,
provides advisory services, formulates standards, studies the

STATE RECREATION FUNCTIONS 189

extent to which they are met, and is the means through which
the state distributes financial aid to local school districts.

There is much that a state department of education can do to
increase worth-while leisure opportunities among young people.
In its conferences with local school officials it can stress the de-
sirability of the school's giving instruction in the use of leisure
time. It can encourage the discriminating development of extra-
curricular activities and advise on how these may best be con-
ducted. It can emphasize the need for a well-rounded school
program of recreation to reach all students and even out-of-
school youth. It can undertake to certify as qualified school
recreation workers those teachers who have had suitable training
in recreation leadership.

In order to provide these services, departments of education
will need to add to their staffs one or more specialists in recrea-
tion. They now commonly have on their staffs subject-matter
specialists or "supervisors" for physical education, Negro educa-
tion, the education of handicapped children, vocational rehabili-
tation, and various branches of vocational education. There is
an urgent need for similar service to the field of recreation.
In some instances this would mean the appointment of a new
official with appropriate duties. In others the need might be
met by a reinterpretation or expansion of the services already
provided to physical education.

In connection with the state's services to the schools of local
communities, one of the most useful steps that could be taken to
improve the leisure opportunities of youth would be to distribute
state financial aid to local school districts on an equitable basis
and to make it clear that a portion of this aid could be used by
the school for recreational expenditures. Practically every
state already contributes to the cost of general education in local
communities. However, the amount of aid given by states
varies greatly, even in proportion to the state's ability to subsi-
dize local education. Many states do not aid the schools of
local communities as fully as they could afford, and in nearly
all states the system of distribution works hardships upon many
communities.

190 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

If state aid to local school districts were put on an equitable
basis, it would be a tremendous advance recreationally as well
as educationally. Present arbitrary methods of determining
how much shall go to each district within the state and the close
control the state exercises over the expenditure of allocated funds
usually prevent the use of state aid to build up the school recrea-
tional program. State aid is most often given on a basis of so
many dollars for each pupil in average daily attendance. This
method allows nothing for services to out-of-school youth or to
adults. In some states the aid is on a basis of so much for each
"approved" teacher; almost always, however, the number of
pupils a school district may count for this purpose is strictly
limited by a prescribed teacher-pupil ratio. In many states a
substantial part of the state aid must be reserved for transpor-
tation, free textbooks, or other specific purposes. In nearly all
states, aid to school districts is accompanied by a detailed and
often rigid and unimaginative supervision of local budgeting and
accounting. Sometimes this control is not even lodged with the
department of education, but is exercised by a noneducational
state office lacking special knowledge of or sympathy with
educational aims and procedures.

If local school boards received state aid proportionate to the
educational needs of their communities and the financial resources
of the community and the state, and if they were free to use a
substantial part of this aid to expand their recreational activities,
much could be accomplished that is not now being done. A
relatively small expenditure would enable buildings to be kept
open evenings for leisure purposes. New recreational facilities
and trained leadership cost more, but state funds would be well
employed for this purpose where it is evident that they will
supplement local initiative and endeavor. The state should
make an earnest effort to increase its aid to local schools to the
point where it will be of real assistance toward conducting an
adequate recreational program.

STATE YOUTH COMMISSIONS

Before we come to state governmental agencies that have
routine administrative responsibilities for certain phases of the

STATE RECREATION FUNCTIONS 191

recreational life of citizens of all ages, a word should be said
about a further type of agency dealing with youth alone. In
recent years there has been a movement to establish, under
public or private auspices, bodies sometimes known as state
youth commissions. These organizations are intended to do
whatever is possible to advance the interests of young people
through such means as studying their problems, coordinating
existing programs, and drawing the attention of the public and of
legislators to the need for further action. Recreation is, or could
easily be, one of their fields of major activity. If a youth com-
mission is a branch of the state government, it is likely to be
sponsored by one of the permanent administrative departments
having a special interest in youth, particularly the department of
education. If it is privately organized, it may be an outgrowth
of the state conference of social agencies, or it may be sponsored
by a few private agencies or individuals who are concerned for
the welfare of young people.

The youth commission movement is still in a very tentative
stage and no accurate account is possible of its accomplishments
or even of its extent. It is known that steps to organize bodies
of the nature of state youth commissions have been taken in at
least fifteen states at one time or another during the last few
years. In 1939 a survey made for the American Youth Com-
mission reported that "nearly half the states in the Union already
have some sort of agency whose objective is unification of youth
resources." Not all these enterprises have been successful, and
even among those that have persisted it is likely that there have
so far been few notable accomplishments. However, the numer-
ous activities of this character testify to the increasing concern
for the welfare of youth and the feeling that not all that might
be done at the state level is being done.

In New York an attempt was made at the 1939 legislature to
have a state youth commission created by law. The bill failed
to pass, but the following extract from its foreword may be
quoted as an example of the considerations that motivate such
efforts.

It is in the interest of the state to conserve and develop its human
resources by evolving and maintaining a thoroughly rounded program

192 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

of services for youth utilizing the full cooperation of all state depart-
ments and all volunteer agencies to assist young people in the discovery
and development of their capacities and enlarging their opportunities
for useful service. It is the responsibility of the state to provide the
leadership which, through appropriate community organization, will
bring about the keeping of local youth inventories and the development
of needed service; work with existing local, state, and federal services;
recommend new services in accordance with discovered needs, thus
promoting a coordinated and flexible program adequate to meet the
needs of young people as times and circumstances require.

It is at least debatable whether youth will profit from an
attempt to supplement the present organization of state social
services by additional organization on an age basis. It may be
that the chief result of trying to follow two different lines of
approach will prove to be confusion. A youth commission
which has no administrative responsibilities of its own, but whose
primary task would be to coordinate existing state services for
youth, might avoid the more obvious difficulties of some of the
organizations that have been proposed. However, coordination
is a complex matter and not to be achieved by the simple act of
appointing a commission to see that it is given due weight. If
the agencies concerned sufficiently appreciate the need of special
service to youth, they should be able satisfactorily to coordinate
their own efforts. If they do not, the intervention of a new
agency attempting to instruct them in their responsibilities is as
likely to complicate the situation as to clarify it.

There would seem to be no objection to state youth commis-
sions limited to research and advisory services. It is true that
these functions should be performed by each of the several state
agencies whose activities affect the well-being of young people.
However, experience suggests they are likely to be neglected in
organizations whose responsibilities are primarily administra-
tive. And in any event it would be a convenience to local com-
munities to be able to appeal to one centralized agency for counsel
on all aspects of youth welfare. A youth commission having
these functions would in effect be a state planning board for
young people.

Whether a state is justified in creating a planning agency wholly

STATE RECREATION FUNCTIONS 193

for youth will depend largely upon how fully existing agencies
are performing this service. In case of doubt, it is probable that
no error would be committed by making the experiment. Dis-
tinct agencies for distinct tasks always have publicity value, and
if planning activities overlap they are not likely to produce the
confusion that would arise if overlapping activities should develop
among administrative agencies.

STATE LIBRARY EXTENSION SERVICES

There remain to be considered certain state agencies having in
common the fact that they are charged with specific responsi-
bility for promoting the worth-while use of leisure among people
of all ages. These are the library extension services and the
departments of state parks and forests.

All states have libraries, but most state libraries serve only a
limited number of people. There are exceptions. Some state
libraries have developed their extension services to a high degree
of usefulness. Wisconsin, for instance, has had a mail order
library since 1913, the year books were first admitted to parcel
post. It now circulates 100,000 volumes annually to readers
throughout the state. Borrowers are not charged for this service;
they pay only postage. In most states, however, the greater
part of the state government's efforts to promote reading are
indirect and take the form of assistance to local libraries.

Every state has legislative provisions enabling local com-
munities to tax themselves for the purpose of supporting public
libraries. Every state but two has a library extension agency
with the general function of promoting local libraries and bringing
library service to all parts of the state. These agencies offer
advice and encouragement to local people who wish to establish
a library in their own communities. Some also make grants-in-
aid to local libraries. Thirteen states have a system of grants
for public libraries, and twenty states offer grants to school
libraries. The certification of librarians is another service
that states sometimes perform for local communities. Require-
ments for professional workers in public libraries are in effect in

194 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

ten states; in county libraries, in nine states; and in school
libraries, in twenty-three states.

State assistance to local libraries is very commonly on an
inadequate basis. It is said that only ten or twenty states
have succeeded in establishing state library services of the
first rank. The importance of state aid to libraries is likely to
grow. Decreasing sources of local revenue suggest that state
participation will soon be the only likely means by which library
service can be improved locally and extended into rural areas.
State grants-in-aid to libraries should be as widely available as
state aid to public schools. State certification of librarians
should be the rule rather than the exception, and it might be
desirable to establish a special classification of young people's
librarian. The state can hardly engage in a more fruitful recrea-
tional enterprise than to encourage the extension of local library
service. This is an activity that deserves to be promoted by
every possible means.

STATE PARKS AND FORESTS

We come now to the means through which the state encourages
outdoor recreation — its parks and areas with related uses. In
1938 there were 1,395 state-owned outdoor recreation areas,
exclusive of tracts administered as state forests. They fell into
the following categories:

Parks 819

Monuments and historic sites 241

Recreation reserves 153

Waysides 98

Parkways 51

Preserves 1 1

Miscellaneous 22

Every state has at least one of these areas, but there is a concen-
tration of state parks in the northeastern part of the country.
The West is more amply provided with national parks than are
other sections, and the South has had few parks — either national
or state — until recently.

STATE RECREATION FUNCTIONS 195

State parks and related recreational areas total nearly 2,000,000
acres.1 Although this is only one-tenth the area of the park and
monument system of the federal government, it represents nine
times the number of separate areas and draws five times as many
visitors annually. The fact that many state parks are near large
centers of population tends to make them more readily ac-
cessible than most national parks. In 1938 they are estimated
to have received 78,000,000 visits.

Forests may also be counted among a state's resources for the
enrichment of leisure. States own 17,000,000 acres of forest
land in addition to that included in state parks. Nearly half
of this acreage is in the form of game preserves or similar areas.
The remainder consists of tracts designated as state forests.
All types of forest land afford numerous and varied opportunities
for the quiet enjoyment of natural surroundings. There were
28,000,000 visits to state forests in a recent year. Some forests,
because of their location or their exceptional interest, are es-
pecially suited to recreational use. It is estimated that state
forests where recreation has been particularly developed number
236 in nineteen states and include a total of 4,250,000 acres.
Over half of this area is comprised by the two large forest pre-
serves of New York State.

RAPID DEVELOPMENT

The most striking fact about state recreational lands is the
rapidity with which they have developed. Only one state had a
state park system before 1900. During the past decade the
growth of state parks has been particularly marked. This is in
large part owing to the establishment of the Civilian Conserva-
tion Corps, which offers state governments the opportunity of
improving public lands with no cost for the labor involved.
Since the beginning of the CCC in 1933, a total of some 680 work
camps have at one time or another been established on 867 state-
owned recreational areas, where they carried out improvements.

1 Exclusive of the Adirondack and Catskill state forest preserves in New York, which
are sometimes considered state parks. These have an area of two and a third million
acres.

196 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

When the Civilian Conservation Corps was created there were
a dozen states east of the Mississippi that had no park system in
active operation. About half that number, mostly in the South,
owned no park properties at all. Only eighteen states were
regularly appropriating funds in fairly large amounts for the
administration of park systems. Since that time twenty-two
more states have organized their park work and nineteen of them
are appropriating substantial sums for carrying it on. The states
that already were conducting an organized park service increased
their park budgets during this period by 50 per cent. Seven
states acquired their first state parks, and thirty-seven states
acquired 250 new park areas. The total state park acreage has
doubled since the CCC began its activities seven years ago.

THE NEED FOR ADDITIONAL LANDS

State park systems now have two principal needs. Despite the
period of rapid expansion, still more lands are required. Though
every state now has at least one state park, seven have only a
single area that can be so described. In three of these the area
is of negligible size. On a basis of state park acreage per 1,000
of the population, the range in those states having appreciable
park lands is from two to 158 acres.

Because of the complicating factor of the existence of national
parks and forests and municipal park reserves it is difficult to
say how many more state parks are needed. The National Park
Service in a careful state-by-state estimate, taking account of the
extent and variety of parks in each state and the use they will
probably receive, concludes that 5,000,000 acres will eventually
be required. This is two and a half times our present area.
Certainly where large, open-country recreation areas are not
now available to any considerable body of people they should be
established by some agency. This duty will in most instances
fall upon the state.

A particularly important need is for access to waterfronts along
the oceans, the Great Lakes, and the major rivers. Only one
per cent of the 22,000 miles of tidal shore line of the United

STATE RECREATION FUNCTIONS 197

States is included in state park systems. Of this meager area
less than 200 miles is beach land, and most of that is owned by
two or three states. Here is an unexampled opportunity for
developing a wide range of recreation accessible to large numbers
of people. Nearly half our population lives within fifty-five
miles of the seacoast or the Great Lakes.

THE NEED FOR MORE LEADERSHIP AND FACILITIES

The second major need of state park systems is one that faces
all agencies administering recreational lands, whether local, state,
or national. They must provide leadership for their patrons
and develop programs of activities.

There are people who are strongly repelled by the thought of
having any part of their leisure time arranged by someone else.
To them it may be said that nothing in the nature of obtrusive
leadership is intended by any recreation authority. Every
patron of a park or forest should be free to enjoy himself in
his own manner. Experience shows, however, that the at-
traction of such lands for the ordinary person is multiplied many
times by the knowledge that he will find there a variety of in-
teresting things to do and sympathetic leaders to help him do
them. Even if the solitary contemplation of nature is a nobler
pursuit, organized activities have the advantage that they get
people out into the country and expose them to the temptation
to go off alone. Much the greater proportion of any forest or
large park will always be available for quiet rambles.

Most state recreational lands still make no attempt to develop
a program of activities for their visitors or to provide leadership.
People are drawn to them by the opportunities they offer for
camping, fishing, hiking, and picnicking, or simply because of
the attraction of the out-of-doors. The facilities of the average
state park are likely to consist of little more than picnic sites,
equipped with outdoor fireplaces, shelters, drinking fountains,
and toilets. If a natural swimming area is not present, a stream
may be dammed and a small beach developed. It is becoming
increasingly popular to erect groups of cabins that may be oc-

198 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

cupied during the summer at moderate (though hardly low)
rates.

There are a few parks that by reason of exceptional admin-
istrators or unusual resources have been able to provide numerous
means of increasing the pleasure and benefit offered the public.
Oglebay Park, near Wheeling, West Virginia, and the Palisades
Interstate Park may be mentioned as examples of such develop-
ments. Parks with programs as elaborate as these afford a great
variety of recreational opportunities. There are likely to be
nature museums with permanent staffs. In the summer, volun-
teer naturalists from nearby high schools may escort individuals
or groups over trails. Workshops and leaders may be provided
for arts and crafts groups. Special hobby interests such as
astronomy, geology, observation of wild life, photography, and
music will be encouraged. Staff members will endeavor to
stimulate interest in these subjects among people in the country-
side and in the city within an effective radius of the park. Groups
will be organized, meeting places provided, and specialists in
various fields will assist in planning and conducting programs of
activities.

There will be facilities for a wide variety of sports, both summer
and winter. Swimming, boating, tennis, golf, riding, ice skating
(rinks and lakes), iceboating, skiing, snowshoeing, tobogganing,
and other activities may all be provided. When special equip-
ment is needed, arrangements will be made to rent it. Instruc-
tion will be available in the more difficult skills. There will be
restaurants and hostels. Cabins can be occupied in the winter
as well as the summer. Organized groups may obtain permanent
camping facilities, and assistance will be provided in developing
their activity programs.

It must be emphasized that very few state recreation areas, and
indeed relatively few public lands of any kind, provide such a
wide variety of services. However, the trend is unmistakably
in the direction of leadership and expanded facilities. A few
years ago the National Park Service began a series of program
demonstration experiments in various state parks, using recreation
leaders obtained from the Works Progress Administration. The

STATE RECREATION FUNCTIONS 199

results were so encouraging that many more state parks have
requested such assistance.

It is a function of leadership not only to make recreation areas
more interesting to the people who come to them but to attract
people who ordinarily might not come. A good group leader
can get people out at times when they themselves would not
think of visiting a park or forest. There are numerous ways in
which communities can make use of nearby parks and forests,
but they will not always reveal themselves without effort on the
part of interested persons. By one means or another, state
recreation lands must be made of greater service to local com-
munities. Working relationships must be established between
the staffs of these areas and community leaders. In every local
community within convenient range of a state park or forest
(about fifty miles) there could well be a standing committee on
the utilization of this recreational resource.

COOPERATION WITH THE PUBLIC SCHOOL

An important aspect of the new leisure service that public parks
and forests are developing concerns their articulation with the
program of the school. The school can do much to bring about
greater community awareness of the opportunities that public
recreation lands offer. These areas, in turn, can enrich the pro-
gram of the school and materially assist it to attain its leisure
objectives. Nearby parks and forests are admirable laboratories
in which to continue the introduction to biology, botany, and
geology begun in the classroom. Bus loads of school children
taken to a park for nature study can be depended upon to com-
municate to their parents something of the enthusiasm the ex-
perience should give them. A more distant park containing
natural features of particular note can be made the goal of week-
end expeditions. These will provide the educational stimulus
of travel, which more and more schools are seeking to give their
pupils.

A particularly promising field for cooperation is camping. It
is not unlikely that before long a common objective of school

200 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

systems will be a camping experience for every child. Public
forests and country parks, whether municipal, state, or national,
offer exceptional locations for school camps to communities
within convenient distance. The growing practice of erecting
permanent camp buildings on these lands and making them
available at low rental to nonprofit organizations should enable
many a school system to get a program of camping under way
with the minimum of difficulty. At the very least it should not
be possible for any community within range of a public park or
forest to argue lack of a suitable site as reason for failure to
establish a school camp.

THE NEED FOR LONG-TERM OPERATING ARRANGEMENTS

A particularly pressing problem that concerns state parks and
forests (as well as their national and municipal counterparts, in a
lesser degree) is the obligation to take over and place on a perma-
nent basis the necessary work that for the past seven years has
been done by relief agencies. The physical facilities of state
parks and forests have been enormously increased by the labors
of the Civilian Conservation Corps. The Work Projects Admin-
istration and the National Youth Administration have made a
contribution of hardly less importance in supplying leaders whose
skills have made possible the development of programs of
activities.

The question of how to ensure that these services shall continue
to be performed does not hinge solely or even primarily upon
whether the agencies that have been supplying them are to
become permanent responsibilities of the federal government.
Both the physical development of recreation lands and the con-
ducting of programs are continuously necessary. It is therefore
desirable, and in the long run essential, that they be done by the
authorities who administer the lands. Federal assistance was
indispensable at its beginning because it enabled the states to
catch up in matters that they should have been doing of their own
accord. But we have reached the stage where, even if federal
assistance is to be continued, the states must assume a larger

STATE RECREATION FUNCTIONS 201

share of the recreation work now being done for them by the
national government. This is a reasonable conclusion, and it
has the support of the federal agencies concerned.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

MORRISON, RAYMOND C., and MYRTLE E. HUFF. Let's Go to the Park. Dallas, Texas:
Wilkinson Printing Co., 1937. 172 pp.

State Enabling Legislation for Local Recreation. Works Progress Administration. Wash-
ington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1937. 71 pp. Mimeographed.

State Forests for Public Use, Miscellaneous Publication No. 373, U. S. Forest Service.
Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1940. 36 pp.

1940 Yearbook: Park and Recreation Progress. U. S. National Park Service. Washington:
U. S. Government Printing Office, 1940. 92 pp.

CHAPTER VIII

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNC-
TIONS AND AGENCIES

ONE of the major responsibilities of the federal govern-
ment in America, clearly set forth in the Constitution, is "to
promote the general welfare." In numerous ways the govern-
ment has shown its awareness that ministering to the leisure
needs of the people is one way of meeting this obligation. A
survey of the recreational activities of the federal government in
1936 reported that thirty-five units scattered through twelve
departments were engaged in promoting from sixty to seventy
distinct programs affecting the citizen's use of leisure. It has
been estimated that between 1932 and 1937 the expenditures
of the federal government for recreation facilities and leadership
totaled $1,500,000,000.

THE RECREATIONAL USE OF PUBLIC LANDS

The oldest recreational function of the federal government and
probably the one best understood by the general public consists
of acquiring and maintaining public lands for recreational use.
Until recently, all the efforts of the National Park Service were
devoted to this end, and a considerable and increasing part of
the activities of the Forest Service bear upon it. There are also
other branches of the government that hold lands available to
the public for recreational purposes.

NATIONAL PARKS

Forty-four years elapsed between the establishment of the
first national park — Yellowstone — in 1872 and the creation in

202

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 203

1916 of the National Park Service in the Department of the
Interior. Since the advent of this Service, federal park lands
and areas with related uses have rapidly increased until now they
total 153 areas in addition to the national capital parks of the
District of Columbia. They may be classified as follows:

National parks 27

National historical parks 2

National military parks 11

National monuments 78

National battlefield sites 8

National historic sites 4

National recreation areas 1

National memorials 8

National cemeteries 11

National parkways 3

The national park and monument system has a total extent of
nearly 21,000,000 acres and reports upwards of 16,000,000 visits
annually. The list above indicates the variety of types of area
it contains and suggests the purposes for which they were ac-
quired. The parks — which make up the bulk of the system-
are usually much larger than state parks and are situated in
thinly populated regions. The variety of scenic attractions
they afford is great — ranging from the giant redwood trees of the
California parks to the geysers of Yellowstone and the glaciers
of Mount Rainier. All the parks have within their borders some
superlative natural phenomenon. Although they are intended
to be places of recreation for the people, the federal government's
purpose in taking them under its protection was to preserve them
unspoiled for future generations. Historically, the emphasis
in their administration has been upon custodial care.

In addition to the lands it holds in its own right, the National
Park Service has accepted the responsibility of developing and
administering the recreational use of large areas such as Boulder
Dam Reservation, controlled by the Bureau of Reclamation
in the Department of the Interior. The National Park Service
also has temporarily in its possession lands that have been ac-
quired for the purpose of conducting demonstration recreation

204 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

areas in cooperation with state park authorities. These will
be referred to more fully later.

NATIONAL FORESTS

The Forest Service of the United States Department of Agri-
culture has a responsibility for the recreational use of federal
lands rivaling that of the National Park Service. Although the
Forest Service is not wholly concerned with leisure interests, it
regards recreation as one of the major purposes of the national
forests — the others being conservation, timber production,
grazing, and watershed protection. The area under the control
of the Forest Service is more than eight times the size of all the
national parks. And the fact that these lands were not, like the
parks, chosen for their exceptional scenic interest has perhaps
tended to make their recreational development proceed more
along lines of active use by the public than would have been the
case if they were more renowned for breath-taking wonders likely
to exact passive contemplation.

Among the things done in the national forests by people who
go there for enjoyment are: exploration of prehistoric sites,
mountain climbing, pack trips, saddle trips, canoe and boat trips,
scenic drives, picnicking, camping, week-end or summer residence,
hunting, fishing, clam digging, berry picking, nature study
(botany, geology, trees, wild life), photography, swimming, ski-
ing, snowshoeing, tobogganing.

Forests comprise a third of all our land, of which the Forest
Service administers over one-sixth. There are 155 national
forests, totaling 177,000,000 acres. Recreational use of these
areas has increased greatly in less than two decades. About
14,000,000 recreational "stops" are now made annually, and
there are many more visits by motorists who drive through.
It has been estimated that the public spends $250,000,000 each
year for recreation in the national forests.

OTHER LAND-USE PROGRAMS

In addition to the National Park Service and the Forest Service
various other branches of the federal government make public

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 205

lands available for recreational purposes, although to a more
limited extent. The Fish and Wildlife Service of the Depart-
ment of the Interior has ninety hatcheries throughout the country
whose grounds are open for picnicking, day camping, and similar
outings. It also maintains 241 wild life refuges which are made
available for outdoor recreation whenever practicable. The Ten-
nessee Valley Authority develops public recreation areas along the
shores of its reservoirs in the southern highlands. The Soil
Conservation Service of the Department of Agriculture purchases
submarginal land unsuited for cultivation and develops it for
grazing, forestry, wild life conservation, or recreational purposes.

NEEDED PRESERVATION OF RECREATIONAL VALUES
OF GOVERNMENT LANDS

A review of the recreational use that is made of lands held by
the federal government suggests several ways in which the pro-
gram needs to be safeguarded or improved. In the first place,
the recreational values of the government's present land holdings
should be carefully preserved. The danger of deterioration is
particularly present in connection with forests. Their value for
recreational purposes depends upon saving the trees. Four-fifths
of the virgin timberland of America has already been cut or
otherwise destroyed. Of the drain on forests, 86 per cent is at-
tributed to cutting for use. We are removing every year five
times as much saw timber as is being replaced by growth and
twice as much of all kinds of woods.

Even in the national forests, total losses through fire and com-
mercial logging have not always been completely offset by re-
planting. Two-thirds of the forest-growth area of the national
forests is in timber suitable for commercial use. The natural
desire of private interests to avail themselves of this source of
supply wherever it can be profitably worked must not be allowed
to inflict irreparable damage to the recreational utility of the
forests. The Forest Service estimates that at the current rate
of planting it will take about thirty years to replant the now
denuded areas of the national forests. There are many sources

206 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

of commercial timber, but the means for public recreation are
far too few. Nothing should be done that will reduce them.

The Forest Service has taken an important step to protect its
lands from commercialization by designating certain parts of them
as "wilderness" areas. These are regions of natural beauty and
ruggedness in which no roads are to be built, no buildings erected,
no "improvements" of any sort made. They are without per-
manent inhabitants, and the only visitors are people who are
willing to travel on trails, carry their equipment in packs, and
exercise the pioneer virtues of competence and independence.
They constitute the remnants of the geographical frontier — places
where the world of mechanization and easy transportation has
not penetrated and will not be allowed to penetrate. These areas
are "sufficiently spacious that a person may spend at least a
week or two of travel in them without crossing his own tracks."
The minimum size is 100,000 acres. Similar tracts, somewhat
smaller in extent, are classified as "wild" areas. There are now
14,000,000 acres in seventy-four tracts set aside as wilderness or
wild areas. It is to be hoped that the Forest Service will steadily
increase its holdings until it has acquired all that can still be
saved of these potentially valuable recreational lands.

Tracts the size of wilderness areas are necessarily remote from
the large centers of population. In any event they are not likely
to be used by large numbers of people, since relatively few have
the initiative or means to undertake solitary trips of a week or
two through virgin forests. It is desirable, however, that such
areas be preserved for future generations who may know how to
make better use of them than we do. Meanwhile, our own gen-
eration has a need for unspoiled natural areas of smaller size,
and the Forest Service has taken steps to provide them. Spots
of unusual beauty or natural interest have been designated
"scenic areas." These average a few thousand acres in extent.
Stretches along roadsides, on waterfronts, and adjacent to trails
have been declared protected zones and will probably be of
greater immediate recreational value than the wilderness areas.
This type of activity deserves every encouragement.

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 207

THE NEED FOR MORE LANDS FOR RECREATIONAL USE

A second need evident in connection with the land-use aspect
of the federal government's recreation services is the desirability
of bringing the geographical distribution of land holdings into
closer relationship with the distribution of our population. The
areas of relatively dense population are in the eastern, southern,
and middle parts of the country. National parks, as we have
noted, have ordinarily been established only where there is some
natural feature of superlative interest, and the vagaries of nature
have placed the majority of these areas throughout the West.
However, even on the basis of selection heretofore employed, there
are still a number of areas worthy of being designated national
parks or monuments, and not all are in the West.

Moreover, it may be that the time has come to call in question
the older idea that only areas possessing unique features of scenic
interest should be declared national parks. The need of city
dwellers to have access to open country recreational areas,
whether or not these areas possess what may be termed "museum
pieces," has become so urgent and so generally recognized that
the federal government may well be justified in lending its as-
sistance. We may grant that state, metropolitan, and municipal
parks and forests should adequately render this service. But
they do not. It is more important to meet essential needs than
to preserve theoretical distinctions between the functions of dif-
ferent levels of government.

The distribution of national forests resembles that of the na-
tional parks — the great majority are in the West. This is because
most of them were created by reservation of land from the public
domain. Only 11 <per cent of the publicly owned land in the
national forest system is east of the Great Plains, and most of
that has been purchased from private owners since 1933. Na-
tional forests are still being acquired in the East, the South, and
the Lake states. This policy is commendable and should be
vigorously pushed.

The extension of the national forests is not hampered by as
restricted a conception of the kinds of land the federal govern-

208 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

ment may properly acquire as the National Park Service has
operated under. National forests were established for ends that
are primarily utilitarian — "to perpetuate the timber supply and
preserve the watershed of streams." They may reasonably be
created in any part of the country where they are needed and the
land is available. When new sites are to be acquired, special
consideration should be given to those regions where the need for
public recreation spaces is greatest.

THE NEED FOR LOW-COST USE OF RECREATIONAL LANDS

Means must be found of enabling more people to visit the na-
tional parks and forests. This is a third improvement long over-
due in the federal government's land-use recreational policy. If
the nationally owned recreation lands are for all the people, as
surely they are, it is not sufficient to proclaim them for that pur-
pose. We must make it possible for the majority of people to
use them. So far we have depended almost entirely upon com-
mercial enterprise or the private resources of the individual to
bring people to the parks and forests. These have not proved
sufficient. In spite of the very considerable increase in attend-
ance figures during the past two decades, the national parks and
forests are still visited by only a relatively small minority of our
population.

The people who use the national parks and forests are for the
most part in the more favored economic classes. In the summer
of 1937 the Forest Service learned from questionnaires filled out
by 25,000 visitors that only 18 per cent had incomes of less than
$1,000 a year. Nearly one-half the population of the United
States is below this income level. The present expense of getting
to federal recreation areas, and the cost of staying there, are
beyond what the average family can afford.

The national forests are more widely distributed than any other
public lands. Yet according to estimates of the Forest Service
it would cost the average American family approximately $15
simply to make a round trip to the nearest national forest. This
is only the cost of transportation. The total cost of recreational

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 209

outings to public lands is frequently much heavier. In 1934 the
National Park Service conducted an inquiry which showed that
the average party of visitors to state parks made a 541-mile
trip for the purpose and spent $43.

If really large-scale use of national recreation lands is developed,
it should be possible to provide transportation from distant
points at rates that will be within the reach of the majority of
the people. Organized camps or other communal residence fa-
cilities in or adjacent to national parks and forests should greatly
reduce the cost of a vacation in the open. The problem cannot
be solved by allowing private individuals to build summer resi-
dences on forest lands, or even by renting moderately priced in-
dividual cabins constructed with emergency labor. At best these
serve only the middle-income groups. Other and more far-
reaching measures are necessary. The whole subject will require
much experimentation, but the rewards to be achieved are great.

THE NEED FOR FACILITIES AND LEADERSHIP

A fourth need in the recreational use of the federal public lands,
and perhaps the most urgent of all, is that the agencies adminis-
tering the recreational services of the national government should
furnish recreation facilities and recreation leadership in national
parks and forests and cooperate in developing them in other
publicly owned lands. Up to the present, practically the only
thing in the way of a program of activities offered visitors to the
national parks has been the services of guides and nature lec-
turers. Even these are absent from the national forests. Lack
of funds has been a major cause of this restriction, but a keener
appreciation of the value of a program of activities suitable to
the surroundings might have done something to remove that
handicap. The public's interest in its recreation areas and the
value it receives from its investment in them could undoubtedly
be increased many times by vigorous, intelligent program lead-
ership.

Many activities might be sponsored that would be entirely in
harmony with the parks and forests. Examples are: woodcraft,

210 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

nature study, and hobby and handicraft classes using materials
found in the woods; swimming, canoeing, and pack trips; out-
door dramatics, group musical activities. Money spent on pro-
gram organization and leadership is good business. It has been
said that a recreation area without adequate leadership will soon
develop into a recreation slum. No one wants a cut-and-dried
program that would force itself upon visitors and make them feel
they must do something. But there is no question of this. The
proposal is that the agencies responsible for federal recreation
lands provide trained recreation leadership and develop activities
that will result in greater use of the natural attractions of these
areas.

In the matter of facilities, somewhat more has been accom-
plished. Practically all of the national forests possess "improved"
camp or picnic grounds. There are over 4,000 such grounds, and
individual forests have from one to over 300. The improvements
consist of tables, stone fireplaces in the open for cooking, drinking
water, and comfort stations. Other public conveniences found in
the national forests are overnight shelters, cabin camps, lookout
points, play facilities for children, softball and horseshoe courts,
winter sports developments, and bathhouses. Similar elementary
facilities exist in the national parks, where they have been greatly
increased in recent years through the work of the Civilian Con-
servation Corps.

Commercial Facilities

A considerable part of the facilities on national recreation lands
and of what little leadership is available is furnished by commer-
cial interests. When national forests and parks were acquired
they often contained structures erected by private enterprise to
cater to tourists. These were generally allowed to continue in
operation and, from time to time, permits have been granted for
new construction. Such facilities include cabins, lodges and
hostels, hotels, resorts, and "health centers." There are also
establishments that supply equipment for pack trips and furnish
guides and carriers.

There does not seem to be any tendency to exclude commercial

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 211

recreational enterprise from public lands so long as its activities
do not impair the natural recreational values. On the contrary,
the National Park Service has quite recently inaugurated a policy
designed to assist commercial interests to serve the public more
adequately. In May 1939, government-built and government-
owned facilities at Bandelier National Monument were opened to
the public under private operation. This is the first occasion
upon which the national government has constructed new facilities
in its parks and turned them over to private concessionaires.
During the remainder of the year various other facilities were
provided and let out for private operation.

These were the first steps in a policy of closer relationships
between the National Park Service and private recreational in-
terests. Other federal agencies have plans for the recreational
development of their lands that leave a place for private enter-
prise. The Tennessee Valley Authority has drawn up a compre-
hensive program for utilizing the recreational areas of the southern
highlands, in which provision is made for the private development
of facilities for public use on public lands.

The Case for Public Facilities

On the other hand, it must be said that many people look upon
the private exploitation of public recreational resources as a
makeshift arrangement at best. They see a fundamental in-
compatibility between private ownership or operation of facilities
and public ownership of the lands on which the facilities stand.

It is certainly true that where the profit motive enters into the
picture the public is likely to pay more for comparable services
than if it met the cost through taxation. The chief argument
that can be advanced for private enterprise on public recreation
lands rests primarily upon our traditional distrust of government
activity. To create or continue a private concession is easier-
providing there is money to be made — than to obtain funds and
authority to develop accommodations under public auspices.
Given this reluctance to make wider use of our established ad-
ministrative agencies, it can be contended that private enterprise
has provided more facilities on public recreation lands than could

212 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

otherwise have been obtained. We must not, however, overlook
the possibility that fewer people may have benefited from them
because of higher prices. Also, there are innumerable situations
where facilities that would add much to the recreational value of
lands have not been constructed because the likelihood of profit
was not sufficiently great.

There has been introduced into the last two Congresses a bill
to authorize the government to acquire and operate concession-
aires' facilities throughout the national park system. We greatly
need a carefully thought out policy for the development of the
national recreation lands. Whatever part it ultimately assigns
to private enterprise, there is no doubt that the federal govern-
ment itself should do more to make the national parks and forests
the playgrounds of all the people.

COOPERATION WITH OTHER RECREATION AUTHORITIES

In the development of recreational facilities, the past few years
have also seen an encouraging growth of cooperation between
other public and private recreational authorities and the agencies
administering the national forests and parks. The Forest Service
is making a particular effort to assist in promoting woodland
recreation activities that private organizations and local govern-
ments may wish to develop. In the national forests there are
now over 500 camps conducted by social agencies, other private
organizations, or city and county recreation departments. The
responsibility for establishing camps, managing them, and de-
veloping a program of activities ordinarily rests with the local
authority. The contribution of the Forest Service is officially
described as "merely to make lands already in federal ownership
available for additional and supplemental local recreational uses
when the needs for such uses and the character of the lands make
that course clearly in the public interest."

Though this arrangement is commendable as far as it goes, a
more liberal policy could easily produce much benefit. The great
majority of local communities do not have any organized recrea-
tion service to which they can look for initiative in establishing

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 213

camps and conducting outing activities for their youth. If the
Forest Service would take the lead by providing permanent fa-
cilities in suitable locations there can be no doubt that the recrea-
tional use of the national forests would be much advanced.

A beginning has already been made in this direction. During
the last three years, the Forest Service has constructed some
twenty-five organization camps, consisting of recreation hall, mess
hall and kitchen, infirmary, bunk cabins (housing six to twelve
persons each), and washrooms. They are built to a higher stand-
ard than most private organization camps and are located on
attractive lands where swimming, hiking, fishing, and other pas-
times are available. These camps are usually leased to local civic
groups, which in turn rent them to organizations desiring to use
them. The cost to users averages $4.00 a week per person,
which includes food, lodging, and transportation. The Forest
Service controls the amount of the rental and also the priority
of use, giving preference to agencies that sponsor vacations for
underprivileged groups. These camps, though not yet well
established, are reported to be very successful.

A comparable though more extensive program is being carried
out by the National Park Service in a particularly promising ex-
periment of cooperation with state and local park authorities.
In 1935 the Service began to acquire and develop for intensive
recreational use a number of areas conveniently located to large
centers of population. It was believed that developing these
areas would demonstrate to state and local governments how
open-country tracts with recreational values might best be em-
ployed to meet the leisure-time needs of the people, especially
those who dwell in towns and cities. The active cooperation of
state and local authorities was secured from the beginning, and
if pending legislation is enacted about half of the areas will eventu-
ally pass into their possession. The remainder will be added to
existing national parks or monuments or established as separate
national recreation areas. In some instances demonstration pro-
grams were set up on land already owned by the state or the
local community.

Recreation demonstration areas are of three types. A few are

214 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

intended to serve whole regions, and consist of from 10,000 to
15,000 acres so located that they can be used by large numbers of
visitors. The greater part of the land in such sites is left unde-
veloped and reserved for wild life. In addition to large areas of
this type, there are some thirty smaller tracts of from 1,500 to
2,000 acres. These are close to industrial centers and are de-
veloped as family or children's camps for use by people in the
lower income groups. A limited program of leadership is pro-
vided, and the camps are rented to public or nonprofit private
agencies. A third type of recreational area consists of wayside
tracts of from twenty to fifty acres along principal highways.
These are equipped as picnic grounds.

The recreation demonstration experiment is now well advanced.
Forty-two projects have been established in twenty-four states.
Last year 3,000 CCC youth were engaged in making further im-
provements to the various areas. Public use of the demonstra-
tion projects has doubled in each of the last three years. Some
700 community organizations now use the camps that have been
established on various areas, not counting day outings. Twenty
or thirty million people live within range of these newly developed
areas, and the immediate results by way of opening up to them
new opportunities for wholesome outdoor experiences are certain
to be worth the effort. The most impressive results, however,
are likely to come from the impetus the project should give to the
development of recreational resources by state and local author-
ities. In the long run it may prove to be one of the most impor-
tant recreational undertakings of our time.

A PROGRAM FOR YOUTH?

Young people have a greater need for leadership and facilities
that will enable them to make effective use of the national parks
and forests than any other age group. Their energy, enthusiasm,
and love of the outdoors mark them out as the most natural
clientele for our national recreation areas. Yet of all age groups
young people have the most difficulty in availing themselves of
the opportunities these areas offer. We have seen that it costs

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 215

more to visit the national parks and forests than the majority of
our population can afford. This difficulty bears especially heavily
upon youth, whose financial resources are usually very meager.

Moreover, park and forest facilities are for the most part
planned around the family party traveling in a car. If it is in-
convenient or impossible for the family to seek outdoor recreation
as a unit, a young person is even more unlikely to obtain it on his
own. On the other hand, it should be possible to make the
national recreation lands more readily available to young people
than to any other section of the population. The vitality of
youth will carry them through experiences that would be hard-
ships to older people. The simplest facilities will suffice when
the spirit of adventure is aroused.

The recent activities of the National Park Service and the
Forest Service in promoting organized camping on the national
recreation lands are wholly commendable. However, they are
directed toward persons of any age. In view of the special need
of young people for recreation and the special opportunities the
national parks and forests offer, it is worth seriously considering
whether the federal government should not sponsor a program
with the particular purpose of increasing the recreational use of
public lands by youth. Something resembling the great develop-
ment of outdoor life among young people that took place in
Germany in the 1920's might well be the goal.

Youth hostels have been promoted in the United States for
several years under private auspices, but they are still far from
being available to or patronized by the majority of youth who
might wish to use them. The possibilities for such enterprises in
the national parks and forests would seem to be great. If trans-
portation to these areas can be arranged for young people at
especially low cost, all else that would be required would be trails,
maps, and simple overnight shelters.

A vigorous program of leadership should of course accompany
the providing of facilities. The opportunities available and their
special attraction to young people would need to be made widely
known. Group participation should be organized. To make the
outdoor recreational resources of America widely used by the

216 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

youth of America is an effort we owe our young people. There
is every reason to suppose that the response to such a program
would be gratifying.

OTHER PROGRAMS CONCERNED WITH
RECREATION

We have been discussing the land-use programs of the various
agencies of the national government so far as they bear upon the
citizen's use of leisure. But the government has a number of
other programs that directly affect the recreational lives of mil-
lions of people. Two of these are wholly concerned with youth.

THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS

The Civilian Conservation Corps1 had, during 1939, an average
of more than 275,000 boys and young men in 1,500 barrack camps
in continental United States. During the day these youth engage
in hard labor, but week ends and evenings are free. Despite
handicaps of leadership and equipment, a diverse and reasonably
full program of recreational activities has been developed for their
benefit. Though it does not afford the variety and quality of
leisure opportunities that are open to urban youth of well-to-do
families, it is an improvement on the previous leisure life of most of
the 3,000,000 boys who have passed through the camps in the
eight years of their existence.

From materials variously obtained, buildings have been con-
structed and equipped where boys may carry on various leisure-
time activities. In the education building a library and reading
room will be found as well as classrooms. There will also be
shops where craftwork in wood, leather, or metal can be done.
The recreation hall will have one or two pool tables and ping-
pong tables, a few small tables for cards and checkers, and a
canteen. All camps have motion picture apparatus.

1 A fuller discussion of the educational and sociological aspects of the CCC camps and
the NYA resident centers, including some account of recreation, will be found in the book
Touth in American Work Camps, by Kenneth Holland, to be published in 1941 by the
American Youth Commission.

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 217

The reported circulation of camp libraries averages about
eleven books annually per boy. Although this does not seem high
in view of the accessibility of the books, it is approximately twice
as great as the average per capita circulation in public libraries.
Reports from the camps indicate that nearly half the total en-
rollment of the Corps uses the reading room more or less regularly.
The evening courses in the camps, conducted on an informal basis,
afford many opportunities of recreational value. Though the
majority of the subjects are vocational or designed to make up
deficiencies in school work, others are not. It is officially reported
that 17 per cent of enrollees are now engaging in sponsored "in-
formal activities," such as arts and crafts, music, and dramatics.
There are other activities organized by the boys themselves, but
participation in them is very limited.

The strenuous life the boys lead would seem to minimize the
need for physical recreation. Nevertheless, they display the nor-
mal adolescent desire for outdoor sports. A greater development
of games that larger numbers of youth could take part in might be
desired. Too often the camp authorities are persuaded by a few
aggressive boys to spend a large portion of the recreation funds
on such sports as baseball and boxing, in which only a dozen or
two youth can take part.

A fuller participation in recreational pursuits might result if
more emphasis were placed upon nonathletic activities. In every
camp there is a nucleus of boys with musical skills and other boys
who would like to learn to play some instrument. Nearly all
boys can be interested in singing. These possibilities are seldom
fully developed. Boys ought also to be encouraged to follow one
or more of the numerous hobbies appropriate to the outdoor en-
vironment in which they live. Nature study and the forming of
collections of natural objects can easily become absorbing in-
terests. Opportunities to perform civic duties about the camp,
such as serving on committees, would be particularly valuable
to these young men since their backgrounds are generally lacking
in such experiences. It should benefit them greatly to learn that
leisure can be employed for other than personal ends and still
yield a high degree of satisfaction.

218 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

The social side of leisure is probably least developed by life
in the camps. Often the boys must live at some distance from
communities of any size, which reduces the occasions to mix with
young people enjoying a normal community life. Their oppor-
tunities for meeting girls are particularly infrequent. The boys
like dances, and instruction in dancing is one of the most com-
monly requested activities. With the help of Y.W.C.A.'s,
girls' clubs, and NYA youth, a number of social dancing classes
have been organized. However, there are many camps where this
is not possible.

The camp authorities do what they can to improve social op-
portunities by conveying the boys to town on special occasions.
In some communities the townspeople have from time to time
provided entertainment for enrollees and are in turn frequently
invited to attend entertainments at the camps. In general,
however, the boys are obliged to depend upon the full program of
camp life to relieve the monotony of semi-isolation. They make
the best they can of the situation by organizing game tourna-
ments, "camp nights," and similar special events. It would seem,
however, that more could and should be done to make it possible
for the boys to have pleasant and profitable contacts with the right
kind of young girls. In every community near a CCC camp there
are groups of people who would be willing to cooperate. The
chief need is to train boys in social behavior. Until sufficient
attention is paid to this there are always likely to be a few individ-
uals whose indiscretions will earn a bad reputation for the group.

It can reasonably be objected to the CCC program that it al-
lows for little attention to individual needs and lays somewhat
too much stress on mass participation. To help the boys spend
their leisure profitably could easily take the full time of an ex-
perienced recreation leader in each camp. But there is no one
specially charged with this responsibility. The duty sometimes
devolves upon the administrative assistant to the camp com-
mander, who has a number of other functions. More often it
falls to the lot of the official in charge of educational activities.
Other staff members assist in supervising athletics and conducting
various free-time activities, and capable volunteer leaders some-
times are also found among the boys themselves.

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 219

The educational adviser's main duty of organizing evening
instruction to supplement the work experience the boys get on the
job and of advancing their general education is so important
and exacting that he cannot be expected to give other leisure
needs the attention they deserve. Moreover, he is handicapped
by the fact that he lacks authority to initiate and develop the
measures he believes necessary, even in strictly educational
matters. As his title suggests, he can only recommend. Per-
mission for every step must be obtained from the camp com-
mander, who is ordinarily an Army reserve officer.

The authorities of the nine geographic areas through which
the camps are administered have some degree of freedom in deter-
mining the general educational policies of the camps. Though
practices differ from one area to another, camp educational ad-
visers are likely from time to time to receive instructions from
regional headquarters to promote this or that activity more
vigorously, together with a batch of forms on which to report
progress. They are thereupon apt to feel themselves under pres-
sure to show results and will proceed accordingly.

If it is increased library circulation that has been decreed, the
boys will be urged to borrow books, perhaps with little attention
to whether the library has the right kinds of books or whether
they get into the hands of the right boys. If craftwork is to be
promoted, boys are urged or even required to spend time in the
shops, though in many individual cases other activities might
be more suitable. In the end, participation is boosted, the record
forms are filled out and sent in, and the regional office congratu-
lates itself on having made a good showing. It is not surprising
that the best interests of the boys should sometimes be sidetracked
in this process. CCC youth deserve the individual guidance in
use of leisure that good educational systems should afford.

In many of the camps participation in recreation is not wholly
voluntary. One Corps area requires all boys to take part in at
least one "informal activity" as well as to enroll for a course in
each of three other fields — academic, job-training, and voca-
tional. Recreation is rightly considered a phase of the educa-
tional work of the camps. But this fact should mean that the
authorities will take pains to discover what use of spare time will

220 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

be most beneficial to each boy. The present staff facilities of the
camps do not permit such effort, and the policies of the higher
levels of the Corps administration do not encourage it.

The United States Office of Education is responsible for ad-
vising the Army on the conduct of educational work in the camps.
This work, as we have seen, includes recreation; but the policy
of the Office has been to confine its attention to the academic
aspects of education. Even though these may sometimes be
officially described as "informal" activities, they fall outside the
field of leisure to the extent that the boys are required to partici-
pate in them. The Office of Education would seem to have an
opportunity to promote recreation as a voluntary instrument
of education through conducting research and providing advice
on how real leisure-time programs may best be organized in the
camps. This opportunity remains to be developed.

A primary hindrance to the fuller development of recreation
in the camps is that an authoritarian regime does not furnish an
environment in which spontaneity and voluntary effort flourish.
One educational adviser relates that when he ventured to suggest
in a staff meeting that a committee of enrollees be appointed to
help work out recreation plans, the camp commander's im-
mediate response was: "Oh, no! It will never do to let those
fellows think they can decide anything around here."

This adviser's suggestion, however, was a very appropriate
one. A camp recreation council or committee or association
could be a real help in stimulating interest in the worth-while
use of leisure. It would require careful organization and tactful
management. The boys should be made to understand its pur-
pose and the ways in which it could benefit them. The camp
management, in turn, should give prompt and serious considera-
tion to the council's views. A live and conscientious body of
enrollee representatives could be of great assistance in deciding
what recreational activities the camp funds are to be spent on,
what sites are most suitable for sports, what equipment is neces-
sary, how and when competitions are to be conducted, and so on.
Such voluntary cooperation from the boys would do much to
offset the tendency to lethargy inherent in the present organiza-
tion of the Corps.

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 221

The Civilian Conservation Corps has another and broader
connection with recreation than the fact that efforts are made to
promote the leisure interests of its members. The work projects
carried out by the Corps have included a prodigious amount of
recreational improvements to public lands. This circumstance
has already been referred to. The availability of CCC labor was
directly responsible for the establishing of functioning state park
systems in numerous states that had no organized park work
before 1933. More than 300 state, county, and metropolitan
parks in the region east of the Mississippi have been developed
as a whole or improved and extended with CCC assistance. This
work has been done in cooperation with the National Park Serv-
ice and local commissions and boards. During the six years
that the CCC existed as a separate, independent agency, it carried
on park improvement programs in 361 camps. In 1939 there
were some 300 camps operating in connection with national,
state, and local parks. The Corps has also done a vast quantity
of work in national and state forests, much of which has recrea-
tional value. It can reasonably be claimed that the development
of public parks and the recreational use of public forest lands
in America have been set forward a decade or more by the services
the Civilian Conservation Corps has supplied and is still
supplying.

THE NATIONAL YOUTH ADMINISTRATION

The federal government has established a second program of
emergency employment wholly for young people — the National
Youth Administration. This agency, too, has made an im-
portant contribution to the recreational resources of the nation.

The NYA does not have as great a responsibility as does the CCC
for the majority of the youth to whom it furnishes work, since
most of them live at home or attend college. There have been
established nearly 600 NYA resident centers, but many of these
are operated in connection with schools and colleges, and the
others do not usually involve the isolation from ordinary com-
munity life that creates a particular need for organized recreation.
The NYA does not therefore have an official leisure program for

222 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

its enrollees, though in particular centers there are sometimes
activities similar to those conducted in the CCC camps.

The recreational functions of the NYA consist in providing labor
and other services that enable public authorities and nonprofit-
seeking private agencies to improve their equipment and expand
their activities. A considerable portion of these services has
gone into projects of recreational value. In March 1940, 60,000
out-of-school youth between the ages of 18 and 24 were engaged
upon NYA work having significance for the use of leisure. These
were about one-fifth of the total employed on the work program
for out-of-school youth. Over half of this number was com-
prised of youth engaged in constructing recreational facilities.
Over a third were supplying leadership or program assistance.
The remainder were engaged in: library service and book repair,
museum work, exhibits and visual aid, art, music, drama, writ-
ing, and craftwork — all subjects with obvious recreational im-
plications.

Additional youth, probably numbering in the tens of thousands,
were engaged upon types of projects whose recreational im-
portance the official reports do not attempt to indicate, though
it was undoubtedly large. Thus thousands of youth were em-
ployed in NYA workshops, and among the articles they manu-
factured most frequently were toys, games, and other objects
intended for recreational use. An indefinite but substantial
part of the NYA work done in parks and other public lands by
way of landscaping and constructing trails and paths could be
placed under the head of recreational facilities. Many of the
buildings that NYA youth have worked on other than those
classified as social or recreational are used partly for recreational
purposes. Through June 1940 more than 9,000 schools, libraries,
museums, art galleries, and other educational buildings had been
erected, remodeled, or repaired by NYA labor.

Community centers for young people have been a particularly
useful part of the program and one that the NYA believes might
well be expanded. As constructed by NYA workers, a com-
munity center usually consists of a building divided into class-
rooms, game rooms, library, kitchen, and an assembly room that

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 223

can also be used for banquets or dances. Other small rooms
can be adapted for such special purposes as art exhibits, first-aid
service, and vocational guidance. In some centers there are little
theaters, and a few even have space for radio stations.

The accomplishments mentioned do not disclose the full extent
of the service the NYA has rendered in recreation, for they are
drawn wholly from the work program for out-of-school youth.
The NYA also conducts a student-aid program involving work
projects for young people who are continuing their education.
The college section of this program in itself enrolls 40 per cent
as many youth as the whole out-of-school program. Though the
activities involved are somewhat more limited in scope, the
number of college students engaged upon NYA projects of recre-
ational value is not negligible. Several thousands are employed
in work described as recreation, education, art, dramatics, or
library assistance. A much larger number are participating in
research, surveys, or community service, a considerable propor-
tion of which undoubtedly relates to recreational objectives.
There can be few sizable American communities whose recreational
resources have not in some degree been strengthened by the
young people for whom the National Youth Administration pro-
vides employment.

THE WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION

The recreational activities of the Work Projects Administra-
tion2 deserve a chapter to themselves. A book would be required
to do them justice. To give any adequate summary of them
in the limited space available here is a difficult task. It must,
however, be attempted, because the contribution of this agency
to the organized recreational resources of the nation has been
tremendous, and its influence will be felt for a long time.

When the ordinary citizen thinks of the WPA, the type of
activity that is likely to come most readily to his mind is con-
struction work — the building of roads, bridges, and other improve-

8 The figures cited in this section are the latest obtainable from the Work Projects
Administration.

224 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

ments to public property. Construction does bulk large in the
program of the WPA, and a good portion of it has been done in
the field of recreation. Much construction has to do with physical
recreation. Municipal facilities for practically every form of
sport have been built. Through 1940, newly erected stadiums,
grandstands, gymnasiums, and such other facilities as pavilions,
bathhouses, and the like, totaled above 6,500, and nearly three-
fourths as many similar structures had been renovated or en-
larged. Outdoor recreational facilities have been provided even
more frequently. Over 20,000 new structures other than build-
ings have been completed and an equal number of existing
facilities improved. These include tennis courts, athletic fields,
playgrounds, and parks. Structures with general recreational
uses include 700 auditoriums built, added to, or renovated.
Libraries have benefited greatly from WPA construction work.
Most of the library building during the latter years of the past
decade was accomplished by WPA labor. The list includes 900
structures erected, repaired, or enlarged.

The WPA Recreation Section

The creation of recreation facilities is simply a part of the
general construction program of the WPA. The purpose of this
program is to utilize the large supply of idle unskilled labor, and
it implies no special concern for the development of public recrea-
tion. The WPA has, however, another program that aims not
only to provide work for certain types of unemployed persons
but has also the definite purpose of promoting organized recrea-
tion in local communities. This program is administered by its
Recreation Section8 and constitutes the core of the WPA's
recreational functions. It consists of supplying leadership for
all types of recreational activities that local communities may
wish to try to establish. In 1939 the program was operating in
more than 7,000 communities and included some 15,000 job
locations. Nearly 70 per cent of the communities were rural.
Over 6,000 had no other source of organized public recreation.

•This branch of WPA activities was formerly known as the Recreation Division.
Since January 1940 it has been the Recreation Section of Community Service Projects
in the Professional and Service Division. It will here be referred to simply as the Recrea-
tion Section.

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 225

Every activity for which the WPA furnishes leadership is
originated by a sponsor. This is often an agency of the municipal
or county government. It may be the board of education, the
health officer, the librarian, the mayor and council, or — if there
is one — the park board or recreation department. However,
in 1939 over half the 10,000 local sponsors were described as
private or semipublic groups. Outside initiative, when any is
required, comes not from the WPA but from an agency of the
state government.

All the activities of the Recreation Section within a state are
considered to be a single state-wide project and are placed under
the guidance of an official state sponsor. This may be the de-
partment of education, the board of public welfare, the state
university, or some other qualified agency. The official sponsors
contribute a quarter of the cost of the programs — a proportion
considerably higher than the past average for all WPA programs.
All but 3 per cent of the federal money goes to pay the wages of
the relief workers who furnish the leadership on the projects.
Materials, equipment, and facilities are contributed by the local
sponsors.

Every area and building that the community affords is used.
Playgrounds, parks, community centers, schools, camps, athletic
fields, swimming pools, bathing beaches, settlement houses,
auditoriums, gymnasiums, housing projects — all the facilities
that can be utilized in developing the proposed activities are
sought and usually obtained. The effective cooperation of all
interests, public and private, is made easier through the use of
advisory committees. These are composed of representatives of
service clubs, churches, labor unions, business concerns, private
social agencies, and educational institutions, as well as other
interested citizens. In 1939, 5,500 such committees were giving
the programs a firm anchor in the community. Approximately
half of their 38,000 members were lay persons, and the experience
in social organization they received should stand their com-
munities in good stead when the time comes to carry on without
outside financial aid.

At the height of its activity the Recreation Section of the WPA
was employing 50,000 persons in conducting leisure-time programs

226 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

in local communities. It has trained 140,000 relief clients for
some type of recreation leadership. Recreation workers tend to
be young. It is estimated that as high as a fifth of the employees
of the Recreation Section have been under 25. This means that a
substantial number of youth — some 8,000 to 10,000 — were en-
gaged in developing community recreation programs of which
young people themselves were in large measure the beneficiaries.

Few of the employees of the Recreation Section were former
recreation workers. They were unemployed school teachers,
musicians, athletic directors, clerks, salesmen, or recent college
graduates who could not find jobs. An intensive program of pre-
service and in-service training was necessary to equip them for
their new employment. The WPA and the NY A, with the co-
operation of local agencies, have organized many training in-
stitutes to fit emergency leaders of recreation projects for
permanent local employment in recreation work. These have
materially strengthened the community resources available for
future recreation planning.

The services rendered by the recreational leaders on WPA
projects are as varied as available talent will allow and local
initiative desires. Fifteen thousand community centers have
been operated and assistance given to 8,000 more, according to
official reports. Supervision has been provided for parks, play-
grounds, athletic fields, beaches, and swimming pools. Dancing
is taught — folk, ballroom, and tap. Community nights are
organized. Social games, carnivals, and club meetings are ar-
ranged. Instruction is provided in such craft and hobby activities
as sketching, photography, leather work, pottery, marionettes.
Groups are formed in drama, music, and nature study. Forums,
pet shows, and story contests demonstrate to the community
how comprehensive a recreation program can be. Many local
programs include day camps for children and sometimes one- or
two-week camps for underprivileged youth and adults.

Sample studies of the projects of the Recreation Section show
that of the activities participated in by young people from 16
to 24 about three-fifths can be classed as physical, one-fourth as
social, and 13 per cent as cultural. A deliberate effort is being

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 227

made to increase activities of a social and cultural character. In
the words of the Recreation Section, "these are the activities
most likely to enlist the participation of all persons, regardless of
sex or age, and to develop attitudes of mind, habits, and skills
beneficial to the temper of the participants' personal and
family life."

In 1939 more than 5,000,000 people, not counting spectators,
were estimated to be taking part in the programs of the Recrea-
tion Section of the WPA each week. Their participation totaled,
on the average, from three to four hours. A sampling indicates
that at least 1,250,000 youth between the ages of 16 and 24 were
among those who used the various services. The great majority
of the remainder were children.

There are unmistakable indications that the WPA's program
of providing recreational leadership in local communities has
had a beneficial effect both on the individuals and on the com-
munities concerned. Some 7,500 of the employees of the Recrea-
tion Section have found permanent work in local recreation
agencies, according to the WPA, and this circumstance must be
largely attributed to their training on relief projects. That the
Section's activities stimulate communities to greater effort of
their own is the conclusion of a recent inquiry made in 148 munici-
palities where federal recreation projects have been in operation.
It was found that these communities had increased their ap-
propriations by 22 per cent and that salaries paid to recreational
staff members had risen by 12 per cent. This should dispel any
suspicion that communities are letting the federal government
take over recreation activities previously financed locally.

Whether the impetus that appears to have been given com-
munity endeavor will be sufficient to meet the employment
emergency created among WPA recreational workers by the 1939
Relief Act is another and more doubtful matter. In 1939 Con-
gress enacted a law requiring all persons who had had as much as
eighteen months' continuous employment on federal relief to be
dropped from the rolls for thirty days. This obliged the Recrea-
tion Section to dismiss 20,000 workers, or approximately half its
employees. These persons, when they became eligible for re-

228 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

employment by the WPA at the expiration of the specified period,
found themselves at the bottom of a long waiting list.

Since the whole WPA program is gradually being contracted,
there is little likelihood that any large proportion of the dismissed
recreation workers will return to the jobs they learned to fill and
in which they were performing a useful community service.
Nevertheless, there is a need for the skilled services of these
individuals. It is estimated that public recreation would now
require for an adequate program five times their number, or
100,000 workers, in addition to the usual staffs of recreation
departments and those still retained by the Recreation Section.
At its peak, therefore, the WPA was meeting only 40 per cent
of the need for supplementary recreation workers. Congress at
one stroke swept away half of this accomplishment, painstakingly
built up by the Recreation Section over the previous four years.
It remains to be seen what part the local communities can replace.
But it would be optimistic indeed to assume that municipal
recreation is yet ready to take on, unaided, 20,000 workers-
even if they were employed only part time. To do so would
nearly double present municipal staffs.

Other WPA Recreation Activities

In addition to constructing facilities and supplying leadership
for general community recreation, there are a number of ways
in which the WPA contributes to the profitable use of leisure by
the American people. Its Professional and Service Division
contains other branches besides the Recreation Section that have
the task of finding employment for persons with special talents
or skills. Some of the projects developed to utilize the capacities
of these people are wholly within the field of leisure interests.
Others are partly so. Among the former may be mentioned the
projects built around art, music, and the theater.

The existence of a Federal Art Project is generally known, and
most people have seen some of its products. Although the more
conspicuous benefits of this activity lie in the preservation and
development — in the service of the American people — of the highly
specialized talents of a relatively few gifted individuals, the

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 229

project also has numerous points of contact with ordinary people.
Fifty community art centers are in operation and hundreds of
art classes are conducted. In January 1940 the enrollment in
art classes was 47,000, and there was an aggregate attendance of
2,500,000 at civic art centers.

The Federal Music Project is organized on a similar basis
and has had an enrollment of 160,000 in its classes. Five thou-
sand musical performances were given in January 1940, drawing
over two million people. There are more than a hundred federal
symphony and concert orchestras. Concert and dance bands,
chamber music ensembles, and choral and opera groups have
numbered 125.

The Federal Theatre Project was one of the casualties of the
1939 Relief Act and has been dissolved in accordance with the
wish of Congress. In its prime it had some 100 companies oper-
ating in twenty states. It staged 1,500 productions, with a
monthly average of 2,800 performances and a monthly attendance
of over a million. Shows were given in CCC camps, orphanages,
hospitals, schools, and other institutions, as well as in regular
theaters. About half of them were free, and for the others the
admission fee was small. The Theatre Project put on productions
that were Broadway successes. It pioneered in developing new
art forms for the theater, of which the "living newspaper" is
perhaps the best remembered. Its greatest accomplishment,
however, was to bring theatrical productions to millions of Ameri-
cans in whose lives they had previously had no part. The
leisure of the people is the poorer for its disappearance.

In many countries, art, music, and the theater are subsidized
for the cultural advantages they afford the public. The United
States was persuaded to give federal aid to the arts only because
artists, musicians, and actors were widely unemployed. That
this is an insecure basis for a public subsidy is shown by the fate
that has overtaken the Federal Theatre Project. The time has
come when we should seriously ask ourselves whether these
activities do not deserve federal assistance in their own right.
Useful as they are in providing employment for talented indi-
viduals, their capacity to enrich the leisure of all persons is a

230 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

much more precious thing. Experience has shown that when
art, music, and the theater are left wholly to profit-seeking enter-
prise they tend to be so costly that the ordinary individual cannot
often afford them. Amateur efforts are valuable and deserve
every encouragement. But they are not an adequate substitute
for low-cost professional services. The arts cannot be brought
to the masses of the people without public aid. Public aid
deserves to be put on a firmer footing than unemployment palli-
atives afford.

In the category of activities that may in large part be described
as promoting public recreation are the WPA's assistance to
museums and libraries, its Writers' Project, and its educational
classes.

White-collar relief workers in museums have constructed or
repaired over three million articles and catalogued over five
million. Library construction and renovation have already been
mentioned. But the WPA also provides staff assistance that
enables libraries to make wider use of the facilities they already
have. Branch libraries are conducted and reading rooms set
up in existing libraries that could not otherwise afford them.
Traveling libraries circulate in rural areas. An epic might be
written of the experiences of the pack-horse librarians of the
South, who penetrate into the farthermost reaches of highland
glens where even revenue agents tread cautiously. In 1937
there were 1,150 traveling libraries. New branch libraries totaled
3,500, and 4,000 reading rooms had been opened.

WPA white-collar workers have performed another valuable
service for librarians and the people who use libraries by the work
of renovation and rearrangement that they have done among book
stocks. Twenty million library books have been catalogued,
and 34,000,000 have been cleaned and repaired. Library budgets
seldom contain adequate provision for reconditioning books, and
these services of the WPA have kept in circulation many volumes
that otherwise would have had to be withdrawn.

The leisure value to the public of the books that are now pouring
forth from the Federal Writers' Project will be greater or less
according to the extent they are used. They certainly embody

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 231

substantial leisure potentialities. The main program of the
project consists of a comprehensive and detailed description of
the American scene. It is to be completed in some 400 volumes
of regional, state, and local guidebooks. These will treat in full
all the points of interest in the territory covered, both natural
and historical. Over a hundred have so far appeared, and re-
viewers describe them as both interesting to the casual reader
and invaluable to anyone who wishes to acquire a detailed knowl-
edge of particular sections of the country. Wherever there are
American youth who like to read about their native land these
books are likely to prove to be a leisure resource of more than
ordinary importance. They have been described by Lewis
Mumford as "the finest contribution to American patriotism that
has been made in a long time."

The WPA's Division of Education is one of its outstanding
achievements. It has conducted upwards of 100,000 classes a
month and enrolled more than a million voluntary students. It
constitutes an educational system that in size of student body is
nearly as large as the public and private colleges of this country.
People come to its classes only because they wish to learn and
stay only as long as they find it profitable. It thus operates,
from necessity, on principles that should motivate a good rec-
reation program.

A listing, by type of subject matter, of the classes the division
conducts shows that a large number are concerned with topics
that to many people are leisure interests. Among the categories
reported on as of March 1938 was one consisting of 13,600 classes,
described as "avocational or leisure time," which enrolled 315,000
people. An additional 2,000 classes with 57,000 enrollees dealt
with "public affairs." A third group listed as "general adult"
consisted of 24,000 classes enrolling 335,000 persons. Together
these three sections, which constituted the bulk of the nonvoca-
tional subjects, account for over one-third of all classes, or ap-
proximately 40,000, and nearly half of all enrollees, or approxi-
mately 700,000.

It is known that youth form a large proportion of the persons
who patronize adult education activities. A sample count in

232 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

Chicago reported that three out of five persons attending WPA
classes were under 26. It would seem, therefore, that the number
of young people who participate in WPA emergency education
from a desire to improve their leisure is probably in the hundreds
of thousands.

The WPA does not care why youth come to its classes. There
are no credits to be earned. It is not preparing them for college
or for anything but living. It understands the fact, which schools
are barely beginning to appreciate, that education is a part of
life itself. If young people choose to come to learn how to spend
their leisure hours more enjoyably, the WPA is glad to have them.

It was an emergency that led to the creation of federal work
relief. An urgent necessity had arisen not only for keeping
millions of jobless workers from starving, but also for maintaining
their self-respect and preserving their availability for future
private employment. This has been the main purpose of the
Work Projects Administration throughout its existence. All
its programs have been primarily directed toward the goal of
putting the unemployed to work. It is desirable that we should
remind ourselves of this elementary fact from time to time be-
cause the WPA has done so much more than merely create jobs
that it is easy to lose sight of the mainspring that makes it tick.
To say this should not in any degree reduce the importance of its
other accomplishments. If the WPA had not already justified its
existence in terms of its chief objective, it could easily do so many
times over on the record of the incidental benefits it has brought
to American communities. This is clearly true of its work in
the field of recreation.

The unemployment emergency was not the only crisis we faced
during the depression. There was another emergency, hardly
less acute, that threatened large numbers of people. This was
the danger of losing individual initiative, creative skills, physical
vitality, and respect for democratic institutions. Adequate recre-
ational programs for youth and adults were recognized as one of
the best means of combating this menace, and it soon became
evident that only with the assistance of the federal government
could such programs be quickly developed on anything approach-

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 233

ing an effective scale. The recreational activities of the Work
Projects Administration have offered a determined resistance on
all fronts to the forces of disintegration and decay that are at-
tacking the leisure life of American youth and the American public.

MISCELLANEOUS PROGRAMS

The Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the
Interior has been mentioned in connection with the use it allows
people to make of its lands for picnics and other outings. But
such functions are merely incidental to the main purpose of this
agency — the protection and restoration of desirable wild life in
forest, field, and stream. In carrying out this aim it not only
performs a useful economic function, but also renders a direct
service to the millions of Americans who like to spend part of
their spare time hunting or fishing or simply observing birds and
beasts. We are destroying the once abundant wild life of America
much faster than it can renew itself. There is real danger,
amounting indeed to certainty, that if conservation activities
are not greatly accelerated an important and enjoyable recrea-
tional resource will in no very remote time practically disappear.

Land-use and conservation programs are examples of a limited
kind of recreational service for the benefit of the general public.
There are instances in which the federal government undertakes
to provide a more or less full and well-rounded program of leisure
activities, but they involve only limited groups or special classes
of persons. Some of these groups are composed largely or wholly
of young people. The Civilian Conservation Corps and the
National Youth Administration have already been discussed.
There are other sizable groups of individuals over whom the
national government has custody, or who work for it in remote
or isolated places, or whose welfare for one reason or another is of
special concern to the government. These include the inmates
of federal prisons and reformatories; the members of the armed
forces — the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps; the crews
of such large construction projects as the dams of the Tennessee
Valley Authority; the children and adults who attend schools on

234 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

Indian reservations; and residents in government housing projects
and resettlement communities.

For each of these groups the government agency in charge con-
ducts or sponsors a program of recreational activities. The pro-
grams vary with the degree of freedom possible, but all are in-
tended to provide an adequate outlet for the leisure interests of
the individuals concerned. Libraries are maintained, athletics
promoted, group activities such as music and acting encouraged,
and where possible there are social entertainments of vari-
ous types.

The efforts of the Extension Service of the Department of Agri-
culture on behalf of rural youth should also be listed among the
instances of service supplied to a special group. The federal
government has accepted a particular responsibility for the well-
being of rural youth. Through its extension agents it endeavors to
stimulate rural communities to provide all appropriate recreational
opportunities for their young people as well as to encourage these
youth to improve their own use of leisure. This activity has
been referred to more fully under the section on rural youth in
Chapter V.

NATIONAL PLANNING

The federal government has a responsibility for the national
planning of recreation. This obligation lies in two directions.
The first is to put its own house in the best possible order.

BROAD-SCALE COORDINATION

The government's recreational activities have been entered
upon one by one as needs arose and the necessity for federal action
became obvious. There now are, as we have seen, a large variety
of government leisure-time programs conducted by numerous
federal agencies. It does not by any means follow that because
they are dispersed among some thirty-five different operating
divisions they are weakly or wastefully administered. On the
contrary, if an attempt were made to uproot them from their
present settings and bring them together as a single administrative

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 235

unit it is likely that the most notable result would be confusion
twice confounded. The government does, however, owe it to the
cause of efficiency to promote cooperation and coordination among
its recreational activities somewhat more vigorously than it has in
the past.

Machinery ought to be maintained for the periodic or even con-
tinuous review of federal leisure programs. There should be a
means of obtaining from a single source a comprehensive, de-
tailed, and current account of what the various government
agencies are doing in the recreational field. This would benefit
not only the outside inquirer, who has a right to know what services
his government is prepared to render him, but it should also prove
helpful to the agencies themselves. The points where related
programs approach each other could be determined and lines of
demarcation clarified. If overlappings exist, they would be re-
vealed. Areas where mutual assistance can be rendered should
appear. Economies may be possible or it may be that the same
amount of effort could yield greater returns. It might also be a
function of such a service to secure agreement on recreational
standards to be applied in the work of the various units. The
bringing of the government's leisure programs into close relation-
ship with each other should not be left to chance or the spare
moments of busy administrators.

The second direction that must be taken by the federal govern-
ment's recreational planning relates to the leisure needs and re-
sources of the nation as a whole. The term "planning" is perhaps
an oversimplification of the service that needs to be rendered.
At least two coordinate functions are involved in addition to the
formulation of plans themselves. On the one hand there must
be research, for planning cannot be done in a vacuum; and on the
other hand there must be promotion in order to secure the adopt-
tion of plans requiring the cooperation of other agencies.

Important contributions in both of these areas have been made
and continue to be made by the various private organizations of
national scope concerned with leisure problems. These include
such agencies as the National Recreation and Education Council,
the American Camping Association, the National Conference

236 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

on the College Training of Recreation Workers, community
chests and councils, the National Conference on State Parks,
the several professional associations of recreation workers, and the
central bureaus of the various youth-serving organizations of
national and international extent. These agencies perform a
function that is continuously and increasingly valuable. But
their existence does not obviate the need for an over-all planning
body that has no special interest — however worthy — to promote,
but only the well-being of the whole nation. The federal govern-
ment is the logical agency to assume this duty.

The nation has a distinct need for a plan indicating the steps
that must be taken if its recreational resources are to be preserved
and adequately developed. It is a need that grows more urgent
with every year as irreplaceable resources are allowed to disappear.
It has lately acquired an imperativeness from the necessity we
now face of making every aspect of the national effort contribute
to the security of our country. The plan we require should make
clear the role that the federal government can best assume and
the functions that are most appropriately left to regional or-
ganization or to states, local communities, and private agencies.
There are decades of steady effort ahead before we shall have made
a reasonably close approach to accomplishing what organized
action can do to improve the leisure experiences of American
youth and of the American public generally. The task will be
greatly facilitated if we can carry with us an agreed working plan.

FEDERAL PLANNING AGENCIES

A number of government agencies are already engaged in
leisure-time planning on a national scale. Some of them are
among the authorities conducting the programs we have been
considering in this chapter. In these agencies the planning is
likely to be restricted to the particular phase of recreational work
for which the agency is responsible. It may, however, go beyond
the scope of federal activity, present or prospective, and review
the desirable distribution of functions at all levels of government.
There are also branches of the national government that conduct

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 237

no recreation programs but are obligated to maintain an inter-
est in the leisure activities of other bodies. Federal agencies that
are or might well be active in recreational planning include the
following.

The National Resources Planning Board

This body, which has existed in some form since 1934, is of all
divisions of the executive branch of the government the one best
situated to take a broad view of the general welfare. The task
of preparing a master plan for the recreational development of
our national life would seem particularly appropriate for it.
The board has already published a detailed report on the recrea-
tional use of land, surveying the existing situation and endeavor-
ing to some extent to forecast needs and outline policies. As
far as it goes this is an able document, but there is a disappointing
lack of emphasis upon the need for providing recreational leader-
ship on public lands. The initial survey has not been followed by
further publications that might report upon other recreational
needs of general interest.

The staff of this federal agency is small, and the board's policy
is to have its inquiries conducted by experts temporarily retained
for the purpose. The report on land use was prepared by the
National Park Service and represents, therefore, the views of the
permanent government agency most concerned with that sub-
ject, rather than an independent appraisal. Though the National
Resources Planning Board is the logical agency to undertake a
comprehensive survey of national recreational needs and re-
sources, its interests are divided among numerous other important
subjects of inquiry, and it may be that these competing claims
will prevent leisure needs from receiving the attention they merit.
Certainly the board's restricted ability to undertake its own
research is a hampering factor. Moreover, it is not in a position
to offer advisory or promotion services to other levels of govern-
ment or to private agencies if any considerable demand for these
services should develop. This fact would further restrict its
possible usefulness.

238 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

technical Committee on Recreation

This body is a subdivision of the Interdepartmental Committee
to Coordinate Health and Welfare Activities. The subcommittee
was created to ascertain the scope and nature of the recreational
activities of the federal government and to recommend any re-
organization that might seem desirable. It has published a brief
report in which it recommends that a federal Bureau of Recrea-
tion be established. The functions of this bureau would include
securing voluntary coordination, setting standards, promoting
research, and serving as a clearinghouse for recreational informa-
tion to the various government departments and to the public
at large.

The Technical Committee on Recreation does not appear to have
engaged in any other activity or to be now functioning. How-
ever, the fact that it was composed of administrators from the
fifteen units of the federal government most closely concerned
with recreation gives it the appearance of a coordinating council,
and the possibility of its acquiring permanent functions deserves
to be kept in mind. If the proposed bureau should materialize,
recreational planning would be one of its major responsibilities.
If a coordinating council should be established in its place, research
and large-scale planning would be no less appropriate, though it
is likely that they would receive less attention.

The National Park Service

This is the federal agency that has been most active in recrea-
tional planning. In addition to preparing the report on the
recreational use of land, issued by the National Resources Plan-
ning Board, it has published an extensive reference work on park
structures that promises to have a wide influence on the building
programs of state parks.

The National Park Service's major activity in research and
planning is an ambitious project known as the Park, Parkway,
and Recreation Area Study. This aims to be no less than an
inventory of all existing recreational facilities, areas, and systems.
It was specially authorized by Congress in 1936 and has been
carried out in cooperation with all but three of the states. Re-

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 239

ports are prepared on a state basis and twenty-seven have now
been completed. They are uniform and will enable a master
plan to be drawn up. The information obtained in the study is
to be analyzed and compared with population data in an effort
to determine requirements for recreation over a period of years.
In the end there are expected to emerge clear-cut plans and recom-
mendations for adequately meeting present and future recreation
needs on a nation-wide scale. The outcome of this imposing
project will be awaited with interest. There is also in hand a
study of municipal and metropolitan park systems and an an-
alysis of state laws relating to recreation.

The National Park Service has in recent years demonstrated a
capacity for enterprise and leadership in recreational endeavor
that shows it to be well removed from an earlier preoccupation
with custodial problems. If one still has difficulty in seeing in
it the agency best fitted to guide the development of recreation
in America, it is only because recreation — even public recreation-
embraces so much more than the use of lands.

tfhe Forest Service

Though the Forest Service has no such extensive project in
research as that just mentioned, it has shown itself to be well
aware of the necessity for planning the recreational use of the
lands it administers. It has lately lost, through death, a chief
of the Service and a chief of the Recreational Division who did
much to promote a concern for recreational matters. It may be
expected that the spirit and interest brought to the Service by
F. A. Silcox and Robert Marshall will not cease to develop. The
late chief administrator described its recent advances in the
following terms.

The Forest Service has stepped up its recreational activities; has
engaged and is engaging additional, adequately trained specialists;
has reviewed principles, standards, and practices; has extended and
brought up to date surveys and inventories of present and future possi-
bilities and demands; and has revised existing plans and is making
new ones.

240 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

The 'Tennessee Valley Authority

Because of the limited geographical range of its interests, this
agency is hardly in a position to undertake recreational planning
on a nation-wide scale. However, it has been industrious in
planning the recreational use of the large areas under its control
and in cooperating with local authorities and private enterprise
to ensure the widest possible benefit from facilities. In these
respects it affords a conspicuous instance of what may be ac-
complished. The report it has issued on the recreational resources
of the southern highlands is a model of its kind. Other planning
bodies may well be stimulated by the example of the TVA to
give more attention to recreational matters.

^he Office of Education

Though it has had little concern with recreation, the Office of
Education would seem to be in a strategic position to assist in
developing public interest in that subject. In its advisory
capacity to school systems it could stress the importance of
education for leisure. It could suggest how school recreation
programs might best be organized and how to take advantage of
community resources. Demonstrations in selected areas would
be appropriate. As part of its statistical service the Office might
gather information on the recreational activities and facilities of
local schools. This would permit a clearer view of the needs to
be met and the resources for meeting them.

The Office of Education can be an important factor in securing
public approval and adoption of any recreation program for
American youth that may be formulated/ So far its efforts
along this line have been limited to a few publications bearing on
recreation in the schools and one, issued by its now inactive
Committee on Youth Problems, describing community efforts
to improve the use of leisure among out-of-school young people.
The radio programs formerly provided by the Office were in
themselves an element in the leisure of many persons, and this
function might be renewed and extended. The Office of Educa-
tion has recently established a Division of Library Service that

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 241

will no doubt eventually be of some indirect assistance in im-
proving the leisure opportunities of youth.

ne Public Health Service

In much the same position with respect to recreation as the
Office of Education is the Public Health Service. It has an
important clientele throughout the country that could without
doubt be induced to take more of an interest in recreation than
they now do. At present, however, the Service appears to have
little connection with recreation beyond suggesting possibilities
in health education to recreation leaders who may write to it
expressing a desire to set up programs in this area. It is not the
primary responsibility of the Health Service to formulate plans
for the enlargement of young people's recreational opportunities.
But if a comprehensive program to effect this can be agreed upon,
the Service should be able to furnish no small assistance in carry-
ing it out.

The Federal Communications Commission

This agency has the important function of alloting wave lengths
for radio broadcasting and determining the times when stations
may be on the air. Radio, as we have seen, occupies a high place
among the leisure interests of young people, and its influence
upon them is in all probability great. It does not come within
the commission's power to control the nature of particular radio
programs, but whatever educational broadcasts from noncom-
mercial stations are heard by the public come to them because the
commission has licensed these stations to broadcast and has
assigned them suitable positions.

Wave lengths are crowded and air time is limited. The best
broadcasting bands and the most convenient times are sought
and generally obtained by commercial interests. It is within the
commission's power to increase the opportunities for hearing
noncommercial broadcasts, or to diminish them, by adjusting the
allocation of wave lengths and air time between commercial and
noncommercial broadcasters. At present, when new develop-
ments in radio broadcasting are appearing, this power has become

242 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

particularly important. If the commission adheres faithfully to
its obligation to regulate broadcasting "in the public interest,
convenience, and necessity" it will preserve a fair proportion of
the new wave lengths that have recently become available for
educational, nonprofit broadcasting.

Other Agencies

In addition to those mentioned above there are various agencies
of the federal government whose functions touch upon recreational
interests in one way or another. Although these agencies need
not be discussed here they will have greater or lesser contributions
to make toward maturing national recreational plans and making
them effective.

FEDERAL RELATIONS WITH THE STATES IN
THE PROMOTION OF RECREATION

The federal government need not and should not limit its
efforts in the promotion of recreation to what may be accom-
plished by working directly with the ultimate consumer of leisure-
time services. In its operating programs it is in friendly competi-
tion with state and local authorities. There is no harm in this
competition. Indeed much good may come from it. And in
any event the combined efforts of all agencies meet only a small
portion of the need. But there are other ways of increasing the
leisure opportunities available to American youth and the Ameri-
can public. One is to subsidize the states in their attempts to
conduct recreation programs.

FEDERAL SUBSIDIES

If the principal state and local agencies now serving various
areas of leisure needs show themselves fully awake to their re-
sponsibilities in this field there should be no necessity of a federal
subsidy specifically for recreation. The financial aid of the
federal government could go directly to the state agencies con-
cerned and be redistributed by them to local communities for
use in supporting and expanding their programs. Assuming

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 243

that these programs will give adequate consideration to recrea-
tional needs, the federal government would thus be enabled to
supplement local resources without departing from the channels
now recognized as appropriate for distribution of federal aid.

Local education has long received a subsidy from the national
government. Up to the present it has been permissible to apply
it only to the teaching of certain types of vocational subjects.
It is, however, well recognized in the educational profession
that a broad federal-aid program, applicable to all aspects of the
training of youth, is essential and inevitable if we are to overcome
the handicaps that many states suffer because of their inability
to support education adequately. This was the conclusion
reached by the President's Advisory Committee on Education,
which in 1937 recommended a program of federal aid to the
states for general educational purposes, including recreation,
beginning with $70,000,000 and rising over a six-year period to
approximately $200,000,000. These funds would enable many
schools that now have few or no recreational activities to meet a
portion of their responsibility for the leisure of their pupils.

Financial aid to libraries is another form of federal assistance
that is desirable and necessary if there is to be reasonably rapid
progress toward making library service available to all the people.
The President's Advisory Committee on Education recommended
that grants be made to the states specifically for developing rural
public library service, and that grants for schools be available
for library service in schools. These recommendations have
been embodied in proposed legislation that has been introduced
into Congress. If adopted, it will represent a net gain in the
leisure opportunities open to large numbers of youth.

Limited federal funds now go to the states for purposes of
public health and child care. At present they are reserved for
specific uses offering little scope for recreational service. There
has been placed before Congress, however, a National Health
Bill that would enlarge the purposes to which the financial aid
of the national government might be applied and substantially
increase the government's contribution. Although the prob-
ability of action on this particular measure now seems remote,
the issue is likely to remain a live one.

244 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

It seems inevitable that sooner or later we shall embark upon a
vigorous national health program. Such a program should
embrace every suitable approach to the desired end of raising the
general level of the health of the American public. Wholesome
outdoor recreation is one excellent means of doing this. There
is every reason why local health departments and departments of
social welfare should exert themselves to assure all the youth of
the community opportunity for physical training, outdoor sports,
and camp life. No plan for revising and enlarging the federal
government's contribution to general health and youth welfare
services should ignore recreation.

Park service in states where national parks are situated already
receives a form of subsidy from the national government. These
parks, the whole cost of which is borne by the nation, are naturally
most accessible to the people living near by. States with national
parks thus have, without cost to themselves, some provision for
the leisure of their citizens. It does not wholly relieve them from
the obligation of developing state parks, which are still likely to
be necessary, but it does ease the burden of providing adequate
park service.

Although the national parks are not intended in the nature of a
state subsidy, they do operate that way with respect to certain
states. It is worth considering whether the effect should not in
some way be equalized. The acquisition of additional national
parks in the East, accessible to the large centers of population,
has already been recommended. Where this cannot be done,
it may be that a direct cash subsidy to state park systems would
be an acceptable way of meeting the situation.

GENERAL ADVISORY SERVICES

There is a second type of general assistance that the national
government may appropriately offer states and local communities
in their effort to bring more and better recreation to young people.
It is comprised of consultation, advice, research, demonstration,
and other forms of promotion. The chief federal agencies that
would be concerned in rendering these services have already

FEDERAL RECREATION FUNCTIONS 245

been mentioned. Every branch of the national government
paralleled by a state agency that provides or could provide
recreational services has opportunities to advance the wholesome
use of leisure in the United States through stimulating activity
at other levels of government.

The Office of Education and the Public Health Service already
perform some or all of these functions in their respective fields.
When they have developed their programs to the point where due
weight is given recreation, they will be in a position to extend
their services of research, consultation, and the like to cover this
important phase of their subjects. The Forest Service has a
Division of Cooperation with States, whose function is to make
available to other levels of government the experience built up
by the Service in the administration of public forest lands, in-
cluding their recreational use. The Extension Service of the
Department of Agriculture is a vast cooperative system working
through the state land-grant colleges and the state agricultural
experiment stations to raise the standard of living in rural areas.
In twenty-nine states it assists in maintaining specialists in rural
organization, recreation, and sociology. A great part of the
labors of these individuals benefits rural youth in their use of
leisure.

One of the most comprehensive plans of service to state and
local authorities that the federal government can show has been
put into operation by the National Park Service. In 1936 Con-
gress authorized the Department of the Interior to create an
extension service in matters relating to the planning, establish-
ment, and operation of public recreation systems. It is a service
for states, their subdivisions, and semipublic agencies. The
chief activities that have so far been developed as part of this
service are the recreation demonstration areas; the park, parkway,
and recreational area study; and the study of municipal and
metropolitan park systems. These have already been described.
The first is being conducted in cooperation with state and local
park authorities, the second with state planning boards and
other state agencies, and the third with the assistance of the
National Recreation Association.

246 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

The Park Service also provides assistance to states in drafting
and interpreting legislation. It maintains an information service
on recreation programs and other matters relating to the recrea-
tional development of public lands. It conducts research on
problems of planning and administering recreational facilities.
In these and other ways it works with the states in setting up
and operating their park and recreation systems.

The inclusion among federal activities of advisory services and
the related responsibilities of research and promotion is based on
a definite theory. It is the theory that other levels of government
and other types of organization whose limited resources must all
be devoted to direct service to the individual will respect findings
from an impartial agency able to test methods and procedures
and recommend standards. In practice this theory has proved
to be sound. States, local governments, and private agencies
are coming more and more to welcome assistance of this nature.
That they should do so does not in any degree challenge the right
of the state to go about solving its problems in its own way. Nor
does it alter the fact that the primary responsibility for safe-
guarding the welfare of young people rests with the local com-
munity. What can reasonably be claimed is that willingness to
accept the leadership of the federal government opens a broad
vista of opportunities for nation-wide action to bring a better
recreational life to the youth of America.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

CLINE, DOROTHY I. 'Training for Recreation: An Account of the In-Scrvicc Training Pro-
gram, Division of Recreation, Works Progress Administration, October 1935-0ctobcrl937.
Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1939. 130 pp.

Forest Outings. U. S. Forest Service. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office,
1940. 311 pp.

[LILLYWHITE, B. ALDEN]. Community Recreation Programs: A Study of WPA Recreation
Projects. Work Projects Administration. Washington: U. S. Government Printing
Office, 1940. 54 pp.

MAUGHAN, KENNETH O. Recreational Development in the National Forests, Technical
Publication No. 45. Syracuse: New York State College of Forestry, 1934. 172 pp.

Recreational Use of Land in the United States, Part XI of the Report on Land Planning,
National Park Service for the National Resources Committee. Washington: U. S
Government Printing Office, 1938. 280 pp.

Report of the Technical Committee on Recreation. Interdepartmental Committee to Co-
ordinate Health and Welfare Activities [Washington], 1937. 26 pp. Mimeo.

The Scenic Resources of the Tennessee Valley. KnoxvilJe: Tennessee Valley Authority,
1938. 222 pp.

CHAPTER IX

MAJOR OBJECTIVES AND RECOM-
MENDATIONS FOR RECREATION

PLANNING

1 HE AIM of this report has been to establish a basis
for policy-making and planning in recreation for youth. The
significance of leisure in modern life has been discussed, the more
pressing recreational needs of young people have been analyzed,
and the current condition of public and private recreation has
been examined. The present chapter is concerned with the objec-
tives that grow out of the previous discussion. All of them have
already been stated or implied. In the following section they
are set forth in summary form for convenience of study. Each
of the objectives is supported by specific recommendations, to
be presented subsequently, suggesting its implications and
indicating the direct action that the authors believe may be taken.

MAJOR OBJECTIVES

A. Accept recreation as a major youth need, paralleling educa-
tion and employment in importance, a necessity in a democracy,
and vital to adequate planning for national security.

B. Encourage each local community to accept the primary
responsibility for providing an adequate leisure-time program for
its own youth.

C. Strengthen and expand the community's provision for
organized recreation.

247

248 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

D. Recognize the close relationship between education and
recreation and bring the schools to accept a major responsibility
for the recreation of youth and of the whole family.

E. Improve the recreational services that can be rendered
youth by organized action at the state level.

F. Conserve the recreational values of public lands, increase
their extent, render them accessible to larger numbers of people,
and develop their full recreational potentialities.

G. Plan for the development of all the recreational resources
of the nation; coordinate present federal recreation services and
clarify their future status.

H. Increase the nonemergency assistance the federal govern-
ment renders states and local communities in developing their
recreation programs; this to be done by extending certain financial
aid and by expanding the functions the federal government can
perform better than any state agency — planning, research,
demonstration, and consultation.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The recommendations that follow are grouped under the ob-
jectives, already stated, which they expand or implement. These
recommendations are not intended to be either exhaustive or
definitive. The authors recognize that other measures for com-
passing the same general ends could be proposed and that such
alternatives might appear of equal or even greater desirability.
The present recommendations simply represent a suggested blue-
print for filling out in detail the general framework the report
has tried to establish. The authors regard the objectives as the
important thing and are willing that there should be considerable
latitude in the manner in which they are approached.

It ought also to be made plain that the outline presented here is
in the nature of a long-term plan. To carry out the recommenda-
tions, or any alternative set implying similar ends, will obviously
require the cooperation of many interests that cannot easily or
quickly be persuaded to make common cause. It will also involve
extensive expenditure of public funds at all levels of government,

MAJOR OBJECTIVES AND RECOMMENDATIONS 249

though we may be confident that the benefits will far outweigh
the expense. The authors regard the suggested plan as essentially
practicable, but they do not suppose that it will be adopted over-
night. They will be content if the public greet it as did Macbeth
his air-borne dagger:

Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going,
And such an instrument I was to use.

A. Accept recreation as a major youth need, paralleling education
and employment in importance, a necessity in a democracy, and
vital to adequate planning for national security.

To this end it is recommended that:

1. Recreation be acknowledged as good in itself and worthy of
being sought for the satisfaction it gives.

2. Recreation be understood to have a further utilitarian value
to the individual in contributing to his mental health and physical
fitness and to his social competence, and in providing him with
creative and cultural experiences.

3. Recreation be understood to be of value to society in that
the welfare of society is the sum of the welfare of its members and
also that it promotes marriage, reduces delinquency, mitigates
the effects of unemployment, and heightens national strength
and security.

4. The part of our recreational expenditure absorbed by com-
mercial interests be recognized as disproportionate to the role
these agencies play in promoting the worth-while use of leisure,
and that the scope of nonprofit-seeking recreation, private as well
as public, ought therefore to be expanded.

B. Encourage each local community to accept the primary responsi-
bility for providing an adequate leisure-time program for its own
youth.

The following recommendations are made:

1. Each community should make a study of the recreational
needs of its youth, using accepted survey techniques, to determine
which types of recreational need are uppermost. This study may

250 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

be part of a larger investigation of the condition and needs of its
young people.

2. A survey of existing recreation programs and of community
recreation facilities ought also to be made.

3. The unused resources of the community, both in material
and in personnel, should be studied to determine which types of
volunteer programs can be most readily developed.

4. A long-range recreation program for the youth of the com-
munity ought to be formulated, particular care being taken that
(a) it meets the situation revealed in the survey of youth recrea-
tion needs; (b) adequate responsibility is accepted by the public
schools; and (c) all available sources of support are drawn upon,
including volunteer leadership, state and federal advisory services,
and, where appropriate, outside financial assistance.

5. This program should endeavor to raise at least to an ac-
ceptable minimum the recreational facilities available to such of
the following disadvantaged groups as may be included in the
community: rural youth, youth of low-income families, girls,
older adolescents, Negro youth, and other minority races.

6. The autonomy of existing organizations ought to be pre-
served so far as may be consistent with the principle that the
recreational needs of no class of young people shall be neglected.

7. Youth should be given a share in community planning for
recreation, either through direct representation upon all major
boards and councils or through special advisory committees of
young people.

8. "Cellar clubs" might well be furnished with adult guidance
and such other minimum assistance as will mitigate the difficulties
of these organizations and help to develop their potential con-
tribution to the leisure life of young people.

C. Strengthen and expand the community's provision for organized
recreation.

To accomplish this objective:

1. Cities should create or designate a suitable authority to
organize and administer public recreation. Communities of
smaller size should support any existing social agency or agent
that may be willing to organize recreational services.

MAJOR OBJECTIVES AND RECOMMENDATIONS 251

2. Every effort should be made to meet the standards recom-
mended by the National Recreation Association with reference
to the facilities and financial support of public recreation pro-
grams; in particular, the dearth of children's playgrounds and
playfields should be remedied.

3. Control of the public program of recreation ought to rest
primarily in lay hands, but administrative responsibility should
rest with persons professionally trained; extensive use might be
made of volunteer workers under proper supervision.

4. Communities should take an active interest in the profes-
sional education and training of their recreation workers of all
grades, urging upon colleges and universities the necessity for
providing adequate training opportunities; the possibility of offer-
ing professional training for employment in commercial recrea-
tion might also be investigated.

5. Public library service must be organized in or extended to
communities where it is not now available, meeting as nearly as
possible standards of support recommended by the American
Library Association.

6. Public libraries ought to pay more attention to attracting
and holding the interest of young people and adopt the admini-
strative practices which have proved effective toward this
end.

7. The important functions and unique advantages of private
agencies with recreational interests should be kept clearly in mind
and the immense amount of good will and voluntary effort they
represent should be recognized.

8. The need for voluntary support of private agencies ought
not to be obscured by the necessary expansion of tax-supported
recreational services; private agencies should be urged to co-
ordinate their efforts and simplify their structure, in order that
they may more effectively meet the recreational needs of youth
and that they may be better understood by the public.

9. Private agencies should redouble their efforts to bring leisure
services to the great mass of young people in the underprivileged
sections of our population, with whom they may have had rela-
tively little contact.

252 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

D. Recognize the close relationship between education and recreation
and bring the schools to accept a major responsibility for the recrea
tion of youth and of the whole family.

It is recommended that:

1. The schools accept recreation as being in reality a form of
education and that they minimize the distinction between class-
room and extraclassroom activities.

2. A well-rounded program of recreation be developed for youth
in school, with emphasis upon creative and social activities but
also affording every school youth the opportunity to cultivate
physical fitness through games, sports, and outdoor activities.

3. The schools provide guidance in the proper use of the three
great forms of commercial recreation — reading, radio, and motion
pictures.

4. The schools encourage their pupils to form recreational
interests which will carry over into adult life.

5. The schools make some provision for the vacation-time
recreation of youth by keeping the school playgrounds open during
the summer and, where possible, by conducting summer camps.
The cooperation of other public and private agencies should be
welcomed in providing a planned summer program.

6. The schools accept a measure of responsibility toward out-
of-school youth and toward all members of the community by
keeping in touch with former students and conducting a program
to meet their special needs, by encouraging the development of
the family as a recreational unit, and by securing the maximum
community use of the school recreational facilities.

7. Communities consider the possibility of establishing a single
public educational authority to administer the schools, libraries,
and public recreation and to unify the recreational activities of
all these agencies.

E. Improve the recreational services that can be rendered youth by
organized action at the state level.

The following measures are recommended:
1. Governors, legislatures, and planning boards should give
more attention to the conservation of human resources and to

MAJOR OBJECTIVES AND RECOMMENDATIONS 253

the contribution toward this end which can be made by ap-
propriate recreation facilities and programs for youth.

2. State-wide conferences on social work should be asked to
consider how the recreational needs of youth can be more ef-
fectively provided for through voluntary coordination of the
activities of private and public agencies.

3. State governments which may be experimentally inclined
could well investigate the possibility of improving services to
youth through the establishment of state youth commissions with
functions consisting of research, consultation, and the voluntary
coordination of youth-serving agencies throughout the state.

4. Educational opportunity for youth ought to be equalized
throughout the state by state grants-in-aid to local communities.
In the use of these funds, school administrators should have par-
ticular regard to enriching the school program through developing
leisure activities and services.

5. State departments of education should employ supervisors of
recreation with duties analogous to those of the supervisors for
other special subjects; state departments might also certify
trained education-recreation workers for employment by local
school authorities.

6. Declaratory statutes should be enacted making plain the
authority of local school districts to spend educational funds for
promoting recreation among all youth, whether in or out of school.
Further, such legislation might well enable schools to conduct or
contribute to a recreation program for all members of the com-
munity.

7. State grants to assist local governmental units to maintain
public libraries should be made at least as generally available
as state grants for school purposes, and states should provide all
other practicable assistance to local communities in bringing
libraries to all their members, particularly services of advice and
promotion.

F. Conserve the recreational values of public lands, increase their
extent, render them accessible to larger numbers of people, and de-
velop their full recreational potentialities.

254 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

To do so:

1. Public forests must be rigorously guarded against abuse by
commercial interests.

2. The United States Forest Service should continue its pro-
gram of establishing "wilderness areas."

3. More local parks should be created; more state parks and,
if necessary, more national parks ought to be established within
reach of the large centers of population; the present deficiency
in public beaches and coast areas should be remedied as rapidly
as possible.

4. Measures ought to be developed of enabling low-income
families to make low-cost visits to state and national parks, with
transportation brought within the means of such families and the
cost of staying in these areas reduced to a minimum through con-
structing permanent camps to be rented at low rates to private
and public agencies.

5. Facilities for recreation and guidance in their use should be
generally provided on public lands having recreational possi-
bilities, and the staff of these areas should be enabled to take
special measures to encourage the use of such facilities among
organized groups in communities within effective range.

6. The federal government should make a particular effort to
promote the use of the national parks and forests by youth groups,
special financial assistance and facilities to be provided.

7. The place of commercial interests in developing recreational
facilities on public lands must be determined and a policy em-
bodying this finding adopted for the national parks and forests.
G. Plan for the development of all the recreational resources of the
nation; coordinate present federal recreation services and clarify their
future status.

The following steps are urged:

1. A comprehensive, long-range plan for the development of
the recreational resources of the nation should be prepared. This
plan should give special consideration to the following points:

a. The pioneer work in large-scale recreational planning done
by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

MAJOR OBJECTIVES AND RECOMMENDATIONS 255

b. The cooperative study of state parks and recreation areas
now being conducted by the National Park Service.

c. The relative share in the task of assuring suitable recreation
to all classes of the population which should be assumed by
federal, state, and local governments.

2. Some federal agency, possibly the Technical Committee on
Recreation of the Interdepartmental Committee to Coordinate
Health and Welfare Activities, should be established on a per-
manent basis to serve as an agency for the voluntary coordination
of the recreational activities of the federal government.

3. Steps ought to be taken to assure the continuation under
the appropriate authorities of essential recreational services now
conducted by the federal government as emergency measures,
such steps to include:

a. A study of the program assistance to local communities ren-
dered by the WPA, to determine how far it can be taken
over by the present beneficiaries and what provision should
be made for continued aid.

b. Recognition that federal assistance to the arts, now ad-
ministered through the WPA as an unemployment palliative,
is primarily desirable for its contribution to our recreational
resources and should be placed on a permanent basis.

c. In the CCC camps, greater emphasis to be placed upon
recreation as a technique of education; sufficient staff and
facilities to be provided to give the boys the individualized
attention necessary to meet their recreational needs, both
now and later.

H. Increase the nonemergency assistance the federal government
renders states and local communities in developing their recreation
programs; this to be done by extending certain financial aid and by
expanding the junctions the federal government can perform better
than any state agency — planning, research, demonstration, and
consultation.

The following steps appear highly desirable:

1. Federal aid to the states for general education ought to
be enacted. In the use of these funds, school administrators

256 TIME ON THEIR HANDS

should have particular regard to enriching the school program
through developing leisure activities and services.

2. Federal aid to the states for the development of libraries
in rural areas ought to be enacted.

3. Continued and increased support should be given the Na-
tional Park Service's cooperative program of establishing demon-
stration recreation areas on state park lands.

4. The United States Office of Education should develop a pro-
gram of research in recreation activities both for in-school and
out-of-school youth and provide advisory service in this field to
state and local school authorities.

5. The United States Public Health Service should institute
similar activities with reference to the recreational implications of
services which state and local authorities might provide.

INDEX

Adaptation to local conditions, 163-65, 176

Adolescents, older, 13, 22-24, 250

Adult community organizations interested

in youth, 142-47
American Legion, 145
businessmen's organizations, 143
councils of social agencies, 145
parent-teacher associations, 145
police departments, 145-47
securing cooperation from, 142
women's organizations, 144
Adult-led, independent organizations for

youth, 111-31

breaking of institutional lines in, 129-30
Boy Scouts, 111-13
Boys Clubs, 121-23
Camp Fire Girls, 114-15
clarification and acceptance of group

work concept in, 130-31
defects of, 125-31
detailed management by adult leaders

of, 128

Girl Scouts, 113-14
ineffectiveness in reaching all youth,

125-28, 251

promising developments among, 128-31
Salvation Army, 124-25
self-criticism in, 130
settlement houses, 123-24
Young Men's Christian Association,

115-19
Young Women's Christian Association,

119-21

Advisory Committee on Education. See
President's Advisory Committee on
Education
Agriculture, Department of. See U. S.

Department of
Altrusa clubs, 144
American Association of Adult Education,

39
American Association for Health, Physical

Education, and Recreation, 49, 72
American Camping Association, 49, 82, 235
American Council on Education, 29

American Country Life Association, Youth

Section, 149-50

American Farm Bureau Federation, 150-51
American Legion, 109, 145, 147, 178, 179
American Library Association, 89, 91, 251
American Youth Commission, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10,

22, 26, 40, 41, 50, 73, 74, 75, 78, 88, 90,

133, 154, 156, 158, 159, 191
Angell, James Rowland, 37
Association of Leisure-Time Educators, 131
Atlanta, Ga., 82

Bandelier National Monument, 211
Between Spires and Stacks, 130
Bibliographies, 24, 44, 64H55, 105, 155,

182-83, 201, 246
Boston, Mass., 118
Boulder Dam Reservation, 203
Boy Scouts, 14, 83, 107, 111-13, 126, 127,

143, 144, 145, 147, 153, 155
Boys' Clubs, 121-23, 126, 128
Boys' Clubs of America, 122
Broadcasting:
commercial, 34r-35
educational, 36-38, 241-42
Buffalo, N. Y., 161
Bureau of Reclamation, U. S. Department

of Interior. See U. S. Department of

Interior
Business and Professional Women's Club,

181

Businessmen's clubs, 107, 143, 147
Butler, Nicholas Murray, 37

California, 10, 173, 203

Camp Fire Girls, 114-15, 120, 144, 145, 155

Camping, 7, 21, 49, 81-83, 112, 113-14,

115, 122, 131, 150, 197, 198, 199-200,

155, 204, 205, 215
Catholic Church. See Roman Catholic

Church

Catholic Youth Organizations, 139
Cellar clubs, 107, 108, 111, 119, 131-37,

155, 158, 250

adult assistance of, 135-37
organization of, 131-32

257

258

TIME ON THEIR HANDS

Cellar clubs — continued
positive values and future prospects,

134-35

standards of conduct, 132-34
Chambers of commerce, 109, 181
Chase, Stuart, 37
Chicago, 111., 47, 88, 90, 145
Children's Bureau. See U. S. Children's

Bureau

Christian Endeavor Society, 14, 138
Church organizations for youth, 106, 107,

137-40

Cities, growth of, 58-61
Civilian Conservation Corps, 48, 195, 196,
200, 210, 214, 216-21, 222, 229, 233,
255
need for emphasis on recreation as a

technique of education, 220, 255
need for greater emphasis on nonathletic

activities in, 217
need for individualized attention to

recreation needs in, 218-20, 255
need for youth participation in recrea-
tion plans of, 220
physical recreation in, 217
recreation leadership for boys in, 218-19
social recreation in, 218
work projects of recreational value in, 221
Civitan clubs, 143
Cleveland, Ohio, 130
Cokesbury College, 45
College and university:
courses on preparation of radio pro-
grams, 35

educational broadcasting, 36-37
training of professional recreation leaders,

170-71, 251

Columbus, Ind., 179-82
Columbus Foundation for Youth, 179-80,

182

Columbus Youth Camp, 181
Commercial recreation:

counteraction of undesirable effects of,

52,53

disproportionate role of, 53, 159, 249
expenditures for, 53-54
facilities on public lands, 210-11, 254
growth of, 50-51, 56-58
guidance in use of, 29, 31-32, 35-36, 43,

53, 80, 252

inadequacies of, 51-52, 57-58
increasing the contribution of, 52
overexposure to in cities, 59

training of leaders for, 171, 251

See also Movies; Radio; Reading
Commission on Human Relations, 29
Committee on Youth Problems, U. S.
Office of Education. See U. S. Office
of Education
Community:

acceptance of primary responsibility for
providing adequate leisure-time pro-
gram for youth, 249-50

administration of public recreation in
the, 101-5, 250, 252

definition of, 157

financial support recommended for pub-
lic recreation, 99, 251

growth of public recreation programs in,
46-48, 93-94

inadequacies of existing public recreation
programs in, 6, 20, 99-100, 251

need for additional public recreation
programs in, 18-19, 97-99

place of private agencies in, 108-11, 251

planning for recreation needs of youth,
156-83, 249-52

privately supported agencies concerned
with recreation in, 106-55

publicly supported agencies concerned
with recreation in, 66-105

services rendered by public recreation
authorities in, 93-97

strengthening and expanding provisions
for recreation in, 250-51

unification of recreation program through
a Public Education Authority, 104-5,
165, 252

youth programs that work, 176-82

See also Community planning; Com-
munity youth programs; Federal;
Federal recreation agencies; Leader-
ship; Libraries; Motion pictures; Pri-
vate recreation agencies in the com-
munity; Public recreation; Schools;
State; State recreation agencies; Youth
Community centers, 3, 4, 11, 12, 14, 15,
19, 46, 71, 85, 95, 96, 120, 124, 139,
140, 146,. 222-23, 225,226
Community chests, 106, 129, 130, 146, 166,

236
Community planning:

adaptation of recreation program to local
conditions, 163-65, 176

community recognition of need for
recreation program, 156-58, 175

INDEX

259

Community planning — continued
construction of a recreation program,

163-67, 249-52
coordination of recreation agencies,

165-67, 176
finding facts about youth recreation

needs, 158-63, 249-50
identification of unused recreation re-
sources, 161-63, 250
leadership in recreation planning and

administration, 167-72, 175, 251
preservation of autonomy of existing
recreation agencies as far as possible,
167, 250
surveying of existing facilities, 160-61,

250
surveying of youth leisure needs, 158-60,

249-50

youth participation in recreation plan-
ning, 172-75, 250

Community youth programs, 176-82
in Columbus, Ind., 179-82
in Dowagiac, Mich., 177
in Lisbon, Ohio, 177-79
See also Community; Youth
Conferences of social work, 188, 191, 253
Consumer units, 16

Councils of social agencies, 130, 145, 166
Coordinating councils, 166
Coordinating Councils, Inc., 166
Corecreation, 64, 159
Crawfordsville, Ind., 97
Creative recreation. See Recreation, cre-
ative

Cultural recreation. See Recreation, cul-
tural

Dallas, Tex., 5, 9, 40, 90, 158

Dayton, Ohio, 118

Defense. See National defense

Delinquency, reduction of, xx-xxi, 119,
122, 142, 143, 146-47, 166, 179, 249

Demonstration recreation areas, 82, 203-4,
213-14, 256

Department of Rural Education, National
Education Association, 174

Departments, federal. See U. S. Depart-
ment of

Dependency, prolongation of economic,
61-63

Detroit, Mich., 16, 90, 141

Dewey, John, 37

District of Columbia, 203

Division of Education, Work Projects
Administration. See Work Projects
Administration

Division of Library Service, U. S. Office of
Education. See U. S. Office of Edu-
cation.

Dowagaic, Mich., 177

East Side Y.M.C.A., 162

Education:

federal grants-in-aid for, 243, 255-56
making recreation a normal function of,

67-71, 220, 252

state departments of, 188-90, 253
state grants-in-aid for, 69, 185, 189-90,

253
See also Schools

Educational adviser, 218, 219, 220

Educational motion pictures, 29, 30

Educational Policies Commission, 104

Educational radio programs, 36-38, 241-42

Eliot, Charles W., 81

Elks, 141, 181

Escape, fiction as an, 40-41

Extension Service, U. S. Department of
Agriculture. See U. S. Department
of Agriculture

Extraclassroom activities, 68-69, 71, 72-73,
77-79, 80, 189, 252

Family:

expenditures for leisure, 16-17
interest of schools in development of

recreation for, 85
recreation in the, 11-13, 85, 252
Farm Youth Talks About War, 152
Farmers' Educational and Cooperative

Union of America, 152
Farmers' Union Juniors, 152
Farrand, Livingston, 37
Federal:

continuation of recreation services con-
ducted as emergency measures, 200-
201, 254
cooperation in promotion of recreation

activities, 242-16, 255-56
demonstration recreation areas, 82, 203-

204,213-14,256
recreation functions, 202-46
recreation programs, 48-49, 202-5, 216-

34, 253-54, 255-56

See also Civilian Conservation Corps;
Federal grants-in-aid; Federal plan-
ning; Federal recreation agencies;

260

TIME ON THEIR HANDS

Federal : — continued

National Youth Administration; Pub-
lic lands, federal; Public recreation;
U. S. Forest Service; U. S. Park
Service; Work Projects Adminis-
tration; Youth
Federal Art Project, 228-29
Federal Communications Commission, 37,

241-42

Federal grants-in-aid:
for education, 243, 255-56
for libraries, 89, 243, 256
for public health, 243-44, 256
for state parks, 244, 256
Federal Music Project, 229
Federal planning:
agencies that are or might be active in

recreation planning, 236-42
coordination of federal recreation ac-
tivities, 234-35, 254-55
over-all planning for nation as whole,

235-36, 254-55

Federal recreation agencies, 202-46
Civilian Conservation Corps, 216-21
Department of Agriculture, Extension

Service, 147-48, 234, 245
Fish and Wildlife Service, 205, 233
Forest Service, 202-16, 239, 245
National Park Service, 202-16, 238-39,

245

National Youth Administration, 221-23
Soil Conservation Service, 205
Tennessee Valley Authority, 205, 240
Work Projects Administration, 223-33
Federal Surplus Commodities Corpora-
tion, 83

Federal Theatre Project, 229-30
Federal Writers' Project, 230-31
Federation of East Side Clubs, 133, 136
Fiction read by youth, 40-41
Fish and Wildlife Service, U. S. Depart-
ment of Interior. See U. S. Depart-
ment of Interior
Florida, 83

Forest Service. See U. S. Forest Service
4-H clubs, 14, 83, 147, 148^9, 150, 153
Fraternal orders, youth groups in, 140-41
Frequency modulation broadcasting, 36-37
Future Farmers of America, 147, 149

General Federation of Women's Clubs, 144
Girl Reserves, 120, 126
Girl Scouts, 14, 107, 113-14, 120, 125, 126,
128, 144, 145, 153, 155

Girls:
lack of recreational advantages for, 13,

21-22
provision for in community recreation

program, 250
Governors, 186-87
Grand Forks, 188
Grange, 14, 151, 161, 163
Grants-in-aid, 69, 89, 185, 189-90, 193, 243-

253, 255-56
See also Federal grants-in-aid; State

grants-in-aid

Graphic Sketch Club, 124
Greenwich House, 124
Guidance in recreation, 4, 25-44, 80, 252
Guide to Community Coordination, 166

Hard, William, 37

Hastings-on-Hudson, N. Y., 97

Hendry, Charles E., 129, 130

Henry Street Settlement, 135

High schools. See Schools

Hi-Y clubs, 116

Hobbies, 3, 9, 12, 14, 22, 23, 40, 42, 43,
73,80,85,91,95-96, 117, 118, 138, 144,
146, 162, 177, 198, 210, 217, 226

Home, recreation in the, 11-13, 85, 252

Housing projects, 18-19

Houston, Tex., 41

How to Make a Community Touth Survey ,
159

Hubbard, Elbert, 24

Hudson Guild, 124

Hull House, 124

Hutchins, Robert M., 37

Illinois, 151

Indiana, 151

Interdepartmental Committee to Coor-
dinate Health and Welfare Activities,
238

Interior, Department of. See U. S. De-
partment of

International Workers' Order, 141

Iowa, 41, 151

Jewish faith, 139

Jewish Welfare Board, 139

Junior chambers of commerce, 143, 147,

166, 179

Junior coordinating councils, 173
Junior Farm Bureaus, 150
Junior League, 30, 144, 166
Junior Programs, Inc., 30

INDEX

261

Kentucky, 89

Kiwanls clubs, 143, 147, 181

Labor unions, youth groups in, 141

Lay leadership, 167, 168, 176, 251

Leadership:

development of among youth, 78-79
federal public lands and need for, 209-10
lay, 167, 168, 176, 251
municipal recreation and need for, 100
professional, 117, 168-71, 176, 251
state recreation areas and need for, 197-

volunteer, 171-72, 176, 250, 251
WPA and supplying of, 198, 224-28

Legislatures, 186-87

Leisure:

activities inadequate for youth, 5-13
expenditures for, 16-17
the need to do something in, 2-4
surveying youth's need of, 158-60
and technological advance, 55-56
See also Motion pictures; Radio; Read-
ing; Recreation; Youth

Leisure for Living, 176

Leisure — A National Issue: Planning for
the Leisure of a Democratic People , 50

Libraries:

and administration of public recreation

program, 101, 102
extent used by youth, 87-88
federal grants-in-aid for, 89, 243, 256
financial cost of adequate service in, 91-

92
increasing the number and availability

of, 88-89, 92, 251, 256
in rural areas, 89, 256
shortcomings in serving youth, 88-90
standards of support recommended for,

91,251

state extension services, 193-94, 253
state grants-in-aid for, 193, 194, 253
ways of attracting youth, 90-92, 251
WPA construction of, 224
WPA services in, 230

Eduard C. Lindeman, 50

Lions clubs, 143, 147

Lisbon, Ohio, 177-79

Lisbon Youth Association, 177

Local community. See Community; Com-
munity planning

Los Angeles, Calif., 47

Low-income families:
amount spent for leisure, 16-17

housing projects for, 18-19
ineffectiveness of adult-led, independent

community organizations in reaching

youth in, 127-28, 251
lack of recreational advantages for youth

in, 13, 15-19
provision for in community recreation

program, 250, 251

use of federal recreation areas, 208-9, 254
Luncheon clubs, 109, 143
Lynds, 88

Magazines, type read by youth, 41-42

Mann, Thomas, 37

Marshall, Robert, 239

Maryland, 3, 4, 10, 22, 26, 90, 154, 158

Masons, 141

Maxwell, William, 71

Methodist Discipline, 45

Michigan, 150, 151

Middletown, 88

Millikan, Robert A., 37

Milwaukee, Wis., 77

Minneapolis, Minn., 47

Minnesota, 13

Mormon Church, 140

Motion Picture Project, 29

Motion Picture Research Council, 26

Motion pictures:

attendance at, 25

community planning with regard to,
27-32

community support of good films, 28-29

development of critical attitude con-
cerning, 31-32

dissatisfaction of youth with, 1-2, 4

educational, 29, 30

effects on youth of, 10, 26-27, 57

increasing the opportunities for seeing
noncommercial films, 29

schools and guidance in use of, 29, 31-32,
80, 252

substitutes for, 30-31
Morion picture appreciation, 31-32, 35
Muncie, Ind., 40, 41, 78, 156, 158
Municipal parks, 99-100, 196, 207, 221, 254
Municipal recreation. See Community
Municipal recreation authority, 101-2

National Conference on the College Train-
ing of Recreation Workers, 235-36
National Conference on State Parks, 236
Nai tonal defense and recreation, xxi, 64, 249
National Education Association, 104, 174

262

TIME ON THEIR HANDS

National Exchange Clubs, 143, 147

National Federation of Business and Pro-
fessional Women's Clubs, 144

National forests, 196, 204, 205, 207, 208,
209, 210, 212, 213, 214, 215, 221, 254

National Grange. See Grange.

National Park Service. See U. S. National
Park Service

National parks, 63, 158, 194, 196, 202-3,
204, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213,
214, 215, 221, 244, 254

National planning. See Federal planning

National Recreation Association, 47, 49,
73, 76, 94, 97, 99, 100, 109, 168, 245,
251

National Recreation and Education Coun-
cil, 235

National Resources Committee. See Na-
tional Resources Planning Board

National Resources Planning Board, 16-17,
99, 237, 238

National Survey of Secondary Education,
71, 73, 75, 78

National Youth Administration, 48, 200,

218, 221-23, 226, 233
construction of community centers, 222-

recreation work of, 221-23
student-aid program, 223
work program for out-of-school youth,
222-23

Negro youth:

lack of recreational advantages for, 10,

13, 19-21
provision for in community recreation

program, 250
rural organizations for, 149

New Farmers of America, 149

New Jersey, 43

New York City, 3, 46, 47, 57, 71, 73, 74,
82, 88, 118, 130, 132, 133, 135, 136

New York State, 9, 13, 32, 41, 73, 191, 195

New York Times, 12

Newark, N. J., 77

North Dakota, 187

Objectives for recreation planning, 247-48
Office of Education. See U. S. Office of

Education

Oglebay Park, 172, 198
Ohio, 41, 151

Older adolescents. See Adolescents, older
Older youth. See Youth, older
Optimist clubs, 143, 147

Order of DeMolay, 141
Out-of-school youth:

club membership of, 10-11

lack of opportunities for recreation, 6-7,

22, 155, 159

NYA program and, 222-23
school program for, 67, 78, 84^85, 162,

164, 190, 252, 256
unemployment among, 62-63
Palisades Interstate Park, 198
Parent-teacher associations, 36, 145
Pence, Owen E., 115, 130
Pennsylvania, 88
Philadelphia, 100
Physical recreation. See Recreation,

physical
Planning:

community, 156-83, 249-52
federal, 234^42, 254-55
major objectives for, 247-48
recommendations for, 248-56
state, 185-86, 187-88
See also Community planning; Federal

planning; State planning
Playground Association of America, 94
Playgrounds, recommendations regarding,

100, 251

Police work with youth, 145-47
Portland, Ore., 118

President's Advisory Committee on Educa-
tion, 243
President's Research Committee on Social

Trends, 53

Private recreation agencies in the com-
munity:

activitities of, 49-50
adult organizations interested in youth,

142-47
adult-led, independent organizations for

youth, 111-31

advantages of, 110, 153, 251
cellar clubs, 131-37
complexity of private-agency structure,

107, 153-54, 251

cost of recreation provided by, 54
duplication and overlapping of effort in,

153

growth of, 155
inadequacy in meeting recreation needs

of all youth, 154-55,251
place in the community, 108-11, 251
rural organizations with youth member-
ship, 147-52

INDEX

263

Private recreation agencies in the commu-
nity— continued

youth groups connected with adult or-
ganizations, 137-41

youth-led leisure organizations, 131-37
See also Adult community organizations
interested in youth; Adult-led, inde-
pendent organizations for youth; Cel-
lar clubs; Rural organizations with
youth membership; Youth groups
connected with adult organizations
Privately supported community agencies.
See Private recreation agencies in the
community
Professional leadership, 167, 168-71, 176,

251

Professional and Service Division, Work
Projects Administration. See Work
Projects Administration
Professional training, need for promoting,

169-71

Progressive Education Association, 29
Protestant churches, 137-38
Public Education Authority, 104-5, 165,

252
Public health, federal grants-in-aid for,

243^4, 256
Public Health Service. See U. S. Public

Health Service
Public lands, federal:

commercial recreation on, 210-11, 254
conservation of recreation values of,

205-6, 253-54

cooperation of federal park and forest
services with other recreation authori-
ties, 212-14, 254

geographical distribution of, 207-8, 254
low-cost recreational use of, 208-9, 254
needed improvements in federal land-
use policy, 205-6, 253-54
provision of adequate program for youth

on 214-16, 254
recreation facilities and leadership, 209-

12, 254

recreational use of, 48-49, 202-16
Public libraries. See Libraries
Public recreation:
control of, 167-69, 176, 251
cost of, 54

growth of, 46-49, 93-94
See also Community; Community plan-
ning; Federal; Federal recreation
agencies; Leadership; Libraries;

Schools; State; State recreation

agencies

Public schools. See Schools
Publicly supported community agencies.

See Community; Libraries; Schools

Quota clubs, 144

Radio:

adequate publicity for educational pro-
grams, 38-40

commercial sponsorship of, 34-35

educational programs, 36-38, 240, 241-42

federal regulation of, 241-42

inadequacies of, 4, 10, 33-35, 57

listening groups, 39

potentialities of, 32-33

schools and guidance in use of, 35-36,

80, 252
Reading:

as an escape, 40-41

attitude of youth toward, 2, 4, 42, 43

schools and guidance in use of, 25, 43, 80,
252

tastes of youth in, 40-42

See also Fiction; Libraries; Magazines
Recommendations for recreation planning,

248-56
Recreation:

aims of, 68

amount spent by families on, 16-17 46,

creative, xvii-xix, 8-10, 57-58, 80, 162,
252

creative function of, xv-xvii

cultural, xviii-xix, 4, 25-44, 162, 252

definition of, xv

high cost of, 15-16

individual and social benefits of, xix-
xxi, 249

new meaning of, xv-xxi

objectives and recommendations for,
247-56

physical, 5-8, 21, 71-73, 117, 120, 217,
224, 252

re-creative function of, xv-xvi

social, 3, 5, 10-11, 14, 21-22, 23, 80, 84,
160, 162, 252

surveys, 158-63, 185, 249-50

See also Commercial recreation; Com-
munity; Education; Federal; Federal
recreation agencies; Libraries; Motion
pictures; Planning; Private recreation

264

TIME ON THEIR HANDS

Recreation — continued

agencies; Public recreation; Radio;
Reading; Schools; State; Youth
Recreation demonstration areas, 82, 203-4,

21^14, 256

Recreation Section, Work Projects Ad-
ministration. See Work Projects Ad-
ministration
Red Shield Clubs, 125
Regents' Inquiry, 9, 32, 41
Relaxation theory of recreation, xv-xvi
Rochester, N. Y., 73
Roman Catholic Church, 138-39
Rooms of Their Own, 130, 136
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 37
Rotary clubs, 143, 147, 181
Rural youth:
American Country Life Association and,

149-50
American Farm Bureau Federation and,

150-51

clubs for, 148-49
effect of urban growth on, 59-61
Farmers' Educational and Cooperative

Union of America and, 152
4-H clubs, 148-49

Future Farmers of America and, 149
Grange and, 151

groups connected with adult rural or-
ganizations, 149-52

ineffectiveness of adult-led, independent
community agencies in reaching, 125-
26
lack of recreational advantages for, 7,

13-15
organizations with youth membership,

111, 147-52

provision for in community recreation
program, 15, 250

St. Louis, Mo., 40, 41, 87, 88, 119, 135, 162.
St. Louis County, Minn., 77
Salvation Army, 124-25, 128
Scenic areas, 206
Schools:

acceptance of recreation as normal func-
tion of, 67-71, 252
and administration of public recreation

program, 101-5, 164-65
availability for community use, 71, 73-

77, 86, 252

common recreation services of, 71-74
extracurricular activities in, 68-69, 71,
72-73, 77-79, 252

guidance in use of commercial recreation,

29, 31-32, 35-36, 43, 53, 80, 252
less frequent recreation services of, 74-77
need for breaking down barrier between
classroom and extraclassroom activi-
ties, 77-79, 252
need for well-rounded recreation program

in, 79-81, 252
obstacles to acceptance of recreation as

normal function of, 67-71
organization of recreation program for
entire community, 47-48, 76-77, 83-
86, 102-4, 159, 186-87, 189, 252, 253
physical recreation in, 6, 71-73
proper designing of, 86
and summer camp programs, 81-83, 199-

200, 252

training in leisure skills that will carry

over into adult life, 67, 72, 81, 159, 252

unification of public recreation program

under, 102-5, 252
use of playgrounds in, 74-76, 81, 83, 95,

252

vacation programs of, 81-83, 252
See also Community; Education; Fam-
ily; Motion pictures; Out-of-school
youth; Public recreation; Radio; Read-
ing; State; State recreation agencies
Scouting organizations, 6, 49, 111-14, 126,

127, 128, 130

Settlements, 49, 123-24, 128, 136, 225
Silcox, F. A., 239
Social recreation. See Recreation
Social trends, 55-64

Society for the Study of Group Work, 131
Sodality of Our Lady, 139
Soil Conservation Service. See U. S. Soil

Conservation Service
Sons of the American Legion, 141, 145
Soroptimist clubs, 144
Speaking Up for the Character-Building

Agencies, 129
Standards of living, 64
State:

advisory and promotion function of, 184-

85, 250

broad recreation services of, 185
enabling legislation to permit school use
of education funds for public recrea-
tion, 48, 186-87, 253
equalization of recreational opportunity

for youth, 185, 253

federal cooperation with in promotion of
recreation, 242-46, 255-56

INDEX

265

State — continued
planning, 185-86
recreation functions of, 184-86
See also Federal; State grants-in-aid;
State recreation agencies; State recrea-
tion areas

State forests, 193, 194-201
State grants-in-aid:
for education, 69, 185, 189-90, 253
for libraries, 193, 253
for recreation, 185

State parks, 48, 63, 158, 193, 194-201, 203,
204, 207, 209, 221, 238, 244, 254, 256
State recreation agencies:

conferences of social work, 188, 191, 253
departments of education, 188-90, 191,

225, 253

governors and legislatures, 186-87, 252
library extension services, 193-94, 253
parks and forests, 194-201, 254
planning boards, 48, 187-88, 192, 245, 252
youth commissions, 190-93, 253
See also State recreation areas
State recreation areas:
need for additional, 196-97
need for leadership and facilities in, 197-

need for long-term operating arrange-
ments in, 200-201
and public schools, 199-200
rapid growth of, 195-96
Stryker's Lane Community Center, 135
Summer camps and the schools, 81-83,

199-200, 252
Surveys:
of existing recreation facilities, 160-61,

250

of leisure needs of youth, 158-60, 249-50
state demonstration, 185, 249-50
of unused recreation resources, 161-63,

250
Svendsen, Margaret, 130

Teachers and extracurricular activities, 78-
79

Technical Committee on Recreation, In-
terdepartmental Committee to Co-
ordinate Health and Welfare Ac-
tivities, 238, 255

Technological advance, 55-56

Tennessee Valley Authority, 92, 102, 205,
211, 233, 240, 254

Transportation, improved, 63

Unemployment, mitigation of effects of,

xxi, 249

U. S. Children's Bureau, 109
U. S. Commissioner of Education, 81
U. S. Department of Agriculture, 147-48,

204, 205, 234, 245
Extension Service, 147-18, 234, 245
Soil Conservation Service, 205
See also U. S. Forest Service
U. S. Department of Interior, 203, 205, 233,

245

Bureau of Reclamation, 203
Fish and Wildlife Service, 205, 233
See also U. S. National Park Service
U. S. Forest Service, 202, 204, 205, 260,

208, 212, 213, 215, 239, 245, 254
U. S. Housing Authority, 18
U. S. National Park Service, 49, 82, 196,
198, 202, 203, 204, 208, 209, 211, 213,
215, 221, 237, 238-39, 245, 246, 255,
256
U. S. Office of Education, 36, 148, 149, 176,

220, 240-41, 245, 256
Committee on Youth Problems, 176, 240
Division of Library Service, 240-41
Vocational Education Division, 149
U. S. Public Health Service, 241, 245, 256

Vocational Education Division, U. S. Office
of Education. See U. S. Office of
Education

Volunteer workers, 171-72, 176, 250, 251

Welfare Council of New York, 3

Wheeling, West Va., 172, 198

White House Conference on Child Health

and Protection, 122
Wilbur, Ray Lyman, 37
Wild areas, 206
Wilderness areas, 206, 254
Wisconsin, 2, 193
Woll, Matthew, 37
Women, recreation and, 63-64
Women's clubs, 36, 107, 144, 147
Work Projects Administration, 48, 75, 86,
89, 94, 98, 136, 161, 177, 178, 179, 181,
198, 200, 223-33, 255
adult education activities of, 231-32
construction of recreation facilities by,

223-24

Division of Education, 231-32
effects on community of recreation proj-
ects in, 227

266

TIME ON THEIR HANDS

Work Projects Administration — continued

Federal Art Project, 228-29

Federal Music Project, 229

Federal Theatre Project, 229-30

Federal Writers' Project, 230-31

local and state sponsorship for recreation
work of, 225

Professional and Service Division, 228-29

Recreation Section, 224-28

supplying recreation leadership for local
communities, 224-26

work in libraries, 230

Youth Service Division, 136
Works Progress Administration. See Work

Projects Administration
World's Classics, 88

Yellowstone National Park, 202, 203
Young Men's Christian Association, 6,
49, 83, 107, 109, 115-19, 121, 126, 129,
143, 155, 178

The T. M. C. A. and Social Need, 130
Young Men's Hebrew Associations, 139
Young Men's Mutual Improvement Asso-
ciation, 140

Young People's Legion, 125
Young Women's Christian Association, 6,
21,49, 115, 119-21, 126, 128, 129, 130,
218

Young Women's Hebrew Associations, 139
Young Women's Mutual Improvement As-
sociation, 140
Youth:

community planning for recreation needs

of, 156-83, 249-50
girls, 13, 21-22, 250
groups particularly lacking recreational

advantages, 4, 13-24, 80, 250
hostels, 2 15

in low-income families, 13, 15-19, 127-

28, 208-9, 250, 251, 254
Negro, 10, 13, 19-21, 149, 250
older, 13, 22-24, 59, 94, 126-27, 250
out-of-school, 6-7, 10-11, 22, 62H33, 67,
78, 84^85, 159, 162, 164, 190, 222-23,
240, 252, 256
participation in recreation planning, 172-

75, 250
prolongation of economic dependency of,

61-63
rural, 3, 7, 13-15, 59-60, 125-26, 147-52,

250

See also Adult community organizations
interested in youth; Adult-led, inde-
pendent community organizations for
youth; Cellar clubs; Community;
Community youth programs; Federal;
Federal recreation agencies; Leisure;
Libraries; Motion pictures; Plan-
ning; Private recreation agencies in
the community; Public recreation;
Radio; Reading; Recreation; Schools;
State; State recreation agencies; Youth
groups connected with adult organiza-
tions; Youth surveys
Youth groups connected with adult or-

ganizations:

church organizations for youth, 137-40
fraternal order youth groups, 140-41
labor union youth groups, 141
Youth-led leisure organizations. See Cel-
lar clubs

Youth Service Division, Work Projects
Administration. See Work Projects
Administration
Youth surveys, 158-63, 185, 249-50

Zonta clubs, 144

Photographs for Chapter II, and photographs facing

page 159 and page 174 in Chapter VI by Farm Security

Administration.

Photograph facing page 158 by National Youth Administration,
Photograph facing page 175 by Underwood and Underwood.

THE AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION
GEORGE F. ZOOK, President

The American Council on Education is a council of national
educational associations; organizations having related interests;
approved universities and colleges, technological schools, and
private secondary schools; state departments of education; and
city school systems. It is a center of cooperation and coordina-
tion whose influence has been apparent in the shaping of American
educational policies as well as in the formulation of American
educational practices during the past twenty years. Many
leaders in American education and public life serve on the com-
missions and committees through which the Council operates.

Established by the Council in 1935, the American Youth Com-
mission consists of the persons whose names appear on a front
page of this publication. It operates through a staff under the
supervision and control of a director responsible to the Com-
mission.

AMERICAN COUNCIL
ON EDUCATION

puhlisherofthiv i KICAN

'i . \ I i

s, approved
uni<. .ind

othi 1 i ;: M it ut 1- • : v st.ltc iicp.irtmCOtf

Of eiliu.itior I IK

I! ( ,\ 1
crates through a number of committees and

ers in Ann .mil put

N YOUTH Coi ION,

unclc-r uhost- il. 1 1MI ( ).\ I HI IK

HANDS * . was est J by

tlu ( < )! N( II in 1

prel .!' the proh!

hich

face the so with the protec-

iie millions of youth
whom the 'ing.

744 Jackson Place
Washington, D. C.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS OF T
AMERICAN YOUTH COMMISSIC

YOUTH, FAMILY, AND
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By JOSEPH K. FOLSOM

A timely report on the development and con-
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Explores basic problems and policies lolved
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