keeps bedroom windows tightly closed." Parents are giving more attention to the eye and nasal affections of children; but with respect to the care of teeth, they are very backward." Many girls from sixteen to nineteen years of age have some of their front teeth extracted, simply because it is thought too expensive to have them filled with gold. "Women but little over thirty years of age may frequently be seen with practically all of their teeth out." The local physician is doing what he can to better this condition by advocating better care of the teeth, and by refusing to extract teeth which a person can afford to save by filling. The dentist reports that most of his work is "extracting and plate work." Young ladies, however, quite commonly use tooth brushes, and they usually try to have a tooth filled whenever such treatment will save it.

People generally care for their sick in their own homes and only in case of surgical operations do they willingly submit to entering a hospital. The people generally appreciate the services of the hospital, however, and there seemed to be a number of farmers, as well as merchants, who were willing to subscribe some capital towards the erection and equipment of a good-sized modern hospital. The building now being used for that purpose by the local doctor as his own private institution, is "entirely too small to accommodate the many cases that would be treated here if a good modern structure were equipped."

CHAPTER VIII

RECREATION AND SOCIAL LIFE

Students of rural social conditions are divided in their opinions concerning the fundamental causes of rural discontent. Some maintain that if economic conditions are properly ordered, social contentment will follow as a result. Others contend that opportunities for recreational and social activities are the all-important considerations in the country-life problem. In the presentation of the inventory of these activities in the Braham community, the writer has included such data as will reflect the viewpoint and opinions of both old and young, who actually live in the country.

The following figures present the chief forms of recreation in the home circle: reading is a common pastime in eighty-eight per cent of the country homes, and in ninety-four per cent of the village homes. Cards are played, usually only on winter evenings in twenty-nine per cent of both village and country homes. Women sew or do fancy work for recreation in seventy-six per cent of the village homes and in fifty-two per cent of the country homes. Music is a common recreation in fifty-one per cent of the country homes and in only forty-three per cent of the village homes.

Perhaps one of the chief reasons for the precedence of the country over the village in this respect is the fact that girls in the village do not care to play unless they have a piano. Only ten per cent of the country homes have pianos, whereas thirty-two per cent of the village homes have them. In the country, however, twenty-eight per cent have organs, whereas in the village. only seven per cent have. Also twenty-two per cent of the country homes have violins, as compared with eighteen per cent of the village. Phonographs are in eighteen per cent of the country homes, and in only five per cent of the village homes. In the number of musicales or orchestral concerts attended by some member of the family, the village naturally leads the country, be

cause of the comparative ease with which they may attend. In the country only twenty-nine per cent of the families were represented in these audiences; as against sixty-six per cent of the village homes. In the village, buggy or automobile drives in the evenings constitute a common form of recreation for thirty-seven per cent of the families; and “down town gatherings" are common experiences for men and the older boys, in twenty-eight per cent of the homes.

Among the recreations away from home one of the most popular is dancing. In thirty-three per cent of the village homes and in twenty-nine per cent of the country homes somebody attends dances. In only fifteen per cent of the homes do parents willingly allow girls to attend country "bowery or barn dances." At these usually "the tougher set gather." There is indubitable evidence that at some of these dances "moral conditions are as bad or worse than in the lowest public-dance-hall gatherings of the cities." It was maintained by a person who claims to know that "practically all illicit sexual relations as well as the increasing number of cases of venereal infection may be traced back to the public dances." The public records at the country court house, of course, give only a faint suggestion of the extent and gravity of this moral problem, for only a few of these cases get into the legal records. Although it is a sad commentary to make, a common opinion of both young and old men is that "as a class, the girls who have been working in the cities for a while, are the chief cause for this constantly growing evil." Information from medical sources seemed to corroborate this charge.

In justice to this district as a whole it must be said that the above-mentioned conditions are more or less limited to certain neighborhoods and both boys and girls know the character of those who usually attend a dance in any particular place. It is hard to state whether or not these demoralizing influences are spreading, but they are menacing.

As we have seen in the preceding chapter, baseball is played almost solely on Sundays. Farmers feel that they can not spare any of the week days for sport, and so the boys, who like the game, usually manage to gather each Sunday afternoon. These games were not held responsible for any gross immoral tendency, although it is charged that in some cases the language used is hardly in accord with the liturgies of the church services in the

morning, which are attended more or less regularly by the boy players and the girl spectators as well as by their parents.

Fifty-two per cent of the farmers go fishing an average number of 6.3 times a year. These fishing trips are usually on rainy days when it is impossible to do much regular farm work. Merchants who have cottages at Rush Lake, fish almost every morning before they drive in for the day's work. Only four families in the village owned cottages at the lake, but these families frequently invited others to spend some time with them there. Thirteen families were thus entertained an average number of 3.3 times a year. The average number of days vacation for wives in the village was fifteen, for the husbands, twelve days.

The average farmer's family usually views a trip to town with about as much enthusiasm as do villagers a trip into the country. The average number of times per year that farmers take their families to town is fifty-four. This does not mean that the whole family goes there together, but that "some of the women folks and children go along to town to get what is needed in the house, or some matter of dress."

Single buggies are used by seventy-one per cent, double-seated buggies by fifty-four per cent, and surreys by only 3.5 per cent of the country families. Only two per cent have automobiles. In the village, eighteen per cent have automobiles and twentyseven per cent have buggies, one half of which are single buggies.

SOCIAL LIFE

Social calls or visits are always of a most informal nature. Often a farmer or his wife will announce to some friend as they emerge from the church together that "to-day we'll come to your place unless you're going elsewhere yourself." The reason for this easy unconventional freedom is that country people generally associate only with those with whom they are most intimate friends. The least difference regarding any matter whatsoever serves to break all social connections between the families concerned. They may continue to attend the same church together, and even sip coffee together at a ladies' aid meeting, but any direct personal intercourse is scrupulously avoided. The older boys and girls often do not enter into the feuds of their parents; indeed love affairs of the young people are said to have frequently ended the foolish enmity of the parents. That social clannish

ness prevails in many localities is shown by the fact that only forty-one per cent of the families visited with any one besides their relatives. The average number of such visits during the year was seventeen per family. Practically all of the visiting in the country is done on Sunday afternoons. Only twelve per cent of the families reported that they did not visit or have company on Sundays. The average number of these visits during the year, was nineteen per family. In seventy-six per cent of the homes there had been "evening visits during the winter months." These visits are usually not on Sundays, and card playing is the common form of entertainment except in homes where there is religious taboo on this form of amusement. The average number of these evening visits per family was seventeen during the last

year.

The attendance at social affairs is shown by the following figures. The average number of times that members of church societies attend meetings during the year was fourteen. These meetings are held in rotation at the homes of the different members; both village and country women attend them in common. The social relationship thus maintained between country and the village is unquestionably a good to the community. The same may be said with regard to the lodge meetings; both men and women get better acquainted at these social affairs, which usually terminate with a dance. However, only twenty-one per cent of the homes of the country are represented in the membership of the various lodges of this community. Only forty per cent of those who do belong to lodges, attended any meeting during the last year. Those who attended meetings went an average of seven times during the year. In only twenty per cent of those same homes did the wives also attend lodge meetings, and they attended an average of eight times during the year. In the village forty-eight per cent of the homes are represented in lodge membership, and of these seventy per cent attended some lodge meetings during the last year. The average number of meetings attended by men was nine, whereas the women members attended an average of fourteen times during the year.

The following table made up from the reports of officers of the various social organizations in this community, presents in a condensed form many important facts concerning the status of each.