RECREATIONAL PHASES

By Lebert Howard Weir

This chapter is in no sense an attempt to discuss pathologic sex problems, but rather to show the necessity of providing facilities for normal, wholesome living for all the people during their leisure time.  This will solve many of the vexing sex problems.

At the outset, it is important to contrast the 27,000,000 hours a year, during which the school has charge of all the children, with the 135,000,000 hours at the children’s free disposal.  Yet we are inclined to charge the schools with the responsibilities of many failures in the physical and moral make-up of growing boys and girls.  The greater part of the education of the boys and girls is received outside of school through the various activities which fill up these 135,000,000 hours a year.  Society has, therefore, a great responsibility in directing the activities of the free time of young people.

People employed in the home, store, factory, shop, or office, in a year of 365 days spend about 2880 hours of this time in sleep.  Taking the average working-day as nine hours and the number of working-days in the year as 300, excluding Sundays and holidays, each person is employed in needful occupations 2700 hours during the year.  Out of the working-days, a total of 2100 hours are at each person’s disposal to use as he sees fit.  Of the remaining 60 days, 15 hours of each day are for free use,—­or a total of nearly 35 per cent of the entire year.  What are the children, young people, and adults doing with this time?

One answer is found in the records of the juvenile court, in rescue homes, in reformatories, in the police and criminal courts, in jails and penitentiaries, in hospitals for the treatment of venereal diseases, the insane and feeble-minded; another in the fallen women (and men, too), of whom so much has been said of late; another in the crowded saloons and busy restaurants in the heart of the city, with their music, bright lights, food, liquor, and overdressed, painted women with their consorts; still another in the billiard-rooms and the moving-picture theaters.

The extent to which people of all ages and races resort to the moving-picture show is known by few people.  In Portland, Oregon, a weekly attendance of 5000 is reported for a house with a seating capacity of 175; a weekly attendance of 3500 for a house seating 75; a weekly attendance of 25,000 for a house seating 500.  Another with a seating capacity of 567 reports a weekly attendance of 22,000.  The attendance of all the moving-picture houses in any city is a startling revelation of the use of the time of the people.