Page 50 - 1930 October - To Dragma

OCTOBER, 1930 40

I exclaimed, "You are going to make a fine man some day," and he
answered with very little modesty, but with a good deal of confidence,
"Yes'm."

All the time we've been up here in the handcraft department, the
playground apparatus has been in constant use. The swings have never
stopped, even though the rain tried to persuade the children on one
occasion to seek shelter. The seats of many young trousers were thinner
than when they first were tempted by those fascinating slides! Sug-
gestions of the sand pile still remain in many a tousled head. The
"Ocean Wave" was positive proof that there is nothing dizzyheaded
about your younger generation.

Oh! and the day nursery! Babies everywhere! Several mothers
deposited three each day, one, two and three years old. Can't you
imagine the relief to hear a talk without one baby in arms, one under-
foot, the third, goodness knows where, but some place where he shouldn't
be, no doubt! Some babies are asleep in the kiddie coops, some crawling
on the floor, some playing with toys, having such a good time that they
were oblivious of visitors. The first day a tot who undoubtedly never
before had had the combination of a doll, a bed and a chair, spent the
entire three hours rocking the doll, putting it to bed and smoothing
up the bed again. She was in a world of her own, and one she seemed
to love.

Do I seem about to omit the playground games—volleyball, basket-
ball, contests of all sorts? No country complexes existed here, no com-
munity lines drawn here; only democratic good fellowship reigned.

Almost immediately we began to feel results. The man at the feed
store, which also sells fertilizers, told of one farmer who said, "That
Folk School taught me I must raise my own foodstuff, and by golly,
I'm going to, but you won't need to worry, I ' l l spend more on fertilizer."
Another said, " I ' l l never read another book of fiction till I've read every
book on farming you have in this library. The Folk School showed me
I ought to know more about farming." The women asked for books on
how to raise children, books on turkeys, chickens, and so forth.

We wondered if these were straws that told which way the wind
was blowing, but now after nearly a year we feel that they were real
indications.

As a result of the Folk School we now have a supervisor of public
school music in our Parish. We have a school band of forty in one of
our largest high schools, and a smaller one in another high school.

e have a choral club of about forty which lately rendered quite credit-
s' ly an Easter cantata. All the playground apparatus that was put on

H a h ° ^ ° bought for our Rayville-
nStration a t e F o l k Sch o1 h a s b e e n

th School. We have a tennis club organized in one community,
. pothers of another are going to supervise the games and play of the
com n - * n k 't e r neighborhood during this summer. In still another
^ . ym u m t a dramatic club has been organized. There are several

a
evement clubs. They have bird houses, rustic benches, cypress

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