The Roadtown community, because of the spirit of coöperation and
mutuality which will pervade all phases of life, will extend into
mature years the institutional patriotism which forms such a large part
of modern school and college life. Under such conditions we may expect
to see developed a grand series of meets in all manner of competitive
arts and sports. The winners of the local meets or exhibitions will
again compete at the grand athletic and art centers.
The Roadtown will bring the opportunity to indulge in the sports and
recreations much nearer the life of the whole people than in the
present civilization.
There is no reason why every boy, big and little, should not attend the
ball games and athletic meets on the home field as well as the grand
finale in which his team participates.
Transportation will cost him nothing, the ball ground will be owned by
the community and the hours of Roadtown labor will be set by the will
of the worker and not by the greed of the capitalist’s purse.
_Education for Old as Well as Young._
Roadtown education will apply to all ages of both sexes. The whole
living scheme of Roadtown will be a vast school. The modern school,
a place where we send our children to be herded in immense droves
under the care of girls who use the teaching profession as a makeshift
until an opportunity of marriage arrives, is far from perfection as a
means of child development. The disciplinarian system of education
which crushes out individuality and molds all children in the
industrial-political virtue of being bossed, is likely to vanish as a
population is freed from economic slavery.
Roadtown will provide instruction for those who wish to learn and
citizenship prizes and privileges will go to the educated, and
compulsory education and graded schools in time will have no excuse
for existence. These are striking statements and I am simply calling
attention to the change that I believe will come about naturally and
unresisted.
The Roadtown will have to pay county taxes, but on account of its 1,000
population to the mile will influence the location of these schools in
Roadtown. At first the use of the present public school methods must
necessarily be employed; gradually as the Roadtown gains influence and
better teachers are secured the educational system can be adapted more
closely to Roadtown life.
In the first place, the Roadtown home will be an enlightened one. The
Roadtown library will be a book store house, not a reading-room. If
the citizen wants a book or magazine he telephones the library and in
a few minutes the book is delivered to him by mechanical carrier. The
kind of free library we have to-day requires ten cents car fare and
much time to get a book.
There will be a library of telegraphone records, which do not have to
be duplicated for every household, but one set at a central office will
suffice, where one girl can run a complicated programme of music and
lectures for many homes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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