But most communities have not so much money to spend. The proposal of a play-ground or of a gymnasium is itself sufficient to condemn the doctrine of play. "We cannot afford it," settles the whole question. In the country expensive apparatus is not necessary; nor do the farmer's son and daughter require in recreation so much physical exercise. The gymnasium is an artificial and expensive machinery for inducing sweat, but the farmer needs no such artificial machine. The problem is purely one of play, not of exercise. For this purpose a careful study of the community, and of its tendencies and inclinations, is necessary. The great essential of recreation in the country is the opportunity to meet and to talk. Therefore the social life of gatherings in the church, and in the schoolhouse, no matter what their program, provided it be innocent, is valuable. Farmers will attend an auction, and go a long way to a horse-race, or gather at a fair, without any intention of buying or selling. The fundamental service rendered by the county fair and the auction is an opportunity afforded to converse. This exercise of the tongue is far more important in rural recreation than the exercise of the biceps. But country people cannot talk without an occasion which unlocks their tongues. They must not be directly solicited to converse or they are silent. If the occasion is provided and is made to be sufficiently plausible its greatest success will be in conversation. In almost every country community, therefore, there should be revival, in various forms, of the old "Bees," which had so much of a place in the former economy. If there is a widow who has no one to cut her wood, the men of the country church should assemble to do it. If there is a household whose bread winner and husbandman has died at the time of planting corn, let the men of the community gather at an appointed day and till the ground for the family, whose grief is greater at that moment than their need. Let the women of the community assemble at noon to provide an abundant repast. This was recently done by a countryside, at the instigation of the minister, and the effect of it was lasting in its values as well as intense in the joy of the day's work. It seems, in view of the need of recreation, that no other quality is so important in the country community as a lively leader. Resourceful, energetic and fertile men in the rural ministry can accomplish vastly more than conventional, orderly and proper men.