The Roadtown will offer opportunity for the revival of athletics upon a scale unheard of since the Olympian games of ancient Greece.
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.
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.
