Much is said about the necessity of redirecting rural institutions. The fairs are mentioned among the rest. I shall now indicate an experiment that might be tried with existing county and local fairs, not only as a suggestion for the fairs themselves, but as an illustration of how completely it is possible to reconstruct an institution that is long established in conventional methods.
I do not think a fair that carries only one or two weeks' interest during the year is justifiable; but of this aspect of the question I am not now speaking.
Nature of the fair.
The county fair has not changed its general basis of operation in recent years, and yet the basis of country life is changing rapidly. Many fairs are doing excellent work and are worth to the people all that they cost in effort and money; but the whole plan of the county fair is insufficient for the epoch that we are now entering. I should not discontinue the local fairs: I should make them over.
The fairs have been invaded by gambling, and numberless catch-penny and amusement and entertainment features, many of which are very questionable, until they often become great country medleys of acrobats and trained bears and high-divers and gew-gaws and balloon ascensions and side-shows and professional traveling exhibitors and advertising devices for all kinds of goods. The receipts are often measured by the number of cheap vaudeville and other "attractions" that the fair is able to secure. And as these things have increased, the local agricultural interest has tended to drop out. In some cases the state makes appropriations to local fairs; it is a question whether the state should be in the showman business.
I should like to see one experiment tried somewhere by some one, designed to project a bold enterprise on a new foundation. It would first be necessary to eliminate some of the present features, and then to add a constructive program.
Features to be eliminated.
I should eliminate all gate receipts; all horse trots; all concessions and all shows; all display of ordinary store merchandise; all sales of articles and commodities; and all money premiums.
Constructive program.
Having taken out the obstructions, unnecessaries, and excrescences, I should enter on a constructive program. I should then begin to make a fair. I assume that the fact of a person living in a community, places on him responsibilities for the welfare of that community. We should make the county fair one of the organized means of developing this welfare. Therefore, I should assume that every citizen in the county, by virtue of his citizenship, is a member of the county fair and owes to it an allegiance.
It would then devolve on the persons who are organizing and operating the work, representing the fair association, to develop in him his sense of allegiance and coÖperation. I should not discourage any citizen of the county from coÖperating in the enterprise, or allow him to escape his natural responsibilities, because he felt himself unable or unwilling to pay an admission fee, any more than I should eliminate any person because of religion, politics, color, or sex.
The financial support.
Of course, it requires money to run a fair. I should like to see the money raised by voluntary contribution in a new way. I should have it said to every resident in the county that he and his family may come uninterruptedly to the fair without money and without price; but I should also say to him that money is needed, and that all those persons who wish to give a certain sum would be provided with a badge or receipt. I suspect that more money could be more easily raised in this way than by means of gate receipts.
I should have this money collected in advance by means of an organized effort through all the schools and societies in the county, setting every one of them at work on a definite plan.
Of course, the state or other agency could contribute its quota of funds as theretofore.
An educational basis.
In other words, I should like to see, in this single experiment, a complete transfer from the commercial and "amusement" phase to the educational and recreation phase. I should like to see the county fair made the real meeting place for the country folk. I should make a special effort to get the children. The best part of the fair would be the folks, and not the machines or the cattle, although these also would be very important. I should make the fair one great picnic and gathering-place and field-day, and bring together the very best elements that are concerned in the development of country life.
I should work through every organized enterprise in the county, as commercial clubs, creameries, coÖperative associations, religious bodies, fraternal organizations, insurance societies, schools, and whatever other organized units already may exist.
It is often said that our fairs have developed from the market-places of previous times, and are historically commercial. We know, of course, that fairs have been market-places, and that some of them are so to this day in other countries. I doubt very much, however, whether the history is correct that develops the American agricultural fair from the market-place fairs of other countries. From the time when Elkanah Watson exhibited his merino sheep in the public square of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1807, in order that he might induce other persons to grow sheep as good as his, and when the state of New York started its educational program in 1819, the essence of the American idea has been that a fair is an educational and not a trading enterprise. But whatever the history, the agricultural fair maintained by public money owes its obligation to the people and not to commercial interests.
I should have every person bring and exhibit what he considers to be his best contribution to the development of a good country life.
One man would exhibit his bushel of potatoes; another his Holstein bull; another his pumpkin or his plate of apples; another a picture and plans of his modern barn; another his driving team; another his flock of sheep or his herd of swine; another his pen of poultry; another his plan for a new house or a sanitary kitchen, or for the installation of water-supplies, or for the building of a farm bridge, or the improved hanging of a barn door, or for a better kind of fence, or for a new kink in a farm harness, or the exhibition of tools best fitted for clay land or sandy land, and so on and on.
The woman would also show what she is contributing to better conditions,—her best handiwork in fabrics, her best skill in cooking, her best plans in housekeeping, her best ideas for church work or for club work.
The children would show their pets, what they had grown in the garden, what they had made in the house or the barn, what they had done in the school, what they had found in the woods.
I should assume that every person living on the land in the country has some one thing that he is sure is a contribution to better farming, or to better welfare; and he should be encouraged to exhibit it and to explain it, whether it is a new way to hang a hoe, or a herd of pure-bred cattle, or a plan for farmers' institutes. I should challenge every man to show in what respect he has any right to claim recognition over his fellows, or to be a part of his community.
I should ask the newspapers and the agricultural press to show up their work; also the manufacturers of agricultural implements and of country-life articles of all kinds.
I should also ask the organizations to prove up. What is the creamery contributing to a better country life? What the school? The church? The grange? The coÖperative exchange? The farmers' club? The reading club? The woman's society? The literary circle? The library? The commercial clubs? The hunting or sportsman's clubs?
Sports, contests, and pageants.
I should give much attention to the organization of good games and sports, and I should have these coÖperative between schools, or other organizations, such organizations having prepared for them consecutively during the preceding year. I should introduce good contests of all kinds. I should fill the fair with good fun and frolic.
I should want to see some good pageants and dramatic efforts founded on the industries, history, or traditions of the region or at least of the United States. It would not be impossible to find simple literature for such exercises even now, for a good deal has been written. By song, music, speaking, acting, and various other ways, it would not be difficult to get all the children in the schools of the county at work. In the old days of the school "exhibition," something of this spirit prevailed. It was manifest in the old "spelling bees" and also in the "lyceum." We have lost our rural cohesion because we have been attracted by the town and the city, and we have allowed the town and the city to do our work. I think it would not be difficult to organize a pageant, or something of the kind, at a county fair, that would make the ordinary vaudeville or sideshow or gim-crack look cheap and ridiculous and not worth one's while.
Premiums.
If we organize our fair on a recreation and educational basis, then we can take out all commercial phases, as the paying of money premiums. An award of merit, if it is nothing more than a certificate or a memento, would then be worth more than a hundred dollars in money. So far as possible, I should substitute coÖperation and emulation for competition, particularly for competition for money.
It is probable that the fair would have to assume the expense of certain of the exhibits.
It is time to begin.
This kind of fair is not only perfectly possible, but it is feasible in many places, if only some one or two or three persons possessed of good common sense and of leadership would take hold of the thing energetically. One must cut himself loose from preconceived notions and probably from the regular fair associations. He must have imagination, and be prepared to meet discouragements. He need not take the attitude that present methods are necessarily all bad; he is merely concerned in developing a new thing.
Because I should not have horse races in my fair, I do not wish at all to be understood as saying that horse races are to be prohibited. Let the present race courses in the fair grounds be used for horse races, if the people want them. We have June races now, and they could be held at other times of the year when persons who are interested desire to have them. My point is that they are not an essential part of a county agricultural fair. They rest on a money basis, and do not represent the people. Neither do I say that all traveling shows and concessions are bad; but most of them are out of place in a county fair and contrary to its spirit.
If the horse races were organized for the purpose of developing the horses of the county, then I should admit them; but I should give them only their proportionate place along with other means of developing horse-stock,—as of work horses, farm horses, draft horses, driving horses.
The fair ground.
An enterprise of the kind that I project need not necessarily be held on a fair-ground of the present type, although that might be the best place for it. If there is a good institution in the county that has grounds, and especially that has an agricultural equipment worthy of observation, I should think that the best results would be secured by holding the fair at that place. This kind of a fair would not need to be inclosed within a Chinese wall. Of course, there would have to be buildings and booths and stables in which exhibitions could be made.
In every fair there should nowadays be an assembly hall in which lectures, exhibitions, simple dramas, worth-while applicable moving pictures, and other entertainment features can be given.
My plea.
My plea, therefore, is that some one somewhere make one experiment with a county fair designed to bring all the people together on a wholly new idea. The present basis is wrong for this twentieth century. The old needs are passing; new needs are coming in. I should have the fair represent the real substantial progress of rural civilization, and I should also have it help to make that progress. It should be a power in its community, not a phenomenon that passes as a matter of course, like the phases of the moon.
I do not expect all this to materialize in a day; but I want to set a new picture into my readers' minds.
