Festivals and carnivals conducted by the people of a community,
commemorative of national holidays or of historical events or of religious
life, are often admirable. But whenever the festival or carnival becomes a
commercial enterprise for the purpose of attracting crowds to the city,
for advertisement and for gain by merchants and hotel proprietors, young
people are in danger. The city becomes the mecca for undesirable men and
women who prey upon the susceptibilities of the people, animated by the
festival spirit. The hotels are the temporary homes of women of the
street. Every large festival of this kind has been followed by social
evils of the most virulent type. Many a girl and many a boy, yielding to
the influences of the abandonment of the crowd, take the first step in
sexual vice. This type of festival is not socially profitable to a
community, where the commercial aim and purpose predominates. The
commercial exploitation of the recreation and social needs of the people
is usually productive of sexual immorality.

A characteristic feature of American life is the club, union, society, or
order spontaneously formed by the people. No matter what the fundamental
purposes of these groups may be, whether for protection against sickness,
accident, and industrial evils, whether for the study of art, music, and
literature, or for the promotion of physical activities, the primary bond
that brings the group together and holds it together is the social
instinct of mankind.

Those which administer to the play and recreation life of their members
most efficiently are strongest. The dances, card parties, lectures,
entertainments, and other social activities conducted by such groups are
usually under the best kind of social control, far better than any type of
commercial amusement and perhaps better than most public-supervised
amusements. The strength is in the comparative smallness of the group, the