drama, color, poetry, movement, melody - they want secular life to have spiritual
significance. They want it to be gayly gallant, to have dignity, but with a sense
of humor lest its dignity be too solem.

We have a peculiar opportunity to observe them in their most self-revealing
postures - when they are most unstudied, when they are least posed, most spon-
taneous, When they are least self-conscious, most natural. We see them in their
enthusiasms, in their devotion to causes, their loyalty to friends, to hobbies,
to traditions, to the perfections of skill or achievement which they hold as
ideals. We see them divested of the robes of ceremony, when they have taken off
the armour they wear in earning a livelihood. We fraternize with them when they
are relexed, spontaneously concentrating on doing the things they choose to do
because they like to do them.

But in that same off-duty relaxation, when forgetful of everything else,
they are absorbed in the exciting pursuit of the objects of their enthusiasms.

We see them still responding significantly to the codes of social conduct to
which they are pledged. We see them sharing their skills with their neighbors,
aiding, explaining, suggesting solutions to problems. We see them joining
neighborhood associations, working on programs of neighborhood improvement in
response to social ideals. We see the patterns of their sportsmanship, the
texture of their sociability. If you are willing to concede that such unstudied
responses as these indicate hungers which originate in and interpret essential
needs of life, then perhaps we can offer something on our subject.

Out of years of such association, possibly I can bring you some observations
which will supplement your own thinking, if only I can first select subject
matter which is significant from your point of view, rather than my own. In this
I may fail, although I shall try to do it. My other difficulty is to express my

suggestions in terms which will translate themselves into the vernacular, the

2G