One of the local English language newspapers recently published a series of suggestions on how to spend the summer months to derive the most benefits for mind and body. The salient points of these suggestions were that people should strive to spend as much time as possible in the fresh air--on the beaches, at picnics and excursions--should avoid mental strain; should take right kind and right amount of nourishment; and should not neglect sports or some other physical activity. All these functions are said to be indispensable if we want to improve our health, to strenthen our resistance, and to make ourselves more fit and better prepared for the exacting work during the remaining seasons of the year.

This advice and these suggestions are good. But the trouble is that only very few people can actually apply them in life, especially now during the economic depression and hard times which have affected so many people who heretofore 2could easily have afforded a summer vacation with all its adjuncts conductive to the health and happiness of an individual.

These summer activities and the advisability of lightening the burdens of life for the summer season do not mean, however, that during the summer months we should avoid all mental effort and other activities requiring the exercise of our mental faculties.

The summer months should be utilized, not only for rest and recreation, but also for recuperating our strength and preparing ourselves for the work to be accomplished when the summer is over.

The Russian colony in Chicago, and especially its leaders, should take advantage of the summer months to think over our common problems and to form good plans of actions for the fall and winter seasons. During the summer months picnics and various outdoor excursions are frequently held by various groups 3and circles of the Russian colony in Chicago. At these outings people meet each other, talk and discuss various subjects more easily than during the winter season when everybody prefers to stay at home with his family.

One important matter which could be most successfully pushed forward during the summer season is the problem of our youth. The best time to induce our sons and daughters to join their fathers' organizations is the summer season, the time of vacations. No longer encumbered by their school studies or their homework, our children are better prepared and more willing to spend their evenings at their fathers' meetings during their vacations. In the wintertime when they have their homework to do, it is extremely difficult to persuade our youth to spend their long evenings listening to the discussions and boring speeches at the meetings of their fathers.

In the summertime our adolescent sons and daughters are more free physically and better disposed mentally to absorb the things which deeply interest their 4fathers, but which are of no special interest to them, as future Americans. During vacation period our youth may be more easily induced to form their own dramatic and literary circles, organize their own clubs, orchestras, and to indulge in other cultural activities.

If those who should be directly interested in our youth's joining their fathers' organizations neglect now to prepare the ground for our children's entry into our organizations they cannot expect satisfactory results later, when schools open.

These are the reasons why the Russian leaders and others interested in our work should make good use of the warm summer months, not only for their own personal pleasure and convenience, but also for the good of the entire Russian colony in Chicago.