.G7 
 1/(I7 
 
PROPERTY OF 
 
 PARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMi. 
 
Using ttfe Resources 
 of the Country Church 
 
 By 
 
 ERNEST R. GROVES 
 
 Professor of Sociology 
 
 New Hampshire State College 
 
 ^Durham, N. H, 
 
 124 East 28th Street, New York 
 1917 
 
coptkight, 1917, by 
 
 The International Committee of 
 
 Young Men's Christian Associations 
 
To THE MEMORY OP 
 
 DOROTHY DOE GROVES 
 
 *Far off thou art, but ever nigh** 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The American people are just beginning 
 to realize the need of the conservation of 
 natural resources. There is evidence that 
 the nation is slowly awakening to the ne- 
 cessity of a wiser use of natural wealth. 
 The pressure of economic circumstances is 
 emphasizing for the more thoughtful the 
 importance of conservation. This idea of 
 a better use of our natural resources is of 
 the utmost social value. It augurs well 
 for our future as a nation. 
 
 There is equal need of our taking heed of 
 our moral resources. Men and women are 
 more important than natural possessions. 
 The greatest human wealth is morality. It 
 is this which separates man from the animal 
 and makes social life on the human plane 
 possible. Morality represents a great so- 
 cial resource. It needs conservation, for 
 upon its wise use depends human progress. 
 
 The country especially needs to conserve 
 its moral resources. Its social problems do 
 not attract the attention that urban prob- 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 lems obtain. There is, therefore, often less 
 careful use of moral opportunity. Moral 
 sentiment is created, but not directed into 
 social service. This brings serious social 
 loss. 
 
 This book is a plea for greater conserva- 
 tion of the moral forces and opportunities 
 to be found in the American small com- 
 munity. It is based upon the belief that 
 social progress depends most upon moral 
 statesmanship, the wise directing of the 
 moral energy which, fortunately, is present 
 in every community. 
 
 I wish to thank the editors of Rural 
 Manhood for permission to make use of 
 material contributed to that periodical. 
 
 June, 1917. E. R. G. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Preface v 
 
 Introduction 1 
 
 I. The Church of the Small Com- 
 munity AND City Drift 5 
 
 II. The Church of the Small Com- 
 munity AND its Moral Advan- 
 tages 23 
 
 III. The Minister of the Small 
 
 Community and the Conser- 
 vation OF His Social Experi- 
 ences 33 
 
 IV. The Church of the Small Com- 
 
 munity and the Conservation 
 OF Community Spirit 46 
 
 V. The Church of the Small Com- 
 munity AND the Conservation 
 OF THE Family 55 
 
 VI. The Church of the Small Com- 
 munity AND THE Conservation 
 . OF Recreation 66 
 
 VII. The Church of the Small Com- 
 munity and the Conservation 
 OF Physical Health 75 
 
 VIII. The Church of the Small Com- 
 munity AND THE Conservation 
 
 of Mental Health 86 
 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 IX. The Church of the Small Com- 
 munity AND THE Problem of 
 THE Feeble-minded 96 
 
 X. The Church of the Small Com- 
 munity AND THE Conservation 
 of Beauty 109 
 
 XI. The Church of the Small Com- 
 munity AND THE Conservation 
 OF Goodness 116 
 
 XII. The Church of the Small Com- 
 munity AND the Conservation 
 OF Truth 124 
 
 XIII. The Church of the Small Com- 
 munity AND THE Conservation 
 OF Human Experiences 134 
 
 XrV. The Minister of the Church 
 OF THE Small Community and 
 His Personal Opportunities . 142 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The great social need of our time is the 
 bringing of the rehgion of Jesus closer to 
 the deep, concrete needs of men and 
 women. This has always been the great 
 social need, for men and women cannot 
 live well together unless they root their 
 lives in profound spiritual vitality. Sin is 
 a human evil — not the fault of a period of 
 time. Social ills are sins expressed in or- 
 ganized forms — personal selfishness show- 
 ing its relationships in its social conse- 
 quences. Neither the bad man nor the 
 good man can live unto himself. 
 
 It is therefore the business of Chris- 
 tianity both to develop spiritual power and 
 to put it to use. Full service is impossible 
 if the Christian organization fails in either 
 of these activities. Socially men must be 
 made to feel as brothers and then they 
 must be taught to act as such. There is 
 no easier way socially than this path of 
 
2 INTRODUCTION 
 
 brotherhood and unselfish service. With- 
 out the service the brotherhood soon ceases 
 to seem real. Without the brotherhood the 
 service soon loses its courage and high 
 ideals. Without spiritual vitality both 
 brotherhood and service fail to withstand 
 the test of time. 
 
 This generation appears, however, to 
 have a social distinction, even if the great 
 social problems are merely the expressions 
 of human selfishness. It is more difiicult 
 than in earlier times to see the personal 
 evil in the social ill. The sin of the indi- 
 vidual is lost in the great complexity of the 
 situation. It is difficult to fix responsi- 
 bility. Often we are uncertain as to what 
 expresses bad judgment and what shows 
 wicked intent. 
 
 The size, organization, and intricacy of 
 our social problems "put upon us a greater 
 moral test. We must be better than our 
 fathers or our social life will be less Chris- 
 tian than theirs. Human progress re- 
 quires, if we are to live a satisfactory social 
 life, a superior morality. This it is the 
 
INTRODUCTION 8 
 
 task of the Christian organizations to de- 
 velop. 
 
 It is the temptation of some well-feeHng 
 people to think of service as something 
 done at a distance. The great social con- 
 tributions must always come, however, 
 from those who see needs close at hand 
 and have the good judgment and the true 
 courage to meet such needs. Whether 
 Christianity keeps close to human neces- 
 sities or not depends upon the interpreta- 
 tion it receives; therefore. Christian teach- 
 ers are under obligation to keep always in 
 mind the great necessity of making spirit- 
 ual opportunity appear closely related to 
 the social service of the individual. We 
 must not be selfish even in our spiritual 
 experiences. Spiritual vitality depends 
 upon the social impulse. 
 
 No organization needs to cultivate the 
 habit of seeing possible service near at hand 
 more than does the country church. The 
 relation between it and the community in 
 which it lives is so definite that it can never 
 have excuse for failing to realize its com- 
 
4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 munity responsibilities. It is of the com- 
 munity, in spite of itself, and its spiritual 
 possibilities are found in its happy dis- 
 covery of the largeness of its community 
 ministration. 
 
 No service for the community can be 
 greater than to conserve its moral forces 
 by revealing and directing human ideal- 
 ism. This is the high calling of the com- 
 munity church. It puts to work the as- 
 pirations of the community and stimulates 
 every good endeavor. It becomes spiritual 
 in social service. 
 
 Rural progress depends most of all upon 
 the conservation by the country church of 
 its moral and spiritual resources. Men and 
 women in village and rural life must first 
 come under the influence of a practical 
 idealism before other efforts to solve press- 
 ing social problems in the country and 
 small towns can hope to have success. The 
 church therefore that has found its social 
 mission in a wise passion for concrete com- 
 munity service, has become to its place of 
 ministration indeed the Church of God. 
 
I 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
 COMMUNITY AND CITY DRIFT 
 
 The church of the small community is 
 vitally interested in the problem of city 
 drift. It is not to be expected that all of 
 the youth of a small country place or 
 village will remain at home. Many of 
 the young men and women ought to go to 
 the cities, for only in urban environment 
 can they expect to find their deepest de- 
 sires satisfied. On the other hand, it is 
 often true that the city draws from the 
 community individuals who could live a 
 happier and healthier life in the country, 
 were they well prepared to make the most 
 of their rural opportunities. This move- 
 ment of population from the small com- 
 munity to the city concerns the rural and 
 village church profoundly. It often robs 
 the church of its most promising leaders. 
 It presents a problem that the church 
 
6 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 needs to study if it attempts to conserve 
 the human resources of the small com- 
 munity. 
 
 Modern psychology proves the useless- 
 ness of attempting to understand adult 
 conduct by mere study of adult motives 
 and circumstances, for the adult brings to 
 each decision an accumulation of past ex- 
 periences largely determining his choices, 
 and in this personal collection the happen- 
 ings of childhood and early youth have the 
 greatest significance. It is by no means 
 necessary that the adult, as he faces a 
 definite situation, and is influenced in his 
 decision by motives born of childhood en- 
 vironment, should recognize the fact that 
 he acts as he does because of the events 
 of his early life. 
 
 In many cases there is no clear under- 
 standing of the significance of early im- 
 pressions, but this fact in no sense lessens 
 the importance of the true cause of the 
 conduct. It is reasonable to assume that 
 any social movement which has become 
 pronounced enough to be clearly recog- 
 
CITY DRIFT 7 
 
 nized as characteristic of a period of time 
 and group of people, has behind it, acting 
 as a source of motives, a collection of 
 similar significant early impressions. 
 
 The movement of population toward 
 urban centers, so strongly expressed in 
 Europe and America at the present time, 
 deserves study in the light of the modern 
 teaching of psychology concerning the 
 meaning of childhood experiences as de- 
 termining adult conduct. It is everywhere 
 admitted that this urban attraction of rural 
 population is socially significant, and that 
 its causes are many. It is even feared by 
 many that it represents an unwholesome 
 and dangerous tendency in modern life, and 
 that it should be investigated for the pur- 
 pose of discovering a reasonable check 
 upon this drift to the cities. 
 
 No study of the mental causes behind 
 this urban enticement can fail to discover 
 the importance of the suggestions received 
 by country children during their prepara- 
 tion for life. Suggestions influence the 
 child profoundly, and, of course, not less 
 
8 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 in the country than in the city. In many 
 cases the Hfe of the rural child is pene- 
 trated more deeply by significant sugges- 
 tions, because his life, since it is spent in a 
 less complex environment, offers a smaller 
 quantity of suggestions, or a greater uni- 
 formity of such influence. In any case, the 
 suggestions that enter the mind of the rural 
 child provide a basis for explaining later 
 actions. 
 
 Some of the deepest impressions in any 
 child's life are the results of parents' atti- 
 tudes. The child can hardly fail to be 
 moved by the feeling and opinion of his 
 father and mother, and usually their feel- 
 ings and opinions are repeatedly expressed. 
 Especially with reference to their occupa- 
 tion and environment, rural parents are 
 likely to have attitudes that are frankly 
 and often expressed. Many a child brought 
 up in the country is given again and again, 
 even perhaps several times a day during 
 the most impressionable years, suggestions 
 born of rural discontent. 
 
 Every occupation provides reasons for 
 
CITY DRIFT 9 
 
 discontent, but in the country any dissatis- 
 faction with the conditions of the chief 
 industry, farming, is Hkely to develop into 
 discontent regarding the country itself, for 
 the occupation and the environment are 
 hardly to be distinguished. Indeed, in 
 leaving the occupation of farming, it is 
 usually necessary for such people also to 
 leave the country towns. Not infrequently 
 the parent expresses discontent regarding 
 the conditions of life in the country, when 
 the reason for his attitude is only one un- 
 happy, perhaps temporary, condition in his 
 occupation. Discontent seldom discrimi- 
 nates, and there is much to tempt the dis- 
 satisfied farmer to express his emotions in 
 a general indictment against rural life. 
 
 It requires no argument to demonstrate 
 that the child interprets his suggestions with 
 a minimum of discrimination. Although 
 negative suggestion at times operates, and 
 the child takes the attitude opposite that 
 of the parent, as a rule he assumes things 
 to be as they are said to be. If the child, 
 even after a number of years, feels the dis- 
 
10 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 content of father or mother, or both, with 
 reference to Kving in the country and re- 
 specting rural environment, it is to be ex- 
 pected that he will accumulate a mass of 
 mental material which sooner or later is 
 bound to provide motives for conduct. 
 
 In this connection, one needs to remem- 
 ber that all who live in the country are not 
 there because they prefer the country to the 
 town. They may have failed to find an op- 
 portunity to go to the city, or they may 
 have lacked the courage to attempt a 
 radically different life and occupation. In 
 some cases urban-minded people do not 
 have their urban cravings awakened until 
 they have become so fixed in the country 
 that economic heroism is required to pull 
 up stakes and move to the city; and it so 
 happens that one may be in the country 
 but not of it, spreading discontent regard- 
 ing rural conditions at every opportunity. 
 Certainly such discontent cannot fail to 
 suggest dissatisfaction to rural youth. 
 
 Rural education, of course, provides 
 many opportunities for penetrating sug- 
 
CITY DRIFT 11 
 
 gestions, and any one who intimately 
 knows the schools of the country will ad- 
 mit that their suggestions are not always 
 friendly to rural interests. The character 
 of some studies makes it difficult for the 
 teacher not to emphasize urban conditions. 
 In the endeavor after the dramatic and the 
 ideal, the teacher is likely to draw upon 
 urban life, since urban life circumstances 
 provide so much that surely will appeal to 
 the country boy and girl. 
 
 It is fair to state that a beginning has 
 been made in the effort to utilize country 
 life possibilities in teaching material. But 
 one usually finds in the ordinary text-book 
 an unconscious tendency to emphasize the 
 urban point of view and to accept it as the 
 social standard. Many of the striking 
 human experiences of modern life neces- 
 sarily culminate amid urban conditions, 
 even when caused largely by rural in- 
 fluences. The urban center is the passion 
 spot, and affords more opportunity for the 
 exploration of the dramatic. 
 
 The same fact is true of ideals. The 
 
12 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 teacher is often tempted to use urban illus- 
 trations in her effort to establish ideals of 
 conduct. The spectacular character of moral 
 struggle and ethical effort in the city makes 
 urban life a source from which to draw in- 
 teresting moral appeal. This bias in teach- 
 ing is magnified not infrequently by the at- 
 titude of the teacher toward rural life, 
 consciously or unconsciously. She — for of 
 course the rural teacher is usually a woman 
 — has often a mind filled with urban inter- 
 ests and a craving born of urban purposes, 
 and she displays enthusiasm in sympathy 
 with her deepest wishes. She may in this 
 manner become an ambassador who rep- 
 resents the condition of her choice — urban 
 life. When she is a teacher of skill, ambi- 
 tion, and progress, it is hardly strange that 
 she expects to move on to a larger town, 
 and finally, if fortunate, to a city; for upon 
 such a career depends largely her progress 
 in her profession — her increase in salary, 
 her freedom, and her professional standing. 
 The suggestion of the urban-minded 
 teacher and the urban-inspired school sys- 
 
CITY DRIFT 13 
 
 tern are bound to provide effective sug- 
 gestions that will later provide a basis for 
 rural discontent. 
 
 It is because of such subtle suggestions 
 that the child often first decides to try 
 city life; and, even when the decisions are 
 soon forgotten, a sort of passing childish 
 whim, they leave a remnant of possible 
 discontent which later in life may become 
 an element in a complex sentiment of dis- 
 satisfaction. To value this rightly, one 
 must remember how open the child is to 
 suggestions, and how certain such in- 
 fluences are to last, and how constantly 
 they may be received term after term from 
 the teacher. 
 
 Rural youth obtain suggestions of enor- 
 mous effect from the circumstances of 
 their own personal careers. When the 
 young man or woman has exhausted an 
 economic environment that seems meager 
 and monotonous because he or she is badly 
 prepared by inefficient education to inter- 
 pret it, there is but one thing that can be 
 done in order to obtain relief: that is to 
 
14 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 move away. In the city, a like failure may 
 mean a change of occupation. To change 
 one's occupation in the country requires 
 usually that one leave the country. Sug- 
 gestions therefore that farming does not 
 pay, or is too laborious and unprofitable, 
 translated into effective action, bring about 
 a removal from both industry and locality. 
 The early experiences on the farm may 
 leave a suggestion of unreasonable toil. 
 Romantic youth cannot rest content with 
 a vision of endless, lengthened hours of 
 work and merely a living. Other oppor- 
 tunities provide a living also, and less toil. 
 Parents have at times been responsible for 
 this conception of farming, because they 
 have insisted upon having their sons and 
 daughters work unreasonably during vaca- 
 tion and after school. The parent who 
 looks backward upon a generation more 
 given to long toil than this, and uses his 
 own earlier experiences as a standard, may 
 the more easily commit this mistake and 
 teach his children to hate the farm and 
 rural life. 
 
CITY DRIFT 15 
 
 The adult of little imagination is likely 
 to forget another source of experiences in 
 youth that may suggest to the country boy 
 attitudes that later provide a basis for dis- 
 content in regard to rural life. The boy 
 on the farm finds at times that his holiday 
 and vacation are encroached upon by 
 needed labor. Weather and harvest condi- 
 tions rob him of the pleasures that his vil- 
 lage chum enjoys. Some definite plan for 
 an outing, or some greatly desired day of 
 sport has to be given up that the crop 
 may not be injured. 
 
 Doubtless parents allow these disap= 
 pointments to happen with little reason, 
 and looking at the matter from an adult 
 point of view, do not regard the boys' feel- 
 ings as of serious significance; and yet, in 
 the light of modern psychology, we know 
 that such experiences may build up a very 
 significant hostility to the rural environ- 
 ment that appears to be the cause of these 
 agonizing disappointments. The cumula- 
 tive effect of a few bitter experiences of 
 this nature may be sufficient to turn the 
 
16 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 boy away from the country in his heart 
 of hearts for all time. In such cases the 
 first opportunity to leave the country for 
 the town will be accepted gladly, as a way 
 of escape from a life that is emotionally 
 intolerable. 
 
 A visit to some communities is enough 
 to explain the migration from these com- 
 munities, for they disclose themselves as 
 having lost their self-respect. You will 
 hear it said in such places repeatedly that 
 no young man of worth is to be expected to 
 remain in the town. It is no place for one 
 who wishes to make something of himself. 
 There is no opportunity, because the town 
 is dead. The social atmosphere is com- 
 posed of community discouragement, fault- 
 finding, and suspicion. There is no hope 
 among the people, no spirit of progress. A 
 depression which may sink even to despair 
 drives the normal youth out of the town, 
 with the idea that all farming communities 
 are decadent and not to be endured. 
 
 This prevailing lack of community spirit 
 and social courage must, in certain farm- 
 
CITY DRIFT 17 
 
 ing communities, act as a most persistent 
 and powerful stimulus to constant migra- 
 tions. The great need in such rural com- 
 munities is the development of community 
 confidence and self-respect, and any suc- 
 cess in bringing in a happier social attitude 
 lessens the movement of the population to 
 the city. 
 
 The discouraged and discontented rural 
 community lacks most of all wise, public- 
 spirited leaders, for naturally its powerful 
 persons have mostly moved away. There 
 is little that works for the upbuilding of 
 the community, for in the nature of things, 
 influences that move public opinion and 
 color social feeling require strong personali- 
 ties for their source, and it is just such 
 persons that have been driven away in 
 despair. 
 
 People from outside the community are 
 greatly handicapped in any help that they 
 may try to give, for the natives are both 
 sensitive and suspicious and easily given to 
 jealousy. Such outside assistance, given 
 with the best of purposes, is no doubt often 
 
18 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 trivial, tactless, and even foolish. He who 
 attempts "rural uplift" with missionary 
 motives and attitudes soon finds his task 
 hopeless, as a result of the deep resentment 
 felt by those whom he attempts to serve. 
 
 Nevertheless, in its last analysis, the 
 problem of rural progress in a disheartened 
 community must be solved mostly by con- 
 serving what leadership still remains, and 
 by means of intelligent counsel and in- 
 spiration given by social and rural workers 
 from outside the community who may be- 
 come interested in it. So long as there is 
 little constructive leadership at that point, 
 the social condition encourages city drift. 
 
 The student of rural life is tempted to 
 look too much to the country and too little 
 to the city for the causes of rural migra- 
 tion. It is not easy to value properly the 
 constant and impressive suggestions of 
 urban opportunity furnished by the city. 
 It is important to recognize that the pros- 
 perity of the city requires that it exploit 
 itself in ways that bring people to the city 
 to live as well as to trade. Better business 
 
CITY DRIFT 19 
 
 is obtained by methods of advertising that 
 naturally lead to more people. 
 
 Modern advertising is itself a supreme 
 illustration of effective suggestion, and its 
 development has been for the most part 
 in the hands of urban interests. Such ad- 
 vertising has forced rural people to con- 
 trast their manner of life with urban con- 
 ditions, often with the result of discontent. 
 They are drawn to the city on special occa- 
 sions by alluring city publicity manipu- 
 lated with scientific skill by experts, and 
 often return to their country homes dis- 
 satisfied because of false notions regarding 
 the pleasures of the city. Of course this 
 is more largely true of young people and 
 they are more open to suggestion. 
 
 Recently a carnival, skilfully advertised 
 and staged, was held in a western city. The 
 most popular young woman in each of the 
 neighboring small communities, elected by 
 ballot, was invited to attend the gathering 
 for several days as the guest of the carnival 
 association. Listening to one of these 
 young women telling her experiences in 
 
20 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 this, the most exciting week of her Hfe, one 
 wondered whether she could ever again 
 feel content with the more normal joys of 
 country life. Such an experience is merely 
 one illustration of the countless forms that 
 urban suggestion takes as it penetrates into 
 the lives of rural people. 
 
 Spectacular success is largely dependent 
 upon urban conditions of life, and such 
 success obtains public attention. Even in 
 the country, the successes talked about are 
 likely to be those made possible by city 
 life. These are given space in the maga- 
 zines and daily papers edited and pub- 
 lished in the cities, and so they naturally 
 occupy the minds of rural readers of such 
 periodicals. 
 
 The young man who feels the attraction 
 of such enterprise, who wishes to have a 
 part in big things, even if an insignificant 
 part, who craves knowing big business at 
 first hand, receives a suggestion that invites 
 him cityward. When a community is it- 
 self represented by some former resident in 
 some spectacular success, it is certain that 
 
CITY DRIFT 21 
 
 many young men will question their future 
 on the farm in that locality. Thus the 
 human product of a rural community robs 
 it of its personality resources, and the ca- 
 reer of the man of fame may continue to 
 act as a tradition long after his death, and 
 still add to the rural migration. 
 
 It is not altogether clear what effect 
 visitors in the summer from cities have 
 upon rural people with reference to city 
 drift. Although a matter of accident, 
 perhaps, depending upon the character of 
 the city people, and important only in a 
 limited area of the country, summer vis- 
 itors, nevertheless, must provide sugges- 
 tions that occasionally operate powerfully 
 upon some young people in the country 
 in encouraging their going to the cities. 
 
 Certain facts in some of our New Eng- 
 land country towns, where visitors from the 
 city return summer after summer, appear to 
 indicate that this condition does encourage 
 young people in going to the city. Such a 
 result might be expected in the light of 
 motives that govern human conduct and 
 
22 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 the influence that luxury and leisure have 
 in bringing about discontent in the minds 
 of workers who look with envy upon the 
 pleasures of others. 
 
 Perhaps this suggestion may be ex- 
 pected to operate more upon the girl than 
 upon the boy, for the girl sees in the 
 woman visitor from the city a candidate 
 for matrimony who has advantages over 
 her rural rival. It is not difficult to trace 
 the influence of summer people upon the 
 fashion of the women of the small country 
 community, and we have every right to 
 assume that deeper suggestions are stim- 
 ulated than those that have to do with 
 manners or dress. 
 
n 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
 COiVUMUNITY AND ITS MORAL 
 ADVANTAGES 
 
 It is encouraging to the social worker in 
 the country to consider the moral re- 
 sources provided by the rural environment. 
 The minister of the small - community 
 church does well to estimate the advan- 
 tages that his field of service has over city 
 life. Of course rural and urban society 
 each has its moral superiorities. Each also 
 has its peculiar disadvantages. The coun- 
 try worker often appears to make the mis- 
 take of not appreciating fully the advan- 
 tages that are naturally furnished by the 
 country environment. 
 
 Not to recognize clearly the resources 
 provided for one's service is a fatal mis- 
 take. Success depends upon conditions. 
 Moral service requires the utilization of 
 the resources that make it possible. The 
 
 23 
 
24 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 more definite and discriminating the con- 
 ception of moral resources on the part of 
 the social worker, the more fortunate it 
 becomes for those to whom he ministers. 
 
 It is necessary also that the worker in 
 the country have a very precise idea of the 
 end he wishes to accomplish. Although the 
 object is bound to be individual and to 
 vary in its concrete form with the person 
 for whom one works, it is, nevertheless, 
 possible to state it in general terms. Moral 
 service attempts to use the opportunities 
 provided by each person's instincts and 
 desires, that a wholesome moral career 
 may result. This effort to moralize the 
 life requires that the personal and social 
 resources be both known and used. 
 
 It is folly for any worker to regard any 
 serious social problem as having little to 
 do with morals. At the heart of every 
 social difficulty is its moral cause. It is 
 equally true that a disregard of the moral 
 resources that may be employed to solve 
 the problem is most unfortunate. 
 
 A very great resource in the small com- 
 
MORAL ADVANTAGES 25 
 
 munity is the rather general neighborhood 
 interest. In most places this is expressed 
 in feelings that may be rightly defined as 
 neighborhood spirit. It is common knowl- 
 edge that interest is the root of sympathy. 
 One does not care for those in whom he has 
 no interest — at least not without great 
 moral labor. The conditions of city life 
 make this interest in persons difficult; the 
 circumstances of rural and village life make 
 it normal and inevitable that the members 
 of the group should be interested in one 
 another. It is indeed true that this inter- 
 est does not always express itself in happy 
 ways. It is at times the source of antago- 
 nisms and jealousies. It remains a fact, 
 however, that people in the small com- 
 munity find it easy to become interested in 
 one another and that people in the large 
 city find it difficult to be much interested 
 in many persons. 
 
 The relation between urban people is 
 likely to be economic. Outside a very 
 small group of friends, the relations have 
 mostly to do with commercial interests 
 
26 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 among the different members of the group. 
 These interests appear for the most part 
 to be of a character that forbids real sym- 
 pathy, for they seem largely antagonistic. 
 The reverse is true in the small community. 
 The economic relations are generally few; 
 the personal basis of association is the pre- 
 dominating one. People take a natural 
 and human interest in one another. 
 
 This interest makes possible a very real 
 and delightful fellow-feeling. Under whole- 
 some moral influence this resource of per- 
 sonal interest becomes the root of a very 
 practical and beautiful sympathy. The 
 church of the small community has no 
 larger or more promising asset. It can 
 turn this sympathy into many of the most 
 attractive human virtues. 
 
 It is doubtful whether this resource of 
 sympathy is generally regarded at its true 
 value, whether the churches know how to 
 get from it all its moral wealth. Often a 
 clear appreciation of its importance as a 
 moral element in social life is lacking. 
 Greater effort may be made to create sym- 
 
MORAL ADVANTAGES 27 
 
 pathy for distant and different people than 
 to use the normal and promising sympathy 
 already available. Of course the creation 
 of the first in no way limits the second, 
 but it is sad to see a great moral oppor- 
 tunity neglected, even if moral effort is 
 bringing success at another point. Prob- 
 ably in all such cases the mistake is made 
 in not clearly appreciating how much good 
 may be made to come from the fact that in 
 a small community people are naturally 
 interested in one another. 
 
 The conditions of life in the small com- 
 munity offer also another advantage. It 
 is easy to establish a basis for personal 
 moral responsibility. Concerning the im- 
 portance of this for the moral worker there 
 can be no doubt. The fixing of personal re- 
 sponsibility is the largest problem in moral 
 progress. A community life that naturally 
 puts upon each person the obligations that 
 rightly belong to him, and that holds him 
 responsible for his actions, provides the 
 moral worker with very great resources. 
 
 Conditions are different in the city. The 
 
28 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 size and complexity of the city, the different 
 classes and different standards of moral life, 
 the lack of knowledge of the habits of one's 
 neighbors, the indifference of one person 
 concerning the activities of another — all of 
 these conditions make it difficult, even im- 
 possible for the most part, to fix personal 
 responsibility. 
 
 It is true that in the cities there are well- 
 organized and efficient societies that have 
 for their purpose the discovery of evil con- 
 ditions and the apprehension of the persons 
 responsible. The creation of these gives 
 proof that urban life is weak in its ability 
 to fix responsibility. The society attempts 
 to do what the normal and wholesome pub- 
 lic opinion in the small community nat- 
 urally does. 
 
 Great efforts are made in^^the city to 
 create a public opinion that will be con- 
 cerned with evils and that will express 
 disapproval. These endeavors of the pub- 
 lic to find the evildoer and punish him 
 socially are likely to be fitful, often unfair, 
 and usually, because of their spasmodic 
 
MORAL ADVANTAGES 29 
 
 character, ineffective. Their partial suc- 
 cesses cost much time, money, and thought 
 which has to be contributed by a few pub- 
 lic-spirited leaders in social reforms. 
 
 There is often honest doubt as to the real 
 beginning of an evil situation. When the 
 origin has been found the question who is 
 to blame is still difficult to answer. It often 
 seems unfair to put the responsibility upon 
 any one person — so many have contributed 
 to the evil circumstance. Indeed, the 
 public itself, in a most general and irre- 
 sponsible sense, may have been mostly to 
 blame for the evil for which it now wishes 
 to punish some one. 
 
 In the country and village environment 
 there is usually a very definite and forceful 
 fixing of responsibility. This may at times 
 lack sympathy and perspective. It may 
 even become cruel. It is, however, a very 
 powerful resource for the moral worker. 
 
 It becomes the duty of the church of the 
 small community to take advantage of this 
 fixing of responsibility and to make it con- 
 structive. It requires education and direc- 
 
30 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 tion. It needs to be given attention in a 
 sympathetic way. Young people especially 
 need to realize the importance of public 
 opinion and the reason why it is unwise 
 and socially wrong to become indifferent 
 to what people may say. 
 
 Probably no one would deny that this 
 fear of public criticism does not furnish 
 the highest type of morality. The history 
 of early morality, especially in primitive 
 life, shows, nevertheless, that it is often 
 the beginning of a moral regard which 
 finally develops into a higher moral stand- 
 ard. It may wisely be used to teach men 
 and women to value morality for its own 
 sake. 
 
 Since men and women in small com- 
 munities are certain to make moral judg- 
 ments regarding the doings of their fellows, 
 it becomes the clear duty of the church to 
 establish the proper standard for moral 
 criticism. Its effective service depends 
 largely upon its ability to make the people 
 of the community realize what the things 
 are that are blameworthy and under what 
 
MORAL ADVANTAGES SI 
 
 conditions the persons responsible should be 
 blamed. The significance of the attitude 
 of the community itself may wisely be em- 
 phasized, and a wholesome sympathy cre- 
 ated for the person who morally fails. 
 
 All students of country life point out 
 that it has one large advantage over city 
 life. The small community, especially 
 when rural in character, makes it easy for 
 the developing youth to obtain direct ex- 
 perience with nature. In the city the 
 greater amount of experience is with per- 
 sons. Persons may be tricked. Persons 
 may be manipulated. Quick results, at 
 least for a time, may be obtained by sug- 
 gestions. It becomes easy, therefore, for 
 the city-dweller to discount reality, to for- 
 get the fact that all of life is governed by 
 law. In the country the direct and per- 
 sonal contact with nature teaches one that 
 substantial results can be had only by 
 knowledge of methods and honest effort. 
 Nature cannot be deceived and is not in- 
 fluenced by words or methods of sug- 
 gestion. 
 
32 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 This appreciation of the lawful character 
 of all life, this knowledge that what a man 
 sows that must he reap, has a very large 
 value in moral training. It is a hard lesson 
 and man tries not to learn it. In the city 
 he may deceive himself into believing it is 
 not always true. In the country, however, 
 at every point the truth is forced upon him. 
 
 This moral resource also the church needs 
 to use to the uttermost. There is no deeper 
 moral truth. It is surely an advantage to 
 the moral teacher to have an environment 
 that enforces such an important truth at 
 every point. The church can make con- 
 stant use of this common experience to 
 make life serious and worthy. In this 
 direct contact with a nature which is law- 
 ful, the church has in the small community 
 a moral assistance of the greatest value. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE MINISTER OF THE SMALL 
 COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
 SERVATION OF HIS SOCIAL EX- 
 PERIENCES 
 
 • In writing of the work of a bishop, John 
 Ruskin once said: his first duty is "at least 
 to put himself in a position in which, at 
 any moment, he can obtain the history 
 from childhood of every soul in his diocese, 
 and of its present state. Down in that 
 back street. Bill and Nancy, knocking each 
 other's teeth out! Does the bishop know 
 all about it? Has he"his eye upon them? 
 Has he had his eye upon them? Can he 
 circumstantially explain how Bill got into 
 the habit of beating Nancy about the head? 
 If he cannot, he is no bishop." The coun- 
 try worker finds it easy to fulfil much of 
 Ruskin's ideal. The trivial happenings 
 of a locality are not difficult to know, but 
 the causes of these events present a dif- 
 ferent problem. To meet the need of 
 
 33 
 
34 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 knowing "the present state" of the com- 
 munity has arisen the rural survey. 
 
 The survey is modern in a significant 
 sense. Science, with its eagerness for trust- 
 worthy information, and business, with its 
 emphasis upon fact, both in these days en- 
 force the value of a careful study of com- 
 munity life. Everywhere in our social life 
 mere opinion proves worthless and an in- 
 creasing desire is felt for exact knowledge. 
 Thoughtful people appreciate that com- 
 munity progress requires a scientific basis 
 for community comparison and competi- 
 tion, such as the survey provides. The 
 survey appeals to the rational, to the 
 practical, to the scientific. It keeps no 
 fellowship with exaggeration, mere senti- 
 ment, or selfish exploitation. It is honest 
 in its searching for truth and just in its 
 statements. In the end it proves that 
 frankness and knowledge do more for a 
 community's prosperity than deceit or 
 guesses, that the first duty of any com- 
 munity is to know itself. 
 
 The country has every need of com- 
 
THE MINISTER'S EXPERIENCES 35 
 
 munity study that the city has. The 
 country problems are the great problems. 
 In forces and opportunities the rural life 
 has the first claim for attention and con- 
 servation. The making of a rural survey 
 also offers a satisfaction that the more 
 complex and changing city life does not 
 permit. Indeed, an authority on city sur- 
 veys has recently said that the city survey 
 should be made on the unit basis, one sec- 
 tion at a time. The rural survey gives the 
 best possible opportunity to test the re- 
 sults of the social study by attempts to 
 improve the country life. The city survey 
 has been of great value; the rural survey 
 must prove of even greater usefulness. 
 
 With reference to content we have sur- 
 veys of rural industries, specific rural prob- 
 lems, and general community life. The 
 rural survey most talked about is the study 
 of the community in as great detail as pos- 
 sible. There is real need, however, of sur- 
 veys of particular industries and surveys of 
 some specific part of the community life. 
 
 A special problem that can best be met 
 
36 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 by a preliminary survey to discover actual 
 conditions is that of the consolidated 
 school. Difficult as such a problem often 
 proves in actual practice when a com- 
 munity is divided with reference to the 
 proposition of consolidation, one can hardly 
 question that the first safe step is to learn 
 the exact facts with reference to the prob- 
 lem. This usually is not the step first 
 taken, but it is always the wise beginning. 
 A survey needs to be made with fore- 
 thought. The best possible preparation is 
 a study, by a group of public-spirited and 
 efficient citizens, of surveys that have been 
 made and of the program of study that the 
 particular community or industry demands. 
 The ground to be covered, the methods to 
 be followed, the organization of the survey, 
 and the uses to be made of the completed 
 work, all need to be carefully planned. The 
 danger of having persons with prejudices, 
 axes to grind, or theories to defend engage 
 in a survey, will be appreciated by anyone 
 with experience. The reformer needs first 
 to be the student, and the exploiter must 
 
THE MINISTER'S EXPERIENCES 37 
 
 be converted to the responsibilities of se- 
 rious investigation. 
 
 The organization of the survey is of large 
 importance. It is possible to obtain ex- 
 perts who will take entire charge of the 
 project. For most places this is impracti- 
 cal. Indeed, there are some real advantages 
 in having the survey made by citizens of 
 the locality. Many ministers deserve great 
 credit for the interest that they have taken 
 in rural surveys that already have been 
 made. However, the making of rural sur- 
 veys, without assistance from public- 
 spirited citizens, ought not to be forced 
 upon country ministers. Men in business 
 in rural places sometimes make the serious 
 mistake of not being really interested in 
 community prosperity and welfare. Live 
 country business men of foresight will ap- 
 preciate the opportunity that cooperation 
 in community study necessarily brings. 
 The very best results of survey organiza- 
 tion can probably be obtained by a com- 
 mittee, catholic in spirit, representative of 
 the community, not too large to work, and 
 
S8 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 willing to delegate parts of the investiga- 
 tion to persons best fitted to obtain the 
 necessary information. The educational 
 results that are bound to come to those who 
 seriously attempt to study the life of a 
 rural community prove of unexpected and 
 permanent value. 
 
 Makers of rural surveys in the past have 
 given too little attention to the problem of 
 publicity. A survey is made for use. A 
 rural survey needs most of all to be appreci- 
 ated by the people of the community that 
 has been studied. It cannot have its full 
 success if it appeals only to the rural soci- 
 ologist and means next to nothing to those 
 who are personally most interested. It is 
 clear, therefore, that the rural survey needs 
 modern advertising and they who are en- 
 gaged in making it should study the prob- 
 lem of making it popular. Merely to print 
 results in pamphlet form is to waste human 
 energy. A committee ought to have in 
 hand the problem of publicity. Churches, 
 papers, farmers' organizations should be 
 urged to help make the results of the in- 
 
THE MINISTER'S EXPERIENCES 39 
 
 vestigation known. The weekly paper 
 should be asked to print parts of the sur- 
 vey in various issues. Of course it will be 
 printed as a pamphlet for free distribution. 
 Even here a mistake in the form in which 
 it is printed will decrease its value. Not 
 in small type on poor paper, but in as at- 
 tractive a manner as possible, it ought to 
 be spread broadcast among the people it 
 concerns. 
 
 The usual rural survey is of great value. 
 A better investigation, however, is one that 
 is made again and again. The community 
 becomes self-conscious of its progress and 
 confident of its strength if it knows from 
 time to time that it is making improve- 
 ments and gaining social efficiency. A 
 careful survey deserves to be continued 
 from period to period. A rural survey 
 that is never followed by later investiga- 
 tion must lose in scientific and practical 
 value. The problems of today will not 
 remain those of tomorrow. A rural survey 
 reports, not a dead thing, but a growing, 
 changing life of human beings. Even the 
 
40 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 best rural survey will lose its right to au- 
 thority with the passing of time. 
 
 The purpose and character of the survey 
 must determine what it shall contain. The 
 general community study should be very 
 broad. In it should be found all possible 
 information that has social value. Ex- 
 perience teaches that one cannot know in 
 advance how valuable a certain gathering 
 of facts may prove. It is easier to discard 
 useless information than it is to repeat the 
 investigation to obtain some valuable 
 knowledge neglected during the first sur- 
 vey. 
 
 A very complete and suggestive outline 
 for a general survey is published in Gil- 
 lette's "Constructive Rural Sociology" — a 
 book that everyone interested in rural 
 problems needs to own. The Russell Sage 
 Foundation has a department prepared to 
 give information concerning the making of 
 social surveys. The Presbyterian Board of 
 Home Missions undertakes the making of 
 rural surveys and has on file excellent rural 
 surveys that already have been made. 
 
THE MINISTER'S EXPERIENCES 41 
 
 Probably in no way can the minister of 
 the church of the small community better 
 conserve his social experiences than by his 
 study of rural surveys and his interest in 
 the surveying of his own field of labor. 
 The minister who cares little for such con- 
 structive efforts is not likely to influence 
 very deeply or for long the community 
 which he attempts to serve. The rural 
 survey is not a cure-all for every social 
 difficulty in the country, but it fulfils a 
 very useful function in helping the rural 
 worker understand his problems. It is a 
 modern tool for ministerial service, of great 
 value when properly used. 
 
 Besides the rural survey in its usual 
 form, there is another opportunity that 
 comes to the rural worker in his effort to 
 know the present state of his field, and 
 that is the possibility of keeping for a 
 term of years significant statistics. The 
 patient, care-taking recorder of definite 
 social facts, chosen because of personal 
 interest or local importance, can hardly 
 fail to make a valuable contribution to the 
 
42 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 science of rural sociology. Indeed, it is 
 the present weakness of this science that 
 it has not a larger amount of social statis- 
 tics gathered with scientific precision by in- 
 terested workers. Without a large body of 
 such observations, rural sociology cannot 
 take its proper place as an instrument of 
 progress. 
 
 Recently when a gathering of rural work- 
 ers were asked whether they had a rather 
 definite knowledge of social and moral con- 
 ditions in their several communities they 
 all responded affirmatively and with con- 
 fidence, but when questions calling for 
 specific knowledge were asked nearly all 
 at once admitted their ignorance. What 
 was the death rate of the community for 
 the past year? What had been the record 
 of the community respecting typhoid dur- 
 ing a period of ten years? How many ille- 
 gitimate children had been born during the 
 year? Such questions could not be an- 
 swered. Although the religious worker 
 lives in a world of law, and has to do with 
 moral forces governed by laws, it is natural 
 
THE MINISTER'S EXPERIENCES 43 
 
 for him, because of his religious interests 
 and his lack of scientific training, to neg- 
 lect a study of the laws that are operating 
 socially in his field of labor and the events 
 that are often both the causes and results 
 of community conditions. 
 
 Every social worker in the country, nev- 
 ertheless, has good reason not to neglect a 
 study of social forces. In the making of 
 such a study he will do wisely, moreover, 
 not to trust memory to make comparisons 
 between periods and places, but to make 
 written records, realizing that memory is 
 fallible because of the very nature of its 
 habits. In keeping statistics, for a con- 
 siderable penod, of things that seem to 
 him useful to know and study, the rural 
 worker, besides adding to his information, 
 develops an attitude of mind which tends 
 to make him expect moral forces to produce 
 results. A ministerial friend recently re- 
 gretted that he had not continued during 
 his five-year stay in a Massachusetts parish 
 to keep a careful record of the careers of the 
 institutional children placed out in that 
 
44 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 country town. Many children were placed 
 in families in his community, and he had a 
 very decided opinion concerning the ad- 
 vantages of such a system of charity and 
 the good contribution made by the chil- 
 dren to the social life of the place; but he 
 had to admit that he had no scientific or 
 satisfactory basis for his opinion. 
 
 Of course some time is required for such 
 a record keeping and time is precious. 
 However, one is sure of getting as a by- 
 product of one's labor a mental habit of 
 observing causally and of judging critically 
 the products of social activity. The min- 
 ister cannot record the histories of the 
 children who are placed in the life of his 
 community from institutions, without a 
 new concern in regard to their welfare. 
 Business appreciates this habit of mind be- 
 cause it is necessary to business efficiency, 
 and there are signs that religious workers 
 must become modern in this important 
 particular. Gill deserves credit for his 
 method of study in Gill and Pinchot*s 
 "The Country Church." Rural sociology 
 
THE MINISTER'S EXPERIENCES 45 
 
 can never perform its proper service until, 
 in addition to the investigation of rural 
 problems by government experts and col- 
 lege professors, country ministers and 
 teachers, for a period of years, record ob- 
 servations in such manner as to justify 
 publication for scientific uses. 
 
IV 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
 COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
 SERVATION OF COMMUNITY 
 SPIRIT 
 
 Nothing more clearly reveals the heart 
 of a community than its opinion of itself. 
 Community self-respect is not less im- 
 portant than that of the individual, for 
 when a society loses its confidence in its 
 better self, it loses all hope. The church is 
 vitally interested in the character of the 
 community mind, since, in a very deep 
 sense, the church must assume consider- 
 able responsibility for whatever has become 
 characteristic of the community to which it 
 ministers. The church also recognizes, in 
 proportion to the clearness with which it 
 faces its social opportunity, that by in- 
 fluencing public opinion it is able most 
 deeply to enter the life of the community. 
 
 Public spirit in any community is largely 
 a matter of leadership. The strong men 
 46 
 
COMMUNITY SPIRIT 47 
 
 and women, whether their strength be used 
 for good or evil, make the village what it 
 is. It is the social business of the church 
 to furnish proper leadership and to train 
 and inspire it. The church also is in duty 
 bound to prepare its people by educational 
 and moral instruction for a hearty support 
 of wholesome leadership. 
 
 How quickly at times the stranger can 
 feel the community atmosphere! Its dis- 
 tinctive characteristics are soon realized 
 and their importance recognized. In a cer- 
 tain New England community the general 
 feeling of discouragement would impress 
 the least sensitive visitor. Courage appears 
 dead. It is no surprise to hear it said 
 everywhere, "No young man who is good 
 for anything remains here." 
 
 Not merely is the church greatly inter- 
 ested in the mood of the community; in a 
 most real sense in such a mood the church 
 may discover its own social value. Years 
 of Christian teaching surely ought to make 
 some impression upon the general thought 
 of the community. Unless uncommon 
 
48 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 economic changes have disrupted the nor- 
 mal Hfe of the people, the prevailing atti- 
 tude of mind in a community reveals the 
 quality of the social influence of the 
 church. 
 
 A difficulty in the past has been the waste 
 of personal influence for community pro- 
 gress as a result of the narrow interpreta- 
 tion of the social obligation of the church. 
 Strong men and women who were by na- 
 ture made leaders have often not been 
 enlisted by the church in efforts for com- 
 munity progress. In some places at least 
 the welfare of the church itself, in a most 
 institutional and selfish sense, has been the 
 obligation pressed forward, and there has 
 been no heroic response. In traveling 
 about, one sometimes finds a community 
 where some helpful social enterprise has 
 been carried out with success by persons 
 who have received little support from the 
 churches and who have recognized little in 
 common with the churches, having taken 
 their isolation as a matter of course. The 
 church of the small community fails so- 
 
COMMUNITY SPIRIT 49 
 
 cially when it is not catholic enough to con- 
 tribute Hberally of its influence in specific 
 encouragement of any movement for social 
 betterment, whether community-organized 
 or church-controlled. 
 
 In his attack upon social evils and his 
 impatience with unwholesome conditions, 
 the pastor of the village and country church 
 needs ever to be most careful that he does 
 not destroy community self-respect. De- 
 structive criticism may be both honest and 
 just without being wise. Merely to be 
 right is by no means enough. Nothing re- 
 quires greater skill, more knowledge of 
 human nature, more unselfish thinking, 
 than criticism and denunciation. The 
 promise of better things is based upon 
 proper community pride, and the whole 
 matter is made hopeless if the effort for 
 reform kills the respect of the community 
 for itself. It is especially important to 
 realize that the first effect of such criticism 
 may not disclose its deeper result. It is 
 possible to stir protests and win approval 
 and yet poison the sources of effective 
 
50 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 reconstruction. The safe method em- 
 phasizes what may be as well as declares 
 what is. Indirect criticism is more profit- 
 able and lasting, even if direct denuncia- 
 tion stings more. The community may 
 come to accept the unhappy picture drawn 
 of it as its true likeness and give up all 
 social ambition. In the process of what is 
 often really mere fault-finding, the pastor 
 may destroy the basis of confidence, en- 
 thusiasm, and courage which he needs for 
 reconstruction. 
 
 The church of the small community may 
 conserve public spirit by emphasis upon 
 the resources of the community. The 
 people should be made conscious of every 
 important element that enters their social 
 life. Especially ought they to be made 
 familiar with the past history of the com- 
 munity. It is useless to expect wholesome 
 community pride when nothing is given 
 upon which to build pride. Some of the 
 least enterprising of our small communities 
 have had in times past a most interesting 
 history. The just recognition of impor- 
 
COMMUNITY SPIRIT 51 
 
 tant historical events, of former inhabitants 
 of power, fame, and character, provides 
 substance for the growth of good, social 
 self-respect. Is it not wisdom for the 
 church of the small community to devote 
 at least one Sunday a year to a considera- 
 tion of the history and traditions of the 
 locality? 
 
 Surely such a church ought not to end 
 a year without giving over one Sunday to 
 the consideration of the progress the com- 
 munity has made during the year. Noth- 
 ing will do more to develop concrete social 
 thinking among church people than a com- 
 munity progress Sunday. Upon such a 
 day attention is focused upon the com- 
 munity successes, partial or complete, upon 
 the evident achievements of the people of 
 the place in various departments of social 
 life. This custom in any community in 
 a term of years will prove helpful, because 
 it tends to social construction and confi- 
 dence. 
 
 An open forum for an evening Sunday 
 service, even in some small communities, 
 
52 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 has proven a successful means of making 
 the community socially self-conscious and 
 critical without becoming well-satisfied or 
 pessimistic. It gives the forward view and 
 provides for progress, just as appreciation 
 of the past strengthens community self- 
 respect. Probably no social effort yields 
 more various by-products of lasting value 
 than an interesting open forum. In the 
 period for questions it has the democratic 
 element which is lacking in the usual ad- 
 dress or lecture and it is thereby made 
 more impressive. 
 
 Some small communities need especially 
 to consider the immigrant that has entered 
 its life. He is sometimes left outside the 
 socializing spirit of the community. This 
 causes social loss — at times serious. The 
 future of any community may really be 
 in the hands of such people and it is folly 
 to ask the public school by itself to meet 
 the obligation that rests upon all the na- 
 tive Americans. The church that wishes to 
 help the immigrants often will find that 
 first of all it must educate its own people 
 
COMMUNITY SPIRIT 53 
 
 to appreciate and respect the new-comers. 
 This is no difficult task. Every national 
 type of human being has worth enough to 
 be valued if rightly understood. The work 
 of the church may be to interpret the his- 
 tory and characteristics of the immigrants, 
 that the community life may be organic 
 and Christian. 
 
 No pastor seriously undertakes social 
 service in the small community without 
 soon finding that such a community by 
 itself is seriously limited. Important 
 changes that will build up wholesome 
 spirit in our smaller villages and rural 
 places require the cooperation of several 
 communities. This is most clearly seen in 
 the problem of recreation and entertain- 
 ment, but at present few are socially edu- 
 cated to the point of realizing this. The 
 social efforts of progressive churches are 
 developing a new need of cooperation, a 
 cooperation between communities. Men 
 are eager to learn of the experiences of 
 other communities. Enterprises are being 
 considered that can be successfully carried 
 
54 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 out only by community cooperation, since 
 they are too costly for one locality to un- 
 dertake. An example of this is the attempt 
 of some village churches to find a way to 
 make use of the motion picture for con- 
 structive purposes. This need of a new 
 kind of cooperation is a most promising 
 fact. Communities may learn of one 
 another how skilfully to employ their 
 moral forces and may enter into helpful 
 cooperation and wholesome rivalry in the 
 conservation of community resources. 
 
V 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
 COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
 SERVATION OT THE FAMILY 
 
 In these modern days the family finds 
 its largest opportunity in the country. 
 Urban social conditions hamper the healthy 
 functioning of the home and limit its effi- 
 ciency. One of the most important ad- 
 vantages offered those living in the coun- 
 try as compared with those in the city is 
 the greater opportunity provided for fam- 
 ily association. Members of the family 
 more easily realize their common interests. 
 More time is spent together, resulting, 
 under favorable circumstances, in a richer 
 fellowship than city people easily obtain. 
 Family failures are very apparent in the 
 country, and the influence of the family is 
 usually most significant. It is right, there- 
 fore, to regard the family as a great social 
 resource in the country and to insist that 
 
 55 
 
56 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 its conservation should be eagerly desired 
 by all who have rural welfare at heart. It 
 is impossible to consider seriously the work 
 of the country church, the social ministra- 
 tion of religion, without giving thought to 
 the problems of the family in their relation 
 to the church. 
 
 When the church assumes concrete tasks, 
 and, with the spirit of social passion, covets 
 powerful social resources, it turns, as by 
 instinct, to the family as one of its great- 
 est instruments for service. When on the 
 other hand it undertakes its mission with 
 spiritual and moral lassitude, it seldom dis- 
 covers definitely and significantly how 
 much of its ethical and religious oppor- 
 tunity centers in the home. The church 
 that conceives itself as the envoy of truth, 
 goodness, and beauty soon uncovers the 
 potential value of the family as a social 
 organization in the country. Enlisting 
 earnest lovers of truth in fruitful quests 
 for the great ideals of life requires atten- 
 tion to family conditions. Bringing good- 
 ness into the ordinary life where it can 
 
CONSERVATION OF THE FAMILY 57 
 
 prosper and win vitality demands that the 
 family shall receive its rightful recognition 
 as a source of ethical causes that quickly 
 show themselves in conduct. Disclosing 
 the sweetness and health that come from 
 seeing beauty in common things is a task 
 that needs the cooperation of deep, sym- 
 pathetic, inspiring family association. It is 
 the mark of the conscientious church that 
 it thinks of its mission in family terms, 
 that it expects to find difficulties and re- 
 sources as the result of family influences. 
 
 Neglect of the family weakens the 
 church. By failure to realize concretely 
 the family's social importance, the church 
 often attacks blindly some obvious evil. 
 Individuals are seldom understood cor- 
 rectly apart from family training. Openly 
 defiant wickedness feeds upon unwhole- 
 some family conditions, drawing its vigor 
 largely from the weaknesses, ignorance, 
 and selfishness of parents. It is useless to 
 attempt social reform by merely trying to 
 reconstruct individual motives and to cor- 
 rect personal conduct. The great fountain 
 
58 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 of evil needs specific attention. It is in its 
 failure clearly to analyze problems of con- 
 duct into their elementary influences that 
 the church often fails in effectiveness. 
 That the bad family poisons life is com- 
 mon thought indeed. A penetration into 
 the way that a definite home is proving a 
 social menace is far from common. A 
 specific treatment of the ills of the family, 
 after an analysis carried through with 
 scientific precision, is most unusual; and 
 yet such painstaking diagnosis enables the 
 church to conserve its moral efforts and to 
 multiply its successes. 
 
 It is a striking fact, that has not been 
 suflSciently pondered upon by religious 
 people, that social improvement cannot be 
 permanent when the family does not re- 
 ceive great emphasis as a fundamental fac- 
 tor in any social situation. Persuasion and 
 inspiration may stimulate the individual, 
 but no activity can lift up a social group 
 for any length of time that does not appre- 
 ciate the strategic value of the family. 
 The family advance measures the real pro- 
 
CONSERVATION OF THE FAMILY 50 
 
 gress of the movement, and registers the 
 success of the reformation. There is a 
 temptation felt by all morally earnest peo- 
 ple in enthusiastic social service to treat 
 individuals as detached from their homes. 
 It is easier to rescue from the home than to 
 rescue the home from its misfortune. Al- 
 though such service brings immediate re- 
 turns, and occasionally most gratifying 
 success, it is clear to the thoughtful social 
 worker that abiding ethical advance re- 
 quires the improving of the family. This 
 is especially true in the small community, 
 because of the enormous functions that the 
 family still performs. The church that 
 craves efficiency in things that count and 
 that wishes to do service that wins lasting 
 results will surely consider the family ele- 
 ment in every social and moral problem. 
 
 The church in the small community has 
 no greater need than to teach its constit- 
 uency to assume specific moral service. 
 Human progress depends at present most 
 of all upon getting good purposes expressed 
 in actual service. This is certainly pro- 
 
60 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 foundly true of the people who come con- 
 stantly under the influence of the Chris- 
 tian churches. There is more goodness at 
 hand than is being utilized in efforts really 
 significant. Any attempt to bring good 
 people face to face with concrete responsi- 
 bility that involves causal influences is most 
 wholesome. When the church of the small 
 community treats the family as a training 
 school for loyalty to responsibility, it min- 
 isters to a great need in the lives of well- 
 meaning people. It directs the attention 
 of spiritually ambitious men and women to 
 immediate opportunities for magnificent 
 service in the home. The family becomes 
 a mission field and the parent a missionary. 
 The child, awakening to cravings of his 
 deeper moral nature, is shown that the 
 home is the first testing-place for his new 
 ideals, the proper place for honest pur- 
 poses to become actualized. The condition 
 of the family life in the small community 
 makes the emphasis of the moral meaning 
 of the home most natural. He who faces 
 things as they are and is morally sincere. 
 
CONSERVATION OF THE FAMILY 61 
 
 grants, as he looks over the situation in 
 the small community, that the family is 
 the proper place for moral responsibility to 
 assume its obligations, at least a very 
 necessary place for moral effort. The 
 home has always had a large social func- 
 tion as a school for morals, and it is the 
 business of the church in the small com- 
 munity to make full use of so great an 
 instrument. 
 
 There can be no doubt that any effort 
 on the part of the church to consider its 
 service in the community with special ref- 
 erence to family needs, in the spirit of 
 science, with regard to the operation of 
 cause and effect, means the enriching of 
 the inspirational efforts of the organiza- 
 tion. Preaching fails to carry force often 
 because it is so subjective. It describes 
 qualities that are desirable and emphasizes 
 methods of obtaining these qualities only 
 in a verbal way. The objective manner of 
 thinking on the part of the scientist, who 
 detects conditions and precisely adminis- 
 ters what the occasion demands, is not un- 
 
62 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 commonly absent from the sermon. In an 
 age when the people are increasingly being 
 trained to take an objective and causal 
 view of problems, and when practicality is 
 a virtue, the subjective exhortation ceases 
 to carry conviction. The pastor of the 
 country church who treats moral difficul- 
 ties from a causal point of view, and who 
 studies the family life as a source of moral 
 causes, gets into his sermons the same 
 concreteness that has become a part of 
 his personality. He never covers his un- 
 willingness or his inability to think his 
 moral problems down to their fundamental 
 elements by the use of such an abstract 
 term as "sin." The vocabulary even of 
 the sermon is protected from a mere emo- 
 tional meaning — a result that follows the 
 use of general ideas — and is characterized 
 by specific thinking that naturally leads to 
 concrete activity. Such preaching com- 
 mands attention. 
 
 The church of the small community at 
 times assumes a dangerous policy toward 
 the family. The church finds itself con- 
 
CONSERVATION OF THE FAMILY 63 
 
 fronted with the sad fact that the family 
 life is far from reasonable eflSciency, this 
 failure resulting in the neglect of the needs 
 of the children at important points. It 
 faces a situation and not a theory, and is 
 therefore deeply tempted to meet the prob- 
 lem by methods that will bring immediate 
 relief. Unconsciously it undertakes to fill 
 up the void that the family failures are 
 creating in the lives of children and youth. 
 The profound fact is that the family is re- 
 lieved often in this way of much of its 
 responsibility. If the school and church 
 are eager to assume obligations that the 
 home fails to meet, it is natural for the 
 home to be contented in spite of its in- 
 efficiency. And yet the home is made 
 healthy only by trying to meet its serious 
 responsibilities. Parents respond with an 
 easy conscience to the invitation to give 
 over some of their proper obligations, and 
 thus new needs are created for the school 
 and church to attempt to satisfy. The end 
 of such an evolution may be the elimination 
 of the home as an efficient social organiza- 
 
64 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 tion. When the attack that is foreshad- 
 owed by many currents in present-day 
 thinking is made upon the home, its de- 
 fenders may find that it has already lost 
 much from its important functions. It is 
 bad business for the church to rob the 
 home of any of its responsibility by a 
 benevolent effort to fill the void that fam- 
 ily carelessness is causing. The slower but 
 wiser policy calls for a heroic attempt to 
 invigorate the family, and to make it 
 morally self-supporting. This does not, of 
 course, mean that the church should not 
 work with children; it means that such 
 work must not be a method of relieving 
 the home of service it is equipped to 
 perform. 
 
 The church must teach the adults that 
 the home cannot safely attempt to farm 
 out its proper responsibilities to any social 
 organization whatsoever. Conditions in 
 the small community make it possible for 
 such teaching to obtain significant results. 
 The home is by no means hopelessly out- 
 rivaled; it still has courage to assume its 
 
CONSERVATION OF THE FAMILY Q5 
 
 normal tasks. It is easy indeed, however, 
 for the church to encourage the parents in 
 their thinking that a larger and larger part 
 of the life of the children must be given 
 over to experts who work through special 
 institutions or to persons who have special 
 gifts with children. Home-love is still the 
 chief need of the child — intelligent affec- 
 tion. The church of the small community 
 proves its wisdom when it works through 
 the home rather than for the home. 
 
VI 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
 COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
 SERVATION OF RECREATION 
 
 There is a very general and an increasing 
 recognition of the need of providing rural 
 young people with opportunities for whole- 
 some play, and it promises happier and 
 healthier days for country youth. This 
 does not mean, of course, that the demand 
 for play is something modern. Indeed, the 
 facts are otherwise. Man has been a 
 player from the beginning. Even animals 
 play. The savage also gives his testimony 
 regarding the great human need of play, 
 for, however brutal his habits and low his 
 standard of living, he plays, plays a great 
 deal, and finds in his play a deep satisfac- 
 tion, and the gain from his play is not 
 altogether personal, for in primitive life 
 play performs a most important social ser- 
 vice. Although there have been days in 
 the past when play has been called wicked 
 
 66 
 
CONSERVATION OF RECREATION 67 
 
 frivolity, yet even at such times men have 
 needed recreation and have found it, con- 
 trary to their theory, in their rehgious ac- 
 tivities in such forms as festivities, pa- 
 geants, and passion plays. 
 
 Although play is not by any means a 
 modern invention, nevertheless we are just 
 beginning to understand its social value. 
 It has in recent times been too much 
 thought of as significant only for the pleas- 
 ure of the individual. Since it has been 
 highly organized and commercialized, how- 
 ever, recreation has appeared in its true 
 light. Thinking people have been forced 
 to see that play is a great social influence, 
 a most potent factor in building or de- 
 stroying character, and, since the appetite 
 for play is stimulated by all the skill at the 
 command of great modern business or- 
 ganizations, it is being clearly understood 
 that the child, if society is to be whole- 
 some, must be protected and guided in his 
 play. The church, therefore, is not indif- 
 ferent to the problem of recreation, and 
 especially is this true of the efficient church 
 
68 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 in the country and small community. Con- 
 ditions of modern life, requiring relief and 
 recuperation from nervous strain, demand 
 play increasingly in some form for adults, 
 and it is no longer possible to consider the 
 recreation problem in either city or coun- 
 try as merely having to do with the wel- 
 fare of children. Play, therefore, has be- 
 come a community problem, and one that 
 has to do with the interests of all the peo- 
 ple of the community. 
 
 The church in the small community has, 
 or at least may have, much influence upon 
 the recreation of the community and its 
 responsibility is in proportion to its oppor- 
 tunity. It may, of course, as churches at 
 times have — happily not often of late — set 
 itself in opposition to recreation. In pleas- 
 ure, however clean and wholesome, refresh- 
 ing and socializing, it may see merely a 
 trivial attitude, a frivolous spirit. It may, 
 though fortunately it seldom does, look 
 upon all play as an enemy of serious moral 
 character, and may frown upon amusement 
 at every opportunity. This attitude on the 
 
CONSERVATION OF RECREATION 69 
 
 part of the church creates, in the degree 
 that it is successful, a void in the hfe of the 
 people, especially of the young, and by sad 
 experience wise people have discovered that 
 such an emptiness not seldom becomes a 
 source of moral corruption. Rural social 
 history has proven that, when the church 
 has been hostile toward recreation, amuse- 
 ment has become an instrument in the 
 hands of the evil forces and an instrument 
 of power over young life. The church, also 
 in times past, because of its proper opposi- 
 tion to unwholesome amusements, has for- 
 gotten the need of replacing evil recreation 
 with good, and has been content with 
 merely denouncing that for which a sub- 
 stitute needed to be found. 
 
 A more common mistake on the part of 
 the church of the small community has 
 been a practical indifference to recrea- 
 tional needs. The church has failed to 
 appreciate in such cases the importance 
 that amusement has as a source of moral, 
 social influence. Perhaps the problem of 
 evil recreation has been talked about; it 
 
70 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 may even have become a source of worry, 
 but no eflfective action in regard to the 
 matter has been carried out. Good peo- 
 ple have forgotten that the power for evil 
 contained in bad amusements is clear proof 
 of the great social service that proper 
 recreation may perform. 
 
 The only right attitude for a Christian 
 church to take toward recreation is that 
 of sympathy and support. It is in duty 
 bound to appreciate so great a source of 
 social influence, and to attempt its pro- 
 tection from the preying selfishness of com- 
 mercial exploitation. Its mission in society 
 is best accomplished by its taking strategic 
 possession of the places where human char- 
 acter is most naturally and profoundly in- 
 fluenced, and certainly one such place is 
 recreation. 
 
 When the church of the small community 
 assumes the proper attitude toward the 
 problem, it is called upon to study how to 
 make its influence count. It often awakens 
 to the fact — and it is real spiritual heroism 
 to admit the situation — that its influence 
 
CONSERVATION OF RECREATION 71 
 
 upon the community recreations is very lit- 
 tle; indeed, it may discover that it has not 
 even realized the character of some of the 
 most significant recreations that have got- 
 ten into the community life. 
 
 In its attempt to meet the recreation 
 problem, the church faces the question 
 whether it must itseK provide wholesome 
 recreation. The answer depends upon cir- 
 cumstances. In most cases it is safer and 
 wiser for the church to inspire other or- 
 ganizations to take over the problem. In 
 such cases the church best serves by its 
 teaching. There are advantages in the 
 school becoming the recreational center, or 
 in some new organization being created to 
 meet the specific problem. The church can 
 then assume the responsibility of keeping 
 the community interested, in developing 
 the craving for good forms of play. 
 
 The distinctly rural church has the 
 largest opportunity along these lines of 
 service at present, because it can so 
 quickly make its influence count. The 
 rural young people are most likely to suffer 
 
72 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 from a lack of proper recreation. The 
 church is fortunate that can turn to the 
 Young Men's Christian Association for ex- 
 pert help in solving the recreation problem 
 of the community. When there are sev- 
 eral churches in the same community, there 
 is the greatest need of constructive work 
 being carried on by an organization that 
 can unite all the Christian organizations in 
 a common social service. It is most unfor- 
 tunate in such circumstances if each church 
 strives to organize recreation for its own 
 people by itself. 
 
 The mistake is still being made in many 
 small villages and country places of think- 
 ing of play as a need only for the young 
 people and children. In rural life espe- 
 cially, emphasis must be placed upon adult 
 recreation. Social health, mental vigor, 
 moral sanity, demand more play, more 
 freedom, more relief from labor for adults 
 living and working in the country. Often 
 rest from labor means cheap dissipation or 
 empty idleness. A great social vitalizing 
 experience is thrown away because no ef- 
 
CONSERVATION OF RECREATION 73 
 
 fort is made to conserve adult recreational 
 needs. 
 
 It is not strange to hear the failure of 
 cooperation among rural people charged up 
 to their lack of play experience. We have 
 every reason to regard the statement seri- 
 ously, for play teaches cooperation and 
 creates friendly feeling as few things can. 
 It certainly seems true in some rural places 
 that there is less neighborhood recreation 
 and fellowship than there formerly was. 
 There has perhaps been created a taste for 
 urban stimulating pleasures and a failure to 
 realize the neighborhood opportunities that 
 contain deeper satisfactions than the city 
 affords. Here and there we find foolish 
 efforts to import the city amusements into 
 the country rather than an honest effort to 
 discover the possibilities of the country it- 
 self. In the end the country must find its 
 own joys or grow barren. 
 
 There appears to be one form of recrea- 
 tion that churches in small villages and 
 rural places ought to encourage greatly, 
 and that is reading and study clubs. It is 
 
74 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 no secret that some of our most serious 
 readers are not in the cities, but in the 
 country. The conditions of rural Hfe tend 
 to deepen the impression of whatever is 
 read. It is a great pity that often the 
 reading is of Httle worth because the ma- 
 terial itself has almost no value. Serious 
 reading of trivial, perhaps cheap, literature 
 represents a very great loss, and the com- 
 munity church needs to conserve the men- 
 tal cravings of its people. There is need of 
 more study and reading clubs in the coun- 
 try — the getting together of people who like 
 to read along similar lines that they may 
 profit from their intellectual fellowship. 
 The splendid success of such organizations 
 in some rural towns, often as a result of the 
 influence of the pastor of a church, proves 
 how very valuable this mental form of rec- 
 reation may prove in the social life of 
 country people. 
 
VII 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL COM- 
 MUNITY AND THE CONSERVA- 
 TION OF PHYSICAL HEALTH 
 
 The country has the conditions of health. 
 Rural health, nevertheless, is not in pro- 
 portion to the opportunities offered bj^ the 
 wholesome environment of country people. 
 There appears to be a difference of opinion 
 respecting rural health as compared with 
 that of urban people. An eminent statis- 
 tician expresses the opinion that "the mor- 
 tality-rates from all important diseases are 
 measurably lower among American farmers 
 than among numerous employments typi- 
 cal of modern city life in the United States. 
 The statistical evidence, therefore, is quite 
 conclusive that in the registration area of 
 the United States, which, however, excludes 
 most of the rural sections of western and 
 southern states, the mortality -rate from all 
 causes combined, and from practically all 
 
 75 
 
76 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 the important causes, is much less in the 
 rural districts than in the cities."' A report 
 made for the United States Bureau of 
 Education concerning a survey made of 
 eight eastern states is said to give "over- 
 whelming evidence against the healthful- 
 ness of the country as compared with the 
 city."2 "The Wisconsin Anti-tuberculosis 
 League, a year or so ago, made a very 
 careful and exact sanitary survey of a 
 certain rural district in that state, relative 
 to the amount of this disease, and found 
 that in some parts of this district the 
 death-rate from tuberculosis exceeded that 
 of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's largest city/*^ 
 In regard to one fact there is, however, 
 general agreement — tPie health of rural peo- 
 ple is not so great as it ought to be, in the 
 light of the opportunities provided by the 
 country for health. 
 
 ip. L. HofFmann, "Rural Health and Welfare," 
 pp. 12, 9. 
 
 2 Report of National Conference of Charities and 
 Corrections 1914, p. 154. 
 
 8 Bashore, "Overcrowding and Defective Housing in 
 Rural Districts," p. 88. 
 
PHYSICAL HEALTH 77 
 
 Doubtless also there is little question 
 that country people are less concerned 
 with problems of health than they need to 
 be. It is too often assumed without rea- 
 son that rural conditions in regard to 
 health are satisfactory enough not to re- 
 quire community investigation. As a 
 result, we have little public effort for 
 improvement. In urban centers much 
 progress is being made in the conservation 
 of public health and there are equal mo- 
 tives for cooperative effort in the country 
 along the same lines. The Country cannot 
 safely rely upon its natural advantages. In 
 such effort for improved conditions of living 
 the church has a clear duty. It should lead. 
 
 The church can be indifferent only be- 
 cause of social ignorance. It confesses fatal 
 narrowness of spiritual vision when it re- 
 fuses to consider physical welfare as in- 
 cluded in its community mission. It 
 blinds itself to the far-reaching results of 
 poor health, of harmful habits of living. 
 Seldom indeed in these days can one find 
 a church consciously assuming such a po- 
 
78 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 sition, but too frequently we find churches 
 in the country that act as if they had little 
 responsibility for the physical well-being of 
 the people. 
 
 The community-spirited church regards 
 the problem of health as a moral matter. 
 Unnecessary suffering and disease mean 
 a loss to the community of its human 
 resources. Human personality is too val- 
 uable to be lost to the community as a 
 result of unwholesome living conditions, 
 brought about by public indifference, ig- 
 norance, and selfishness. Suffering reduces 
 human eflSciency, it lowers the vitality of 
 the contribution made to the community 
 by the unfortunate sufferer. Suffering 
 which results from conditions that are the 
 expression of a low public intelligence and 
 sense of responsibihty becomes a moral 
 matter by its very existence, for it is the 
 business of the church to minister to whole- 
 some happiness. 
 
 Indeed, from a most narrow point of 
 view, the church is interested in problems 
 of health, for some diseases have a most 
 
PHYSICAL HEALTH 79 
 
 definite moral significance. Consumption, 
 for example, has often a most remarkable 
 influence upon the sex life of the individual. 
 Passion often becomes abnormally intense 
 as a result of the development of tubercu- 
 losis. Science shows also that alcoholism 
 is at times the result of a diseased condi- 
 tion of the body. Paresis, a nervous disease 
 usually resulting from syphilis, often has a 
 clear series of moral results of great social 
 importance. A man of high social standing, 
 of good reputation, perhaps a man of great 
 service socially, begins suddenly to show a 
 most unexplainable change in personal 
 habits and in morals. He becomes a scan- 
 dal in the community and perhaps as a 
 consequence some church is brought into 
 disrepute. And the entire moral change is 
 merely a part of the symptoms of this ter- 
 rible disease, paresis, caused by a syphilitic 
 infection many years previously. Even 
 when the church accepts little concrete re- 
 sponsibility for the health of the com- 
 munity, it has to take account of problems 
 that are born of bad physical conditions. 
 
80 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 Modern science is making this relation be- 
 tween morals and health increasingly clear. 
 The efficient Christian church has in the 
 small community a very definite and serious 
 work that it ought to do for the health of 
 the people. It surely ought to teach in 
 concrete terms a proper respect for the 
 body. This teaching cannot safely be lim- 
 ited to instruction in regard to two or 
 three physical vices. Respect for the body 
 must be cultivated by attention to many 
 facts concerning the needs, uses, and dan- 
 gers of one's physical self. Some of this 
 teaching may be undertaken wisely in co- 
 operation with the doctor; some of it may 
 be a by-product of an interesting and prac- 
 tical sermon. Without doubt some in- 
 struction should be carried on by special 
 classes — perhaps as a part of the Sunday 
 school work. Christianity teaches that the 
 body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and 
 no church can do its proper service in the 
 small community when it does not concern 
 itself thoughtfully and broadly with the 
 physical welfare of the people. 
 
PHYSICAL HEALTH 81 
 
 It is even necessary at the present time in 
 many country places that country people 
 be taught in an interesting and sane way 
 the causes of some of the most important 
 diseases. The church ought either to in- 
 spire such an undertaking or assume the 
 task itself. The sad story of lung houses, 
 overcrowding, and insanitary conditions 
 among rural people has been forcefully and 
 briefly told by Dr. B ashore in his recent 
 book, "Overcrowding and Defective Hous- 
 ing in Rural Districts." These unnecessary 
 conditions in the country demand very 
 practical instruction. The church can eas- 
 ily bring about some method by which 
 this information respecting rural physical 
 dangers and needs can be given and driven 
 home. Rural people of intelligence are 
 prone to consider bad houses and insani- 
 tary conditions as individual problems. 
 This is by no means true. Germs are no 
 respecter of persons. Conditions that 
 menace an individual or a family also en- 
 danger the entire community. 
 
 It is particularly important in the coun- 
 
82 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 try to study the physical needs of children. 
 Infant mortality is a problem in the coun- 
 try as certainly as in the city, and it must 
 be solved in both places by publicity and 
 education. The country school is very bad 
 indeed with reference to its influence phys- 
 ically upon the growing children, as no one 
 can doubt who knows the rural school per- 
 sonally. It is severe criticism, considering 
 the physical resources of the country school, 
 when Dr. Bashore aflSrms "that all city 
 children, no matter what city or where, 
 attend school under sanitary conditions far 
 ahead of anything in the country." This 
 problem of the rural child and his school 
 surroundings is a vital one for the church, 
 for from the school come the human re- 
 sources upon which the organization later 
 must depend. Church indifference to the 
 physical needs of the school condemns the 
 church as socially inefficient and blind to 
 its large moral mission. Many a school- 
 man will contrast the city open-air school 
 with the sickening atmosphere of some 
 rural school which has never been forgotten 
 
PHYSICAL HEALTH 83 
 
 because of the impression received upon 
 visiting it. It is a sad and discouraging 
 illustration of the character of some of our 
 rural teaching that in such a school a 
 limited amount of instruction regarding 
 physical hygiene is required by the law of 
 the state. 
 
 Emphasis upon matters that concern 
 public health is wholesome in teaching the 
 people to undertake community self-ex- 
 amination. Needs can be easily found and 
 made forceful when they are physical in 
 character. A community often turns from 
 an honest self-examination at this point to 
 the consideration of matters equally im- 
 portant, but not so easily seen. The 
 church itself may study its social value by 
 an investigation of public health conditions 
 and its influence in reforming these. If it 
 has no real public influence respecting such 
 apparent needs, it may well question 
 whether its spiritual service is deeply suc- 
 cessful. Surely if it has no ability to make 
 wholesome physical conditions, it cannot 
 assume that it is a moral force in the com- 
 
84 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 munity. "If in the rural districts we can 
 substitute common community activities 
 for self-centered interests, kindliness for 
 suspiciousness, helpfulness for indifference; 
 if we can inspire a better spirit of coopera- 
 tion in agricultural pursuits, in civic bet- 
 terment, in home-making and child -raising; 
 in other words, if we can bring to these 
 people a wholesome knowledge of hygiene 
 in the best understanding of the word, it 
 will mean to them a richer, fuller life, ex- 
 pressing itself in a generation of sound, 
 healthy people." These words of a lover 
 of country welfare contain a truth, but the 
 better plan is to have a church of vision, 
 courage, and social passion lead the people 
 themselves to a higher standard of physical 
 being. 
 
 The honest church will at least attend to 
 the health problems that center about its 
 own building. There can be no great 
 promise in a sermon on taking good care of 
 the body preached to people who are 
 breathing poison as a result of vicious in- 
 difference to or ignorance of the matter of 
 
PHYSICAL HEALTH 85 
 
 ventilation. He who has been invited to 
 speak in a dirty church building, pointedly 
 disclosing the character of an inefficient 
 janitor and a careless people, will confess 
 to a feeling of depression after looking 
 about the building. The clean and the 
 sanitary church building is a prerequisite to 
 any successful effort for the bettering of 
 public health conditions by the church. In 
 conserving rural health resources, the 
 church often awakens to the fact that it 
 has itself been negligent with reference to 
 its own institutional influence. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
 COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
 SERVATION OF MENTAL 
 HEALTH 
 
 In our present social life the problem of 
 mental abnormality looms large. Mental 
 disorder, one of the most dangerous and 
 pathetic of human afflictions, is becoming 
 painfully frequent. Although we have rea- 
 son to suppose that insanity is more com- 
 mon in the city than in the country, it is, 
 nevertheless, a serious problem for the 
 country community. The layman, in 
 thinking of mental abnormality, has in 
 mind usually the idea of insanity ex- 
 pressed in clear and forceful peculiarities 
 of conduct. Because of this he often fails 
 to appreciate a great many cases of mental 
 unsoundness which express themselves in 
 foolish, anti-social, or immoral behavior. 
 The problem of mental health is larger 
 than the problem of mental sanity in the 
 
MENTAL HEALTH 87 
 
 popular sense. The student of the mind is 
 finding increasingly that mental instability 
 is the real cause of problems of conduct 
 that have been considered merely moral in 
 character. 
 
 All conduct, whether good or bad, is re- 
 lated to mental states, and is therefore in- 
 fluenced by the normality or abnormality 
 of the mind. It is natural that unsound- 
 ness of mind should express itself in ab- 
 normal conduct of various forms. Modern 
 science reveals the relation between mental 
 disorder or instability and the unwhole- 
 some conduct which is characteristic of 
 the vicious and delinquent classes. It is 
 clearly shown that there is a direct connec- 
 tion between disordered mental condition 
 and alcoholism, vagrancy, prostitution, 
 pauperism, and crime. Studies of criminal 
 classes are increasingly placing emphasis 
 upon the mental abnormality which is the 
 real cause of the anti-social conduct. In- 
 vestigations made by experts in clinic psy- 
 chology are changing the conception of the 
 sociologist regarding crime. Science has. 
 
88 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 for example, recently made a statement 
 very different from its earlier opinion con- 
 cerning the causes of prostitution. 
 
 The new significance that mental un- 
 wholesomeness has in social life as a result 
 of the modern teaching of science makes 
 the whole problem of mind disorder of im- 
 portance to the church of the small com- 
 munity. The efficient church attempts to 
 deal with its problems in the light of 
 present knowledge and to treat every case 
 from the viewpoint of causation. It fol- 
 lows, therefore, that the church must give 
 attention to the growing mental instability 
 that produces so many of the concrete per- 
 sonal misfortunes. Its interest in the re- 
 sults of mental disorder forces it to take 
 an intelligent interest in the cause itself. 
 
 It might seem at first thought as if the 
 church could do nothing to conserve the 
 mind. Valuable as it would be for a clearer 
 insight into the nature of certain moral 
 difficulties, the knowledge of the signifi- 
 cance of mental instability might seem of 
 no greater use. This, however, is not true. 
 
MENTAL HEALTH 89 
 
 The service of the church, especially in the 
 small community, is necessarily related to 
 the problem of mind conservation. It is 
 clearly in the power of the church to do its 
 part to lessen the tragedies of life that 
 appear in the form of mind disease. On 
 the other hand, who can doubt that care- 
 less and unwholesome church activity adds 
 somewhat to the influences that operate to 
 increase mind disorder? 
 
 Troubles of the mind are often the result 
 of bad habits. The expert makes much of 
 the value of good training as a means of 
 decreasing insanity and nervous diseases. 
 The habits that the child forms or fails to 
 form may decide years later whether the 
 adult is to be mentally or nervously sound 
 or not. It surprises the layman to hear 
 the doctor insist that the relief of neuras- 
 thenia largely depends upon the getting rid 
 of bad habits and the creation of new 
 habits. The significance of habit forma- 
 tion in the conservation of the mind brings 
 again to the attention of the church of the 
 small community its relation to the home. 
 
90 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 Parents help to injure the mental health of 
 their children because they do not under- 
 stand the problem of child training. Often 
 they merely lack an appreciation of the 
 significance of the events of early child life. 
 It would seem as if the church that covets 
 service must find in the need of awakening 
 the home to its responsibilities a very in- 
 viting opportunity. 
 
 There is one type of habit formation that 
 the church especially needs to understand 
 — the habit of day-dreaming. Thinking 
 that satisfies the person without working 
 itself out into real activity is dangerous by 
 its very nature. Modern psychology, the 
 Freudian psychology especially, makes this 
 fact very clear. Insanity itself is at times 
 the relief that an extreme kind of day- 
 dreaming gives in contrast with the painful 
 experiences of reality. The church needs 
 to impress this fact, not only upon teach- 
 ers and parents, but also upon its own 
 conscience. The pastor especially must 
 meditate upon the significance of the day- 
 dreaming weakness in human life, for the 
 
MENTAL HEALTH 91 
 
 church itself may be given to the day- 
 dreaming tendency. Religion may be used 
 to cover up an unwillingness to face real- 
 ity, to meet the moral needs of the situa- 
 tion. The minister must expect persons of 
 mental instability to turn to religion for 
 help. In such cases it is very necessary 
 that the church really help. Selfishness 
 often is the deep root of mental disorder 
 and day-dreaming its fruit. Men and 
 women who have neither the courage nor 
 the unselfishness to face a hard situation 
 turn to religion as an opportunity for the 
 indulging of a pernicious kind of day- 
 dreaming. Christianity has proven its 
 moral supremacy in its refusal to cater to 
 this peculiar kind of selfishness. The spirit 
 of the church becomes unwholesome when 
 encouragement is given, consciously or un- 
 consciously, to this bad habit which satis- 
 fies the desires of a person by the creations 
 of fancy. On the other hand, in so far as 
 the church insists upon ideals being carried 
 to practice it decreases the danger that day- 
 dreaming will become a community problem. 
 
92 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 The first steps toward mind unwhole- 
 someness are sometimes taken in the effort 
 to retreat from a hard personal ordeal. 
 The individual turns his back upon reality 
 because of lack of courage. The church 
 often saves one from this danger by giving 
 him a sense of the resources upon which he 
 can call for help. The religious experience 
 of the person becomes a source of confi- 
 dence, and the tendency to give up the 
 struggle by being satisfied with dreams of 
 victory comes to an end. The personality 
 is saved from moral ruin, perhaps from 
 mental disorder. 
 
 The church may perform the same ser- 
 vice for those who suffer from morbid fears. 
 Fear is the enemy of mental health. Fear 
 often originates as a result of moral dis- 
 order. Many times it starts in experiences 
 in childhood that are not wisely treated by 
 parents or that are concealed from parents. 
 The wiser the parent, the less the danger of 
 such an experience troubling the child. 
 Wrong methods of moral teaching in the 
 church, especially in the Sunday school, 
 
MENTAL HEALTH 93 
 
 occasionally false teaching, are causes of 
 morbid fears. It is usually true that these 
 fears disappear when they are faced and 
 become harmful only when the person at- 
 tempts to run away from them. 
 
 In so far as the church teaches a positive 
 morality that leads men and women, boys 
 and girls, to fight their moral battles, it 
 decreases the tendency toward morbid 
 fears. It is a surprise at first to the student 
 of the problem how often a morbid fear 
 expresses itself in anti-social or immoral 
 conduct. 
 
 Nothing conserves the mind so much as 
 having a healthy interest in life. It is a 
 splendid protection against both morbid 
 feeling and morbid thinking. It keeps one 
 from wishing to enjoy the poisonous pleas- 
 ures of day-dreaming. It leads to whole- 
 some activity. It invigorates the life and 
 takes one's thought off one's self by oc- 
 cupying the attention with captivating 
 purposes. This fact the church cannot 
 safely forget. The barren individual life 
 needs the same treatment that the barren 
 
94 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 social life requires. A more interesting 
 community life often saves people from 
 losing their personal interest in normal ac- 
 tivity. The life of the small community 
 must be made vital in order to be whole- 
 some. The individual who finds little in 
 Hfe to hve for, who faces an uninviting 
 situation, must be led to a deeper under- 
 standing of the meaning of human ex- 
 perience. 
 
 In so far as the church lifts the moral 
 standard of a community and decreases 
 vice, it ministers to the mental well-being 
 of the people. Immorality is very closely 
 connected with mind disorder. The dis- 
 solute life often expresses itself in insanity. 
 This fact especially appears in the study of 
 paresis, a brain disease which generally or- 
 iginates from syphilitic infection. Alcohol- 
 ism also is a cause of insanity. Drug habits 
 lead to mental disorders. It is difficult to 
 have a sound mind in a sound body unless 
 the basis of both is made a sound morality. 
 Self-control and high ideals may not always 
 prevent insanity, but without doubt they 
 
MENTAL HEALTH 95 
 
 are protective in their tendency and prob- 
 ably in many cases guard the Hfe with a 
 somewhat neurotic heredity from serious 
 mental diflSculty. 
 
IX 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
 COMMUNITY AND THE PROB- 
 LEM OF THE FEEBLE-MINDED 
 
 A recent visit to a country school to give 
 advice concerning two children who were 
 charged with immoral conduct and who 
 proved to be mentally defective emphasized 
 anew the problem of moral segregation in 
 the country community. City moral prob- 
 lems, without doubt, because of their mas- 
 sive characteristics are usually spectacular 
 and easily attract the attention of students 
 of social life. Moral problems in the coun- 
 try are more likely to be underestimated 
 because they usually appear as isolated and 
 individual, without the magnitude that 
 challenges investigation. Perhaps a just 
 comparison between the moral dangers of 
 urban life and those of rural life is both im- 
 possible and unprofitable, but it is clear 
 that the forms which moral problems take 
 must differ somewhat in the two types of 
 96 
 
PROBLEM OF FEEBLE-MINDED 97 
 
 community life. The city parent has one 
 advantage in meeting moral diflSculties 
 which seems of no small value to the 
 thoughtful country father and mother. 
 Urban conditions permit the more careful 
 parents to segregate their children, at least 
 to some degree, from immoral suggestions. 
 If vice in the city is more organized and ex- 
 ploited, it is also true that it need not 
 touch so closely the life of the child as it 
 must when it appears in the country. In 
 the country, vice may be said to be more 
 spontaneous and more personal, and for 
 these reasons all the more dangerous to the 
 naturally innocent. The vicious boy may 
 be the only near playmate of the pure- 
 minded girl. Their association in the same 
 small class in school may make it the most 
 natural thing in the world that they should 
 walk home together after school. 
 
 Even if the parents realize the moral 
 dangers of this comradeship, it is hard to 
 meet the problem. Any attempt to segre- 
 gate the child from the evil association in- 
 volves the possibility of neighborhood un- 
 
98 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 friendliness and misunderstanding, from 
 which one naturally shrinks. The parents 
 who have the courage to meet the problem 
 without regard to neighborhood gossip and 
 hostility often find that the attempted seg- 
 regation is both diflScult to maintain and 
 dangerous in itself. The child is almost 
 certain to become conscious of the situa- 
 tion, which results in an imwholesome con- 
 dition, and the vicious influence is generally 
 militant in its effort to break through the 
 barriers. It is, of course, by no means im- 
 possible to meet the situation with success, 
 but seldom easy. The urban mother may 
 segregate her child without depriving it of 
 companionship and without attracting pub- 
 licity. Indeed, careful urban parents take 
 for granted the necessity of a limited segre- 
 gation of their children from the well- 
 recognized moral dangers in the com- 
 munity. In neither city nor country is the 
 effort to protect the child certain of suc- 
 cess, but in the country it is more diflScult. 
 The clearest illustration of the impor- 
 tance of this problem of moral segregation 
 
PROBLEM OF FEEBLE-MINDED 99 
 
 in the country appears in the case of the 
 defectives. Science teaches the very grave 
 danger in any community life of children 
 who are morally defective or who are mor- 
 ally weak because they are mentally de- 
 ficient. 
 
 Dangerous as is the ament, or mental 
 defective, anywhere, he is doubly so in the 
 country, because he is less likely to be rec- 
 ognized there than in the city, and he has 
 greater opportunity to corrupt the normal 
 because he is not seen in his true character. 
 If the mentally deficient girl often becomes 
 a prostitute in the city, we must not fail 
 to see that her country sister is likely to 
 poison the morals of an entire neighbor- 
 hood and finally to become the mother of 
 illegitimate children. The city usually es- 
 capes the tainted offspring, because of the 
 sterilizing effects of the prostitute's dis- 
 eases. 
 
 Country workers need to realize the diffi- 
 culties of moral segregation in the small 
 communities. Some parents admit that 
 they have moved to town to escape the 
 
100 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 corrupting influence of bad children be- 
 longing to a neighboring family. A great 
 relief would come were it possible, at least, 
 to discover the defectives early and remove 
 them from the community. Science is 
 waiting for the opportunity to protect so- 
 ciety from the moral imbecile and the 
 feeble-minded both in country and city, 
 but little progress can be made until the 
 public is educated to see the need of such 
 protection. Education is required before 
 the extent and the character of the prob- 
 lem of the morally and mentally defective 
 child in the country will be appreciated. 
 It is important for the social worker in 
 rural communities to think of the waste 
 of moral forces caused by the effort to 
 undo the evil started by the moral imbecile, 
 by the hopeless effort to reform him. Rural 
 moral forces are too precious to be spent 
 for almost useless purposes, when greater 
 knowledge would show the worker how to 
 meet the situation more constructively. In 
 most cases it is for the welfare of both 
 society and the defective child himself that 
 
PROBLEM OF FEEBLE-MINDED 101 
 
 he be removed from association with nor- 
 mal children. The significance of this fact 
 will not be appreciated in the country, un- 
 less all who influence rural public opinion 
 discover its importance from personal ob- 
 servation and bring it to the attention of 
 the more thoughtful parents. And now is 
 the opportune time. 
 
 It would seem also as if the city must 
 have some advantage over the country in 
 the attempt to control amentia because of 
 its greater effort to find the feeble-minded 
 children of high grade by means of tests, 
 clinic work, and the keener attention of 
 teachers and officials to the retarded chil- 
 dren. Without doubt in the cities the 
 courts and the police also help to discover 
 defective children of high grade, because in 
 the cities it is so easy for such children to 
 get in trouble in a way that brings them 
 public attention. 
 
 It is reasonable to assume that the 
 greater competition in the cities tends to 
 reveal mental deficiency that would be 
 passed by without notice in the conditions 
 
102 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 of country life. In the country another 
 difficulty is created by the unwillingness 
 often of teachers and neighbors to give in- 
 formation or to take the responsibility of 
 making public charges respecting defective 
 children, because in a small community 
 everything in the way of criticism or com- 
 plaint is so personal in character and is so 
 likely to involve many persons, on account 
 of the close relationships in the group, 
 due to the marrying back and forth. Yet 
 the ament in a rural school has the best 
 opportunity to poison morally the children 
 of an entire neighborhood, and this fact 
 sometimes explains the immoral situation 
 which the rural educator and field worker 
 finds. 
 
 The greatest problem of all in regard to 
 the rural ament is the added menace such 
 degeneration threatens because of the re- 
 sults of rural migration. No greater coun- 
 try problem exists than the condition that 
 has been so well stated by Davenport: 
 ^"Likewise in the rural and the semi-rural 
 
 ^Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, 211-212. 
 
PROBLEM OF FEEBLE-MINDED 103 
 
 population within a hundred miles of our 
 great cities we find a disproportion of the 
 indolent, the alcoholic, the feeble-minded, 
 the ne'er-do-well. I know intimately sev- 
 eral such localities and have seen in one 
 family after another how the ambitious 
 youth leave the parental roof-tree to try 
 their fortunes in the city while the weakest 
 young men stay behind, supported by their 
 parents, or earning only enough to buy the 
 liquor their defective natures crave, and are 
 finally forced to marry a weak girl and 
 father her imbecile offspring. Such vil- 
 lages, depleted of the best, tend to become 
 cradles of degeneracy and crime." 
 
 Society will surely be hampered in its 
 progress unless the state adopts a policy 
 which will not leave the ament to the 
 indifference and misconception of the small 
 community. We need not only the city 
 psychological clinic; we need also the state 
 clinic. The state department of public 
 education should be prepared to hunt out 
 the defective, and the state needs to be 
 able to provide rational treatment for all 
 
104 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 defectives found. Such work must be car- 
 ried on largely through the schools. Pro- 
 fessor Pyle, in the Psychological Clinic for 
 February, 1913, has drawn up a very in- 
 teresting suggestion for the organization of 
 rural clinic work by means of a state-wide 
 examination of school children. No other 
 policy promises to meet this problem. It 
 may seem costly, but only to those who do 
 not realize the burden of the feeble-minded 
 who are without proper supervision. 
 
 The rural ament will never receive de- 
 served attention unless social workers are 
 alive to the greatness of his needs. At this 
 point those who realize the significance of 
 the defective child must concentrate educa- 
 tional effort. The demand for the state- 
 wide clinic work along both physical and 
 mental lines must come from the social 
 workers, teachers, and school ojfficials before 
 the legislators can be expected to consider 
 the matter seriously. The educating of 
 schoolmen and schoolwomen in regard to 
 the imperative character of this special 
 problem is no hopeless undertaking. Al- 
 
PROBLEM OF FEEBLE-MINDED 105 
 
 ready a limited attention to such educating 
 effort has accomplished wonders. 
 
 From every side of the problem of amen- 
 tia, science is showing that society cannot 
 afford to ignore the feeble-minded. In so 
 serious a matter the state must take a 
 larger responsibility. The cost in social 
 evils and in dollars of such cases as this 
 reported by Dr. Fernald^ is too great for 
 the public to leave the small communities 
 to meet the problem of amentia as best 
 they can. ''A feeble-minded girl of the 
 higher grade was accepted as a pupil at 
 the Massachusetts School for the Feeble- 
 minded when she was fifteen years of age. 
 At the last moment the mother refused to 
 send her to the school, as she 'could not 
 bear the disgrace of publicly admitting that 
 she had a feeble-minded child.' Ten years 
 later the girl was committed to the institu- 
 tion by the court, after she had given birth 
 to six illegitimate children, four of whom 
 were still living and all feeble-minded. The 
 
 * "History of the Treatment of the Feeble-minded," 
 
 p. n. 
 
106 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 city where she Hved had supported her at 
 the almshouse for a period of several 
 months at each confinement, and had been 
 compelled to assume the burden of the life- 
 long support of her progeny, and finally 
 decided to place her in permanent custody. 
 Her mother had died broken-hearted sev- 
 eral years previously." 
 
 A very aggressive attack upon the prob- 
 lem of amentia in the country is certain to 
 provide unexpected social relief along other 
 lines. It is impossible to know how much 
 the problem of the use of alcoholic drinks 
 in the country is related to the problem of 
 feeble=mindedness. When one has seen how 
 strong the craving for intoxicants is among 
 some country people, without the sugges- 
 tions and constant temptations provided by 
 the saloon industry in the cities, it is clear 
 that much may be expected of any success- 
 ful attack upon rural amentia in decreasing 
 alcoholism. The problem of illegitimacy in 
 the country is certainly in large measure a 
 problem related to feeble-mindedness. The 
 moral imbecile and the feeble-minded boy 
 
PROBLEM OF FEEBLE-MINDED 107 
 
 given to occasional fire-setting are a most 
 serious menace. 
 
 When this problem of rural amentia is 
 more successfully met, a great economic 
 gain also must result. The best propa- 
 ganda carried on by experiment stations 
 and agricultural colleges must fail in com- 
 munities where a feeble-minded strain by 
 close intermarriage has made nearly an en- 
 tire community defective or abnormal, or 
 has been a large cause of the constant loss 
 of the ambitious youth, because of their 
 eagerness to remove from such an unfavor- 
 able social environment to a city having 
 promise of better conditions. Progress in 
 the control of rural amentia must surely 
 conserve the resources of the various ac- 
 tivities that are attempting to improve so- 
 cial conditions in the country. Political 
 exploitation also, in its different forms in 
 rural communities, is tied up with amentia. 
 The largest result, perhaps, of all which 
 may be expected to follow an effective 
 program respecting the country feeble- 
 minded is the bringing of optimism into 
 
108 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 the lives of people in some country places 
 who at present are possessed by a pes- 
 simism which forms the largest obstacle to 
 social and economic progress. 
 
 The church of the small community in 
 its effort to conserve country life must 
 take to heart this fact of the danger of the 
 anient in the country. Nothing will so 
 certainly discourage the substantial stock 
 in the country and so stimulate its move- 
 ment to the cities as to permit the ament 
 to thrive and enjoy freedom in the coun- 
 tr}^ environment. The whole problem needs 
 to be taken in hand by the forces of the 
 state as a matter of efficient administration. 
 Science has already furnished the informa- 
 tion which justifies another step in the con- 
 trol of amentia. The country needs the 
 advantages of this new progress no less 
 than the cities, as every student of rural 
 moral problems must recognize. Like all 
 such matters, it is mostly a problem in edu- 
 cating people in the country. 
 
X 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
 COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
 SERVATION OF BEAUTY 
 
 Opportunities to realize beauty are 
 among the great advantages of life in the 
 country. The church of the small com- 
 munity may assume a most beneficent so- 
 cial ministration by interpreting these op- 
 portunities to its people. Life sours and 
 grows barren when the sense of beauty 
 fades out of human experience. It is in- 
 deed often true of the vision of nature's 
 beauty — 
 
 "At length the Man perceives it die away. 
 And fade into the light of common day." 
 
 Nothing in life fully compensates for so 
 great a loss. It is as if through beauty we 
 penetrated deepest into the eternal life in 
 which "we live, and move, and have our 
 being," and drew into our own Httle worlds 
 the strength that nourishes all things. 
 What Ruskin has said about the sky is 
 
 109 
 
110 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 also true of all the glories of nature. 
 ''Bright as it is, it is not *too bright, or 
 good for human nature's daily food'; it is 
 fitted in all its functions for the perpetual 
 comfort and exalting of the heart, for 
 soothing and purifying it from its dross 
 and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes 
 capricious, sometimes awful, never the 
 same for two moments together; almost 
 human in its passions, almost spiritual in 
 its tenderness, almost divine in its infinity, 
 its appeal to what is immortal in us is as 
 distinct as its ministry of chastisement or 
 of blessing to what is mortal is essential." 
 He who lives in the open country may 
 have fellowship with the very spirit of 
 beauty. His daily work brings him con- 
 stantly into the presence of scenes such as 
 the artist delights to reproduce and make 
 immortal. If only he has eyes to see he can 
 enrich his soul with wealth that becomes 
 an increasing joy. His opportunity it is 
 
 "To see the world in a grain of sand. 
 And a heaven in a wild flower; 
 Hold infinity in the palm of your hand 
 And eternity in an hour," 
 
CONSERVATION OF BEAUTY 111 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that many 
 in the country live as John Calvin is said to 
 have done in the presence of the Alpine 
 wonders — indifferent to the great oppor- 
 tunity. The church must accept some re- 
 sponsibility for this. It is open to question 
 whether the church can minister religiously, 
 even in the most narrow sense, while un- 
 concerned about the beauties of life that 
 breathe the very presence of God. Heli- 
 gion must draw a part of its vitality from 
 such experiences as Wordsworth's: 
 
 "And I have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean and the living air. 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought 
 And rolls through all things." 
 
 It was recently said that the reason for 
 the low prices of beautifully-bound second- 
 hand copies of standard English poets on 
 sale in a Canadian city was the fact that 
 the present generation was coming into the 
 
112 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 possession of books, for which they did not 
 care, that had been brought from England 
 by their parents. If this is true of any 
 country district, it requires no prophet to 
 foresee an increasing city-drift from that 
 territory. The country cannot content one 
 as a mere place for the making of a living. 
 He who has no larger motive is likely to 
 live in the country as a man in exile, long- 
 ing for the pleasures which the country 
 gives sparingly, and failing to appreciate 
 the qualitative joys which the country is 
 wiUing to lavish. White's "Natural His- 
 tory and Antiquities of Selborne," which 
 has already been published in more than 
 eighty editions, gives splendid testimony 
 concerning the pleasures possible in the 
 country to the nature-lover who has the 
 ability to make large use of his environ- 
 ment. 
 
 It becomes the duty of the church in the 
 small community to conserve the apprecia- 
 tion of the beauties of nature. Many 
 churches in the country appear largely to 
 neglect this splendid ministration. AVith- 
 
CONSERVATION OF BEAUTY 113 
 
 out doubt this neglect reacts upon the 
 church and weakens its social service. In- 
 deed, because of its necessary influence, 
 the country church that fails seriously to 
 conserve the love of the beautiful in every 
 way possible creates a peril. The discovery 
 of the passing beauties of flowers, trees, 
 harvests, outstretching landscapes, is one 
 of the great compensations of rural labor. 
 When these discoveries are not realized, 
 and all things become commonplace, the 
 open country is made monotonous and is 
 brutalized. 
 
 No country church, therefore, rightly can 
 fail to assume the role of interpreter of 
 natural beauty. The church should honor 
 its own building and yard. The meeting 
 place ought itself to be a thing of beauty. 
 Rarely is this impossible. Intelligent in- 
 terest and honest concern will nearly al- 
 ways change the barren, even ugly, church 
 building sometimes to be found in the 
 country into a dignified, appealing House 
 of God. Church papers ought to give 
 more space to this side of country religious 
 
114 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 work. The faculties of state colleges ought 
 more often to be called upon to give advice 
 regarding shrubbery, trees, and lawns for 
 the churchyard. Where there is a library, 
 the church people should see that some 
 such periodical as The Craftsman is added 
 to influence the community. The appeal 
 to beauty by the church service ought 
 never to be merely a by-product. In some 
 form such as sermons, concerts, lectures, 
 exhibitions, flower shows, a definite appeal 
 may be made every year that will greatly 
 increase the appreciation of natural beauty 
 on the part of the people of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 The church should also consciously labor 
 to develop that community spirit which re- 
 spects its own resources of beauty. Such 
 respect flowers in many social virtues. The 
 inspiration of the church should give vital- 
 ity to a popular village improvement so- 
 ciety. The needs of the church and the 
 school-yard should be given constant atten- 
 tion. All such effort lifts the standard of 
 life. The moral protection that results from 
 
CONSERVATION OF BEAUTY 115 
 
 such appreciation of beauty can hardly be 
 overstated. The appeal which is made by 
 a revelation of beauty often sinks deeply 
 into youth, and remains a memory that 
 strengthens character, and purifies. The 
 minister in the country may well think of 
 natural beauty as one of his assets. Rus- 
 kin's "Modern Painters" can bring to 
 many a country pastor the change of mind 
 that Henry Drummond says it gave him. 
 Even the words of Jesus have a deeper 
 meaning to the lover of the country's 
 beauty, to him who has learned that 
 "sweet is the lore which Nature brings." 
 
XI 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
 COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
 SERVATION OF GOODNESS 
 
 Social life draws its health from morality. 
 It is goodness which provides every worthy 
 thing in human society with its vitality. 
 Morality thus makes society possible, for, 
 void of goodness, human association would 
 prove itself the existence that Thomas 
 Hobbs pronounced * 'solitary, poor, nasty, 
 brutish, and short." 
 
 The moral resources, therefore, of any 
 community are of priceless social value. It 
 is as true of the group as of the individual 
 — the claims of goodness are supreme. 
 Man's social progress is conditioned by his 
 moral growth. Any attempt to conserve 
 goodness and to express it in worthy ac- 
 tivities is an effort which, when successful, 
 means the lifting of the level of human 
 association at some significant point. No 
 
 116 
 
CONSERVATION OF GOODNESS 117 
 
 real social problem falls short of social 
 causes. No social remedy meets the final 
 needs of the occasion unless moral reforma- 
 tion is included. Morality occupies no part 
 of life. It demands the right to permeate 
 all life. It follows, therefore, that moral 
 opportunities may be found in ordinary 
 circumstances, and that moral forces need 
 to operate in the common experiences of 
 life. Christianity recognizes this to the 
 full. It proclaims throughout the entire 
 territory of life a universal moral worth. 
 The church that conserves moral values 
 will enter into the commonplace of hfe and 
 dignify it with the prerogatives of moral 
 consequence. 
 
 No institution in the small community 
 has so great a responsibility for developing 
 the moral forces and utilizing them for 
 social welfare as the church. The city 
 church shares this responsibility in a 
 greater degree with other organizations. 
 The country church is in possession of a 
 large part of the moral equipment of the 
 community. The church surely fails if it 
 
118 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 conceives its function as merely to make 
 use of the moral forces of the community 
 for its own prosperity. Of course the 
 church never consciously assumes such a 
 position, but since the actual attitude of the 
 church is largely determined by the thought 
 of its leading members, it happens that 
 some churches really do regard their social 
 mission selfishly. The church organization 
 cannot rightly take any other position than 
 that of an instrument. It is in duty bound 
 to lead moral strivings into profitable social 
 activities, to put ideals to work, to bring 
 moral purposes face to face with real needs. 
 The church discovers moral resources, in- 
 vigorates moral purposes, and trains moral 
 energy into efficient social service. In con- 
 serving the moral resources of the small 
 community the church needs to emphasize 
 moral activities rather than sentiments, a 
 positive rather than a negative morality, 
 moral causes rather than results. 
 
 Religion is always in danger of being ex- 
 ploited by persons who are socially patho- 
 logical. Even normal persons easily form 
 
CONSERVATION OF GOODNESS 119 
 
 the habit of conceiving of virtue as a senti- 
 ment rather than a voHtion. Morahty, 
 true to its instincts, leads to activities. Re- 
 ligious work in some small places is made 
 nearly hopeless by the irresponsible talker 
 who expresses fine sentiments, but who so 
 acts as to lose the respect of the commu- 
 nity. The moral burden of such persons is 
 well understood by every experienced reli- 
 gious worker in the country. It needs to 
 be noticed, however, that these difficult 
 people are at times the logical outcome of 
 the attitude that the church itseK has 
 taken. Professor William James, in his 
 discussion of habit, ha^ written clearly con- 
 cerning the danger of creating ideals that 
 are not brought to a discharge — in other 
 words, of producing sentiments without re- 
 gard to action. The church may uncon- 
 sciously give the impression that attending 
 religious services is a virtue, when the peo- 
 ple need to be taught that the purpose of 
 all such gatherings is inspiration for ser- 
 vice. The teaching of the church may 
 give the impression that the instrument is 
 
120 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 itself the end. It certainly brings ques- 
 tions to the mind of the social worker to 
 find in a small community the greater 
 part of the moral energy of the church 
 being spent in supporting many religious 
 services that lead to nothing concrete, 
 when the moral conditions in the town 
 imperatively demand specific efforts. 
 
 The country churches, as social workers 
 often know by sad experience, sometimes 
 preach a negative morality rather than a 
 positive one. An atmosphere of repression 
 is produced by constant emphasis upon 
 prohibitions. Christianity ought surely by 
 this time to be free from the interpolated 
 asceticism which has no proper place in 
 its teachings. Youth, who might respond 
 to a positive appeal to do concrete whole- 
 some service, flee the church that considers 
 that its ministration has to do mostly with 
 the infliction of trivial prohibitions. Chris- 
 tianity in its early history did not become 
 a militant moral force by emphasis upon 
 prohibitions. The country church that 
 takes its work seriously will kill out so- 
 
CONSERVATION OF GOODNESS 121 
 
 cially unwholesome elements by substitu- 
 tion. It will by instinct assume a positive 
 attitude toward the community at every 
 point, and provide opportunities for the 
 doing of things worth while. Such a pro- 
 gram splendidly conserves the moral re- 
 sources of the small community. 
 
 The country church needs above all else 
 to think in terms of moral causes. It can- 
 not conserve the moral resources of the 
 community unless it functions with ref- 
 erence to the causes that operate morally. 
 The minister must interpret significant 
 scientific information that makes for moral 
 and social efficiency. Parents especially 
 need concrete instruction at many points 
 that a morally ambitious organization, such 
 as the church, should give. He who will 
 take the trouble to uncover the moral life 
 of some of the youth in many country 
 places will appreciate the significance of 
 this. Why should not the churches get 
 scientists who can make a popular appeal 
 to give courses from time to time upon 
 matters that concern the moral and social 
 
122 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 interests of the community? Such courses 
 are given in the cities by organizations that 
 have a part of the moral and social purpose 
 that belongs to the country church. When 
 churches create a demand for this kind of 
 work, workers will be found to undertake 
 it. The writer's experience recently in giv- 
 ing a week's course in sociology in the 
 church of a community in New Hampshire 
 has demonstrated in one case that more 
 people appeared to respond to such an 
 undertaking than most ministers would 
 have supposed. 
 
 The most powerful moral causes are 
 born in the home. The church that 
 ministers to the social needs of the 
 community will certainly teach constantly 
 and with precision the solemn duties and 
 magnificent opportunities of parents. The 
 parents must be taught that they cannot 
 with success farm out their children mor- 
 ally by making use of organizations such as 
 the school and the Sunday school. It re- 
 quires greater skill to develop moral effi- 
 ciency in the home through the teaching of 
 
CONSERVATION OF GOODNESS 123 
 
 the church than to start some organization 
 that may for a time meet the problem 
 created by the failure of the home. The 
 church, however, needs to think of its 
 problem in terms of causes, and to utilize 
 its moral energy in making wholesome con- 
 ditions at those points where character is 
 first made. The temptation to attempt to 
 change results while causes are allowed to 
 continue is always present. It is true, how- 
 ever, that social progress comes best by 
 attention to causes; and, by its teaching 
 and practice, the church should enforce 
 this truth with reference to the practical, 
 social problems of the community. 
 
XII 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
 COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
 SERVATION OF TRUTH 
 
 Religion conserves the highest values of 
 life. It assures trusting men and women 
 who respond to the appeal of the spiritual 
 that their deepest cravings are trustworthy, 
 and, in this manner, religion protects the 
 sources from which issues the wholesome- 
 ness of human society. When true to its 
 instincts, religion adds to the appreciation 
 of spiritual values an energy that forces 
 these values to become abiding motives of 
 gracious, persistent, and sacrificing social 
 service. Assurance of the credibility of 
 truth men and women deeply crave. Re- 
 ligion, in satisfying this human craving and 
 thus conserving trust in truth, creates an 
 unequaled energy for labor that makes for 
 social betterment. 
 
 The social service of any country church 
 
 124 
 
CONSERVATION OF TRUTH 125 
 
 is in no small part determined by its atti- 
 tude toward truth. Any organization of 
 individuals meets the same temptations 
 that the individuals themselves encounter. 
 There are subtle but persuasive influences 
 that operate upon a church in such manner 
 as to make the organization sometimes un- 
 consciously deficient in its passion for truth. 
 These influences are more captivating in the 
 small community than in the city because 
 of the closer contact of persons. This con- 
 dition of disloyalty to the finer conception 
 of the claims of truth may develop even 
 when the organization is most zealous in 
 pressing for recognition as the community 
 teacher. Outward prosperity does not 
 measure inner worth. The history of the 
 Church abounds in warnings that the 
 spiritual mission of any body of religious 
 persons must not be thought of in an easy- 
 going, self-satisfied, formal manner. A 
 vital passion for truth precedes a vigorous 
 social activity. This explains why the so- 
 cial service of the Church is so largely con- 
 ditioned by its teaching concerning the area 
 
126 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 of truth and by its success in inspiring re- 
 gard for truth. 
 
 Any small community suffers when it is 
 commonly thought that religion belongs to 
 a part of life, that it is a field of experience 
 rather than an attitude that enters into all 
 experiences. This is a fundamental mat- 
 ter, for no religious zeal expresses itself 
 socially in reasonable manner when life is 
 conceived of as divided into sacred and 
 secular. Even those most satisfied with 
 such a conception find it impossible in 
 concrete cases to draw the line of separation 
 between the two parts of life; and the most 
 unscientific observer notices in individual 
 cases that causes in one field cross over to 
 produce results in the other. The Chris- 
 tianity of Jesus suggests at every point 
 that all life must be thought of as sacred, 
 except such elements as result from the 
 sinful desire to destroy or limit this sacred- 
 ness. The church, it would seem then, 
 must take spiritual possession of the entire 
 territory of activity in a community, pro- 
 claiming the absolute prerogative of truth 
 
CONSERVATION OF TRUTH 1^27 
 
 in every concrete social interest. The 
 church that fails at this point can at best 
 assume merely a limited social service and 
 must find itself without all of its resources 
 for successfully carrying on its limited work. 
 The rural community especially needs to 
 realize the permeation of truth in all of its 
 life. Farming is an industry that must be 
 carried on in a field where great natural 
 forces operate without the usual degree of 
 human control, and, at times, not accord- 
 ing to human interests. Agriculture has a 
 hazardous character, expressed in such con- 
 crete difficulties as droughts, frosts, insect- 
 pests, and over-stocked markets. The 
 farmer, more than most men, because of 
 personal experiences, may come to think of 
 life as a gambler's chance, and of success as 
 largely an accident. This fatalistic tend- 
 ency in the thinking of farmers has been 
 noticed by writers, just as tendencies of 
 thought in other occupations have received 
 attention. The great danger, however, in 
 this tendency of rural folk is the decreased 
 interest in knowledge as a means of con- 
 
128 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 trol. The scientist finds in his failure to 
 control natural law a challenge for further 
 investigation, while the farmer's experience 
 often contributes to the upbuilding of a 
 fatalistic philosophy of life. 
 
 Any occupation that requires a constant 
 struggle with natural forces tempts one to 
 become fatalistic. The sailor and physician 
 meet this temptation as well as the farmer, 
 but the larger number involved in the case 
 of the farmer makes this rural temptation 
 of greater social significance. If enough 
 individual farmers in any community be- 
 come fatalists, the spirit of the entire 
 community is colored and depressed. The 
 town settles down to accept whatever 
 comes, and even degeneration may begin. 
 It is interesting to notice that, although 
 no science can be so important socially as 
 that which has to do with agriculture, it 
 has been one of the slowest to develop. 
 Fatalists do not become enthusiasts for 
 knowledge. Who, however, can doubt the 
 great need of an increase of knowledge in 
 most rural communities regarding the 
 
CONSERVATION OF TRUTH 129 
 
 proper methods of conducting the com- 
 plex and difficult business of farming? 
 
 The church should accept responsibility 
 at this point. It must set itself against the 
 current and insist upon its members' real- 
 izing their obligation to take a proper 
 interest in those matters that have to do 
 with individual and social well-being. 
 Some, from sheer laziness, turn to the 
 spiritual as a refuge from the necessity of 
 facing actual situations in this life that 
 demand clear-headed thinking. The church 
 should teach a philosophy of conduct that 
 is born of the belief in a well-ordered and 
 morally rewarding universe. It may wisely 
 assume a distinction between spiritual truth 
 and human knowledge, but it ought not to 
 encourage the idea of a separation between 
 the two. The farmer must be saved so- 
 cially by his finding himself within a sacred, 
 truth-permeated world as he plows, plants, 
 and reaps. He must value knowledge as 
 the human construction of a part of the 
 truth of God, born of a divinely given in- 
 stinct, and realize that by despising the 
 
130 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 handiwork of conscientious men he does no 
 honor to the greater eternal truth. The 
 prosperity of the rural community is de- 
 termined largely by knowledge and effi- 
 ciency, by mental vigor and physical skill. 
 Science is never more needed than in the 
 work of the farmer. The church needs to 
 appreciate this, and then to discover that 
 its own prosperity is related to the pros- 
 perity of the community it serves. The 
 unprosperous farmer must either lower his 
 standard of life or change his business, 
 which usually means removal from the 
 community. This lowering of the standard 
 of life means a decrease in the possible con- 
 tribution of one person to the social minis- 
 tration of the church — perhaps the creation 
 of a social problem. If the discouraged 
 farmer or his sons go city- ward, there is 
 likely to be a loss to the community that 
 would not have happened had the church 
 been able to help the farmer meet his 
 problem successfully. The church cannot 
 become socially efficient and neglect its in- 
 dividual resources. 
 
CONSERVATION OF TRUTH 131 
 
 The church that holds up to its members 
 the conception of an unbroken world of 
 truth, sacred at every point and God- 
 created, needs to finish a good work well 
 begun. It ought to assume in the small 
 community the largest obligations for in- 
 spiring regard for knowledge and reverence 
 for truth. This really means that the 
 church in its teaching must keep near to 
 the actual, immediate, and everyday needs 
 of its members. Of course this is largely a 
 question of the attitude of the pastor, and 
 his attitude is often decided by his train- 
 ing and instinctive sympathy. One who 
 watches a church in a small community at 
 work can hardly fail often to observe that 
 little results socially because little effort is 
 definite and related to concrete social 
 needs. When a church shows regard for 
 such truth as is pertinent to definite, social 
 conditions, social progress is certain. The 
 historj^ of Christianity is suggestive as to 
 the possibilities of such definite social effort 
 on the part of the church. 
 
 The church that ministers to the life of 
 
132 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 the community will have a large conception 
 of its educational work. The minister may 
 not teach agriculture, but it appears fair to 
 ask that he inspire his followers with such 
 a regard for knowledge and truth that it 
 will assure the success of any agricultural 
 club or similar enterprise that may be 
 wisely started. The minister, also, if his 
 church is to be socially efficient in its rela- 
 tion to the community life, must build up 
 the conception that social, moral, and 
 spiritual conditions are related to causes 
 and that reforms must also operate by 
 means of causes. There are conditions that 
 a community cannot tolerate because they 
 are producers of contagious evils. Such 
 evils, perhaps, can be removed only by the 
 substitution of new circumstances that will 
 bring forth benevolent, character-building 
 causes. The saloon may remain until a 
 recreation club is successfully organized. 
 The community often tolerates great evils 
 because so many persons are not taught 
 successfully that what a community sows 
 that must it also reap. It is doubtless un- 
 
CONSERVATION OF TRUTH 133 
 
 fortunate that ministers usually have stud- 
 ied philosophy so much and science so 
 little. It is not always the instinct of the 
 minister to think of causes in the realm of 
 social and moral experiences. Science has 
 a tendency to make one look always for 
 causes and this tends to conserve effort. 
 
 The church can be inspired to a realiza- 
 tion of the social significance of truth by 
 self-examination at times. It may be a 
 revelation to the socially inefficient church 
 to trace out in detail without prejudice its 
 effective social influence, but it comes to a 
 better social self by an honest survey of its 
 work. In cases not a few such an investi- 
 gation leads to one rational conclusion — 
 the church can help conserve the moral re- 
 sources of the community only by losing 
 its individual life by uniting with another 
 organization. Moral resources are too sa- 
 cred to be used in keeping alive two 
 churches where social welfare calls for one 
 effective community church. 
 
XIII 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE SMALL 
 COMMUNITY AND THE CON- 
 SERVATION OF HUMAN EX- 
 PERIENCES 
 
 The social resource which has most sig- 
 nificance for the future of any community 
 is the potential character of its people. 
 The church of the small community is 
 therefore supremely tested by its efficiency 
 in conserving the moral capacity of the 
 people to whom it ministers. No social 
 service of a community church can prop- 
 erly be an end in itself. The church must 
 have a social vision and a community pro- 
 gram because moral character is greatly 
 influenced for good or evil by social con- 
 ditions. Interest in the means of social 
 advance must not dull, however, in the 
 consciousness of the church the ultimate 
 purpose of all it does. It serves socially 
 that it may minister morally. 
 
 The church of the small community 
 
 134 
 
HUMAN EXPERIENCES 135 
 
 should conserve morally to the largest pos- 
 sible degree the significant experiences that 
 deeply operate upon the character of men 
 and women. These tremendous events of 
 life, charged with potential good or evil, 
 stand out clearly in the rural or village 
 community. Human joys, sorrows, strug- 
 gles, and tragedies are not so largely hidden 
 from the community as they are in the 
 great urban centers. People do know what 
 is happening to their neighbors, and they 
 care also when they have moral sympathy. 
 The lasting influence of these momentous 
 experiences of life is to no small degree 
 decided by the sense the individual has of 
 the sympathy, understanding, indifference, 
 or malice of his community associates. Lit- 
 tle can happen in the small community 
 that does not excite social interest. No 
 one is more conscious of this fact than he 
 who is called upon to assume with self- 
 control an experience of great joy or en- 
 dure with courage an overwhelming sorrow. 
 Men and women often pass through these 
 experiences and are forever after different 
 
136 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 from what they were. It is the business of 
 the church of the small community to pro- 
 tect people from danger as they pass 
 through these testing ordeals. That this 
 may be done it is necessary that the 
 church create in the community the whole- 
 some social attitude which comes from 
 moral sympathy. The church can do this 
 service by becoming the skilful interpreter 
 of the profound meaning of the crises of 
 life. Narrow attitudes of thinking and feel- 
 ing must be driven out of the minds and 
 hearts of people by a deep sense of human 
 need and brotherhood. To believe this im- 
 possible is to doubt the practical eflSciency 
 of the teaching of Jesus. 
 
 The people of the small community often 
 have an attitude of morbid curiosity re- 
 garding the critical experiences that indi- 
 viduals have to face. The moral danger of 
 this both for the individual who meets the 
 crisis and for those who watch him with un- 
 wholesome interest is very great. To pre- 
 vent this moral injury on these occasions 
 when character is supremely tested, the con- 
 
HUMAN EXPERIENCES 137 
 
 structive influence of a church ought always 
 to be felt, and morbid curiosity pushed 
 aside. Of course this is to expect much of 
 the church, as anyone who knows the weak- 
 nesses of the small community will admit, 
 but surely it is not unreasonable to ask 
 Christian people to express their good pur- 
 poses in practical ways and at the places 
 where there is special need of moral self- 
 control. Morbid curiosity may be replaced 
 by kindly sympathy. To bring this sub- 
 stitution about, it is necessary only to lead 
 people to do unto others as they wish 
 others to do to them. In any case, it is a 
 serious mistake for the church of the small 
 community to view this unkindly curiosity 
 with complacency. If character is to be 
 conserved, a practical concern must be felt 
 for those experiences that profoundly in- 
 fluence people. 
 
 The church must certainly guard its owti 
 institutional influence from any reasonable 
 criticism. It is deeply unfortunate for the 
 entire community when these critical 
 events of human experience are merely 
 
138 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 exploited by the church for morahzation. 
 It is fellowship both in joys and sorrows 
 that is needed — not preaching. The church 
 is tested by its ability to enter into the 
 experience of moral ordeal and the church 
 fails unless it discovers in such experiences 
 the common human and spiritual meaning. 
 What we share with others in life we feel; 
 we do not detach ourselves and use the 
 results of our fellowship as mere homiletic 
 material. 
 
 Perhaps in all one's life there is no more 
 profound experience than that which gath- 
 ers about the birth of a child. When many 
 people in the small community by keen 
 spiritual insight feel the deep significance 
 of the coming of a new life in a home, a 
 wholesome social atmosphere is certainly 
 being maintained. The parents may have 
 their own moral purposes deepened by 
 being made conscious in natural, friendly 
 ways of this moral sympathy. How un- 
 happy for the community when the deeper 
 meaning of the coming of the new life is 
 lost in trivial, even morbid curiosity! On 
 
HUMAN EXPERIENCES 139 
 
 such an occasion one may often see most 
 clearly the real character of the spirit of a 
 neighborhood or the characteristic moral 
 culture of a community. 
 
 The wedding also has great social and 
 moral significance. In the small com- 
 munity it is sure to attract attention. It 
 is an experience that has in its influence 
 peculiar dangers. A vulgar, ostentatious 
 wedding may for a long time bring hito 
 the small community most unhappy in- 
 fluences. An element of coarseness may, 
 for example, be given emphasis at the 
 wedding, and in large measure the moral 
 value of the experience may be spoiled. 
 It is also true that a natural, wholesome 
 wedding with a moral fellowship at its 
 basis may elevate the purposes of many 
 men and women who witness it. 
 
 And what may not be said concerning the 
 moral opportunity of sickness and death? 
 Perhaps here we find the supreme test of 
 moral fellowship. The sympathy must be 
 sincere; its expression so far as is possible 
 practical. Mere sentiment usually shows 
 
140 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 its inner heartlessness, and usually causes 
 in him who suffers an irritation that has 
 moral consequences. He who has thought- 
 fully observed the community reaction to 
 death knows the peculiar moral problems 
 that gather about it and about the funeral. 
 The experience of death is indeed a moral 
 opportunity for the church or the revela- 
 tion of its moral inefficiency. 
 
 Some of the less serious experiences have 
 in the small community moral value for the 
 church. The home-coming of the son or 
 daughter and the community reaction to it 
 may mean much to the family concerned. 
 The struggle with adverse circumstances, a 
 struggle generally known throughout the 
 community, may give to those who pass 
 through the ordeal a very vivid apprecia- 
 tion of the sympathy or indifference of the 
 community, and years after they may show 
 the influence that the community attitude 
 had upon them. 
 
 In order to bring wholesome influence 
 upon those who are meeting the morally 
 significant experiences of life, the church of 
 
HUMAN EXPERIENCES 141 
 
 the small community must prepare for such 
 experiences before they happen. The effort 
 to meet a crisis when it comes is often im- 
 possible, for the proper basis for service 
 has not been provided. The right-minded 
 pastor of the church of the small com- 
 munity will be always realizing the sig- 
 nificance of the experiences that do make 
 character and trj^ing to keep his church 
 people in that spiritual sympathy with suf- 
 fering that will enable them to serve people 
 who need them when the occasion arises. 
 The trying experiences bring to men and 
 women their great moral dangers and vic- 
 tories, and the endeavor to make wise use 
 of such important events of life must form 
 a part of the program of the church that 
 would conserve the moral wealth of the 
 small community. 
 
XIV 
 
 THE MINISTER OF THE CHURCH 
 OF THE SMALL COMMUNITY 
 AND HIS PERSONAL OPPOR- 
 TUNITIES 
 
 The character and efficiency of the min- 
 ister largely decide the success of the con- 
 structive social service undertaken by the 
 church of the small community. The min- 
 ister may be loath to accept the burden of 
 so great a responsibility for the success of 
 the program of the church, because of the 
 handicaps he experiences in his position. 
 It is of course true that his position is 
 not an easy one, but moral leadership is 
 never free from trials that test the temper 
 of men's souls. So long as the minister is 
 conscious of moral leadership, he realizes 
 that his position has its compensations. It 
 is his honest doubt of the value of his ser- 
 vice, a scepticism by no means rare in 
 these days, that furnishes the supreme test 
 of his moral devotion. 
 
 142 
 
THE MINISTER'S OPPORTUNITIES 143 
 
 The minister who tliinks of his church in 
 causal terms and who develops its program 
 of social service with a sense of strategy 
 surely ought to carry his thinking one step 
 farther, and regard himself and his oppor- 
 tunities from the same view-point which he 
 has taken to judge the work of the church. 
 A serious study of his ministerial service 
 for the purpose of obtaining efficiency 
 should greatly increase the usefulness of 
 any minister of a rural or village church. 
 Such a minister certainly should have a 
 very clear idea of the resources that he 
 personally has because of his position. 
 
 One of his resources is the opportunity 
 he has to conserve his health. If a man 
 has intelligence to use the opportunities 
 that the rural and village community pro- 
 vide, he has the best possible basis that 
 environment can furnish for the establish- 
 ment of efficient health. The man of the 
 city is seldom out of doors enough; he 
 usually does not exercise in the open air 
 enough. The gymnasium is a poor sub- 
 stitute for a long country walk. As a 
 
144 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 matter of fact, the minister in the country 
 often fails to utiKze his opportunities for 
 physical efficiency, and his city brother 
 occasionally by a greater care conserves 
 better his physical vitality. The country 
 minister surely ought to take seriously his 
 moral obligation to keep in good physical 
 condition and to make use of the oppor- 
 tunities provided by his environment. 
 
 During a season unusually favorable for 
 winter sports, I have heard of only one 
 minister's making use of its recreational 
 advantages, and that was a city pastor in 
 charge of a large church who has led 
 several Saturday afternoon snowshoeing 
 expeditions to which all interested persons 
 were invited. Some of our small com- 
 munities in the northern part of our coun- 
 try need to take to heart the splendid op- 
 tunities furnished during the winter for 
 common outdoor sport and recreation. 
 The minister who appreciates the oppor- 
 tunities for wholesome pleasures and vigor- 
 making recreation furnished both winter 
 and summer in most small communities is 
 
THE MINISTER'S OPPORTUNITIES 145 
 
 likely to realize also the social value that 
 these outdoor activities may have in mak- 
 ing people wholesome, healthy, and willing 
 to cooperate. In any case he is a foolish 
 man if he throws away with indifference 
 the means given him by his environment 
 for the making of a life of physical vitality. 
 The minister who works in the country 
 or small village also has a great advantage 
 over men in the city because of the close 
 contact with nature provided by the open 
 country. This is one of the privileges of 
 life, although unfortunately it is one often 
 neglected or unrealized. There are people 
 who, during a short vacation in the coun- 
 try in the summer, come to have a more 
 vital relationship with nature than many 
 who live in the country all through the 
 year. Certainly this need not be true. 
 The minister who serves country people 
 and has little appreciation of the poetry 
 and scientific interests represented by the 
 rural environment has lost much out of 
 his life. His personal loss also becomes a 
 loss to the community, for rural people 
 
146 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 need always preachers who can interpret 
 to them the beauty of country life, so that 
 they may enjoy to its fulness the wealth 
 given to them by their environment. When 
 country life is robbed of its beauty, when 
 the poetry of the long-stretching fields, of 
 the meandering rivers, of the herds knee- 
 deep in meadow-grass makes no appeal, 
 rural existence is often hard, barren, and 
 even brutalized. Rural social health de- 
 mands that the intimate relation between 
 rural people and nature should yield those 
 romantic and poetic elements which all 
 through human experience have made com- 
 mon things inspiring and profound. 
 
 The country minister may well cultivate 
 his ability to appreciate nature. He is 
 fortunate if he is a lover of Wordsworth, 
 for no poet can teach him more regarding 
 the poetic material in the common expe- 
 riences of rural life. Ruskin's "Modern 
 Painters" also may furnish a key to the 
 vast wealth of beauty contained in cloud, 
 sky, water, and even space. Surely Whit- 
 tier will not be forgotten by the mind that 
 
THE IVnNISTERS OPPORTUNITIES 147 
 
 hungers for spiritual insight from fellowship 
 with nature, nor will Burns be neglected by 
 those who crave larger brotherhood and 
 deeper sympathy. The material for poetic 
 education abounds and every man may 
 happily follow his choice. He who, with a 
 sterile imagination, attempts to serve coun- 
 try people, who finds all poetry dull, who 
 never even in the bewitching days of 
 childhood came close to the heart of na- 
 ture, has undertaken a great task with 
 needful preparation at one point at least 
 sadly lacking. 
 
 In his nearness to his people the minister 
 of the church of the small community has a 
 third advantage. He may enjoy an inti- 
 mate knowledge of personality, just as he 
 is given the conditions for a close contact 
 with nature. This opportunity to know 
 people deeply is a very great privilege in 
 ministerial service. Knowledge of men and 
 women need not be obtained merely from 
 books. It is difficult indeed to live in the 
 country without discovering much about 
 human motives, the weaknesses and the 
 
148 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 strength of character; in the city, on the 
 other hand, it is not easy to uncover the 
 deeper Hfe of men and women, because 
 they are hidden in the crowd. Life moves 
 on rapidly and for the most part the rela- 
 tions between persons must be superficial. 
 The complaint that the country minister 
 most often makes is that his people are 
 narrow in their appreciation. At least it 
 has seemed in conversations with ministers 
 of country churches that this criticism of 
 rural people was most often made. This 
 human fault of narrowness in one's interests 
 would no doubt be as frequently regretted 
 by the urban minister, if he knew his con- 
 gregation as well as the country minister 
 knows his. The rural minister must recog- 
 nize the great advantage of this close rela- 
 tionship between him and his people, and 
 he is short-sighted indeed if he permits his 
 intimate and significant contact to dis- 
 courage him, because of the revelation it 
 makes of human weakness. This close 
 association of people and pastor in the 
 country makes it possible for the rural 
 
THE MINISTER'S OPPORTUNITIES 14d 
 
 and village minister to realize the needs of 
 those for whom he works and to measure 
 more accurately the value of the service of 
 the church. What the minister finds in 
 the lives of his people is both his test and 
 his challenge. 
 
 The minister of the village or the coun- 
 try church has, when his time is wisely 
 conserved, the chance to study and think 
 in a way that gives him substantial intel- 
 lectual results. It is true that he loses in- 
 spiration and other advantages that be- 
 long to the urban minister, but his 
 environment tends to make his intellectual 
 experiences penetrating. In the quantita- 
 tive life of the city it is difficult for the 
 mind to get full value from its activities. 
 There is so much that enters the thinking 
 that there has to be a decrease of intensity. 
 Many city thinkers develop a crowded 
 mind, rather than one that is profound. 
 They think many things, but nothing 
 deeply. The very limitation imposed upon 
 the reading of the minister of the church 
 of the small community tends, when op- 
 
150 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 portunities are wisely used, to develop 
 solid attainments in the serious study of 
 human experience. 
 
 It is a happy fact that the minister of 
 the small community is becoming so in- 
 terested in books that are concerned with 
 practical social problems. The work of the 
 minister is seldom better than his thinking. 
 Usually he thinks in harmony with the 
 character of his reading. A minister of a 
 country church recently said that it was 
 difficult to get books of a sociological char- 
 acter from a ministers' lending library in a 
 certain city, although books of theological 
 character could easily be had. This was 
 due in part to the greater number of theo- 
 logical books in the library, but also to the 
 great demand for books relating to social 
 problems. Since this library lends books 
 especially to country and village preachers, 
 this desire for books on social matters is a 
 most striking revelation of the social view- 
 point of the country minister. 
 
 This interest in books of social character 
 certainly promises much for the future of 
 
THE MINISTER'S OPPORTUNITIES 151 
 
 the rural church. Men who Hve in the 
 country and who love the country are just 
 becoming conscious of their social require- 
 ments and resources. The great need in 
 the rural ministry is men who, while they 
 live deeply in the every -day life of the 
 present, have social minds that see afar 
 off. It is to such leaders that rural people 
 turn with profound craving for spiritual 
 inspiration. The men and women in the 
 country who hunger for social progress re- 
 alize their constant need for spiritual pene- 
 tration. They require for their daily duties 
 the dynamic social impulses contained in 
 the faith of Jesus. Country people espe- 
 cially, because of necessary association with 
 nature, are morally mutilated by daily ex- 
 periences that do not uncover inherent spir- 
 itual truth, that do not accomplish moral 
 discipline. The open country must take 
 possession of its peculiar character-mak- 
 ing opportunities or grow morally sterile. 
 The best of the country shrivels when rural 
 idealism faints. Wholesome rural life re- 
 quires besides greater production, better 
 
152 COUNTRY CHURCH RESOURCES 
 
 marketing, and more recreation, the spirit 
 of moral adventure and spiritual conquest. 
 The country minister is asked, therefore, 
 to weld together spiritual vision and social 
 motive. To a man who thinks this can 
 seem no small task. It demands of him 
 social enthusiasm and spiritual vigor, sci- 
 ence and faith. In his obligation the rural 
 minister discovers his supreme opportu- 
 nity, a part in the unique moral crusade 
 which in our day must decide the charac- 
 ter of country life for many years to come. 
 
Pr'nceton Theological Seminary Libraries 
 
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