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 PAPERS ■**£££* ; r 1 
 
 READ AT THE 
 
 Conference on the Problems of the 
 Rural Church 
 
 HELD IN BOSTON 
 MARCH 13 AND 14, 1911 
 
 * 
 
 Gbe Cosmos press 
 
 EDW. W. WHEELER 
 30 BOYLSTON ST., CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
 
 of thi 
 
PROGRAM OF THE CONFERENCE 
 
 Monday, March Thirteenth 
 
 4 P. M. 
 
 Address. — Rev. Warren H. Wilson, Superintendent of the Depart- 
 ment of Church and Rural Life, Presbyterian Church . 
 
 Address. — Professor H. K. Rowe, Newton Theological Institution, 
 Newton Centre, Mass. 
 
 "Some Statistics Regarding Church Attendance and Church 
 Work in Rural New England." 
 
 Address. — Rev. J. N. Pardee, Bolton, Mass. 
 
 "The Awakening of the Theological Schools to the Needs 
 of the Country Pastorate." 
 
 7 P. M. 
 
 The Social Education Club of Boston held an open dinner- 
 discussion at Youngs Hotel, on the general topic of "Rural 
 Education and Rural Life." Those who were in attendance 
 upon our conference were invited to meet with them. 
 Professors Fred Rasmussen, of the New Hampshire College, 
 and B. H. Hibbard, of the Iowa State College, were the 
 principal speakers. 
 
 Tuesday, March Fourteenth 
 10 A. M. 
 
 Address. — Rt. Rev. Edward M. Parker, Bishop Coadjutor of 
 New Hampshire. 
 "An Ideal of Country Church Settlement Work." 
 
Address. — Professor Robert J. Syr ague, University of Maine, 
 Orono, Maine. 
 ' 'The Rural Church and the Beautification of the Country." 
 
 2.30 P. M. 
 
 Address. — Rev. W. M. Cutler, East Jaffrey, N. H. 
 
 "One Solution of the Problem of the Country Church." 
 
 Address. — Professor 0. H. Benson, United States Department 
 of Agriculture. 
 
 "Education for Rural Uplift." Illustrated with Stereop- 
 ticon. 
 
 Officers. 
 
 President, Professor T. N. Carver, Harvard University. 
 Secretary, Rev. J. N. Pardee, Bolton, Mass. 
 
 Executive Committee, — 
 
 President Kenton L. Butterfield, Massachusetts Agri- 
 cultural College, Amherst, Mass. 
 
 Professor W. D. Hurd, Massachusetts Agricultural College, 
 Amherst, Mass. 
 
 Dr. Owen H. Gates, Andover Theological Library. 
 
 Professor Henry K. Rowe, Newton Theological Institution, 
 Newton Centre, Mass. 
 
 Professor A. R. Merriam, Hartford Theological Seminary, 
 Hartford, Conn. 
 
 Professor Henry S. Nash, Episcopal Theological School, 
 Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 Professor George M. Harmon, Tufts College, Mass. 
 
 Professor W. W. Fenn, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
 
THE CHURCH FOR THE WORKING FARMER. 
 
 BY REV. WARREN H. WILSON, D.D., NEW YORK. 
 
 The church is dealing in the country community with a healthy 
 and moral population of American stock. Our recent investiga- 
 tions in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois have shown that the 
 farming population has high vitality, is free generally from immoral 
 conditions, and is but little affected by the immigration which is 
 filling the cities and the factory towns. The process described 
 by Anderson in "The Country Town" is shown to be very general 
 in the sifting of the country population. The bolder and more 
 enterprising individuals, both good and evil, have gone to the city. 
 The country church, therefore, has to deal with an unprogressive, 
 healthy, satisfied, and American population. 
 
 The work of the church is profoundly affected by the redistri- 
 bution of land which is going on all over the United States. Since 
 1890, as recently shown by Professor J. B. Ross, the exploitation 
 of land throughout the country has gone very far, especially in 
 the Middle West. Before that time the farmer had permanent 
 notions of country residence. The evidences of this exploiting 
 in land are shown in tenant farmers, absentee landlords, retired 
 farmers, and speculators. Under these conditions entirely new 
 values of land and men have come to prevail in the country com- 
 munity. The earlier values were based on the first use of the soil, 
 the first values of timber and of pasture, the first profits of the 
 market. 
 
 Present values are based on final or marginal utility. Their 
 source is not plenty, but bare subsistence. The profit made under 
 the new condition is a profit in the by-products, whereas the earlier 
 profit was a substantial portion of the raw products of the soil, 
 the forest, and the pasture. We are obliged to deal too with margi- 
 nal values in men. The church in the early days standardized 
 her work upon the leading citizens, upon the brighter and abler, 
 the wealthier and the more successful members of the congregation. 
 
 3 
 
The modern church is directing her policies by the needs of the poor. 
 The country church today has learned that her survival is depend- 
 ent on the tenant farmer and farm hand, upon the young people 
 of the community, and the boys and girls in the farm household. 
 If the church can minister to these effectively, it will survive, for 
 they are the marginal units by whom human values are today 
 determined. 
 
 Once again in America we have a time when the " soil is holy." 
 In the early days the soil was sanctified at Plymouth Rock and at 
 Philadelphia and at Baltimore; indeed on all the eastern coasts, 
 by the devout feelings of those who fled from oppression and found 
 in America religious liberty. The Pilgrims knelt in the sand on 
 the New England shore. William Penn called his grant of land 
 from Charles The Second, a "holy experiment." The Catholics 
 consecrated the soil of Maryland to religious liberty. 
 
 The modern prophets of the holiness of the soil are economists. 
 These men value the soil for its utility in meeting the needs of the 
 whole people. The soil is holy in their estimation because only 
 by its conservation can the poor be fed and clothed. The test 
 of American husbandry is its value to landless men, tenant farmers 
 in the country, and workingmen in the city, who do not own the 
 tools by which they get their living. The soil is declared to be 
 holy by the scientific agriculturist, because it has values for our 
 children as well as ourselves. It must not be wasted, or robbed, 
 or exploited, because to waste the soil is to rob the poor and to 
 increase the cost of living for the workingman and to lay burdens 
 upon our children, yet unborn. 
 
 We have, then, a new kind of holy man and woman in this 
 country. I think it is fair to say that no woman in America is 
 more loved and revered than Jane Addams, who has devoted her 
 life to the service of marginal people in Chicago. The leading 
 member of the Negro race, who possesses the respect and affection 
 of both the White and the Negro, is Booker T. Washington, who 
 is ministering to the Negro as a marginal element in the American 
 population. The poor, that is, they who are without land and 
 without ownership in the tools of modern industry, determine 
 the moral and spiritual conditions in the community. Tenants 
 and farm hands set the moral tone with the same precision with 
 which the marginal mill hand fixes the wages in the cotton mill. 
 For this reason institutions such as the country church are obliged 
 
 4 
 
to turn their attention to the service of the poor. The country 
 church and the country school will survive or perish by the ministry 
 they can render to the duller and weaker folk in the country. To 
 help them is to help all. This can be said of no other class in the 
 country community. The poor are the distributing centre of all 
 advantage for the community, as a whole. The dull and the 
 ignorant who are just able to survive in the community must be 
 the target of all policies which are to have value for the whole 
 community. 
 
 This is the reason why the country school needs to be improved. 
 The one-room country school has had great influence upon the 
 bright and ambitious pupils, who loved books and desired to get on. 
 It has sent them out of the community, being organized "as if to 
 populate the city at the expense of the country." But the country 
 school must be reformed in the interest of the dull, but industrious, 
 who will permanently live in the community. The determining 
 principle in reforming the country school is to make it an institu- 
 tion for teaching agriculture and giving general industrial training 
 to those whose lives shall be lived in that community. 
 
 We have churches of this sort. Du Page Church in Illinois, 
 under Mr. McNutt's pastorate, has ministered to the needs of the 
 young people in a populous countryside. It has satisfied the social 
 requirements of that community and thus served all the needs of 
 the people there. 
 
 West Nottingham Church in Maryland, under the leadership of 
 Mr. Polk, has become a centre of better agriculture. In an old 
 farming country where the tillage of the soil must be radically 
 improved, Mr. Polk has become conspicuous in the Farmers' 
 Club, which is reorganizing the farming industry on a scientific 
 basis. This church is reestablishing the farming population and 
 making it permanent on a basis of husbandry. 
 
 The uniting of a whole community in one church was my own 
 task in this State in my first ministry in Duchess County. The 
 determining principle in organizing this church at Quaker Hill 
 was that all the Christian people of the community should be 
 served by the new organization. Members and attendants of all 
 the denominations were received into this small church. At its 
 organization it was sanctioned by the five congregations surround- 
 ing it, representing five different denominations. 
 
 At Rock Creek, 111., and at McNab, 111., the leading members of 
 
 5 
 
the country church have in each community effected the recon- 
 struction of the country schools. They have secured in the open 
 country a centralized and consolidated school, through which the 
 retirement from the farms has been stopped and the building of 
 the country community has been made possible. 
 
 "The best farmers in America," says Professor Carver of 
 Harvard, " are the Mormons, Scotch Presbyterians, and Pennsyl- 
 vania Germans." I am not an authority on economics, but I can 
 lay alongside of this statement the fact that the best country 
 churches in America are Mormon, Scotch Presbyterian, and Penn- 
 sylvania German. These farmers till the land by their religion. 
 They worship God as united farming communities. They think 
 the land is holy, as Dean Bailey has declared. They have not 
 been affected by redistribution of land. Their acres are not for 
 sale, neither are their country churches suffering any distress, 
 because they have long ago discovered and continued to practice 
 the principle that agriculture is a religious occupation and the 
 Christian Church is a perfect expression of the devotion of the 
 rural economy. 
 
SOME STATISTICS OF CHURCH ATTENDANCE AND 
 CHURCH WORK IN RURAL NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR HENRY K. ROWE, NEWTON THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION. 
 
 The statistics that make up this report are the result of inves- 
 tigations made a little over a year ago into the conditions of rural 
 churches here in New England. A series of questions was sent 
 out to about thirteen hundred country ministers of all denomina- 
 tions. Of these ten per cent were returned with replies. One 
 hundred were worth tabulating, and it is on these as a basis that 
 this report is presented. In general the records were unsatis- 
 factory; a very large proportion of the churches reported nothing 
 by way of social effort aside from the routine activities of most 
 churches. Thirty-eight ministers showed sufficient interest in 
 the investigation to volunteer remarks in addition to answering 
 the questions, and many of them reflected a spirit of hopefulness. 
 Some are in a very difficult situation, and asked for suggestions, 
 but they showed no evidence of despair. One pastor with a church 
 of twenty-five members asked to be directed to a source whence 
 he might secure evening lecturers. Another requested speakers 
 for a local conference in the interests of a federation of effort. 
 Another reported union of evangelistic effort in a whole county. 
 A Vermont town told of the organization of a committee of nine 
 from three churches to canvass the town in the interests of temper- 
 ance, and the extension of the scheme to include a joint campaign 
 of education for the young people of the town. A Massachusetts 
 pastor in an unusually overchurched community writes: "I am 
 watching your association with interest, and waiting for the waters 
 to get troubled enough to give a fellow a chance to do some of the 
 things he would like to do." A Vermont minister gives the crux 
 of the whole situation at the same time that he shows his own sense 
 of duty when he writes: " We are anxious in our position of excep- 
 tional responsibility and opportunity to get into the minds and 
 hearts of all without the church that the church is ideally the com- 
 munity worshiping and serving God. It is hard to kill the old 
 
notion that it is a private limited body with narrow aims and 
 functions and restricted range of appeal." 
 
 It is plain that common criticism of ministers is not to be 
 extended to all. But some are pessimistic. One writer, lamenting 
 sectarian jealousy, declared that until this spirit was eliminated, it 
 was impossible for conditions to be made very different. " Nitro- 
 glycerin would hardly explode the conscience of many indifferents," 
 wrote another. Bigotry and clannishness, a disposition to be 
 satisfied with the past and its methods, and a general indifference 
 are among the evils deplored. Expressions like these mark the 
 feeling of the discouraged ministers. "It would be difficult to 
 bring congregations to work together. Too many difficulties in 
 the past to forget. Perhaps after a number of funerals it might 
 be different." " The work drags. The pastors have worked hard, 
 but it is hard to get warm in a refrigerator." 
 
 A very common evil is the presence of too many churches in a 
 community, but this is not so universal an evil as some seem to 
 think. Not only are there too many church organizations and 
 buildings in towns that have been depleted of population, but 
 seating capacity is also out of all proportion to church membership 
 and attendance. A town in New Hampshire with a total church 
 membership of one hundred and sixty-five and an average attend- 
 ance of one hundred and fifty has sittings for nine hundred. A 
 town in Massachusetts with a population of only a thousand has 
 sittings for twelve hundred persons. The data are not sufficient 
 for drawing very general conclusions as to attendance, but the 
 indications are that in the typical rural community not more than 
 fifteen per cent of the people attend church. Yet four towns report 
 a proportion of one church to every one hundred people or less, 
 seven towns report one church to every one hundred and seventy 
 people, fifty towns one to about two hundred and seventy-five, 
 and twenty-six towns one to about three hundred and seventy-five. 
 Naturally the membership of the churches reporting is small. 
 Fifty-seven out of eighty-three have between twenty and one hun- 
 dred members; fifteen number from one hundred to one hundred 
 and fifty. Of these only twelve had an appreciable gain yearly. 
 
 Two ways have been recommended frequently to remedy the 
 evils of overchurching : union of churches, and federation or 
 cooperation. Inquiry, therefore, was made as to the extent of 
 such getting together. About half the churches reported coopera- 
 
tion of some kind, two thirds of the instances consisting of union 
 evangelistic meetings, mostly occasional. Eight united in further- 
 ance of temperance and good government. Two pastors report 
 that mutual consultation goes on between them and others in their 
 towns, and they call on all Protestants in town. One writes: 
 "With a union picnic, union Christmas tree, union Memorial 
 Day service, union Sunday evening services, the Congregationalist 
 and Methodist pastors calling jointly on all the families of the town 
 in a canvass — how beautiful and how pleasant it is for brethren 
 to dwell together in unity." In two places a mutual arrangement 
 is maintained for services in jails, and one at a county farm. 
 
 To determine what agencies existed in the rural communities 
 for social life and moral uplift, definite information was asked. 
 In reply the following facts were brought out. Forty-nine com- 
 munities contain one or more granges; thirty-six have other 
 lodges or clubs for men; twenty-four have free libraries, and the 
 same number possess women's organizations of some sort, with 
 the Woman's Christian Temperance Union especially prominent. 
 Village Improvement societies exist in nine localities; one of them 
 is reported to have restricted its activities to cutting down a few 
 weeds in a street last summer. 
 
 One of the difficulties is to persuade the churches that they 
 have any special duty to the outlying districts or for the social 
 betterment of the community at large. Investigation revealed 
 the fact that a considerable number of churches maintain extension 
 activities, consisting principally of district schoolhouse meetings. 
 Twenty-six churches regularly sustain prayer-meetings in cottages 
 or schoolhouses or both. Seven carry on Sunday schools in addi- 
 tion. Several pastors take occasion to testify to the value of the 
 Sunday school department. One busy pastor finds time for a 
 weekly Bible class at different houses. Public conveyance to 
 church on Sunday is provided in one place. Two have successful 
 boys' camps in the summer. 
 
 With regard to social activity for the benefit of the community, 
 it is usually the case that individual members rather than the 
 church as an organization take part. Most of the social under- 
 takings of the church are for its own members. A men's club is 
 fairly common, less often one for boys. Several churches provide 
 facilities for athletics. Of course there are "sewing circles," 
 but clubs for women or girls are infrequent. Two churches main- 
 
 9 
 
tain social study clubs, two a current events club, one a dramatic 
 club, several musical societies. Church libraries and reading- 
 rooms prove popular. In one place churches unite to maintain a 
 nursing association in aid of the sick; in another the Baptists carry 
 on a sewing-school, and the Episcopalians a social settlement in a 
 Negro district. 
 
 While it is not possible to give very conclusive figures as to 
 conditions all over New England, these reports are sufficiently 
 representative to warrant the following conclusions: 
 
 1. It is clear from the small number of replies received and 
 the quality of the work done generally that there is a deplorable 
 indifference on the part of ministers to the opportunity for larger 
 and more aggressive work, and where there is genuine interest 
 there appears a lack of understanding of method that indicates 
 great need of better training for country ministers. 
 
 2. It is most encouraging that there is a nucleus of ministers 
 who are genuinely in earnest and desirous of finding a way to, do 
 more. Around this nucleus might be built up a new and larger 
 work for the rural churches. 
 
 3. The small attendance and stationary membership of the 
 churches indicates the need of a religious awakening of the average 
 New England community. 
 
 4. There is need of the elimination of some churches, but 
 local cooperation in a forward campaign is needed still more. 
 
 5. The social leadership of the community has passed largely 
 into the hands of other social organizations. There is great need 
 of well-planned social effort by the church. 
 
 6. The church is not reaching special classes. 
 
 7. The church is not reaching the community frontier. 
 
 10 
 
THE AWAKENING OF THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS. 
 
 BY REV. J. N. PARDEE, BOLTON, MASS. 
 
 When I found this subject assigned to me I wrote to a number of 
 the leading theological schools for information. Replies received 
 indicate that all the schools are giving consideration to the advisa- 
 bility of some special instruction adapted to the peculiar condi- 
 tions the ministry faces in rural communities. 
 
 This consideration seems to be a part of a new emphasis being 
 put upon the practical side of the training of students for general 
 service to society. 
 
 A realizing sense of certain sociological differences between 
 urban and rural conditions is so new that the most of the schools 
 have as yet done little more than to survey the ground, with a 
 view to laying out lines of future procedure. 
 
 Certain schools, notably those of Newton and Hartford, have 
 already instituted courses of lectures on rural sociology and the 
 special needs of the country churches. I have myself had the 
 honor of speaking to the students of the Harvard, Andover, and 
 Meadville schools. At present there is little to report except a 
 decided interest in the subject, both upon the part of the faculties 
 and the students, that promises results. A number of students 
 with a true missionary spirit, have indicated a purpose to seek 
 country parishes. 
 
 Perhaps I can do no better than to call attention briefly to a 
 few points that should not be overlooked, and to certain needs. 
 
 In the discussion of rural conditions I see a danger in generaliz- 
 ing from insufficient data. There may be isolated communities 
 that can be called "degenerate" fairly, but I have been unable 
 to find any community that can be so stigmatized. As Mr. 
 Anderson has pointed out, there, are communities, even in New 
 England, where the church, with its moral influences, never did 
 gain a foothold. A careful study of the "depleted" towns of 
 Massachusetts that I have made, convinces me that the economic 
 conditions have steadily improved with a decline of the population, 
 
 11 
 
and most men of sixty years of age agree with me that the moral 
 condition of those towns is much better than it was half a century 
 ago. Just how far this will apply to the northern New England 
 States I cannot say with certainty. There is danger too of under- 
 estimating certain forces that are at work, such as the improvements 
 in agriculture, the close touch of the farmers with the agricultural 
 colleges and experiment stations, the generally high order of 
 intelligence of the rural population, the breadth of information, the 
 shrewd judgment that adapts means to ends, and the real appre- 
 ciation of the best things that is evident, though often handicapped 
 by narrow economic margins and lack of generous culture. And 
 it should not be forgotten that within two decades a practical 
 revolution has been taking place in the rural school system. 
 
 The common opinion that the draft of population has taken 
 away from the depleted towns the best blood, leaving behind the 
 old, weak, and inefficient, is not justified by the facts. I have 
 treated this subject to some extent in an article soon to appear 
 in the Atlantic Monthly, and will pass it by now. 
 
 The resources of the country are by no means exhausted. But 
 they call for the best men to work them. 
 
 The country churches need men of capabilities of a high order; 
 educated men, men of the missionary spirit; but in putting empha- 
 sis upon the needs of an all round equipment, there is danger of 
 overlooking the importance of qualifications that have always 
 stood at the front in the training of ministers. 
 
 The young man who looks countryward for his field of labor 
 should never forget that the primary work of the Christian minister, 
 in the country as well as in the city, is to call the attention of men, 
 women, and children to the Eternal Realities; to translate the 
 terms of a sane, vital philosophy of the universe into the terms of 
 the common thought and life; to find in high thoughts of the 
 moral government of God motives for the conduct of human 
 beings in their relations to one another; to stimulate high ambi- 
 tions, clarify thought, widen knowledge, give hope in discourage- 
 ment, and soothe the sorrows of the afflicted. To enable him to 
 do this in the most effective way, all is fish that comes to his net; 
 but how far he shall go to fish in other than religious waters de- 
 pends upon the circumstances of his environment, and the char- 
 acter of his tackle. 
 
 Some of our most successful, most inspiring, most helpful 
 
 12 
 
country ministers, who have molded the character of rising 
 generations, have been saintly men, who knew little about common 
 affairs, and could handle no tool heavier than a pen; but men who 
 knew much about the deep things of God, and the aspirations of 
 the human soul; men of high scholarship, profound thought, and 
 spiritual vision; men who loved the people, and whom the people 
 loved. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that the coign of vantage of the 
 country minister is the pulpit. It is here that the candidate is 
 "sized up." He is called almost exclusively upon his character 
 as a preacher; and the keenest, shrewdest critics he will ever face 
 he stands before in the country pulpits. Country congregations, 
 as a rule, will forgive neglect and shortcomings in all other 
 departments of his work sooner than failures in the pulpit. They 
 will go into their pockets far deeper for a live preacher than for 
 a good social worker, teacher of civics, organizer of clubs, or 
 even for a good pastor, though all these things are highly appre- 
 ciated. 
 
 I want to make this point clear, because there is an impression 
 abroad that almost any kind of preaching will "go" in the country. 
 Poor preaching does go; many cheap things go for the simple 
 reason that the people of a poor church feel their inability to pay 
 for anything better; but the man who lets himself down from his 
 very best, be he a preacher, singer, or entertainer, through a vain 
 impression that his audience does not know a good thing when it 
 hears it, makes the mistake of his life. The farther back you go 
 into pioneer regions, the more really educated men and women are 
 you likely to meet. I know how summer visitors bring back to 
 the city stories of rural stupidity, but summer visitors, like the 
 novelists, are apt to generalize from incidental cases, and to look 
 through glasses colored by their own abnormal aestheticism. It 
 is a mistake, too, for a student to get the idea that country congre- 
 gations call for extemporaneous preaching. There is only one safe 
 rule, and that is to do the best you can. 
 
 The crying need of the country towns today is not social ser- 
 vice so much as a revival of religion; a sane, rational revival of 
 religion that will open up the springs of life and inspire the develop- 
 ment of character; a type of religion that can be formulated by a 
 penetrating study of the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 Given such a revival, social service will follow as naturally as 
 
 13 
 
a stream flows from its fountain head. The fine dream of the good 
 Bishop of New Hampshire will come true. 
 
 I would not be understood as undervaluing social service. 
 I simply say "amen" to the Bishop, and "God bless you!" to 
 Brother Wilson. 
 
 Another point that needs attention by the theological schools is 
 instruction in ecclesiastical law. Many of our churches of the 
 Congregational order are in a condition of legal anarchy, and con- 
 sequently of business inefficiency. The great numbers of minis- 
 ters and standing committees who do not know that the statutes 
 of the states furnish the constitutions of their societies is simply 
 amazing. Many of our old parishes have not done business legally 
 for years, and do not know where the title to their property lies. 
 The courts dread nothing so much as ' 'a church case." Business 
 methods are notoriously lax, and more ministers lose their pulpits 
 on account of this laxity than on account of all other causes com- 
 bined. Here is a direct challenge to the theological schools. 
 
 Finally, there is no situation that requires more "tact," or 
 that calls for more of the wisdom of the serpent and the harmless- 
 ness of the dove than the position of pastor of a country church. 
 It would hardly be just to faculties of our theological schools to 
 expect them to lay out lines of training when their beginnings run 
 back and their efficiency runs forward in qualities of personality 
 for which they cannot be held responsible. 
 
 14 
 
AN IDEAL OF COUNTRY CHURCH SETTLEMENT 
 
 WORK. 
 
 BY RT. REV. EDWARD M. PARKER, BISHOP COADJUTOR OF NEW 
 
 HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 I must begin with a word of personal explanation of the rather 
 ambitious scheme of country work which my title suggests. I was 
 for twenty-six years a teacher in St. Paul's School, Concord, 
 New Hampshire, for a quarter of a century the minister in charge 
 of a small country church more than five miles distant, and for 
 twelve years of this period a pluralist in charge of a second congre- 
 gation in a village ten miles from my front door. My parish 
 stretched as far over a thinly settled district as I could travel. 
 When I wished to indulge in tall talk it was my custom to speak 
 of the area of square miles that I could call my own, or the number 
 of times I had driven across the continent without leaving my five 
 New Hampshire townships, and to allude to the small classes pre- 
 sented for confirmation at the Bishop's visits as being so many 
 miles long rather than as containing so many individuals. There 
 was no large centre in my field of work; my first church was in a 
 part of the towns separated by two miles with a long hill from the 
 two churches at "the Centre" with its eighty people, and the 
 second had to be built in the little railroad village where it was 
 sadly impossible to buy or to repair either of the disused and decay- 
 ing church buildings which it contained, because one could get no 
 deed from "the Church," "the Society," the scattered pew owners, 
 and the unknown numerous descendants of the original donor. 
 Some of the difficulties of rural work were therefore unfelt by me, 
 a non-resident who did not depend on his people for financial sup- 
 port and social intercourse, since my work as a teacher gave me 
 fellowship and money to live on in a long pastorate, wherein I had 
 the intense satisfaction of knowing a small area and its problems 
 intimately, and the joy of such ties as the christening of the children 
 of people whom I had married and whom I had known as babies 
 
 15 
 
playing in the dooryard or on the floors of the country kitchens 
 or parlors where I made my first calls on their fathers and mothers. 
 
 Out of my experience has grown an ideal of the way to minister 
 to a tract of country with a small town or two, with a few villages 
 with tiny hamlets or clusters of farm houses, with perhaps a five 
 years' lumber camp community, some summer boarding houses, 
 a small summer hotel, and with many isolated farms dotted here 
 and there along the country roads. In planning with my fellow 
 workers, I am very apt to clarify their ideas and my own by asking 
 first, " What would you have if you could do just what you wished? " 
 and then, "How can we begin in some practical way with our 
 inadequate resources of workers and money to do a part of what 
 we desire?" 
 
 So here is my vision of what I would do if I could have my 
 wishes carried out, a vision woven partly of accomplished facts in 
 work done in my square miles of country or by others elsewhere in 
 New Hampshire, and partly of rainbow colors not yet brought down 
 to earth. 
 
 In the town of A is the central Home of the Workers, the 
 Country Church Settlement House. It is a village house made 
 over a little, a country parsonage, or an old tavern on a disused 
 turnpike ruined by the coming of the railroads, such as I know 
 well in one town, or such as has been redeemed in another to serve 
 as a centre of Christian work. I always like to repeat the story 
 told me, that in a drunken brawl in the unregenerate days of the 
 latter that are past, they saved a man from being done to death by 
 throwing him out of a second story window. If the Central Home 
 in the village of four or five hundred people is an old tavern, its 
 dance hall will give the assembly room needed for social gatherings ; 
 if the Home is a smaller house, such a hall must somehow be other- 
 wise obtained for our ideal place of work. And then, close at 
 hand, must be the village church for the central scene of effort of a 
 Country Church Settlement. 
 
 And in the Home are the headquarters of the workers, the first 
 being the Senior Parson and his wife and children. He should 
 be an experienced man in middle life. Second is the Junior Parson, 
 a young man not long from the Theological Seminary; he will 
 probably soon need a separate house for a young wife, since young 
 parsons and young army officers set an example, good or bad, of 
 early marriage on small means. I believe with all my heart that 
 
 16 
 
nine times out of ten the country parson is a far more useful man 
 if he has the blessing and the strength of a loving wife, but in our 
 ideal band of workers the Junior Parson might perhaps wait as 
 men of other professions do for this happiness, till he has put in 
 a few years of hard bachelor work. The third man would be a 
 Layman, who was ready for awhile to teach in the village school; 
 and the last member of the group of workers should be the District 
 Nurse, whose duty it should be (as was the case in a well planned 
 piece of country work near Brattleboro), not so much to wear 
 herself out nursing every sick man and woman in her district, as 
 to train and organize all the kindly effort of watchers and neighbors 
 whom the country should supply in the present as in the past. 
 She will be the right hand of the village doctor in the desperate 
 cases which he has sometimes to face almost unaided with heroic 
 self-sacrifice. 
 
 The Settlement may lodge a Normal School girl who has just 
 come to town to care for a small district school, and there will often 
 be visitors who pay their board and give their work. But what a 
 body of workers you have planned for your village group of a few 
 hundred people! My dear listeners to a dream, it is the business 
 of our Settlement to own a whole countryside ! 
 
 I am writing this ideal with a road map before me, and work 
 out the details of my scheme on a real section in New Hampshire. 
 And so I can say that three miles away from my centre A, is the 
 village of B, to reach which I pass a lumber camp hamlet C, two 
 miles from our centre. Three miles beyond B is a small village D, 
 with a church and schoolhouse. And starting from A on a new 
 road, two miles south is the village of E with its seldom-used church 
 building; one mile beyond it is the tiny hamlet of F, and two miles 
 still farther away, on the same south road, is the village of G with 
 its disused church. We can go eight miles from our centre, south- 
 east by train, to a hamlet K with nothing better than a school- 
 house for a meeting place. Five miles of good up-and-down-hill 
 driving will bring our workers to a small village H, and six miles 
 due north lies its fellow, I, its fellow except that the quiet of H 
 among its hills is contrasted with the new paper mill with its thirty 
 or forty hands, which has brought new life and some foreigners to I. 
 
 Eight miles northwest by rail is a village of five or six hundred 
 people, which is a little outside our immediate field of work, and 
 where we could not, perhaps, be able to think of doing social or 
 
 17 
 
religious work. It is included in the outside region with its 3000 
 people who live just beyond our immediate field of work. Our 
 field has today ten church buildings, two libraries, seven summer 
 boarding houses or small hotels, a good many little mills doing 
 rather a poor and failing business, and about 2000 people. I am 
 supposing that our workers supply in part that which is now done 
 by resident ministers, in this home field, many of whose people live 
 on the isolated farms all up and down the many roads that it con- 
 tains. 
 
 Our workers must begin by getting to know every family in this 
 section. The Senior Parson will have his special field; to the 
 Junior Parson will be assigned a particular section for which he will 
 be responsible, since Americans desire to be independent if possible 
 in their work,. The Lay Worker might take a small hamlet or two, 
 to relieve the others, or better, might be the helper of the Senior 
 in his central district. Country people in New England are always 
 glad to receive calls, and if one has a little common sense and is 
 courteous, the country parson can be sure of a warm welcome. 
 It is well not to begin as I did, the afternoon before Thanksgiving 
 Day, when housewives are not altogether idle; but I think I gained 
 as much as I lost by the touch of Yankee humor with which many 
 women laughed at the raw inexperience of a young man who had 
 forgotten that pumpkin pies cannot be gathered from November 
 chilled appletrees in the back yard. I shall never forget the digni- 
 fied cordiality with which I was met several years later on by Mr. Q., 
 who had been told by a mutual friend that ' 'the minister was going 
 to call on him," and who had compared the minister to the moulding 
 machine in the village furniture shop, which he feared ' 'because you 
 did n't know, Edgar, what it was going to do." Warned by the 
 delighted Edgar, the Moulding Machine and Mr. Q. both avoided 
 religious topics and began their acquaintance with grave converse 
 about the proposed village creamery, the likelihood of an early 
 frost, and the comparative advantages of the hill and valley roads. 
 And so our Settlement workers will first of all make at every house 
 the long chatty calls which will make them acquainted with every 
 family and individual, and the card catalogue will speedily have its 
 record of names, ages, and religious connections. The District 
 Nurse and the Doctor will bring the Settlement into closer touch 
 with house after house as sickness visits them, and the Parsons will 
 find it increasingly easy to minister religiously by simple sick-room 
 
 18 
 
prayers to such families, while the steady work of public worship, 
 preaching, and Sunday School and Home Lessons for isolated fami- 
 lies will slowly tell on the community as people get to know the 
 minister personally, and to return the compliment of social calls at 
 the houses by occasional, and increasingly regular, visits to the 
 Church or School House service. 
 
 I should enjoy drawing up a schedule of work for Messrs. 
 X, Y, Z at all the alphabetical points which I have named earlier. 
 My theory is that at many of those far distant from the central 
 house the parson should have a room in some respectable house, 
 where he can spend the night and leave his books and other belong- 
 ings. It should be simply furnished with a bed, a table, a few 
 chairs, and an air-tight stove, and there should be in the barn a 
 stall for the horse, as there is a place in the house for his master. 
 Church services, schoolhouse services, house services, short sick- 
 room prayers, all these our workers are to provide for the whole 
 countryside. The house wedding and the leisurely country funeral 
 give one ever new opportunities to reach and to touch people who 
 are slow to come to church. " The house going parson will make 
 the church going people," as the old proverb says, not forgetting 
 that another proverb bids us, ' 'When you go to the city, take your 
 best coat; when you go to the country, take your best sermon." 
 
 But in my group of buildings at the Settlement House I have 
 forgotten to speak of the stable! I ought perhaps in an up-to-date 
 ideal to imagine a small automobile in place of one of the horses 
 which the country parson must keep. I know country ministers 
 who do splendid work on "shank's mare," or on bicycles, and one 
 whose parishioners often loaned him ' 'their teams," but it is really 
 a criminal waste of force that the countryside should have a min- 
 ister unsupplied with such an assistant as "Major-General Jim 
 Parker," who after years of faithful service ended life with a set of 
 rather alarming fits, or like the four-legged gentleman variously 
 called "Dobbin" and "the Arch Deacon," who recently did 189 
 miles of travel, bringing Christmas cheer along the winter roads 
 of three northern towns. 
 
 I have begun with the religious work, because that is the special 
 business of a religious settlement and of a minister, but social work 
 is a help to religious success, especially if there be a thorough con- 
 viction that it is worth doing just for its own sake. My experience 
 is that in country social work play comes before serious intentions; 
 
 19 
 
I have a great respect for the old church sociable, if some sort of a 
 programme can be provided ; the songs which I have heard are not 
 up to those in Denmark of which Professor Rasmussen spoke last 
 night, but our ideal Settlement could easily get chorus singing by a 
 hall full of people if it printed a few hundred pamphlets of patriotic 
 and simple popular songs, such as "The Red, White and Blue," 
 "The Star Spangled Banner," "Auld Lang Syne," and the 
 " Swanee River," and I know of effective lumber camp words set 
 to the tune of " My Old Kentucky Home." Social workers gave 
 one set of children in a mountain district the first Christmas tree, 
 and the first picnic, they had ever had. One of the most Christian 
 meetings that I ever attended was a village Christmas tree (one of 
 a series managed on an undenominational basis alternately by the 
 ladies of the Baptist and Episcopal churches), at which one heard 
 quaint old English Christmas carols, magazine songs and recita- 
 tions, the words of the Christmas story from St. Matthew and St. 
 Luke recited by rows of little boys in knickerbockers, and by little 
 girls in white dresses and pigtails, and really lovely French chansons 
 about Christmas, sung by the Roman Catholic children from a 
 lumber mill hamlet, who had been drilled and trained by a French 
 Canadian girl. It did not make our meeting less Christian that 
 I had succeeded, in spite of profound anxieties on my part and 
 dismal prophesies of failure on the part of others, in brewing strong 
 coffee in a wash boiler, and that, careful to make the French Cana- 
 dians feel that they were not asked to do anything in which the 
 others were not ready to take a hand, that I had stood next to a 
 woodchopper's wife, washing coffee mugs in the blacksmith's 
 kitchen. The Christian Settlement worker must never forget 
 the native New Zealand proverb : ' 'Gentleman gentleman does not 
 mind what he does," and that "it is pig gentleman who is very 
 particular." 
 
 It is to be hoped that our ideal Settlement workers will not be 
 prevented by Church traditions from killing out or preventing 
 the harmful public dances which sometimes injure a country com- 
 munity, by promoting or encouraging well chaperoned dancing 
 parties which break up at a reasonably early hour. It is a great 
 thing to have the good girls and the wild girls both come to feel 
 that by far the pleasantest parties are those held at home or at the 
 Settlement Hall, and that one need not break bounds to have a 
 good time. Anyone who has not seen a Country Promenade led 
 
 20 
 
by a couple of clever young people who invent new and surprising 
 figures, for the older folk and the children and the young people 
 who follow their lead, has something still to live for. 
 
 I have left myself little room to dwell on some of the more 
 serious sides of my ideal piece of country work. As one gains the 
 confidence and the warm friendship of a countryside, clubs for 
 reading, for study, for magazine subscriptions, for the promotion 
 of handicraft, can be organized. Weaving and rug making may 
 increase local wealth; classes in embroidery and music and lan- 
 guage may be started and maintained. There is no limit to the 
 leadership that may be developed among the neighbors, or that 
 may be given by the workers who have become friends. And 
 here perhaps is the chance to draw together the summer visitors 
 and the twelve month residents. Summer residents and those 
 who indignantly refuse patronage and often look suspiciously for 
 condescension where it does not exist, can sometimes be drawn 
 together by work for others. 
 
 And there are the country schools. I have known one country 
 minister who has set our Settlement workers a splendid example of 
 sympathetic cooperation with the teachers and the leaders in the 
 community for improved methods of instruction, by starting 
 patriotic courses of simple civics and by prizes given at social 
 gatherings of parents and children in the schoolhouses. It will be 
 a clear duty and a keen pleasure for our workers to promote nature 
 studies and vocational courses of study, to work at the problem of 
 ruralizing and improving the schools of their district. Village 
 Improvement Societies and School Gardens once started by inter- 
 ested workers may be taken up by the town; a model school term's 
 work, at the expense of the Settlement, may easily bring in others 
 at the public expense; a worker may become an official on the 
 School Board. 
 
 And as tastes and leisure permit, the Settlement gardens and 
 stables may become centres of "agricultural demonstration." 
 Big strawberries in the parson's garden, or well sprayed, well 
 trimmed apple trees, will suggest possibilities unthought of before. 
 Countrymen can understand the practical advantages of reasonable 
 management of woodlots or of tree planting, if the management be 
 reasonable. I know one parson who has, and who sells, extra good 
 fresh eggs all the year round, and another who has one of the best 
 gardens in town because he buys good seeds, and has by careful 
 
 21 
 
management of a sandy soil made it capable of large returns. 
 Then there are lectures and conferences, carried on independently 
 or in cooperation with the Grange, the Teachers' Institutes, or 
 the State College at Durham. I should get Professor Rasmussen 
 to talk about milk tests and cow tests, and Mr. Hardy of Hollis 
 to tell us how he beat all New England with Baldwin apples from 
 an old orchard which he had pruned and sprayed, and how he thus 
 won the Governor Draper silver cup. Much may be done in 
 cooperation, and something also independently, by the help that 
 can be obtained because a band of workers and their friends have a 
 wider acquaintance and better financial resources than a single 
 minister. 
 
 But why such an elaborate piece of machinery for country work? 
 First, because it presupposes the serious effort to provide finan- 
 cially for serious work. Second, because it provides for an 
 avoidance of the loneliness and isolation which come to the soli- 
 tary country parson. With associates in work, ' 'his strength is as 
 the strength of ten," because four or five people are associated with 
 him. Third, because it provides for a continuance of effort in 
 work, and prevents the short pastorates that are the curse of much 
 country work. The Head stays on and there is a succession of 
 helpers with shorter terms of work, or the Head leaves and the 
 Junior Parson steps into his place, already knowing the field and 
 known in it. Fourth, because the Settlement can own, or borrow, 
 or rent, such tools as lanterns, maps and books. Fifth, because 
 it can form a centre to utilize temporary workers and helpers in 
 summer, autumn, and winter, and to train the green city people 
 filled with enthusiasm and having only city experience, for country 
 work. 
 
 I might have put my Settlement in a New Hampshire town 
 where there is a rather feeble Academy, a skilled agriculturist, 
 and a number of intelligent summer visitors ready to cooperate 
 with our workers, or it might take as its field a narrow mountain- 
 lined valley twenty-one miles long by a mile or so broad, with many 
 villages, many lumber camps back among the mountains, many 
 summer visitors, and undeveloped rather barren farms. 
 
 Here is my poor picture of Country Work as I see it in my fancy, 
 and yet not altogether there, for almost every detail is a reality 
 somewhere, though I have combined them in an imaginary picture 
 of one locality where I know every road. Christian courtesy and 
 
 22 
 
interest and love can win affection and cooperation where there is 
 no thought of establishing church connections; workers who are 
 trusted as men and women may become leaders in schools of 
 agriculture where they have only an imperfect knowledge. If one 
 knows country people well, and enters into their lives and cares 
 supremely for them personally, one may stimulate and lead them 
 into paths of material progress where one has never gone, and into 
 spiritual paths where one must tread very humbly one's self. 
 
 23 
 
THE RURAL CHURCH AND THE BEAUTIFICATION OF 
 
 THE COUNTRY. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR ROBERT J. SPRAGUE, UNIVERSITY OF MAINE. 
 
 There are many proposed solutions of the rural church prob- 
 lems. Some of these require stronger preachers, social secretaries, 
 or the reorganization of the religious forces which will take much 
 time or experiment; but there is one line of activity which every 
 church can adopt, be it rich or poor, large or small, and it may 
 know that its efforts will always meet with public approval, if 
 exercised with wisdom, and there is no limit to the improvements 
 that are possible. The rural church must be more of a generalized 
 institution and work for the whole life and numerous interests of 
 the community which it serves. Wherever charitable, civic, 
 literary, musical, or even recreational needs are apparent in the 
 rural community, the church should stand ready to satisfy them, 
 if it be the best agency available for such work. The church must 
 realize that all of these interests are essential to a well balanced, 
 wholesome community, and all belong to the Kingdom of God. 
 
 The special interests of the rural church may best be conserved 
 by working for the general welfare when the need is evident. The 
 church must cease struggling to save its own life and work for the 
 community interests, for only thus can it live and fulfill its vital 
 purpose. The preacher is frequently the best trained man in the 
 community, the natural leader, and he must serve every interest 
 of the Kingdom according to its need and his power. The city 
 preacher can specialize, but the country parson must be a general 
 practitioner. 
 
 It often takes a stronger, more all round man, with more brains 
 and grace, to meet all the needs of the country parishes and get 
 success than it does to carry successfully the city church with all its 
 helpers and stimulating environment. 
 
 One of the best influences for getting effective men into the 
 rural churches is to broaden the work in scope and influence until 
 
 25 
 
it becomes only a strong man's job, until it appeals to the large 
 brained and noble hearted individuals with all of its religious, 
 moral, civic, and aesthetic possibilities. 
 
 The local improvement club, the literary society, the grange, 
 the town offices, the children's organizations and athletics, all 
 furnish collateral opportunities for the rural preacher to serve his 
 community. I wish, however, to speak of one special interest 
 which is crying out for attention and on which the people very 
 easily unite, that is, the beautification of the country and the village. 
 
 Unbeautified Grounds. 
 
 Many of our village and rural churches have no more decora- 
 tions about them than the blacksmith shop and the grocery store, 
 and yet within the church the beauty of the lily and the God in 
 nature are supposed to be strong sentiments of Christianity. If 
 the sermons are to be judged by the bareness and crudeness of the 
 exterior of many of our churches, it is not to be wondered that 
 people seek their preaching in the mountains and on the lakes. 
 The Catholic people often show more interest in the beauty of the 
 church grounds and the general exterior than the Protestants do, 
 and their properties hold the respect of their people. 
 
 Then there is the old burying ground where the hearts of so 
 many of the people lie buried, it is often left neglected and dilapi- 
 dated. In the beautifying of this may be the only way of reaching 
 some broken lives. 
 
 The next object of aesthetic interest should be the country school 
 yard. The most of these yards are lacking in all the character- 
 istics which encourage high ideals and civilized living. They are 
 places where there is no law, no beauty, nothing which appeals to 
 the esthetic, the just, or the civic. The children run rough shod 
 over everything and learn to think that bareness, battered fences, 
 and crude liberty are the proper things, with the result that they 
 are liable to duplicate them in their own homes and are willing to 
 live in naked tenements. Every school yard should have trees, 
 shrubbery, and flowers, which young America must respect and, 
 still better, cultivate. Here is a great field waiting for workers, and 
 the men and women of the churches could do no better than to push 
 developments along this line. They will find that the people are 
 easily united for such improvements. 
 
 26 
 
The New England Trees. 
 
 New England is second to none in her wealth of flora for summer 
 scenery, but for winter landscapes she has the most beautiful trees 
 on the planet. Our rural people generally do not realize the possi- 
 bilities for unrivaled beauty in the pines, spruces, and cedars when 
 applied to villages and country homesteads. Hundreds of villages 
 could make themselves strikingly beautiful, winter and summer, by 
 taking advantage of their natural surroundings and decorating 
 with the native evergreens. As it is, we plant deciduous trees 
 which have nothing to present but bare arms for seven months 
 of the year, while we might have that color and warmth on the 
 groundwork of snow which would give us unparalleled winter 
 beauty. Many of our parks have nothing but cold shivering sticks 
 in the winter, although they might be warmed up and protected 
 by living evergreens. The land values about many a park can be 
 raised greatly by the use of well grouped cedars and spruces, for 
 where bleak desolation has held sway in winter, beauty and color 
 may reign supreme. The soft, waving, murmuring pine which 
 turns every breeze into music, towering alone over other evergreens 
 gives a most striking effect; while spruces grouped for backgrounds 
 and cedars (arborvitae) grouped for foreground complete the com- 
 bination for charming New England scenery. In summer there 
 is hardly any effect equal to flowering shrubbery against a solid 
 background of evergreen, but these settings are used very little. 
 
 The Spirea Van Houtii and the Hydrangea Grandiflora make 
 beautiful combinations with evergreen backgrounds, they can be 
 used separately against the green or they can be combined. When 
 they are grown together the spireas give bloom in the early summer 
 and the hydrangeas in the late summer and fall. The use of the 
 green background permits the use of a thousand effective combi- 
 nations, but those mentioned above are perennial and good for 
 permanent landscapes. 
 
 How to Transplant Evergreens. 
 
 The transplanting of evergreens is simple and safe if done in 
 accordance with their nature. If the roots of the tree are allowed 
 to dry the resinous substances harden and the tree cannot live. 
 Because of this fact it has been considered more difficult to 
 
 27 
 
change evergreens than maples or elms, but the spruces, pines, 
 and cedars are really very tough for transplanting if the roots 
 be carefully treated. It is always best to take up some earth with 
 the roots. A tree five or six feet tall should have a lump two or 
 three feet across removed with it, the more earth the safer, smaller 
 trees of course requiring less. It is always best in changing any 
 tree to take a good lot of its native soil. Transplanting can be 
 done in the spring with perfect success. Last spring I changed 
 some evergreens of every kind and no tree died or even seemed to 
 know that it had been moved, judging from the normal growth 
 which all the trees made during the summer. If large trees are to 
 be moved, as they may well be, the best time is in the fall after the 
 ground has frozen enough to hold the soil together. Dig around 
 the tree before the ground freezes too much, leaving a radius of 
 soil according to its size, and after the earth is well frozen the whole 
 thing can be loosened and a drag or dray put under it for transpor- 
 tation. 
 
 In every town some teamster ought to construct a special appar- 
 atus for the transportation of trees with masses of soil attached. 
 The possession of such a thing will make the act easy and safe and 
 create a demand for transplanted trees. In some parts of the 
 country a few men make splendid money moving trees in the 
 winter when the ground is hard, the lawns are uninjured, and the 
 other business is dull. 
 
 The Town Streets. 
 
 The streets of towns and villages have suffered greatly from 
 the lack of plans and care. Many a residence street is laid out 
 like a commercial highway, with a broad, dusty, muddy road 
 stretching from sidewalk to sidewalk. A better way to use the 
 same space would be to leave a parkway between the sidewalk 
 and the road on either side, having a narrow driving street with 
 turning spaces at the corners. This plan prevents much dust, 
 is cheaper to build and keep in repair, while the parkings may be 
 decorated with trees and shrubbery to the great betterment of the 
 town and the land values. 
 
 Many of our cities cannot be rebuilt or entirely improved in 
 general appearance for a hundred years yet, but the villages with 
 their open spaces and dusty streets can be made to look like differ- 
 
 28 
 
ent places with little expense and labor. One of the places that 
 needs treatment most of all is the railroad station and the property 
 adjacent to the track through the town. Some towns are under 
 a permanent handicap because of the frightful condition about the 
 railway station, which advertises unthrift and demoralization to 
 every traveler. 
 
 The Rural Homestead. 
 
 There are thousands of country homesteads standing with cold 
 feet shivering in the icy winds of winter, which might, almost 
 without expense, be given a permanent aspect of beauty and 
 comfort. With a background of spruces thickly walled or grouped 
 behind the house or along the fence with an occasional lone pine 
 at the corners for variety and feature, and with cedars and shrub- 
 bery in front, many common looking places can be made remarkable 
 for comfort and attractiveness, the property value increased, and 
 the sentimental interests doubled. 
 
 I do not mean to ignore or discourage the use of deciduous 
 trees; they can be used with others and we all know their beauties, 
 but they do not compare with the evergreens in the possibilities 
 for improving the homesteads and landscapes. The evergreens 
 cost nothing in the country, they are permanent, and they can be 
 trimmed and trained to conform to any fancy or system of decora- 
 tion. They are healthy and free from destructive pests to which 
 our best deciduous trees are subject. 
 
 The Country Scenery. 
 
 The improvement of urban scenery is expensive and very 
 difficult, but not so with the open country. Here is room for 
 expansion and the expression of ideals, a free field and abundant 
 resources. Every New England town ought to have a society 
 devoted, in part at least, to the preservation and development of 
 beauty along the common highways. The bushes can be effectively 
 cut so as to leave clumps of picturesque trees and openings for good 
 views. Farmers can be influenced to leave old trees where they are 
 most needed and young ones to grow in prominent places. Many 
 of our country bridges can be treated with good results by leaving 
 trees or planting them at the approaches. Evergreens are espe- 
 cially effective in such places. 
 
 29 
 
The Church's Opportunity. 
 
 Here is a field of opportunity for the preacher and the church, 
 yea, even a duty long neglected. Let the work begin with the 
 beautification of the church grounds and extend to the school 
 yards, the cemetery, the public square, the streets, railway station, 
 the roads and bridges, and even out into the open country. On 
 such a subject the people will listen to the preacher and follow his 
 lead in the cooperative betterment of the community. Here is an 
 opportunity for the young people's society to engage in landscape 
 gardening, for the men's clubs to realize permanent social service, 
 for the boy scouts to get long tramps and exercise at cutting bushes, 
 trimming roadways, and planting trees, and for the preacher to 
 show the living God in a beautiful world of nature and of works 
 for the common good. It is just as effective for the people to 
 mingle their fingers in the dirt while carrying out a cooperative 
 public service as to blend their voices in prayer meeting, and it 
 may be more beneficial to the church. 
 
 "New England 1920." 
 
 Of course New England will celebrate her 300th anniversary 
 in a fitting and impressive manner, but she can make no improve- 
 ment which will be cheaper, more natural, more permanent, or 
 more beneficial than to use the God-given advantages at her very 
 doors and make herself the most beautiful section of all America. 
 It can easily be done. New England is geographically and his- 
 torically only one state; her whole six commonwealths combined 
 are not as large in area as Kansas or any one of a score of Western 
 States. She is naturally the most beautiful area in America, 
 and with a little effort she can surpass all other states in those 
 things which make life satisfactory and joyous. She has popu- 
 lation exceeded only by New York and Pennsylvania, and her 
 wealth is equalled by the Empire State alone. 
 
 Land of the sea and the lake and the mountain peak, 
 Of the pointed spruce and the murmuring pine, 
 Of the scented cedar's lacy leaf, 
 Of majestic elms and trailing vine. 
 
 30 
 
Land of the leaping waterfall, 
 
 Of the secret brook and the speckled trout, 
 
 Of the cliff and the sand and the tumbling surf 
 
 Where smudge and care are all washed out. 
 
 Land where freedom first arose, 
 Where the Red Coat felt the patriot's fire, 
 Land of the seer, the prophet, and bard, 
 Of learned halls and sacred spire. 
 
 New England, old enchanted land, 
 
 We hail thee, Queen of Columbia's realm. 
 
 31 
 
ONE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF THE COUNTRY 
 
 CHURCH. 
 
 REV. MYRON L. CUTLER, EAST JAFFREY, N. H. 
 
 The Problem of the Country Church is a problem of men, 
 of finances, and of conditions, local and modern. " 
 
 The last point must be studied by each church and pastor and 
 dealt with by themselves. The first two are more general and of 
 these I shall speak from an experience of nearly twenty-four years 
 in our little country parish with all the usual difficulties one meets. 
 I shall treat this matter briefly, putting into few words my con- 
 clusions arrived at with much difficulty and long experience. 
 
 The conditions of country life are not as unfortunate and evil 
 as often pictured by the occasional city visitor who knows little 
 about these things and attempts to measure appearances by city 
 standards. Morally, intellectually, and progressively, countrymen 
 are up to date, and especially in matters of morals and propriety. 
 We can teach our city cousins some things to their advantage. 
 In the city nobody knows anybody else nor cares what others 
 do, and hence public opinion has little regulative force. In the 
 country everybody knows everybody and what he is up to, and 
 public opinion is a great force which few dare ignore. 
 
 Hence the importance of the country church, the only organized 
 effort to shape the moral life of the community. We read the best 
 books, papers, and magazines, and have time to think on these 
 things. 
 
 The country laity demand good, thoughtful, sound sermons, 
 and will not waste time listening to any other. Moreover every- 
 where men like to listen to and follow their own kind, especially 
 the best of their own kind. Jesus, the peasant, of the common 
 people, preached to all the people, but the common people alone 
 heard him gladly, because he was of their kind and better than they. 
 So the country minister should be a country man, born and bred, 
 well informed of country life and interests. A city man will be 
 heavily handicapped. So too he must be honest, sincere, unselfish, 
 ready to serve without money and without price. 
 
 People are quick to discern the man behind the preacher, 
 
 33 
 
none quicker than the countryman. And if the man fails his 
 words will fail. The man is of much greater importance than the 
 orator, for a handful listens to the sermon on Sunday, but the 
 whole community watches the minister all the week and measures 
 him carefully, and if he falls short of the well understood standard 
 his influence is nothing. The same is true of the church member. 
 The Church must lead to better things or die. Therefore let 
 quality not quantity of church membership be considered. A 
 dozen goodly people working together for righteousness are worth 
 more than a thousand who will not work together and care nothing 
 for righteousness and are only selfishly seeking their own salvation. 
 
 The other point in the problem of the country church is the 
 financial one, and by many it is deemed greatest if not insoluble. 
 I do not think so. I know better. Hundreds of communities are 
 denied the gospel because of lack of financial ability to pay for it. 
 The poor are not having the "gospel preached to them," disciples 
 of Jesus Christ are not doing their duty. Some churches are 
 endowed. Rich people die and leave funds to help support the 
 church. All this is good but not sufficient. Money can not make 
 churches. Dead men are beyond the power to help. A church 
 is a body of people organized for the purpose of advancing the 
 welfare of men within and without the church. This must be 
 borne in mind. A million dollar endowment is useless in an empty 
 church. Moreover people will usually pay currently for what they 
 want and are convinced they need, but small communities of 
 moderate means cannot pay princely salaries and no minister 
 has a right to expect to be supported above the average of his 
 people. 
 
 What then is the solution of the financial problem of the small 
 country parish? I studied this for years, lay awake nights, and 
 worried over the matter till I threw away my selfish ambition to get 
 into a larger church with a bigger salary, stopped listening for 
 the Lord to call me up higher, threw away my plug hat and 
 ministerial garb on week days, forgot my dignity as a man and 
 sought the dignity of a good citizen, remembering that my Master 
 was a carpenter without a salary, that Saint Paul earned his own 
 living making tents that he might have the opportunity to preach. 
 And so I took off my coat and went to work like the rest of my 
 people; and the financial problem is settled. The people pay what 
 they can without impoverishing themselves and I earn the rest. 
 
 34 
 
Brethren in the Christian Ministry, the church is not here for 
 us to exploit, but to use for humanity's welfare, present and future. 
 Our attitude should not be one of self-seeking. What can we get 
 out of it, not of salary but of opportunity? Are we willing to do 
 anything honorable for the sake of the opportunity to tell the world 
 of Jesus' way to live and glorify the Father of all men? Hundreds 
 of small country places are waiting for some one to come and tell 
 the "old old story" and can and will gladly pay from $100 to $500 
 a year. But we are sending our heroic missionary men and women 
 abroad at a good salary to preach to the foreign heathen who 
 understand little and care less. Meanwhile our own heathen are 
 neglected within our own borders and getting ready to make our 
 nation trouble. If we can get young men to look at this matter 
 rightly we shall not need even home missionary boards with great 
 resources. All we v/ant is men, just men, of Christian motive, 
 who will go anywhere and, working with head and hands, make a 
 place for themselves and build up little churches in every little 
 community, and at the same time build up the community and 
 save the nation from falling and save men from ruin. 
 
 Jesus' last command was ' 'Go ye into all the world and preach 
 my gospel to every creature." He said nothing of salary and he 
 did not tell us to all run for the city. No earnest man who believes 
 in God and men and does his best need worry about salary or 
 wages. 
 
 Much might be said of the importance of the country as feeding 
 the city life and of kindred things, but I think those things are well 
 understood. 
 
 The world is growing fast, and has less and less use for peculiar 
 garb, or pretended excellence, but more and more use for men who 
 fit their work and station and fill their station, and there is great 
 satisfaction in even a small task well done. 
 
 The personality of Jesus Christ is the most potent force for 
 good in this world. 
 
 The solution of the problem of the country church lies very 
 largely in the quality of the Country Minister, and of this I am now 
 firmly convinced every day I live. And farming is the best means 
 of helping out in this problem because it is an independent occupa- 
 tion and a good farm well kept is the best authority on theology 
 I have ever found. 
 
 35 
 
EDUCATION FOR RURAL LIFE. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR O. H. BENSON, BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY, 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 (In Boys' and Girls' Demonstration Work.) 
 
 The greatest need of America today is an educational policy 
 built from the ground up, rather than from the ' c up to the ground 
 down" as has been generally true during the past fifty years, 
 throughout the states. 
 
 The depopulation of rural communities and rapid growth of 
 our already congested centers of population should give us serious 
 concern. 
 
 A Re-directed Education. 
 
 The demand for a re-directed education in our rural and com- 
 mon schools is not a local matter, but a demand which is being 
 made all over the United States upon the men and women in charge 
 of educational work, and everywhere the questions are being asked : 
 What shall we Teach? How do you Teach It? Can it be done 
 without loss in efficiency and the results to the three R's? 
 
 To the first question I would answer, teach all the subjects 
 of farm and home life that can be studied in connection with the 
 daily school studies and as substitutes for many of the non-essen- 
 tials now existing in the average common school. Instead of 
 "cube root" "compound proportion," "alligation," etc., substitute 
 practical farm and kitchen arithmetic. 
 
 Instead of the months of hard work outlined in the average 
 grammar text book (a boys' natural enemy) in technical and 
 formal analysis, substitute for this the necessary practice and drill 
 that will help the child to express his ideas and facts in clear and 
 cultured English. 
 
 Instead of the great amount of technical physiology, such as 
 scientific names of bones, nerves, and muscles, substitute for these 
 some home-economic subjects, such as ventilation, food values, 
 
 37 
 
laws of home and personal hygiene, balanced rations, composi- 
 tion of foods as related to human needs, and many other subjects 
 of equal importance and related to the elementary science of living. 
 
 Instead of the large amount of meaningless copy-work usually 
 given in the penmanship exercises, substitute the practical writing 
 exercises in story and discussion about live and first hand subjects, 
 such as relate to the farm and home interests. 
 
 Instead of the criminal exploitation of wars and bloodshed in 
 the study of United States history, take up a systematic study of 
 the history and development of our great American industries as 
 they are related to man and his economic welfare, agriculturally. 
 
 Instead of juggling with the vast amount of dead matter in 
 map boundaries, location of foreign cities, and geographical pre- 
 cisions which point nowhere but kill time and furnish the teacher 
 with excuse for spending time and energy in teaching the subject 
 of geography, let us study geography by using the great agricultural, 
 commercial, and industrial interests as they relate to man, as the 
 basis and reason for the existence of the subject. Map study 
 should be incidental instead of basic in its use. 
 
 In answer to the second question I would say in brief, there 
 are three important methods or plans by which elementary agri- 
 culture and home economics can be taught in our common schools, 
 ■viz: — 
 
 1. By effective correlation as suggested in the booklet work 
 and in the above plan of substitution. 
 
 2. By general lessons to be given daily in a systematic and 
 seasonable way, on subjects that most concern the community 
 and home life. 
 
 3. By regular classwork with textbook in hand of pupil and 
 with available supplies for laboratory experiments in the study of 
 seeds, soils, plants, and chemical action of soils. 
 
 It must be understood that the school library should contain 
 a good list of helpful books and references on the farm and home 
 life subjects, also available agricultural bulletins and many splen- 
 did books and publications on the book markets of our land. 
 
 To the third important question I would answer emphatically 
 "y es -" After four years of careful investigation and experience 
 in promoting this work as a County Supervisor of Schools, I have 
 positive evidence to the effect that, without an exception, the teach- 
 ers and schools following this plan of teaching agriculture and home 
 
 38 
 
economics give greater efficiency in reading, writing, and arith- 
 metic than do other schools where this work is neglected. Seventy- 
 five per cent of the boys and girls who failed to pass the uniform 
 eighth grade examination in Wright County, Iowa, in 1910, came 
 from the schools in which practically nothing was done to correlate 
 agricultural and home life studies with regular school work. To be 
 plainer, the ratio of three to one was in favor of the "re-directed 
 school." In looking over the written manuscripts the writing 
 and compositions from the pupils of the "re-directed schools" 
 were markedly better than the papers that came from the schools 
 where nothing was done except to defend in the usual and senti- 
 mental way the old "culture sake" and "three R" education. 
 
 We desire to impress upon our auditors the fact that the prime 
 object of this kind of re-directed education is to get the teacher 
 into a correct personal attitude toward her pupils and their environ- 
 ment, and to render more efficient the work of reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic; to give the training that "fits into life and makes us 
 capable of self expression and the larger service to our fellow man." 
 
 The schools of today must determine very largely the citizen- 
 ship of tomorrow. We cannot hope to secure a citizenship trained 
 in agricultural and industrial tastes and interests unless we give 
 this direction in our common schools. Too long we have left this 
 most important phase of education to our few technical schools 
 in large cities, reformatories, penitentiaries, etc., until it would 
 seem impossible to conserve our industrial interests and our Ameri- 
 can agriculture without increasing in youthful crime. As Super- 
 intendent J. D. Eggleston of Virginia puts it: "The gospel of 
 better agriculture is a holy cause and we are treading upon holy 
 ground," and no longer should we desecrate it by ignoring our 
 relation to the humble but dignified tiller of the soil. 
 
 The problem of rural leadership is a four square proposition; 
 it involves all the interests of the farm, home, church and school; 
 and the leader must be a four square individual, trained in head, 
 heart, hands, and hustle, the " four H's " rather than the " three 
 R's." It involves a leader with head trained to think, plan, and 
 reason, and not a slave to the mere text book or the formal insti- 
 tution, a leader with heart trained to be true, kind, and sympathetic; 
 hands trained to be useful, helpful, and skillful; and the hustle 
 trained to render ready service and to develop health and vitality 
 which will furnish a suitable background for a noble purpose. 
 
 39 
 
We acknowledge with shame that most of our rural leaders of 
 the past have, because of their training and life-time environment, 
 turned out to be pirates and robbers on rural life. They have 
 aroused a false discontent with members of agricultural territory, 
 and have pointed the way to the already overcrowded professions 
 and towards our congested centers of population. The result has 
 been that nearly all of our agricultural states have lost greatly 
 in population during the past ten years, and our large cities show a 
 marked increase — many of them a gain of over 200 per cent during 
 the past ten years. 
 
 Broad View of Rural Uplift. 
 
 In order to serve the needs of rural life and develop all the 
 forces which belong to an intelligent people, we must provide, on 
 an equal basis and at the same time, for a greater and more efficient 
 agriculture; a better and more attractive home life; a healthful 
 and interesting social life, and, last but not least, we must give 
 them a rural-life church, headed by a practical clergyman capable 
 of expounding the gospel of Jesus Christ in the language of his 
 agricultural environment. I can point you to no greater rural- 
 life preacher as your ideal than the lowly Saviour, who used at all 
 times illustrations from agricultural and industrial life in His 
 references to "lost sheep," "shepherd," "the sower," "tares," 
 "sheaves," "the carpenter shop," "good and poor soil," etc., and 
 by which multitudes were attracted to the higher life. Let me 
 emphasize the fact that with this kind of rural church leadership 
 our thousands of country churches, now desolate, will soon become 
 densely populated and the working as well as the paying efficiency 
 of the membership will exceed that of our city churches. The 
 trouble with our rural pastors, like our rural teachers in the past, 
 has been, most of them have been out of touch and genuine sym- 
 pathy with our farm population and have preached into them city, 
 commercial, and political ideals instead of rural interests. 
 
 Every country church pastor should have an agricultural 
 course in correlation with the study of Hebrew and theology, and 
 some of this training should be first-hand agriculture in demonstra- 
 tion work. Friends, believe me, that the greatest reputations to 
 be made in teaching and preaching in the future will be in rural 
 life work. Public sentiment is in favor of agriculture and if we 
 
 40 
 
lake advantage of the psychological moment we can do much to 
 hasten the day when, in the language of our beloved Bishop of 
 Southern Agriculture, Dr. Seaman A. Knapp, "rural life will be 
 upon a plane of profit, honor, and power," and where "the common 
 toiler will become educated in the things that lead to easier bread." 
 
 Valuable Rural Events. 
 
 Annual township graduation exercises ought to be held in the 
 center of the township, in which all schools, together with patrons 
 and friends, spend the entire day in the educational and social up- 
 lift of the community. Here is a typical program of such an event, 
 this or a similar one having been carried out in all sixteen of the 
 township schools of Wright County, Iowa, for several years, with 
 an attendance varying from 250 to 1260, men, women and children. 
 
 (1) Literary program of graduates; (2) presentation of 
 diplomas or certificates of promotion to nearby high schools; 
 
 (3) basket dinner, in which all participated, and usually the people 
 of one district would spread dinners together, thus cementing 
 friendships, and unifying their ambitions for a common purpose; 
 
 (4) in the afternoon agricultural and rural life lectures would be 
 given on such subjects as Stock Judging, Soil Fertility, Preven- 
 tion of Diseases on the Farm, Better Sanitation, Our Schools 
 And What They Need, etc.; (5) following this lecture we would 
 have our annual field sports, in which all the young people of the 
 township would participate, while fathers and mothers would be the 
 interested spectators. During the entire day the school exhibit 
 tent would be full of the specimens of school work of the year, such 
 as writing, solution of problems, sewing, wood work, and maps. 
 
 The county school official would erect the tent in the morning 
 and take it down at night and move on to the next township event. 
 These gatherings are always held in a fine grove or at one of the 
 best and most modern farm homes, the philosophy of which you 
 can well understand. 
 
 At District Agricultural and County Fairs and the Farmer's 
 Institutes, the schools and their work always held a conspicuous 
 place. Exhibits put up in competition for honors and premiums 
 were always in evidence, such as booklets on agricultural subjects, 
 wood work, sewing, baking, vegetables, corn, etc. Contests in 
 potato-paring, sewing, seed-corn stringing, stock judging, grain 
 
 41 
 
judging, practical rope-knot-tying, addition, spelling, reading, 
 etc., were held. Let me illustrate by giving a few facts about one 
 of these contests. In the rope-tying contest last year the cham- 
 pion rope-tyer of the county, Russell Breckenridge, tied, named, 
 and untied 38 practical rope knots in six minutes and did it to the 
 complete satisfaction of both referees and spectators. Upon 
 investigation we found that the boy had spent his otherwise idle 
 moments for one full year in quest of help and information on rope- 
 tying; he had exhausted all the information available from his 
 father, teacher, hired man, neighbors, dictionary, set of reference 
 books in school library, and had found some information from state 
 agricultural professors. To the fool the above named contests 
 would seem folly and mere "fun show," but to the thinker and 
 philosopher of the needed rural education it has deep and significant 
 meaning in this business of reclaiming the arid interests of a country 
 people. I only wish I had time to tell you about the influence of 
 this kind of work on the character and ambition of the boys and 
 girls. 
 
 At the Farmer's Institute and County Short Course nearly 
 half of the students each year are boys and girls and their rural 
 teachers. In the rural schools the subjects of elementary agri- 
 culture and home economics are taught by effective correlation, 
 general lessons, and in regular class work. Too much of our rural 
 education has been a process of marking time and of perpetuating 
 an ancient and fossilized caste education, and many of our so called 
 educational leaders have spent much time in defending in a sickly 
 and sentimental way the "culture sake" and "three R" education 
 without regard for the child life and his environment. 
 
 Farmers' Cooperative Demonstration Work. 
 
 You are all more or less familiar with the work in the Southern 
 States which has been directed by Dr. Seaman A. Knapp, Special 
 Agent In Charge, a work made possible by the financial support 
 and cooperation of the General Education Board and the Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture at Washington, D. C. In my judgment 
 no greater nor more significant work of service for the common 
 people has ever been instituted on this continent by man. 
 
 The increased production of southern farm areas; the evolu- 
 
 42 
 
tion of a rural population from poverty, inefficiency, and despair 
 to a people of dignity, hope, and national influence, will be a last- 
 ing tribute to our departed leader who loved, served, and planned 
 for the masses of our common people so long and well. 
 
 Dr. Knapp organized the Farmers' Demonstration Work in 
 1904, and every year since that time thousands of southern farm- 
 ers have become demonstrators and educators in their respective 
 localities for the better and more efficient agriculture. Last year 
 (1910) 72,685 men farmed one or more acres on a scientific basis 
 and followed carefully the instructions furnished by Dr. Knapp at 
 Washington. The Boys' Corn Club and Demonstration Work 
 was organized in 1907. It was started with but a few hundred 
 members and this branch of the work grew with electrical rapidity. 
 In 1909, the Boys' Corn Club numbered 12,000, in 1910, 46,225. 
 Three hundred of these boys produced a yield of over 100 bushels 
 of corn per acre, one hundred of the boys raised on an average of 
 133.7 bushels per acre, with a champion yield by Jerry Moore of 
 South Carolina of 228.7 bushels per acre. 
 
 The Boys' Corn Club for 1911 will number over 75,000 who on 
 their one or more acre plots will follow the Department instruc- 
 tion, given below: 
 
 1. Boys joining clubs and entering contests must be between 
 10 and 18 years of age on January 1, of any given year. 
 
 2. No boy shall contest for a prize unless he becomes a mem- 
 ber of a club. 
 
 3. The members of the clubs must agree to study the instruc- 
 tions of the Farmers' Cooperative Demonstration Work. 
 
 4. Each boy must plan his own crop and do his own work. 
 A small boy may hire help for heavy plowing in preparing the soil. 
 
 5. Exhibits must be delivered to the county superintendent 
 of education on or before November 1. 
 
 6. The land and corn must be carefully measured in the pres- 
 ence of at least two disinterested witnesses, who shall attest the 
 certificate of the boy. 
 
 7. Gather the corn and weigh it. Weigh two 100 pound lots 
 from different parts of the total. Shuck and shell each lot and then 
 weigh the shelled corn in each instance in order to find the average 
 percentage of shelled corn. Multiply the total weight by this 
 per cent and divide by 56 to get the number of bushels. 
 
 43 
 
8. In awarding prizes the following has been used : 
 
 Per cent 
 
 a. Greatest yield per acre 30 
 
 b. Best exhibit of ten ears . 20 
 
 c. Best written account showing history of crop .... 20 
 
 d. Best showing of profit on investment based on the com- 
 
 mercial price of corn 30 
 
 Last year the thirteen Southern States had winners who were 
 entitled to the free prize trip to Washington, and the diploma from 
 Secretary James Wilson. 
 
 The boys from eleven states came to Washington. The average 
 production of the eleven winners was 134 bushels per acre. I regret 
 that time will permit but few statements in regard to this work. 
 
 Last year Dr. Knapp felt that it was time to look after the 
 education of the rural girls for a more contented and attractive 
 rural life, and so he had the girls of a few counties organized into 
 tomato canning clubs, with a membership of about 300 who raised 
 one-tenth acre of tomatoes each, canned and marketed the surplus 
 products. During the present year over 2000 girls will follow the 
 demonstration instructions for the garden and canning work. 
 
 The mothers are usually interested with the girls, and hence 
 you see that Dr. Knapp's plan for rural education is for the entire 
 family, a plan which recognizes the real needs of our present day 
 rural life. 
 
 In conclusion let me emphasize the necessity of education in 
 all of the interests of rural life, and of recognizing that the school 
 exists for the child, and that its efficiency lies in the ability to give 
 power and definite expression to the "ninety and nine" within 
 their industrial and agricultural surroundings. Every country 
 child should be helped to understand that intelligent farming and 
 home-keeping are two of the most dignified and worthy professions 
 on earth. 
 
 44 
 
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