Part 13 (1/2)

Education in the Country for the Country. J. W. Zeller.

Annual Volume N.E.A., 1910, p. 245.

Teachers for the Rural Schools; Kind Wanted; How to secure Them. L. J. Alleman. Annual Volume N.E.A., 1910, p. 280.

The State Board of Health of Maine (Augusta) issues a series of practical pamphlets on health and sanitation in the school and the home.

The Most Practical Industrial Education for the Country Child. Superintendent O. J. Kern. Annual Volume N.E.A., 1905, p. 198.

Among School Gardens. M. Louise Green, Ph.D. Charities Publication Committee, New York.

A Model Rural School House. Henry S. Curtis. Educational Foundations, April, 1911. A. S. Barnes & Co. Dr. Curtis is a national authority on the question of the school playground.

Education for Efficiency. E. Davenport. D. C. Heath. A most able plea for making the schools serve every worthy interest.

Changing Conceptions of Education. E. P. Cubberly. Monograph.

Houghton Mifflin Company.

Methods of conducting Book and Demonstration Work in teaching Elementary Agriculture. O. H. Benson. Bureau of Plant Industry, Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. An excellent guide.

Report of Committee to investigate Rural School Conditions.

Superintendent E T. Fairchild and others. Address the Secretary N.E.A., Winona, Minn.

CHAPTER IX

_THE COUNTY YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN a.s.sOCIATION_

Among the movements of first importance looking toward the uplift of young men is that named at the head of this chapter. Parallel with the intensive and systematic effort to build up the commercial life of the city and allow the country district to take care of itself, has been a like effort to provide for the care and development of the city boy and the uniform neglect of the needs and interests of the country boy. Now, here at last is a movement that is proving a real means of salvation of the rural youth, mind, body, and soul.

President Henry J. Waters, of the Kansas State Agricultural College, struck the keynote of this young country-life movement most effectively in a recent address when he said: ”We believe in the existence of a social renaissance. One needs only to read the daily and weekly papers printed in hundreds of prosperous villages and cross roads corners, the faithful chroniclers of the community's activities, to find buoyant hope of the future of farm life.

”The dignity of labor; the close connection between heads and hands; the monthly or weekly meetings of farmers' inst.i.tutes in hundreds of counties; the special lectures provided by agricultural colleges; the movable schools; the farmers' winter short courses, in which thousands of men and women and boys and girls partic.i.p.ate; corn contests; bread contests; sewing contests; play carnivals; poultry-raising contests; stock-raising contests; conferences on the country church, country school, good roads--all these activities denote the growth of a new and mighty spirit in the country life of America.

”We need further demonstrations, together with concrete thinking, a lot of constructive programs, and a deal of hard work and self-sacrifice, in which the county work department of the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation can have no little share, to speed on the great epoch of rural social renaissance.”

BOYS LEAVE THE FARM TOO YOUNG

It is a tragic story when the whole truth is known, that of the young boy running off to town in search of some employment that will bring him a little ready cash for spending money, and also in search of the sociability so woefully lacking in the rural home environment. Too long have the country parents attempted to argue and scold and force their boys to remain at home where they are confronted only with the monotony of hard work and a very dim prospect of a possible land or other property inheritance. So at last there is being raised the very important questions, What is the matter with the country boy? and What can be done to help him? Knowledge of the fact that more than one-half of the boys of the United States are living in farm homes makes the problem of their individual salvation a.s.sume momentous proportions.

There can be no reasonable thought of holding all the boys on the farm.

Many of them are best fitted by nature to go elsewhere and find suitable employment, but there is every good reason for preventing the great exodus of immature youths who run off to the cities, not knowing what they are to face and without any well-defined purpose. Yes, the great concerns of the towns and cities must continue to call many of the brainiest young men from the rural districts. In fact, the country may with every good reason be considered the proper breeding ground for the virile minds destined to control the great affairs of nation, state, and munic.i.p.ality. But every reasonable effort must be put forth to keep the boy in his country home until his character is relatively matured and his plans for a future career are fairly well defined.

PURPOSES OF THE COUNTY Y.M.C.A.

Doubtless the first chief purpose of the county a.s.sociation is that of building up the boy's character and finally perfecting his spiritual nature. But this high aim is not sought in the old-fas.h.i.+oned, direct manner. Instead, there is a studied effort to build up the boy gradually through the enlistment of his natural interests in matters that lie dormant in his home environment. The truly scientific method in this field is first concerned with providing means whereby the boy may work out his own spiritual salvation. Along with the farm labors, tedious and irksome to him when undertaken as exclusive requirements, the country boy is given an opportunity to take part in certain athletic and social exercises which appeal to his instincts and arouse the spontaneity from the depths of his own nature.

In carrying on the country work, an attempt is made to approach the boy from the peculiar situations of his home environment. What specific readjustments are needed in his home life in respect to the amount of work required of him? What of the recreation he enjoys? The local society in which he moves? The home church and Sunday school? The temptations that may lie near about him? and so on. These and many other such inquiries are made with a view to dealing with the boy in an individual way and reestablis.h.i.+ng his life for the better.