The Challenge of the Country Part 23

38.--Discuss his remarkable life work as a country pastor. What do you think of his rural church program?

39.--Make a list of the successful country churches and ministers you have known and the chief reasons for their success.

40.--Describe the ideal country church of the future.

CHAPTER VIII

COUNTRY LIFE LEADERs.h.i.+P

CHAPTER VIII

COUNTRY LIFE LEADERs.h.i.+P

A. A Challenge to College Men

I. _The Relation of the Colleges to This Problem_

A new interest and sense of responsibility.

General college neglect of the rural call.

The stake of the city in rural welfare.

Rural progress waiting for trained leaders.h.i.+p.

II. _Rural Opportunities for Community Builders_

The call for country educators.

The call of the country church: Large tasks awaiting real leaders.h.i.+p.

The modern type of country minister.

The call for Christian physicians: The special need of country doctors.

The unique rewards of country practice.

The rural call to the legal profession.

Life opportunities in agricultural professions.

The call of the County Work secretary.

B. A Challenge to College Women

I. _Some Responsibilities Shared with Men_

A necessary partners.h.i.+p, and its increasing burden.

Responsibility for rural education.

Responsibility for rural health and sanitation.

Opportunities for religious leaders.h.i.+p.

II. _Unique Opportunities for Rural Social Service_

The opportunity of the village librarian.

The specialist in household economics.

Demonstration centers of rural culture.

Womanly leaders.h.i.+p in church and club.

The rural a.s.sociation secretary.

CHAPTER VIII

COUNTRY LIFE LEADERs.h.i.+P

A. A CHALLENGE TO COLLEGE MEN

I. The Relation of the Colleges to This Problem.

_A New Interest and Sense of Responsibility_

It has been plain from the start that this book is a book with a purpose.

Its object was frankly stated in the preface and the author at least has not forgotten it in a single chapter. These seven preceding chapters have condensed the facts of country life in its strength and weakness and have voiced the modern call for rural leaders.h.i.+p. Every call for trained leaders.h.i.+p must come ultimately to the college man. Both the need and the worthiness of rural life, its social and religious crisis and its strategic signs of promise, bring the challenge of the country to the man in college.

For two or three years past there have been groups of men in various universities meeting weekly to discuss this problem. In comparing the needs of various fields of service and weighing their own fitness for various tasks, they wished to study the opportunities in rural life for consecrated leaders.h.i.+p. These groups are certain to multiply. Alert college men even in city colleges have discovered that we have to-day not only a complicated country _problem_ but a great rural life _opportunity_; a problem intricate enough to challenge earnest investigation by thoughtful students, and an opportunity for a life mission worthy of strong men.

_General College Neglect of the Rural Call_

The writer firmly believes that the city has been claiming too large a proportion of college graduates in recent years and that the needs of country life are not receiving due consideration. A large majority of students in most colleges come from the country. Has not the country a right to claim its fair share of these young men and women after they have been trained for a useful life? If only 15% of the students at Princeton come from the country we cannot complain if practically all of them after graduation go to the city; but when nearly all the students at Marietta College (Ohio) come from the country and 65% of them go to the city, we wonder why. Likewise 70% of the students at Stanford University (Calif.) were country bred, but only 25% return to country life after college days.

At Williams (Ma.s.s.), a city boys' college, only 24% come from the country and about 15% return; but at Pacific University (Ore.) 95% come from the country (80% from very small communities) yet only 45% resist the city's call. Bowdoin (Maine) gets but 47% of its students from the city, but returns 70%; The University of Kansas receives but 44% of its students from cities, yet contributes to cities three-fourths of its graduates; while Whitman (Wn.) receives but 40% from the city yet returns 80%.

Hillsdale (Mich.), a country college with a fine spirit of service, does better; receiving 95% of its students from small towns and villages, it returns all but 26%. "Practically all" the students at Adelbert College (Ohio) enter city work on graduation, though 30% of them are country bred.

It is entirely natural in inst.i.tutions like the University of Illinois, Ohio State University and Cornell, where there are strong agricultural colleges, that there should be the keenest interest in the welfare and needs of country life; but is it not time that other inst.i.tutions faced more frankly the responsibility of training more of their students for country life leaders.h.i.+p? Certainly, with the splendid signs of promise in country life to-day and the opportunities for a life mission there, no thoughtful man can refuse to consider it.

_The Stake of the City in Rural Welfare_

It was quite natural that the rapidly growing city should attract a large proportion of college men preparing for business and professional life and various kinds of religious and social service. Not only have larger opportunities for earning money usually been found there, but the city has certainly needed the men. The call of the city in its dire need of Christian idealism and consecrated leaders.h.i.+p has been as urgent and definite a call to service as ever a crusader heard. Dr. Strong's eloquent appeal to earnest young people in his "Challenge of the City" is by no means extravagant. His facts are facts and his logic is convincing. He is quite right in saying, "We must save the city in order to save the nation.

We must Christianize the city or see our civilization paganized." But even if "in a generation the city will dominate the nation," _where are the men who will then dominate the city? Most of them are now in the country towns and villages getting ready for their task_, developing physical, mental and moral power in the pure atmosphere and sunlight of a normal life. To work on the city problem is a great life chance; but _to train rural leaders.h.i.+p is to help solve the city problem at its source_.

Thus, the bigger and more urgent the city problem becomes, the more necessary it will be to solve the rural problem, for the city must continue to draw much of its best blood and its best leaders.h.i.+p from the country. Professor M. T. Scudder explains in a sentence why this is a continuing fact: "The fully developed rural mind, the product of its environment, is more original, more versatile, more accurate, more philosophical, more practical, more persevering than the urban mind; it is a larger, freer mind and dominates tremendously. It is because of this type of farm-bred mind that our leaders have largely come from rural life."[38] City leaders, of course, ought to be _trained in the city_, and they usually are, even though born and bred in the country.

_Rural Progress Waiting for Trained Leaders.h.i.+p_

Leaders.h.i.+p is the ultimate factor in every life problem. No movement can rise above the level of its leaders.h.i.+p. In many fields to-day, progress is lagging because of inadequate leaders.h.i.+p. This is acutely true in all phases of rural life. Rural progress is halting for the lack of trained leaders.h.i.+p. The colleges must be held responsible for furnis.h.i.+ng it.