Missouri Country Life Conference. 



193 



deal of enthusiasm. These classes repainted the parsonage and 

 built a cement walk entirely around the church and out to the 

 road, beautified the grounds, the whole improvement costing a 

 little less than three hundred dollars. And they paid for it 

 themselves. 



Our Sports. — ^We believe in plenty of good, clean, healthful 

 sport. This (indicating picture) shows our baseball team. I 

 have to differ with the man who scouts at the idea of a place for 

 sports in the life of the average young farmer. We have in this 

 group some boys who own eighty acres of land and properly care 

 for it, and are making money on it, and are some of the best citi- 

 zens we have in our community — yet they are enthusiastic base- 

 ball boys. I have in mind a young man whose father was pay- 

 ing out over one hundred dollars in livery bills each year in a 

 certain city in this State, and it seemed that young man was 

 doomed. He had just got started with the wrong bunch, but 

 had not gone so far that he was lost. We secured his interest in 

 sports. That young man is safe today, and baseball and the 

 societies have done more toward it than my preaching. Now 

 this ball team is not "countryfied," either. They belong to 

 the Maryville Baseball League; we go down and play with 



"We believe In plenty of good, clean, healthful sports. 



A— 13 



