Learning from the Children 311 



WORK FOR SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 



One can scarcely become deeply interested in the 

 future of his own child without coming intimately 

 into touch with the child welfare problems at large. 

 Even country parents, isolated though they may be, 

 will discover that serious study of the matter of 

 bringing up a family of good children will require 

 that they study the lives of other human young. 

 Moreover, they will need the use of other children as 

 "laboratory" material for training their own. All 

 this will gradually lead the way to a fuller social 

 sympathy in such parents and to the inculcation of 

 more wholesome social ideals in the minds of their 

 offspring. 



Finally, the rural parents who are seeking a full 

 and adequate development of the young members of 

 their own family will most probably see their way 

 clear to assume a helpful leadership of the young 

 people of the neighborhood as advocated in Chap- 

 ter X of this volume. 



While many agencies for the betterment of rural 

 youth have been discussed, such as the County 

 Y.M.C.A., the Boy Scout Movement, and the Social 

 and Economic Clubs, the neighborhood which has 

 at least one of these agencies intensively at work may 

 be considered fortunate. And it may be said that 

 such a neighborhood is well on the way to economic 

 improvement as well as social improvement. 



