442 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



1905 1916 



Counties organized 1 16 



Organized communities 8 159 



Secretaries employed 1 18 



Money expended annually $1,500 $36,000 



Members 170 3,421 



Summer camps 20 600 



Attended Boys' Conferences 40 2,300 



Agricultural contestants 625 



In physical activities 140 6,452 



THE CALL OF THE COUNTRY PARISH x 



KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD 



THE country-side is calling, calling for men. Vexing problems 

 of labor and of life disturb our minds in country as in city. The 

 workers of the land are striving to make a better use of their 

 resources of soil and climate, and are seeking both larger wealth 

 and a higher welfare. The striving and the seeking raise new 

 questions of great public concern. Social institutions have de- 

 veloped to meet these new issues. But the great need of the pres- 

 ent is leadership. Only men can vitalize institutions. We need 

 leaders among the farmers themselves, we need leaders in edu- 

 cation, leaders in organization and cooperation. So the country 

 church is calling for men of God to go forth to war against all 

 the powers of evil that prey upon the hearts of the men who live 

 upon the land, as well as upon the people in palace and tenement. 



The country church wants men of vision, who see through 

 the incidental, the small, the transient, to the fundamental, the 

 large, the abiding issues that the countryman must face and 

 conquer. 



She wants practical men, who seek the mountain top by the 

 obscure and steep paths of daily toil and real living, men who 

 can bring things to pass, secure tangible results. 



She wants original men, who can enter a human field poorly 

 tilled, much grown to brush, some of it of diminished fertility, 

 and by new methods can again secure a harvest that will gladden 

 the heart of the great Husbandman. 



i "The Country Church and the Rural Problem," pp. 131-133. University 

 of Chicago Press, 1912. 



