LEADERSHIP 597 



with the best education the University of Strassburg could af- 

 ford, and he developed capacity for leadership in marked de- 

 gree ; but he consecrated this leadership on the obscure altar of 

 country life. 



I have little patience with the hoary heresy that the city needs 

 leadership but the country can get along with mediocrity. Yet 

 this has been the general practice of the past two generations 

 in America. It is still largely true in relation to all the pro- 

 fessions. Too often the country is merely the colt's pasture for 

 the young minister, teacher, doctor, lawyer, journalist, etc. 

 The goal is the city when apprenticeship is over. Unfortunately 

 this is not ideal for either city or country. For any sort of 

 city social service the best place to do clinical work is in the 

 city itself, or time is wasted. And the obverse is equally true. 

 The ideal rural leadership is a whole-life service, devoted per- 

 manently to country life. I realize that at present financial 

 considerations seriously hamper this ideal. The result is that, 

 with our underpaid rural leadership, our underpaid country 

 teachers, ministers, doctors, etc., we are threatened to-day with 

 a peasant leadership in the country, undertrained and inferior in 

 all respects to their comrades in the city. This is what country 

 life is rapidly coming to unless the urban dwellers realize soon 

 their need of adequately paid and fully trained community 

 leaders. No movement can rise above the level of its leader- 

 ship. It is trite to say that rural progress is lagging because 

 of inadequately trained community leadership. The broaden- 

 ing of country life and its rising standards put increasing de- 

 mands upon its leaders which they are often unable to meet. 

 Rural institutions can no longer serve their communities ef- 

 fectively under the leadership of men lacking in the very es- 

 sentials of leadership. Some country communities of genuine 

 rural culture are demanding now as high-grade personality and 

 training in their leaders as the cities demand, and they naturally 

 refuse to respond to crude or untrained leadership. Our col- 

 leges meanwhile are educating thousands of country-bred boys 

 and girls and then lavishly sending them to the cities, where 

 all professions are already foolishly overcrowded. And in say- 

 ing this I realize fully that the country communities must be 

 willing to furnish a life-chance and a living wage to these bright 



