170 RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



to effective service the church must first envisage her 

 task. The first duty of the physician is diagnosis. 

 Remedies are the means by which to reach his objective 

 the restoration of health ; but remedies are the hazard 

 of the dice, with heavy odds against a cure, until diag- 

 nosis recognizes the disease and indicates its stage. 



The church received the Survey as a means of 

 research in her field of service, from Charity Organiza- 

 tion. The great surveys so far, among many lesser 

 ones, have been Booth's monumental work, " The Life 

 and Labors of the People of London," and the " Pitts- 

 burg Survey." The Survey is an attempt to base the 

 church's policy upon all pertinent facts. The modern 

 world has been made the modern world by the use of 

 just such inductive methods. This method it was with 

 which the Dominion Conservation Commission began its 

 work, in a survey of agricultural conditions on a thou- 

 sand farms throughout Canada. It is at once the 

 scientific method of the use of objective material, and 

 the recognition of the organic character of social facts. 

 The recent report of the Federal Council deals with this 

 method under the striking caption " Standard Research 

 and Christian Progress." 



The survey is necessary because facts are elusive and 

 illusive, hidden away until sought, and deceptive as they 

 thrust themselves upon impression. We do not know 

 accurately the needs of the rural community. And it 

 is necessary also because the kind and number of human 

 needs is not what they recently were. The values of 

 living have changed. There are new forms of waste of 

 human resources, and new standards of human effi- 

 ciency. And while the facts everywhere have a class 

 resemblance, they vary in detail from place to place. 



