172 RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



dren God's word in the Bible, but it has left God's 

 word in the rivers and hills, the grass and the trees, 

 without prophet, witness, or defender. Hereafter it is 

 going to know something about the communities it 

 attempts to serve of what stuff they are made, what are 

 their needs and their aspirations. It will take an inter- 

 est in the everyday affairs of the farmer his crops and 

 stock, his buildings and machinery, his roads and school, 

 his lodge and recreation. The spires of the little cross- 

 roads church will still point to the skies, but its footstone 

 will lie on the commonplace work of the day. It will 

 ' preach the worth of the native earth,' and it will 

 look upon American land as holy land to be guarded 

 as a sacred trust from the Almighty to His children."* 



This method is -coming largely into use, as an instru- 

 ment by the churches. During last year the Depart- 

 ment of Church and Country Life of the Presbyterian 

 Church in the United States carried on seven rural 

 surveys in as many communities and States. 

 The scope of the inquiry was as follows : " Beginning 

 with the locality, the economic conditions as expressed 

 in land-ownership, wages, labor conditions, and the 

 1 money-crops ' of the district, and proceeding through 

 an analysis of the population, of the social mind, means 

 of communication, class distinctions, social organiza- 

 tions, the investigator approached last of all the in- 

 quiries as to moral conditions and religious institutions, 

 and the final inquiry had to do with the social welfare, 

 conceived as a resultant of the various processes under 

 sfrdy."f 



In 1909 a survey was carried on jointly by the Fed- 



* " A Rural Survey in Missouri," p. 3. 



t " A Rural Survey in Pennsylvania," p. 3. 



