222 . RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



or two lines of preparation which you would do well 

 to follow in addition to your studies within these halls. 

 They will suggest others. First, acquaint yourself 

 fully and practically with the work of the Young Men's 

 Christian Association, not only as carried on among 

 college men, but also in the range of its city activities. 

 All that the city owes *to the Association the country 

 has a right to receive. Nor is this little. The athletic 

 clubs, the gymnasium, the recreation rooms, the class- 

 rooms, reading-rooms and parlors, for men and for boys, 

 of the " ^. M. C. A." have been the chief source of 

 supply through the church's agency of the needs 

 unmet in the country. Save as represented by the 

 City Association, the average town congregation has 

 had but little to distinguish her from her rural sister in 

 social equipment. Now, familiarity with its working 

 in the city is the prerequisite for your employment of 

 this agency in the country. 



Secondly, familiarize yourselves with the working 

 of the agricultural college. Young men aspiring to 

 influence in journalism now regard a course in scien- 

 tific agriculture as one of the important vestibules to 

 their life work. Not a full course in such a college is 

 called for, for you need not be technically trained agri- 

 culturists but first-hand acquaintance with the scope 

 of the work these schools are carrying on, and with the 

 spirit in which it is being done. I do not ask you to 

 accept my summing up of that work it might appear 

 the vision of an enthusiast. Let me rather present a 

 sketch drawn by a practical Boer farmer on the veldt, 

 Mr. J. A. Neser, presiding at the Dry Farming Con- 

 gress of South Africa, held recently : " We have assem- 

 bled to discuss dry farming, but dry farming is merely 



