RURAL PLANNING ANDDEVELOPMENT 173 



In the city of Cleveland, there is an Industrial Welfare 

 Department of the Chamber of Commerce, and in several factories 

 in Canada there are social welfare secretaries who are giving their 

 whole attention to the work of providing social opportunities for the 

 employees. This kind of organization of industrial life should not 

 be left to the manufacturers. The employees have always a suspicion 

 of the paternalistic employer. The duty of promoting industrial 

 welfare outside the factory in connection with the homes of the people, 

 the provision for recreation for the children, etc., should be dealt 

 with by the community as a whole. Sucih matters are usually best 

 managed by voluntary associations, such as a civic or village improve- 

 ment association, formed for the purpose of promoting community 

 welfare. The council of a municipality, is necessarily absorbed in 

 the task of managing the business affairs of the community, and it 

 is usually found that the care of amenity, and the work of making a 

 town or district more pleasing and beautiful, protecting rivers from 

 pollution, caring for rural cemeteries, and organizing village or town 

 festivals, can be best promoted through a democratic but voluntary 

 organization. Village improvement associations have been successful 

 in many parts of the United States and have done much to improve 

 community life and to advance the welfare of industries. They should 

 be a feature of every town and village. In Canada a Dominion 

 Civic Improvement League has been formed, for the purpose of pro- 

 moting the welfare of the citizens by the study and advancement of 

 the best principles and methods of civic improvement and develop- 

 ment, and by securing a more effective public interest in municipal 

 affairs. One of the objects of this League is that it should be a link 

 between civic improvement associations in all the cities, towns, 

 villages and rural municipalities in Canada. Local associations should 

 be formed in all urban and rural districts and should devote them- 

 selves to the conservation of their industrial and physical resources, 

 the preservation of beauty, the securing of increased production 

 from the soil and the development of a healthy community and 

 national life. 



Whatever may be done by governments to promote the right 

 foundations for healthy development, it is essential that the people 

 themselves, who have to live in the rural districts, should organize 

 for the purpose of improving their social conditions. No doubt 

 the chief hindrance to this being done in the past has been the defec- 

 tive character of the original development that has taken place and 

 the lack of proper facilities for intercommunication. Improvement 

 in these things, however, must be accompanied by an increased desire 



