1920.] 



Social Service in Rural Areas. 



149 



significant. The county agricultural committees must be set 

 up within six months after the passing of the Act, but it is 

 premature to speculate what the results of their action may be. 



There are 62 County Councils, 650 Rural District Councils, 

 and over 7,000 Parish Councils in England and Wales, and only 

 a very sanguine person will expect that all of them — or even 

 any considerable proportion — will immediately use even the 

 limited powers they possess for the development of social life 

 in the villages. While, therefore, doing all that may be possible 

 to secure substantial assistance, whether pecuniary or other- 

 wise, from public authorities, we cannot afford to wait, and 

 it is better to assume that, in the future as in the past, voluntary 

 effort is imperative if timely and effective progress is to be made. 

 Much has already been accompUshed by the public spirit and 

 enterprise which still happily characterise PLnglisli men and 

 women. A large number of village halls are already erected, 

 sometimes by individuals and sometimes by the collective 

 energy of the community. We are gradually collecting data 

 which will in due time enable us to compile a record of the 

 village halls and institutes throughout the country, but our 

 information is still far from complete. The Village Clubs 

 Association and the Federation of Women's Institutes recently 

 had occasion to make inquiries in a certain number of \allages, 

 and received reports from 356 villages scattered over 46 counties 

 which indicated that in a considerable number of those villages 

 club-houses or institutes, available for the use of all the inhabi- 

 tants, were in existence. 



In spite of the great difficulty of building, much is being done. 

 In many villages the collection of funds for the erection of a 

 hall or institute is actively proceeding, and in this work 

 the Women's Institutes are rendering most valuable service. 

 Feminine ingenuity and assiduity in financial matters are being 

 devoted with exemplary zeal to levying, both by direct and 

 indirect methods, contributions from all classes of the com- 

 munity towards the provision of a hall or institute for the use 

 of all the inhabitants. It is a very hard task in many of the 

 smaller and more remote communities, where persons of means 

 are few or apathetic. There is no doubt, however, that the 

 effort to erect their own hall is in itself a stimulus to the com- 

 munal spirit. Instances have come to notice where a building 

 is being gradually erected by the personal labour of the villagers, 

 and the result in such cases will be a pride of possession which 

 can never be aroused in the same degree by the acceptance of a 

 gift. Provision from extraneous sources is therefore not an 



