NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
29 
COUNTY WORK OF THE Y. M C A. 
Kindling Social Life in Rural Districts—Regenerating Decayed Country Towns—Developing Rural Recreation. 
By HENRY ISRAEL, Secretary, County Work Department of International Committee of Y. M. C. A. 
It was an old New England com- 
munity of about 1700 people. From 
it had come great men. Like so 
many other towns it became a victim 
of the old agriculture and fell into 
decay. The soil of the surrounding 
section is thin and apparently un- 
productive. Only the trunks of 
apple trees are left as monuments to 
a once great apple producing dis- 
trict. 
To this village with its churches, 
postoffice, isolated store, all pre- 
senting a monotonous, gray, weath- 
er-beaten appearance for want of 
paint, came a county secretary, the 
employed officer of a county com- 
mittee, whose business is to survey 
the needs of the community and to 
eall attention to the fact that there 
is a social life in the place and co- 
operate with all of its existing in- 
stitutions. 
An analysis of the soil proved that 
it had lost none of its old virtue so 
far as apple growing was concerned. 
The Agricultural College was 
asked -to co-operate, philanthropic 
citizens were enlisted and land se- 
cured which was planted with sev- 
eral thousand’ young apple trees. 
A dozen or so of the older boys to 
whom the secretary had given some 
idea of country life as it might be, 
were fired by the possibilities of 
the future and plegded their life and 
service to a new community. 
With the economic awakening of 
the town has come a like advance- 
ment along all lines. The _ rural 
church has felt the stimulus of this 
new blood and the entire community 
was brought together on a construc- 
tive program. 
The YMCA in its approach to 
rural life is co-operative. If fur- 
nishes a platform for all the towns 
in a county to come together 
through a county committee. Un- 
der its direction and that of a 
county secretary and other experts 
in educational work, the schools, 
churches, granges, medical societies, 
boards of trade, civic improvement 
associations, Sunday schools and va- 
rious boys’ organizations, learn to 
work together. The association in 
its rural work recognizes the need 
for the conservation of the natural 
resources, and in order that the boys 
and young men may be content to 
stay on land, demonstrations are 
conducted showing the possibilities 
of soil production. For this work it 
. munities. 
is necessary to secure the help of 
experts at experiment stations and 
agricultural colleges. One day 
courses are set up in various com- 
The county secretary ac- 
companies the experts from town to 
town. In some of the regularly or- 
ganized counties as many as 14 to 16 
rural centers are organized. Corn 
growing, poultry raising and fruit 
growing contests are arranged and 
classes and demonstrations organ- 
ized in potato raising, dairying, re- 
forestation and horticulture. 
The boy in the country needs to 
have in addition to his school edu- 
cation a more intimate knowledge 
of the natural sciences. Practical 
rather than academic information is 
imparted through simple talks on 
astronomy, biology, botany, zoology, 
geology and mathematical subjects 
related to the farm and to the home. 
This training covers cost account- 
ing, measurement of garden plots, 
the height of trees and other neces- 
sary practice in mathematics. 
It is agreed that the country needs 
a social life. The inherent organ- 
ization germ of the YMCA is so- 
cial. It takes isolated communities 
and. brings them together under the 
country work plan. It brings in- 
dividuals together and groups and 
villages join in play, in intercom- 
munity debates, intereommunity 
agriculture contests and intercom- 
munity church movements and many 
programs of social activities are car- 
ried out, involving neighborhoods, 
homes and families, boys and girls. 
The great need of agarian repre- 
sentation in governmental affairs is 
apparent. We are dominated by ur- 
ban aggression. The better ae- 
quaintance of 25,000 young men and 
boys in organized rural societies 
with the members of their state leg- 
islatures and the congressional rep- 
resentatives, who are invited to 
address them upon matters of vital 
current interest, will do much to 
spread a knowledge of govern- 
mental affairs as they relate them- 
selves to rural interests. The con- 
duct of town meetings in which bills 
are introduced and discussed,  in- 
volving the value of telephone fran- 
chises, of the good roads movement, 
parcels post, rural free delivery, 
postal savings bank, are all subjects 
to be discussed in the various groups 
of the young men and boys. 
Rural recreation is another great 
factor in achieving a healthy and 
normal living. The boy needs phy- 
sical expression particularly in 
games such as base ball and relay 
races, where one runner depends 
upon the other for the success of the 
team. This team work will do much 
to bring about a neighborly spirit of 
co-operation. We are having com- 
munity, play days and carnivals in 
which every boy and girl, man and 
woman takes part. 
The whole question of the home 
is vitally involved in rural commun- 
ity progress which implies the better 
knowledge of the needs of the home 
and the conditions that must be met 
before home life can be made more 
satisfactory. Among the results of 
this will be the further invention 
and introduction of the labor saving 
devices. The spirit of the home will 
be conserved by the development of 
the closer relation between parents 
and children. Many parents’ meet- 
ings are held where emphasis is be- 
ing laid upon comradeship and 
friendship between parents and 
their children as well as the need of 
inspiring boys and girls to a greater 
interest in the arrangement of the 
home and in conserving its spirit 
and orderliness. Sanitation, domes- 
tic and community hygiene, the 
whole question of the conservation 
of rural health in fact, are taken 
into consideration and discussed. 
Rural progress in country life 
cannot be made without great spir- 
itual foree and, therefore, the 
YMCA puts first and foremost the 
spiritual movement in everything. 
It holds out no selfish incentive to 
those who would join in its efforts. 
The organization is based upon the 
getting together to do something for 
a community. Much is being said 
these days about the federation of 
the rural church, but there is an as- 
pect of federation concerning which 
little is said. This is the bringing to- 
gether of community forces regard- 
less of denominational lines and the 
working together for a common pro- 
gram involving the entire realm of 
economies, education, social life, civ- 
ics, recreation, the home and spirit- 
ual affairs. This work is now being 
conducted in twenty-two states and 
in the provinces of United States 
and Canada with sixty employed ex- 
perts in fifty different counties and 
over five hundred communities.— 
(The Survey Press Bureau.) 
