This book may be kept out TWO WEEKS only, and is subject to a fine of TWO CENTS a day thereafter. T f ,„;i! u„ j.._ _ the day indicated belovy DATE DUE PAMPHLETS ON THF COUTTTRY CHURCH » ♦ » » Volume 3 ,30£ P R 3 v. 3 Federal council of the churches of Christ in America. What every church should know about its community. General Association of Congregational Churches of Massachusetts • Advance reports of various committees, 1908 and 1909 McElfresh, F» The country Sunday school McTTutt, I, B« Modern methods in the country church MclTutt , M* B. A post-graduate school with a purpose Massachusetts Federation of Churches, Quarterly "bulletin. Facts and factors. October 1910 n The part of the church in rural progress as discussed at the Amherst Conference." Root, E. T. State federations Taft, A. B. The mistress of the rural manse Taf t , A. B. The tent mission Taylor, G. Basis for social evangelism with rural applications Wells, G. F. An ansv/er to the New England country church question. Wells, G. F. What our country churches need Wilson, W. H. The church and the transient Wilson, W. H. Conservation of boys Wilson, W. H. The country church Wilson, W. H. The country church program Wilson, W. H. Don't breathe on the thermometer Wilson, W. H. The farmers' church and the farmers' S college CO co Wilson, W, IT. Getting the worker to church Q_ UJ CO Wilson, W. H» The girl on the farm Wilson, W. II • How to manage a country life institute Wilson, W. H. "Marrying the land." Wilson, W. H. lTo need to "be poor in the country Wilson, W» H. Synod's opportunity Wilson, W. H. What limits the rural Evangel • «»3 9?»« The church, and country life. Pamphlet issued by the Board of Home Missions of the Preshy> terian Church. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/girlonfarm03wils Department of Church and Labor, the Board of Home Missions of the .Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.,156 Fifth Ave.,KewYork Clje&trlontljejFarm By WARREN H. WILSON, Ph.D. THE modern woman is waking up to ask the world, "What about me?" American and European history- has done much in a century for the man. But just before he has got himself set- tled and prospered his sister becomes restless. We have heard about the boy on the farm. What about the girl? The boy's problem is one of money-making. Agricultural colleges and experiment stations exist for him, but who will look after his sis- ter? Her place shall be determined by mar- riage, of course. In the country there are not so many fields of respectable independent em- ployment of woman as in the city. Woman's life is always social. Unless a deliberate ef- fort is undertaken in this prosperous genera- tion to make country life acceptable to woman we shall hear not only of the boys continuing to leave the farm, but of the removal of the home life from the country, due to the de- parture of the daughters of the farm. After a night at a farmhouse I was driven eight miles to the station by the farmer's daughter. She was going to her music teacher for a lesson on the guitar, and I was going to the railway station. She was as charming and cultivated as any town girl. Her father's pros- perity was evident in her manners, her dress and her self-possession; but I could not learn that in the country-side she had any compan- ions or any social life, though her father was buying his second automobile within two years. The telephone, the daily paper and the progressive weekly magazine were in evidence in the farmhouse sitting-room. But the com- fortable sleigh in which we rode had evidently no social value. The old merry days in the country had departed, and the new prosperity had brought nothing with it but work. We left her brother in the great barn beginning his all-day-long chores. I recently visited a New England country- side in October. We went by invitation to a husking-bee, and great numbers of young peo- ple were present. But the old merry customs, though known to all, were out of practice. The young people seemed to be unacquainted. Hard labor and the distractions of the town had taken the warmth out of country life. There were no free manners, there was no intimate acquaintance, and there was no charm of so- cial unity among them. Another community with which I have in- timate acquaintance exhibits dire problems of a moral sort. The lands of the town are owned by two classes of residents — the old and degenerate, who are clinging to the land in pitiful obedience to ancient ideals of life, and the new, prosperous farmers, who have discovered where to make farming profitable in serving the new markets. Neither of these classes is any help to the growing younger generation. The old are too dull and dead, and the young are too industrious and thrifty. The social life which once blessed the coun- try-side, which the elders remember, has passed away forever. Nothing has taken its place. Upon the life of growing girls these con- ditions of social coldness and degeneracy and disorder have a starving or a dissipating ef- fect. For them there is little opportunity in scientific agriculture. The industries of the farmhouse have been in a lesser degree reor- ganized for them than have the industries in which their brothers must work. The farm- house is more conservative to change than the barn. The drudgery of the kitchen is more like the drudgery of the kitchen in old times. The country school, in which the farmer's daughter remains longer than his son, has less to offer her proportionately than in the old days. The cultivation of social life in the country must begin and must end with the cultivation of the group life of the women. Women are the organizers of social life in all communi- ties. They are more intensely loyal and more conservative, and the moral life of a people which is the product of group organization is of greater conscious importance to a woman than to a man. The country church has a great duty in the organization of the life of country women. Societies with a biblical or religious purpose can be more easily organ- ized among women than among men. The philanthropic problems of the country can be committed to the women of the parish and will be wisely managed by them. The first prob- lem is that of leadership, and the woman of social standing will find in this field her great- est opportunity. After the problem of leader- ship comes the problem of purpose, and mis- sionary, philanthropic, literary and ethical pur- pose may be serviceable in particular commu- nities. The greatest essential is not the professed purpose of a society, but the greatest essential is the association itself. That woman will be the best leader who can consolidate and can assemble the women, because social life itself is the necessary thing. The woman's society may not raise much money for missions nor give much to the poor, though in these fields its efficiency will be recorded. The actual gain of a woman's society shall be in the fact that through a course of years it has given normal social training to the younger and the ruder members of the community. It has imposed a standard of character upon growing girls, and it has imparted to women whose home^ life is starved and whose emotional nature is in dan- ger of degradation, a high enjoyment of bet- ter ideals and intimate association with other women. This common experience is itself a moral uplift. The very providing of a meeting place and accomplishing a warm social gather- ing is in itself a great public service. This service the country church should render in every community for all the young people of the population, but, above all, for the daughter of the farmer and for his wife. In eastern New York is a community to which came twenty years ago a city woman to reside. Within two years she was drawn into the life of the place through an organization of young women of which she became the head. It was religious and biblical at the start, but it has passed through every phase of pos- sible human interest and enjoyed and contin- ued them all. This society still lives, and although several women have been presiding officers it has the same leader. It has influ- enced the lives of its members in every way in religious and moral matters and in the most intimate personal affairs, and it has been a centre for the social life of the whole com- munity. Women whose lives possessed little privilege have found it rich in social advan- tage and in abundant enjoyment. The society has been perfectly democratic, although its members reside in a community divided by all existing social lines of the most rigid sort. It has done much to make life happy for its members and to make the community attrac- tive to them wherever they may afterwards have lived. For such a society a rural com- munity offers the greatest advantage, and just such a society is needed in the rural commu- nity more than anywhere else in the world. THE WILLKTT PRESS, N. 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