The Challenge of the Country Part 24

The agricultural colleges are rising magnificently to their opportunity and are striving to keep pace with the demands made upon them for technically-trained rural leaders. But though some of them double their enrolment every three or four years they cannot supply graduates fast enough for the various agricultural professions, quite aside from other kinds of country life leaders.

All schools of higher education must share the task of training and furnishing rural leadership. The broadening of country life, and its rising standards, puts increasing demands upon its untrained leaders which they are unable to meet. Rural inst.i.tutions can no longer serve their communities effectively under the leadership of men lacking in the very essentials of leadership. Many country communities are demanding now as high-grade personality and training in their leaders as the cities demand, and they refuse to respond to crude or untrained leadership. Well-trained doctors, ministers, teachers, et cetera, have a great chance to-day in the country, because their _training_ finds unique appreciation for its very rarity and efficiency; while every profession is foolishly overcrowded in all cities.

As soon as adequate leadership, well trained and developed, is furnished our country communities, they will develop a rural efficiency which will make the rural problem largely a thing of the past. But until then, progress halts. Leadership is costly. Trained, efficient personality, ready for expert service is rare and beyond price. The colleges are lavishly sending it to the cities. The country deserves its share and patiently presents its claims.

II. Rural Opportunities for Community Builders.

_The Call for Country Educators_

There is little need of emphasizing to college students the opportunities of the teaching profession. Since 1900 teaching has claimed more graduates than any other life work. Taking 27 representative colleges as typical, more than one-fourth of all college graduates become teachers, the percentage having doubled since 1875. Of the cla.s.s of 1911 in Oberlin College (both men and women), 60% have been teaching during their first year out; while of the men in the ten cla.s.ses 1896-1905, 27% are still engaged in teaching, presumably as their permanent work.

Unfortunately the smaller salaries paid rural teachers has made the country school seem unattractive, and when accepted by young collegians by necessity rather than choice, it has been regarded often merely as an apprenticeship for buying experience, a stepping-stone to a city position.

Country salaries of course must be increased, and they certainly will be, with the new development of rural life and the steady improvement in schools; especially with increased state aid which is more and more generously given.

With a living wage already possible in centralized schools, and the great personal rewards which far transcend the material benefits, the life of the country teacher is one of true privilege and deep satisfaction.

College men should regard it as a genuine _calling_ and discover whether its call is for them. If a man has no real love for country life, let him not blight the country school by his subtle urbanizing influence. Most rural discontent is caused by such as he. But if his heart is open to the sky and the woods and the miracles of the soil; if he loves sincerity in human nature and appreciates the st.u.r.dy qualities and vast possibilities for development in country boys and girls, he will revel in the breadth and freedom and boundless outreach of his work.

If he is a man of vision and of power, the country school princ.i.p.al has greater local influence and social standing than he would have in the city. He has the finest chance to make his personality count in the great Country Life Movement, sharing his visions of a richer, redirected rural life not only with his pupils but every citizen and gradually leavening the whole community with a new ambition for progress. The responsibility for training the local leaders of the future devolves upon the teacher. It is he who can best teach a wholesome love for country life and help to stem the townward tide. He can organize around the school the main interests of his boys and girls and develop the impulse for cooperation which in time will displace the old compet.i.tive individualism and make social life congenial and satisfying. Through organized play, inter-community athletics, community festivals, old-home week, lyceums or debating clubs in the winter, with occasional neighborhood entertainments utilizing home talent, contests in cooking and various other phases of home economics, in corn-raising and other agricultural interests,--the possibilities are endless for making the school the vital social center of the rural community. It will all take time and energy and ingenuity. It will cost vitality, as all life-sharing does. But though it costs, the sharing of life is the greatest joy, and it is the teacher's privilege in large measure. It is the measure of his true success as well as his happiness. Investing one's life in a group of boys will yield far greater results in the country than in the city where their lives are already so full they would little appreciate it.

Professor H. W. Foght says three things are now required of the teacher of a rural school. "(1) he must be strong enough to establish himself as a leader in the community where he lives and labors; (2) he must have a good grasp on the organization and management of the new kind of farm school; and (3) he must show expert ability in dealing with the redirected school curriculum."[39] In short, if he lives up to his opportunity as a rural leader, he will train his boys and girls distinctly for rural life, giving them not only the rudiments of agricultural training, but an enthusiasm for farming from the scientific side as the most complex of all professions; utilizing the vast resources the country affords for teaching objectively, not merely through hooks, and thus bridge the gap between the school and life.

_The Call of the Country Church_

The modern college man is not attracted to the ministry of the country churches which are conducted along old lines. If that ministry is to consist merely in preaching once or twice a week to half a hundred people, conducting a mid-week service for one-fifth of that number and doing the marrying and the burying and the parish calling for a fraction of a rural community divided among three struggling churches, then the college man refuses to be interested. Consequently we find most of such churches are manned by untrained men. They usually receive the wages of an unskilled laborer. Trained ministers usually receive a living wage. The college man demands at least a man's job; a chance to invest his life where his whole personality will count and where his energy and perseverance will be allowed to work out his problems to a successful issue.

Let us grant at the start that churches which have no real field, in a community that is over-churched, need not expect to get our college men for pastors. If they have only a fraction of a field, let them have half a man. Likewise the church which is too selfish to offer the minimum living wage in return for faithful service must not expect a self-respecting, educated minister to serve it and at starvation rates. Even a martyr has no license to starve his wife and children to gain his starry crown. The church which gives no liberty to its pastor, but treats him like a hired man, and dictates his professional policy and perhaps even his pulpit messages, will of course not hold, if it ever should gain, a man of ability and initiative. And, lastly, the church which lacks the modern spirit, is hopelessly behind the times in its dogmatic teaching, rails at modern science as unG.o.dly, and denies the social gospel of Jesus and the prophets, such a church will neither deserve nor desire the services of a college-trained man. His reverence for truth as well as loyalty to his own ideals would forbid his serving them.

_Large Tasks Awaiting Real Leadership_

While there are some small men with little training serving churches under the above conditions, there are also thousands of other churches striving to do G.o.d's will in the service of men, many of them with earnest, able pastors. These men usually win the respect and confidence of their community and are given great opportunity as community builders when their leadership proves equal to the task. As the new rural civilization has developed, the t.i.tle Country Minister has become once more a t.i.tle of honor, just as the term Country Gentleman has again come to its own. In the readjustment of country life to the new agriculture and the new social ideals of cooperation, a new and brighter day has dawned for the country church. It is a day of new prosperity and of widening service.

This means a new opportunity for the right sort of a country minister sufficient to claim the life service of strong men. In fact, the task of readjustment is too difficult for any but strong men. Broken-down ministers, or men who have failed in the city, must not look to the country parsonage to-day as a refuge from toil or a temporary harbor for repairs. The insistent needs of the Kingdom of G.o.d in the country to-day demand strong, efficient men, specifically trained for country service and thoroughly acquainted with country folks and their life needs. _We must have a permanently loyal country ministry for life, men who plan to devote their lives to rural redemption._

_The Modern Type of Country Minister_

College men of earnest spirit, who have determined to consecrate their lives to any life mission to which they believe G.o.d has called them, must listen to the call of the country church. The very difficulty of the task will challenge their interest and their courage. Would they know exactly the type of leadership the country church to-day requires? Let them study word by word this splendid description by Dr. b.u.t.terfield, unequalled in its clear a.n.a.lysis:

"The country church wants men of vision, who see through the incidental, the small and the transient, to the fundamental, the large, the abiding issues that the countryman must face and conquer.

"She wants practical men who seek the mountain top by the obscure and steep paths of daily toil and real living, men who can bring things to pa.s.s, secure tangible results.

"She wants original men, who can enter a human field, poorly tilled, much grown to brush, some of it of diminished fertility, and by new methods can again secure a harvest that will gladden the heart of the Great Husbandman.

"She wants aggressive men, who do not hesitate to break with tradition, who fear G.o.d more than prejudice, who regard inst.i.tutions as but a means to an end, who grow frequent crops of new ideas and dare to winnow them with the flails of practical trial.

"She wants trained men who come to their work with knowledge and with power, who have thought long and deeply upon the problems of rural life, who have hammered out a plan for an active campaign for the rural church.

"She wants men with enthusiasm, whose energy can withstand the frosts of sloth, of habit, of pettiness, of envy, of back-biting, and whose spirit is not quenched by the waters of adversity, of unrealized hopes, of tottering schemes.

"She wants persistent men, who will stand by their task amid the mysterious calls from undiscovered lands, the siren voices of ambition and ease, the withering storms of winters of discontent.

"She wants constructive men, who can trans.m.u.te visions into wood and stone, dreams into live inst.i.tutions, hopes into fruitage.

"She wants heroic men, men who possess a 'tart cathartic virtue,' men who love adventure and difficulty, men who can work alone with G.o.d and suffer no sense of loneliness.

"The critical need just now is for a few strong men of large power to get hold of this country church question in a virile way. It is the time for leadership. We need a score of Oberlins to point the way by actually working out the problem on the field. We need a few men to achieve great results in the rural parish, to reestablish the leadership of the church.

No organization can do it. No layman can do it. No educational inst.i.tution can do it. A preacher must do it,--do it in spite of small salary, isolation, conservatism, restricted field, overchurching, or any other devil that shows its face. The call is imperative. Shall we be denied the men?"[40]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Presbyterian Church, Winchester, Ill.]

_Student Recruits for the Home Ministry_

The Student Volunteer Bands in most of our colleges unite in a stimulating comradeship the young men and women who have pledged their lives to foreign missionary service. It is well worth while for our college men who have heard this call of the country church for this specialized service of Christ and humanity to organize local groups of Student Recruits for the Home Ministry, as has been done in various centers on the Pacific coast and at Oberlin College, Grinnell and elsewhere, under various names. At Oberlin this strong body of choice young men, in the college of arts and sciences, meets regularly through the year with a vitally helpful program which stimulates their intelligent interest in and loyalty to the ministry as the greatest of all professions. At the close of the year the members of this Theta Club, as it is called, are tendered a banquet by the students of Oberlin Theological Seminary, with a message from some successful pastor. It is counted one of the most significant events of the college year.

_The Call for Christian Physicians_

There have been many followers of the Good Physician who have never been ordained except by the grace of G.o.d, whose consecrated devotion to the needs of sick humanity has been a genuine ministry. Often the Christian physician is the best friend of the family. Certainly he has countless opportunities to serve more than the bodily needs of men; and no man in the community is rendering more sacrificial service. He is ever at the call of human need, day or night. He heeds the call of the poorest as quickly as the wealthiest, and does from 5% to 30% of his work without remuneration. He is one of the most necessary factors in every community; yet for many rural communities the nearest up-to-date physician is many miles away.

In these days of specialists, "general practice" is relatively less attractive. There is some danger also that the fine idealism which has long characterized this splendid profession may yield to the growing commercialism which to-day threatens all professions like a canker. When surgeons operate for dollars instead of for a cure; and physicians make the art of healing strictly business instead of scientific kindness, it will be a sad day for humanity.

The work of the physician is not properly a business; it should be cla.s.sed as _social service_ of the highest order. In spite of the higher standards of medical schools recently[41] with an emphasis on a general college preparation, fewer college men are going into medicine. The percentage has steadily decreased since 1850, and in the past twelve years there has been a sharp decline. The proportion at Harvard College has declined one-half in thirty years, though meanwhile Harvard Medical School has become a strictly graduate department.

It is evident that luxury-loving collegians are avoiding the medical profession to-day just as they are dodging the ministry. If they have capital of their own, business offers them a larger income and makes little demand upon their sympathies in personal service. _Selfish men avoid the costs of life-sharing_ which a life in close personal a.s.sociations compels, as is true of teaching, the ministry and the medical profession. But this is no handicap but greater opportunity, for men of real earnestness.

_The Special Need of Country Doctors_

The profession is seriously overcrowded in the cities, but people in the rural districts are literally dying for trained physicians. Some medical faculties are advising their graduates not to stay in the city but to settle in country villages where they are most needed, and where quite possibly they would find greatest success. "There are many towns in this state," writes a medical professor, "with only 500 to 1,000 people, where a young physician could do well and where he is needed."

Although, according to the best data obtainable, most medical graduates settle in cities,--the proportion at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, being as high as 90%,--there is a rapidly increasing demand for them in the suburban and rural sections in the East because of the strong city-to-country movement. The secretary of the Harvard Medical faculty notes this: "With the advent of automobiles and the desire of people to live in the country, serious problems in medicine are frequently presented to the country pract.i.tioners."

The need of educated physicians in country communities is well stated by Dr. Means of the Ohio Medical School: "The condition of medical practice in many of our country communities is deplorable. I can recall any number of places where there are two, three, four and five physicians and not one of them has had any post-graduate work from date of graduation, and none of them known to attend medical societies. Their professional work is on a par, no better, no worse, than that of their ancestors. I always feel that such communities sorely need an up-to-date physician who has been educated along the lines of modern sanitation and general medicine. The demand for a medical education has grown to such proportions in the last ten years that graduates, after having spent so much time and money, do not care to go into country practice. The five years or more that they spend in city environments while completing their medical education almost unfits them for country life. The result is that our cities are filling up with young physicians who can scarcely make a living. These are men of character and proficiency who would give tone to any country community and supply a public want."

_The Unique Rewards of Country Practice_

There are, to be sure, certain serious disadvantages under which the country physician labors, such as distance from hospitals and nurses; but these are overbalanced by the manifest need and greater opportunity. The situation is acute. For earnest college men, willing to invest their lives in rural leadership, this const.i.tutes a real call to a life of service which may be G.o.d's own call to them. No one who has ever read Ian Maclaren's story of Dr. MacLure, "A Doctor of the Old School," can fail to appreciate the peculiar devotion of country people to their trusted physician "who for nearly half a century had been their help in sickness, and had beaten back death time after time from their door."

After the funeral of the good old doctor who had so long sacrificed his comfort for the people of Drumtochty, Lord Kilspindie from Muirtown Castle voiced at the grave this tribute to the faithful physician of country folk: "Friends of Drumtochty, it would not be right that we should part in silence and no man say what is in every heart. We have buried the remains of one that served this Glen with a devotion that has known no reserve, and a kindliness that never failed, for more than forty years. I have seen many brave men in my day, but no man in the trenches of Sebastopol carried himself more knightly than William MacLure. You will never have heard from his lips what I may tell you to-day, that my father secured for him a valuable post in his younger days; but he preferred to work among his own people. I wished to do many things for him when he was old, but he would have nothing for himself. He will never be forgotten while one of us lives, and I pray that all doctors everywhere may share his spirit."

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."