V—TALKS BY EXPERTS
When the time for the county fair comes the club may have, as one Illinois club did, a series of talks on all sorts of live topics, given by experts to all who would come, the men as well as the women. Farm Life in the Old World, The Farm Boy and the Farm Problem, Bringing Home and School Together, Home-Making for Men and Women, were given, and also practical demonstrations on preserving, bread and butter making, and other domestic subjects. Besides these there was a fruit and vegetable show with prizes, given by the children.
Then there is the beautifying of the little village. The club may clean it up, plant shade trees and shrubbery, freshen up the paint of the railroad station and make its driveway attractive, take charge of the cemetery lots which are neglected, make a common in the middle of the town if possible, and have flowers and trees there, and, most important of all, create a sentiment among the people which will lead to abolishing the loafing places about town.
The club may also help the village church or, rather, churches. These are a problem in every farming community, for there are usually too many for the population, and no one of them is well supported. It may be that some clubs may be successful in having a union church; but, if not that, at least they can frown on the spirit of jealousy between the churches and establish coöperation. The buildings may be freed from their mortgages, the interiors freshened, the choirs improved, the minister's house papered, the Sunday school modernized, the women's societies assisted. There is always plenty to be done to help a struggling country church.
A town library may be started by the gift of one book by each family, and club women may take turns in giving out the books one day a week and providing entertainments to raise money to buy more.
Clubs may also help the town celebrate fête days: Arbor Day, the Fourth of July, Harvest Home, and the birthdays of local celebrities or of Washington and Lincoln. The schoolhouse may be used for such meetings.
The motto of every rural club should be: Coöperation. As one kind of work is taken up after another it will soon be seen how much women can do if they work together for the good of all. The little club nucleus may draw to itself the men of the community, the young people, and even the children, and together they may build up something fine, something of substantial value. Country life has its problems, but far more, it has its great, glorious opportunities.
These are some of the helpful books to be bought, or borrowed from the State Library:
"The Report of the Commission on Country Life." (Sturges and Walton.) "Coöperation Among Farmers," John Lee Coulter. (Sturgis and Walton.) "The Rural Problem in the United States," Sir Horace Plunkett. (Macmillan.) "How to Live in the Country." E. P. Powell (Outing Publishing Co.) "A Self-Supporting Home" and "The Earth's Bounty." Kate V. St Maur. (Macmillan.)