Mr. Lowell B. Gable, Glen Gable Farms, Wybrooke, Pa., a graduate of Cornell University, is developing 812 acres of land in Chester county. He has a herd of 80 Guernsey cows in milk and is breeding Percheron, registered polling horses and Chester White hogs. Mr. Gable has been supervisor of the township for two years, during which time nine and one-half miles of macadam road have been built without materially increasing the taxes. Mr. Gable firmly believes that one of the best opportunities to be of help to a rural community lies in the work to be done for the improvement of social conditions—to help make what little leisure there is clean and refreshing. Hence on return from college he played baseball and football with local teams and helped out at every opportunity at dances, musicales and other social entertainments.
This committee should be composed of representatives of the churches, the schools, farmers clubs, granges, fair associations, farmers institutes; and other organizations which are striving to increase the educational advantages, the social opportunities and the moral aspirations of the people.
Oftentimes the object of these rural forces is confused with efforts to increase the financial prosperity of the farmer. It goes without saying that the maintenance of the fertility of the soil is essential to the food supply of the nation. The problems of the economic production of plants and animals are of great importance to the prosperity of the farmer. The idea, however, that the proper solution of these economic problems is to be the means of solving the educational, social and religious problems is simply putting the cart before the horse. Economic questions can only be satisfactorily adjusted through the application of intelligence and right ideas.
Let it be supposed that when a young man decides to pay attention to a young woman that instead of meeting her at the church door, or it may be at the railway station, it is considered better form for him to get permission of the mother to call upon the young woman in her own home. This is the most fundamental question in every neighborhood. What has it to do with the price of wheat?
This illustration has been used to emphasize two points. First, there are many problems in every community that are in no way related to the material prosperity of the neighborhood. Second, there is, at present, no single force in the community with sufficient influence to cope properly with many of these problems.
A young college graduate who is now managing eight hundred acres of land recently wrote: I firmly believe that one of the best opportunities to be of help to a rural community lies in the work that is to be done for the improvement of social conditions—to help make what little leisure there is clean and refreshing. Hence on return from college this young man has found time to play football and baseball with local teams and to help whenever opportunity offered at dances, musicales and similar entertainments. Games and other forms of recreation may be clean and wholesome, or they may be quite the reverse. It would be the duty of the community committee to see that dances occurred under proper environment—not next an open saloon—and that the young women were properly chaperoned.
In many communities the boys and girls are almost wholly dependent upon the neighboring towns for their amusement. This condition may or may not be desirable. If the town and country are virtually one community, there is every reason why the boys and girls from the farms should find recreation and social intercourse with the boys and girls of the village. It is a relationship that should be fostered wherever possible. When, however, the town and the country are separate communities, which prevent the ordinary social relationships, it is usually unfortunate when the young people of the one community are dependent upon the other community for their amusements.
A deeply earnest man recently said: I was born and raised upon the farm. I never knew a dull day in my life. I went fishing. I went hunting and——
Stop right there, said the listener. There is not the same opportunity today for a boy to go hunting that there was when you were a boy.