“That is true.”

“Our ideas about such things have changed, also.”

“Yes,” he replied, humbly enough, for he was a man of fine fiber.

“I propose a substitute,” said the listener. “There is much more pleasure and recreation to be obtained from photographing animals than from killing them. What is needed in every rural community is a camera club.”

When a boy wishes to go hunting, he merely has to buckle on his ammunition pouch, shoulder his gun and he is ready. A camera club, however, requires a social organization and a social center. The community committee would thus be required to decide whether the facilities for developing and printing pictures may best be located at the church, the schoolhouse, the grange hall or elsewhere.

A little reflection will show how many possibilities such a club might have on its social, moral and educational side. The suggestion has been made here, however, only as an illustration of the problems which arise when a rural community is organized for social welfare. The organization of a book club, or a magazine club in a rural community presents precisely the same problems. Some method must be devised for exchanging the books or magazines. Whether they are exchanged at the church, the grange hall or through the school children will depend upon local conditions requiring a community committee to decide.

This community committee will do something more than reach immediate results. It may project its influence far into the future. Not all of life is comprised in a porcelain bathtub and nickel adornments. Nevertheless modern methods of heating and plumbing are desirable in the country as well as in the city. In Indiana there is a one-room school building. In the basement there has been placed a furnace and a gasoline engine. The engine is used not only to teach the boys how to run a gasoline engine, but it makes possible a modern system of plumbing.

It is well known that many of the states within the past decade have voted to abolish or very materially restrict the sale of alcoholic beverages. No great temperance orators have roused the people as was the case thirty years or more ago. Why, then, has such progress been made in recent years? In large part because twenty-five years ago, the teaching of physiology was introduced into the public schools, which taught the evil effects of alcohol to the human system. During the past decade young men who studied these physiologies have been voting.

What has the teaching of physiology to do with the one-room schoolhouse in Indiana with its modern system of plumbing? The girls between the ages of six and fourteen are now becoming accustomed to modern systems of plumbing. When they grow older and marry they will find some way to introduce similar conveniences into their homes without regard to the price of wheat. A wise community committee will find many ways to influence future generations. Such a committee would be a priceless heritage to any community.

The natural resources of the United States are necessary to the prosperity of the people. The preservation and economic use of these resources are of vast importance. The natural resources of the world were, however, as great five thousand years ago as they are today. The soil was no less fertile then than now. The difference between the prosperity of the human race at these two periods is caused by a difference in human motive and efficiency. It is the result of ideals and knowledge. Sit at the banquet table with men who are the real powers in shaping the affairs of the world. The chances are that the champagne remains untouched. These men are not in the habit of partaking of midnight suppers. They must keep themselves fit for the next day’s work. They have the approval and loyalty of their wives because they deserve it. In other words, the men who do the world’s work are not drunkards. They are not gluttons. They are not libertines. They are efficient because they have healthy bodies and clean minds. It is this efficiency which the critic from Argentina saw when he said, “I do not look upon the people of the United States as a nation, but as a new civilization.”