Books to Consult—Mawson: Civic Art. Bentley and Taylor: Practical Guide in the Preparation of Town Planning Schemes. Ravenscroft: Town Gardening. Penstone: Town Study.
Much can be done by a club toward improving the condition of the local cemetery; perhaps even by moving it from a place too near the heart of town to a more attractive and proper site, planting trees and flowering shrubs, arranging to have grass and flowers cared for, straightening old monuments, and the like. A paper might deal with the question: How can women carry out their ideas without antagonizing the town council?
VIII—THE TOWN CHURCH
1. The Church Structure—A beautiful exterior: simplicity, good taste in material, outline and color. A beautiful interior: quiet decoration; window glass, good and bad; low-toned carpet and cushions.
2. Sunday Services—Dignity and reverence in their conduct. Importance of music. How shall good music be secured in a small neighborhood? The chorus choir. Vesper services.
3. The Sunday-School—Modern methods. The graded school. Prizes and exhibitions. Young people's work; relating this to the rest of the church-work.
4. Week-Day Appointments—Men's meetings: how to get the men to come. Civic value of men's church clubs. Women's meetings: the church aid society, the missionary society. Young women's guilds. Clubs for girls and for boys. The Boy Scouts, etc.
5. The Minister's Home—Should the social life of the church center in the minister's home? Relation of the minister's wife to her husband's work. Church ownership of the minister's house; its care and improvement.
Books to Consult—C. A. Wight: Some Old Time Meeting Houses of the Connecticut Valley. K. L. Butterfield: The Country Church and the Rural Problem. W. M. Ede: Attitude of the Church to Some of the Social Problems of Town Life. Ramsay and Beel: Thousand and One Churches. E. C. Foster: The Boy and the Church.
The question of the use of the stereopticon and moving pictures in connection with the church should be taken up. Shall the Sunday-evening services be varied occasionally by a talk on the Holy Land, or famous paintings of Christ, or the Pilgrim's Progress, or the Passion Play at Oberammergau? The distribution of the church flowers after services may be an outcome of this meeting, and a club committee may be appointed to see that they are taken to the sick.