5. The increase and improvement of professional leadership among country teachers, ministers, and all others who serve the rural community in offices of educational direction.
6. The perpetuation among all the people of country communities of a definite community ideal, and the concentrated effort of the whole community in concrete tasks looking toward the realization of this ideal.
7. The recognition of the country school as the immediate initiator of progress in the average rural community of Illinois.
8. The study and investigation of country life facts and conditions.
9. The holding of annual country life conferences.
10. The protection of this federation and of all country life from any form of exploitation.
The vocations of boys and girls
A most commendable work for the rural social leader would be that of showing the possibilities of guiding country boys and girls more scientifically in the direction of their coming vocational life. Too often, there may be found a mistaken farmer who is attempting to force his boy to take up the farm life when as a matter of fact the boy is in no sense fitted for such vocation and should be trained for a distinctly different line of work. Then, on another occasion, you will meet a man who is farming simply because he has to do it, and who is over-anxious that his boy be guided in the direction of something else. The point especially to be emphasized here is that the parent cannot choose arbitrarily a vocation for his child. The native interests of the latter must be consulted again and again, while the child is growing up, and in the end the young person must decide the matter for himself.
The world is full of wrecks of human character who are such largely because of the single fault of their never having been trained scientifically in a vocational way. So advance as best you can the idea that parents must be most patient in awaiting the development of the various instincts and desires in their growing children, and for the final decision of the latter in respect to a calling. It should be made clear that many of the best and ablest men in the world floundered about not a little in deciding upon the final choice.
This very important matter of choosing a vocation for the young man and the young woman will be taken up in Chapters XVIII and XIX of this book.