Chapter 3

THE BOY IN VILLAGE AND COUNTRY[2]

From the consideration of bodily health the village boy is better off than his city cousin. He also enjoys to a far greater degree the protective and educative attention of real neighborhood life. The opinions and customs which help to mold him are more personal. He probably holds himself more accountable, for he can more readily trace the results of any course of action in terms of the welfare and good-will of well-known persons. His relation to nature is also more nearly ideal. Artificial restrictions, territorial and otherwise, are not so strictly imposed. His lot favors a sane and normal view of life. There are more chores to be done, more inviting occupations in the open, and altogether there may be a more wholesome participation in the work of maintaining the home than is possible for the city boy.

On the other hand, the static character of village life leaves the boy with little inspiration in his primary interests of play and his serious ideals of the noblest manhood. Idle hours work demoralization and the ever-present example of the village loafer is not good. A disproportionate number of village people lack public spirit and social ideals. The masculine element most in evidence is not of the strongest and most inspiring kind, and the village is all too often the paradise of the loafer and the male gossip. This, however, cannot be said of the small frontier town where the spirit of progress is grappling with crude conditions.

Furthermore, the village is sadly incompetent in the organization of its welfare and community work. As a matter of fact, social supervision is often so lax that obscene moving pictures and cards that are driven out of the large cities are exhibited without protest in the small towns. Usually the village is overchurched, and consequently divided into pitiably weak factions whose controlling aim is self-preservation. Seldom can a religious, philanthropic, or social organization be developed with sufficient strength to serve the community as such.

The sectarian divisions which in the vast needs and resources of great cities do not so acutely menace church efficiency prove serious in the small town. The saloon, poolroom, livery stable, and other haunts of the idle are open for boys; but the Christian people, because of their denominational differences, maintain no social headquarters and no institution in which boys may find healthy expression for their normal interests. The Y.M.C.A. is impracticable, because the church people are already overtaxed in keeping up their denominational competition and so cannot contribute enough to run an association properly. Wherever an association cannot be conducted by trained and paid officers it will result in disappointment.

The caricature of essential Christianity which is afforded by the denominational exhibit in the village works great harm to boys. It is not only that they are deprived of that guidance which true Christianity would give them, but they are confronted from the first with a spectacle of pettiness, jealousy, and incompetency which they will probably forever associate with Christianity, at least in its ecclesiastical forms. Villages are at best sufficiently susceptible to those unfortunate human traits that make for clique and cleavage in society, and when the Christian church, instead of unifying and exalting the community life, adds several other divisive interests with all the authority of religion, the hope of intelligent, united, and effective service for the community, on a scale that would arouse the imagination and enlist the good-will of all right-minded people, is made sadly remote.

So far as church work is concerned, the village boy is likely to be overlooked, as promising little toward the immediate financial support of the church and the increase of membership. In the brief interval of two years--the average duration of the village pastorate--it does not seem practicable for the minister to go about a work which will require a much longer time to produce those "satisfactory results" for which churches and missionary boards clamor. A revival effort which inflates the membership-roll, strenuous and ingenious endeavors to increase the offerings, are the barren makeshifts of a policy which does not see the distinct advantage and security in building Christian manhood from the foundation up.

It must not be thought that the minister is largely to blame for the situation as it now is. Perpetuating institutions beyond the time of their usefulness is one of society's worst habits, and it is not to be expected that religious organizations, which in a given stage of the development of Christian truths were vital and necessary, can easily be persuaded to surrender their identity, even after the cause that called them into being has been won.

Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade Of that which once was great has passed away.

But the real religious leader who loves boys will not be balked by the pettiness and inability of denominationalism. His hope lies not solely in the church or the churches, but largely in the intelligence, sympathy, and generosity of the unchurched citizens, whose number and importance in the small town is probably in the inverse ratio of the number of churches. Business men of whatever creed, or of none, are remarkably responsive to any sane endeavor to create a wholesome outlet for juvenile activity, and, whether right or wrong, count such efforts as being more valuable than much of the traditional church endeavor.

The minister will first try to organize boys' work for the whole community, but if co-operation on the part of all or of a group of the churches proves impossible, let him go ahead with such assistance as his own church and other voluntary supporters will afford, and let him still work in entire freedom from sectarian aim. As a minister of Christ and his kingdom he must give to Christianity an interpretation which will offset provincial and narrow impressions. He must free it from cant and from the other-worldly emphasis and bring it into the realm where boys and business men will respect it as a social factor of primary importance.

All the problems of early adolescence belong to the village boy as to every other. He also gropes about for his vocational discovery. How shall he gain self-control, how can he find himself? How can he relate his life to the great perplexing world and to the God of all? How can he win his immediate battles with temptation? The public school throws little light upon his possible occupation, trade, or profession, nor does it deal with his moral struggle.

The Sunday school, if it touches him at all, is often regarded as a nuisance to be endured out of respect for others. It addresses itself too much to tradition and too little to modern life. It gets the Israelites from Egypt into possession of Canaan by various miraculous interventions, stops the sea and the sun, knocks down the walls of Jericho by the most uncommon tactics, and reveals the umpire as on the Israelites' side.

The boy knows that if this be intended as sober history things have changed somewhat. For these are the very things that do not and should not happen in the conquest of his promised land. Under Christian guidance he must learn the ethical value of an orderly world, the morality that inheres in cause and effect, the divine help which is not partiality; and if it should turn out that he could master these lessons better through work and play and friendship than through being formally instructed in misapprehended lore, then such work and play and fellowship will prove of greater value than the Sunday-school hour alone.

As for the country boy, perhaps his chief lack is association with his fellows. To meet this and to satisfy the gregarious instinct, which will be found in him as in all boys, the minister's organizing ability must be directed. The gymnasium, in so far as it is a makeshift for lack of proper exercise in the life of the city boy, is not in great demand in the country. The farm boy has in his work plenty of exercise of a general and sufficiently exhausting character, and he has the benefit of taking it out of doors. He, of course, is not a gymnast in fineness and grace of development, and he may need corrective exercises, but the big muscles whose development tells for health and against nervousness are always well used.

In so far, however, as the gymnasium affords a place for organized indoor play through the winter months there is more to be said of its necessity. For it is not exercise but group play that the country boy most needs. The fun and excitement, the contest and the co-ordination of his ability with that of others, all serve to reduce his awkwardness and to supplant a rather painful self-consciousness with a more just idea of his relative rating among his fellows. He finds himself, learns what it is to pull together, and gets some idea of the problems of getting along well with colleagues and opponents.

Wherever the country pastor can secure a room that will do for basket-ball, indoor baseball, and the like, he may, if it is sufficiently central and accessible, perform a useful service for the boys and establish a point of contact. It is highly desirable that shower-baths and conveniences for a complete change of clothing be provided. If Saturday afternoon is a slack time and the farmers are likely to come to the village, he should make arrangements to care for the boys then, reserving Saturday evening for the young men. Such an arrangement secures economy in heating the building and may overcome for some of the youth the Saturday evening attractions of the saloon and public dance.

For the distinctly country church, situated at the cross-roads, a building that may serve as a gymnasium will be practically impossible unless a very remarkable enthusiasm is awakened among the boys and young men. But in many a country village such an equipment is both necessary and well within the reach of a good organizer. The country people have means and know how to work for what they really desire. What they most lack is inspiration and leadership.

During that part of the open season when school is in session the country minister has an excellent opportunity to meet the boys, organize their play, and become a real factor in their lives. In the country one-room school there will be found but few boys over fourteen years of age, but a great deal can be done with the younger boys in some such way as follows: As school "lets out" in the afternoon the minister is on hand. The boys have been under a woman teacher all day and are glad to meet a man who will lead them in vigorous play. It may be baseball, football, trackwork with relay races, military drill, or the like--all they need is one who knows how, who is a recognized leader, and who serves as an immediate court of appeal. If they do not get more moral benefit and real equipment for life's struggle in this hour and a half than they are likely to get from a day's bookwork in the average one-room, all-grades, girl-directed country school, it must be because the minister is a sorry specimen.

The city minister takes his boys on outings to the country. The country minister will bring his boys on "innings" to the city. As they see him he is pre-eminently the apostle of that stirring, larger world. What abilities may not be awakened, what horizons that now settle about the neighboring farm or village may not be gloriously lifted and broadened, what riches that printed page cannot convey may not be planted in the young mind by the pastor who introduces country boys to their first glimpse of great universities, gigantic industries, famous libraries, inspiring churches, and stately buildings of government?

One need not mention such possibilities as taking a group to the fair or the circus, or on expeditions for fishing, swimming, and hunting--all of them easy roads to immortality in a boy's affection.

Further, the minister is not only the apostle of that greater world but the exemplar of the highest culture. He is to bring that culture to the country not only through his own person but by lectures on art and literature, so that the young may participate in the world's refined and imperishable wealth. This may mean illustrated lectures on art and the distribution of good prints which will gradually supplant the chromos and gaudy advertisements which often hold undisputed sway on the walls of the farmhouse.

It might also be helpful to our partly foreign rural population to have lectures on history such as will acquaint boys and others with the real heroes of various nations, preserve pride in the best national traditions, and ultimately develop a sane and sound patriotism among all our citizens. The church building is not too sacred a place for an endeavor of this kind. The ordinary stereopticon and the moving picture should not be disdained in so good a cause. Boys are hero-worshipers, and history is full of heroes of first-rate religious significance.

As a further factor in elevating and enriching the life of the country boy, the minister may endeavor to create a taste for good reading. The tendency is that all the serious reading shall be along agricultural rather than cultural lines and that the lighter reading shall be only the newspaper and the trashy story. The minister should enlarge the boy's life by acquainting him with the great classics. A taste for good things should be formed early. With the older boys, from the years of sixteen or eighteen upward, organization for literary development and debating should be tried. A good deal in a cultural way is necessary to offset the danger which now besets the successful farmer of becoming a slave to money-making, after the fashion of the great magnates whom he condemns but with rather less of their general perspective of life.

The minister might help organize a mock trial, county council, school board, state legislature, or something of that sort, as a social and educative device for the older boys. Under certain conditions music could well form the fundamental bond of association, and groups gathered about such interests as these could meet from house to house, thus promoting the social life of the parish in no small degree. Young women might well share in the organizations that are literary and musical. The great vogue of the country singing-school a generation ago was no mere accident.

Could not the minister enter into the campaign for the improvement of the conditions of farm life and stimulate the beautifying of the dooryards by giving a prize to the boy who, in the judgment of an impartial committee, had excelled in this good work? Could he not interest his boys' organization in beautifying the church grounds and so enlist them in a practical altruistic endeavor? Might he not find a very vital point of contact with the country boy by conducting institutes for farmers' boys, perhaps once a month, in which by the generous use of government bulletins and by illustration and actual experiment he might awaken a scientific interest in farming and impart valuable information? In connection with this the boys could be induced to conduct experiments on plots of ground on their fathers' farms. Exhibits could be made at the church and prizes awarded. It would be a good thing too if the profits, or part of the profits, from such experimental plots could be voluntarily devoted to some philanthropic or religious cause. This would have the double value of performing an altruistic act and of intelligently canvassing the claim of some recognized philanthropy. So also the raising of chickens and stock might be tried in a limited way with the scientific method and the philanthropic purpose combined.

In some places botanical collections can be made of great interest; or the gathering and polishing of all the kinds of wood in the vicinity, with an exhibition in due time, may appeal to the boys. In addition to forestry there is ornithology, geology, and, for the early age of twelve to fifteen, bows and arrows, crossbows, scouting, and various expeditions answering to the adventure instinct.

The wise country minister will certainly keep in touch with the public school, will be seen there frequently, and will give his genuine support to the teacher in all of her endeavor to do a really noble work with a very limited outfit. He will help her to withstand the gross utilitarianism of the average farmer, who is slow to believe in anything for today that cannot be turned into dollars tomorrow. What with the consolidation of township schools, improved communication by rural delivery and telephone, better roads, the increasing use of automobiles, and the rising interest in rural life generally, together with a broad view of pastoral leadership and the "cure of souls" for the whole countryside, the minister may be a vital factor in shaping the social and religious life of the country boy; and he will, because of his character and office, illumine common needs and homely interests with an ever-refined and spiritual ideal. His ministry, however, cannot be all top, a cloudland impalpable and fleeting. It was with common footing and vital ties that Goldsmith's village preacher

Allured to brighter worlds and led the way.

After such fashion and with thorough rootage in country life must the minister of today turn to spiritual account the wealth-producing methods of farming. Out of soil cultivation he must guarantee soul culture by setting forth in person, word, and institution those ideals which have always claimed some of the best boyhood of the country for the world's great tasks.