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