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 experim