r the right sort of womanly leadership, trained,
tactful, enthusiastic and effective. The same is true of the social clubs
and all local institutions which are open to women. With the rising
standards in rural life we shall look more and more to such women of
culture to bear the burdens of redirecting and vitalizing the work of
rural institutions. It is a worthy work and brings its own true rewards if
generously and wisely done.

_The Rural Association Secretary_

Far more is now being done for the country boy than for the country girl
in many communities, and a few college women are discovering in this fact
a great call to social and religious service.

In a few colleges, through their outside religious work, the girls have
become a little acquainted with the life of the younger girls in the
surrounding country. Sympathy leads them to try to help broaden the
outlook of these younger sisters, and to bring them the religious ideals
and the wholesome fun, both of which their lives often lack.

The Young Women's Christian Association for a few years past has conducted
community work in country towns on lines somewhat similar to the county
work of the Young Men's Christian Association. A few young women are
working as county secretaries, and they are women with a vision, and a
splendid earnestness. The work, however, is still quite new. It needs
development and extension into the smaller villages which need it most.
Doubtless this will be done as fast as college women of the right sort,
with a real consecration to the needs of the country girl, present
themselves as volunteers for this service.

College men are finding a splendid chance for life investment today in the
rural secretaryship,--as has been described earlier in this chapter. There
is no reason why their success with the country boys cannot be duplicated
by successful women secretaries with the country girls and women.

It is idle to claim that the average country homes are doing all that
needs doing for the country girls, or that the church life and school life
are effectively safeguarding them. Moral conditions in too many villages,
tardily perceived but often staggering when discovered, belie this false
optimism. We must face the fact that country girls need a more wholesome
recreational life than most villages afford, and higher ideals of true
womanliness than they often gain at home or church or school.

College young women of the right sort, with a