jealousy. No greater attestation could be given our motives and our methods than to have them built into the ideals and structure and standards of the community. Nothing could have been better for the progress of legislation and official administration than to have had these new responsibilities and functions entrusted to the public agencies and built into the very framework of the state. Thus we have been humanizing government. We have been idealizing politics. We have been more. or less fraternizing the business of public affairs. We have added professional status to competent public officials by sharing with them these great humanitarian functions now belonging to the town, the county, the municipality and the state.

Instances multiply which demonstrate not only the practicability and efficiency of co-operation, but also clearly show that so great has become the interdependence of the public and volunteer agencies, officials and private citizens, that one cannot succeed if the other fails. These instances are conspicuous in the four fields of administration, legislation, civic training and the social application of religion.

CONSTRUCTIVE WORK

In preventive and constructive effort commercial bodies and women's clubs are working with school boards and park commissions to develop the neighborhood use of school buildings and the establishment of playgrounds and recreation centers.

In the field of national, state and local legislation, volunteer and expert organizations are more and more effectively supplanting the secret lobby of special interests. Such co-operative bodies are recognized by our legislatures and courts as valuably co-operating in the delicate and difficult adjustment of law to the needs of life, of judicial justice to the ever advanc

ing demands of social justice.

It may be said that the most hopeful sign of the times is that so many of the regular occupations in life are felt to have a social bearing upon community welfare. nity welfare. In rural communities, bankers, lumber dealers and other tradesmen are being urged at their conventions and by their trades' journals to become "community builders" in their small towns and agricultural counties and are taking a new interest in village improvement, town planning and county administration.

PUBLIC LOYALTY

To bear home to the hearts and consciences of those in training for all occupations, this loyalty to public welfare in their private pursuits is the highest service which teachers and

trainers can render the commonwealth. Manufacturing and commercial men need to be taught and inspired to regard the safety and welfare of the human elements of their plants as not only promotive of business efficiency, but as their responsibility in promoting public welfare. Doctors need to be imbued with the prior claim upon them to co-operate with health departments and commissions in assuring public health by the improvement of sanitary and hygienic conditions, at whatever cost to their curative work and its rewards. Lawyers' patriotic, expert service is desperately needed in the framing of laws and ordinances, for the prevention of unnecessary and wasteful litigation, for the simplification of legal procedure, as well as in the manifold administration of law.

A new professional ethic must be taught in medical and law schools if the claims of humanity and the state are to be considered paramount to the opportunities for personal gain at public expense. So, too, teachers and ministers have not all yet heard the divine and human call to build the community up out of their schools and churches, and not church and school

Humanized politics and volunteer co-operation put up to the churches the most imperative claim for the greatest service which their respective communities and their common country have ever demanded of them. Never were their religious ideals of life, individual and collective, more essential; never was their inspiration to seek and realize these ideals more needed; never was the power for service which religion begets in the self

more absolutely essential than now not only to the progress but to the very self-preservation of the state. Slowly but surely the literature and life, the declarations of industrial and social principles, community surveys and activities, the Young Men's Christian Association County Work, and, above all, the organized and federated cooperation of the churches, are pledging their obedience to this imperative mandate of God and man.

THE

HE term "Community Work," as generally used in Association circles to-day, means work conducted in large towns and small cities by, or in the name of, a local Young Men's Christian Association without the use of a regular Association building or separate equipment and under the direction of an employed officer known as a "community secretary." Sometimes the term is used to designate various phases of extension or co-operative activities in the large city Association work.

All true Association work is community work in the sense that it must, directly or indirectly, enhance the welfare of the entire community. This is true, whether it be a city, railroad, student, industrial or town and village Association. With the present social interpretation of the program of the Kingdom it is impossible and unwise. that it should be otherwise. Necessarily, therefore, it is impossible to set any arbitrary limit of population.

"Community work" conveys the idea of a larger program of extension or co-operative activities, touching even the civic interests of the community, for example, the school, playground,

community health and sanitation, amusements and recreation.

In the County Work field, according to the 1914 year book, eighty of the 509 organized Associations are in towns of 2,500 population or over, thirty being in towns of 5,000 or over, and thirteen in towns of 6,000 or over. There are eighty-three Associations with a membership of fifty or more, twenty-two Associations with a membership between seventy-five and 100, and seventeen with over 100 members.

Some of these Associations have been organized ten years and have from five to ten groups of boys and young men organized for regular Bible study and other accepted Association activities. Out of this experience we have learned, as Edison has said of hundreds of his unsuccessful experiments in his laboratory, "a great many ways in which it should not be done.” Based on careful study of this varied experience in all parts of the country and under all sorts of conditions, the principles here suggested are given as a guide to the further developmnt of this important Associational work.

THE URBAN AND RURAL
We are therefore including under

this phase of community work the best method of promoting a comprehensive Association work in any rural commurity, whether it be in a section of open country or in a "rural city" of 15,000 population. While adaptation is always necessary, and unique methods occasionally justified, the great underlying principles of Association work for men and boys in the rural towns and cities must be the same, regardless of volumes of population. It is therefore neither possible nor wise to attempt to arbitrarily define the limit of population of those communities which should be in the County Work field, and those which ought to be under the administration of the general city Association department.

There are communities of over 10,000 and 15,000 population which are entirely rural in environment and interests, and in which the Association work should manifestly be related to and a part of the Association policy and program of the entire county.

Thus the first principle is that all rural community work should be initiated, organized and continued under the administration of the state committee through its sub-committee on County Work and secretarial staff. Even when the growth of the work leads to the erection of an Association building, it is still an open question as to whether the work should be divorced from its relation to the county committee and the rest of the work in the county. This is particularly true where the county seat is the place in question.

COUNTY SOLIDARITY FIRST

That the work in the county as a whole may be adequately and uniformly organized and developed, it is exceedingly important that undue development of community work in a large town should not dominate nor paternalize its environment by the type of work done in the community

itself, or by extension work in the surrounding country.

This means that the county committee should always be organized before any separate community work is started. This supervisory committee should include men who reside in the larger rural communities, as well as those who live on the farm. This policy utilizes the best available leadership, regardless of location, encourages statesmanship in Kingdom affairs, safeguards future relationships and unifies a constructive policy, looking toward the occupation of the entire county in a progressive and yet well balanced work.

It should be kept in mind that the needs of the boys and young men of the entire county are more worthy of attention than the demands of a few in a large centre. Beyond a certain point intensive community work is developed only at the sacrifice of less intensive, but equally productive work in smaller communities where there are needy boys and young men and available leadership and resources.

Another vital reason for maintaining the solidarity of the county is found in many Association activities which may best be conducted on a county wide basis, such as camps, conferences, conventions, school athletics, festivals, leagues and tournaments. Then, too, many of the important organizations, or agencies with which the Association is more or less directly related are county wide in their scope. These include the church and Sundayschool, organizations of ministers, teachers, young people's societies, the county health organization and medical society, the board of agriculture, farmers' institute, the county fair and grange, the board of education with the school superintendents, the teachers' institute, etc.

ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
From the standpoint of administra-

tion, the community work can be more economically and effectively supervised by the present supervisory agencies when it is related definitely to the County Work in the state. The county committee and the county secretary are close to the field and understand the situation. The county secretary may have one or more associates, each making his peculiar contribution to the community work in any and every community in the county. An associate county secretary may have general responsibility for certain communities, being also related to various intensive special phases of County Work outside his own community. Even with a highly developed type of community work it is not necessary nor desirable that one man devote his time and energy exclusively to any one community as its community secretary.

The state committee and secretary for County Work has a direct responsibility to the community work, but all the other sub-committees and secretaries are available for the service which they are especially qualified to render. What applies to the state committee and its secretarial staff applies equally to the international committee and international secretaries.

Where there is a student, industrial or railroad center in a rural environment, those committees and secretaries related as specialists to those phases of work actively co-operate. Where the work contemplated is to be confined exclusively to industrial plants, railroad men or students, the County Work department and secretaries cooperate with the committees responsible for this work in so far as their services were desired.

Community work is not a department of Association work, but the whole program of Association activities for both men and boys as it finds them. For departmental activities, such as religious, educational, physi

cal, boys', student, industrial, immigration and financial, the county, state and international specialists are available and can be actively enlisted. No new department of work is needed to give supervision to community work as such.

A DISTINCT LOCAL ASSOCIATIONAL
IDENTITY

The importance of doing all community work through a regularly organized local Young Men's Christian Association cannot be over-emphasized. While in the open country and very small community centers it may be necessary to inaugurate the Association program through group organization under Christian leadership with a provisional committee in charge, it is a question if such work should be continued in a large center for any extended length of time without a completely organized local Young Men's Christian Association on the evangelical basis. Prior to the definite organization of the Young Men's Christian Association the work done should be known as work organized and conducted by "The County Committee of the Young Men's Christian Associations of Blank County." It should not be known as community work, boys' work, extension work or any other name.

The organization of a local Young Men's Christian Association defines clearly its purpose, scope and methods of work. It identifies it as an integral part of the Association brotherhood and gives it an organic relation to all its agencies and activities. It fixes responsibility upon the local, county, state and international Association agencies. It emphasizes the specific function of the organization as being definitely religious and primarily for boys and young men. It insures the work being done on true Association principles. It therefore makes for a genuine measure of prog

ress and permanency of the work.

The relation of the local Association in large communities to the county committee and county secretary should be identical with that of smaller communities. The financial, secretarial and business administration being the same in both cases.

While the problems in the larger towns may be more numerous, they are not "peculiar," and the County Work principles apply equally to Association activities in the small centers and the larger communities. A careful analysis of the following established County Work principles taken from an article in the Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science of 1912, will confirm their applicability to community work regardless of population:

A dominance of Christian ideals in the character of the manhood and boyhood of the country.

Trained leadership for community enterprise.

A recognition of the resident forces as the redemptive forces.

Membership is based upon what is given in service rather than what is secured in privileges.

A task for every man and a man for every task.

and cultivation of a strong local board of directors.

The next step is to discover, enlist, train and utilize the resident leadership. This leadership should be used and directed first in the organization of local groups of boys and young men for Bible study and other simple forms of Association activities. The organization of such groups is of primary importance and should be the first objective in the community work plan. In the promotion of such work the Association establishes its efficiency and identity. In this the Association has a distinct task to perform. The winning and development of the individual boy or young man to Christ is best accomplished through group organization and activity. This also furnishes one of the best means of interesting and developing leadership among the men of the community. The finest type of co-operation with the church and the best service which the Association can render to the community is in the training of its future. leaders while they are still boys or young men as members in Association groups. A study of the County Work statistics in the 1914 year book shows that with the membership of 15,921 there are 1,244 leaders of groups. A

The maximum development of constructive forces in community life.

For the increased power of the church.

A redirected educational system which will fit for life in the country. Better health and sanitation in farm homes and country communities.

A wholesome development of the recreative life.

in Michigan for the year 1912-1913 shows seventy-nine and three-tenths per cent of the membership actually enrolled in Bible study. Along with the religious activities of the group there will also be the social, educational and physical aspects of the program. It should also be remembered that the group is not an end in itself. It must serve the community.

Whatever the ultimate development

tion.

FIRST THINGS FIRST First, both in point of time and importance, is the thorough organization

of thoroughly organized groups under trained leadership should be given first place. Only as the Association realizes this primary function to be a very