ring the challenge of the country to the man
in college.

For two or three years past there have been groups of men in various
universities meeting weekly to discuss this problem. In comparing the
needs of various fields of service and weighing their own fitness for
various tasks, they wished to study the opportunities in rural life for
consecrated leadership. These groups are certain to multiply. Alert
college men even in city colleges have discovered that we have to-day not
only a complicated country _problem_ but a great rural life
_opportunity_; a problem intricate enough to challenge earnest
investigation by thoughtful students, and an opportunity for a life
mission worthy of strong men.

_General College Neglect of the Rural Call_

The writer firmly believes that the city has been claiming too large a
proportion of college graduates in recent years and that the needs of
country life are not receiving due consideration. A large majority of
students in most colleges come from the country. Has not the country a
right to claim its fair share of these young men and women after they have
been trained for a useful life? If only 15% of the students at Princeton
come from the country we cannot complain if practically all of them after
graduation go to the city; but when nearly all the students at Marietta
College (Ohio) come from the country and 65% of them go to the city, we
wonder why. Likewise 70% of the students at Stanford University (Calif.)
were country bred, but only 25% return to country life after college days.
At Williams (Mass.), a city boys' college, only 24% come from the country
and about 15% return; but at Pacific University (Ore.) 95% come from the
country (80% from very small communities) yet only 45% resist the city's
call. Bowdoin (Maine) gets but 47% of its students from the city, but
returns 70%; The University of Kansas receives but 44% of its students
from cities, yet contributes to cities three-fourths of its graduates;
while Whitman (Wn.) receives but 40% from the city yet returns 80%.
Hillsdale (Mich.), a country college with a fine spirit of service, does
better; receiving 95% of its students from small towns and villages, it
returns all but 26%. "Practically all" the students at Adelbert College
(Ohio) enter city work on graduation, though 30% of them are country bred.

It is entirely natural in institutions like the University of Illinois,
Ohio State University and Cornell, where there ar