and then promote a plan of
business cooperation. If this is successful he may then expect with equal
success to carry on a plan for social cooperation which will lead to a
betterment of the home, the church and the school." Again we are reminded
that the ultimate problem is leadership, the costliest thing in the world;
but the very commodity of personality which college men ought to have
ready for wise investment. It is the call for _community builders_ all
along the country-side which forces itself upon the strongest men of brave
initiative, of courage, tact and ability. This call, a modern call of new
insistence and vast significance, should challenge the college man like a
call to battle.

_The Call of the County Work Secretary_

Among the many calls to a life of service which challenge the college
man, one of the most urgent is the call to rural leadership in the Young
Men's Christian Association. It is peculiarly a college man's task.
Possibly one country lawyer in four is professionally trained. The
percentage of educated country ministers is smaller still. Country
doctors, though usually medical graduates, are very seldom college men.
But the rural secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association is
usually college trained. With wise foresight, the Association is sending
many of its best men into the country field where the need of leadership
is so acute. No other branch of Association work has so large a proportion
of college trained men except the work with college students themselves;
this is the right perspective.

The man who aspires to this interesting and strategic work with the boys
and young manhood of the country must be a man of large capacity for
leadership and with a broad knowledge of human nature. He must be a keen
lover of country life and must understand country people and their great
interests. The more he knows of scientific agriculture the better; but he
must above all be a man of devout Christian spirit and a thorough
knowledge of the Bible; with a fine friendliness for all sorts of people,
and a great longing to help the country boy to develop into useful
Christian manhood.

In most other lines of rural service a man's influence is ordinarily
limited to the single community in which he lives. The County Work
Secretary's field is an entire county. He is not working merely with a
single group of people but with similar groups in a score of townships
and usually the finest people in ea