HOME MISSIONS True it is that had we enough men of Dr. Roth's spirit and labors, we would have no foreign problem in our communities. And the 399 villages would be solving-as perhaps it may yet be they who shall solve the problem of our city churches. T THE AUGUST MISSIONARY MEETING HE sub-topics announced for the month's study are suggestive for the program of a live meeting. These sub-topics are: First. The Colorado Movement. An explanatory leaflet published by the Federal Council is available for those who will apply for it. Address The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, 1611 Clarendon Building, Fourth Avenue and Eighteenth Street, New York City, or copies can be secured through the Presbyterian Home Board. Second. The Home Missions Council. The article by Dr. Thompson in the present number of THE HERALD is directly to the point. See also THE ASSEMBLY HERALD, August, 1910, August, 1909. A leaflet reproducing the Articles of Constitution of the Council, with the list of constituent Boards, may be had by applying to the Presbyterian Home Board. By this time all the members of the churches should be informed of the sweeping movements insuring more complete unity of effort among home mission forces throughout the country. Third. Cooperation in Our Own State, County, Town. The other articles in this number of THE HERALD are directly to the point. Suggestion of methods here afford an inspiration to lead off in a federation movement in your own locality. Apply to the Federal Council Headquarters, 1611 Clarendon Building, Eighteenth Street and Fourth Avenue, New York City, for model constitutions for state, county and local federations. Hundreds of localities should be effectively organized as a result of serious consideration of this topic among our Presbyterian churches this season. D YOUNG PEOPLE'S DEPARTMENT NOTES URING the "Round Table" on young people's work, conducted by the secretary of this department at the annual meeting of the Woman's Board, many notes of information and encouragement were sounded which should reach our larger constituency, and we allow space for a few sen tences. Sunday school secretaries have been found most helpful in many presbyteries, working as they do with the Sunday school missionary committees, superintendents, and at presbyterial meetings. Specific study, special programs and general helps have been suggested for the furtherance of the home mission cause in the Sunday-school. In Iowa some presbyterial presidents are making this form of service their specialty. One has used "Home Mission Handicraft" with great success. Testimony was given to the value of the children's magazine, "Over Sea and Land" where provided for the whole school or the primary department. California Sunday schools are especially cultivated for the two special home mission days, the offerings at Thanksgiving being used for scholarships in the mission schools under the Woman's Board and the February offering for the salary of Rev. James Hayes, their beloved Indian missionary. The general verdict was that it is better to allow ten minutes every Sunday for the presentation of missions, but where this is not permissible, a longer time, at least once a month. The missionary committee is an absolute necessity in the up-to-date Sabbath school. In speaking for the Westminster Guild Mrs. Waid said: "We have in the Westminster Guild an ideal organization of the Presbyterian Church-an organization formed on Presbyterian doctrine. The girls are pledged to study Home and Foreign Missions and the Bible, and pledged to give their money equally to Home and Foreign Missions. The patroness often leads the study classes, often attends all the meetings, and is the general bulwark of authority and influence among the girls. We have all over the United States 404 Chapters, 201 are in the territory of the Board of the Northwest, where it was first organized, but you see we have them outside of that territory, which proves that it is a movement worth while in all sections of country. . . . We asked the girls for $2,500 last year and they gave $4,000. . . . We want it clearly understood that where there is a good young women's missionary society the Westminister Guild is not advised. If there is no other organized work for young women there is the place for a Chapter, and we hope an organization will be affected." L OYALTY to Presbyterian Work," is a theme which always creates a lively interest, and this occasion was no exception. The experiences related are usually enlightening as they disclose unbusiness-like and unintelligent methods of work. A paragraph will indicate general conditions: “Our young people are naturally enthusiastic, open to impressions and apt to empty their treasury to the first definite request. . . There is a great fancy for rushing into any new demand or request for money, with an absolute forgetfulness of their former pledges, or the work for which their Boards are held responsible." Systematic and proportionate giving, and a knowledge of what our denomination is endeavoring to do for our country, and the world, would bring about the needed change. There is opportunity for studying these needs in the young people's meetings, but the first finding-place for Presbyterian information should be in the Presbyterian homes. We were recently asked by a young woman of a sister denomination to send samples of THE ASSEM BLY HERALD, Home Mission Monthly and Over Sea and Land for a district C. E. meeting because at a similar meeting "the Presbyterians present could not give the names of their missionary publications." Samples of Woman's Work were also provided. At a missionary conference the other day, in answer to the question, "Where shall we secure the helps for denominational mission study?" the majority of answers read, "Of the U. S. C. E. in Boston." The publications issued by the United Society are splendid, but they would send inquirers to their own denominational Board headquarters for these "helps." How would you direct them? What are you offering your young people in the way of missionary reading, or for a definite study of the fascinating and inspiring theme-MISSIONS? REMEMBER THE TWO NEW BOOKS Now READY, "The Winning of the Oregon Country,” for the Intermediate grades and "Best Things in America," especially for Junior Societies and Mission Bands. The little ten cent booklet, "Growing up in America" is still in great demand for the primary departments of the Sunday schools. The following brief program is adaptable for a lively young people's meeting and may be enlarged with profit for other gatherings: Five M's in missions: Membership-How to increase it. Many more "M's" will suggest themselves. Because of our close affiliation with the Young People's Missionary Movement our readers will be interested in the following: "By order of the Supreme Court of New York, the name of the Young People's Missionary Movement of the United States and Canada has been changed to MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT of the United States and Canada." M. J. P. AUGUST STUDY.-"Church Federation." The Home Missions Council. Church Cooperation in our own State, County, Town. Leaflet Aids. Church Federation Dialogue, A. Church Federation-Its Nature and Function. Constitution and By-Laws of the Inter-Church Federation of the State. Constitution of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, The Co-operative Advance in Home Missions. Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America-A Report of Progress. HOME MISSIONS Inter-Church Federation-Bulletin of Results March 1911. Report of Special Committee. Book Aids. Church and the rural community symposium, Am JI Soc, 16:668, Mr, '11. Luth Q, 41:1, Ja, '11. Church as a social center.. Collier's 46:32, 8, '10. Church in our town, symposium 401 W. H. Wilson .E. H. Delk Fred Haxton Collier's 45:14, J1 2, 16, J1 16,-26, Ag 13,-38, S 10-39, Churches and secular agencies Survey 23:341, D 11, '09. Community work in the rural high school, Agric Dept Year Book, 1910, p 177. Comparative study of results in instruction in the single teacher schools and the graded town schools El School T 11:249, 308, Ja, F, '11. Conference on rural life, Outl 96:8, S 3, '10. Conservation and rural life. Outl 94:260, Ja 29, '10. Country church and the library. Outl 98:34, My 6, '11. Country school, Ind 69:882, O 20, '10. Country schools of Page County, Iowa, World's work 20:13090, Je, '10. Decline in rural population, Outl 96:614, N 19, '10. Directing the great human river. Outl 96:822, D 10, '10. Horace Plunkett J. C. Dana H. F. Sherwood Educ Rev 41:135, F, '11. Letter to a country preacher, World's Work 21:14078, Mr, '11. Making country life interesting, Ind 68:59, Ja 6, '10. Neglected farm, The, Outl 99:298, F 5, '10. Outl 94:841, Ap 16, '10. World's Work 20:13246, Ag, '10. Philosophy of the soil, The. .C. H. Harger .E. A. Rumeley David Grayson Country Life 19:387, 15 Mr, '11. Plight of the country Minister.... Rev. A. A. Mackenzie THE BOARD OF HOME MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U. S. A. Comparative Statement of Receipts for CURRENT WORK for the 3 Months ending June 30, 1910-11 THE COLLEGE BOARD ROBERT MACKENZIE, D.D., LL.D., Secretary. REPORT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE COLLEGE BOARD T At Atlantic City, New Jersey, May, 1911 HE following report by the Rev. Robert Watson, D.D., of Cincinnati, Ohio, Chairman of the Assembly's Standing Committee on this board, was unanimously adopted: The annual report of the College Board, together with the minutes of the Board, have been placed in our hands. Examination of the Report of the Minutes, and consultation with the secretary of the Board, impresses your Committee first with the wide extent of the work done. Fifty-seven colleges and seven academies are reported as sustaining relations, more or less close, with the Presbyterian Church and as receiving financial aid, directly or indirectly, from this Board or through the influences and denominational interests which it represents. The student enrollment of these 64 institutions during the past two years has been as follows: WHAT IS A PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE? All these 64 institutions claim, or have applied to them at times, the Presbyterian name. The Assembly declares that a Presbyterian college is "(1) organically connected with the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., or (2) required by its charter to have at least twothirds of its Board of Control members of said Church, or (3) actually under Presbyterian approval at the time of receiving assistance." The approval of a Presbyterian college, as the term is used in the above definition, is defined by the Board as follows: "The words 'Presbyterian approval' mean that a synod or presbytery may send a committee of visitation to any college to learn the quality of the work done by it, and to report thereon; or it may receive a written or an oral report by the president or other appointed officer of the college on the quality of the work done, and express its approval or disapproval accordingly, and transmit its findings to this Board for the adjustment of its relations to said college." In addition to the institutions described by this technical definition there are others whose history, associations and constituency ally them with the Presbyterian Church. In a real, though not in a formal sense, they are Presbyterian and actively Christian. FUNCTION OF THE BOARD. This description of a Presbyterian college suggests a statement of the purposes of the Board. It is the authorized agency of the Church for the promotion of Christian education. Prevailing conditions will indicate its specific activities in any given locality. The newer portons of the country remain yet to be -occupied or developed by such agencies. In such regions, or in those somewhat more developed, where local support is impossible or inadequate, the financial help of this Board should first be given. The Assembly organized the Board that it might first of all, by means of the Christian college, redeem the possibilities of the future wherever through all the great West there remain such opportunities. This being the primary function of the Board, any undesignated funds coming into its treasury, together with the time and strength of its working force, belong first to the struggling, unendowed college, provided such a college ought, in its particular place and circumstances, to live. It is conceivably quite as much the function of the Board, under given circumstances, to kill a college as to make it live, and the Board should be as brave and honest in doing one thing as the other. Only so can the respect and confidence and money of the giving public be secured. But the Board is the agency of the Church |