As a further factor in elevating and enriching the life of the country boy, the minister may endeavor to create a taste for good reading.  The tendency is that all the serious reading shall be along agricultural rather than cultural lines and that the lighter reading shall be only the newspaper and the trashy story.  The minister should enlarge the boy’s life by acquainting him with the great classics.  A taste for good things should be formed early.  With the older boys, from the years of sixteen or eighteen upward, organization for literary development and debating should be tried.  A good deal in a cultural way is necessary to offset the danger which now besets the successful farmer of becoming a slave to money-making, after the fashion of the great magnates whom he condemns but with rather less of their general perspective of life.

The minister might help organize a mock trial, county council, school board, state legislature, or something of that sort, as a social and educative device for the older boys.  Under certain conditions music could well form the fundamental bond of association, and groups gathered about such interests as these could meet from house to house, thus promoting the social life of the parish in no small degree.  Young women might well share in the organizations that are literary and musical.  The great vogue of the country singing-school a generation ago was no mere accident.

Could not the minister enter into the campaign for the improvement of the conditions of farm life and stimulate the beautifying of the dooryards by giving a prize to the boy who, in the judgment of an impartial committee, had excelled in this good work?  Could he not interest his boys’ organization in beautifying the church grounds and so enlist them in a practical altruistic endeavor?  Might he not find a very vital point of contact with the country boy by conducting institutes for farmers’ boys, perhaps once a month, in which by the generous use of government bulletins and by illustration and actual experiment he might awaken a scientific interest in farming and impart valuable information?  In connection with this the boys could be induced to conduct experiments on plots of ground on their fathers’ farms.  Exhibits could be made at the church and prizes awarded.  It would be a good thing too if the profits, or part of the profits, from such experimental plots could be voluntarily devoted to some philanthropic or religious cause.  This would have the double value of performing an altruistic act and of intelligently canvassing the claim of some recognized philanthropy.  So also the raising of chickens and stock might be tried in a limited way with the scientific method and the philanthropic purpose combined.

[Illustration:  Boy scouts studying the Trees]

In some places botanical collections can be made of great interest; or the gathering and polishing of all the kinds of wood in the vicinity, with an exhibition in due time, may appeal to the boys.  In addition to forestry there is ornithology, geology, and, for the early age of twelve to fifteen, bows and arrows, crossbows, scouting, and various expeditions answering to the adventure instinct.