THE "AMHERST MOVEMENT,"

...Liberty Hyde Bailey who spoke on The Country Life Movement...

...Marie Garland of Bourne told of the "Old Colony Union," a most interesting experiment in reviving industries, Mrs...

...David Snedden, of the State Board of Education, Mr...

...AT THE FIRST Conference of Rural Workers held last year, special emphasis had been laid on the needs of federation...

...The conferences were led in most cases by state officials or by specialists in the particular subject under consideration...

...Country people are naturally individualistic because they can meet their fundamental needs by individual action...

...Charlotte Barrell Ware of Warelands Dairy Farm, reported on the Walpole Federation, an association of Farmers which had led to the formation of a Dairy Improvement Association and other valuable forms of co-operative work...

...The evening speakers, in addition to Mr...

...Warren H. Manning, landscape architect, President Kenyon L. Butterfield and many members of the faculty of the Massachusetts Agricultural College led the section meetings...

...The sections which held meetings were the following:— Country Clergymen, Civic Betterment, Town Administration, Grange Work, Library Work, Home Makers and Household Administration, County Young Men's Christian Association Work, Agricultural Education...

...Methods of cataloguing small libraries, of fighting fires, of destroying harmful insects, of producing clean milk and of raising bees, were demonstrated...

...Harold Parker of the Massachusetts Highway Commission, Miss Zaidee Brown of the Library Commission, Mr...

...The methods, therefore, by which life in its lowest terms is maintained in the country are very different from those by which such life is maintained in the city...

...The "Amherst Movement" toward federation, of which this conference and exhibit were a part, is the result of a large idea ably carried out in all its details, and owes its success to the co-operation of President Kenyon L. Butterfield and Director William D. Hurd...

...there were photographs of prize back yards and of village pageants...

...In defining the word "social," Mr...

...The small conferences were held in shady places in other parts of the campus...

...Myron T. Scudder of Rutgers College, who gave an illustrated lecture on Play as a Socializing Factor in Country Life, Richard B. Wp.trous of the American Civic Association, whose subject was Civic Art Applied to Country Conditions, and Dr...

...Such subjects as Country Roads, Planting and Care of Trees, Town Finance, Taxation and Disbursments, Village Libraries and Home Economics in Rural Schools were discussed...

...This outdoor auditorium was lighted and provided with a screen and lantern for illustrating the lectures...

...Social work then, whether in city or in country is group work, but whereas city people are driven to co-operation by necessity, country people come to it through intellectual appreciation of its value...

...During the remainder of the afternoon meeting and in the evening, subjects of general interest were discussed...

...Bradstreet said that it should be confounded neither with sociable nor socialistic, though social work has something in common with the efforts to bring about sociability and also with those remedies which socialists propose for the evils of our social life...

...Charles F. Gettemy of the State Census Bureau, Dr...

...In the city, on the other hand, it is impossible to get without a certain amount of group action, enough air even for life and health, to say nothing of good water and safe food...

...In the afternoon a general conference was held at which brief reports were given of all the section meetings...

...Most of the organizations and state boards represented on the program were also represented in this exhibit...

...But when those who live in rural districts see beyond their simpler needs, when they begin to see the advantage of good roads, good schools, libraries and co-operative marketing, they recognize that they must begin to work together...

...It was fortunate, therefore, that the first speech given before the conference as a whole, that of Mr...

...Faunce was, after his death, placed by his mother in the hands of a board of trustees and became an Experiment Farm...

...On the last afternoon of this year's conference ten-minute reports were made on progress in this line...

...THOSE WHO came together at Amherst were chiefly country clergymen, directors of Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations, town officials, librarians, teachers, and representatives of village improvement societies and of granges...

...The meetings were all held in the open air, those which brought together all the members of the conference, two or three hundred in number, being held under the trees near the chapel...

...It is now controlled by the State Agricultural College and is used by the town of Sandwich as a laboratory for the high school students in Agriculture...

...These reports, many of which were prepared with much care, were a great assistance in giving the delegates an idea of what had taken place at conferences which they had been unable to attend...

...This farm which had been developed to an unusual degree of perfection by Dr...

...There was handwork from the famous Deerfield Industries, from Old Colony Union, and from schools of mechanic arts...

...there were charts showing progress in church union...

...Without co-operation they can get air and food and fuel enough to keep themselves alive, at least...

...The evening meetings were all opened by outdoor song services...

...Social work, he said, is, properly speaking, that work which can be best done through cooperation and group action...

...Bradstreet, were Dr...

...The "Amherst Movement" CONFERENCE, OF RURAL SOCIAL WORKERS, MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE By CAROLINE L. HUNT MANY OF THOSE who attended the Conference of Rural Social Workers at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in Amherst, during the first week in August, doubtless did so with the hope of getting a definition of the term "social work," which has recently come into prominence, and of learning how rural social work differs from other kinds of work...

...The sections held their conferences in the morning, one person in each being appointed to keep a record of the meeting...

...Howard Bradstreet of New York, took up these points...

...The Faunce Demonstration Farm and Sandwich Town Improvement Association were described by Miss Elizabeth Jenkins...

...ANOVEL FEATURE of the Conference was a Rural Social Service Exhibit, the first of the kind ever held...