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Show GOVERNMENT TO USE IKHICH SUR-VEYJMAPS SUR-VEYJMAPS Washington, ,. April ; 1. Convinced , that the surveys of the Interchurch World. Movement in rural America are such accuracy as to constitute a definite scientifio contribution to present day Information on the country coun-try church, the United States government govern-ment of the department of agriculture has contracted to buy a copy of the survey map of each of the 2,968 counties coun-ties to be surveyed by the town and country of the Interchurch ' movement move-ment : . , This county map is a concrete expression ex-pression in graphics of the first thorough-going and wholly comprehensive church and community survey ever attempted in this country. ' Each graph when completed, shows the location of every church, the residences resi-dences of ministers, the circuits on which they travel in reaching their charges, the parish lines of every church and the community boundaries. boun-daries. : : By the graph, areas of denominational de-nominational competition are discovered discov-ered as well as areas which are untouched un-touched by any religious ministration. ' The survey to date has revealed the fact that the average country church la in no sense reaching the community com-munity and is ministering only to a percentage of a certain creed or sect, and also that there are very few buildings build-ings in which provision has been made for the social and recreational needs of the young people. The survey sur-vey has disclosed that more than one-half one-half of the rural pastors are receiving less than a living wage. The plan of presenting church conditions con-ditions on a county map began with the establishment of the Country Life commission by President Roosevelt. It was developed by Gifford Pinchot and the Rev. C. O. Gill, a Congregational Congrega-tional clergyman of New England, who Intensified the Idea of obtaining specific information on the churches in a community. Dr. Warren H. Wilson, Wil-son, known as the dean of specialists on the rural church In America, and the Rev. H. N. Morse, both in the rural life work department of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, Mis-sions, together, with Dr. Edmund S. Brunner, head of the town and country coun-try survey department of the Interchurch Inter-church World 'Movement, brought the graphs to their present perfection in presentation of community matters. This graph is a vivid picture, intelligible intelli-gible on first glance to the lay mind, of how the church Is or is not reach-ing reach-ing a community, The maps ordered by Mr. Galpln are made In the field by an interchurch inter-church surveyor, checked no in the national office and traced by expert draftsmen. To date surveys on 182 counties have been completed and more than 150 finished maps are available. In more than 2,000 of the 2,968 counties the survey Is actually under way. Mr. Galpln, who decided that the government should have the maps, was formerly a professor in the Wisconsin Wis-consin State School of Agriculture and is the author of many books and pamphlets and a pioneer in the study of farm life and farm communities. He was particularly attracted by the maps In that the manner of dividing up.a county into normal communities Instead of townships or other arbitrary arbi-trary and fixed lines shaped into the kind of work he is doing for the government. gov-ernment. Aside from their use by the government, govern-ment, the rural maps will be distributed dis-tributed among pastors all over the United States in the areas concerned as the basis of programs to reconstruct recon-struct the rural church in America. |