News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1913-09-10
less than living salary, as at present?
A Working Salary.

airy motives. Th3 best ability, however
will not, generally speaking, be attracted
to a profession unduly limited, on the
material side. This limitation, which does
exist in the ministry, drives men out and
does not encourage sons to follow in the
footsteps Of their fathers; it even causes
fathers to advise their sons against such q
choice. Many young men, aiming fol-
city pastorates, go into the country to
practise, even as teachers take a normal
course in the rural schools. Now one OF
the things the country most needs is not
to be practised on SO much. An excellent
sign of the times is the increasing adoption
of this principle. The country is issuing
its declaration of independence from the
city. The country is waking up to self
respect. 1t intends in the future to have
schools and churches that are country
schools and churches; it intends to have
teachers and ministers who participate in
country citizenship, whose interest in
the country is not transient, but perma-
nent. Well, it must pay the price.
Alien ministers and self-sacrifcing min
listers may do great deal toward making
the country church bigger institution;
and the bigger the country church makes
itself the more attraction it will offer to
the men of the best ability, 1t may offer
less in dollars and cents than
other professions, but it must not allow
itself to be always and hopelessly outbid
in pecuniary considerations.
The salaries paid to country ministers
at present do not approach adequacy as
nearly as they did twenty years ago The
rapidly increasing scale of expenditure in
nearly all departments of human life af-
fects the minister who wishes to keep him
self well equipped for his work as it does
1ot affect every man. If it is true that
he country pastor does not receive a
wing salary it is true that he comes even
horter of receiving working salary
More is expected of him in the way of
educational equipment, more is needed;
more is required in the way of keeping
t,that he may be constantly well acquaint-
d with the progress of religious thought
nd with the theory and practice of rural
GEOLOGY and economies.
The Decline of Purchasing Power.
The ministers of the country towns
Tompkins County, New York, receive
lrger salaries than their predecessors of
wenty years ago. if the salaries be meas
red in dollars and cents; but if measured
l purchasing power, smaller salaries.
he Pinchot-Gill investigation of the
hurches of that county included a study
the cost of living in each of the eight
owns-the city of Ithaca was excepted
trough twenty-year period. By orig
lal methods the retail prices Of the chief
of life, rents and other com
ION ordinary expenses were accurately
etermined For the comparison of
lurch eXpenditure-buildings, improve
ent of property, benevolences, church
itension ministers salaries, to- meas
red in the purchasing power of dollars
I'd cents, weighted average for the
eriod 1SS6-S9 inclusive, and another for
lie period 1906-09 were found and APP
'opriately applied
Just a word about Tompkins County.
| the report of a survey made by Cor
ii University the county is described
being representative of rural New
ork in agricultural productiveness. Out
lie of Ithaca, it contains only three COM
unities of over 700 population. The
'pulation in each of the townships de-
ned between 1890 and 1900 and be- I
zen 1900 and 1910 1t is still of almost |
ire American stock. '
There were in the county sixty-two nom
atholic preaching places in 1909, as =
ainst sixty twenty years before. Nine
en- churches and charges gained in men,
rship in that period; seventeen lost. d
five of the eight townships there was an +
crease of total membership in the church:
three, decline. In all of the townships '
ere was a decline in attendance of from c
irteen to fifty-four per cent. or an aver t
e of thirty-three per cent. for the period. I
ne population declined eight to thirty /
70 per cent. or an average of fourteen
r cent. Attendance, with relation to c
,pulation, declined 15 to AZ per cent. or /
average of twenty-five per cent Max
q allowance for the non-Protestant popu- c
ton there was a decline of 2 to 42.1 q
r cent. in attendance, or 1915 for the V
unity. Attendance declined in proper
IN to church membership. In only two |
urches did membership decline in pro- r
rtion to attendance. One church in v
eased 2S3 per cent. in membership and t
clined 90 per cent in attendance. v
The greatest increase in the cost of liv- n
: was % per cent. in Groton and the t
st, II per cent. in Enfield and Ulysses o
lie county average was 10 per cent. The C
.al average Of church expenditures in g
$3.50 was 1896; twenty years later, k
5 ,214, or an increase in dollars expended "