The Manchester journal. [volume] (Manchester, Vt.) 1861-current, 1915-09-02

results Promoting activity Is not
necessarily securing results. We have
all seen organizations which make
great deal Of fuss In a community,
hold great many meetings and have
good deal Of interest and yet leave
the community in exactly the same
state that Il was before the fuss was
made A church may go on promot-
ing activity, holding meetings and 60
ing through all the regular forms and
vet al the end Of ten years the COM
muni.y in which that church is located
may be identically the same sort Of a
community that il would have been II
that church had never existed. In
such a case that church is a failure
and no other word will express IL.
Promoting activity is not securing re-
suits. Securing newspaper publicity
is not securing results. A man can
take hold Of an organization, draw his
salary there for five years, publish a
report half as big as dictionary and
yet not accomplish one identical thing.
Long hours of hard work do not
necessarily signify results, although
il is one Of the best means Of obtain
ing results. Many men in executive
positions would multiply their output
several times if they would work only
one half as many hours and spend
one half Of the time thus saved in
thinking,--in purposeful, intelligent
thinking.
Securing results means changing
things. Securing results means that
if an organization remains N COM
munity for two, or five, or ten years,
that at the end Of that time that COM
munity is not as it was. A short
time ago we conducted campaign in
a small own. The test Of whether or
not we accomplished anything in that
town is not the number Of people who
came out to our meetings, is not the
organizations that were formed, but
the test Of the success of that cam
paign is whether or not that is diff
ferent town than it was before we
went there. Are people in that town
taking better hold Of community in
terest than they did before? Are
people in that town giving more mon
ey to support public institutions? Are
there men, that before the campaign,
were edgewise toward each other, who
are now working together? The test
of the results of that campaign is
whether or not that is different kind
of town than it was when we went
there.
But they say you can't secure re-
suits. people are so set in their
ways, you can't do it." Well, we can
do it. The world is full Of men who
believe they can do it, and who do do
it. When Raymond Robbins started
out to clean up a portion Of Chicago
everyone said "You can't do it." But
he did do it. can refer you to little
city in the east in which some public
spirited men started out to revive the
board Of trade. Business men said
"iou can't do it." But they believed
they could do it and in a very few
years they have made that little city
one of the most progressive cities Of
its size in the whole country. You
can produce results.
For real results we must look deep
err than to material things. We must
look to character. To illustrate what
mean: In the campaign which ! have
Just mentioned we assisted the com
munity in raising sufficient money to
put new roof on the community
church. That was perhaps the most
glaring accomplishment of the week,
but that in itself is not worth the eff
fort. The real results were shown
when from various quarters we heard
limitations on the part of different
citizens to the effect that "now we
have a new roof on the church we will
have to raise money enough to paint
it." The results of that campaign are
not that we helped raise money
enough to put a new roof on the
church but that in doing it we de-
yeloped the sort Of character in the
citizens Of that town that led them to
start out to provide other improve
ments for themselves. An agricultur-
al agent may show a farmer the most
improved method Of handling a GER
tain crop and may double the yield per
acre and in this way put several hun
bred dollars into the pocket OF that
farmer but such result alone would
not be worth visiting the mans farm.
However, if in doing this he produces
the sort of character in the farmer
and his neighbors that will cause them
TO 20 back to their farms and promote
the same method every year and seek
L. H II scsxn