The Press., 1920-03-18
lNTEkCHURCH SURVEY UNDER WAY
 THROUGHOUT NEW ENGLAND STATES Teams of Friendly Visitors Making Important Religious Canvass - Rural Life Also
 Under Microscope - To See
 Where Church Stands

Boston:-The Friendly Visitors are abroad in New England If you haven't seen them in your city yet, you soon will.
 And they will have their represent atives, too in the towns and the vll- lages right down to the smallest hamlet.
 They are after facts! Facts about the churches, facts about the people, facts about the homes the people live in, facts about the amusements the people go to, facts about the bus1- ness the people work at--a census in short, of the community-but friend ly census. And it's not the govern ment census. It's the big, nation wide survey of the Interchurch World Movement.
 Why does the Interchurch Move ment want the great mass or data that will be collected in this way? So that the religious needs of every community can be pictured with graphic vividness-and above all With aCcuracy-and aC then completely taken care of on community basis. Just whatever the community needs in order to put it's Christian lie on the highest level will be supplied But these things will not be done by One church. or by each church Tn it's own way, but by all the churches CO., i operating as a unit under the Inter- ! church World Movement.
 This community idea has never been tried so widely before. Amer 1 jca has not had the habit of thinking as communities. Each welfare agen- cv has worked it's own parish, but 1 they have never cO-operated as l united force Now this innovation which is quite likely to have mlracu- lous results-is to be injected into big enterprises of American Protestant | ism.
 The Interchurch World Movement, | through these pa!nstaking surveys | aims to study the entire Protestant field It goes to the Protestant | churches of each city and smaller community and offers itself to direct 1 the surveying of that city. It has | three different surveys in which it tries to interest the churches-three 1 Hines" that it seeks to "sell them. | A community can take one or all. 1 Rut unless it voluntarily wants a sur yev made, after finding what the sur l yev means, the Movement keeps it's l hands off. No survey is attempted l aeainst the will of the community | The three surveys are church | survey, household survey and | block survey.
 | It is under the household survey that the Friendly Visitors come into | operation. The Friendly Visitors are simply the big community teams of canvassers, especially trained by the | Interchurch Movement, but supplied | bv the local churches, who cover the | entire city in the work Of collecting | data. They are called Friendly Wis l itOrs so that everyone will understand that their purpose. and the object oi the whole enterprise, is fundamen tally friendly.
 It is an undertaking of good will | munity, as it's aim, by means oi sensible, practical methods-all foI the purpose of making ProtestantiSm more business-like, more progressive The block survey determines the human and physical character o1 | every block in the city. From this survey will come great city wide ! nf fo ri in l ating bits of information about the city for map making Is one of the important sub functions of the Inter
 church World Movement. AS man.
 different maps are made as are re
 uuired by the different phases of con
 ditiona in the city which the blocl
 survey brings out
 The survey of the rural cOmmuni
 ties country towns and villages be
 low , 900 population, is going forwarf
 just as fast, perhaps little faster il
 some sections, as the urban survey
 In the country districts, the Friend
 Visitors are men who travel about +
 each county, representing the Inter
 church World Movement, visit the
 towns and villages and collect thu , information needed.
 The first step in this part of tht
 work had to be a determination O
 what constitutes the church parish
 In some parts Of the nation, tht
 boundary lines of the community if
 self had to be discovered. But II , most parts of New England, 1t wa:
 assumed that the townships, whose
 irregular boundaries indicate intended
 communities. were still the commun
 tty territory. In but a few cases il
 Massachusetts for example, was i found to be otherwise.
 In fixing the parish territory, tn, method followed was to take the mos
 distant parishioner from the churcl
 building geographically, as the out
 ermost boundary of the parish.
 One thing is already certain-th, surveys will become an annual oc
 currence. As Rev. Dr. H. O. Han
 mum, city survey director for Boston
 says: the survey Is here to stay
 Each year it will be repeated, with ,
 checking over of facts from the sur
 vey of the previous year, and in tha