The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1920-03-01

you soon will.
And they will have their represent
atives, too in the towns and the viii
lagos, 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 bust
ness the people work at-a census, in
short, of the communicable 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 of 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 then completely taken
care of on a community basis.
Just whatever the community needs
in order to put its Christian life on
the highest level will be supplied.
But these things will not be done by
one church, or by each church in its
own way, but by all the churches CO.
operating as a unit under the Inter
church World Movement.
This community idea has never
been tried so widely before. Amer
ica has not had the habit of thinking
as communities. Each welfare agen-
cy has worked it's own parish. but
they have never co-operated as a
united force Now this innovation
which is quite likely to have miracu-
lous results-is to be injected into big
enterprises OF American Protestant
ism.
The Interchurch World Movement,
through these painstaking surveys,
aims to study the entire Protestant
field 1t goes to the Protestant
churches of each city and smaller
community and offers itself to direct
tAe survey ing of that city. It has
three different surveys in which it
lines" that ii seeks to sell them
A community can take one or all
But unless it voluntarily wants a sur
vey made, after finding what the sur
vey means, the Movement keeps its
hands off. No survey is attempted
against the will of the community
The three surveys are a church
survey, a household survey and a
block survey.
II is under the household survey
that the Friendly Visitors come into
operation. The Friendly Visitors are
simply the big community teams OF
canyassers, especially trained by the
Interchurch Movement, but supplied
by the local churches, who cover the
entire city in the work of collecting
data. They are called Friendly Wis
itors so that everyone will understand
that their purpose, and the object o.
the whole enterprise, is fundamen
tally friendly
1t is an undertaking of good will
with. friendly assistance to the com
munity, as its aim, by means o
sensible. practical methods all fol
the purpose of making Professionalism
more business-like. more progressive
The block survey determines tn,
human and physical character o
IN ~ T.;
survey will come great city-wid
maps. disclosing all sorts of fascin
ating bits of information about tn,
city, for map making is one of tn,
important sub-functions of the Inter
church World Movement As man
different maps are made as are re
Quired by the different phases of con
ditions in the city which the bloc
survey brings out.
The survey OF the rural communi
ties, country towns and villages be
low 5000 population, is going forwar
just as fast, perhaps little faster il
some sections. as the urban survey
In the country districts, the Friend
. diC lllCA " HO u dfCl dDOub /
each county. representing the Inter
church World Movement. visit tn
towns and villages and collect tn
Information needed
The first step in this part of tn
work had to be a determination @
what constitutes the church parish
In some parts OF the nation. tn
boundary lines of the community it
self had to be discovered But /
most parts of New England, it wa
assumed that the townships, who's
irregular boundaries indicate intende
communities. were still the commun
'ty territory. In but a few cases i
Massachusetts for example, was
found to be otherwise.
In fixing the parish territory. tn
method followed was to take the mo:
distant parishioner from the churc
building geographically, as the out
ermost boundary of the parish.
One thing is already certain-th
surveys will become an annual OF
currence. AS Rev. DR.. II. o. Har
mum, city survey director for Boston
says: "the survey is here IN stav