Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News TUESDAY, MARCH, 30, 1909 Y.M.C.A. WORK.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4392, 30 March 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News

TUESDAY, MARCH, 30, 1909 Y.M.C.A. WORK.

This aime all —to tliine own self he true , I nd it must follow as the night the day Ikon (•Hint not then he false to any man Shakespeare.

The young men of Morrinsville are to be commended for their enterprise and practical determination in setting to work to form a branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association. The desirability of instituting such a society in country towns as well as in our city centres is beyond dispute. And perhaps in a sense it may be claimed for such institutions, when they have the young manhood of a newly expand ing centre to work upon, that they have sometimes finer and more pronounced individuality to treat than would be the case in cities of some decades’ standing. The advantage of the Y. M. C. A. is that it is unsectarian, and in that very fact it is peculiarly adapted for transplantation to the sparser populations of our country towns, for here there would not be the room for social institutions of an exclusively sectarian kiDd to operate without being so weakened as to be subjected to the risk of immediate financial collapse The institution is one which provides for recreation and social intercourse under con ditions which insure a thoroughly elevating tone, and at the same time it undertakes the physical and intellectual development of the members by providing a gymnasium and reading room. No doubt in the Morrinsville Branch there will be courses of lectures and entertainments instituted, and we would beg to be allowed to offer a suggestion to the effect that such courses should include debates on Imperial defence and Imperial preference, also lectures on great epochs of English Hislory and papers on scientific farming. The great expansion of the Y. M. C. A. movement in America shows what a high value is there attached to the institution as a practical means of assistance to young men. There the country branches are instituted and fostered by an organization appointed for that particular, portion of the work. County secretaries, salaried and appointed to that work, are employed to visit the country townships and institute branches, and to visit those already formed and use their influence to promote social life and physical and intellectual culture. Although only recently commenced, this system for the rural expansion of the Y.M.C.A. is making rapid strides ; New York, Virginia, New Jersey, lowa, Kentucky. Minnesota and other States already numbering among them forty-three county organizations. Athletics, classes for study, correspondence-classes, and lectures on such subjects as scientific agriculture are included in the Association syllabus, it being wisely deemed desirable to adapt the country branches’ work to suit the country needs.

We congratulate the young men of Morrinsville upon their initiative, and we wish them every success in the undertaking which they have in hand. We hope that the formation of the Morrinsville branch of the Y-M.O.A. will prove of immense help to the young men of the town and surrounding district, and that the institution will be the means of fostering the best elements of their social, physical and intellectual life.