Through all this wholesome exercise of his better and cleaner interests, the youth will gradually be led away and kept away from those things which contaminate both the body and the spirit and introduce the individual to a coarse, debauched life. In other words, Christianity will be a thing achieved and that through the young man's efforts rather than a thing instantly caught in some emotional revival meeting only gradually to waste away in the months immediately following. One well-built specimen of Christian manhood--a character of the sort which the ideal work of the County Y.M.C.A. may finally construct--is worth a dozen of those suddenly converted men whose secret lives are so often embittered with the consciousness of backsliding and following ever after the old evil ways. It will be observed at a glance that in the foregoing outline there is an avoidance of the heavier work-a-day tasks and problems. It is the thought of the author that the boys have quite enough of such labor as it is and that the County Y.M.C.A. can do its best service if it provides a set of new activities of a more recreative sort. The central idea--second to the perfection of his spiritual nature--is that of giving the boy a larger amount of social experience through self-training in matters that will bring out his latent unselfishness and his self-reliance. The heavier problems of an economic sort suitable for discussion among the boys and the girls of the country districts will have due consideration in another chapter. In planning the various parts of the county work and the club life of the boys, there must be extreme care not to arrange for too many and too frequent meetings. It is especially to be desired that the boy do not acquire the runabout habit, even though he may in every case go to a desirable place. Therefore, in arranging the programs it will be seen to that the meetings are held somewhat infrequently, but that on each occasion the meeting be continued until some intensive work has been done. For example, it would be much preferable to have all or a major part of one afternoon and evening of the week for the exercises rather than to have brief evening meetings a number of times during the week. WORK IN A SPARSELY SETTLED COUNTRY The following statement will show what was achieved during the first year in the Y.M.C.A. of Washington County, Kansas, which has a rural population of about ten thousand people. _General Statement_:--