Mr. Price Goes to School

It was thinking about girls in college that gave the Rev. James Harry Price his idea. Mr. Price is rector of suburban Scarsdale, N. Y.'s Episcopal Church of St. James the Less. Last fall he learned that ten girls from Scarsdale had entered Smith that September. That seemed a good many Smith freshmen from one small town. Mr. Price leafed through his parish list, found that 260 boys & girls were away at school and college, most of them in New England. Why not pay them a visit? Lots of parsons visit lots of schools every year, reasoned Rector Price, but few youngsters get personal calls from their home-town parson. When his young people were home at Christmas, he asked if they would like such a pastoral visit. They all thought it would be fine. So last week blond, energetic, 38-year-old Rector Price set out in his shiny new Dodge to visit his scattered academic flock.

In a crowded round of services, Communions, breakfasts, lunches, teas, dinners and just plain get-togethers, in eight days Rector Price visited 25 schools and colleges (Yale, Wesleyan, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley, Harvard, M. I. T., Radcliffe, Exeter, St. Paul's, Dartmouth, Bennington, Kent, Taft, etc.), talked with a hundred youngsters from Scarsdale, got home this week with the car muddy and himself full of ambition. Some of the encouraging things he found on his trip:

> A universal feeling that the churches should take a larger part in shaping the country's destiny, socially and culturally as well as along religious lines.

> Far more campus religious activity than in the '20s. Young people are attending some church services everywhere, even when they are not compelled to. Many go to church over & above requirements, are also active in social and church work.

> Not a single boy or girl Rector Price met was a conscientious objector. But he found no enthusiasm for the U. S. entering the war, a general feeling among the boys that they were willing to be drafted, but far from eager.

> College and school officials welcomed a pastor who came such a distance to pay parish calls. Headmasters hauled boys out of class, said the visit would do them more good than a lost half-hour of math. Faculty and students alike agreed that Mr. Price's was the best possible way to keep young people in touch with their parishes, to counteract adolescent apathy toward the Church.

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