Country Life
PUTTING TRE VILLAGER Wise.
A singular advance in the art and business of revivifying village life is being made good in Oxfordshire, which is the pioneer county in such work. Its Rural Community Council was the first to grow busy and remains both the most ingenious and the most thorough. And its work is the best documented. If any social worker wishes to know how effectual such a body may be, let him buy for sixpence from Barnett House, Oxford, A Rural Community Council in Being. The pamphlet is a model of general policy in education, music, drama, health and, less notably, in athletic amusement ; but my present desire is to emphasize not a generality, but a small particular detail—expressed not in a pamphlet but on half a sheet. Its headline is "If you want to know." The O.R.C.C. (fondly pronounced Ork) started an Information Bureau which is growing more and more popular and useful. Anyone who wants to know anything, say, about rent, education facilities, insurance, pensions, child or maternity-welfare, or desires confidential advice on less public matters can fix a personal Interview or ask for a written reply. Only those who know how pitifully ignorant of their own rights and opportunities a cottager can be, and usually is, will appreciate the service that this bureau is rendering. It is very true of every village that" many people want things they could get if they knew where to look for them or whom to ask about them."
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