The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957 Page: 576

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

fuel, building sites, and transportation facilities. In the area of
population growth, where more exact projections were possible,
the survey indicated that from its 1950 population of 41,300,
providing a labor force of 15,000, the county could expect to
attain by 1975 a population of 79,000 providing a labor force
of 29,300; that the number engaged in agricultural pursuits
would increase only slightly; and that the existing ratio between
those employed in basic industries and those in service and trade
employment probably would remain constant.
Repeatedly the authors called attention to the possibilities of
error in any projection into the future, and they emphasized that
the smaller the area surveyed, the greater became the probability
of error in their calculations. Nevertheless, the survey has made
accessible, both to established interests and to prospective busi-
nesses, detailed information about the economic potential of
the area. It stands, too, as a model of what other areas should
do if they would be prepared to compete on equal terms in
what appears to be an era of spreading industrialization in the
Southwest.
FLOYD F. EWING, JR.
Midwestern University
The First Protestant Church: Its History and Its People, 1845-
1955. Compiled by Oscar Haas. New Braunfels (Zeitung
Press), 1955. Pp. 170. $3.00.
Texas churches in increasing numbers will be celebrating their
hundredth anniversaries. Most congregations will garner strength
and instruction, along with a renewing of the spiritual values,
if their history has been amply recorded and made available to
the membership. Students of religious history need these "biog-
raphies" of churches and their leaders in order to evaluate prop-
erly American religious life. One of the most attractive edifices
in central Texas is the historic First Protestant Church at New
Braunfels. Travelers who have stopped to admire the architectural
beauty of the enlarged building and the windows can read the
story of each of the windows and of the bell tower in Haas's
concise account, The First Protestant Church (pp. 107-114). The
evolution of the building is a reflection of the spiritual and ma-
terial growth of the community. The enlarged role of women in

576