In several states the organization successfully conducts mutual fire insurance companies; active membership in the Grange being an essential requisite for membership in the insurance company. Wherever these companies have become well established, it is asserted that they maintain a lower rate of assessment than even the popular "farmers' mutuals." In New York there are twenty-three Grange companies, with policies aggregating $85,000,000, the average cost for the year 1905 being $1.96 per thousand. Single companies claim to have secured even better rates. This insurance not only pays individuals, but it attracts and holds members. In New Hampshire a fairly successful Grange life insurance company exists.

In co-operative selling, the order has so far accomplished very little, except locally and among individuals or Granges. There is a supreme difficulty in the way of successful transfers among patrons themselves, as members desiring to buy wish the very lowest prices; those desiring to sell, the very highest prices. Arbitration under such circumstances is not easy. The fundamental obstacle to members selling together on the general market is that, in most cases, all members do not have the same things to sell. A co-operative creamery, for instance, is organized on the basis of a product—butter; the Grange is organized on the basis of manhood—and each man may have his crop or stock specialty. This difficulty, though grave, is not, perhaps, insuperable, and will tend to disappear as membership enlarges. But it is only fair to state that, so far, the Grange has not been able to devise any successful plan for co-operative selling, applicable on a large scale.

There are two or three features that deserve further mention. One is the position of the family in the Grange. It is stated that the Grange was the first secret organization to place woman on a plane of perfect equality with man. In every association each female member has a vote. Woman has four special offices assigned to her sex, and is eligible to any office in the gift of the order. The majority of subordinate lecturers are women; many subordinate and even Pomona masters are women; Michigan's state lecturer is a woman who is revolutionizing the educational work of the order in that state; while Minnesota had for some years a competent and earnest woman as state master. Every delegate to every State Grange is a dual delegate—man and wife. The state master and his wife are delegates to the National Grange. Women serve on all committees in these gatherings, and a woman's voice is frequently heard in debates. And not only the wife, but, as previously stated, the children above fourteen years of age may attain full membership. A large proportion of every healthy Grange consists of young people, who have their share in the active work. Thus it will be seen that the order conserves the family life. It is doubtful if any other social institution in rural communities, not excepting the church, so completely interests the entire family.

The organization is also a conservator of morals. While sectarian discussions are as foreign to its purposes as is partisan politics, and while it does not even pretend to take the place of the church, it is built on a truly religious foundation. Its ritual is permeated, in word and in sentiment, by the religious spirit. Every meeting opens and closes with prayer. Moral character is constantly eulogized and glorified in Grange esoteric literature. The membership comes almost exclusively from that large class of farmers who are moral, high-minded, God-fearing men and women.

The Grange has been opposed, both by farmers and by others, because secrecy is not a desirable attribute; but the experience of forty years and the uniform testimony of all leaders in the work declare that this was a wise provision. No influential member has, so far as it is known, proposed that the order should be dismantled of its secret features. The ritualistic work is not burdensome. Occasionally the processes of initiation may take time that ought to be allotted to educational work; but, if the initiation is properly conducted, it has of itself a high educational value.

The financial status of the Grange itself is worth noting. The fees for joining are merely nominal, while the dues are only ten cents a month per member. These fees and dues support the subordinate Granges, the State Grange, and the National Grange. There are no high-salaried officials in the order, and few salaried positions of any kind. The National Grange today has nearly $100,000 in its treasury, and several State Granges have substantial reserves. This policy is pursued, not for the love of hoarding, but because it is believed that it tends to the permanency and solidarity of the order.

The Grange is a live institution; it has within itself the capacity for satisfying a great need in rural society; and it is destined to growth and larger and more permanent usefulness. It is based on correct principles: organization, co-operation, education. It is neither a political party nor a business agency. It is progressively conservative—or conservatively progressive. It is neither ultra-radical nor forever in the rut. Its chief work is on cultural lines. It includes the entire family. It is now growing, and there is every reason for thinking that this growth is of a permanent character.

The Grange is ambitious to take its place beside the school and the church, as one of a trinity of forces that shall mold the life of the farmer on the broadest possible basis—material, intellectual, social, and ethical. Is there any good reason why this ambition is not worthy, or why its goal should not be won?



CHAPTER XI

OPPORTUNITIES FOR FARM WOMEN

While rural life is often supposed to be fatally deficient in facilities for growth because of its isolation, the women living on our farms are thought to be the especial victims of this lack of social opportunity. No doubt there is much of truth in the popular opinion. Modern city life unquestionably tends to enliven, to sharpen, to put a razor-edge on capacity. Naturally the women as well as the men of the city are thus stimulated. An instance of the opportunities constantly presented to the city women is the rapid multiplication of women's clubs, which, especially in smaller towns, are absolutely revolutionizing the life of womankind. But have not the women of the country some resources of a similar character? Can they not in some way break the bonds of isolation? Are there not for them some of the blessings that come from a highly organized society? Are there not, in the country also, opportunities for the co-operation of mind and heart for common service? I think all these questions can be answered in the affirmative. It is at least worth while to endeavor to describe several means by which the woman of the farm can keep pace with her urban sister, and under conditions not so discouraging as many may suppose.

Probably no movement has had such a profound significance for the farm women of America as has the Grange movement. We have already discussed the general aspects of Grange work. It must be remembered that the farmer's wife is practically equal with her husband in Grange law and practice. She votes, she may hold office, even the higher executive offices. A delegate to the State Grange is always two—a man and his wife if he has one. The wife serves on committees and votes as she pleases. This equality extends throughout the order. The woman bears her share of work; she reads papers; she directs the social phases of the Grange; she talks on farm topics if she wants to; she debates school affairs; she visits neighboring Granges. All this means education, and education of a very valuable sort, the effects of which permeate so thoroughly those communities where the Grange has long been established that one hardly realizes the work that has been accomplished. For it is not at all an exaggeration to assert that a positive revolution often comes about from the planting of a Grange in a neighborhood where no such organization has ever existed. It finds most of the women diffident, many of them with restricted views, few of them with the instinct for social service developed beyond the needs of friendly neighbors. In the Grange these women find new acquaintances, learn the power of concerted action, meet the responsibility of office, get to their feet for a few words—unheard-of courage! Such speech is usually brief and perhaps not ready, but it is likely to be cogent, because it is born of experience and "stops when through." County and perhaps State Granges add their experiences. And so on through the years these shy, reserved, possibly narrow, lives come to flower. And the Grange has furnished the dynamic. Strong leaders among farm women have been developed by the opportunities the Grange has afforded them. And thousands of other women in all parts of the country have by this same means grown out of their narrowness, "discovered themselves," and become comparatively cultured, well read, able to take a woman's place in this day of woman's power as a public factor. It is safe to say that the Grange has been the greatest single influence in America with respect to the development of the women of the farm.

Another factor in the life of farm women which has arisen in more recent years is the farmers' institute. The audiences in some cases are largely of men, but as a rule the attendance of women averages one-third to one-half. Until very recent years the women joined with the men in all sessions of the institute, and their presence was recognized by appropriate subjects on the programme, frequently presented by women themselves. Several years ago Minnesota and Wisconsin initiated separate meetings for women, held simultaneously with the main meeting, for purposes of instruction in domestic science. Michigan, a little later, developed the "women's section" of the farmers' institute. This is held one afternoon of the usual two-day session of the institute in a hall separate from the general meeting, and only women attend. Two topics are presented for discussion, one by a woman sent by the state, the other by a woman from the town or a neighboring farm. Topics concerning child-training, making housework easier, home life on the farm, and even themes relating to the problems that center about the sex question, are thoroughly discussed. Women take part much more freely than they do in the general sessions of the institute. Across the border, in Ontario, the women have formed separate institutes, as they have also in Indiana.

All this means a new opportunity for the farm woman. The Grange is an organization, and its members gain all the development that comes from engaging in the work required to maintain a semi-literary and social organization. The institute, on the other hand, is an event, and there cluster about it all the inspiration and suggestion that can come from any notable convention for which one will sacrifice not a little in order to attend. Institute work for women is in its beginnings.

So far we have found that existing institutions for women in rural districts bring together merely the women of the farm. In the women's section of the institutes half the audience is usually from the town. This meeting occurs, however, but once a year, and the social effect of the commingling of city and farm women can prove only suggestive of the desirability of further opportunity for similar gatherings. At a Michigan institute some years ago this desire fructified, and the product was a "Town and Country Club." This club secured a majority of its membership, of some ninety, from among women residing on farms. Its meetings are bi-weekly. It is to be hoped that this sort of club may be organized in large numbers. It represents another step in the emancipation of the farm woman, because it brings her into contact with her city sister—and contact that is immediate, vital, inspiring, continuous, and mutually helpful. It may be thought unnecessary to form a new set of clubs for the purpose indicated, but the fact seems to be that the ordinary women's club even in small towns has failed to reach the woman who makes her home upon the farm.

Another feature of this idea of the Town and Country Club is the "rest room" for farmers' wives. In a number of cases where this has been tried, the women of the village or town provide a room as near the shopping center of the town as possible, where the country women can find a place to rest, to lunch, and to leave their children. These rooms are fitted up in a neat but inexpensive manner with the necessary conveniences, and are entirely free to those for whom they were intended. If these rooms are well managed, they offer not only a very practical form of assistance to the women of the farm, but they may be the means of developing a form of co-operation between the women of the village and the farm, and eventually leading to some permanent scheme of mutual work. Possibilities of this sort of thing are easily recognized.

In the realms of higher education the girl who is to stay upon the farm has not been wholly neglected. In Kansas, Iowa, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan, at least, and in connection with the agricultural colleges of those states, courses for women (including domestic science) have been provided. They are well patronized by girls from the farm. Many of these girls do not marry farmers; many of them do. And their college training having thus been secured in an atmosphere more or less agricultural, they must inevitably take rank among their sisters of the farm as leaders in demonstrating what farm life for women may be.

Nor should it be forgotten that the tremendous movement of recent years which has so multiplied standard reading-matter, both periodicals and books, has reached the farm. A census of country post-offices will reveal the fact that the standard magazines go regularly to thousands of farm homes. Agricultural papers, religious papers, and even dailies find multitudes of intelligent readers among farmers.

With the advent of better highways, electric car lines, rural free delivery, and the rural telephone, each of which is looming on the horizon as an important feature of American farm life; with the Grange or similar organization in every school district; with the development of courses for women at all our colleges of agriculture, and the logical complement of such courses in the form of college extension—farmers' institutes, reading-courses, traveling libraries, lecture and correspondence courses—we shall find farm life taking on a new dress, and perhaps farmers' wives may come to enjoy the envy of those women who are unfortunate enough not to have married farmers.



CHAPTER XII

THE COUNTRY CHURCH AND PROGRESS

The only way to an understanding of the relation of the church to rural progress is through an appreciation of the place which the church as a social institution may have among other social institutions affecting rural life. Moreover, to know the value of these institutions one must first know the rural social needs. May we not then, even at the risk of repetition, take a brief survey of these needs and institutions, in order that we may more clearly attain the proper point of view?

At the outset let us be sure that we have sympathy with the countryman as such. It is often argued that the rural question, or any phase of it, as for instance the question of the rural church, is important because the country supplies the best blood to the city—and a roll-call of the famous country-born is read to prove the point. This may be all true. But it is only a partial view, for it places the emphasis upon the leaving of the farm, whereas the emphasis should be placed upon the farm and those who stay there. We may praise the country because it furnishes brain and brawn for the world's work; we may argue for country life because it possesses a good environment in which to rear a family; we may demand a school system that shall give the country child as good a chance as the city child has. In all this we do well. But we do not yet stand face to face with the rural problem.

For the rural problem is the problem of those who farm. It is the problem of the man behind the plow. It is he that is the center of interest. His business, his success, his manhood, his family, his environment, his education, his future—these constitute the problem of the farm. Half our people make their living from the brown soil. In virtue, in intelligence, in real worth, this half compare favorably with the other half who saw wood, and shovel sand, and pull throttles, and prepare briefs, and write sermons. The business of agriculture provides directly for the material welfare of nearly forty millions of our people. It supports gigantic railway systems, fills the hulls of immense ships, furnishes raw material for thousands of industries. This rural hemisphere of American economic and social life is surely worthy the thought of the captain of industry, of the statesman, of the economist, of the educator, of the preacher. We may also, without danger of being put to confusion, assume that the tiller of the soil is in essential character very much like other people. Farmer nature is usually a fair specimen of human nature. Nevertheless the environment of the farmer is a peculiar one. Individually as well as socially he is comparatively isolated. He meets but little social friction. The class to which he belongs is largely a segregated class, physically and socially.

All these things give to the rural social problem a distinctive character and give rise to the great social needs of the farmer. What are these needs? I name three: (1) Completer organization. Farmers do not co-operate easily. They never had to co-operate largely under the old regime, for pioneer farming placed a premium on individualism. The present century however, with its emphasis upon organization and co-operation, calls the farmer to the task with the warning cry that unless he does organize he is in danger of losing his present industrial, political, and social status. (2) Better education. The rural schools may not be so deficient as to deserve all the scorn heaped upon them by educational reformers; but it is little enough to say that they can be vastly improved. They are not keeping up with city schools. The country is especially lacking in good high-school privileges. Of technical training too, in spite of forty years of agricultural colleges, the country is sadly in need. Neither in primary grades, in high schools, in special schools, is there an adequate amount of study of the principles of agriculture—principles which an age of science demands must be mastered if the independent farmer is to be a success. (3) Quicker communication. Isolation has been the bugbear of farm life. It must be overcome partly by physical means. There must be a closer touch between individuals of the class, and between farmers and the dwellers in the town and city.

These social needs are in some degree met by the farmers' organizations, by the rural and agricultural schools, and by the development of new means of communication. There is a host of minor agencies. In other chapters I have tried to show how these various institutions are endeavoring to meet these rural needs. So important are these factors of rural life that we may now raise the question, What should be the relation of the rural church to these needs and to the agencies designed to meet them? In dealing with this phase of the subject, we may best speak of the church most frequently in terms of the pastor, for reasons that may appear as we go on.

There are three things the country pastor may do in order to bring his church into vital contact with these great sociological movements. Of course he may ignore them, but that is church suicide. (1) He may recognize them. This means first of all to understand them, to appreciate their influence. There is a law of the division of labor that applies to institutions as well as to individuals. This law helps us to understand how such institutions as the Grange and farmers' institutes are doing a work that the church cannot do. They are doing a work that needs doing. They are serving human need. No pastor can afford to ignore them, much less in sneer at them as unclean; he may well apply the lesson of Peter's vision, and accept them as ministers of the kingdom. (2) He may encourage and stimulate them. The rural pastor may throw himself into the van of those who strive for better farming, for a quicker social life, for more adequate educational facilities. He can well take up the role of promoter—a promoter of righteousness and peace through so-called secular means. Thus shall he perform the highest function of the prophet—to spiritualize and glorify the common. But the rural pastor can go even farther. (3) He may co-operate with them. He may thus assist in uniting with the church all of those other agencies that make for rural progress, and thus secure a "federation," if not "of the world," at least of all the forces that are helping to solve the farm problem; and he may thus found a "parliament," if not "of man," at least of all who believe that the rural question is worth solving and that no one movement is sufficient to solve it.

We come now to the most practical part of our subject, which is, how the proposed relation between church and other rural social forces may be secured. There are four suggestions along this line.

1. Sociological study by the rural pastor. This is fundamental. In general it means a fairly comprehensive study of sociological principles, some study of sociological problems, and some practice in sociological investigation. As it relates to the rural pastor, it means also a knowledge of rural sociology. It implies a grasp of the principles and significance of modern agricultural science, an understanding of the history, status, and needs of rural and agricultural education, an appreciation of and sympathy for the co-operative movements among farmers. Does one say, this is asking too much of the burdened country pastor with his meager salary and widespread parish? Let me ask if the pastor has any other road to power except to know? Moreover, the task is not so formidable as first appears. The pastor is supposed to be a trained student, and since he needs to know these things only in broad lines, the acquiring of them need not compel the midnight oil. I would, however, urge that every pastor have a course in general sociology, either in college or in seminary, and if he has the slightest intimation that his lines will be cast in country places, that he add a course in rural sociology. Inasmuch as the latter course is at present offered in few academic institutions in the United States, it might well be urged that brief courses in rural sociology be offered at the many summer schools.

But sociological study by the pastor means more than knowledge of the general principles of sociology and of the problems of rural sociology; it means a minute and comprehensive sociological study of his particular parish. This in its simplest form consists of a religious canvass such as is frequently made both in country and city. But even this is not enough. It should at once be supplemented by a very careful and indeed a continuous sociological canvass, in which details about the whole business and life of the farm shall be collected and at last assimilated into the vital structure of the pastor's knowledge of his problem.

2. The second suggestion looks toward the establishment of a social-service church, or an institutional church, or again, as one has phrased it, a "country church industrial." There seems to be a growing feeling that the country church may become not only the distinctively religious center of the neighborhood, but also the social, the intellectual, and the aesthetic center. No doubt there is untold power in such an idea. No doubt the country church has a peculiarly rich and inviting field for community service. It would be gratifying if every country pastor would study the possibilities of this idea and endeavor to make an experiment with it. I have, however, a supplemental suggestion, at this point. It is not possible to make of every rural church an institutional church. The church is notably a conservative institution. The rural church is in this respect "to the manner born." Rural church members are likely to be ultra-conservative, especially as to means and methods. Even if this were not true, we might well lament any attempt to establish a social-service church that endeavored to make the church the sole motive power in rural regeneration, that failed to recognize, to encourage, and to co-operate with the other social forces which we have mentioned. But if every country pastor cannot have a social-service church, is it not possible that every country church shall have a social-service pastor? There are some things the church cannot do; there is nothing it may not through its pastor inspire. There are some uses to which the country church cannot be put; there are no uses to which the country pastor may not be put—as country pastors know by experience. The pastor ought to be an authority on social salvation as well as on personal salvation. He ought to be guide, philosopher, and friend in community affairs as well as in personal affairs. Is he not indeed the logical candidate for general social leadership in the rural community? He is educated, he is trained to think, he is supposed to have broad grasp of the meaning of affairs, he usually possesses many of the qualities of leadership. He is relatively a fixture. He is less transient than the teacher. He is the only man in the community whose tastes are sociological and who is at the same time a paid man—all this aside from the question of the munificence of his stipend. Let us then have the social-service rural church if we can; but let us have the social-service rural pastor at all hazards, as the first term in the formula for solving the sociological problem of the country church.

3. Co-operation among rural churches. The manifest lack of co-operation among churches seems to many laymen to result in a tremendous waster of power. Of course it is a very hard problem. But is it insoluble? It would seem not. One would think that the plan of union suggested by Dr. Strong in The New Era is wholly practicable. But the burden of the suggestion at this point is this: Cannot the churches unite sufficiently for a thorough religious and sociological canvass? If they cannot federate on a theological platform, can they not unite on a statistical platform? If they cannot unite for religious work, can they not join hands long enough to secure a more intelligent basis for their separate work? It seems to me that this sort of union is worth while, and that it is something in which there could be full union, in which "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free."

4. The pastor may aid if not lead in the federation of rural social forces. The idea involved is substantially this: Given a farmers' organization that ministers chiefly to industrial and economic ends, though incidentally to moral and educational ones; a school system that feeds chiefly the accepted educational needs, though acting perhaps as a moving force in industrial and social betterment; a church which is chiefly a religious institution, but which touches the life of the community at many other points—given these things and the obvious next step is co-operation among them all, in order that a well-balanced kind of social progress may result. This form of federation means the attempt to solve the farm problem at all points. It suggests that the army of rural progress shall march with the wings abreast the center. It means that the farmer, the editor, the educator, the preacher—all, shall see the work that needs doing, in all its fulness, and, seeing, shall resolve to push ahead side by side.

To sum up: The rural problem is a neglected but exceedingly important question. Out of the peculiar environment of the farmer grow his peculiar social needs, namely, better organization, fuller and richer education, quicker communication. To meet these supreme needs we find a growing and already powerful coterie of farmers' organizations, somewhat heterogeneous but rapidly developing plans of agricultural education, and a marvelous evolution of the means of transportation for body, voice, and missive. These needs and these agencies are selected as the conspicuous and vital element in the sociological problem that confronts the rural pastor. What shall be his attitude toward them? He may ignore them; but we assume that he will seek to work with them and to use them for the greater glory of God. He must then recognize them, encourage them, and co-operate with them. To do this successfully he must first be a student of sociology; he can then well afford to meditate upon the possibilities of making his church in some measure a social-service church or at least of making of himself a social-service pastor; he can work for church union at least on sociological lines; and finally he can do his best to secure an active federation of all the forces involved in the rural problem.



CHAPTER XIII

A SUMMARY OF RECENT PROGRESS

In some respects the most notable recent advance in rural matters consists in the improved means of communication in rural districts. The country is relatively isolated, and it is this isolation in its extreme forms that is the bane of country living. Undue conservatism, lack of conformity to progressive views, undue prominence of class feeling, and a tendency to be less alert are things that grow out of this isolation; but better means of communication decrease these difficulties, and the last few years have seen a remarkable advance in this respect. For instance, the rural free mail delivery system is only ten years old, and yet today there are more than twenty-five thousand routes of this character in the United States serving possibly twenty million people with daily mail, a great proportion of whom before had very irregular mail service. Results are patent and marked. Time is saved in going for mail; market reports come daily; farmers are more prompt in their business dealings; roads are kept in better shape; there is an increased circulation of papers and magazines. Thus the farmer is in closer touch with affairs and much more alert to business opportunities, to political activities, and to social movements. The circulation of daily papers in country districts has increased at a marvelous rate. The amount of letter-writing has increased. Rural delivery of mail arouses the spirit of "being in the world." Its results have been almost revolutionary.

So, too, the rural telephone. Recent investigation in the states of Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana showed that out of 200,000 subscribers to the independent telephone companies of those states about one-sixth were in farm homes. A few years ago, hardly a telephone could be found in a farmer's family. This business is constantly increasing. The established telephone companies are pushing their work into the country districts, small local exchanges are being formed, and soon the farmers, in the North at least, will be almost as well served by the telephone as are people of the smaller cities.

Interurban electric railways are being built very rapidly and their advantage to the farmer is obvious. It is doubtful if their effect has been quite so far-reaching as some have suggested. At present they very largely parallel existing steam railways, and while they give better freight and passenger service and assist materially in diminishing rural isolation in the areas which they traverse, their influence does not extend very far from the line itself, and they reach relatively small areas of the country. However, their value to the farmer is very large, and, as they increase in number and in efficiency of service, they will become a powerful factor in rural progress.

The good-roads movement is beginning to take on large proportions. It is, however, a complicated question. To make first-class roads is a costly business, and while a few such roads are of great value in a general social way, they do not quite make general country conditions ideal. To accomplish this, every road in the country should be a good road the year through, and this is an ideal very difficult of realization. However, in general, the roads are improving and as rapidly as the wealth of the country will permit the road system of the United States will be developed. Of course, good roads are a prime requisite for rural betterment.

In general, it may be said that during the past decade the improvement of means of communication in rural districts has gone forward at a marvelously rapid pace. Nor is it exaggerating to say that the movements named are re-creating farm life.

During this same period, there has been an almost equally wonderful advance in the means of agricultural education. Just twenty years ago the experiment-station system of this country was established. It took ten years for the stations to organize their work and to gain the confidence of the farmers. At present however, they are looked upon with great favor by the farming class and are doing a magnificent work. Their function is that of research chiefly, although they attempt some control service, such as inspection of fertilizers, stock foods, etc. In research they aim both to study the more intricate scientific questions that relate to agriculture and to carry on experiments that are of more obvious and more immediate practical application to existing conditions in the various states. There is one of these stations in each state and territory, besides a number of stations supported by state funds. The Department of Agriculture at Washington has also developed during the last ten years until it is performing very large service for agriculture. Its annual expenditures aggregate eight or ten million dollars, and it has in its employment hundreds of experts carrying on laboratory and field research, scouring the world for plants and seeds that may be of economic value, and assisting to control plant and animal diseases. It is also distributing a vast amount of practical information, put in readable form and adapted to the average farmer. Its work of seeking to extend the markets of our agricultural products is one of its notable successes.

Agricultural schools have been talked about for a century, and during the early part of the last century several were started. The first permanent agricultural college was opened in 1857, in Michigan. The Morrill Act of 1862 gave rise to a system of such colleges and today there will be found one in every state and territory, besides several for the colored people of the South. Up to 1890, these colleges had been not wholly satisfactory and the farming class was not patronizing very fully their agricultural courses. The fault belonged both to the college and to the farmers. The farmers were skeptical of the value of agricultural education, and the colleges were often out of sympathy with the real needs of the farmers, and in fact found it difficult to break away from the pedagogical ideals of the old educational regime. Since 1890, however, there has been a complete change of sentiment in this respect, particularly in the Middle West. There the "land-grant" colleges, whether separate colleges or whether organized as colleges of state universities, are securing magnificent buildings for agriculture, are offering fully equipped courses, and are enrolling as students some of the best men in college, whom they are educating not only for agricultural teachers and experimenters but also for practical farmers. Of course, there are many grave problems connected with this subject, many farmers who do not yet respond to the call for educated agriculturists, and some colleges that do not yet appreciate their opportunity. But the change for the better has been so marked that all agricultural educators are extremely optimistic.

One of the most difficult and most important phases of agricultural education is that of a secondary grade. The great proportion of educated farmers will probably be trained for their business in secondary schools. This problem is being approached from many standpoints. The University of Minnesota established, some fourteen years ago, a school of agriculture, which now enrols several hundred pupils of both sexes. Wisconsin is trying the experiment of two county schools of agriculture. Occasionally the public high school will be found offering a course in agriculture. Several states are experimenting in one or more of these lines, and during the next few years we shall see a large development of this phase of agricultural education.

One of the most interesting movements in agricultural education has been an attempt to introduce nature-study and even the elements of agriculture into the country schools. Cornell University has taken the lead in advocating "nature-study" purely, for the schools; and the University of Missouri has perhaps been the leader in advocating that the work be made even more definite and practical, and that the country pupils shall be taught, during their early years even, "the elements of agriculture." Both plans are being worked out with a fair degree of success, and many other states are carrying out the work in some form or other. Of course the idea is not a new one, but its present practical application is a timely one, and it will not be long before this branch of agricultural education will become a prominent factor in rural betterment.

A most suggestive phase of agricultural education is college extension work. University extension has had a rather meteoric career in this country, in so far as it has been connected with educational institutions; although the extension idea is spreading rapidly and is being worked out through home study and correspondence courses of all sorts. But I think there is scarcely any field in which the real college extension idea is today being more successfully applied than in agriculture. The work started with farmers' institutes, which were instituted about twenty-five years ago and which have been adopted in practically all the states of the Union. It has broadened within ten years, until now it is carried on not only by farmers' institutes, but through home-correspondence courses, the introduction of millions of pamphlets into farm homes, demonstrations in spraying, butter-making, soil testing, milk testing, and so on.

Ontario presents a good illustration of how a new agriculture can be created, in a dozen years, by co-operating methods of agricultural education. Her provincial department of agriculture, her experiment station, her agricultural college, her various forms of extension work, and her various societies of agriculturists have all worked together with an unusual degree of harmony for the deliberate purpose of inducing Canadian agriculturists to produce the things that will bring the most profit. The results have been most astonishing and most gratifying.

The recent progress in the organization of farmers has been less marked than has been the development of rural communication and agricultural education. Organization is a prime requisite for farmers. They feel this truth themselves. For the last forty years, many attempts—some large, some small, some successful, some great failures—have been made to this end. The problem is an extremely difficult one. Business co-operation among farmers is especially difficult and, while co-operation has developed quite largely—so much so that the Department of Agriculture was able to report, a year ago, a list of five thousand co-operative societies of various kinds among farmers—still it cannot be said that the farmers are co-operating industrially in a relatively large way. They have, however, a multitude of associations and societies. They have also the Grange, which is the most successful of all the general organizations of farmers in the country. Contrary to public belief, the Grange is not defunct, but has been growing at a very rapid pace during the last few years and has a large influence especially in the East and Middle West. It has practically no existence in the far West and in the South. It has a national organization, however, representing some twenty-six states. Its influence in Congress is said to be marked. The local Granges are doing a very large work, socially, educationally, and sometimes financially. The Grange seems to understand itself now. Its ideals have been worked out pretty carefully, and its future growth is quite certain.

We have suggested that the significant rural social movements of the past few years have been the improvement of rural communication, the wonderful development of agricultural education, and the fairly satisfactory development of organization among farmers. It seems also apparent that there is a fourth line of development that might be mentioned as being significant, and it may be expressed in a somewhat general statement that the interest in agricultural questions has increased in a very marked way. There is undoubtedly a new emphasis upon country life generally. The people of the cities have been going to the country more than ever before. A walk, the length of Beacon Street in Boston, at any time from the middle of June to late autumn, convinces one that the majority of the people are somewhere in the country. All over the North, city people are making country homes for at least a portion of the year. There is also a growing interest in the farm and farm problems among the general public. Just now the country schools are attracting special attention from the educators—so much so that the late President Harper stated, not long ago, that the rural-school question is the coming question in education. Even the country church is being made a subject of discussion in religious circles. It is conceded that agriculture presents "problems." And while the throbbing, busy, intense life of the city brings perplexing questions to our civilization, our people are coming to realize that the agricultural population and the agricultural industry are still tremendous factors in our national life and success, and that both social and industrial conditions in the country are such that there also are grave questions to be settled.

In view of the facts which have been given, I think if one were asked to give a direct answer to the question, Is the farmer keeping up? one could reply, Yes. In some sections of the country, the farmers have not responded to these forward movements. The countryman is naturally conservative. Not only that, but there are some serious questions that he has to meet in his business and in his life. He finds it extremely and increasingly difficult to get adequate labor. He has not been able to take sufficient advantage of the power of co-operation. The industrial and social development of the city has lured away his children. And yet one cannot help feeling that these really remarkable advances of the past decade are prophetic of a steady improvement in rural conditions, of a larger development of rural life, of a greater prosperity for agriculture.

With regard to the future, it seems to me that, on the social side, the progress of the next few years is to be along the lines, indicated above, which have characterized the past ten or a dozen years. Still further improved means of communication will tend to banish isolation and its drawbacks. Realization of the benefits of organization and ability to co-operate will vastly strengthen class power. The means of agricultural education will be developed very rapidly, with the ideal in mind of being able to furnish some sort of agricultural training for every individual who lives upon the farm. The country question, as a whole, will attract increasing attention. Gradually it will be seen that the rural problem is one of the greatest interest to all our citizens. The spirit of co-operation will grow until not only the farmers themselves unite for their own class interests but the various social agencies—industrial, religious, educational—ministering to rural betterment will find themselves also co-operating. Thus, it seems to me, the outlook for the future is full of hope. A genuine forward movement for rural betterment has had its beginning, is now gathering volume, and will soon attain very large proportions.



FORWARD STEPS



CHAPTER XIV

THE SOCIAL SIDE OF THE FARM QUESTION

There is a proverb in Grange circles which expresses also the fundamental aim of all agricultural education—"The farmer is of more consequence than the farm and should be first improved." The first term in all agricultural prosperity is the man behind the plow. Improved agriculture is a matter of fertile brain rather than of fertile field. Mind culture must precede soil culture.

But if the improved man is the first term in improved agriculture, if he is the effective cause of rural progress, he is also the last term and the choice product of genuine agricultural advancement. We may paraphrase the sordid, "raise more corn to feed more hogs to buy more land to raise more corn, etc.," into the divine, "train better farmers to make better farming to grow better farmers, etc." We want trained men that we may have an advancing agricultural art, that we may make every agricultural acre render its maximum. The improved acre, however, must yield not only corn but civilization, not only potatoes but culture, not only wheat but effective manhood.

But we may carry the point a step farther. The individual farmer is the starting-point and the end of agriculture, it is true. But the lone farmer is an anomaly, either as a cause or as a product, as the lone man is everywhere. As an effective cause we must have co-operating individuals, and as an end we desire an improved community and a higher-grade class of farmers.

The farm question then is a social question. Valuable as are the contributions of science to the problems of soil and plant and animal, the ultimate contribution comes from the development of improved men. So the real end is not merely to utilize each acre to its utmost, nor to provide cheap food for the people who do not farm, nor yet to render agriculture industrially strong. The gravest and most far-reaching consideration is the social and patriotic one of endeavoring to develop and maintain an agricultural class which represents the very best type of American manhood and womanhood, to make the farm home the ideal home, to bring agriculture to such a state that the business will always attract the keen and the strong who at the same time care more for home and children and state and freedom than for millions. In other words, the maintenance of the typical American farmer—the man who is essentially middle class, who is intelligent, who keeps a good standard of living, educates his children, serves his country, owns his medium-sized farm, and who at death leaves a modest estate—the maintenance of the typical American farmer is the real agricultural problem.

If this analysis is a correct one, it will vitally affect our plans for agricultural training. The student will be taught not only soil physics, but social psychology. He will learn not only the action of bacteria in milk fermentation, but the underlying causes of the social ferment among the farmers of the last thirty years. He will concern himself with the value of farmers' organizations as well as with the co-operating influences of high-bred corn and high-bred steers. The function and organization of the rural school will be as serious a problem to him as the building and management of the co-operative creamery. The country church and its career will interest him fully as much as does the latest successful device for tying milch cows in the stable. He will want to get at the kernel of the political questions that confront agriculture just as fully and thoroughly as he wishes to master the formulae for commercial fertilizers. No man will have acquired an adequate agricultural education who has not been trained in rural social science, and who does not recognize the bearing of this wide field of thought upon the business of farming as well as upon American destiny.

Research, too, will be touched with the social idea. The men who study conditions existing in rural communities which have to do with the real life of the people—the effects of their environment, the tendencies of their habits and customs—will need as thorough preparation for their work, and the result of their efforts will be as useful as that of the men who labor in field and laboratory.

But the most profound consequence of recognizing the social side of the farm question will be the new atmosphere created at the agricultural colleges. These institutions are fast gaining leadership in all the technical questions of agriculture—leadership gladly granted by progressive farmers whenever the institution is managed with intelligence and in the spirit of genuine sympathy with farming. But these colleges must minister to the whole farmer. They must help the farmer solve all his problems, whether these problems are scientific, or economic, or social, or political. And let it be said in all earnestness that in our rapidly shifting industrial order, the farmer's interest in the political, social, and economic problems of his calling is fully as great as it is in those purely scientific and technical. And rightly so. A prime steer is a triumph. But it will not of itself keep the farmer free. The 50-bushels-of-wheat acre is a grand business proposition provided the general industrial conditions favor the grower as well as the consumer. When our agricultural colleges enter into the fullest sympathy with all the rural problems, when the farm home and the rural school and the country church and the farmer's civic rights and duties and all the relations of his business to other industries—when these questions are "in the air" of our agricultural colleges, then and then alone will these colleges fulfil their true mission of being all things to all farmers.



CHAPTER XV

THE NEEDS OF NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE

One might name a score of important activities that should be encouraged in order to better New England agriculture. But the two fundamental needs are (1) adaptation and (2) co-operation.

By adaptation is meant such development of agriculture as shall more fully utilize existing physical and commercial conditions. The West has for seventy-five years pressed hard upon New England farming. But along with this western competition has come a new opportunity for the eastern farmer. New England farmers as a whole have not quickly enough responded to this new opportunity. Many of their troubles may be traced to the failure to adapt themselves to the new conditions. The men in New England who have met the new opportunity are succeeding.

What does this adaptation consist in? It means, first, the adaptation of the New England farmer to his markets. In most parts of the country the type of farming is perhaps more dependent upon physical conditions of soil and climate than upon the immediate market. In New England the reverse is now true, and the type of New England farming must be adapted, absolutely and completely, to the demands of its market. New England farmers have the most superb markets in the country. Of the six million people in New England, approximately 75 per cent. live in the cities and villages. There are, in New England, thirty cities having a population of twenty-five thousand or more. The great majority of these cities are manufacturing cities peopled by the best class of consumers in the world—the American skilled artisan. They constitute a nearby market that demands fresh products which cannot be transported across a continent. New England is also especially favored in its nearness to the European market. The New England farmer then must adapt his crops, his methods, and his style of farming to his peculiar market.

In the second place, this adaptation must be one of soil, just as anywhere else, only the problem here becomes more complicated because of the varied character of the farming lands. How to make the valleys and the hills, the rocky ridges and the sand plains of New England yield their largest possibilities in agriculture is a problem of the greatest scientific and industrial interest, and it is the problem that New England agriculture has to face. In this connection comes also the need of special varieties adapted not only to the market but to the soil and climate.

This principle of adaptation is the industrial key to future agricultural development in New England. But to achieve this adaptation, to make the key work, there is needed the force of social organization. The farmer must be reached before the farm can be improved. The man who treads the furrow is a greater factor than nitrogen or potash. How is this man to be reached, inspired, instructed? Largely by some form of organization. The second and greater need therefore is co-operation.

Co-operation means faith in agriculture—a faith too seldom found in the Israel of New England's yeomanry. Co-operation means ideals—ideals of rural possibilities too seldom dreamed of in the philosophy of the Yankee farmer. Co-operation means power—power that cannot be acquired by the lone man, not even by the resolute individualism so dominant in New England character.

There are three forms of co-operation, all of which are desirable and even essential if the most rapid agricultural progress in New England is to be secured—co-operation among individuals, among organizations, among states.

The farmers of New England must work together. The Grange is stronger in New England than in any other portion of the country of similar area—yet not one farmer in ten belongs to the Grange. We need not dwell on this point, for it is a truth constantly preached through the Grange and through other means. Let me suggest two ideas relative to co-operation which have not received so much attention.

Each organization has its peculiar work. The school is to train the young, the agricultural college to prepare the youth, the farmers' institute to instruct and inspire the middle-aged and mature. The experiment station seeks to discover the means by which nature and man may better work together. The producers' unions endeavor to secure a fair price for their goods. The Grange enlarges the views of its members and brings the power which comes from working together, buying together, meeting together, talking together, acting together. Boards of agriculture control conditions of health and disease among animals and plants. The country fair educates and interests. The church crowns all in its ministrations of spiritual vision, moral uplift, and insistence upon character as the supreme end of life.

But no institution can do the work of the others. They are members one of another. The hand cannot say to the foot, I have no need of thee. All these things make for rural progress. None can be spared. The Grange cannot take the place of the church. The institute cannot supplant the Grange. The college course cannot reach the adult farmer. The experiment station cannot instruct the young. The church cannot secure reforms in taxation.

These agencies may however co-operate. Indeed the most rapid and most secure rural progress, the broadest and soundest agricultural growth, can not take place unless there be this form of co-operation. There will come added interest, increased efficiency, larger views, greater ambitions in our agricultural development, if, in each state, all of these forces work together.

We may therefore welcome most cordially the proposed plan of federating the various agricultural societies of each state into one grand committee organized for the purpose of forwarding all the agricultural interests of that state. Let there be, moreover, a "League for Rural Progress," in each state or, at least, an annual conference on rural progress, in each state, in which the representatives of the farmers' societies, of the schools, of the churches, and indeed all other people who have the slightest interest in rural advancement may meet to discuss plans and methods which shall better agriculture and the farmer.

But this is not enough. There ought to be co-operation among these various social institutions without respect to state lines. The farm problem in New England is one problem, although differing in details, it is true, in different states. Co-operation should not stop with the federating of the organizations of a state. There is no reason, for instance, why the agricultural colleges and experiment stations of New England should not co-operate. It is not practicable to prevent all duplication of work. I do suggest the desirability and the feasibility of genuine co-operation.

Why should not those in charge of the rural schools of all New England meet together and discuss the difficulties and achievements as they exist in different states? Why not have a "New England Society for Agricultural Education," in which all organizations and all individuals who are interested in any phase of this subject may meet for discussing New England problems? Could not boards of agriculture co-operate to some extent, especially in farmers' institute work with general plans and ideas? Certainly conferences between these boards ought to yield most valuable results. Is the idea of a genuine New England fair a mere dream?

Cannot the Granges of New England profitably co-operate more fully? It is true that there is considerable intervisitation, and yet the rank and file of members in one state know comparatively little of the progress and methods of the Grange in an adjoining state; this knowledge is confined to a few leaders. Would it not be worth while to attempt an occasional New England assemblage of Grange members, a representative gathering for discussing Grange work and for enthusing the Grange people of New England with the possibilities of still further Grange development?

The idea of New England as a unit of interest in church matters is already exemplified by the appointment of a New England secretary of the federation of churches. It is not too much to expect that, in the near future, all the means for church federation in New England shall work together, because it is evident that co-operation and unity are demanded by the nature of the field.

And finally, is it idle to think that there might be a New England League for Rural Progress or, at least, a New England Conference on Rural Progress, which shall bring from every corner of New England representatives of the agricultural colleges, of the Granges, of the country church, of the rural school, of the country press, and all other individuals who believe in the possibilities of New England agriculture, and in the efficiency of the fullest and freest co-operation?

There are several powerful reasons why an attempt to better New England agriculture will be greatly aided by co-operation that includes every inch of New England soil from Boston harbor to the Berkshires, and from Mt. Katahdin to Point Judith.

(1) The importance of New England agriculture. In the appended table is attempted a comparison between New England as a unit, the state of Michigan representing an average agricultural state, and the state of Iowa representing the foremost agricultural state. The figures, taken from the Census of 1900, are given in round numbers. Such a table is not conclusive as to agricultural conditions. But it is very suggestive as to the importance of New England agriculture both industrially and socially. It will be seen that, with an area only a little larger than Michigan, New England compares in every respect favorably with that average state and, in some respects, excels it, while it excels both Michigan and Iowa by 65 per cent. in gross value of product per acre of improved land.

(2) Agricultural conditions all over New England are quite similar. Speaking broadly, the soil and climate of one state are the soil and climate of another. The people are of the same stock, the same views, the same habits, the same traditions. The demand of the market is fairly uniform for different sections. The New England city is the New Englander's special possession as a market. Farm labor conditions are much the same. In fact, there is hardly a portion of our country, of the same area, which in all these respects yields itself more completely to the idea of unity.

(3) The hopefulness of the farm problem. Nearly four millions of city people live in New England. They must be fed. The nearness of the market means high-class products. This means intensive agriculture. Intensive agriculture means education and intelligence. The cities are growing. Their power of consumption is steadily and rapidly increasing.

(4) The unusual social equipment. It must be remembered that in an area but little larger than Iowa, which has one agricultural college and one agricultural experiment station and no Granges to speak of, New England has, in comparison, six agricultural colleges, six experiment stations, six boards of agriculture, over a thousand Granges, and numerous agricultural societies. The means of agricultural education in New England are more numerous and may be more efficient than in any other portion of this country of similar area. Moreover, the cities are now in a position to help solve the problem in New England. They have leaders. There are in them men with leisure and talent who are interested in this problem and who are willing to help solve it.

(5) The sentimental side. A campaign for rural progress, with New England as the unit, ought to arouse the pride and enthusiasm of all the sons and daughters of New England who still have the privilege of living within her borders, as well as the interest and sympathy of all her grandsons who, though living under western skies, still cherish in their hearts the deepest affection for their Fatherland. Shall not the idea of uniting all the forces of agricultural betterment that exist in New England be a stimulus to every farmer in the six states, and, indeed, attract the sympathy and practical aid of every lover of New England soil?

Adaptation, co-operation: these are the primary needs of New England agriculture; an adaptation of the farmer and his farm to existing conditions, a co-operation that unites individual farmers into various associated efforts, that federates the work and influence of the different social agencies within the state, and that ultimately secures the unity of all New England in a great movement for rural advancement.

=================================================================== New England Michigan Iowa - Total land area square miles 62,000 57,500 55,500 Number of farms 192,000 203,000 229,000 Acreage in farms 20,500,000 17,500,000 34,600,000 Acres of improved land 8,135,000 11,800,000 29,900,000 Value of farms $640,000,000 $690,000,000 $1,835,000,000 Value of farm products $170,000,000 $147,000,000 $365,000,000 Persons engaged in agriculture 290,000 312,000 372,000 Rural population 1,500,000 1,200,000 1,260,000 Value of products per acre of improved land $20 $12 $12 Number of Granges 1,200 725 Number of Grange members 120,000 45,000 -



CHAPTER XVI

AN UNTILLED FIELD IN AMERICAN EDUCATION

Agricultural education in this country has thus far been an attempt to apply a knowledge of the laws of the so-called "natural" sciences to the practical operations of the farm. Comparatively little attention has been paid to the application of the principles of the "social" sciences to the life of the farmer. All this is partly explained by the fact that the natural sciences were fairly well developed when the needs of the farmer called the scientist to work with and for the man behind the plow, when a vanishing soil fertility summoned the chemist to the service of the grain grower, when the improvement of breeds of stock and races of plants began to appeal to the biologist. Moreover, these practical applications of the physical and biological sciences are, and always will be, a fundamental necessity in the agricultural question.

But in the farm problem we cannot afford to ignore the economic and sociological phases. While it may be true that the practical success of the individual farmer depends largely upon his business sense and his technical education, it is folly to hope that the success of agriculture as an industry and the influence of farmers as a class can be based solely upon the ability of each farmer to raise a big crop and to sell it to advantage. General intelligence, appreciation of the trend of economic and social forces, capacity to co-operate, ability to voice his needs and his rights, are just as vital acquirements for the farmer as knowing how to make two blades of grass grow where but one grew before. It finally comes to this, that the American farmer is obliged to study the questions that confront him as a member of the industrial order and as a factor in the social and political life of the nation, with as much zeal and understanding as he is expected to show in the study of those natural laws governing the soil and the crops and the animals that he owns.

In this connection it is significant to note that farmers themselves are already quite as interested in the social problems of their particular calling and in the general economic and political questions of the day, as they are in science applied to their business of tilling the soil. Not necessarily that they minimize the latter, but they seem instinctively to recognize that social forces may work them ill or work them good according to the direction and power of those forces. This statement is illustrated by the fact that the aims, purposes, labors, and discussions of the great farmers' organizations like the Grange are social in character, having to do with questions that are political, economic, sociological.

When, however, we turn to those public educational agencies that are intended to assist in the solution of the farm problem, we discover that they are giving slight attention to the social side of the question. An examination of the catalogues of the agricultural colleges, whether separate institutions or colleges of state universities, reveals the fact that, beyond elementary work in economics, in civics, and occasionally in sociology, little opportunity is given students to study the farm question from its social standpoint. With a few exceptions, these institutions offer no courses whatever in rural social problems, and even in these exceptional cases the work offered is hardly commensurate with the importance of the subject. Nearly all our other colleges and universities are subject to the same comment. The average student of problems in economics and sociology and education gains on conception whatever of the importance and character of the rural phases of our industrial and social life.

It may be urged in explanation of this state of affairs that the liberal study of the social sciences in our colleges and universities and especially any large attention to the practical problems of economics and sociology, is a comparatively recent thing. This is true and is a good excuse. But it does not offer a reason why the social phases of agriculture should be longer neglected. The purpose of this article is less to criticize than to describe a situation and to urge the timeliness of the large development, in the near future, of rural social science.

At the outset the queries may arise, What is meant by rural social science? and, What is there to be investigated and taught under such a head? The answer to the first query has already been intimated. Rural social science is the application of the principles of the social sciences, especially of economics and sociology, to the problems that confront the American farmer. As a reply to the second query there are appended at the end of this chapter outlines of possible courses in agricultural economics and rural sociology, which were prepared by the writer for the exhibit in "rural economy" at the St. Louis exposition. There are also subjects that have a political bearing, such as local government in the country, and primary reform in rural communities, which perhaps ought not to be omitted. So, too, various phases of home life and of art might be touched upon. The subjects suggested and others like them could be conveniently grouped into from two to a dozen courses, as circumstances might require.

What classes of people may be expected to welcome and profit by instruction of this character? (1) The farmers themselves. Assuming that our agricultural colleges are designed, among other functions, to train men and women to become influential farmers, no argument is necessary to show how studies in rural social science may help qualify these students for genuine leadership of their class of toilers. On the other hand, it may be remarked that no subjects will better lend themselves to college extension work than those named above. Lectures and lecture courses for granges, farmers' clubs, farmers' institutes, etc., on such themes would arouse the greatest interest. Correspondence and home study courses along these lines would be fully as popular as those treating of soils and crops. (2) Agricultural educators. The soil physicist or the agricultural chemist will not be a less valuable specialist in his own line, and he certainly will be a more useful member of the faculty of an agricultural college, if he has an appreciative knowledge of the farmer's social and economic status. This is even more true of men called to administer agricultural education in any of its phases. (3) Rural school administrators and the more progressive rural teachers. The country school can never become truly a social and intellectual center of the community until the rural educators understand the social environment of the farmer. (4)Country clergymen. The vision of a social-service church in the country will remain but a dream unless, added to the possession of a heart for such work, the clergyman knows the farm problem sufficiently to appreciate the broader phases of the industrial and social life of his people. (5) Editors of farm papers, and of the so-called "country" papers. Probably the editors of the better class of agricultural papers are less in need of instruction such as that suggested than is almost anyone else. Yet the same arguments that now lead many young men aspiring to this class of journalism to regard a course in scientific agriculture as a vestibule to their work may well be used in urging a study of rural social science, especially at a time when social and economic problems are pressing upon the farmer. As for the country papers, the work of purveying local gossip and stirring the party kettle too often obscures the tremendous possibilities for a high-class service to the rural community which such papers may render. No men, in the agricultural states at least, have more real influence in their community than the trained, clean, manly, country editors—and there is a multitude of such men. If as a class they possessed also a wider appreciation of the farmer's industrial difficulties and needs, hardly anyone could give better service to the solution of the farm problem than could they. (6) Everybody else! That is to say, the agricultural question is big enough and important enough to be understood by educated people. The farmers are half our people. Farming is our largest single industrial interest. The capital invested in agriculture is four-fifths the capital invested in manufacturing and railway transportation combined. Whether an individual has a special interest in business, in economics, in education, or in religious institutions, he ought to know the place of the farm and the farmer in that question. No one can have a full appreciation of the social and industrial life of the American people who is ignorant of the agricultural status.

The natural place to begin work in rural social science is the agricultural college. Future farmers and teachers of farmers are supposed to be there. The subjects embraced are as important in solving the farm problem as are biology, physics, or chemistry. No skilled farmer or leader of farmers should be without some reasonably correct notions of the principles that determine the position of agriculture in the industrial world. A brief study of the elements of political economy, of sociology, of civics, is not enough; no more than the study of the elements of botany, of chemistry and of zoology is enough. The specific problems of the farmer that are economic need elucidation alongside the study of soils and crops, of plant-and stock-breeding. And these economic topics should be thoroughly treated by men trained in social science, and not incidentally by men whose chief interest is technical agriculture.

The normal schools may well discuss the propriety of adding one or two courses which bear on the social and economic situation of the rural classes. While these schools do not now send out many teachers into rural schools, they may do so under the system of centralized schools; and in any event they furnish rural school administrators, as well as instructors of rural teachers. There seems to be a growing sentiment which demands of the school and of the teacher a closer touch with life as it is actually lived. How can rural teachers learn to appreciate the social function of the rural school, except they be taught?

Nor is there any reason why the theological seminaries, or at least the institutions that prepare the men who become country clergymen, should not cover some of the subjects suggested. If the ambition of some people to see the country church a social and intellectual center is to be realized, the minister must know the rural problem broadly. The same arguments that impel the city pastor to become somewhat familiar with the economic, social, and civic questions of the day hold with equal force when applied to the necessary preparation for the rural ministry.

The universities may be called upon to train teachers and investigators in rural social science for service in agricultural colleges, normal schools, and theological seminaries. Moreover, there is no good reason why any college or university graduate should not know more than he does about the farm problem. There can be little doubt that the interest in the farm question is very rapidly growing, and that the universities will be but meeting a demand if they begin very soon to offer courses in rural social science.

The arguments for rural social science rest, let us observe, not only upon its direct aid to the farmers themselves, but upon its value as a basis for that intelligent social service which preacher, teacher, and editor may render the farming class. It is an essential underlying condition for the successful federation of rural social forces. Indeed it should in some degree be a part of the equipment of every educated person.

It may not be out of place to add, in conclusion, that instruction in rural social problems should be placed in the hands of men who are thoroughly trained in social science as well as accurate, experienced, and sympathetic observers of rural conditions. It would be mischievous indeed if in the desire to be progressive any educational institution should offer courses in rural social science which gave superficial or erroneous ideas about the scientific principles involved, or which encouraged in any degree whatever the notion that the farmer's business and welfare are not vitally and forever bound up with the business and welfare of all other classes.

OUTLINE FOR A BRIEF COURSE IN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

I. Characteristics of the Agricultural Industry. Dependence upon nature. Capital and labor as applied to agriculture. The laws of rent and of decreasing returns in agriculture. Relation of agriculture to other industries and to the welfare of mankind.

II. History of the Agricultural Industry. In ancient times. Status in Europe prior to the eighteenth century. The struggle to maintain its standing after the advent of commerce and manufacture. In the United States. The pioneer stage. Development of commercial agriculture. The new farming.

III. Present Status of the Farming Industry. The world's food supply. Agricultural resources of the United States. Geographical factors. Soils, climate, fertility, natural enemies, etc. Statistics of farms, farm wealth, production, etc. Leading sub-industries, cereals, stock, etc. Distribution of production.

IV. The Agricultural Market. Description of the market—local, domestic, foreign. Mechanism of the market. Banks and local exchange facilities. Middlemen. Boards of trade. Prices of agricultural products. Movements of prices. Agricultural competition. Depressions of agriculture. Influence of "options." Transportation of agricultural products. Primary transportation—wagon roads and trolley lines. Railroad and water transportation. Facilities. Rates. Discriminations. Delivery methods. Incidents of the transportation system—elevators, etc. Imperfect distribution of agricultural products. Development of the market. Increase of consumption of products—manufacture of farm products as a factor. The factor of choicer products. The factor of better distribution of products. The local market as a factor. The foreign market as a factor.

V. Business Co-operation in Agriculture. Historical sketch. Present status. Production. Marketing. Buying. Miscellaneous business co-operation. Difficulties and tendencies.

VI. Agriculture and Legislation. Land laws and land policies of the United States. Agriculture and the tariff. Taxation and agriculture. Food and dairy laws. Government aid to agriculture.

VII. General Problems. Agricultural labor. Machinery and agriculture. Interest rates, indebtedness, etc. Tenant farming. Large vs. small farming. Business methods. Immigration and agriculture.

OUTLINE FOR A BRIEF COURSE IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

1. Definitions. 2. Relation of the sociological to the economic, the technical, and the scientific phases of agriculture.

Part I

THE RURAL SOCIAL STATUS

CHAPTER I

Movements of the Farm Population

1. Statistical survey. 2. The movement to the West. History, causes. 3. The movement to the cities. a) Growth of cities. b) Depletion of rural population in certain localities. 4. Causes of the movement to the cities. a) Industrial, social, and psychological causes. 5. Results of the movements of the farm population. a) Results both good and bad. b) Resume of industrial and social results.

CHAPTER II

Social Condition of the Rural Population

Nativity; color; illiteracy; families; health; temperance; crime; morality; pauperism; defectives; insanity; etc.

CHAPTER III

The Social Psychology of Rural Life

1. Isolation and its results. 2. The farm home and its environment. 3. Traits of family life. 4. Traits of individual life.

CHAPTER IV

The Social Aspect of Current Agricultural Questions

1. Tenant farming. 2. Large vs. small farms. 3. Farm labor. 4. Irregular incomes. 5. Farm machinery. 6. Specialization in farming. 7. Immigration.

Part II

SOCIAL FACTORS IN RURAL PROGRESS

CHAPTER I

Means of Communication in Rural Districts

1. Importance and status of rural communication. 2. The new movements for better rural communication. a) Highways. b) Rural free mail delivery. c) Rural telephone. d) Interurban electric railways.

CHAPTER II

Farmers' Organizations

1. Value of. 2. Difficulties in organizing. 3. Forms that organizations may take. 4. History and work of farmers' organizations in the United States. 5. General deductions from study of farmers' organizations.

CHAPTER III

Rural Education

1. Distinction between rural and agricultural education. 2. The country school. a) Its importance, organization, maintenance, instruction, and supervision. b) The rural school as a social center. c) The township unit, the consolidated school, the centralized school. 3. High-school privileges for rural pupils. 4. The rural library. 5. Other agencies for rural education.

CHAPTER IV

Means of Agricultural Education

1. Historical. 2. Research in agriculture. 3. Agricultural instruction to resident students. a) Higher education in agriculture. b) Secondary education in agriculture. c) Primary education in agriculture. 4. Extension teaching in agriculture. 5. Miscellaneous agencies for agricultural education. a) Farmers' societies. b) The farm press. c) The county paper. d) Industrial departments of steam railways.

CHAPTER V

The Rural Church

1. Present status. 2. Difficulties in country church work. 3. The awakening in the rural church. 4. The institutional rural church. 5. The Y. M. C. A. in the country. 6. The rural Sunday school. 7. The rural social settlement.

CHAPTER VI

The Social Ideal for Agriculture

1. The importance of social agencies. 2. The preservation of the "American farmer" essential. 3. Relation of this ideal to our American civilization. 4. The federation or co-operation of rural social agencies.



CHAPTER XVII

FEDERATION FOR RURAL PROGRESS

It is almost trite to assert the need of the "socialization"—to use a much-worked phrase—of the country. It is possible that this need is not greater than in the cities, but it is different. Among no class of people is individualism so rampant as among farmers. For more than a century the American farmer led the freest possible social life. His independence was his glory. But, when the day of co-operation dawned, he found himself out of tune with the movement, was disinclined to join the ranks of organized effort, and he prefers even yet his personal and local independence to the truer freedom which can be secured only through co-operative endeavor. Moreover, the social aspect of the rural problem is important not merely because the farmer is slow to co-operate. The farm problem is to be met by the activities of social institutions.

We may say (assuming the home life, of course) that the church, the school, and the farmers' organization are the great rural social institutions. They are the forces now most efficient, and the ones that promise to abide. This classification may appear to be a mere truism, when we suggest that under the church should be placed all those movements that have a distinctively religious motive, under the school all those agencies that are primarily educational in design, and under farmers' organizations those associations whose chief function is to settle questions which concern the farmer as a business man and a citizen. But the classification answers fairly well. It includes practically every device that has been suggested for rural betterment.

There are two interesting facts about these rural institutions: (1) None of them is doing a tithe of what it ought to be doing to help solve the farm problem. The church is apparently just about holding its own, though that is doubted by some observers. Rural schools are not, as a rule, keeping pace with the demands being made upon them; comparatively few students in the whole country are studying scientific agriculture. Not one farmer in twenty belongs to a strong farmers' organization. (2) All these institutions are awakening to the situation. Progress during the last decade has been especially gratifying. Co-operative efforts among farmers are more cautious, but more successful. The Grange has nearly doubled its membership since 1890; and it, as well as other farm organizations, has more real power than ever before. The rural-school question is one of the liveliest topics today among farmers as well as educators. Opportunities for agricultural education have had a marvelous development within a decade. Discussion about rural church federation, the rural institutional church, rural social settlements, and even experiments in these lines are becoming noticeably frequent. The Young Men's Christian Association has, its officers think, found the way to reach the country young man.