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FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 OR 
 
 OUR RURAL RESERVE 
 
 BY 
 
 Ernest Irving Antrim, A. M., Ph. D. 
 
 Member of the Fourth Constitutional Convention of 
 Ohio; co-author of ''The County Library, ^^ 
 
 THE PIONEER PRESS 
 VAN WERT, OHIO 
 

 Copyright by 
 
 The Pioneer Press 
 
 1916 
 
 Published April, 1916 
 
 . ■ U 
 
 W, F. HALL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO 
 
y 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Bishop William F. Anderson, Methodist Episcopal Church 
 
 THE Country Life movement is one of the most remark- 
 able and significant facts of our day. It seems hardly 
 credible that the first national commission was appointed in 
 1908. That any movement in so brief a time should have 
 gripped the thought of the leaders of American life and should 
 have created so extensive and high grade a literature upon the 
 subject, is itself as fine a tribute to the importance of the work 
 as could be imagined. 
 
 The rural population of the United States includes over one- 
 half of the entire population. We include, in the term " rural," 
 villages and towns not exceeding twenty-five hundred in popu- 
 lation. The thirteenth census revealed the following facts : 
 That in only six of the forty-eight states was there a decrease 
 in the rural population; eight states increased over fifty per 
 cent; six between thirty and fifty per cent; twelve between 
 twenty and thirty per cent; ten between ten and twenty per 
 cent, and only sixteen of the entire number of states increased 
 less than ten per cent. The value of farm property for the 
 same period increased over one hundred per cent and aggre- 
 gates at the present time more than forty billions of dollars. 
 
 By common consent, the church is at the very heart of the 
 rural life movement. If a body of men had been appointed to 
 exalt the relation of the church to rural community life, they 
 could not possibly have done it more effectively than it was 
 done by the report of the first national commission on the rural 
 life movement. That report is notable in the remarkable way 
 in which it magnifies the church in its relation to the better- 
 ment of rural community life. The movement has gripped 
 our educational and constructive leaders in a way scarcely 
 paralleled in so brief a period of time. It is the beginning of a 
 new and better day for the rural life of America. And it will 
 be seen at a glance that any effort to redeem American life 
 
 34Sf203 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 must include rural life, which is so much a constituent c 
 national life. 
 
 This volume itself is a testimonial to the fact that the move 
 ment makes a strong appeal to the minds of laymen. Mi 
 Antrim has given careful study to the subject, and deals wit 
 the vital facts of the problem in a living and vital fashion. Thi 
 little volume will be a valuable contribution to the already ric 
 literature upon the subject. It has a real mission. May it hav 
 multitudes of thoughtful and earnest readers. 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, 
 February 26, 1916. 
 
 IV 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THIS little volume modestly seeks to establish the four 
 facts (i) that America, because of her location, her 
 natural resources, her racial heritage, her history and the 
 ideals of her people, gives promise of becoming, in the words 
 of Sir Gilbert Parker, "the vast controlling factor in the 
 destinies of modern nations;" (2) that Rural America, great 
 relatively in the " Age of Homespun," less influential during 
 the rise of the cities to supremacy, but today all athrob with 
 new life, is enjoying a renaissance prophetic of a brilliant 
 future; (3) that Rural Leadership, with a vision of the moun- 
 tain-top variety, with the incentive of the most inviting careers 
 in the field of human endeavor, and with the prospect of won- 
 derful accomplishments in the Big Business of both the Secular 
 and the Spiritual Kingdom, is enthusiastically assuming the 
 responsibility of an inspiring task; and (4) that Rural Co- 
 operation, in developing a more satisfactory economic plan, 
 in building up a better social and recreational life, in strength- 
 ening the agencies that contribute to intellectual growth, and 
 in fusing the scattered forces of the spiritual realm into unified 
 effort, is working out an epochal Program of Preparedness. 
 
 The manuscript was read by Professor G. Walter Fiske, of 
 the Oberlin Theological Seminary, Mr. Albert E. Roberts, of 
 the International Committee of Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciations, and Mr. Percy F. Bicknell, literary critic, to all of 
 whom, as well as to several others, grateful acknowledgment 
 is made, for valuable criticisms and suggestions. 
 
 E. I. A. 
 
 Van Wert, Ohio, 
 March 6, 1916. 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/fiftymillionstroOOantrrich 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Chapter I. America 1 
 
 1. Equipment for a great task 2 
 
 2. Four perils of Urban America 10 
 
 3. Four perils of Rural America 14 
 
 4. Elimination of perils 17 
 
 Chapter II. Rural America 19 
 
 Life of Christ: Play, work, worship, health, 
 
 love, rest 19 
 
 1. Play: Anything that one does out of pure love 25 
 
 2. Work: Anything that one does with serious 
 
 effort 47 
 
 3. Worship: Attuning oneself to the Infinite . . 75 
 
 4. Health: The perfect adjustment of mind and 
 
 body 83 
 
 5. Love: The greatest feeling of the heart . . 94 
 
 6. Rest: Recuperation through repose .... 100 
 
 7. Conclusion: Four fundamental needs . . . 103 
 
 Chapter III. Rural Leadership 108 
 
 1. Discovering, training and utilizing rural lead- 
 
 ership 108 
 
 2. Qualities or characteristics of successful lead- 
 
 ership 110 
 
 3. The results of inspired leadership .... 126 
 
 4. The price of leadership 128 
 
 Chapter IV. Rural Cooperation . . . . . . 130 
 
 1. Cooperation in the individual and in society . 130 
 
 2. Obstacles to cooperation in country and town 131 
 
 3. Units of cooperation 138 
 
 4. Methods of cooperation 140 
 
 5. The chief problem of country and town . . 141 
 
 6. The results of cooperative activities . . . 142 
 
 7. Conclusion: Cooperation a cosmic law, a 
 
 divine injunction 149 
 
 vii 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 AMERICA 
 
 THE Marathon runner must have had a sturdy ancestry, 
 a good environment, a clean life, a long period of special 
 training, be in the pink of condition and have a mountain-top 
 faith, if he would win. Likewise, America must have had a 
 sturdy ancestry, a good environment, a clean life, a long period 
 of special training, be in the pink of condition and have a 
 mountain-top faith, if she would dominate the era inaugurated 
 by the World War. A little investigation will show whether 
 or not America is fitted for the leadership which she aspires 
 to assume in the post bellum world, a shrinking, contracting 
 world, a world wherein, among many other wonderful things, 
 even the telephone talk of The New York Mail will be a 
 reality. 
 
 *' Hello, Calcutta ! Canarsie wants you.'' 
 
 " I'm still ringing 9876 Shantung." 
 
 " Never mind, Montclair ! New Guinea was calling, but the 
 party's left the booth." 
 
 "Here's Chihuahua, Vladivostok! Drop one rouble at a 
 time, please ! " 
 
 " Listen, Kansas City ! Tibet 2626 has been discontinued." 
 
 " Hello, Tokio ; you say you can't understand the party in 
 Buenos Ayres ? I'll have the manager put an interpretress on 
 the line." 
 
 " That b-r-r-r-r-r from the Glasgow exchange is spoiling the 
 waves ! " 
 
 " You want the correct time ? " 
 
 " Quit your kidding, Greenwich ! " 
 
 I 
 
FIFTY M'WL^ON STRONG 
 
 First/ Ante flea's Ancestry. — The remote ancestor of the 
 American people was an Aryan, most of whose descendants 
 came over into Europe. In fact, a great majority of the 
 inhabitants of Europe today are of Aryan lineage. The 
 principal descendants of the great Aryan family were the 
 Greek, the Roman, the Teuton and the Slav. Of these the 
 Greek was the first to come into prominence. There was a 
 great ancient Greek civilization, but, like all the other civiliza- 
 tions of antiquity, it perished. The Greek nation of today is 
 just emerging from Turkish dominancy, and under the in- 
 spiration of the Greek Idea, which means the restoration of 
 the Greece of earlier centuries, the Greek people is sure to rise 
 again. The next to dominate world activities was the Roman, 
 who created the civilization that preceded modern civiliza- 
 tion. Modern civilization is chiefly indebted to the Teuton. 
 The Slavic peoples are beginning to assert themselves in latter- 
 day history and will some time occupy a more conspicuous 
 place in world activities. There is little doubt in the mind of 
 any investigator of world conditions that, in the marvelous 
 development of modern civilization, the Teuton has taken the 
 initiative and is today the most important factor. Now, the 
 leading Teutonic nations are the English, the Germans, the 
 Dutch and the Scandinavians. Everyone recognizes the fact 
 that the world has for a generation, at least, responded most 
 sympathetically to Teutonic influences and will quite likely for 
 an indefinite period follow a Teutonic trend. The American 
 people, largely descended from the four chief Teutonic peoples, 
 is a composite nation. Of course, the basis of the American 
 population is English, but the German, Dutch and Scandina- 
 vian elements make the nation distinctively Teutonic. It 
 must be concluded, then, that being of Aryan stock, descending 
 from the Teutonic branch of the Aryan family, which has 
 achieved more than any other branch of this great family, and 
 representing an admixture of all the virile offshoots of this 
 dominant branch, the American people can boast of a great 
 ancestry. 
 
AMERICA 
 
 Second, America's Environment. — At the start, let it be said 
 that nearly all the achievements of history which occupy an 
 important place in world annals have taken place in the 
 temperate zone, and of all nations the United States possesses 
 the most favorable location in the temperate zone for the 
 development of a great civilization. Gladstone once said that 
 " America has a natural base for the greatest continuous empire 
 ever established by mankind." The strategic position of 
 America is indicated by the following facts : " The United 
 States faces the two great oceans; so does Canada; but with 
 that exception there is no other commanding nation that has 
 a great coast-hne on both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 
 With many miles of coast-line on the East, America looks 
 forward toward the history-making nations of the past. 
 Westward she faces the sea upon which look out the eyes of 
 one-half the human race, where life is all athrob with the new 
 awakening." The eight great nations that have been con- 
 spicuous in world achievements during the past century are 
 Great Britain, Germany, the United States, France, Italy, 
 Austria-Hungary, Russia and Japan. The coast line of the 
 United States is almost equal to that of the other seven 
 nations combined. " The United States is the nearest com- 
 manding power to the undeveloped parts of the world. The 
 great undeveloped regions are the Canadian Northwest, 
 Alaska, Siberia, Australia, . South America, Africa." Besides, 
 the completion of the Panama Canal has added amazingly to 
 the great preponderance already possessed. " The United 
 States has many great harbors. Not one of the nations of 
 Europe has more than two or three great harbors; several of 
 them have none. Russia is too far north. Germany is at a 
 disadvantage because she has no direct access to the Atlantic. 
 Great Britain commands that ocean. The United States has 
 several harbors on the east coast, the Gulf of Mexico on the 
 south, while on the west coast there are two of the most 
 important harbors in the Western Hemisphere opening into 
 the Pacific Ocean — San Francisco Bay, where come and go 
 the navies of the world, and Puget Sound, the Mediterranean 
 
 3 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 of America, with its 1,500 miles of coast-line. The Encyclo- 
 pedia Britannica says that the Mississippi River with its 
 branches affords 35,000 miles of navigable waterway. All 
 Europe has 17,000 miles, or less than one-half the length of 
 the great central waterway of the United States. It is no 
 wonder that Napoleon said, ' The nation which controls the 
 Mississippi Valley will be the most powerful nation on earth.' " 
 The United States enjoys "isolation from other commanding 
 powers. The favorable location of the United States for 
 internal development is equaled by no other nation in the 
 world, because of the fact that it is separated by many thou- 
 sands of miles of sea from the other powers of our time." ^ 
 
 The preceding facts coupled with the two facts that America 
 can supply all her own needs and is by virtue of the Monroe 
 Doctrine guardian of the whole Western Hemisphere, lead to 
 the belief that from the standpoint of environment America 
 is facile princeps among the nations of earth. 
 
 Third, America's Life. — Most of the early inhabitants of 
 America came to this country during the two great upheavals 
 in Europe that have contributed so much to modern civiliza- 
 tion, viz., the Reformation and the English Revolution. Now, 
 these two upheavals having been not local but European 
 events, and their purposes having been, in the case of the 
 Reformation, to secure religious liberty, and in the case of 
 the Revolution, to obtain primarily political liberty, it can be 
 readily seen that the two ideas that dominated the early 
 colonists of the United States were religious and political 
 liberty. With these two ideas in the very warp and woof of 
 their natures and having in their new homes the major tasks 
 of overcoming the Indians, conquering the wilderness, estab- 
 lishing orderly governments and constructing a new society, 
 the pioneer Americans developed into a people strong of body, 
 magnificent in initiative, proud of their religious freedom and 
 loving political liberty. With the beginning of the Revolu- 
 tionary War, America entered upon a new era in her national 
 
 ^ The several quotations of this paragraph are from " The Call of the 
 World," W. E. Doughty, pp. 67, 68, 69. 
 
AMERICA 
 
 life. Her first duty was to free herself from a tyrannous 
 foe and this duty was well performed. Thereafter she under- 
 took the building of a constitution, which, if democracy 
 proves to be the regnant tendency of future civilization, will 
 mark one of the epochs of world progress. From the adoption 
 of the federal constitution down to the present time, two facts 
 stand out in bold relief in the nation's life. One is the preser- 
 vation of the union, which involved decades of controversy 
 and a great civil war, and the second is the splendid achieve- 
 ments of an aggressive people in taking possession of the 
 greatest country, from the standpoint of material resources, 
 under the sun. This record of a people, now one hundred 
 million strong, indicates that America has lived a clean life. 
 
 Fourth, America's Training. — No other nation on earth, 
 during the past generation, not even the English nation, has 
 responded so sympathetically to ideas that have world signifi- 
 cance. In every field of human endeavor. America's interest 
 has gone beyond the local. It is America that has had the 
 big share in causing the world to become a contracting, 
 shrinking world, because never in human history was there 
 such a marvelous demonstration of inventive and scientific 
 achievement as characterized the last century in the United 
 States. America has also had a large share in the wonderful 
 work of making plastic all the peoples of earth, preparing 
 them to be molded into more perfect images of the Creator. 
 Moreover, freed from the fear inspired by covetous neighbors 
 and stimulated by the greatest inheritance of ideas that have 
 ever filled the mind and heart of a people, America has been 
 a nation of peace, contentment and prosperity. America has 
 no great problems to solve such as the Civil War settled. 
 There are plenty of problems to keep the nation busy for 
 generations to come, but the point especially to be noted is 
 that America for a period of half a century has had an 
 abundance of surplus mental energy to give to the larger 
 problems having world-wide significance, such as the gospel- 
 izing of all peoples, discovering the hitherto undiscovered 
 portions of the earth, investigating from many standpoints 
 
 5 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 all the peoples and countries of the earth, pushing commerce 
 to the ends of the world, relieving world suffering through 
 great international organizations and the like. And all this 
 has fitted America for world leadership without the taint of 
 selfishness, the greed of gain and the ambition of dominancy. 
 America has been trained for a great task. God made the 
 Hebrews, twenty centuries before Christ, the medium through 
 which He gave the world Christianity. Is He today making 
 America the lever whereby humanity will be raised to a 
 higher plane in world civilization? 
 
 Fifth, America's Condition. — From the standpoint of finance, 
 America, of all the nations of earth, is now supreme and bids 
 fair to continue so indefinitely. While the other great powers 
 have with reckless hand been wasting their substance, America 
 has been gaining a relatively stronger position because of 
 their waning strength, and at the same time increasing her 
 possessions owing to an unusual demand for the things she 
 has to sell. A short time ago, one of the papers had a cartoon 
 representing Uncle Sam appearing at the door of his house 
 and finding on the steps a little baby in a basket labeled 
 " Financial Supremacy." Behind a tree appeared the half- 
 starved mother labeled " Europe," who was waiting to see if 
 Uncle Sam would take her baby in. Of course. Uncle Sam 
 took it in. The recent organization of a fifty-million-dollar 
 corporation in America to take care of international interests 
 rather indicates that " Financial Supremacy " will be adopted 
 by Uncle Sam and not returned to its mother. Furthermore, 
 the Great War has put to the test her whole people from the 
 standpoint of philanthropy. Never before has a nation re- 
 sponded so magnificently to the call of a suffering world as 
 has this nation during the Great War. Men and women by 
 the thousands have given themselves to all the warring nations 
 for purely humanitarian purposes, and those who have stayed 
 at home have, with a prodigal hand, contributed of their surplus 
 to mitigate as far as possible the suffering of many millions 
 of innocent families made destitute by the war. At the same 
 time, on all hands, efforts have been made to drag America 
 
 6 
 % 
 
AMERICA 
 
 into the maelstrom of the war, but the collective conscience 
 and wisdom of her people have enabled her steadily to pursue 
 the even tenor of the way of neutrality. On several occasions 
 America has suffered indignities at the hands of some of the 
 belligerent nations, but she has kept ever in view the great 
 duty that the next generation will impose upon her, and if 
 she is able to assume the responsibilities of the New Era 
 with clean hands her service to mankind will be all the 
 greater. So, because of her expanding wealth, her aggressive 
 humanitarian activities, her patience, endurance and charity 
 during many trying days, America is in the pink of condition 
 for any world duty that may await her. 
 
 Sixth, America's Faith. — D'Annunzio has written most 
 beautifully of the New Italy, and says, among other things, 
 that the ideal of the New Italy, in its future endeavors, is a 
 " maximum of individual and collective power." ^ What an 
 inspiring motto this is for a nation, and does not the trend 
 of affairs in recent years in America indicate that it also fits 
 perfectly into her ambitions? There has been a resurgence 
 of faith from ocean to ocean and from the lakes to the gulf. 
 She has set herself some herculean tasks and her faith that 
 these tasks will be accomplished is great. In the missionary 
 field the slogan is, " The world for Christ in this generation." 
 It takes faith of a very high order to believe that this aspira- 
 tion will come to fruition. But there is little doubt that by 
 the close of this generation all peoples of earth will have 
 heard the gospel of the Savior of Men. In the temperance 
 field the slogan is, "A dry nation in 1920." Already nineteen 
 states have adopted prohibition and all the other states of the 
 Union are partially dry, whereas less than a generation ago 
 almost the whole temperance map of the. nation was black. 
 With great zeal the people are warring against impurity, 
 making efforts to bring Christ into the business world that 
 labor and capital may become partners, endeavoring to solve 
 the slum problem of the cities and the isolation problem of 
 the country, while scores of other problems are engaging the 
 
 1 See The Literary Digest, October 9, 191 5, p. 774. 
 
 7 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 best thought of the natron, and the faith of all who are active 
 in the work of an uplift character is of the mountain-top 
 variety. With such a faith mountains can be moved. 
 
 Let other countries glory in their past, 
 
 Our country glories in her days to be, 
 
 In her horizons, limitless and vast, 
 
 Her plains that storm the senses like the sea; 
 
 She has no ruins gray that men revere — 
 
 Her time is now, her heritage is here. 
 
 Anyone who has read the preceding paragraphs will con- 
 clude that the writer is an optimist. He is indeed, but 
 not so extreme an optimist as Pat, who was heard to exclaim 
 on plunging past the tenth story of a twenty-story New York 
 building, from the top floor of which he had just fallen — 
 " All right, so far ! " Rather he is an optimist of the Brown- \ 
 ing variety, believing that " God's in his heaven, all's right 
 with the world." There is no question that " all's right with 
 the world." From the time God spoke to Abraham, nearly 
 forty centuries ago, the destinies of the peoples of earth have 
 been in the hands of Almighty God, and he who possesses a 
 discerning mind can see the hand of God in the affairs of 
 men all through these millenniums. Now, the American 
 people is not perfect, nor is it anywhere near perfect. But it 
 may be contended that it is fundamentally sound. While the 
 American nation as a whole reveals a number of imperfections 
 that cause the pessimist to cry out in his despair that it is 
 doomed, nevertheless beneath the imperfections there is a 
 heart that beats true and pumps good red blood through a 
 sound body, there is a conscience that is becoming more and 
 more sensitive to the promptings of divinity, there is a mind 
 possessed of a world vision and there is a will that is destined 
 to rule. America is on the threshold of the world's greatest 
 era, and in that era may the American people, one hundred 
 million strong, be the Moses that will guide the one and one- 
 half billion souls of earth toward the Promised Land ! 
 
 Sir Gilbert Parker recently said : " We shall be wise if we 
 8 
 
AMERICA 
 
 keep ever in mind that the people of the United States must 
 sooner or later be the vast controlling factor in the destinies 
 of modern nations. There is population, there is wealth, and 
 there is character." 
 
 One ship drives East, another drives West, 
 While the selfsame breezes blow; 
 Tis the set of the sails, and not the gales. 
 That bids them where to go. 
 
 Like the winds of the sea are the currents of earth. 
 As we journey along through life; 
 'Tis the set of the soul that decides the goal, 
 And not the storms that are rife. 
 
 Is not the " set of the soul " of America the creation of a 
 great Christian world civilization? 
 
 In the first half of this chapter have been sounded some 
 encouraging notes. In the latter half a few minor chords 
 will be struck. Today America is half city and half country. 
 In round numbers there are fifty million inhabitants in her 
 cities and fifty million inhabitants in the country. One thing 
 is absolutely certain and that is the two populations must be 
 in more or less perfect equipoise or development will be one- 
 sided. No harm would be done if in the course of time 
 America should become almost exclusively an agricultural 
 nation, which the great French writer, Jules Meline, in his 
 book, ''The Return to the Land," prophesies will* eventually be 
 the future of all the nations, owing to the fact that the two 
 things which have made some of the nations of the world 
 industrial are rapidly being exhausted — coal and iron. But 
 if in the course of time America should emphasize too greatly 
 the industrial side of her national development and continue 
 to agglomerate populations in ever-growing metropolitan cen- 
 ters, a crisis might be precipitated that would retard progress. 
 So the great problem is keeping in balance urbs and rus. 
 Now, as a matter of fact, the tendency of the present time is 
 a rapid increase of the population of the cities and a very slow 
 
 9 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG . 
 
 increase of the population of the country, taking the nation 
 as a whole, the urban increase having been three times as 
 great as the rural increase between 1900 and 1910. In many 
 parts of the country there has for two or three decades been 
 a gradual decrease, in the rural population. Some maintain 
 that America has already gone too far and that there will 
 have to be a migration of people to the country or the nation 
 will be confronted with a very serious situation in the near 
 future. Others, again, are of the opinion, that the nation is 
 still safe and that the migration from country to city can 
 continue much longer, without doing the nation as a whole 
 any grave injury. Taking a middle ground, one may possibly 
 assume that the country is in no immediate danger, but 
 greater efforts must be put forth in the future to maintain 
 the equilibrium between the two populations, or dire results 
 will surely follow. 
 
 Another fact of cardinal importance is this : the cities of the 
 nation must come to have a more sympathetic understanding 
 of the pountry, so that a more perfect cooperation may be 
 developed between the two populations. There was a time, 
 and that, too, not very many decades ago, when, owing to the 
 miraculous rise of the cities, partially at the expense of the 
 country, rural life sank to a low level. In the early days 
 of this period the city not only preyed upon the country 
 almost as heartlessly as the baron robbers of the feudal days 
 preyed upon the cities of that day, but so great became the 
 contempt of the rising cities for the degenerating country 
 that Rural America fell into disfavor. But fortunately that 
 period is past, never, it is believed, to return again, and rural 
 life is now on the up-grade. The important matter is that 
 there should be a perfect mutual understanding, and that each 
 population should work out its own destiny, having the sym- 
 pathy, the good wishes and the encouragement of the other, 
 since the two ought to constitute a perfect unity. 
 
 A careful study of Urban America and Rural America re- 
 veals at least four major perils in each one. The four major 
 perils of the city are race admixture, inefficient government, 
 
 10 
 
AMERICA 
 
 handicaps to physical and mental development, and spiritual 
 atrophy. 
 
 (i) Race Admixture. — Prof. E. A. Ross says: "As one 
 traverses the gamut that leads from farms to towns, from 
 towns to cities and from little cities to big, the proportion of 
 American stock steadily diminishes, while the foreign stock 
 increases its representation until in the great cities it consti- 
 tutes three-fourths or even four-fifths of the population." ^ 
 The time was when the vast majority of the immigrants to 
 America's shores were Teutons. But in recent years, especially 
 during the years when the cities have enjoyed their most 
 phenomenal growth, the bulk of the immigrants have come 
 from nations not of Teutonic origin. Naturally, if the 
 Teutonic group of nations belong to the first class, most of the 
 other nations and races must be farther down in the scale of 
 civilization. So inevitably an inferior admixture in American 
 metropolitan life lowers the type of the composite individual 
 that represents Urban America. Therefore, the great question 
 of the Urban half of America is, whether from the crucible 
 of time a citizenship will emerge which will have within it 
 the possibiHties of a higher development than are found 
 among purely homogeneous peoples. America is conducting 
 experiments today that have a most vital bearing on the his- 
 tory of civilization. If in God's good time it is shown that a 
 superior people assimilating less superior peoples drops to 
 lower levels, then, for a time, at least, the American nation will 
 be obliged to play a less important role in world affairs. 
 
 (2) IneiRcient Government. — No less an authority than 
 James Bryce says American municipal governments are fail- 
 ures. Possibly the best governed cities of the world are the 
 cities of the German Empire. It is a matter of record that 
 there are fifteen hundred towns and villages in Germany that 
 derive sufficient revenue from the land they own to exempt 
 the citizens from all local taxes. One-third of these are so 
 fortunate that they are able to declare annual dividends of 
 from $20 to $100 to the citizens. Two fundamental facts 
 
 ^ See The Century, New York, December, 19 13, p. 229. 
 
 II 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 explain the wonderful records of German cities: one is the 
 strong feeling that every resident has with reference to the 
 general welfare; the other is that in all cases the people come 
 into possession of the things that belong to them. The 
 absence of these two fundamental facts in Urban America 
 explains the dismal record of the municipal governments of 
 the nation. When once the point is reached of subordinating 
 the individual to the whole body of citizens and of transferring 
 to the people those values that result from collectivity, then 
 Urban America will have taken a long step forward. The 
 tax rates of American cities have in many instances risen so 
 high in recent years that further increases will jeopardize 
 their very life. And bond issues have been made with such a 
 prodigal hand that the aggregate debt of Urban America has 
 reached staggering proportions. The Detroit Free Press has 
 the following to say on municipal extravagance : 
 
 " Receiverships for cities are a novelty for this generation 
 in our municipal history, but Nashville has come to that low 
 ebb of civic affairs, and there is talk now of having a receiver- 
 ship for Montreal. When the blindly reckless course of 
 financing by municipalities is considered, the wonder is not so 
 much that we have one or two open bankruptcies among our 
 cities, but that we are not having a long series of such 
 disastrous and disgraceful failures. The tendency is pro- 
 gressive, however; a little more time and receivers will be 
 numerous enough. 
 
 " Think for a minute of the financial status of some of our 
 American cities. New York, with a population estimated at 
 5,625,000, has a net debt of $757,705,000, or about $134 per 
 capita. Boston has some 746,000 people and owes $83,969,000, 
 which is about $111 per capita. New Orleans has 400,000 
 people and its debt is $37,753,ooo, or about $94 per capita. 
 Baltimore's 583,000 population owes $52,780,000, or about $90 
 each. Montreal owes about $78,000,000 and estimates its popu- 
 lation at 600,000, so that its per capita debt is about $130, 
 which puts quite enough burden on its shoulders to raise 
 doubts as to its capacity to carry the load. Nashville, already 
 K 12 
 
AMERICA 
 
 in the receivership, is much better off, having 130,000 people 
 to support a pubhc debt of about $7,000,000, or $53 each. 
 
 "But if a community which ovires only $53 per capita finds 
 itself unable to avoid bankruptcy, as Nashville did, how long 
 will it be before our other heavy-laden cities with debts of 
 $100 and more, run their course of extravagance and find 
 themselves brought up sharply by their creditors? There is 
 a definite end to recklessness for communities as well as for 
 individuals. It is quite time that all our American dwellers 
 in cities were heeding the warning plainly written all about 
 them and were settling themselves to practice old-fashioned 
 frugality and thrift." 
 
 (3) Handicaps to Normal Physical and Mental Develop- 
 ment. — Rousseau once said people were never created to be 
 huddled together like ants in an ant-hill. In recent years city 
 populations have been made the subject of the most painstak- 
 ing study by sociologists and many others, and some startling 
 conclusions have been reached. It is found to be absolutely 
 true that the hurry, noise, confusion, strenuosity and the like 
 of the city are gradually impairing the physical vigor of the 
 American people. , Innumerable authorities might be quoted 
 and this one paragraph might be expanded into a book to 
 prove this point. It is also found to be absolutely true that 
 city life in its complexity is detrimental to intellectual develop- 
 ment. The mind, to develop normally, needs two things : 
 quiet and leisure. Both are rarae aves in Urban America. 
 Finally, the atmosphere that stimulates the development of 
 initiative is almost absent in the city life of today. The 
 trend of the times has effected a very great decrease of those 
 who lead and a very great increase of those who are led. 
 To illustrate : there is one city bank in the nation that has 
 nearly a thousand employees. One man directs the affairs 
 of this bank with possibly a half dozen official subordinates. 
 All the rest are cogs in a great machine; and cogs do not 
 develop initiative. The same amount of capital and deposits 
 divided among country banks would be sufficient to establish 
 a thousand institutions. The thousand institutions would 
 
 13 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 have a thousand leaders instead of half a dozen. This example 
 is typical of urban commercial and industrial life. The highest 
 type of manhood and womanhood cannot be developed from 
 a machine-like environment and such is the prevailing environ- 
 ment in the cities. 
 
 (4) Spiritual Atrophy. — In recent years there have been 
 some marvelous revivals of religion. But in every case v^here 
 unusual results have been achieved the revivals have been 
 preceded by the most painstaking preparation imaginable, and 
 have been conducted by an organization and in accordance 
 with a system that have proved to be flawless. The forces of 
 righteousness have been mobilized to the last individual and 
 only forty-two centimeter guns have been employed. Further, 
 the laws of psychology have been called to the aid of those 
 behind the revivals in so dextrous a manner that the almost 
 impregnable citadel that guards the emotional nature of the 
 composite urban resident has been forced to capitulate. It 
 is generally recognized that so great has become the spiritual 
 atrophy in the cities that only efforts of a most unusual char- 
 acter can bring victory. The average city resident seems to 
 live near the surface, to borrow an expression from William 
 James, and the multiplicity of distractions of city life pre- 
 vents his frequent retirement into the sacred chambers of his 
 personality, where the moral nature has its sanctuary. This 
 surface life causes him to become susceptible to the influences 
 of materialism and therefore makes him somewhat unre- 
 sponsive to the inner voices. 
 
 The four major perils of Rural America are low agricultural 
 standards, absence of team-work, dearth of rural patriotism, 
 and growth of urban ownership. 
 
 (i) Low Agricultural Standards. — It is a notorious fact 
 that the greatest mining operation of the past generation has 
 been fertility mining in the United States. The nation has 
 been living off the fertility of the wonderful soil with which 
 God has blessed this continent. The census report tells a 
 sad story of agricultural conditions. Countless acres have 
 been absolutely abandoned because their fertility has been 
 
AMERICA 
 
 reduced to such an extent that the land can be restored to 
 agricultural health only after a long and costly period of 
 convalescence. Furthermore, the loss of fertility is general 
 in the nation. And what is saddest of all, the nation has been 
 speeding along under the hypnotic influence of a great de- 
 lusion. The wonderful reports of yields have lulled almost 
 all the people into the belief that American agriculture is 
 enjoying fundamental progress. The great mania of the 
 American people has been to sacrifice everything on the altar 
 of present gain. The magnificent forests of a few years ago 
 are almost all gone, mines are being exhausted, and worst of 
 aJl, the fertility of the soil is decreasing, and all this is taking 
 place coincidentally with a rapidly increasing population. The 
 Banker-Farmer says, America must " create a soil as well as 
 a bank reserve." 
 
 (2) Absence of Team-work. — Someone has said the present 
 age is the age of the apotheosis of the middle man, and this 
 is certainly true. Somewhere between the producer of the 
 nation and the ultimate consumer, there is lost a sum of 
 money so immense that it staggers the most fertile imagina- 
 tion. It is known with absolute certainty that the producer 
 receives only a pittance of what the consumer is obliged to 
 pay, and the consumer pays an infinitely greater sum than the 
 producer is able to get. Where does this tremendous sum 
 go? Ask the middle man. The farmer is an individualist; 
 his very occupation contributes to an individualistic develop- 
 ment; he has scarcely got beyond the first stage in the cultiva- 
 tion of the cooperative spirit. And yet the only possibility on 
 earth of bringing the producer and the consumer closer to- 
 gether is by means of a more perfect cooperation in the field 
 of the producer. In the fall of 1915 a certain Ohio farmer 
 received thirty cents a bushel for his apple crop delivered at 
 the station four miles distant. At the same time there was 
 possibly not a large city in the country where good apples 
 could be bought for less than seventy-five cents a bushel. 
 This typical case represents the problem that Rural America 
 must solve if she is to enjoy further economic progress. 
 
 15 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 According to The Banker-Farmer, " The city man gets only 
 about thirty-five cents in value for every dollar he spends for 
 food, and it takes the rest of that dollar to get the food to 
 him." 
 
 (3) Dearth of Rural Patriotism. — " Truly the creation of 
 a rural civiHzation is the greatest need of our time." ^ But 
 before a rural civilization can be created there must be more 
 rural patriotism. Let a rural patriotism be developed and 
 then many of the wonderful things which the country needs 
 so much that it may enjoy greater progress and realize the 
 infinite possibilities that it covets, will come. The greatest 
 hindrance to the development of a rural patriotism is that 
 very prevalent and quite contagious disease, urbanitis. It is 
 an insidious disease and has become so widespread that one 
 is often tempted to despair of its elimination. It especially 
 aflfects country boys and girls, who, awed by the brilliant, the 
 ephemeral, the attractive, the dazzling of city life, are weaned 
 away from the country in large numbers every year and cast 
 their lot in the cities. Pride in one's residence in Rural 
 America must become general and all inclination to emphasize 
 the city to the detriment of the country must disappear before 
 a new day can dawn in Rural America. When the average 
 resident of Rural America says, " I am a citizen of Rural 
 America," with the earnestness and fervor which the average 
 Englishman or German shows when he announces his citi- 
 zenship to the world, then will there have developed a rural 
 patriotism which will revolutionize Rural America. 
 
 (4) Growth of Urban Ownership. — It is remembered that 
 the Roman Empire was a coalition of cities. There was no 
 rural life. The land was owned by those living in the cities 
 and tilled by the slaves. This was a chief cause of Rome's 
 fall. The first leader of Europe who recognized the fact that 
 the strength of a nation depended on its rural health was 
 Charlemagne, the greatest ruler of the Middle Ages. Fred- 
 erick the Great, who reconstructed Prussia on the solid basis 
 
 1 See G. W. Russell article, Rural Manhood, New York, April, 1914. 
 p. 143. 
 
 16 
 
AMERICA 
 
 of a flourishing and contented rural population, was another 
 such leader. During the ten years between 1900 and 1910 the 
 home owners of Rural America decreased and landlords in- 
 creased one per cent. Edward Everett Hale once said, " Who 
 ever heard of a man fighting for his boarding-house?" It is 
 the home that causes a man to shoulder his gun. And the 
 home in the country is as sacred as the home in the city. 
 Now, any reader of this book who has owned land at a 
 greater or less distance from his residence and is dependent 
 on renters, knows from bitter experience what a tenant nation 
 would mean. And if he has had experience with renters who 
 have later become home owners in the country, he has noted 
 the wonderful difference and is in a position to deplore the 
 trend of America toward tenantry. It is a step toward an 
 American peasantry, a step toward a decrease of population, 
 a step toward rising prices, a step toward the supremacy of 
 Urban Life and the submergence of Rural Life, a step toward 
 ultimate ruin. 
 
 Fortunately, anyone may have a part in the work of elimi- 
 nating the perils (possibly " race admixture " is not a peril 
 per se) that are today jeopardizing both Urban and Rural 
 America. But he must dedicate himself to the task with no 
 thought of pecuniary reward. From the beginning down to 
 the present time there is possibly no record of a single achieve- 
 ment in elevating the human race that has been prompted by 
 the mercenary spirit and brought to fruition under the stimu- 
 lus of financial gain. And not only may everyone have a 
 part in the great work which is so diversified in character 
 that there is room for all kinds of talent, but one need not 
 seek far to find plenty to do. How aptly Charles Wagner 
 expresses this thought : " A common weakness keeps many 
 people from finding what is near them interesting; they see 
 that only on its paltry side. The distant, on the contrary, 
 draws and fascinates them. In this way a fabulous amount 
 of good-will is wasted. People burn with ardor for humanity, 
 for the public good, for righting distant wrongs, they walk 
 through life, their eyes fixed on marvelous sights along the 
 
 17 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 horizon, treading meanwhile on the feet of the passersby, or 
 jostling them without being aware of their existence." ^ 
 
 A certain Sunday-school teacher in a Kansas village 
 through a long period of years has sent out into the world 
 scores of boys who have been shining lights in the establishing 
 of the Kingdom. Her influence through the godly young- 
 men will never die and will lead to achievements that God 
 alone can estimate. Not long ago, a very capable and success- 
 ful teacher in a rural school, receiving $50 a month and 
 having a little farm home near his school, was offered $150 a 
 month to take a position in a city school. He refused to 
 leave the country. The Rhodes scholar of South Carolina 
 who spurned the city appointments and dedicated his life to 
 the rural church of the South will be a shining example in 
 generations to come of the principle of losing one's life to 
 save it. Instances might be multiplied. The faithful Sunday- 
 school teacher, the rural pedagogue and the Rhodes scholar, 
 untouched by mammonism and taking the work nearest at 
 hand, are having a share in the great work of producing a 
 higher civilization. The task is not an easy one. The path- 
 way that leads to a higher civilization is rugged and steep, 
 and the words of Ibsen's Brand apply to all who, with their 
 eye on the summit, struggle toward the goal: 
 
 What will you gain? A will that's whole, 
 
 A soaring faith, a single soul; 
 
 The willingness to lose, that gave 
 
 Itself rejoicing to the grave; 
 
 A crown of thorns on .every brow. 
 
 1 Charles Wagner, " The Simple Life," p. 61. 
 
 18 
 
CHAPTER II 
 RURAL AMERICA 
 
 THE life of the man who would do a great work must 
 be whole and integral. The only complete life that 
 this world has produced was that of Jesus Christ, which 
 reveals six major elements: play, work, worship, health, love, 
 and rest.^ 
 
 Play: Anything that one does out of pure love. 
 Work: Anything that one does with serious effort. 
 Worship: Attuning oneself to the Infinite. 
 Health: The perfect adjustment of mind and body. 
 Love: The greatest feeling of the heart. 
 Rest: Recuperation through repose. 
 
 Play. — A study of the gospels leads one to infer that Christ 
 better than any other person realized that the play instinct, 
 next to that of self-preservation, is the strongest instinct in 
 human nature. " From early childhood to old age the spirit 
 of play runs flashing like a mountain brook through the life 
 of a man. Tossing free on the hillsides of youth or gently 
 rippling the surface in the lower valleys, it outlasts the jour- 
 ney, brightening all the way. Seldom mentioned in the records 
 of His life, but clearly leaping in the consciousness of Jesus, 
 it stands revealed in His perfect love of children, in whose 
 spontaneity and freshness of feeling He rejoiced." 2 Like 
 the great creative intellects, who have been rightly and 
 healthily sensitive to every kind of pleasure,^ Jesus was not an 
 ascetic. He was a thorough believer in the sunshine of life 
 
 ^ This classification was suggested by the six paintings of C. S. Pearce: 
 Family, Religion, Labor, Study, Recreation, Rest. (See also ** What Men 
 Live By " by Dr. R. C. Cabot.) 
 
 2 Richard H. Edwards, " Christianity and Amusements," p. 22. 
 
 * Philip G. Hamerton, " The Intellectual Life," p. 64. 
 
 19 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 and His disciples were a joyous company. What a message 
 of glad tidings He gave to the world! How radiant with 
 good cheer are some of His sayings ! Play may be considered 
 the brilliant strand of the great fabric of Christianity, of 
 which the life of the lowly Nazarene is the warp and woof. 
 
 Work. — Christ believed thoroughly in work. He started 
 life as a carpenter and thus dignified labor with the hands. 
 There is no record of the years during which His energies 
 were devoted to the trade of His choice, but His wonderful 
 ministry indicates that He did His whole duty during those 
 silent years of preparation for His life work. No other 
 assumption is tenable when one studies His later achieve- 
 ments. One of the greatest preachers of the present time 
 spent a number of years in quiet preparation for life's duties, 
 and, as a result, he is today a power in the whole Christian 
 world. While other young men, their college work finished, 
 at once plunged into the strenuous life, thus bringing to an 
 end the growth which needs quiet and leisure, this young man 
 • spent a few years in further preparation. Fenelon, writing on 
 Eloquence, advises against allowing oneself early in life to 
 become involved in engagements and recommends one's re- 
 maining in retirement until the powers are matured. Joseph 
 Cook, it is remembered, spent many years in developing the 
 great powers of his mind. But his debut was brilliant and 
 he exerted great influence in the intellectual world till his 
 death. The silent years have prepared the greatest men of 
 all time for their world tasks. One may be sure the silent 
 years of Christ's life were years of conscientious preparation. 
 And the three years that followed His silent years are the 
 most brilliant in point of human achievement in the annals of 
 history. 
 
 Worship. — The purpose of Christ's coming among men was 
 to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. And this Christ 
 did during His brief ministry. But the one thing that stands 
 out in bold relief, so clear-cut that its luster grows brighter 
 with the passage of the centuries, is Christ's attitude on 
 worship. How imperfectly is the word worship understood 
 
 20 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 in its true significance ! One often hears of a parent worship- 
 ing a child or a husband worshiping a wife, or vice versa; 
 but how little depth has the finite feeling compared with that 
 of Jesus Christ. Christ has given to all humanity a beautiful 
 example of worship and His followers are exalted only to 
 the extent to which they approximate unto the perfection of 
 His worship. Here and there through the centuries there 
 have been called out from the crowd men upon whom God 
 has conferred special blessings. But in every case those thus 
 honored have enjoyed the most intimate fellowship with the 
 Father. The only way one can come to a more adequate un- 
 derstanding of real worship is through a more perfect com- 
 prehension of the relationship that existed between the Son 
 and the Father. 
 
 Health. — If ever there lived a man who believed in good 
 health, that man was Jesus Christ. From a study of the New 
 Testament, one notes that Christ lived in a time when the 
 human race was fearfully afflicted. There was no such thing 
 as medical science in those days, so it was quite natural that, 
 with practically no means of relieving bodily pain, the ills of 
 mortals should fill the age with suffering. How much of 
 Christ's ministry was spent in healing the sick and ministering 
 to the distressed! But in the midst of all His manifold 
 service there is no record of His having been ill a single day 
 in His whole life. Christ knew as no other man has ever 
 known the value of a sound body. So all His life must have 
 been devoted to the task of keeping Himself fit physically, as 
 well as otherwise, for the great tasks that the Father had 
 given Him to do. This must have been true or He would not 
 have used the words recorded in John 17:4, "I have finished 
 the work which Thou gavest me to do." Charles Wagner 
 says, " Only simple and natural living can keep a body in full 
 vigor." 1 Also, " What material things does a man need to 
 live under the best conditions? A healthful diet, simple 
 clothing, a sanitary dwelling place, air and exercise." 2 Charles 
 
 1 Charles Wagner, " The Simple Life," p. 68. 
 
 2 Charles Wagner, " The Simple Life," p. 68. 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 Wagner must have been thinking of the life of Christ when 
 he thus expressed himself. 
 
 Love. — The religion of Jesus Christ is founded on love. 
 The highest instinct of humanity, in fact of the whole animal 
 world, is that of self-preservation, and yet so great was 
 Christ's love for humanity that He gave His life for its 
 redemption. The greatest sacrifice that was possible for Him 
 He willingly made. All Christians agree with Drummond 
 that love is the greatest thing in the world. Next to Chris- 
 tianity, the most aggressive religion on earth is Mohammedan- 
 ism, a religion of force. Yet notwithstanding the fact that 
 for many centuries these two religions have been striving for 
 world-mastery, the ideal of the one being love and that of 
 the other force, Christianity has made the more rapid prog- 
 ress. Ever since the Middle Ages, Christianity has been driv- 
 ing Islam from Europe and the likelihood is that some day 
 every vestige of it will have disappeared from the continent. 
 And just as Right always triumphs over Wrong in the end, 
 even though Right may be on the scaffold and Wrong on the 
 throne, so the Religion of Love is bound to triumph over the 
 Religion of Force. " God standeth within the shadow keeping 
 watch above His own." 
 
 Rest. — Christ engaged in a very active life during His 
 three years' ministry and He often found it necessary to 
 withdraw from the stirring scenes of His work, and even 
 from the companionship of His disciples, and seek repose. 
 He found it necessary to renew His strength at intervals 
 that He might always be at His best in doing the work that 
 His father had given Him to do. The Germans have a word 
 that has no equivalent in the English language. It is Menschen- 
 muede, and it means, " tired of people." One is thrown 
 almost constantly into contact with people in his daily work 
 and often longs to get away into some quiet retreat where he 
 can be absolutely alone with his thoughts. This was many 
 times the feeling of Jesus. And He needed this self-com- 
 munion that He might be better fitted for life's duties. He 
 also needed physical rest each day. Although Jesus knew 
 
 22 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 that His sojourn on earth would be short, yet His whole life 
 was a continuous training for longevity. So both at intervals 
 and daily, He sought repose, and as a result He was always in 
 perfect condition physically. 
 
 The highest ideal of the American people is to make the 
 National Life whole and integral. What is being done in 
 Rural America toward the accomplishment of this great end, 
 will be considered in the remainder of this chapter under the 
 six heads — Play, Work, Worship, Health, Love and Rest. 
 
 Before undertaking this delightful task, however, it might 
 be well to decide just what Rural America is. Of course all 
 persons living in the country are rural residents, as are all 
 persons living in the hundreds of small villages and towns 
 of the nation. But to divide larger centers of population into 
 two arbitrary classes and say that all places with a population 
 of so many thousand shall be called cities and all other places 
 shall constitute a part of Rural America, would be unscien- 
 tific, for the reason that centers of population differ greatly 
 in different parts of the country. This general statement may 
 be made : Rural America consists of the farming communi- 
 ties of the nation and all centers of population, regardless of 
 size, that are more dependent on the surrounding country 
 for their livelihood than on manufacture and industry. 
 
 Now, in Urban America there is only one unit — the city. In 
 Rural America, on the other hand, owing to the factor of 
 distance, there are several units, the four most important of 
 which are the county, the township, the school district, and 
 the village. Besides these, there are numerous arbitrary 
 units, the classification depending on the unifying element. 
 Of all the units found in Rural America, the county has come 
 into greatest prominence within recent years, and the reason 
 for this is, it is best adapted to the realization of progressive 
 ideals. The nation has in round numbers 3,000 counties, of 
 which 2,500 are rural, and among the 2,500 there are 200 that 
 have no incorporated villages. The 3,000 counties have been 
 divided into three classes : those which have very large cities, 
 
 23 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 and in which there is a tendency to make county and city 
 boundaries coterminous ; those which have one or more cities 
 that dominate the activities of their respective counties, and 
 in which the tendency is to correlate city and county functions 
 in such a way that both cities and counties may enjoy the most 
 efficient government; and those in which the county govern- 
 ment dominates the county. Now, standardization is possible 
 among cities, since all cities are very much alike and have 
 for the most part the same problems. So with all the munici- 
 palities of the nation concentrating their best efforts on the 
 solution of their common problems, each municipanty can 
 take advantage of the investigations and profit by them. 
 Counties cannot do this to the same extent, since the 2,500 
 rural counties of the nation differ in so many respects. 
 
 The tendency among rural counties is twofold: to transfer 
 to state governments some of the old county functions and to 
 reduce to simplicity, for the sake of economy and efficiency, 
 those that are retained. Moreover, many counties are giving 
 special attention to agencies that have to do with the develop- 
 ment of a higher average citizenship. To illustrate: counties 
 are beginning to tax themselves under state laws to establish 
 county libraries, county hospitals, county health agencies, 
 county agricultural agencies, county experiment farms and the 
 like, and are encouraging such institutions as County Y. M. C. 
 A.'s, County Y. W. C. A.'s, County W. C. T. U.'s and county 
 church and school associations, and under the stimulus that 
 comes from industrial, commercial, philanthropic and other 
 organizations, both without and within, are making progress 
 in many directions. 
 
1. Play 
 
 The greatest asset of a nation is its children and the most 
 important problem of a nation is preparing its children for 
 the responsibiHties and duties of later life. Now it is only 
 within the last few years that these two facts have become 
 assertive in the collective consciousness of the American 
 people, and hence the work of providing adequate opportuni- 
 ties for the normal development of childhood into adulthood 
 is yet in its incipiency. The child in its life " repeats the age- 
 long struggle of mankind upward from savagery to civiliza- 
 tion," 1 and unless all the stages of the struggle are experienced 
 normal growth is not enjoyed and the adult is handicapped. 
 
 During the first centuries following the fall of Rome, 
 savagery, barbarity, robbery, murder, license, wanderlust, in- 
 stability and turbulence were very much in evidence. Finally, 
 however, the seething mass of humanity of Europe gradually 
 began to take on a more or less permanent form and some 
 semblance of order manifested itself. The individual stepped 
 out from the crowd and Feudalism resulted, during the ascend- 
 ancy of which Europe produced an aristocracy of leadership. 
 A few more centuries and the Crusades came and welded 
 Europe into a unit under the stimulus of the religious impulse. 
 Then followed the German Reformation, which gave Europe 
 religious liberty, and the French Revolution, which gave 
 Europe poHtical liberty. Today the battle cry of mankind is 
 economic liberty, the right of each individual " to a place in 
 the sun." 
 
 How beautifully the development of modern civilization 
 parallels the growth of the child into the adult! First, the 
 turbulent years of youth, the years of savagery, barbarity, the 
 days of a superabundance of vitality and energy, the days of 
 the "wild joy of living," the days of foundation-laying and 
 
 ^ G. Walter Fiske, " Boy Life," p. 49. 
 25 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 character-building, the days of elemental passions, correspond- 
 ing to the life of the European people directly after the fall 
 of Rome. Then begins to assert itself that wonderful faculty, 
 the imagination, which has no sympathy with the hard, tan- 
 gible, practical, matter-of-fact things of earth, but builds a 
 world of magnificent unreality and fills it with a life which 
 the average adult fails utterly to understand: Feudalism. 
 Then comes the religious impulse and the child enters upon 
 the battle royal for character: Crusades. Next a feeling of 
 spiritual self-sufficience develops, which indicates a desire for 
 independent thought in religious matters : German Reforma- 
 tion. Then the will comes to its own and assumes control : 
 French Revolution. And finally appears the desire to establish 
 a home of one's own : Economic Liberty. Now to the extent 
 to which the child passes through these periods in its develop- 
 ment from childhood to adulthood, to that extent is it fitted 
 for the complete life. 
 
 Harnessing the energies of the youth of the nation during 
 the developing years, is a big problem. North Carolina has a 
 splendid plan for keepiiig its boys busy. During the summer 
 boys who wish to work out of doors at reasonable wages are 
 employed by the state and learn how to build good roads. 
 From the New York State College of Agriculture it is learned 
 that last year school children destroyed nearly a billion tent 
 caterpillars. They collected over four million egg masses of 
 the pest, each of which averaged two hundred eggs. One 
 school of thirteen pupils collected 55,525 of these egg clusters 
 and thus saved countless apple, peach and plum trees from 
 blight. Reports from other states are similar to these from 
 North CaroHna and New York. Only two things are needed 
 — competent leadership and work that will appeal with a spice 
 of romance to the youth of the nation, and results will be 
 forthcoming. 
 
 A. Play Grounds 
 
 Reahzing the first fundamental needs of childhood, some of 
 the good people of Boston, in the year 1882, started a play- 
 
 26 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 ground movement, which has been called the greatest single 
 movement of the nation. The purpose of the movement is, 
 extending to child life an adequate opportunity to give the 
 play instinct normal expression. The movement was inau- 
 gurated at a time when the process of urbanizing America 
 was rapidly transforming the nation's life. But a period of 
 inactivity followed, which closed with a wonderful revival of 
 interest in the city of Chicago in 1898, since which time the 
 playground movement has become a dominant factor in 
 American life. The movement has gathered wonderful mo- 
 mentum in later years because playgrounds are proving to be 
 agencies for decreasing juvenile crime, increasing health 
 standarjds, promoting community spirit, and fashioning into 
 unity heterogeneous urban populations. They have become 
 both a constructive and a redemptive force and are contrib- 
 uting to a brighter national outlook on life. The boy or girl 
 who enjoys a normal play life during the formative years is 
 sure to be an optimist. If a man or woman can look back to 
 a childhood that had its share of play activities, the experi- 
 ences of youth are a source of perennial joy and pleasure and 
 the dark places of the later years are brightened by the 
 reflection from life's brilliant beginnings. Once a Harvard 
 graduate who had not made a very pronounced success out in 
 the great world consoled himself with the memory : " Well, 
 anyway I achieved a triumph in my student days on the base- 
 ball diamond." The victory of his youth saved him from 
 discouragement in the days when fortune turned her back on 
 him. And so it will save the youth of the nation in the next 
 generation. 
 
 B. Boy Scouts and Camp-Fire Girls 
 
 Two great organizations may be associated with the Play- 
 ground Movement of the nation, viz., the Boy Scouts and the 
 Camp-Fire Girls. The former had its origin at the time of 
 the Boer War and developed from the practical use made of 
 boys during the progress of the South African struggle. In 
 reality a beginning in the great work of putting on a happier 
 
 27 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 basis boy play activities was made in this country, but the 
 Boy Scout Movement enjoyed marvelous popularity in Eng- 
 land and her colonies following the Boer War, and the organ- 
 ization that is in such a flourishing condition in this country 
 today was imported from England after that country had 
 developed an American idea. The Camp-Fire Girl Movement 
 had its origin only a few years ago in this country and was 
 started that girls might have the same opportunity for normal 
 development along recreational lines as boys. These two 
 movements have become nation-wide and they are today on 
 so sound a basis that they have become a permanent factor in 
 the national life. If a boy becomes a scout or a girl a camp- 
 fire girl and they obey the rules and master the requirements 
 of the respective organizations, there is no doubt that they 
 will learn the duties and develop the fundamental virtues use- 
 ful in after life. So the purpose of each organization is to 
 make youth the brightest period of life at the same time that 
 preparation is afforded for adulthood. There are many other 
 organizations similar to these two, but not so well known, all 
 aiming to provide adequately for the play needs of boys and 
 girls. 
 
 Now, the unfortunate thing about the three movements that 
 have just been considered is that they have made compara- 
 tively little progress in Rural America. One hears little, 
 though much more than formerly, of playground activities, 
 boy scouts and camp-fire girls in the villages and open country, 
 notwithstanding the fact that more than half the children of 
 the nation live in Rural America. These movements have been 
 urban movements, but there is just as great need of them in 
 Rural America. In a sense, the need is greater in Rural 
 America, for the reason that the play activities of Urban 
 America have become an added inducement for boys and girls 
 to leave the farms and the villages for the cities. As Dr. G. W. 
 Fiske felicitously characterized the situation in an address at 
 the Ohio State Y. M. C. A. Convention of 1916, *' It is not so 
 much dollar-hunger as fun-hunger that takes boys from the 
 country to the cities." 
 
 28 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 C. Play Parks 
 
 Not only playgrounds without number have been established, 
 especially in the cities, but a beginning has been made in the 
 matter of play parks, with stands and suitable buildings. 
 These parks provide for all the games that interest both 
 young and old, and arrangements have been made in some of 
 them for winter as well as summer sports, since recreation 
 must be an all-the-year-round affair. Parks of this sort 
 encourage the organization of game leagues of various sorts, 
 which bring young people together from neighboring town- 
 ships, villages and cities in all kinds of contests. There is no 
 reason why neighboring counties, townships, villages and cities 
 should not organize in the interest of sports and thus put the 
 sport life of whole sections on a high plane. Simply a begin- 
 ning has been made in the sport activities of the youth, not 
 only in Rural America, where least progress has been made 
 owing to many handicaps, but in Urban America as well. A 
 German school-teacher in one of the trenches recently made 
 the statement that the Germany of the future must make 
 more ample provision for organized out-of-door play, for the 
 sake of the future physical fitness of the young manhood of 
 the nation, if for no other. England and America have 
 possibly done more in this direction than any other nation, 
 excepting Switzerland, and their boys and girls have in a 
 majority of cases as a result laid a good foundation for 
 longevity. 
 
 D. Rural Entertainment Halls 
 
 A movement coming to have increasing significance in recent 
 months has to do with rural entertainment halls, where all 
 kinds of productions can be given, but particularly where such 
 productions can be presented as are of special interest in the 
 country, and where moving pictures of the better class, be- 
 cause of the availabihty of pictures and films at very low 
 prices, can Hkewise be shown. Of course rural entertainments 
 must compete with attractions in towns and cities, but with 
 the growing spirit of loyalty that is beginning to assert itself 
 
 29 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 in Rural America, there will come to be little trouble in holding 
 the people in their own communities. 
 
 E. The County Fair 
 
 The county fair, which is annually held in many counties 
 of the United States and seems to be growing more popular 
 in Rural America, is the one big play event of the year for 
 the open country. It is the one event in which all the people 
 take an interest. It assembles the best products of field and 
 garden; it interests the women and girls in choice specimens 
 of the art of cooking; it exhibits the finest farm animals; it 
 shows many samples of needle and similar work; it collects 
 the select wares of the merchant; it gives the results of the 
 county educational activities : school work, library work, 
 chautauquas, institutes, etc.; it calls attention to the efforts 
 put forth in the interest of a better religious life — efforts put 
 forth in the churches, in the Sunday-schools, in the Young 
 Peoples' societies, in social service, etc.; it provides an abund- 
 ance of amusement. The county fair promotes sociability, 
 stimulates rural patriotism and leads to cooperation. From 
 one end of the country to the other the cry has gone forth 
 that the greatest need of the nation is a more wholesome 
 social life in Rural America. The county fair is doing its 
 part in supplying this need and it does it by showing the 
 people both the pleasures and the advantages of getting to- 
 gether. Furthermore, anyone who spends the better part of 
 a week in a study of the best things that his county produces 
 is pretty sure to have kindled on the altar of his heart the > 
 fire of county patriotism. And where one finds a developing 
 social life and evidences of county patriotism, one is likely to 
 see the cooperative spirit begin to manifest itself. When the 
 county fair reflects the collective life of the county at its 
 best, it is doing a work whose value cannot be estimated.^ 
 
 ^ Lowering of standards through cheap attractions, permitted for mer- 
 cenary reasons, is a tendency to be deplored in some counties. 
 
 30 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 F. Community Centers 
 
 A term one sees in almost every number of every periodical 
 devoted to the interests of Rural America is " community 
 center." Again and again do editors and other writers empha- 
 size the need of the establishing of community centers in the 
 villages and open country. And the propaganda in the interest 
 of their establishment is bearing fruit. Of course, wherever 
 a consolidated school is erected, provision is made for com- 
 munity gatherings, and the institution is planned to take care 
 of all the many activities of the surrounding country. 
 Churches also make excellent meeting places for the people. 
 Unfortunately the cooperating or federating or unionizing of 
 the dead and dying churches of the different denominations 
 of Rural America has made such little progress that the Rural 
 Church is doing less than the Rural School in the work of 
 putting social life in the country on a higher plane. 
 
 Often farmers bequeath beautiful, well-located properties 
 for the benefit of a whole neighborhood. There is a record 
 of a number of such cases, particularly in the Mississippi 
 Valley. The Chicago Tribune recently contained the follow- 
 ing interesting item: " With the purpose of making rural life 
 more comfortable, Jasper Thompson, banker, farmer, philos- 
 opher, and philanthropist, has turned over to the rural com- 
 munity in which he lives a community home. Four miles west 
 of Forest City, in Winnebago County, la., on a farm valued 
 at $100,000, the community home is located. In the front is 
 a valley of the richest agricultural land, fringed with oak, 
 walnut and box elder. The building is of artistic design, 
 built of brick and concrete. In the building are large halls, 
 comfort rooms, reception rooms, library, sleeping rooms, living 
 rooms, dining-room and kitchen. ' Sunnyside Farm ' is the 
 name given to this social center. It belongs to the people, and 
 it is theirs to build up a community friendliness that will 
 make for a more happy and contented people." 
 
 But the largest number of community centers are found in 
 the Httle agricultural villages of the nation. A village, to- 
 gether with the contiguous territory, has enough people to 
 
 31 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 maintain on a most healthy basis a community-center building 
 fitted to take care of all activities for which such buildings 
 are erected. The state that has taken the lead in the estab- 
 lishment of community centers is Wisconsin. The community 
 building at Spring Valley, a village of one thousand inhabit- 
 ants in Pierce County, is typical. It is 50 x 100 in dimensions 
 and cost $7,388. The building is used for the folloviring 
 purposes : 
 
 " Entertainments, shows, plays, moving pictures, entertain- 
 ment courses of the extension division of the state university, 
 school plays, amateur theatricals, banquets and suppers, har- 
 vest festivals, political meetings, good roads meetings, farm- 
 ers' institutes, dancing parties, art exhibits, band practice, 
 orchestra practice, meetings of the town and country club, 
 public receptions, social parties." 
 
 During the past few years many manufacturing plants and 
 large business concerns have erected community buildings. 
 Some of these are solely for employees, while others are quite 
 liberal in the matter of extending the privileges of member- 
 ship. Of special interest is the fact that such community 
 buildings are becoming more numerous in the rural districts 
 and encourage the residents of the farming sections to become 
 members. The most widely known of this class is the large 
 community building of the Hershey Chocolate Company, of 
 Hershey, Pennsylvania. 
 
 G. The Rural Chautauqua 
 
 Most persons are quite familiar with the great Chautauqua 
 movement of the nation. It has not been so many years since 
 Chautauqua, New York, inaugurated the movement that has 
 become nation wide. In the early years, however, only a few 
 institutions similar to that in New York were established, but 
 gradually the number increased, and finally the larger towns 
 and many of the cities began to provide annually for a week 
 or more of entertainments under the auspices of a Chautauqua 
 Association. The villages seemed to be too small to finance 
 a Chautauqua program. But as time passed, as the Chautau- 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 qua spirit began to take possession of the whole people and 
 as the agencies supplying the talent found ways of providing 
 courses of great excellence within the financial reach of the 
 smallest villages, the movement became quite general, and 
 greater and greater numbers of people living in territory 
 hitherto unreached have, during the past few years, been 
 given the pleasure of enjoying the very best talent of the 
 country right at their own homes. The writer took a long 
 automobile trip during the summer of 1915 through many 
 rural sections and found that nearly all the communities of a 
 thousand population and over that were visited were adver- 
 tising a Chautauqua Week. The Chautauqua is the most 
 democratic institution of the whole nation and is a success 
 because it has found out just what pleases the people and is 
 constantly giving the people the very thing they want. 
 
 The institutions that are doing the largest service in con- 
 nection with the play and recreational life of Rural America 
 are the rural library, the rural Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciation and the rural Young Women's Christian Association. 
 All three likewise emphasize the intellectual and the spiritual, 
 but one of their most important activities lies in the field of 
 play and recreation, and for that reason they are considered 
 under the head of PLAY. 
 
 H. The Rural Library 1 
 
 The trend of recent years in the library activities of the 
 country has been toward rural extension, with the idea of 
 placing books in the homes of those on the farms as well as 
 of those living in the towns and cities. In earher years books 
 were accessible only to the few. Today a majority of the 
 people enjoy library privileges, and the drift of library legisla- 
 tion in the several states indicates a purpose to make provision 
 for the country people, many of whom still have no opportuni- 
 ties to get books, except through purchase. 
 
 1 Saida B. and Ernest I. Antrim, " The County Library," pp. 233-239. 
 140, 187. 
 
 33 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 All the states of the Union have state libraries. All the 
 states except a very few have library commissions. Available 
 statistics indicate that Wisconsin spends more money per 
 capita through her state library and library commission than 
 any other state in the Union, and consequently of all the 
 states does most for her people in library matters. One of the 
 many functions of state library commissions is the organiza- 
 tion and management of traveling library systems. Traveling 
 libraries are usually sent in small collections of twenty-five or 
 fifty volumes, and the expenses are paid wholly or in part by 
 the state or altogether by the recipients. Such libraries con- 
 sist of general and special collections. The former are for 
 the most part available for all the people; while the latter 
 consist largely of libraries for children, for foreigners, for the 
 blind, for study clubs, for granges, for public and private 
 schools and for Sunday-schools and churches. Many of the 
 states send out annually over a thousand collections, which in 
 the aggregate contain a large number of books. 
 
 Making the county the unit represents a comparatively new 
 movement in the library history of the country. Yet this 
 movement is making quite rapid progress. There are at 
 present nineteen states that have county library laws, and, 
 as far as can be learned, there are 103 county libraries serving 
 the library interests of their respective counties. The names 
 of the states having county library laws are : Ohio, Wyoming, 
 Wisconsin, Oregon, Nebraska, New York, Iowa, Minnesota, 
 Tennessee, Missouri, California, Maryland, Washington, Ken- 
 tucky, North CaroHna, Montana, Texas, West Virginia, and 
 Nevada; and the county libraries by states are: California, 
 26; Wisconsin, 14; Wyoming, 13; Minnesota, 10; Ohio, 8; 
 Oregon, 5; North Carolina, 4; Missouri, 4; New York, 3; 
 Kentucky, 2; Montana, 2; Indiana, 2; Alabama, 2; Colorado, 
 2 ; Washington, i ; Illinois, i ; Maryland, i ; Pennsylvania, i ; 
 Oklahoma, i ; and Tennessee, i.^ 
 
 Many incidents might be given showing the value of the 
 
 -'^ 
 
 Data assembled in 191 5. 
 
 34 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 extension of library privileges to rural residents. Two must 
 suffice : 
 
 In a county library collection at a station in a very small 
 village, a boy, one day, chanced to secure a book on electricity 
 and became so interested that he returned for another, and, 
 as there happened to be three books on electricity in that 
 collection, he took them all in turn and then begged his 
 father to send him aw^ay to school. The father did so and 
 the young man is doing well now in the electrical business in 
 one of the larger towns of the county. It is the aim of the 
 county library to aid those living in the country to appreciate 
 the wonderful opportunities for pleasure and profit that lie 
 within the '' Home Acre " or the " Home Ten Acres " or the 
 " Home Farm." However, all young men in the country are 
 not fitted for farming any more than all ministers' sons are 
 fitted to become ministers. In the above incident, the boy 
 whose bent was electricity " found himself " through a 
 library book. 
 
 The following incident illustrates the personal and careful 
 supervision of a township superintendent in connection with 
 the schools under his care. He told the county librarian he had 
 made the discovery that in one of the schools the boys had 
 got into the way of reading books of a '' blood and thunder " 
 type, and he asked her opinion as to how the matter might be 
 best handled. She wisely suggested that he satisfy this natural 
 craving of the boys for adventure by supplying them with 
 wholesome books of adventure of the right sort and on sub- 
 jects of interest to every normal boy. Accordingly, a list was 
 made up including tales about Indians and the real West, 
 stories of Daniel Boone and the pioneer days, inspiring books 
 of true heroism and real exploits. The teacher reported that 
 the good books soon displaced the " cheap literature." 
 
 Of all the county library states, Ohio is the pioneer in the 
 present county library movement, and California has the 
 greatest number of county libraries. Quite a number of 
 states have also passed township library laws, which enable 
 the people of townships to tax themselves for library pur- 
 
 35 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 poses. An incident illustrating the good that can result from 
 township extension comes from Monoma County, Iowa. A 
 certain township librarian in this county, called the " Horse- 
 back Lady," has so extended the library work of the county 
 in accordance with the township law of the state, that at the 
 present time six townships and three towns are cooperating 
 under her efficient supervision. 
 
 " Here is a story I was told about a boy reader whom the 
 ' Horse-back Lady ' has visited. Somebody met him riding 
 against a frightful prairie storm, sleet lashing his face. * Why 
 on earth aren't you at home — ^ somebody sick?' asked the 
 startled friend, who was making for his own dwelling. ' I'm 
 goin' to the liberry,' was the reply. ' Someone come an' tol' 
 me all about " Tom Sawyer " herself, an' I'm goin* to have it, 
 I ain't froze but one ear yet, an' I ain't got but one more to 
 freeze, an' anyhow I'm goin' to have that book.' " ^ 
 
 The establishment of municipal libraries has reached the 
 greatest development in the state of Massachusetts, which 
 " is unique in having a library in every city and town of the 
 state, with one exception — Newbury — and that town has 
 library privileges in Newburyport, one and one-half miles 
 distant, making appropriation toward its m.aintenance." Many 
 states permit their municipal libraries to do rural extension 
 work, which is greatly increasing the number of country resi- 
 dents who enjoy library privileges. In many states, too, school 
 district libraries are being established in large numbers. 
 
 Unquestionably every state should have a state library and 
 a library commission. As a matter of fact, all the states do 
 have state libraries, although some of them accomplish much 
 less than others. All the states, except a few, have library 
 commissions. Likewise, it would seem desirable that all the 
 states should have county, township and municipal library 
 laws adapted to their respective needs. No two states are 
 exactly alike, and there are few cases where the laws of one 
 state would fit perfectly into the conditions of another state. 
 
 1 See The Outlook, January 24, 1914, p. 202. 
 
 36 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 Some states desire to emphasize the county as a unit and to 
 adapt all libraries organized under other laws to the county 
 system. Others make the township the predominating unit 
 and strive to bring library privileges to all the people of the 
 state through township extension. Finally, a number of states 
 make the municipality the library center and bend every effort 
 to reach as many of the people as possible from the town and 
 city. 
 
 Recent experience reveals that, of the library laws thus far 
 enacted, the county law seems to provide best for the exten- 
 sion of library privileges to all the people. And a careful 
 study of library movements of the country indicates that if 
 all the people are to be reached in the matter of library serv- 
 ice, the county should be made the unit in library legislation. 
 States which emphasize the other library laws mentioned 
 are doing excellent work, but in none of these states is it 
 likely that all the people will enjoy library privileges to the 
 extent that would be possible under a county law. 
 
 Andrew Carnegie has asked Dr. P. P. Claxton, United 
 States Commissioner of Education, to work out for him a 
 plan for the establishment of county libraries throughout the 
 country. So it is possible that the great library friend of the 
 people will, as the crowning act of his life, provide with 
 library privileges through the establishment of county libraries 
 all the people of Rural America who desire such institutions. 
 
 It might be stated here by way of conclusion that a hasty 
 study of the library legislation of the country covering the 
 past twelve or fourteen years reveals several interesting facts : 
 
 (i) A tendency to make state libraries more serviceable. 
 
 (2) A gradual increase in the number of state library com- 
 
 missions and in the appropriations for their work. 
 
 (3) The passage of many measures that place on a more 
 
 substantial basis hundreds of the libraries of the 
 country organized under county, township and 
 municipal library laws. 
 
 (4) The gathering of greater and greater momentum from 
 
 year to year of the rural extension library movement. 
 
 37 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 To give the reader an idea of what can be accompHshed in 
 the supplying of a rural population with library service, a 
 brief account will be given of the work of the Brumback 
 Library of Van Wert County, Ohio, which has been called 
 the pioneer county library of the country. In a county of 
 405 square miles, having a population of 29,119, of whom 
 12,825 live in incorporated towns and 16,294 in the open 
 country, this library with 25,000 books distributed, from the 
 central library, sixteen branches and nearly all the rural 
 schools, 98,011 volumes in the year 1915. That is over three 
 1)Ooks for every resident in the county, a high average even 
 for a city library having a compact constituency. The num- 
 ber of borrowers was 62 per cent of the population. The work 
 at central library was done by six employees, including the 
 janitor, and the total cost to the county for the county-wide 
 service was $8,858.38, which represents less than one-fifth of 
 a mill on a tax duplicate of over $50,000,000 and is 35 cents 
 per capita.i 
 
 /. Rural Y. M. C. A. and Y, W. C. A. 
 
 Through a period of many years the cities of the country 
 have been establishing Christian Associations for both sexes, 
 and these have greatly increased in number during the past 
 decade. For thousands of young men and women these asso- 
 ciations provide good homes, good board, physical training, 
 social and recreational pleasure, and spiritual and intellectual 
 culture. Thus, they are doing a work the value of which 
 cannot be estimated. They recognize as few other institu- 
 tions do that life is whole and integral, and, without giving 
 undue emphasis to any particular side of one's nature, they 
 plan their work with the view of developing a symmetrical 
 manhood and womanhood. 
 
 Now, just as these two institutions are needed in the cities, 
 so they are needed in the country; and within the past few 
 years wonderful progress has been made in the establishing 
 
 ^ See Annual Report of The Brumback Library of Van Wert County 
 for 1915. 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 of rural associations. The unit that has generally been 
 adopted is the county, since experience shows the futility of 
 attempting to carry on successful work with smaller rural 
 units. The thing that has proved to be the greatest handicap 
 in rural work has been securing men and women living in 
 villages and in the open country and widely separated from 
 one another to cooperate in an enterprise for the benefit of 
 a whole county. This requires a leadership of the very 
 highest type. The average county resident sees certain needs 
 right at home, but his vision does not always reach far. 
 His inclination is to let the other village or township or 
 section of the county take care of itself. So next in import- 
 ance to a competent leader is a county board that is broad 
 enough to see beyond the borders of its own community, to 
 pay liberally for the support of the whole work and to give 
 of its time in an effort to get others to contribute to the 
 work. 
 
 The county Young Men's Christian Association has an 
 easier time in becoming established in rural counties than 
 the county Young Women's Christian Association, because 
 everybody recognizes that boys, whose work lies out in the 
 world, must receive attention or they will fail to develop into 
 men of character. But there is just as much reason why girls 
 should have the same opportunities to fit themselves for the 
 responsibilities and duties of life. The donor of the first 
 county Young Women's Christian Association building 
 (county work in the past has been done without the aid of 
 buildings) put a large sum in the building, equipment and 
 endowment chiefly because of his conviction that better girls 
 would make better boys. And there is a world of truth in 
 this statement. The one thing more than any other that is 
 safeguarding this nation today may be considered the collect- 
 ive influence and the high ideals of the finest womanhood of 
 the nation. Every man who stands for the common virtues 
 freely acknowledges the debt he owes to womanhood. The 
 greatest poet since Shakespeare, Goethe, closed his master- 
 piece " Faust " with these beautiful words : " Das Ewigweib- 
 
 39 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 liche zieht uns hinan." How true it is, that "The eternal 
 feminine leads us upward and onward." So to the extent to 
 which the womanhood of the nation is placed on a higher 
 plane, to that extent is the manhood of the nation elevated. 
 
 What is the first work of these two associations in the 
 country? A complete survey of the particular section in 
 which they will be active. Unless one has a quite intimate 
 knowledge of the territory, it will be impossible to prepare a 
 program that will perfectly fit the needs of that territory. 
 A thousand facts are brought out by surveys. For instance, 
 one learns the exact character of the population ; the number, 
 denomination, etc., of all the churches; the standing of the 
 schools; the economic condition of the people; what other 
 organizations are doing; and the status of agriculture and 
 village life. Knowing all these things and many others, 
 one is in a position to plan for cooperative and supplementary 
 work. 
 
 After the survey the available leadership will determine the 
 program of activities in natural order. Play or recreational 
 features should constitute the first work. If one studies the 
 play life of Rural America in the growing and already 
 voluminous literature of the subject, he is amazed at the 
 diversity of the activities of a recreational character. But 
 unfortunately the activities are so scattered and so few 
 rural sections can be found anywhere that have developed 
 anything like a system in providing wholesome amusements 
 for all the people, that one regrets the failure leadership has 
 thus far made in this direction. The chief reason why so 
 little definite progress has been made is, professionalism and 
 commercialism have secured a tight grip on the recreations 
 and amusements of the nation and only an enlightened con- 
 science will lead to their emancipation. 
 
 Different parts of the country differ greatly in their recrea- 
 tions. There is a record of one rural county that emphasizes 
 county Sunday-school picnics. Several are held annually and 
 each is given under the auspices of two or more schools 
 working together. In this way picnics occur all over 
 
 '^ 40 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 the county and a healthy rivalry exists among the various 
 sections of the county. Of course each group of schools 
 vies with all others in the preparation of the most interesting 
 program of events. A certain section of another county is 
 very musical and in the course of each year a number of 
 musical entertainments take place. Other counties emphasize 
 athletic events in their gatherings. Still others take a special 
 interest in the history of their local territory and have annual 
 celebrations of a commemorative character. Moreover, pag- 
 eants and festivals are becoming quite common in many parts 
 of the country. 
 
 Eaton County, Michigan, conducts township play picnics in 
 connection with the eighth grade promotion exercises of the 
 country schools. All the rural schools of the country co- 
 operate in these athletic events and they are held in different 
 parts of the county. In Greene County, Ohio, the two 
 Christian Associations unite in giving county carnivals. Boy 
 Scout maneuvers, the exercises of groups of small girls, 
 athletic events, band concerts and the Hke provide pleasure 
 for young and old ahke. A very successful play festival in 
 Delta, Colorado, a year ago, was attended by a large crowd. 
 The features of the day were relay races, boys' and girls' 
 basketball games, potato races, football games, nail-driving 
 contests, archball games and other events. In Charlevoix, 
 Michigan, a series of play festivals was conducted during 
 the spring of 1914. Because of the great number taking part 
 in these festivals, widespread interest and enthusiasm were 
 aroused. The winners in the contests received their rewards 
 in the form of attractive badges. Windsor County, Vermont, 
 has for a number of years had an annual county play day on 
 the fair grounds. This is given under the auspices of the 
 County Young Men's Christian Association. In 1914 there 
 were 450 different contestants and eighteen separate com- 
 munities represented. Interesting features of the day were 
 an anglers' tournament, a demonstration of first aid to the 
 injured, a number of athletic events participated in by boys 
 and girls, and trap shooting. A barbecue was served at noon, 
 
 41 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 and a military band gave the large crowd the benefit of good 
 music during the day.^ 
 
 Instances similar to these might be multiplied, indicating 
 that the play activities of the nation are beginning to find 
 widespread expression in the rural sections. So the rural 
 Young Men's Christian Association and Young Women's 
 Christian Association find it comparatively easy in any county 
 to formulate a play program that will appeal to the people. 
 
 Another step of the two associations is providing for a 
 program of work designed to assist young people in their 
 more serious activities. Of course, the work of the county, 
 like that of the city, is two-fold: work in which the hands 
 play the larger part and work in which the brains play the 
 larger part. It is less the duty of a rural association to 
 give instruction than to cooperate with the agencies through 
 which instruction is given. For example, rural secretaries can 
 accomplish wonderful work through cooperation with the 
 schools ; with the government and states in agricultural exten- 
 sion work; and with the institutions that supply rural sections 
 with books and periodicals. 
 
 A further duty consists in training young men and women 
 for the responsibilities and duties of the city, since many 
 boys and girls that are fitted, and others that are unfitted, 
 leave the country for the city. Instruction of the right char- 
 acter can save thousands that would otherwise be lost in the 
 fierce struggle of urban life. A well-known social worker in 
 a large American city recently made the statement that 85 per 
 cent of the human wreckage of his city was of rural origin.^ 
 To show how great the present drift is from village to city, 
 some statistics prepared by one of the leading educators of 
 the state of Ohio, Prof. C. W. McClure, many years super- 
 intendent of the public school of Germantown, Ohio, a town 
 of 1,776 inhabitants, will be given. During the eleven years 
 beginning in 1904 and ending in 1915 the school graduated 179 
 
 1 These instances are taken from several numbers of Rural Manhood. 
 
 2 See Proceedings of Country Church Conference held December 
 8-10, 1915- 
 
 42 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 pupils, of whom 76 were boys and 103 girls. Of the 76 boys 
 14, and of the 103 girls 10, have graduated from college, and 
 21 and 15 respectively are either attending college now with a 
 view to graduation or have had one or more years of college 
 work. Of the 76 boys 23, and of the 103 girls 53, reside at 
 Germantown; 48 and 49 respectively reside elsewhere, for the 
 most part in cities ; and 5 and i respectively are dead. Of the 
 24 that have graduated from recognized colleges, only one 
 now lives in Germantown, and that one is a young woman 
 graduate of 1914. What deductions can be drawn from these 
 data? 
 
 (i) A large percentage of the college graduates, in this 
 case over 95 per cent, leave home, most of them for the cities. 
 
 (2) A large percentage of all the high school graduates 
 leave home, in this case over 60 per cent, which is much lower 
 than it would be if it were not for the recent graduates, more 
 of whom are at home now than will be later. Most of these, 
 too, go to the cities. 
 
 Another duty of the secretaries of the two rural associations 
 is preparing a program for the spiritual activities of the 
 young people. In the preparation of such a program the insti- 
 tution to be considered is the rural church. The number of 
 boys and girls that can be actually reached in a county is small, 
 but if secretaries and pastors are real leaders a more perfect 
 cooperation among the churches may be effected and excellent 
 results secured through team-work. The work of providing for 
 the spiritual welfare of the youth of a county belongs to the 
 churches, but the churches thus far have not done their full 
 duty. A study of a county that has never had either secre- 
 tary and of another that has enjoyed the leadership of one or 
 both through a period of years, reveals the wonderful differ- 
 ence between the activities oi the youth of the two counties in 
 spiritual matters. 
 
 Another important duty of the rural secretary is fusing 
 into cooperative effort all the county's scattered activities and 
 movements of a praiseworthy character. Of course this can- 
 not be done in a day. But the right sort of leader can in 
 
 43 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 time get results. The student of rural life finds Rural America 
 today in a marvelously plastic condition. Even during the 
 wonderful years preceding the crusades, the people of Europe 
 were in no more plastic condition than Rural America 
 is at the present time. The crusades heralded the Renais- 
 sance, the real birth of modern civilization. The stirrings in 
 Rural America today herald the coming of a new day that will 
 re-fashion country life and thus create a greater America. 
 
 The County Young Women's Christian Association is still in 
 its pioneer days, but it now has organized counties in ten 
 states, and on January i, 1916, there were six field county 
 secretaries and fourteen local county secretaries. The first 
 county conference was held in August, 1915, at Lake Geneva, 
 Wisconsin. The purpose of the County Young Women's 
 Christian Association is to furnish an adequate plan by which 
 all the girls of a county can have trained Christian leadership 
 for the development of all sides of their lives. It makes use 
 of all available local leadership and resources, and makes 
 possible county-wide events, such as camps, field meets, exhib- 
 its and girls' congresses. Besides the regular county associa- 
 tion work, there is a form of work known as Eight Week 
 Clubs which is placed in the hands of college girls in their 
 home communities during the summer months. Large numbers 
 of college girls throughout the United States have taken 
 courses in country leadership and have led such clubs during 
 the past three summers.^ 
 
 The County Young Men's Christian Association is operating 
 in 1916 in 94 counties, having 124 employed secretaries, includ- 
 ing 7 international and 15 state secretaries, and 2,250 leaders 
 and assistant leaders and expending in its work over $220,000. 
 The communities engaged in the work in 1915 numbered 925, 
 which had a membership of 25,640. During the year, lectures 
 and practical talks were attended by almost ioo,<xx) persons. 
 There were 95 educational and literary clubs and 35 educa- 
 tional classes. The socials numbered 1,263. Attention to 
 
 1 Data furnished by Miss Jessie Field, Secretary for County Work for 
 the National Y. W. C. A. Board. 
 
 s 44 
 
. RURAL AMERICA 
 
 physical training was given by 650 communities, most of them 
 doing both outdoor and indoor work. There were 811 Bible 
 classes and 1,323 religious meetings for men and boys. The 
 work has had a growth of over 200 per cent in five years> 
 
 /. Country Social Life Yesterday and Today 
 
 In the " Homespun Age "of the nation, to use an expres- 
 sion of Horace Bushnell, the country's social life was rural 
 in its character, since there were no cities in the present 
 sense of the term. The centers of population which bore the 
 name cities were simply big country towns, and the social 
 life of the country reflected itself in practically all the cities of 
 the nation. As a matter of fact, according to the census of 
 1800, there were only six cities in the whole country with a 
 population in excess of 8,000.2 i^ those pioneer days the 
 social life of the country had largely to do with barn raisings, 
 plowing contests, log rollings, singing schools, sewing cir- 
 cles, apple parings, quilting parties, husking bees, spelling 
 matches, camp meetings, barbecues and the like. Now if one 
 studies those activities, he finds in most of them a blending of 
 work and play. But the age of coal and steam effected a 
 change in the social life of the nation, which previously had 
 been distinctively rural in its character. Cities have created 
 a social life of their own and the youth of Rural America have 
 been partially won over to the social life of the cities. The 
 characteristic of the social life of Urban America is pleasure 
 for pleasure's sake. The element of work is absent. But how- 
 ever greatly Urban America has influenced Rural America, the 
 rural population still clings pretty tenaciously to the custom 
 of getting keen pleasure from the social activities that repre- 
 sent a blending of work and play. The late Miss Anna B. 
 Taft, of the Department of Church and Country Life of the 
 Presbyterian Church, calls rural recreation a purposeful 
 recreation and goes on to say : " The average country citizen is 
 more serious-minded than his city brother. In his moments of 
 
 ^ Data furnished by Mr. A. E. Roberts of the International Y. M. 
 C. A. Committee. 
 
 2 W. L. Anderson, " The Country Town," p. 31. 
 
 45 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 relaxation he does not want merely to be amused. His life is 
 made up so largely of actual labor and encased in such an 
 economic austerity that he does not react to the frivolous 
 and light. There must be something to the play life that fits 
 his need."i Further proof of this fact may be found in the 
 reading of country people. An investigation of the reading 
 statistics of a rural county, covering a period of nine suc- 
 cessive years, shows that, on the whole, the people living in 
 the open country read more serious books than are read by 
 city residents.2 The following item taken from the German- 
 town (Ohio) Press is to the point: "On Wednesday morning 
 of last week a number of merry farmers found their way to 
 the woods of the John Kinsey farm. Owing to sickness the 
 renter, Mr. Hoffman, had been unable to cut his winter's 
 wood, and the near-by farmers, prompted by a feeling of 
 neighborliness, enjoyed a day of fun and frolic in preparing 
 for him a big pile of fuel. Twenty-five farmers had a part 
 in the pleasure of the day." 
 
 ^ See " Country Church Work," p, 14. 
 
 2 Saida B. and Ernest I. Antrim, ** The County Library," p. 223. 
 
 46 
 
2. Work 
 
 " There is one friend who will never fail you while you 
 have hands to move and a brain to plan. In your dreariest 
 hours she will be your sweet refuge, and in times of pros- 
 perity she will guard you from ' pride which goeth before 
 destruction.' She will bring you long nights of restful sleep 
 at the end of your busy days, she will absorb you more and 
 more. Her name is Work, and neither the highest nor the 
 lowest can be happy for long without her." 
 
 There is little in life but labor. 
 And tomorrow may find that a dream ; 
 Success is the bride of Endeavor, 
 And luck — but a meteor's gleam. 
 
 There are thousands of persons in the United States today 
 that are not obliged to work, since their fortunes are ample 
 to maintain them in idleness. But there never was an idle 
 person who was happy, nor was there ever a busy person, 
 even though his work might not have been to his taste, that did 
 not get more happiness out of activity than he could pos- 
 sibly have obtained from idleness. In an article entitled 
 " Why Does a Rich Man Work? " ^ H. F. Dix says : " Always, 
 as a mother returns rapturously to her young children, so they 
 [the rich men], the homing instinct being strong, return when 
 vacation is over with new zest to their work. The railroads, 
 banks and corporations which absorb them are children of 
 their enterprise and energy, and so the lure of the market 
 place is not that of mere money, but is primal in its origin and 
 wholly normal and right. It is the appeal of Work to the 
 man-soul." 
 
 There is a great variety of work done in Rural America, but 
 
 ^ See The Independent, November 22, 19 15, p. 306. 
 
 47 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 the most important is that of the schools. So the Rural 
 School will be considered first. 
 
 A. The Rural School 
 
 The writer recently had the privilege of talking to an 
 elderly lady nearing the century mark whose mind is as clear 
 as a bell on the happenings of eighty-five and ninety years ago. 
 The principal topic of conversation was the country school. 
 In her youth America was a rural nation, and the few schools 
 of the open country and the schools of the towns and cities 
 were, in respect to their courses of study, very much the 
 same, the only difference being the time required to complete 
 the courses. Manufacture and industry played a minor part 
 in the national life in those days. The rule was thousands 
 of scattered units supplying the needs of the people. Rural 
 America and Urban America were one and the towns and cities 
 might have been designated trading points and commodity 
 clearing-houses for all the people. The work of the country 
 showed fully as much diversity as that of the town and city, 
 since the farmer was in those days both producer and manu- 
 facturer. Social intercourse was continuous. One never 
 heard of the lure of the city; the civilization of the nation 
 was distinctively a rural civilization. 
 
 What a change this elderly lady has witnessed! And one 
 of the unfortunate things respecting the change is that, 
 although all the schools of her youth fairly well met the 
 requirements of the nation, in the meantime the town and city 
 schools have made tremendous progress, adapting their 
 courses to the needs of the pupils, while the country schools 
 have lagged behind. Had the country schools gone forward 
 like the city schools there would not be today in Rural Amer- 
 ica a school problem that is engaging the attention of the 
 whole country, and life in the open country would be vastly 
 different if, in the passage of the years, the rural educa- 
 tional system had kept pace with that of Urban America. 
 
 The schools of Urban America have advanced along three 
 very important lines. First, towns and cities have for years 
 vied with one another in the erection of school buildings con- 
 "^ 48 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 taining all the facilities for the education of urban youth. 
 Men are usually quite conservative in the matter of taxing 
 themselves for public improvements, but there seems to be 
 no disposition anywhere to practice economy when it comes to 
 public education. The result is, in most towns and cities of 
 the present day the schools are among the show places. Dur- 
 ing the past two or three years there has been considerable 
 depression in the business world, and complaint has been quite 
 general. Architects who several years ago had scores of men 
 in their offices have reduced the number to a minimumi owing 
 to the great falling off in building operations. But, in the 
 erection of school houses in the towns and cities, there seems 
 to be more activity than ever, which is an indication that 
 Urban America is equipping herself perfectly for the educa- 
 tion of her youth, in spite of financial depression. Now, the 
 rule of Urban America has been, not only to provide first-class 
 school buildings, but, in the second place, to have courses of 
 study that aim adequately to prepare pupils for the work they 
 will be called upon to do when their school life is ended. The 
 tendency, which is nation wide, is to make the curricula more 
 responsive to the requirements of the day. And, thirdly, 
 the teaching profession has been greatly improved, so that 
 today one cannot become a teacher in very many of the public 
 schools of the towns and cities of the country without ade- 
 quate preparation. Thus, along the line of school buildings, 
 courses of study and teachers, town and city schools have 
 taken long strides. But Rural America has, on the whole, 
 not shared in this progress. With her one-room schools, often 
 having unsuitable grounds, with courses of study that in most 
 cases are inadequate and with teachers who frequently go to 
 the country to get experience that they may later teach in 
 towns and cities. Rural America has not kept pace with Urban 
 America in school matters. And what she has done has too 
 often borne the urban stamp. Just as Daniel, in prayer, 
 looked toward Jerusalem, so the country, educationally, has 
 been turning its eyes toward the city. 
 Now, the chief thing that has kept the country back edu- 
 
 49 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 cationally has been its small educational unit. In earlier 
 years the little school district was the ideal educational unit 
 and served admirably the needs of the day when the nona- 
 genarian was a school girl. But the slogan of the twentieth 
 century is centralization, consolidation, and the little school 
 districts are very much out of harmony with the spirit of the 
 age. Of course there are some school districts today which in 
 spite of their many handicaps do wonderfully well; but where 
 one such school exists there are many backward schools, and 
 this greatly retards the symmetrical development of the nation. 
 
 But fortunately a new day is dawning in Rural America. 
 The fifty millions of Rural America are catching the vision 
 of the possibilities of a greater rural civilization, public sen- 
 timent is crystallizing in the interest of a rural school system 
 that will be perfectly responsive to the needs of the new era, 
 and the next generation will see marvelous changes. A study 
 of national educational progress warrants three generaliza- 
 tions: (i) a disposition on the part of all the states to clothe 
 the state boards of education with larger powers and respon- 
 sibilities, the boards themselves to select the state superin- 
 tendents ; (2) an inclination to increase the size of the 
 educational unit, which in a majority of cases is made the 
 county; and (3) a nation-wide desire to have in the country as 
 good buildings, as well adapted courses of study and as 
 capable teachers as are found in the cities. 
 
 In a recent interesting article Mr. W. K. Tate gives a 
 concrete example of rural school work that is worthy of imita- 
 tion, with the changes made necessary in different parts of 
 the country, in all Rural America. " In the experimental 
 country school on the campus of the Winthrop Normal and 
 Industrial College of South Carolina, the school day usually 
 begins in the garden. Arithmetic is studied in connection with 
 the measurements of the plots, the planting of the seed, the 
 weighing and estimating of the crop, the study of the soil, the 
 building of the fence. After the youngest children have laid 
 out their garden plots and planted their seed, they must label 
 the beds and make notes in their garden books of the time of 
 
 50 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 planting and other facts connected with the garden. Thus 
 arises the necessity for reading and writing. The recipes in 
 the school kitchen, and the directions of the day, written on 
 the blackboard, serve as reading lessons. On the library table 
 are displayed attractive books that deal with the things the 
 children are studying in the gardens and on the play-grounds. 
 The child who has been watching the mocking-bird build a 
 nest in the peach tree eagerly reads the bird primer. The 
 group that has found a cocoon and has watched the butterfly 
 emerge from it, listens attentively to the story from the but- 
 terfly book. In that school the school-house is like a country 
 home, with its gardens, its kitchen, its shop and its living 
 room. Much of the day the children spend in the open air, 
 either in the garden itself, or on the big piazza. In the shop 
 there is a little formal manual training, but with simple tools 
 the boys and girls make the things needed in their work. In 
 the kitchen the luncheon for the children and teacher is pre- 
 pared and cooked during the progress of the school day. 
 Much of the food is produced in the garden, and the children 
 thus study all the processes connected with its production 
 and preparation." ^ 
 
 The same writer concludes his article with the two following 
 paragraphs : 
 
 " The new country school will always have an auditorium 
 that may be used as a community meeting place. There the 
 school gives its entertainments; the community literary so- 
 ciety, the farmers' organization, and the women's clubs meet 
 there; in it are held the lyceum attractions that are gradually 
 spreading into the country districts. In addition to its grounds 
 and gardens, the country school will have its experimental 
 and demonstration plots, under the direction of the principal 
 and the teacher of agriculture, and there the farmers of 
 the community will meet at intervals for conference and 
 instruction. 
 
 " The school farm will be tilled with the help of the school 
 horses that pull the wagons in which the children are brought 
 
 1 W. K. Tate, " The New Country School," p. 4. 
 
 51 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 to the school. The play-ground will expand into a community 
 athletic field, with a special building for a community fair. 
 Beside the school house will be the teachers' home. The 
 teachers will be appointed for a term of ten years, will live in 
 the community all the year around, and will take a leading 
 part in the community social life. Near the school house will 
 be the community church, with its resident pastor. About 
 these two regenerated institutions will center a new country 
 life, efficient and socially satisfying." ^ 
 
 B, Rural Life Bureaus of the Federal Government 
 
 The work of the Federal Government in the Rural Field is 
 largely in the hands of bureaus, many of which have recently 
 been established. On the first day of 1916, for example, the 
 new Bureau of Social Centers began operations. To put the 
 schools and churches of Rural America into use in the every- 
 day life of Americans as an Americanizing, industrial, social, 
 educational and religious influence of the broadest character, is 
 the purpose of this new bureau. Much attention will be given 
 those communities in which there are large numbers of immi- 
 grants, since it is recognized that the sons and daughters of 
 America's polyglot foreign population must be assimilated. 
 Many other bureaus are doing an equally important work, 
 the aim of the Federal Government being to supervise all the 
 more important activities of Rural America and to render 
 assistance in the organization of the Rural Field.2 
 
 C. Extension Work ^ 
 
 The editors of The Country Gentleman recently made the 
 statement that " probably the greatest improvement in country 
 life conditions is resulting from the work now being done 
 under the provision of the Smith-Lever Act."* Before the 
 passage of this act in May, 1914, the Federal Government, 
 
 1 W. K. Tate, " The New Country School," p. 8. 
 
 2 The work of Institutes and Granges would be considered at length 
 under the head of Work, were it not so well known. 
 
 3 Inforrnation under the several sections down to that on Banks ob- 
 tained from sources too numerous to mention. 
 
 * From a letter to the author. 
 
 52 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 through its Agricultural Department, the forty-eight states 
 through their Agricultural Departments, Colleges of Agricul- 
 ture and Experiment Stations, the almost three thousand coun- 
 ties, and the many institutions, organizations and individuals 
 not connected with the Federal Government or any of its 
 political subdivisions, cooperated to a greater or less extent in 
 the interest of a better rural life. Bulletins were issued in 
 great number, agricultural trains were run, short courses were 
 given, movable schools were put into operation, extension work 
 of a varied character was conducted, county agricultural 
 agencies for a third of the counties of the nation had been 
 established, boys* and girls' clubs were organized all over the 
 country, and many other things were done. 
 
 This act welds into unity practically all the agencies con- 
 tributing to agricultural progress through the establishment 
 of a permanent national system of agricultural extension 
 work, work that will carry innumerable benefits to the very 
 door of every farm home. And since all the forty-eight states 
 have assented to the provisions of the act, agricultural progress 
 will henceforth be nation-wide in its character. The work is 
 being done through the State Agricultural Colleges. The 
 Smith-Lever Act appropriates $10,000 of federal funds an- 
 nually to each of the forty-eight states and increases the 
 amount yearly until 1923, when the annual Government 
 appropriation will be $4,580,000. The additional appropria- 
 tion is divided among the states in the proportion that the 
 rural population of each state bears to the total rural popula- 
 tion of the states. Any state, however, to share in this 
 extra federal Smith-Lever fund must appropriate and spend 
 in extension work at least an equal amount of money from 
 sources within the state. 
 
 In addition to the Smith-Lever funds, the Department of 
 Agriculture during 1916 will expend from its own appropria- 
 tions over $1,025,000, and the states will raise $2,650,600. This 
 will make a grand total of $4,750,000, including the Smith- 
 Lever fund, to be spent in the fiscal year of 1915-16 in 
 bringing practical and helpful instruction to the farmer and 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 his family in their own communities. Most of this addi- 
 tional money is used in connection with county agencies, 
 boys' and girls' clubs, demonstration work, home economics, 
 extension work, extension work through specialists, and 
 movable schools. 
 
 That an idea may be had of the exact character of the work 
 that will be done in each of the forty-eight states under the 
 provisions of the Smith-Lever Act, a condensed statement of 
 the last annual report of the state of Ohio will be given. Of 
 course it must be remembered in considering this report 
 that the work is only in its incipiency, and that there will be 
 annual enlargements with increased appropriations. Hence, 
 by leaps and bounds the nation is sure to go forward in rural 
 development. 
 
 Ohio 
 
 Staff workers came into direct contact with 40,000 persons 
 last year and an additional 34,000 inspected exhibits. There 
 was participation in 48 one-week extension schools, 39 popular 
 evening meetings, 60 spraying and pruning demonstrations, 24 
 boys' live stock judging contests in 22, counties, 82 fertilizer 
 meetings in 44 counties, 13 community and church meetings, 
 12 women's club meetings, 6 corn shows, 11 domestic science 
 contests and exhibits, 20 farm and orchard demonstrations, 
 18 miscellaneous meetings, 16 high school programs, 6 pupils' 
 and parents' meetings, 8 cow testing association organizations, 
 8 township surveys relative to wheat culture, 10 fruit thinning 
 demonstrations, etc. In addition, a Farmers' Week was held 
 in February and a Country Life Week in August, and fifteen 
 county normal schools in agriculture and thirty-four normal 
 schools in domestic science were conducted. 
 
 Furthermore, 50,000 bulletins were issued periodically, and 
 the number distributed during the year almost reached a half 
 million. Also, 5,500 poultry sheets, representing eleven differ- 
 ent issues, were published. Then bi-weekly news letters were 
 mailed to 800 newspapers in the state, each of which made 
 approximately two newspaper columns and consisted of items 
 
 54 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 on seasonable suggestions on farm, garden, home work, etc. 
 Investigation showed that 80 per cent of all these letters were 
 used, either in whole or in part, by the newspapers. For 
 correspondence courses, 140 lessons have been completed on 
 the following subjects: Alfalfa, bee keeping, clover culture, 
 concrete on the farm, corn culture, dairy farming, farm 
 accounts, farm water supply and sanitation, home economics, 
 orchard fruits, garden products, potato raising, poultry farm- 
 ing, sheep farming, soil fertility, vegetable growing and 
 tobacco growing. 
 
 This underestimates rather than exaggerates the work, since 
 there are many activities of a detailed character that cannot 
 be mentioned. Of course in other states the work is adapted 
 to the needs of the several states, so that each state does the 
 things that will be most helpful to its own country life. In 
 1923 and thereafter the state of Ohio will have available for 
 this work annually the large sum of fully $350,000. 
 
 D. County Agent 
 
 The county agent has been a big factor in promoting the 
 interests of rural life for a period of twelve years, and 
 already over one thousand counties in the forty-eight states 
 have taken advantage of the provisions of the law relative 
 to county agents. Many of these counties also have county 
 experiment farms. There is no doubt that counties having 
 experiment farms under the direction of competent county 
 agents are in a position to make wonderful progress in 
 agricultural development. It is found that experimentation 
 in one part of a state will not prove, except in a general 
 way, very helpful to any portion of the state except that 
 contiguous to the farm on which the experiments are con- 
 ducted. Soil, climate and many other factors make it neces- 
 sary that each county do its own experimenting and accept 
 very little that has not been proved successful within the 
 county itself. Hence, there ought to be not only a county 
 agent, but an experiment farm, in every agricultural county 
 
 55 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 in the United States. If a good agent is secured first, the 
 farm will surely follow. 
 
 The annual report of the county agent of Jewell County, 
 Kansas, will be of interest, since it shows what the average 
 county agent accomplishes during the year : 
 
 Farmers visited on their farms 281 
 
 Total number of visits made 552 
 
 Total number of miles traveled by agent 7,507 
 
 Business calls on agent at his office 359 
 
 Telephone calls 450 
 
 Meetings addressed 115 
 
 Attendance at meetings 8,8S4 
 
 Average attendance at meetings yy 
 
 Total attendance at judging contests 540 
 
 Stock judging contests 13 
 
 Boys' and girls' clubs organized 9 
 
 Number enrolled in boys' and girls' contest work 183 
 
 Circulars, club letters and bulletins written 34 
 
 Copies of above circulars distributed 8,329 
 
 Copies of state and U. S. bulletins distributed. . 4,369 
 
 Letters written 1,079 
 
 Total of all publications distributed ^3,777 
 
 Men enrolled in five-acre contest 23 
 
 Bushels of grain listed for sale 2,390 
 
 Number of head of live stock listed for sale.. 99 
 Number of farmers cooperating in demonstrations 64 
 
 Types of demonstrations 24 
 
 Total number of demonstrations 117 
 
 E. Boys' and Girls' Club Work 
 
 Boys' and girls' club work furnishes one of the best oppor- 
 tunities for teaching by example. Boys' corn and other 
 agricultural clubs have been in existence for some years. 
 The department, in cooperation with various agricultural 
 colleges, did a great deal to popularize this demonstration 
 work and make it effective through acre contests in corn 
 growing. Boys and girls between the ages of 10 and 18 are 
 admitted to these clubs, the work being conducted very largely 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 in cooperation with school officials and teachers in the rural 
 communities. These clubs are supervised by state agents or 
 assistants located at the agricultural colleges, and represent 
 both the colleges and the department. They are assisted by 
 county agents, who aid in the organization and maintenance 
 of the work, and by club specialists from the offices of the 
 Farmers' Cooperative Demonstration Work in the United 
 States Department of Agriculture. 
 
 By far the most wide-spread and numerous organizations 
 of this character are the boys' corn clubs, but there are also 
 clubs for the growing of potatoes, grain, apples, as well as 
 for raising pigs and poultry. The prizes offered in practically 
 all of them have educational value, such as scholarships at 
 the agricultural colleges or short courses, trips to points of 
 interest, etc. 
 
 The object of girls' demonstration work is to teach girls 
 gardening and the canning of vegetables and fruits for home 
 and market; to teach the family how to utilize the surplus 
 and waste products of the farm and garden; to stimulate 
 cooperation among members of the family and in the com- 
 munity; to provide a means for girls to earn money at 
 home; to pave the way for practical demonstrations in home 
 economics; to furnish teachers a plan for correlating home 
 work with school work. Out of the girls' canning club work, 
 which is extensive in the southern states, has grown the 
 employment of county women agents. They occupy the 
 same position to women and girls of the county that men 
 agents do to the men and boys of the county. 
 
 F. Banks 
 
 Within recent years much has been done for the farmer 
 in financial matters. Before the passage of the Bank Act 
 of December, 1913, there were four types of banking institu- 
 tions in the country: national banks, state banks, private 
 banks and building and loan associations. The first were an 
 outgrowth of the Civil War and were established to furnish 
 a market for government bonds and to provide a national 
 
 57 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 currency. The second had been in existence since the close 
 of the Revolutionary War, and differ in the several states, 
 since they are organized under charters granted by the states, 
 although in recent years the tendency has been to model the 
 state laws after the federal laws. The third had their origin 
 at the close of the War of 1812 and have been until recent 
 years little hampered by law in their management. Building 
 and loan associations came a decade or so after the establish- 
 ment of private banks, and have been a boon to thousands 
 of people in enabling them to purchase homes by mortgaging 
 future savings. 
 
 In December, 1913, a federal banking law was passed pro- 
 viding for twelve federal reserve banks, with which all other 
 banks of the country may become affiliated on complying with 
 the conditions imposed. The new law corrects two evils that 
 in the past half century have led to the loss of bilhons of 
 money, viz., an inelastic currency and an immobile reserve. 
 The federal reserve batiks eliminate the two major defects 
 in the nation's banking system through the issuing and retir- 
 ing of federal reserve notes in response to the demands of 
 the business world, and through the opportunity offered 
 member banks of strengthening reserves by negotiating loans 
 based on commercial paper. 
 
 The removal of these two defects in the banking system 
 of the nation has been a very great help to Rural America, 
 since the banks of Rural America had, before the passage 
 of the Act of 1913, been largely at the mercy of the city 
 banks, most of their reserve having been kept in city institu- 
 tions. Hence, if trouble arose in the cities — and there is 
 where panics always started — the reserves of the country 
 banks became more or less unavailable, owing to the distress 
 of the city banks, and the country banks were dependent on 
 the small amount of cash they had in their vaults to satisfy 
 the needs of their depositors. Now, with all the assets of the 
 country banks constantly liquid, regardless of urban condi- 
 tions, the country has been placed on a sound financial basis. 
 In addition, national banks are permitted under the law to 
 
 ^ 58 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 place a considerable per cent of their assets in mortgage 
 loans, which releases many millions of dollars for long-time 
 investments that hitherto had to be put, for the most part, 
 in short-time securities. Dr. Charles L, Stewart, of the 
 University of Illinois, thinks that the present banking system, 
 with the changes made by the Federal Act of 1913, may 
 prove adequate to the needs of Rural America under certain 
 conditions. At the National Conference on Marketing and 
 Farm Credits, held at Chicago, November 29 and 30 and 
 December i and 2, 1915, he made the following statement: 
 
 ''The present type of banks, if subjected to proper super- 
 vision, given certain privileges and enlightened by a scientific 
 study of the credit needs of the farm in different Hues of 
 agriculture, should relieve the American farmer of the need 
 of undertaking to develop a separate banking system." 
 
 G. Rural Credits 
 
 In recent years both Congress and the legislatures of many 
 of the states have given the subject of rural credits a great 
 deal of consideration. A few laws have been passed and 
 several of the states are planning to give the farmers aid. 
 However, no plan has been tried long enough to enable one 
 to judge whether it will prove to be an unqualified success. 
 Many agricultural associations in foreign countries, formed 
 for the purpose of extending credit to farmers, embody the 
 idea of collective liability. It has been generally agreed that 
 associations of this character would not be a success in this 
 country, for the reason that the American farmer is an 
 individualist and does not care to assume any indebtedness 
 beyond that which he himself contracts. However, the 
 likelihood is that plans will be evolved, not containing the 
 feature of collective liability, which will still permit farmers 
 to secure all the money to which they are entitled and at 
 any time that it is needed, at minimum rates. When one 
 realizes that the best talent of the nation is working on the 
 problem, one concludes that plans will be forthcoming in 
 harmony with the spirit of Rural America and productive 
 
 59 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 of as good results as those found in any other part of the 
 world. 
 
 In this connection, a word from the late Hon. Henry 
 Wallace, of Des Moines, Iowa, is very much in place. He 
 says that the big need of Rural America is not so much 
 greater facilities for getting in debt, since a plentiful supply 
 of money at low rates gives rise to land speculation, which 
 leads both to a transfer of land to the rich and to a rise in its 
 value, thereby causing a decrease in the number of poor land- 
 owners, but greater facilities for getting out of debt. The 
 facilities for getting in debt are abundant. If the opportuni- 
 ties for getting out of debt show an equally great increase, 
 then the young man who wants to become a tenant and the 
 tenant who wants to buy a farm will be given the kind of 
 help that is most needed in Rural America. The former can 
 be best aided through a long lease, which must be made the 
 rule instead of the exception if this nation is not to become 
 a nation of city dwellers and peasants, and the latter can be 
 best aided through loans extending over a long period of 
 years. Both would thus have plenty of time to build up the 
 land and the danger of a nation of tenant farmers would be 
 removed. 
 
 The strengthened condition of the thousands of rural banks 
 of the country due to the passage of the Money Bill of 
 December, 1913, has already proved to be a boon to many 
 sections of Rural America. So if the law can be reinforced 
 by the passage of a workable rural credits law by Congress 
 and by supplementary laws in the several states, the chief 
 cause that has militated against tenants' getting hold of the 
 land will have been removed. 
 
 At the National Conference on Marketing and Farm Credits 
 (November-December, 1915) many plans for improving the 
 credit conditions of Rural America were suggested by speakers 
 of national reputation. Some of these will be briefly con- 
 sidered. The Hon. Harris Weinstock, member of the Cali- 
 fornia Rural Credit Commission, advocated, as a remedy for 
 absentee landlordism, that the several states buy and improve 
 
 60 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 land and sell the same to persons intending to adopt the 
 calling of farming. He referred to the success of the Irish 
 and Australian land acts and recommended a 5 per cent initial 
 payment on the land and a one-third payment on equipment. 
 The Hon. Charles W. Holman, expert on land problems, also 
 held that state aid would prove to be the only remedy for 
 absentee landlordism. He said that the greatest real estate 
 deal of history was the buying out of the Irish landlords by the 
 British Government. In 1876 one-half the land of Ireland was 
 owned by 700 persons. Today there are over 400,000 home 
 owners and only 200,000 tenants, and no other nation of the 
 world has made more progress agriculturally during the past 
 generation than Ireland. Dr. Elwood Mead, of the Univer- 
 sity of California, stated that the Australian and New Zea- 
 land methods, in the matter of getting the land into the 
 hands of the home owners, were better adapted to conditions 
 in the United States than any other foreign plans. Australia, 
 for example, finances the farmers on small tracts of land, 
 provides supervisors for groups of farmers and gives pur- 
 chasers a long time to pay for their land, charging them low 
 rates of interest. Men are drawn to the land and the 
 government has profited financially through the undertaking. 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. F. W. Thompson, president of 
 the Farm Mortgage Bankers' Association, called attention 
 to the resolution adopted by his association at their conven- 
 tion in October, 1915, which provided for national land 
 mortgage banks, supervised like national banks, and having 
 the double function of (i) negotiating, buying and selling 
 individual farm mortgages and (2) issuing farm mortgage 
 bonds against the collective mortgage security held. He 
 maintained that the average interest rate of the farm mortgage 
 loans of the country aggregating two billion dollars was not 
 excessive, being only 6^ per cent. Robert D. Kent, a New 
 Jersey banker, suggested a national system of building and 
 loan associations, with local and district associations and a 
 great national association. Such an arrangement, he be- 
 lieved, would stimulate initiative, encourage self-help and 
 
 61 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 place on the market under the guarantee of the national 
 association a new type of mortgage bond, a gilt-edged invest- 
 ment for all the people. 
 
 The Hon. Myron T. Herrick, former United States 
 ambassador to France, thought that the credit facilities of 
 the farmer should be improved through private initiative 
 rather than state aid, although uniform laws to standardize 
 credits, to provide careful supervision and to guarantee 
 perfect safety should be passed. He spoke of the unenviable 
 state aid experiences of Denmark, France, Russia and some 
 of the Balkan countries and referred to the experience of 
 the Federal Government in 1836, when the surplus of the 
 treasury was deposited with twenty-six states. New York^ 
 the most populous state, lost all of its share, over four 
 millions, most of which was invested in farm loans. He also 
 referred to the recent experience of the Federal Government 
 in irrigation projects, which have cost over $100,000,000 and 
 have proved unsatisfactory both to the Government and to 
 the settlers. All agree, however, that the credit facilities 
 of the United States are bad. So his first recommendation 
 is the enactment of proper real estate laws, with the adop- 
 tion by all the states of the Torrens system, with the revision, 
 where necessary, of foreclosure laws, and with the enactment 
 of permissive laws with reference to bond and mortgage 
 companies and landshafts. 
 
 Early in the 1915-1916 session of Congress there was 
 introduced in the House a rural credits bill providing for a 
 federal loan board to be appointed by the president and a 
 number of federal loan banks, each to have a capital of at 
 least $500,000. These federal loan banks would loan to 
 farmers through local associations. Of course, this bill is 
 likely to be considerably modified before it is enacted into 
 law if it should finally become a statute. 
 
 H. Taxation 
 
 A study of the taxation laws of the country reveals the 
 fact that most of the states still have what is known as the 
 t^ 62 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 general property tax (abolished in the following states: Vir- 
 ginia, 1902; Minnesota, 1906; Oklahoma, 1907; Michigan, 
 1909; Arizona, 191 1; Maine, 1913; New Mexico, 1914; North 
 Dakota, 1914; Kentucky and Maryland, 1915), which means 
 that all kinds of property are taxed on the same basis. Of 
 course there is a good deal of difference among the states 
 in the matter of appraisement. In some states property is 
 appraised at only a fraction of its real value, while in other 
 states the appraisement is higher, and in a few states all 
 property is on the duplicate at its real value. This system 
 of taxation, which has come, down from the early days, when 
 nearly all property consisted of real estate and tangible per- 
 sonal property, is now proving generally unsatisfactory owing 
 to the vast increase in intangible personal property, which 
 can be concealed, thus throwing the burden of taxation on 
 real estate and tangible personal property. 
 
 Owing to the great amount of intangible personal property 
 in the cities, much of which escapes taxation, the farmer 
 has felt the burden of unjust taxation and made complaint 
 all over the country. The result has been that the general 
 property tax has been either abolished or modified in many 
 states. Certain kinds of property have been exempted from 
 taxation altogether, or taxed at lower rates, and in a few 
 states the laws have worked to the advantage of the farmer, 
 since some of the exemptions, as well as the property on 
 which the rates have been lowered, are found on the farm. 
 However, in the matter of taxation, a study of the situation 
 reveals the fact that the greatest benefit from new laws has 
 gone to the residents of cities, since most of them have to do 
 with personal property, which is found to a much greater 
 value in municipal centers than in the country. One real 
 benefit has come to the farmer in several states in the exemp- 
 tion of mortgages from taxation, which increases the desira- 
 bility of the mortgage from an investment standpoint and 
 reduces, at least theoretically, the rate of interest. There is 
 not a single state in the Union that has a tax law that is 
 giving general satisfaction. The great drawback to the 
 
 63 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 passage of a law that would be absolutely fair for all 
 residents of a state is the unfortunate element of selfish- 
 ness that enters into human nature. Possibly, sometime, 
 Americans, like Greeks in the palmy days of Greece, will 
 subordinate private welfare to the general welfare, making 
 private life simple and pubHc life ample and rich, and then 
 tax troubles will disappear. 
 
 /. Blue Sky Laws 
 
 There was a time in this country when the peddler of 
 stocks and bonds of uncertain value did a thriving business. 
 Statisticians estimate the losses of the people through invest- 
 ments in such securities by the hundreds of millions. How- 
 ever, one state after another has passed what Kansas, leading 
 the way, called a blue sky law, which throws so many 
 obstacles in the way of the illegitimate handling of stocks 
 and bonds that the swindler finds his way beset with impedi- 
 ments, and the business of disposing of wild-cat securities to 
 the gullible has languished. Although the farmer is no more 
 susceptible to the fairy tales of the swindler than the average 
 citizen, yet easy money has always had a very strong attrac- 
 tion for him, for the reason that his profits represent the 
 sweat of his brow. So, through the passage of these protective 
 laws, the farmers of America are being saved millions of 
 money annually that in preceding years filled the coffers of the 
 wily stockjobber. Recent months, however, have witnessed 
 a sort of reaction against blue sky legislation, with the result 
 that some of the laws already passed may be repealed or 
 modified. It is claimed that the severity of the laws is 
 very detrimental to the interests of legitimate stock and bond 
 concerns. Still, there is no likelihood that the states will 
 revert to the leniency of the days when the business was 
 absolutely unhampered. 
 
 /. Good Roads 
 
 The past decade has been a decade of good road building, 
 and the farmer is the one receiving the greatest benefit. Of 
 
 1^ 64 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 course most of the roads being built are paid for by the 
 farmers themselves. But to a greater extent than ever 
 before are the several states going into the business of con- 
 structing highways, and these are being built largely at state 
 expense. And since many of the states have urban popula- 
 tions that are greatly in excess of the rural populations, it 
 can readily be seen that the cities are paying the larger 
 share for the very roads that bring the farmers into touch 
 with the urban centers and thus make their products more 
 valuable because of the improvement in transportation facili- 
 ties. Besides, the likelihood is that the Federal Government 
 will in due time have a financial part in the construction of 
 some of the roads of the country, and this, too, will accrue 
 to the advantage of the farmer. The nation has entered the 
 automobile era, the slogan of which is good roads. The auto- 
 mobile era is making a new epoch in the national life, and if 
 it does nothing more than give the nation good roads it will 
 have served a good purpose for the fifty million people of 
 Rural America. At the present time, the several political 
 subdivisions of the forty-eight states expend annually in road 
 work $174,035,083, the total road mileage of the country is 
 2,273,131, and of this mileage almost 11 per cent has been 
 improved. 
 
 K. Economic Cooperation 
 
 The spirit of cooperation is beginning to permeate the 
 whole of Rural America. There is an increasing tendency to 
 cooperation in all activities. One scarcely finds a county, 
 for example, that does not have its local mutual insurance 
 company, and many counties have a number of such com- 
 panies. The time is likely to come when the insurance idea 
 will have been so widely adopted that one can protect himself 
 against almost all hazards found in the open country. In 
 recent years, rural telephone companies have become quite 
 numerous, with the result that there are few sections any- 
 where that do not enjoy perfect telephone service. One also 
 finds here and there cooperative arrangements for securing 
 
 6s 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 both gas and electricity. In many parts of the country central 
 electric light plants supply power and light, where desired, 
 within a radius of many miles. Besides, most persons have 
 heard of the discoveries that make possible both lighting and 
 heating by electricity at a distance and by wireless. Investi- 
 gation also shows that there are organizations of many kinds 
 having to do with cooperative buying and selling. However, 
 all cooperative activities are for the most part local in char- 
 acter and nothing has yet been worked out that is national 
 in its scope. The many units found in Rural America make 
 the problem of cooperation on a very large scale very diffi- 
 cult of solution. 
 
 At the National Conference on Marketing and Farm Credits 
 the slogan was cooperation. Millard R. Myers, editor of the 
 American Cooperative Journal, advocated the adoption of 
 the Rochdale plan in cooperative activities. This means : ( i ) 
 every customer a shareholder; (2) every shareholder one vote; 
 (3) interest paid on money invested; and (4) surplus divided 
 on the basis of patronage. Hon. Frank L. McVey, president 
 of the conference, stated that although the farmers of the 
 nation {^6 per cent of the population) have had for several 
 years an annual income of nine billion dollars, yet agriculture 
 has not prospered, and he mentioned three needs : better agri- 
 culture, better markets and better finance. And back of all 
 three, he maintained, there must be organization, cooperation. 
 Producers of iron ore are organized for the transportation, 
 melting and manufacture of their product, and its sale to the 
 consumer, and many other producers have found it necessary 
 to do the same thing. American agriculture must organize 
 also if she would hold her own. In Germany, according to 
 Hon. David Lubin, of Rome, Italy, an autocratic government 
 devised an economic system for the farming population and 
 put it into operation for a double purpose : to elevate the farm- 
 ing population to a higher plane, and, through strengthening 
 the position of the conservative farming population, to coun- 
 teract the tendencies of the socialistic and radical urban popu- 
 lation. Mr. Lubin says the American farmer is naturally 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 brighter than the German farmer, but the German farmer is 
 today the brightest in the world owing to the fact of govern- 
 ment aid. Unquestionably a group of federal experts with 
 unlimited power could within a generation revolutionize 
 American agricultural conditions. But many persons think it 
 would be better for the farming population to attain the 
 uplands of achievement through their own initiative than to 
 rise as a result of outside initiative. The Hon. Sir Horace 
 Plunkett, of Dublin, Ireland, said the value of cooperative 
 movements can be especially seen in crises. He pointed out 
 that the food situation in Europe during the war would be 
 infinitely worse if it were not for the organization among 
 farmers that prevails in nearly all the countries. 
 
 Cooperation was especially urged at the conference in the 
 matter of marketing. Many speakers made the statement 
 that the farmers of the nation lose annually untold sums 
 because, in their unorganized condition, they deal almost 
 solely with organized bodies of men. W. J. Kittle, of Chicago, 
 secretary of the Milk Producers' Association, said that 12,500 
 dairy farmers supply Chicago with one and one-quarter mil- 
 Hon quarts of milk daily. This milk is produced on land 
 worth from $150 to $250 per acre by cows worth $100 a head. 
 Labor costs $35 to $40 a month and feed is always high. Yet 
 the farmer averages only from 25^c to 4c a quart for his milk, 
 when the actual cost of production is according to experts 5c 
 a quart. Hon. Wilfred Wheeler, secretary of the Massachu- 
 setts State Board of Agriculture, said the situation relative 
 to dairy farming was equally serious not only in his state but 
 in all New England. According to The Banker-Farmer there 
 are 14,000,000 cows in the country, owned by 1,400,000 persons, 
 and two-thirds of these earn a profit of only 30c a year each. 
 
 The two chief reasons given for failure to get results in 
 marketing farm products, according to Charles J. Brand, chief 
 of the Bureau of Markets and Rural Organization, were non- 
 standardization and lack of uniformity in containers. Dr. 
 Charles McCarthy recommended that each state should have 
 its own brands or labels, that there should be state administra- 
 
 67 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 tive bodies charged with the responsibility of making rules, 
 that only such goods as answered requirements should be given 
 brands or labels, and that the commissioners of the several 
 states should cooperate with one another. There is quite a 
 number of organizations whose brands are famous. These are 
 found especially in fruit sections and dairy products districts. 
 Of the numerous cooperative enterprises in North America 
 possibly the largest, in point of products handled, may be 
 considered the three grain companies of Western Canada. 
 George F. Chipman, of Winnipeg, said these include 490 ele- 
 vators, which have already handled more than 250,000,000 
 bushels of grain at a profit of $1,600,000. The speaker pre- 
 dicted that they would eventually handle three-fourths of the 
 grain crop of Canada and go extensively into the other lines 
 of business having to do with the farmer. 
 
 Thirteen states now have marketing bureaus, which are 
 giving special attention to the marketing of farm crops. 
 W. G. Scholtz, director of the Idaho Department of Markets, 
 said his state is doing three important things through the 
 recently established department of which he is director. It 
 conducts a free employment bureau to assist farmers to secure 
 laborers, and laborers to get work. It aims to eliminate 
 fraud in land sales and helps buyers to find land at reasonable 
 prices. It aids in the marketing of farm products at maxi- 
 mum prices. Clarence Ousley, of Texas, claimed there was a 
 preventable waste in the cotton crop of the South running as 
 high as $300,000,000, and this was largely due to faulty han- 
 dling, marketing and transporting. To eliminate this waste 
 within her own borders, Texas passed a warehouse law pro- 
 viding for the storage not only of cotton, but of all other 
 agricultural products. Through regulated ginning, baling, 
 sampling and grading, Texas hopes to save her farmers mil- 
 lions of dollars annually, and, through the issuance of ware- 
 house receipts, make it possible to borrow money on stored 
 cotton, thus preventing the anaual dtmiping of cotton on thq 
 market. 
 
 The officers of the thirteen state marketing bureaus recently 
 68 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 held a meeting at Chicago, and organized a national associa- 
 tion of marketing officials. They strongly urge the creation 
 of marketing bureaus in all of the states which have none at 
 the present time, with the thought that when each state has a 
 marketing bureau, a national marketing plan can be devised 
 which will result in introducing improved methods of market- 
 ing, thereby eliminating a great deal of waste. 
 
 John Lee Coulter, dean of the College of Agriculture, West 
 Virginia, made the statement that there are 5,000,000 tenants 
 and farm laborers in the United States and that the future 
 of the United States is dependent on these men. The follow- 
 ing is the program which he recommends : 
 
 1. An act of Congress providing for a complete scheme of 
 farm land banks. 
 
 2. Legislative acts of the states supplementing the national 
 law and providing for state institutions to do various phases 
 of the mortgage business which the national farm land bank 
 would not care to undertake. 
 
 3. Legislation by the states simplifying the laws pertain- 
 ing to titles, deeds, foreclosures and exemptions. 
 
 4. An up-to-date state bureau of farm lands with a com- 
 plete list of farms for sale and farms for rent, and with as 
 much detail concerning these as possible. 
 
 5. A thorough scheme of rural education with county organ- 
 ization, so provided that every county headquarters would 
 have a complete list and careful rating of all farms in the 
 county. 
 
 6. Such state legislation as is necessary to take over by some 
 public service corporation lands not already developed — these 
 lands to be developed, parceled, and sold on advantageous 
 terms to select farmers who, not owning any land, are seeking 
 to become permanent settlers, with the idea of living upon and 
 operating their own farms. 
 
 The state that has done the most in the field of economic 
 cooperative activities is Minnesota. On January i, 1914, there 
 were in the state 2,013 cooperative establishments, and these, 
 in 1913, did a total business of $60,759,208. These figures are 
 
 69 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 taken from a bulletin of the agricultural experiment station of 
 the University of Minnesota. The records were compiled 
 with great care after investigations by experts. 
 
 In the lead of cooperative enterprises are the creameries, of 
 which, in 1914, there were 614, which represent y2 per cent 
 of all the creameries of the state. Their business amounted 
 to $21,675,252. Forty-two per cent of the farmers of the state 
 are patrons of these creameries. In no other state is the 
 butter industry controlled to such an extent by the farmers 
 themselves. The extent of the business and the cost of con- 
 ducting it are shown in the following figures: 
 
 Total pounds of butter made in 1913 74,934,940 
 
 Average number of pounds per creamery. 122,044 
 
 Total paid farmers for butter fat $19,988,321 
 
 Average paid farmers per creamery $32,554 
 
 Total running expenses $1,628,931 
 
 Expense per pound of butter made (cents) 2.2 
 
 Total number of patrons. 65,191 
 
 Average number of patrons per creamery. . 106 
 
 Total number of cows belonging to patrons 504,975 
 Average number of cows per creamery. . . . 822 
 
 These creameries are operated on a truly cooperative basis. 
 After deducting from their gross receipts enough to cover 
 expenses, they distribute the remaining profits according to 
 the amount of butter fat brought by each patron. In all 
 excepting 3^ per cent of the creameries, the one-man one- 
 vote principle prevails. 
 
 In 1913, the state had 34 cooperative cheese factories. 
 These manufactured 4,201,743 pounds of cheese at a value of 
 $637,324, and paid patrons in cash $563,845. They were oper- 
 ated at an expense of $73,379. It also had 270 farmers' ele- 
 vators, with an aggregate membership of about 34,5oo. 
 Following the harvesting of the 1912 crops, the total business 
 of these elevators amounted to $24,000,000. The farmers 
 own a majority of the stock of the elevators and in all save 
 
 70 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 SVi per cent each stockholder has but one vote, regardless 
 of the number of shares he owns. 
 
 Cooperative stores are less numerous. Of the 120 stores 
 reporting, sixty-one rendered detailed reports showing a total 
 business of $2,593,643, an avefage of $43,518 for each store. 
 The cooperative store movement has been marked by a num- 
 ber of failures, but there are no figures to prove that the 
 experiences of cooperative stores have been much, if any, 
 worse than those of privately owned stores. Farmers own 
 81 per cent of the stock in fifty-nine of the stores, and if the 
 average should hold for the rest of the 120, the movement 
 is in line with the development of the cooperative spirit in 
 other directions. 
 
 A more recent development in cooperative marketing in 
 Minnesota has to do with live stock shipping associations. 
 On January i* 1914, there were 115 such organizations, and 
 many have been formed since. The value of the live stock 
 marketed through associations in 1913 was approximately 
 $6,000,000, 12 per cent of the total. There are 600 cooperative 
 telephone companies, which do an annual business of $900,000, 
 and 154 township mutual fire insurance companies, which 
 were the first successful cooperative enterprises in the state. 
 Receipts from premiums in 1913 were $696,732, and the total 
 amount of insurance outstanding January i, 1914, was $342,- 
 223,319. The cost of each $100 of insurance in force was 
 18 cents, as against 46 cents for stock companies soliciting 
 business on three-year contracts. The number of policies in 
 force at the end of 1913 was 158,283, an average of 1,128 for 
 each company. 
 
 The Hon. Myron T. Herrick, in his address before the 
 National Conference on Markets and Rural Credits, gave the 
 following comprehensive definition of an economic cooperative 
 association: "A cooperative association may be defined as 
 a voluntary union of persons for utilizing their collective 
 energies or resources, or a part of them, under their manage- 
 ment, in some economic enterprise carried on upon their 
 common account with a view to their mutual and individual 
 
 71 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 benefit." All the speakers at the conference agreed that an 
 association such as that just defined would be the only means 
 of creating a greater Rural America. 
 
 L. Politics 
 
 In political matters two movements have been more or less 
 general in Rural America: one, a movement to give to the 
 people more power in government; the other, a movement to 
 reconcile politics and religion, which have been, in a measure, 
 divorced from the beginning. The former may be studied 
 in the great amount of federal and state legislation of recent 
 years. It has not been very many years, for example, since 
 little was known in the United States of the initiative and 
 referendum, which are forbidding Latin derivatives. But 
 today eighteen of the forty-eight states provide for either 
 one or both of them in their constitutions. South Dakota 
 made the start in 1898 and the other seventeen states followed 
 in rapid succession. The latter movement is in evidence 
 everywhere. There has been a great resurgence of conscience 
 in Rural America, and a mighty effort is being put forth to 
 purify the political life of the nation. 
 
 M. Foundations 
 
 In a number of cities of the country, notably Cleveland, 
 St. Louis and Chicago, there have recently been established 
 foundations to handle bequests dedicated to community wel- 
 fare. There are thousands of persons dying every year who 
 would like to leave part or all of their estates for the benefit 
 of the people. But the difficulty has been to arrange for the 
 wise handling of the bequests. How much money is willed 
 to private individuals, or left to relatives that do not need it, 
 or foolishly given away, which would be set aside for the 
 good of all, if confidence could be inspired in prospective 
 benefactors that their bequests would be in safe hands after 
 their death. Now, the problem has been solved in some 
 communities through the establishment of foundations, which 
 are sure to be well managed all through the future, each 
 
 72 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 bequest to be administered in accordance with the wishes 
 of the donor. Such a foundation might be called a clearing 
 house of bequests, gifts, donations, etc., and should be estab- 
 lished in every community. Even small communities of a 
 thousand people might well have them, and there is no reason 
 why such institutions would not fill a need in townships and 
 counties. They would, in time, receive property of various 
 kinds that would surprise even the most sanguine. They 
 would encourage philanthropy. They would correct miscel- 
 laneous and harmful charity. They would promote local 
 spirit. They would eventually become a strong factor in 
 putting Rural America on a soHd foundation. Almost every 
 community today contains would-be benefactors, and the need 
 of an organization which will inspire confidence and encourage 
 giving for the general welfare is becoming more and more 
 urgent as the nation increases in wealth. 
 
 A^. Efficiency 
 
 All know that one of the big words of the present age is 
 efficiency, which is just now playing a very important part 
 in the industrial world. Of course the reason why men are 
 giving the matter of efficiency so much attention in the indus- 
 trial world is because it increases profits, and profits rule the 
 nation, even though it is gradually dawning on the national 
 consciousness that profits are not the whole of life. The 
 expression is gaining currency, " Man does not live by cash 
 alone." Now, it is comparatively easy to develop efficiency 
 in the industrial world, where great aggregations of men are 
 under the direction of trained leaders and where the rule is, 
 few units and increasing expertness of leaders. But in Rural 
 America, where the units are innumerable and almost every 
 man is his own master, efficiency makes very slow progress. 
 It is no serious criticism of Rural America to say that the 
 amount of her wasted and misdirected energy is beyond com- 
 putation. R. L. Gray, in The Saturday Evening Post, speaks 
 very much to the point in this connection: 
 
 " A young man was husking corn at two cents a bushel 
 
 73 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 twelve years ago and was barely able to earn a dollar a day 
 while men in the same field earned twice as much. They 
 worked no harder than he did and not so long. He began 
 watching to see where he lost time. He was slow in moving 
 from stalk to stalk and saw at once that it required no more 
 energy to move quickly that it did to move slowly. He had 
 taken one long step on the road to improvement. Then he 
 saw that he was making five distinct motions in getting an 
 ear from the husk when only two were necessary, so he learned 
 to make two and get the ear clean. The third fall he husked 
 fifty bushels in four hours more easily than he had in ten 
 hours at the beginning. 
 
 " In my boyhood there was a chum with whom I spent 
 many pleasant days. He was the hardest worker and the 
 most ingenious boy in the neighborhood. When he went out 
 to feed the horses in the morning he watered and fed the 
 hogs, because the yards were on the way to the barn. When 
 he had fed the horses he went to the pasture and drove up 
 the cows, because the barn was on the way to the pasture. 
 That boy would not take twenty steps where five would do. 
 He could do more in a day than any man in the neighborhood, 
 and he did it with less exertion because he knew how to work 
 and kept his mind on what he was doing. 
 
 " Here is a suggestion that if followed for a week will be 
 fairly well followed for life. While beginning the morning- 
 chores map out the day*s w^ork, estimate the time it will take 
 to do it. If anything else can be done to advantage, gain 
 time enough to do it. Make life a living contract and live 
 up to it. Deal with the agent promptly and fire the loafer. 
 Time is worth money to the live farmer and it isn't worth 
 fifteen cents a million years to the loafer. Tighten up the 
 screwy and get rid of the lost motion." 
 
 74 
 
3. Worship 
 
 " About seven million years ago, more or less, a stupid 
 slow-moving lizard known to science as brontosaurus roamed 
 the earth. He was thirty feet tall and seventy feet long. He 
 weighty over thirty tons. As he lumbered along, each of his 
 ponderous feet left a track that occupied one square yard. 
 No one knows why he became extinct. Perhaps the earth 
 shrugged her shoulders one day and brontosaurus could not 
 adapt himself to the change. Nature scrapped him." The 
 scrap heap of America is beginning to assume huge propor- 
 tions, since mighty efforts are being put forth everywhere to 
 discard the things not conducive to progress. The country 
 church of yesterday was adequate to the needs of pioneer 
 times, but she has fallen behind and hence must suffer the 
 fate of brontosaurus. Country life experts agree that the 
 present rural church is, to a greater extent than any other 
 rural institution, a remnant of a past civilization. The new 
 country church is an entirely different institution. Although 
 there are many agencies in Rural America that are further- 
 ing the religious welfare of the people, the only one that 
 will be considered under the head of Worship will be the 
 rural church, since others are considered under other 
 headings. 
 
 A. The Rural Church 
 
 The " Old Time Religion " is more strongly entrenched in 
 Rural America than in Urban America : there, many persons 
 consider this earth a place of probation and there, too, the 
 piety of the fathers continues to prevail. Urban America is 
 more inclined to discard the old and adopt the new, regardless 
 of the advice of Alexander Pope: 
 
 Be not the first by whom the new is tried, 
 Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. 
 
 75 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 A poet recently satirized this inclination of Urban America 
 in these words: 
 
 Father is a Futurist, mother is a Suf., 
 Grandma's a Conservative, hates newfangled stuff; 
 Brother's an Impressionist, sister's Academic, 
 Uncle Tom's Cubistical and baby is Eugenic. 
 
 Although it is not to be regretted that emphasis in urban 
 religious activity is being transferred from life beyond the 
 grave to life on this side of the grave, since life on earth 
 is the important thing today, yet the decay of the piety of 
 earlier days, which is more prevalent in the city than in the 
 country, is to be deplored. It is the decay of the old time 
 piety that causes The Wall Street lournal to express itself 
 thus: 
 
 "What America needs more than railway extension, and 
 western irrigation, and low tariff, and a bigger wheat crop, 
 and a merchant marine, and a new navy, is a revival of 
 piety — the kind father and mother used to have — piety 
 that counted it good business to stop for daily family prayer 
 before breakfast, right in the middle of harvest; that quit 
 field work a half hour early Thursday night, so as to get the 
 chores done in time for prayer-meeting; that borrowed 
 money to pay the preacher^s salary. That's what we need 
 now to clean this country of the filth of graft, and of greed, 
 petty and big; of worship of fine houses and big lands and 
 high offices and grand social functions. What is this big 
 thing we are worshiping but a vain repetition of what de- 
 cayed nations fell down and worshiped just before their 
 lights went out? Great wealth never made a nation sub- 
 stantial nor honorable. There is nothing on earth that looks 
 good that is so dangerous for a man or a nation as quick, 
 easy, big money. If you do resist its deadly influence the 
 chances are it will get your son." 
 
 Some time ago a man arose in a prayer service and asked 
 an interest in the prayers of those present because he was 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 getting rich rapidly. America has been getting rich so 
 rapidly in recent years that a great resurgence of prayer 
 is needed to save her from the curse of materialism. Prof. 
 L. P. Jacks recently made the statement that the chief cause 
 of the great war was, the economic development of the world 
 has outstripped the moral development.^ The wealth of the 
 cities has for a generation been growing by leaps and bounds 
 owing to the triumphs Urban America has been achieving in 
 the field of world commerce, and a combination of causes 
 has added bilHons to the wealth of the farmer. But the most 
 hopeful sign of the present is that the wealth of the farmer 
 is likely to increase more slowly in the future than it did in 
 the recent past, which will prevent the extinction of piety 
 in the country, where it has continued to live since the days 
 of the fathers. Fortunately, it shows many signs of revival 
 in the country, and, with the country safe. Urban America 
 will be safe. At the Country Church Conference, Columbus, 
 Ohio, December 8, 9, 10, 1915, the statement was made that 
 three- fourths of the members of urban churches join by 
 letter, which indicates migration from country to city, while 
 three-fourths of the members of rural churches are gained 
 by profession of faith. 
 
 The new religion of Rural America has a double creed: 
 (a) the country is the best place on earth to own a home, 
 to make a living and to rear a family, and (b) the country 
 must take the initiative in the great work of establishing the 
 Kingdom of God on earth. This creed is coming to be 
 generally accepted in spite of the fact that here and there 
 the country church has tried " to digest an urban religion 
 under an urbanized leadership," with consequent severe pains 
 and extreme nausea. 
 
 A study of the rural field reveals the following facts: (i) 
 The whole nation seems to know that the country church must 
 be made a regnant institution in Rural America. (2) The 
 problem of the country church is being studied in a scientific 
 
 ^ See The Atlantic Monthly, September, 1915, p. 419. 
 
 77 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 manner. Students are realizing that the rural church, like 
 other rural institutions, must be given its proper setting in 
 rural life. (3) The number of institutions, associations, 
 organizations, societies, etc., that are seeking a solution of the 
 rural church problem, in the light of the scientific method, 
 is increasing from year to year, and their efforts are bearing 
 wonderful fruit. (4) Leadership is beginning to realize that 
 the problems of the country demanding solution before Rural 
 America can boast of the great rural civilization of which her 
 wonderful inherent powers give promise, are worthy of the 
 best minds in the whole nation. No big man can possibly be 
 happy with a little task. Rural America for the next genera- 
 tion contains the big tasks of the country, and these are invit- 
 ing leadership to a test of its powers. 
 
 Among the handicaps to the development of a strong rural 
 church may be mentioned: (i) Diminishing membership. 
 With a decrease in the population of the country, it is quite 
 natural that the membership of the country churches should 
 decrease. In many a country church has the writer discussed 
 this matter with some of the leading members. Invariably he 
 is told of this family and that family and the other family 
 having moved from the neighborhood and of a reduction in 
 the number of farms. Of course this sort of thing stirs the 
 blood of the fighting man, and, in all live churches, great efforts 
 are being put forth to get the entire community into the 
 churches, that they may hold their own. But one can gather 
 little inspiration from the task of building up a church in a 
 community with a diminishing population. The next census, 
 however, will likely show the country population decreasing 
 less rapidly. (2) Traction lines and automobiles. Each is a 
 great temptation to the resident of the farm on Sunday, 
 especially if he has been busy all week, with little oppor- 
 tunity for social diversion. How easy it is to take the trac- 
 tion car for a pleasure ride or a trip somewhere, or to run 
 out the automobile for a few hours' spin on the good roads, 
 even to the other side of the county, if one desires. The 
 number of automobiles is increasing very rapidly in the 
 
 \v 78 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 country. At a county fair held by a rural county in Septem- 
 ber, 1915, a group of investigators counted on the grounds 
 1,750 automobiles at one time on the big day. The farmer 
 has come to regard the automobile as not only a luxury but 
 a necessity in the life of his family. (3) Attractive town and 
 city churches with excellent music and eloquent pastors. 
 Within recent years, hundreds and thousands of town and 
 city churches have increased their membership at the expense 
 of the country churches. Today there is hardly a town or 
 city church that does not have its growing rural membership. 
 It is only during the past decade that special attention has been 
 given to a study of crowds and the results of the study are 
 amazing. Although much can be accomplished by small 
 groups, yet there is more inspiration when the company is 
 large than when only two or three are gathered together. 
 
 Now, if this problem is to be solved, the first need is a 
 more perfect cooperation among the individuals, churches, 
 organizations, institutions, societies, associations, etc., that 
 are bending their efforts to the renaissance of the rural 
 church. It will be impossible at this point to go into details, 
 but a word might be said about the denominations that have 
 country churches. Not only should each of the^e have a 
 department, whose whole time is devoted to the work of the 
 rural church, but they should work out a plan of cooperation. 
 Denominational jealousies must be eliminated, and denomina- 
 tions must be broad enough to solve the problems of each 
 country community in a spirit of concession. As long as 
 denominations are more concerned about the welfare of 
 individual churches than about the welfare of communities, 
 so long will the solution of the country church problem be 
 delayed. " Loyalty to one's own church is surely a virtue. 
 But when one's loyalty to his church exceeds his loyalty to the 
 Kingdom, then a law of the Kingdom is broken and some 
 one's life is broken with it." Reorganizations and new align- 
 ments are needed on a big scale in the rural field. 
 
 The rural church situation is somewhat different in different 
 parts of the country. In New England and the Middle States 
 
 79 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 one finds depleted land fertility, abandoned farms and great 
 urban development with a rather homogeneous rural popula- 
 tion; in the South one finds sections held back by several 
 centuries of slavery, devastated by a four years' civil war, 
 handicapped by the co-existence of two races equal in popu- 
 lation, the inferior of which must be elevated at the expense 
 of the superior, and suffering from all the troubles of a 
 hitherto one crop country; in the great Mississippi Valley 
 one finds rich lands gradually losing their fertility, farms 
 decreasing in number and increasing in size, and a population 
 of considerable heterogeneity; in the Great West one finds 
 for the most part semi-arid land made productive through 
 irrigation, and a population representing some of the best 
 people of the East and Mississippi Valley scattered over wide 
 areas. In all these sections there is tremendous activity in the 
 great work of solving the country church problem. New 
 Ejigland and the Middle States are thoroughly awake; the 
 South, to any one who attended the great Conference for 
 Education and Industry in 1915, seems to have assumed the 
 responsibilities for her herculean task with a determination 
 to achieve victory; the Mississippi Valley is endeavoring to 
 fuse all the agencies of rural progress into a triumphant force 
 for shaping the destiny of the world's greatest rural popula- 
 tion, and the Great West is building a civilization of its own 
 on the experiences of America's past. 
 
 Of epoch-making importance was the Country Church 
 Conference held in Columbus, Ohio, December 8, 9, 10, 1915, 
 under the direction of the Federal Council of Churches of 
 Christ in America. A condensed statement of the secretary 
 of the Commission on Church and Country Life follows : 
 
 In 1910, 1911 and 1912 the Federal Council of Churches 
 (thirty-one denominations) maintained a bureau and clearing 
 house of research, information and promotion, touching the 
 various church and country life interests. Since 1913 a special 
 committee has been in charge of this work and an executive 
 gives to it his undivided attention. During the year 1915, 
 Ohio has been the field of investigation and study, the work 
 
 80 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 done being supplementary to that of the Presbyterian Church 
 and the Ohio Rural Life Survey in 1912 and 1913. On the 
 completion of the Ohio survey, the committee will meet to 
 determine the best plan of action. The data thus far gathered 
 indicate that one-fourth of Ohio's townships (9,000 square 
 miles) have no resident pastors and most of the churches in 
 this area are declining in membership. In each township 
 there are on the average four churches, one church to every 
 286 persons. Surveys made in other states reveal similar 
 conditions. The only hope for improvement lies in inter- 
 denominational cooperation. 
 
 During the year 1916 there will be made in Ohio a special 
 study of successful country churches, and bulletins of the 
 work will be printed for the rural pastors of the state and 
 students of theological seminaries, the purpose being to create 
 higher ideals and standards. It is also proposed to hold an 
 increased number of church institutes in the various counties. 
 Interdenominational organization for country church better- 
 ment has given an esprit de corps to the country ministry, 
 has filled rural pastors with faith and courage for the future 
 and has increased confidence and respect for country church 
 work. Moreover, many good men, hitherto of the cities, have 
 been drawn to country parishes and scores of young men are 
 entering the ministry with the idea of devoting their lives to 
 the rural field. 
 
 Many excellent addresses were delivered at the conference 
 and reports of very great interest were made on the following 
 subj ects : 
 
 (i) Function, Platform and Policy of the Country 
 Church. 
 
 (2) Financing the Country Church. 
 
 (3) The Training of Country Pastors and Other 
 
 Leaders. 
 
 (4) Church Cooperation and Federation. 
 
 (5) The Allies of the Country Church. 
 
 (6) The Country Church as a Community Center. 
 
 (7) The Church and Rural Economy. 
 
 81 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 The report closes with these significant words : 
 " It appears from our observation in Ohio that in large 
 areas the denominations working independently of one an- 
 other have failed to prevent serious decline in the rural 
 churches, and that it is entirely unlikely that without inter- 
 denominational cooperation the churches will be able to 
 overcome the difficulties of the situation. If this is true in 
 Ohio and in other states also, the need of interdenominational 
 organization is obvious." 
 
 82 
 
4. Health 
 
 There are many movements in Rural America having to do 
 with the physical health of the people. Two of these will be 
 considered at some little length : the Rural Sanitation Move- 
 ment initiated by the North Carolina State Board of Health 
 and the County Hospital Movement started in the state of 
 Iowa. 
 
 A. Rural Sanitation Movement 
 
 North Carohna provides for rural sanitation by two meth- 
 ods : the county unit system under state direction and the 
 county health agent system under local direction. The former 
 costs annually from $500 to $1,000 and the latter from $3,000 
 to $4,000 per county. The former is considered preferable 
 in the beginning, even in rich counties, as it is sure to prove 
 a stepping-stone to the latter. Two concrete illustrations 
 will give the reader an idea as to what is done under the 
 former method: 
 
 First, the North Carolina Board of Health contracted some 
 months ago with ten counties, for a county appropriation of 
 $500, to administer free typhoid immunization to those citizens 
 of the ten counties who wished to be immunized. In the first 
 set of five counties complete treatment was given to 26,537 
 persons, and it was estimated that the number in all the coun- 
 ties would reach 50,000, or one-eighth of the total population. 
 
 Second, for a county appropriation of $10 per school the 
 State Board of Health arranged, through the county authori- 
 ties and with the teachers, a program of constructive Health 
 Days for quite a number of the schools of the state. Two 
 weeks before the Health Day the teacher receives from the 
 State Board of Health hand-bills announcing the date and 
 program for Health Day, which are distributed through the 
 whole school and community. The representative of the 
 
 83 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 State Board of Health arrives at the school at lo A. M. on 
 Health Day and first makes a fifteen-minute talk to the 
 children and visitors on the importance and knowledge of 
 the laws of health. He then makes a medical examination 
 of the pupils and gives each defective child a card to its 
 parents, notifying the parents of the nature of the defect 
 and urging them to see the inspector after the evening exer- 
 cises. The inspector mails a report of the inspection to the 
 State Board of Health, which keeps in touch with the parents 
 of the defective children until they are treated. The in- 
 spector then questions the children after the manner of the 
 old-time spelHng match on a health catechism, which has 
 been supplied to the school in sufficient number at least one 
 month before Health Day, after which there is adjournment 
 until 8 P. M. 
 
 The evening exercises consist of from three to four short 
 illustrated lectures by the inspector on the more important 
 subjects of sanitation, interspersed with the reading of selected 
 compositions by the pupils. The last item on the program is 
 the awarding of prizes, a first prize for the best knowledge of 
 the health catechism and a second prize for the best composi- 
 tion. The inspector grades, score-card manner, each school on 
 the excellence of its showing on Health Day. When the work 
 in a county has been completed, a county prize is awarded 
 for the best composition, and another prize for the best 
 knowledge of the health catechism. The inspector can handle 
 one rural school a day, but village and town schools require 
 a longer time. Thus, the whole county is covered. It can 
 readily be seen that this broadens the vision of all the people, 
 and the way is paved either for increased appropriations for 
 similar work along special lines or for the adoption of the 
 county agent plan, which will be next considered. 
 
 The county health agent receives a salary of $2,500 per annum 
 and devotes his whole time to his work. The two phases of 
 his work that occupy most of his time represent his activities in 
 the schools and in the public dispensaries. He aims to visit 
 each school in the county once a year, pick out the pupils that 
 
 ^ I 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 are defective, get in touch with the parents of these pupils, 
 that their defects, as far as possible, may be corrected, and 
 give talks and illustrated lectures for the benefit of both 
 pupils and parents. He also designates certain places in the 
 county where, at given times, he will meet all persons who 
 may desire to be vaccinated against small-pox or typhoid 
 fever or consult him privately either about their own health 
 or about any matter having to do with the sanitary welfare 
 of the county. In these interviews he is able to discover 
 incipient diseases that in many cases would prove fatal if 
 neglected. Of course all other work in the field of sanitation 
 in the county would represent part of the duties of the county 
 agent. 
 
 It is estimated that 20 per cent of all school children have 
 defective vision, 5 per cent defective hearing and 5 per cent 
 adenoids. It is further found that, in the average county of 
 30,000 inhabitants, there are 540 annual deaths, 200 of which 
 are preventable, and that, on an average, one person out of 
 ten is sick every day in the year. Now, if the average human 
 life is worth to the community $1,700 (the estimate of ex- 
 perts) then the loss per annum to a county of 30,000 in pre- 
 ventable death is the astounding sum of $340,000. And this 
 sum can be greatly increased if there be added to it the loss 
 due to sickness, doctors' bills and undertakers' fees. If the 
 health officer is able to reduce the death rate only one per 
 thousand, he saves his community the large sum of $51,000, 
 giving only the value of the individuals saved and considering 
 none of the many items that would greatly increase the sum. 
 This work is initiated by the state, but executed through 
 the county machinery. The average county has one murder 
 a year, and in many cases thousands of dollars are spent in 
 bringing the criminal to justice. Nor can a county be blamed 
 for keeping court procedure on a high plane. But an in- 
 finitely greater work is that of conserving human life through 
 preventive measures and thus saving the county untold wealth 
 that through carelessness and neglect is forever lost. 
 
 The importance of a health agent for a county may be seen 
 
 8s 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 in the following case : In a certain school two girls were 
 among the most healthy and brightest-looking of all the pupils. 
 These girls later went to college, but were forced within a 
 year to abandon their college work on account of their eyes. 
 The diagnosis of the oculist was to the effect that if these 
 girls' eyes had been examined when they were children and if 
 the defects had been corrected at that time, they would have 
 been able to complete their college education and would not 
 have been handicapped all through life as a result of impaired 
 vision. In China the doctor is paid not for attending patients 
 when sick but for keeping them well. In this country more 
 and more attention is being given to the great work of keeping 
 people well.i 
 
 B. The County Hospital Movement 
 
 The first county hospital law was passed by the Iowa legis- 
 lature in 1909, and the first county hospital in the state was 
 estabhshed in Washington County the following year. Four 
 other states, viz., North Carolina, Texas, Kansas and Indiana, 
 have passed similar laws, and in still other states the 
 desirability of such a statute is being considered. New 
 York has a township hospital law patterned after the Iowa 
 county law. North Carolina is proving to be one of the 
 most aggressive states in the Union in the matter of con- 
 serving the health of its people. Texas, with four counties 
 arranging for hospitals; Kansas, with many counties inter- 
 ested, and Indiana, with one or more large projects on hand, 
 indicate encouraging progress in the movement. The origina- 
 tor of the county hospital idea is Dr. E. E. Hunger, of 
 Spencer, Iowa. Like most country doctors he had lost many 
 cases that might have been saved if the country offered a man 
 as fair a chance for life as the city affords. His sympathy 
 went out to those country patients, and their disadvantage 
 oppressed him. He knew that many of these rural deaths 
 would be preventable if there were adequate facilities at hand 
 
 ^ The data contained in the several preceding paragraphs were fur- 
 nished the writer by the North Carolina State Board of Health. \ 
 
 86 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 for proper surgical or medical treatment. Since these facili- 
 ties were lacking he was forced to see men and women and 
 children die unnecessarily, and he cared tremendously. The 
 doctor in speaking of the county hospital said : " It will be 
 conducted on a strictly ethical basis and made the community 
 health center, from which health information will be dis- 
 seminated by both precept and example. Its equipment will 
 be complete with every facility for up-to-date work; it will 
 have a pathological and bacteriological laboratory, which 
 should be auxiliary to the laboratory of the State Board of 
 Health; it will confer great benefits on both patients and 
 physicians through an X-ray laboratory; it will provide 
 ambulance service, and it will have a training-school for 
 nurses." ^ 
 
 Two additional advantages of a county hospital in a rural 
 county might be mentioned. It will greatly raise the standards 
 of the medical profession of the county, and, as a health 
 clearing-house of the entire citizenship of the county, it will 
 not only effect a saving of life in many cases where life would 
 otherwise be sacrificed, but it will render equally great service 
 in the field of prevention and sanitation. 
 
 In many rural communities of a number of states there are 
 found hospitals that are operated either privately or under the 
 direction of churches or other organizations or associations. 
 One of the most notable of these is nearing completion in 
 Van Wert County, Ohio, and bears the name The Van Wert 
 County Hospital. The funds for this hospital were provided 
 by a public-spirited man of large means, George H. Marsh, 
 who is investing about $75,000 in the hospital grounds, build- 
 ing, equipment and nurses' home. The institution will, when 
 finished, be as well adapted for the purposes for which it is 
 intended as possibly any other rural hospital in the country. 
 Another benefactor left an endowment of $25,000 for this 
 hospital, which, since the experience of the two Iowa county 
 hospitals shows that it is possible to operate such an institu- 
 
 1 See The World's Work, September, 19 15, p. 605. 
 
 87 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 tion with little or no deficit, will be able to do a county-wide 
 work without fear of annual shortage. 
 
 C. Other Health Movements 
 
 It would be impossible even to mention the scores of 
 activities carried on by many, many different agencies — such 
 as the great foundations, large estates dedicated to welfare 
 work, churches, societies and individuals — that have to do 
 'with raising health standards in the United States. It is esti- 
 mated that the preventable death and sickness loss of the 
 nation greatly exceeds the stupendous sum of two billion 
 dollars annually. The main purpose of the health activities 
 of the nation is to reduce this large sum, fully twice the 
 national debt, to a minimum and at the same time vastly 
 increase the aggregate vitality, efficiency and happiness of 
 the country's hundred million inhabitants. 
 
 D. Eugenics 
 
 There is a movement in Rural America, which, though in 
 its incipiency, deserves consideration. Possibly one is going 
 too far in calling it a movement. But all persons somewhat 
 conversant with the agricultural literature of the nation must 
 admit that, whether or not the activities to which reference is 
 made represent an incipient movement, there are noticeable 
 manifestations of a desire on the part of the whole Rural 
 World to produce in coming generations a more perfect 
 human stock. In recent years eugenics has been the subject 
 of much thought throughout the whole country. To such an 
 extent have the people taken it up that in several states laws 
 have been passed. In some cases these have been too radical. 
 But a beginning has been made that in due time will result in 
 much good. '' Ninety-six per cent of the young of wild ani- 
 mals are born perfect. Eighty-two per cent of children are 
 physically defective at birth. Ninety-two per cent of animals 
 live to old age. 229 children out of 1,000 die the first year. 
 There are 310,000 feeble-minded in the United States outside 
 •of asylums and 28,000 feeble-minded in asylums. There are 
 
 88 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 168,000 insane and epileptics. Every time we double our popu- 
 lation we quadruple our mentally defective." ^ 
 
 Now, the attitude of Rural America on eugenics is some- 
 what different from that of Urban America because of one 
 important fact. In recent years much attention has been 
 given by farmers all over the country to the matter of pure- 
 bred live stock. Today thousands of farmers in almost every 
 state, compared with only a handful just a few years ago, are 
 giving their best thought to the matter of producing the finest 
 type of all kinds of farm animals through intelligent breeding. 
 Farmers have learned from experience that it pays to pro- 
 duce such stock, and the only reason why the number already 
 engaged in the business does not increase more rapidly is 
 because of the large outlay of money necessary in the begin- 
 ning. But in spite of this handicap each year the number 
 increases. At the present time the collective sentiment of 
 Rural America is favorable to and enthusiastic for pure-bred 
 live stock. In fact, there is little doubt that agricultural 
 America is entering upon a period when pure-bred live stock 
 will be the rule rather than the exception. 
 
 With the sentiment in the matter of breeding farm animals 
 so universal throughout the length and breadth of America, 
 it is quite natural that some thought should be given to the 
 subject of human stock. So along with the movement to 
 produce the highest type of farm animals of all kinds, there 
 is beginning to develop a sentiment favorable to the produc- 
 tion of a finer human stock. It is the universality of this 
 sentiment that has led to its crystallization in the laws of a 
 number of states. People have progressed sufficiently in this 
 country to enable them to give attention to matters other than 
 those having to do almost solely with making a living. They 
 have begun to realize that if further advancement is to be 
 made the average American citizen must be a finer specimen 
 of humanity, since the nation is no better than the sum of 
 one hundred million individuals, and the only way to make 
 a finer composite man is to make a finer individual man. 
 
 ^ See The Mountain State Bulletin. 
 
 89 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 One thing is quite certain, America should have her atten- 
 tion directed to the need of a finer citizenship, not so much 
 to stimulate the passage of radical laws as to create a public 
 sentiment that will find expression in accomplishment. What 
 with the heterogeneous character of the nation's metropolitan 
 population, which represents admixtures of races and peoples 
 that come from parts of the world where the struggle for 
 mere existence has been the one thing commanding the atten- 
 tion of the great majority of the people, thus preventing the 
 development of the higher sentiments, it is imperative that 
 America give the matter of eugenics careful consideration. 
 It is generally recognized that America in undertaking the 
 assimilation of almost all the peoples of earth has assumed 
 a tremendous task. But the other task of developing a 
 higher average stock is equally difficult. Anyone who has 
 come a good deal into contact with people, wherever found, in 
 the city as well as in the country, is almost appalled at the 
 great amount of mediocrity and even sub-normality. 
 
 The following beautiful stanza is found in Prof. G. W. 
 Fiske's illuminating little book, " Boy Life." 
 
 A fire-mist and a planet, 
 
 A crystal and a cell, 
 
 A jelly-fish and a saurian, 
 
 And caves where cave men dwell; 
 
 Then a sense of law and beauty, 
 
 And a face turned from a clod; 
 
 Some call it evolution, 
 
 But others call it God. 
 
 How inspiring the thought that the Infinite God, Who 
 presided over this great world process, is not satisfied with 
 the composite human being that inhabits the earth today! 
 Back of the face turned from a clod is a mind, and in that 
 mind there is an irresistible longing to rise to higher levels 
 in response to higher voices. And in God's own time this 
 longing will come to realization. 
 
 90 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 E. Temperance 
 
 The greatest moral movement of the past generation is that 
 of temperance. Twenty years ago the temperance map of 
 the United States was almost as black as Stygian night. 
 Today there are nineteen white states, with the prospect of 
 many others in the course of the next decade. Nine or ten 
 states expect to vote in 1916. Besides the nineteen states in 
 which the sale of liquor is prohibited, all the other states have 
 prohibition territory. More than half the nation's popula- 
 tion live in temperance areas, and when all the laws that 
 have been passed become effective there will be no saloons in 
 nine-tenths of the country. Of course this means that Rural 
 America is almost all temperance territory, since the ten per 
 cent of the land where the saloons are permitted under the 
 law consists, for the most part, of the metropolitan centers 
 and contiguous territory, with the exception of the two great 
 Western States, Montana and Nevada, which have large wet 
 areas. As soon as the agricultural population of these two 
 states has increased sufficiently, they will likely join many of 
 the other western states and make the West almost solidly 
 dry. The one thought that needs emphasis here is the 
 thought that it is Rural America that is leading the way in 
 making America a saloonless nation. 
 
 Public sentiment is an irresistible force. Today public 
 sentiment against the open saloon is crystallizing with marvel- 
 ous rapidity, and, when it has once crystallized throughout 
 the nation, the saloon will be doomed. For the sake of the 
 welfare of 100,000,000 people an infinite multitude is praying 
 to God that the day may be hastened. 
 
 The transformation wrought in a county which has abolished 
 the manufacture and sale of liquor is set forth in the follow- 
 ing paragraph from a speech made by Congressman Webb, 
 of North Carolina: 
 
 " About ten years ago, I stood on historic King Mountain, 
 and saw the smoke of thirty-eight government distilleries 
 rising toward heaven. I saw no macadamized roads ; scarcely 
 a schoolhouse where our boys and girls might obtain the 
 
 91 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 rudiments of an education. I saw saloons throughout the 
 length and breadth of Gaston County. There were only two 
 or three factories giving employment to two or three hundred 
 people. Two years ago, about ten years after the people had 
 driven out this curse, I went back. I found macadamized 
 roads in almost every part of the county; I saw magnificent 
 churches of every denomination ; I found schoolhouses in 
 every district. There was not the smoke of a single brewery, 
 and instead of the smoke of thirty-eight government distil- 
 leries I saw ascending to the glory of God in business the 
 smoke of forty-eight of the largest cotton factories in the 
 United States of America." 
 
 And that is the transformation that, on a larger scale, will 
 be witnessed in America a decade after the banishment of 
 the saloon from her borders. 
 
 F. Dietetics 
 
 There is scarcely an intelligently trained farmer in the 
 United States that could not define the term "balanced 
 ration." From one end of the country to the other farmers 
 understand pretty well the meaning of a balanced ration in 
 the feeding of live stock, and have become informed on the 
 nutritive value of various feeds. The result has been that the 
 putting of all kinds of stock in prime condition for the 
 market at a minimum cost, the keeping of work animals 
 ready for service with the most economic use of grain, hay, 
 etc., the securing of the greatest butter- fat returns from cows 
 with the least consumption of high-priced food products, the 
 obtaining of large tgg yields from poultry with scarcely more 
 than the utilization of the odds and ends of the farm, have 
 received the most careful consideration by all successful 
 rural life residents. But the thing that has been neglected is 
 human dietetics. Most people in both country and city eat 
 too much, without thought of what constitutes a balanced 
 ration. On the farm food of all kinds is cooked in large 
 quantities and eaten with a hearty appetite. On threshing 
 days, when the work is especially strenuous, the threshers 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 partake of fully a score of dishes, some of which are hard to 
 digest, with the result that they are unfitted for work and 
 must force themselves to do their part. Not only do country 
 folk eat too much, but what they eat is sometimes not pre- 
 pared so well as it might be, even though the expression 
 " good country dinner " is often heard in the cities. The 
 impression should not be given that the country is more at 
 fault than the cities in the matter of failure to observe the 
 rules of dietetics, because the country does on the whole 
 better than the cities. But if just as much attention were 
 given to human dietetics as is given to the matter of a " bal- 
 anced ration " for the live stock of the farm, money would 
 be saved, in that less food would be eaten and less money 
 would be spent for patent medicines and doctors' services. 
 
 The Great War, which has forced the so-called Central 
 Powers to depend almost solely upon their own resources in 
 the matter of food, has led Germany to the most extensive 
 experiments in dietetics in the history of the world. The 
 study of the question has been in the hands of sixteen special- 
 ists and their prehminary report is published under the title, 
 "The Food Supply of the German People and the English 
 Starvation Plan." Possibly future historians will conclude 
 that the chief by-product of the War was the progress made 
 in the solution of the greatest problem with which the human 
 race has to deal, the problem of food supply. The findings 
 of this learned committee will be of value to the whole world. 
 
 93 
 
5. Love 
 
 The night has a thousand eyes and the day but one, 
 But the light of the whole world dies with the dying sun ; 
 The mind has a thousand eyes and the heart but one; 
 But the light of the whole world dies when love is gone. 
 
 The most perfect abiding place of love is the home. And 
 love is the constant inmate of only such homes as make a 
 strong appeal to their members. The appeal within the home 
 depends on the mother. Some time ago a lady from the 
 country signing herself "A Rural Juliet" contributed an 
 article to Wallaces' Farmer entitled, " How May We Keep 
 Our Husbands Romeos? " This article is most interesting and 
 its conclusions hold good in city and country alike. 
 
 " Romeo, the literary cognomen of lovers, is a word that 
 has been much abused. We would not have our husbands 
 merely sighing sweethearts. We want them to accomplish 
 great things through the sympathy and inspiration which we 
 can give them. We want them to be successful business men, 
 and an aid to the community. If our husbands exert an 
 influence for good, this is sure to be felt beyond the home 
 community. If our husbands are great, and we keep them 
 still lovers, then we shall have a reflected greatness, which 
 is more than to be great ourselves. That was the original 
 idea God had when He created woman. She was to be a: 
 helper rather than the leader; but if she is to be a helper, 
 she must have the honor and respect to which she is entitled. 
 She does not always have this honor and respect from her 
 husband, and that is the reason why she has of late years, in 
 many instances, taken the initiative. 
 
 "How can a wife keep her husband a lover through life? 
 Many women, in the rural districts especially, allow their 
 husbands to come from work in the evening and find them 
 still in morning wrapper and with hair disarranged. One is 
 
 94 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 much more attractive if she wear a becoming little one-piece 
 dress and her hair is combed. Then, what an improvement 
 it is if the table is neat and adorned with a small bouquet of 
 flowers ! Let the home be filled with brightness and the 
 husband's mind be got off the sordid, practical things of life. 
 Let him never be met with complaint and a recital of the 
 troubles of the day. Let a husband who is tired and dirty 
 and hot and possibly cross, come in from the field and find a 
 neat and tidy home, presided over by a trim little wife and 
 adorned by children with clean faces and with everything in 
 readiness for a good hot supper served on an attractive table, 
 and one has a candidate for the role of Romeo. Pretty soon 
 that good man sits up and takes notice, and then he begins to 
 be more careful, and finally he wants his cold plunge and 
 some clean clothes before he is willing to sit down at the 
 table. But even though he does continue to neglect his own 
 personal appearance he loves his wife more for trying to 
 please him. 
 
 " If a man is able, he should employ a girl to help with the 
 work, so his wife can have more time for him and the chil- 
 dren. If he is not able, then the wife should not make a 
 drudge of herself for the house, but should let some things 
 go. What if the house is not swept every day? What if 
 there is a trace of dust on the furniture now and then? Above 
 all things, she should keep herself attractive. Then, it is 
 necessary to take a little time to cultivate one's mind, that 
 one may be a real companion to her husband. A wife should 
 study her husband's greatest pleasures and try to enter into 
 them with zest. A man would rather come home and find a 
 smiling, happy wife, with a sparkle in her eye at his return, 
 than to find the home spotless and his wife a bundle of nerves. 
 
 " And this thing of farmers spending evenings lounging 
 around some country store, or playing cards in the back of 
 the barber shop, can be stopped if the wife tries. If the 
 husband says, ' I'm going down town this evening,' the wife 
 might add, * Well, just a minute and the children and I will 
 go with you.' Or ask him if he wouldn't like to telephone 
 
 95 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 some of his friends, and have them come out and spend the 
 evening, or just mention the fact of having read such an 
 interesting article on such and such a subject. Wouldn't he 
 like to have it read aloud that night? Or suggest a ride 
 together in the soft evening twilight. Let almost anything 
 be done so long as there is an appeal to the family spirit. 
 Occasionally let someone keep the children, while a short trip 
 is taken to the nearest large town or city to hear some good 
 music, to mix and mingle with the crowds, for the sake of a 
 good time and to broaden one's outlook on life. 
 
 "If the husband has a business proposition that is troubling 
 him and he shows an inclination to talk of it he should be 
 encouraged to do so, and perhaps some suggestion of the wife 
 will give him an idea that had never occurred to him. How 
 unfortunate the statement, ' Oh, don't bother me with busi- 
 ness; I don't have time for such things.' A wife who takes 
 an intelligent interest in whatever concerns her husband is 
 honored for her interest. 
 
 " Sometimes it is necessary to gently reprimand one's hus- 
 band, if he becomes too lax in small courtesies, as, for ex- 
 ample, * Dear, hadn't you noticed that I dropped my hand- 
 kerchief?' or 'Did you forget to assist me into the buggy?' 
 One probably would not have to call his attention to such little 
 matters many times until he would remember himself. Some- 
 times, too, it is necessary to show some spirit at a slight or 
 hurt that could have been avoided. If it is necessary, let 
 there be some resentment, but no pouting or nagging. But 
 most important of all is : courtesy and affection in oneself 
 encourage them in others. Once a wife asked her husband 
 what it was he loved in her so much, after years of married 
 life had taken the bloom from her cheek and the sparkle from 
 her eye. She was not such a fine housekeeper as some others, 
 either. He replied : * It is your spirit, my dear, your spirit. 
 That's what I have admired all these years,' and he gently , 
 and reverently kissed her." 
 
 A home in which there is a Juliet is sure to be a happy 
 home. And such a home will be a model not only on the 
 
 96 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 inside but on the outside as well, because where ideal condi- 
 tions prevail within they are sure in time to prevail without. 
 The husband that loves the home which his wife makes so 
 attractive for him on the inside is pretty sure to take an 
 interest in making the home attractive on the outside. He 
 will keep all the buildings on the farm in repair and painted, 
 he will keep the lawn mowed and the grounds around the 
 buildings neat and tidy, he will keep the fence rows clean 
 and the whole farm in presentable shape. Finally, he will 
 become so interested that he will devote a little time to land- 
 scape gardening, that the farm may not only be his means of 
 livelihood but contribute to the aesthetic pleasures of his 
 whole family. 
 
 Everyone knows that when one must do his very best to 
 make a living and is almost constantly treading dangerously 
 close to the poverty line, he has little time for the aesthetic 
 values of life. But statisticians assert that not one-tenth of 
 the people of this country are either on or below the poverty 
 level, and most of this per cent are to be found in the cities; 
 so there are comparatively few people living in Rural America 
 with whom the economic problem is so assertive that there is 
 no time for life's finer things. In reality, there are few 
 people in the whole country unable to rise somewhat if they 
 will. During the disastrous retreat of Napoleon from Mos- 
 cow in 1812 there presented himself one morning to Napoleon 
 one of his generals shaved and neatly dressed. Because of 
 his neat personal appearance, under distressing circumstances, 
 Napoleon looked at him and said, " General, you are a great 
 man." Many and many an attractive home in Rural America 
 represents real greatness on the part of the inmates because 
 of the economic struggle that takes almost all the time and 
 strength of the family. 
 
 Really, the marked improvement that is taking place in 
 Rural America today in aesthetics had in most cases its origin 
 among the mothers who were Juliets to admiring Romeos. 
 First comes economic independence. Then comes the beauti- 
 fying of the little home. Then follows community improve- 
 
 97 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 ment. This is the reason why there is as much need of the 
 rural Y. W. C. A. as there is of the rural Y. M. C. A. In a 
 way there is a greater need. When the first county Y. W. C. 
 A. was building, a man of prominence expressed the opinion 
 that there was little demand for such an institution. He 
 failed utterly to understand that a nation can rise no higher 
 than its homes and the one great purpose of the Y. W. C. A. 
 is to elevate the home life of the nation. 
 
 Thousands of young women seek employment today. A 
 very large class of them become employees of shops, factories 
 and mills ; an equally large class become bookkeepers, stenog- 
 raphers and clerks; a third class become teachers or adopt 
 similar callings. A study of the laws of the various states 
 soon convinces one that much attention has been given in 
 recent years to the employment of women in shop, factory 
 and mill. A great deal has also been done to better the 
 condition of young women clerks, stenographers and book- 
 keepers. And, finally, the vocation of teaching and similar 
 callings adopted by young women have in many cases been 
 made much more attractive as well as profitable. In these 
 three classes of work in the labor, business and professional 
 worlds, young women are enjoying greater advantages from 
 year to year. In all three the hours of labor are in many 
 states fixed and the number of hours has been reduced from 
 time to time. In all three surroundings have been improved. 
 In all three wages have been increased. In all three the 
 physical, mental and moral welfare of the employees is receiv- 
 ing more and more attention. In all three opportunities are 
 given to advance. 
 
 But, unfortunately, employment in the home, which in the 
 past has especially appealed to young women from Rural 
 America, has not shared in the advantages that have made 
 more attractive the other callings adopted by young women. 
 The collective happiness of the American people is, to a large 
 extent, dependent on helpers in tens of thousands of homes. 
 This being true, let the same attention be given to the calling 
 of household service and the same efforts be put forth to 
 
 98 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 regulate it and render it both profitable and attractive and it 
 will become a vocation in which young women will take pride 
 in becoming more efficient. As a woman's calling it has 
 advantages over other vocations. It preeminently fits a young 
 woman to manage a home of her own and the natural ambition 
 of every young woman is to preside over a home of her own. 
 Household service is a healthful vocation. The monotony 
 and drudgery of the factory, mill and shop, the lack of 
 proper exercise taken by the clerk, bookkeeper, stenographer, 
 and the strain of teaching and similar callings, lead to the 
 breakdown of thousands of young women annually. More- 
 over, a household employee, receiving reasonable wages, can, 
 as a rule, save more money than can be saved by young 
 women engaged in any other line of work, since her board, 
 room, etc., are provided. But the important thought here is 
 the following: Placing on a better basis this honorable 
 calling will add an element of strength to America's homes, 
 the bulwark of the nation. 
 
 99 
 
6. Rest 
 
 The greatest passion of the resident of the city is getting 
 out into the country occasionally for the sake of a rest. The 
 city is so full of hurry and change and activity and strain 
 that if one would not either temporarily or permanently 
 impair his physical reserve he must periodically seek recupera- 
 tion in some quiet retreat of Rural America. A synonym of 
 city is fiux. On the other hand, one finds in the country 
 absence of all those things that enter into the intensity of 
 city life. But the impression is quite general, especially in 
 the city, that there is a great deal of drudgery in the country. 
 
 Too much has been made in the past of the drudgery of 
 country life. Life in the country has no more drudgery than 
 life in the city. All life is full of drudgery, and unless one 
 have his share of it he will fail to develop symmetrically. 
 The poet who laboriously corrects his manuscript and gives 
 the very best effort of his life to the clothing of immortal 
 thoughts in immortal verse is experiencing drudgery. It is 
 said of Wordsworth that he often dreaded the drudgery of 
 poetic composition and found the task of writing very labor- 
 ious. The chemist in his laboratory encounters drudgery of 
 the most trying kind. The teacher or professor in correcting 
 papers and compositions and in doing many other things that 
 his work demands, comes to understand drudgery. The 
 banker has an endless amount of detail in his work, much of 
 which is annoying. The trained nurse, the physician, the 
 minister, in short, everybody who works undergoes drudgery. 
 No one has a monopoly of drudgery. " Of all the work that 
 produces results," said a famous English Bishop, " nine-tenths 
 must be drudgery." i There is no work, from the highest to 
 the lowest, that can be done well by anyone who is afraid of 
 drudgery. The average person understands most perfectly 
 
 ^ Philip G. Hamerton, " The Intellectual Life," p. 70. 
 100 
 
RURAL AMERICA ^,^ , . , 
 
 the drudgery in his own work but sees only the brighter side 
 of the other fellow's work. But drudgery is always asso- 
 ciated with exhilaration: the pendulum swings just as far 
 one way as it does the other. If one submits to a good deal 
 of drudgery the compensation lies in the marvelous spiritual 
 rebound of a mountain-top variety. 
 
 In a little poem entitled " Drudgery Divine " Juliet Sill 
 gives utterance to some inspiring thoughts on this subject: 
 
 O' bumblebee, on the red-topped clover, 
 Aren't you tired, you busy rover, 
 Of doing the same thing over and over? 
 Gathering honey all day long. 
 Singing the same little humming song, 
 Aren't you tired, you golden rover, 
 Of doing the same things over and over? 
 
 O little bird with the crimson breast, 
 Aren't you tired of building the nest? 
 Isn't it time to stop and rest? 
 
 Straw after straw you patiently bring, 
 
 Song after song you cheerily sing, 
 O little bird, in the crimson vest, 
 Isn't it time to take a rest? 
 
 O busy heart, O toiling mother. 
 
 Aren't you tired of work and of bother, 
 
 The same dull task and never another? 
 
 Over and over you brew and bake. 
 
 Over and over you mend and make, 
 Aren't you tired, O weary mother, 
 Of the same dull round and never another? 
 
 Then low from the heart of the bee and the bird, 
 And low from the heart of the mother this word, 
 Sweet and calm and clear I heard: 
 Over and over God paints the skies, 
 Over and over He makes the sun rise, 
 Over and over He tints the flowers. 
 Over and over He sends the showers. 
 Over and over He guides the stars, 
 Over and over the dawn unbars. 
 
 lOI 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 If over and over God deigns to work, 
 
 Why should we faint — one duty shirk? 
 
 So over and over our tasks we do, 
 
 Sure of reward if our work be true. 
 This is the message which clear I heard 
 From the heart of the mother, the bee, and the bird. 
 
 Both for perfect rest from the labors of the day and for 
 the purpose of building oneself up, the country is ideal. The 
 nights are so quiet that anyone accustomed to the constant 
 hum of city life finds the change delightful. A sojourn in 
 the country acts as a sedative and prepares the nervous 
 system for the demands of the city. And as the years go by, 
 Rural America is contributing more and more to the recupera- 
 tion of the whole people. The Federal Government has taken 
 great pride in setting aside thousands and millions of acres 
 in the most attractive parts of the nation for the pleasure of 
 all. These great reserves have been called playgrounds, and 
 their purpose is to bring the people closer to Nature's heart 
 and to fit them for the larger life of the future. Urbs is 
 coming to know more and more intimately Rus and the bene- 
 fits are beyond computation. The boundless acres of Rus, 
 her thousands of beauty spots, her innumerable retreats, are 
 transforming both Urban and Rural America and giving the 
 nation a brighter outlook on life. 
 
 What is it in Rural America that is contributing so much 
 to this brighter outlook on life? Is it not her possession of 
 those things in prodigal abundance that are the heritage of all 
 persons? Lucy Larcom expresses this thought felicitously. 
 
 COMMON THINGS OF EARTH 
 
 I said it on the meadow path, 
 
 I say it on the mountain stairs. 
 
 The best things any mortal hath 
 
 Are those that every mortal shares. 
 
 The grass is softer to our tread. 
 
 For rest it yields unnumbered feet; 
 
 Sweeter to us the wild rose red 
 
 Because she makes the whole world sweet. 
 
 102 
 
7. Conclusion 
 
 A perusal of the preceding chapter must induce the con- 
 clusion that several fundamental things are necessary if Rural 
 America would attain the heights that lie within her reach, 
 and these may be expressed in four simple statements: (i) 
 Most of the five million renters and hired laborers of the 
 country must become home owners. (2) Farming must be 
 put on a profitable basis. (3) Rural America must offer 
 careers to ambitious youth. (4) An element of romance must 
 be injected into Country Life. 
 
 (i) Rural Home Owners. — Some day a plan will be adopted 
 that will solve the home-owner problem. It will take time, 
 however, to work out a satisfactory plan, and the next 
 quarter of a century is likely to be one of experimentation. 
 If no more is done within the next few years than simply to 
 put a stop to the increase of tenants, much will have been 
 accomplished. A satisfactory plan will contain at least four 
 factors : the purchaser must pay no more than the land is 
 worth ; he must be given the privilege of buying with a small 
 immediate payment; the rate of interest on deferred payments 
 must be low, and the time of the obligation must be suffi- 
 ciently long. Every year Rural America is the scene of thou- 
 sands of tragedies resulting from the purchase of land at 
 speculative prices from soulless speculators. These tragedies 
 have ruined many homes, especially in the newly developed 
 sections. Many men pay entirely too much for their land, 
 they learn too late that the promises of the promoter are 
 often of the mirage variety, notes fall due with no money to 
 pay them, high interest rates confront them, and finally either 
 foreclosure or forfeiture stares them in the face. This evil 
 has become so serious in recent years that a number of states 
 are passing laws looking to its elimination, and a number of 
 associations of a philanthropic character have been formed 
 
 103 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 to help all persons desirous of migrating to the country to do 
 so by a safe route. 
 
 The writer has in recent years assisted a number of young 
 men in the purchase of homes in the country. An average 
 industrious young man can, if buying a farm at a reasonable 
 price, charged a low rate of interest and given plenty of time 
 to meet his obligation, pay for a good farm, even though his 
 initial payment is small. This cannot be done, however, on 
 land that has lost its fertility, except in rare cases. In 1908 a 
 young man was furnished $5,100 out of $5,500 for the pur- 
 chase of a 6o-acre farm. Since then, or in eight years, he 
 has tiled the land reasonably well, put some money on the 
 buildings, considerably increased the fertility of the soil, and 
 reduced his total indebtedness to $2,100. In four more years, 
 if he continues to do equally well, he will be entirely out of 
 debt and possess a farm worth $9,000. The important thing 
 is to work out a plan, national in its scope, that will give all 
 deserving young men opportunities for the purchase of homes 
 in the country. 
 
 (2) Farming Put on a Profitable Basis, — The four funda- 
 mental things needed to put farming on a profitable basis 
 with present low yields per acre are standardizing farm 
 products, standardizing containers, economic transportation 
 and scientific selling. Absence of standardization is detri- 
 mental to the sale of all products and especially those of a 
 high-grade character. Every first-class farmer in the Corn 
 Belt has marketed a good many bushels of good corn for 
 which the elevators have never paid a sufficient amount be- 
 cause of the fact that there is so much poor corn. Elevators 
 base their prices on corn of average quality. In a general 
 way this is a rule all over the Corn Belt. The efforts which 
 the federal government, the several states and numerous co- 
 operative bodies, as well as corporations, are putting forth to 
 correct this defect will eventually lead to the adoption of a 
 national plan. Federal and state laws have also been passed 
 relative to containers, but progress in this direction, too, is 
 just in its incipient stage. The aim in the matter of trans- 
 
 104 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 portation must be, after cooperative assembling of farm 
 products, distribution by the shortest hauls and at a minimum 
 cost. Hauls will be shortened only through a better under- 
 standing of markets. The greatest loss sustained by farmers 
 is due to unorganized selling. When the ten billion dollars' 
 worth of farm products are annually marketed in a scientific 
 manner, the greatest organization feat in the history of the 
 world will have been accomplished; and the success of 
 numerous cooperative enterprises among farmers shows the 
 feat to be a possibility. B. F. Harris, editor of The Banker- 
 Farmer, says that based on the investigations of the Federal 
 Department of Agriculture one-third of the farmers in the 
 prosperous agricultural sections of the country, if 5% be 
 allowed on their working capital, are actually losing money. 
 
 (3) Rural Careers. — It is very hard to get an energetic 
 young man or woman to go into anything that apparently has 
 no future. In the past, it has been taken for granted that 
 only the city oflFered careers. Fathers have talked doctor, 
 lawyer, professor and the like to the young man, and stenog- 
 rapher, clerk, nurse, teacher and the like to the young woman, 
 with the result that nearly all the ambitious youth of the 
 country have cast their eyes cityward. Comparatively few 
 people have had a vision of the possibilities of Rural America. 
 But now here and there are found men and women who have 
 shown to the world that one can have a career in the country. 
 Already there have come to be teachers and preachers and 
 other rural workers that have accomplished wonderful things 
 in Rural America and have demonstrated the bigness of the 
 field. It is likely that within the next few years numerous 
 instances of successful work in Rural America will be as- 
 sembled. When it is shown what has been and is being done 
 in many places, young men and women will be inspired to 
 undertake work in the rural field and great good will accrue 
 from the influx of capable leaders with a vision. This will 
 soon be followed by a higher average of leadership in Rural 
 America, especially among preachers. Ministers who have 
 made a notable success of certain rural churches will be sent, 
 
 105 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 when it seems wise to change pastors, to other rural churches 
 that have had equally good pastors. In this way the good 
 work of the country will be conserved and desirable fields will 
 be enlarged. Thus, in time, every denomination that is suc- 
 cessful in its country work will have transformed many weak 
 rural churches into strong rural churches and added to the 
 number of its capable rural pastors. Whenever weak men 
 are sent to pastoral flocks, even if they have for a number of 
 years been well shepherded, the wprk is sure to suffer. If a 
 rural pastor achieves brilliant success he is entitled to the 
 best churches the country contains. Let able pastors with 
 strong rural inclinations oncie reahze that they will be given 
 work commensurate with their abilities and there will be no 
 dearth of good rural leaders. The same may be said of all 
 other rural workers. 
 
 (4) Putting Romance into Rural Life. — Young men and 
 women freely dedicate their lives to missionary activities in 
 spite of the sacrifice and privation to which they will be 
 subjected. Volunteers always seem to be forthcoming. Every 
 great missionary convention results in the enlistment of 
 numerous workers. Otie of the reasons for this is economic. 
 Foreign missionaries supported by the great church missionary 
 boards are never paid less than $900 per annum and from 
 that up to $2,500, and they are not sent abroad unless the 
 money is pledged to finance their work. On the other hand, 
 in the home field, many workers receive less than $400 a year, 
 and the average salary for all work in the country does not 
 exceed $600 or $700. It is readily seen that a man cannot 
 enjoy the comforts of life and educate a family on this amount 
 of money. Solve the economic problem and the other prob- 
 lems will yield more easily to solution. At the National 
 Country Church Conference, December, 1915, one speaker 
 made the statement that at a certain theological seminary a 
 number of young women engaged to young pastors in their 
 senior year, decHned to marry the young men if they chose 
 rural fields, preferring to marry foreign missionaries. Depri- 
 vation of those things that contribute to soul culture, that 
 
 106 
 
RURAL AMERICA 
 
 foster the higher ideals, that give one a fighting chance in his 
 efforts to reach a worthy goal, and romance do not go to- 
 gether. Remove the financial handicaps that today shackle 
 the spirit of rural leadership and let it have a chance to rise 
 to inviting heights and it will raise all Rural America with it. 
 Under the stimulus of romance there will come a marvelous 
 transformation in the Rural Field. 
 
 Rural America, owned by six million home owners, its 
 manifold activities put on a profitable basis, its work offering 
 careers of great attractiveness, and crowned with a halo of 
 romance, will develop the greatest civilization the world has 
 known. 
 
 107 
 
CHAPTER III 
 RURAL LEADERSHIP 
 
 SOMEONE has said he would rather meet a flock of lions 
 led by a sheep than a flock of sheep led by a lion. This 
 statement invites consideration of the subject of leadership. 
 The one dominant thought in the preceding chapter, unless 
 the writer has failed of his purpose, is leadership. It is 
 leadership that is responsible for the progress Rural America 
 has made, and it is leadership of a still more exalted type 
 that will be the means of placing the crown of a higher 
 civilization on the brow of the new Rural America. There 
 are three classes of leaders in Rural America : those who 
 know they are leaders and exercise their leadership ; those 
 who know they are leaders, but because of modesty and diffi- 
 dence fail to make use of their God-given talent; and those 
 who are totally ignorant of their capacity for directing others. 
 So a great responsibility rests on the leaders of the first class, 
 since they must not only exercise their leadership, and of 
 course exercise it rightly, but inspire the leaders who fail for 
 want of courage to do their duty and reveal to the leaders 
 ignorant of their powers the hidden talents of their natures. 
 There might be mentioned a fourth class : those who are mis- 
 taken in the belief that they are leaders and therefore prove 
 to be a handicap to progressive work. 
 
 Leaders are born, not made, and fortunately an intensive 
 study of rural sections warrants the generahzation that there 
 is an abundance of leadership in the country. Rural America 
 is like a sleeping giant that is just beginning to rouse himself. 
 What a change there will be when the sleeping giant, having 
 become fully awake, begins to" utilize to the utmost all the 
 powers of his nature ! Among the inspiring sights of the 
 Great West are the wonderful reservoirs where bilhons of 
 K io8 
 
RURAL LEADERSHIP 
 
 gallons of water are stored. Before the construction of these 
 reservoirs there were millions of acres of land beyond the 
 Mississippi which, though producing more bountifully today 
 than any section of the Mississippi Valley, were practically 
 worthless. The water existed in as large quantities and the 
 soil contained as much fertility then as now, but the water 
 had not been mobilized, to use a war term, and could not be 
 used when, where and as needed, as it can at present. Today 
 there is an abundance of leadership in the country, but this 
 leadership, like the water of the Great West, must be mobilized 
 so that it can be used when, where and as needed. 
 
 The greatest need, then, of Rural America is to utilize her 
 leadership. But before country leadership can be utiHzed it 
 must be trained somewhat. Untrained leadership is a good 
 deal like an unpruned, unsprayed fruit tree. In the Great 
 Northwest, orcharding has been reduced to a science, and one 
 sees in that country thousands of acres of fruit trees that are 
 beautiful in their symmetry and bear almost perfect fruit 
 because they have been properly pruned and sprayed. How 
 different many of the neglected orchards of the Mississippi 
 Valley, in which one finds ill-shapen trees and much gnarly 
 and worm-eaten fruit! Only a small percentage of the fruit 
 from the average Mississippi Valley orchard is perfect and 
 fit to use, because the orchards have not receiyed proper 
 attention. 
 
 Now the question is, who will train the country leadership 
 so that there may be a symmetrical development, with a fruit- 
 age large in yield and perfect in character? Unfortunately, 
 in the past, facilities for training leadership for Rural America 
 have been very meager. The educational system of the nation 
 has been ill adapted to the great task of preparing the youth 
 of the nation for all the nation's work. As a rule, boys and 
 girls have been educated away from rather than for the coun- 
 try, and the educational life of the nation has had a distinct- 
 ively urban flavor. But a change is taking place. The courses 
 of study of all the schools, from the lowest to the highest, 
 are being gradually modified, that they may become more 
 
 109 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 responsive to the needs of the great body of American pupils 
 and students, half rural and half urban. So it is possible now 
 for a country lad to go to urban institutions of learning and 
 receive a training that will fit him to become a leader of 
 leaders and a trainer of leaders in Rural America. Notwith- 
 standing the fact that half the ministers of this country are 
 rural ministers, there was, until recent years, not a single 
 theological school that devoted any special attention to the 
 training of young men for rural pastoral work. But the 
 start has been made in training young ministers for the rural 
 field, and the likelihood is that in good time America will have 
 a magnificent rural ministry, dedicated to the interests of 
 Rural America, having its own conventions to discuss the 
 problems of rural life, developing a rural esprit de corps, 
 aspiring only to life service in the country, containing strong, 
 virile men, many of whom because of their familiarity with 
 the movements and activities that are contributing to a 
 greater rural civilization are as worthy of the degree Doctor 
 of Country Life as any urban minister is worthy of his 
 Doctor of Divinity. What has been said of rural pastors can 
 be in a measure also said of every other class of rural 
 workers. The most hopeful sign in America today is that 
 the trend relative to Rural America is in the right direction. 
 A study of successful leadership reveals its qualities, or 
 characteristics, and to the extent to which one possesses 
 these, to that extent is one qualified for successful leader- 
 ship. ^ A first requisite of successful leadership is a sense of 
 humor, and it is on this that the crises of life make the 
 heaviest demands. Many and many a time when all appeared 
 lost or when it seemed useless to put forth any more effort, 
 a word, a gesture or an act has saved a situation and turned 
 defeat into victory. Numerous instances might be given in 
 illustration. Accounts of polar expeditions, hazardous ex- 
 plorations, military campaigns and the like, abound in cases 
 to the point. 
 
 ^ The writer names twelve qualities or characteristics of successful 
 leadership. The fundamentals of leadership, according to Prof. G. Wal- 
 ter Fiske, are: Knowledge, Power, Skill, Character, Vision. 
 
 fc^ I ID 
 
RURAL LEADERSHIP 
 
 Just as food, however well cooked, fails to appeal to the 
 taste unless it has been properly seasoned, so life itself proves 
 to be savorless unless there is injected into it something of 
 the spice and pungency that only a sense of humor can give. 
 The part that the sense of humor has played in world history 
 is no inconspicuous part. Civilization's debt to the sense of 
 humor is far greater than the world suspects. The following 
 little poem shows what the sense of humor has to encounter 
 constantly : 
 
 Nothing to do but work. 
 Nothing to eat but food, 
 Nothing to wear but clothes, 
 To keep one from going nude. 
 Nothing to breathe but air, 
 Quick as a flash 'tis gone; 
 Nowhere to fall but off, 
 Nowhere to stand but on. 
 Nothing to comb but hair. 
 Nowhere to sleep but in bed, 
 Nothing to weep but tears. 
 Nothing to bury but dead. 
 Nothing to sing but songs. 
 Ah, well ! alas ! alack ! 
 Nowhere to go but out. 
 Nowhere to come but back; 
 Nothing to see but sights, 
 Nothing to quench but thirst, 
 Nothing to have but what we've got; 
 Thus, through life we are cursed. 
 Nothing to strike but a gait, 
 Everything moves that goes; 
 Nothing at all but common sense. 
 Can ever withstand these woes. 
 
 Blessed is the man or woman who possesses a sense of 
 humor, because with it these woes and others can be with- 
 stood; without it life is a "vale of tears," "an empty vessel," 
 and all the other sad things found in some of the old hymns. 
 
 Ill 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 " Life is a beautiful adventure," to quote Charles Frohman, 
 who went down with the Lusitania. The Brownings experi- 
 enced the "wild joy of living," the Goethes, the Scotts, the 
 Lincolns and hosts of others found life packed full of interest. 
 All these were possessed of a lively sense of humor. 
 
 A second essential of leadership is imagination. The 
 imagination is the wonderful faculty of the mind that uses 
 the materials at the disposal of all, and, taking every kind of 
 liberty with them, produces combinations that fill the world 
 with perennial newness, beauty and attractiveness. Some- 
 times the materials at hand are very meager, and unless one's 
 imagination is fully equal to the situation stagnation or. ennui 
 or pessimism or despair results. Miss Jessie Field, in quoting 
 from Eggleston and Bruere, brings out this thought beauti- 
 fully. " Starting at Nowhere with Nothing and getting 
 Somewhere with Something, is after all the test of useful 
 leadership." ^ The sentence might have closed with these 
 words, " is evidence of the possession of a rare faculty of 
 imagination." The writer continues : " This nation would 
 be transformed if every rural worker would do his or her 
 work in so unusual a manner that the unusual would become 
 the usual." 2. What is it if not imagination that takes the 
 usual and transforms it into the unusual? A teacher with 
 imagination in one of the Southern States conceived the idea 
 of arousing among her pupils an interest in good books. In 
 the past little had been done with books, the little country 
 school having no library whatever and the homes from which 
 the pupils came having only motley collections of books, few 
 of which were adapted to the needs of the growing child. 
 So this teacher secured one of the most delightful children's 
 books and began to read it aloud to the school. In a very 
 short time the starved little minds were literally devouring 
 the wonderful incidents of the story. Taking advantage of 
 this natural avidity of the pupils, the teacher told them that 
 if they could raise some money they might have a collection 
 
 1 " College Women and Country Leadership," p. 14. 
 
 2 " College Women and Country Leadership," p. 14. 
 
RURAL LEADERSHIP 
 
 of books like the one from which she was reading. The 
 children were ready to do anything, and eagerly sold vege- 
 tables in order to provide sufficient funds to purchase the 
 books desired.^ That teacher possessed imagination. She 
 did the usual in the unusual way and got wonderful results. 
 
 In every avenue of life, in every job, in every task, 
 in every duty, if imagination is given free play, how vastly 
 different life becomes ! Once two preachers preached upon 
 the subject of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to the Court of 
 King Solomon. The one possessed imagination and the other 
 had little imagination. The preacher gifted with imagination 
 painted a picture of this beautiful incident that simply charmed 
 his hearers. His sermon was like a great moving picture 
 from beginning to end. The unimaginative preacher strug- 
 gled hard in his effort to portray the scene in an interesting 
 manner, but the beautiful colors that brightened the other 
 picture were absent, uninteresting details protruded them- 
 selves upon the audience, and the congregation dispersed far 
 from edified. The one picture was like a beautiful sunset on 
 a great expanse of water; the other was like a sunset blurred 
 by the murky atmosphere of a great industrial center. One 
 of the great needs of the time, in this materialistic land, is 
 giving more attention to the development of the faculty that 
 can transform the commonplace into the unusual. A chief 
 reason why the German nation has made such wonderful 
 strides in aesthetics is this : under the leadership of Schiller, 
 over a century ago, they began the " assiduous cultivation of 
 the things that give joy to the soul." ^ 
 
 A third essential of leadership is tact. What a vast amount 
 of trouble is caused in the world by failure to exercise tact. 
 Tact might be called that rare quality of mind that enables 
 one to make his way along the crowded avenue of life with 
 a minimum of jolts, jostles and elbow jabs. The pupils in 
 the third grade of a certain city school one afternoon shortly 
 
 1 Prof. M. L. Bonham, Southern Conference for Education and In- 
 dustry, 19 1 5. 
 
 2 See The Atlantic Monthly, October, 1915, p. 560. 
 
 113 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 before three-thirty became very restless. The nerves of the 
 teacher, too, were on edge, but she was quite equal to the 
 situation. After a moment's thought she got the children's 
 attention with these words : " I want all of you to close your 
 eyes and put your heads on your desks, and while in that 
 position be very quiet for several minutes and each one make 
 a wish. It may be the good fairy is near at hand." This gave 
 the nerves of the teacher and pupils alike a chance to relax. 
 The remainder of the closing hour was delightfully spent in 
 a recital of the wishes. How different the closing hour would 
 have been had not tact come to the rescue ! Much of the 
 trouble in churches is of a mercenary origin. If finances are 
 on an unsatisfactory basis and they receive emphasis on all 
 occasions, in a short time trouble arises and spirituality suffers. 
 A preacher who can solve the financial problems of a church 
 and do so in such a manner that a good taste is left in the 
 mouth even of the penurious, is of course a genius and richly 
 endowed with the coveted quality of tact. Some time ago 
 there was a large city church whose finances had fallen into 
 a disordered state. The pastor inaugurated a financial cam- 
 paign with the idea of permanently solving the financial prob- 
 lem of the church. His plan was rather revolutionary and 
 some of the best informed laymen feared complications. But 
 he was persistent. The first Sunday on which the plan was 
 announced two sermons were preached on the grace of giving, 
 and the consensus of opinion was that all had been won over 
 to the new plan and great enthusiasm had been aroused for 
 its success. Of course all depended on the announcement. 
 But the preacher had an abundance of tact, and tact won the 
 victory. The plan was put into operation with good results. 
 A study of biography reveals the strikingly varying degrees 
 of success with which the perplexities, the difficulties, and the 
 hazards of life are encoifntered. One person wends his way 
 from childhood to old age, and serenity accompanies him 
 throughout the whole journey. Another reaches the goal 
 only after many periods of storm and stress. In the case of 
 the first, tact paved the way; in the case of the second, absence 
 of tact made the way rough and rugged. 
 '^ 114 
 
RURAL LEADERSHIP 
 
 A fourth essential of leadership is quick wit. Once two 
 college students, one of whom was named Wiggin, and both 
 of whom were full of the spirit of fun, desired to catch a 
 train on the point of starting, and their path was impeded by 
 an immense crowd of people — men, women and children. They 
 realized that only two ways were open to them if they would 
 reach the train: one was strategy and the other main force. 
 They chose the former. One of the boys, both of whom were 
 fine specimens of physical manhood, shouted in stentorian 
 tones : " Make way for Wiggin of New York." The crowd 
 fell back, the boys reached their train in good time, no one 
 in the crowd was hurt and all enjoyed the joke. Quick wit 
 saved the day. While a certain bishop was stationed in the 
 great mission field of Africa, he on one occasion came into 
 contact with a tribe that threatened his life. It happened 
 that the bishop had both false teeth and false hair. He first 
 removed his teeth and then his hair, when he realized that 
 something must be done to prevent the savages killing him, 
 appeahng to their superstitious natures with all the art at his 
 command. In a very short time he was looked upon as a 
 superhuman being. The quick wit of the bishop not only 
 saved his life but enabled him to start the great work of 
 bringing this savage tribe to Jesus Christ. 
 
 A fifth essential of leadership is candor. There is a dis- 
 position on the part of the average person to indulge in a 
 good deal of sparring in his dealing with others. However, 
 unless this is done as sparingly as possible, one is pretty sure 
 in the course of time to fall into the habit of duplicity. 
 Many a time the results of candor are feared when candor is 
 by far the best poHcy. In recalling incidents out of one's life 
 one plainly sees how frequently a little more candor would 
 have saved an immense amount of trouble. In fact, unless 
 there is candor when candor is quite in place, there must later 
 be resort to bluntness of the most pronounced type, and this 
 often leads to unfortunate results. No sensible person ever 
 shows resentment in the face of candor. But all persons are 
 justified in feeling aggrieved when candor has been wanting 
 
 IIS 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 to such an extent that complications follow. American diplo- 
 macy has been called " shirt-sleeve diplomacy " because its 
 chief characteristic is candor instead of intrigue. 
 
 Candor is especially essential in all rural work, for the 
 reason that Rural America is now thoroughly awake and 
 ready for an advance along the whole front. The forces of 
 Rural America are full of vitality, energy, enthusiasm, opti- 
 mism, but progress must be slow pending the accumulation of 
 sufficient experience. So leadership has an arduous task in 
 holding in line the army of Rural America and seeing to it 
 that no step is taken and no move made for which there has 
 not been proper preparation. And this v/ill require above 
 everything else candor. 
 
 Dr. Henry van Dyke has expressed himself very forcefully 
 on this point : " Are we quite sure that the world needs us 
 to do this particular work which frets us so? There is such 
 a thing as taking ourselves and the world too seriously. Half 
 of the secular unrest and dismal, profane sadness of modern 
 society comes from the vain idea that every man is bound to 
 be a critic of life, and to let no day pass without finding some 
 fault with the general order of things, or projecting some 
 plan for its improvement." The Wall Street Journal also 
 makes some interesting observations on this head. " One of 
 the things ailing this country at present is the activity in it of 
 too many people who belong to the professional uplifting 
 class. That old disciplinary order of training which aimed at 
 mental fiber, knowledge of fact and grasp of principles, has 
 given place to the study of 'problems,' and methods of in- 
 vestigating ' social conditions/ and the remedies for every sort 
 of ill man has been heir to in all the ages. The result is a 
 mass of half-baked measures in municipal, state and federal 
 legislatures. The sooner we get back to the primal fact in 
 human classification that the professional uplifter, in nine 
 cases out of ten, is a loafer, the better it will be for the heart 
 and the head as well as the purse of the country and its 
 taxpayers." 
 
 A sixth essential of leadership is courage. One of the few 
 ii6 
 
RURAL LEADERSHIP 
 
 things that are universally hated in this world is cowardice. 
 Even a coward hates cowardice in another coward. Some 
 years ago a man of considerable prominence on the Pacific 
 coast was taking an ocean voyage with his wife and children. 
 A storm arose and their vessel was wrecked with great loss 
 of life. Did this man do all in his power to save his wife 
 and family? No! he deserted them absolutely and saved 
 himself. The first instinct of the whole animal world is self- 
 preservation. However, this instinct and courage make a 
 wonderful combination. The courage that prompts one to 
 risk his own life to save another's is a high type of courage, 
 but there is another type of courage that is also deserving of 
 the highest consideration, and that is the courage that seeks 
 to make life one continuous triumph. Time was when this 
 world was looked upon simply as a place of probation. Ser- 
 mons, songs and testimonies emphasized continuously the 
 transitoriness of this life and the glories of the life to come. 
 Today a change is taking place. The great emphasis is placed 
 upon this life, and the thought is that if one does his best in 
 this life he will have had the best preparation for the life to 
 come. The result is, the churches today are placing stress on 
 living instead of dying. The poet, Ernest Crosby, expresses 
 this thought admirably in these verses : 
 
 So " he died for his faith." That is fine — 
 More than most of us do. 
 But stay ! Can you add to that line 
 That he lived for it, too? 
 
 It is easy to die. Men have died 
 For a wish or a whim — 
 From bravado, passion, or pride; 
 Was it hard for him? 
 
 But to live; every day to live out 
 
 All the truth that he dreamt. 
 
 While his friends met his conduct with doubt, 
 
 And the world with contempt! 
 
 117 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 Was it thus that he plodded ahead, 
 Never turning aside? 
 Then we'll talk of the life that he led — 
 Never mind how he died. 
 
 So the thought that needs most emphasis is living a life 
 that will count for most, and the one thing required almost 
 above everything else in living such a life, is courage. To 
 master the little vexations of daily occurrence, to banish dis- 
 cord and promote harmony, to combat indifference and apathy, 
 to arouse enthusiasm, and to do the thousand and one other 
 things that are necessary to the accomplishment of results, 
 requires courage. Possibly no more eloquent words were ever 
 uttered on the subject of courage than those spoken by the 
 great Frenchman, Jean Jaures : " Courage consists in meet- 
 ing without flinching the tests of every kind, physical and 
 moral, which life brings. To have courage, in the infinite 
 disorder of the life which solicits us on all sides, is to choose 
 one occupation and to do it well, whatever it may be. Courage 
 consists in being both a practical man and a philosopher; in 
 understanding one's work, systematizing it, examining it, and 
 yet in coordinating it with life in general. Courage consists 
 in watching one's machine for spinning or weaving so closely 
 that no thread may break, and at the same time in preparing 
 a more fraternal social order where the machines will be the 
 common servants of free workers. Courage consists in being 
 master of one's faults, not servant to them. To have courage 
 is to love life and regard death tranquilly, to strive for the 
 ideal and to undertake the real; to work and give ourselves 
 up to great causes without knowing what recompense, if any, 
 the inscrutable universe reserves for our efforts; to seek 
 truth and to proclaim it." 
 
 The seventh essential of leadership is faith. It is quite likely 
 that almost everyone familiar with the Bible would, if asked 
 to select the half dozen greatest chapters of Holy Writ, make 
 the eleventh chapter of Hebrews one of the number. This is 
 the great chapter on faith. Faith is one of the big things of 
 life. All the achievements of earth worth while rest on a 
 
 ii8 
 
RURAL LEADERSHIP 
 
 foundation of faith. What a wonderful group of men and 
 women are named in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews ! This 
 chapter has been called the Bible's roll of honor and the 
 wonderful names represent the Hebrew Hall of Fame. 
 
 Osborne, in quoting Walter Rauschenbusch, speaks elo- 
 quently of the Miracle of Spring.^ Today the trees are leaf- 
 less, the grass is dead, the woods are still. In a short time, 
 however, what a transformation ! New-born leaves array the 
 whole forest in a dress of green, the lawns and meadows look 
 beautiful covered with their new carpet of spring and all the 
 woods resound with the music of the happy birds that have 
 winged their way from the Southland. This is the Miracle 
 of Spring and from the beginning it has been an annual 
 occurrence. Everyone has faith that God will ever continue 
 to repeat the Miracle of Spring. If God's children have such 
 implicit faith in nature's annual rebirth, is there any reason 
 why they should fail to develop a robust faith in the affairs 
 of life? Yet most people are of little faith. If the world is 
 to take a forward step in the New Era there must be a re- 
 surgence of faith. There are great tasks confronting the 
 world today, and world tasks require a great faith. Moreover, 
 everyone can have a part in performing these tasks if faith 
 is exercised. Someone has said most truly : *' We have to 
 struggle hard to persuade ourselves that in a given city in a 
 given building on a given street, we as plain people can take 
 any steps or do any bit of work that will substantially affect 
 great world futures. And yet it is true that so closely inter- 
 volved are all men and all things that the humblest transaction 
 instantly relates itself to the whole world process." And this 
 is truer today than it ever was before because of the con- 
 tracting world of the twentieth century. 
 
 Faith on fire has vision. Vision sees a goal. In the lexicon 
 of the country leader the triumvirate of words that must 
 dominate are : faith, vision, goal. St. Paul had a great faith, 
 he beheld a wonderful vision, he reached a world goal. The 
 
 ^ W. F. Osborne, " Faith of a Layman," p. 2. 
 119 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 need of the nation today is men with faith strong enough to 
 last a Hfe-time; with a vision clear enough to see ultimate 
 victory; with strength great enough to enable them to reach 
 the goal; with a determination, like St. Paul, to finish the 
 course. The world is today in great need of Calebs and 
 Joshuas. It is remembered that Caleb and Joshua were the 
 only ones of the twelve spies sent to investigate the Promised 
 Land who favored a " forward march." Ten spies showed 
 little faith and the Children of Israel remained in the Wilder- 
 ness, and everyone familiar with the story knows the infinite 
 loss that resulted from the lack of faith. A nation can make 
 great progress only when the aggregate faith of its people is 
 great. What is the aggregate faith of Rural America? 
 Under great leadership the sum of this faith can be increased. 
 May the present generation witness this consummation ! 
 
 An eighth essential of leadership is virility. The great 
 undertaking in the country is to win the youth of Rural 
 America, and the youth of Rural America are never won by 
 the " ladylike and innocuous saint." They even prefer the 
 " courageous sinner." " Youth can be won by setting free 
 the virile and chivalrous spirit of youth " and that can be done 
 only by the leader whose life is blessed with virility. Youth 
 are hero worshipers and the heroes that command their high- 
 est admiration are those that have achieved distinction in the 
 physical realm. And this is natural, since during the first 
 third of man's three score and ten years the activities of the 
 body dominate the life. The animal is much in evidence, and 
 the great aim of leadership is that the animal may develop 
 into a highly civilized animal. The one incident that made 
 " Quo Vadis " one of the most popular books of its generation 
 was the wonderful scene in the arena, representing the Lygian 
 giant catching by the horns the hugh German aurochs on 
 whose back is bound his queen, and calling into service the 
 almost superhuman strength of his wonderful body, breaking 
 the neck of the animal. The experts of the baseball diamond 
 and the stars of the gridiron have the youth of America at 
 their feet. A study of leaders from Moses down to the present 
 
 120 
 
RURAL LEADERSHIP 
 
 time reveals the fact that the great leaders have been men of 
 virility. 
 
 A ninth essential of leadership is will power. No one can 
 live either a satisfactory or a successful life that does not 
 make his will regnant in his life. A will so dominant that it 
 controls a life with the ease with which the steering wheel 
 directs the flying seven-passenger automobile, causes the 
 possessor to take pride in his enviable possession. How 
 many, many persons make shipwreck of their lives simply 
 because the passions or the appetites are in control instead 
 of the volitional faculty. The reason why centuries elapsed 
 after the fall of the Roman Empire before some semblance of 
 order prevailed in the barbarian world, was because men were 
 constantly giving vent to their passions and destroying all 
 beginnings of orderly government as soon as evidences of 
 stability began to appear. The result was, settled conditions 
 were long delayed in central Europe. Some people go through 
 life like the barbarians of the Dark Ages. Passions and 
 appetites rule them, and their wills are ever subservient to 
 the dictates of their lower natures. The progress of civiliza- 
 tion means first and foremost the increasing dominancy of 
 the will. 
 
 The first step for the individual is getting complete control 
 of self, since only self-controlled persons have success in the 
 direction of others. Many a person has spoiled all his chances 
 for successful leadership because of inability to master self. 
 He who rules himself rules a multitude. But in ruling others 
 one must not push his will into too great prominence. If 
 those who are led see in the leader a tendency to rule them 
 with an iron hand or to make his will law among them or to 
 show intolerance of the opinions of others or even to give 
 reluctant consideration to others' views, his effectiveness as 
 a leader is much reduced. The ideal leader is the one who 
 understands the art of self-abnegation. He who can bring 
 out the ideas and plans of others, pave the way for the adop- 
 tion of those that seem workable, push the co-laborer that has 
 initiative and brains without giving offense to the fellow whose 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 only qualification is ability to follow someone else, assert 
 himself when it is absolutely necessary to maintain a perfect 
 equilibrium and retire to the background and bring others 
 into prominence when that can be done for the good of all, 
 .ever holding ambition in check and suppressing a desire for 
 recognition — such a leader gets results. 
 
 The leader who has perfect control of self can be the power 
 behind the throne in the control of others. The boy or man 
 who has no will of his own is not of very much value. But 
 to get together a great many boys or men, all of whom have 
 wills of their own, to be equal to every situation of will- 
 clashing, to be able to merge all wills into a stream of power 
 that moves steadily in one direction, is not an easy task. 
 Much is heard nowadays about interlocking directorates. 
 These directorates work together very well because profits 
 are the prize of cooperation, and profits are the greatest 
 known stimulus to cooperation. Every movement in Rural 
 America represents an interlocking of wills. Here, too, the 
 prize is profits. But not in every movement of Rural America 
 are the profits of a material character. In fact, the profits, as 
 a rule, have to do with intangible values. And the securing 
 of such profits involves sacrifice, criticism, scant praise, little 
 reward. So interlocking wills in the movements of Rural 
 America require leadership of a high order, 
 
 A tenth essential of leadership is prayer. Prayer is the 
 greatest force in the world today. The two men who are 
 considered the leading characters in American history are 
 Washington and Lincoln. These two men were preeminently 
 men of prayer, and Christian America believes that this 
 nation passed safely through the two great crises of her his- 
 tory chiefly because of the prayers of George Washington and 
 Abraham. Lincoln. John R. Mott tells the following incident 
 in his address on the '* Transcendent Importance of Prayer.'' 
 
 " In 1883 a wave of rationalism and skepticism swept over 
 the Doshisha, the leading Christian college in Japan, and it 
 became very cold spiritually. Dr. Davis, one of the mission- 
 aries there, recognized the power of intercession and wrote to 
 
 122 
 
RURAL LEADERSHIP 
 
 over twenty colleges and theological seminaries of America, 
 asking the students to unite in prayer for the Doshisha. 
 Many Christian students heeded the request. On the night 
 of the Day of Prayer for Colleges, when the American stu- 
 dents united in prayer, the Doshisha students in different 
 rooms, without any direct human influence being brought to 
 bear upon them, were led to fall into conversation on the 
 subject of personal religion and gave themselves to prayer. 
 A revival began that very night and spread through the col- 
 lege. It resulted in the conversion of a large number of the 
 students," ^ 
 
 Somebody once asked Spurgeon the secret of his great 
 success, and he directed the inquirer to the basement of the 
 great London church, where during the services several of the 
 members of the congregation remained in constant prayer, 
 asking God that He might make the church a force for right- 
 eousness in the establishment of the Kingdom. And God 
 answered these prayers and the church of Spurgeon did a 
 wonderful work during his ministry. But one need not go 
 to Japan or England to learn that God answers prayers. God 
 answers the fervent prayers of all His people. Everyone who 
 knows how to pray has had blessed experiences that prove to 
 him that God is ever ready to answer prayer. All that is 
 necessary is that God's people come to fully understand that 
 perfect cooperation and united effort in prayer will revolu- 
 tionize conditions everywhere. The trouble is, the followers 
 of Jesus Christ are too individualistic in their prayers. A 
 few flying wedges in the prayer world will be much more 
 effective than individual supplications in battering down the 
 opposition and making goals. If every one of the eleven 
 men on a champion football team were to change his tactics 
 and play independently little could be accomplished against 
 a well-organized team even of pygmies. 
 
 Many years ago one of the capable men of the Methodist 
 Church made himself a bishop through prayer. Before the 
 Conference there was little thought among the delegates of 
 
 1 " The Challenge of Today," edited by Bishop W. F. Anderson, p. 80. 
 123 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 electing him a bishop. But a prayer he uttered during the 
 early days of the Conference so completely took hold of the 
 whole body of delegates, that in almost every heart came the 
 conviction that a man of such power in prayer ought to be a 
 bishop of the church, and he was elected. 
 
 An eleventh essential of leadership is sympathy. Of course 
 the literal meaning of sympathy is, fellow-feeling. This 
 presupposes a big heart, a heart like the heart of Christ Him- 
 self, in whose life one sees sympathy in all its perfection. The 
 ideal leader must be able so to adjust his life that it enjoys 
 a beautiful harmony with the lives of those whom he would 
 mold into symmetry. A hfe so attuned is keenly sensitive 
 to the heart lives of those with which it is brought into inti- 
 mate relations and shows such wonderful responsiveness that 
 there is perfect rhythm in their fellowship. A sympathetic 
 leader is a social stabilizer. The most recent invention to 
 contribute to the safety of aerial navigation is the stabilizer, 
 which enables the aviator to keep in balance in spite of 
 vacuums, currents, counter currents, cross currents and any 
 other uncertain factors with which the air machine has to 
 contend in its flight. It is the sympathy of the leader that 
 enables him to move happily and successfully among those 
 whom he leads with little fear of the many uncertain factors 
 of human nature. 
 
 . There is another meaning of sympathy that possibly has 
 equal significance in all successful leadership, and that is 
 ability to enter into the lives of others so under standingly 
 that each life may be started and kept going in the direction 
 in which it is best fitted to move. No two persons are alike. 
 Hence every person must be made the object of separate study. 
 But the leader feels great pleasure in the intensive investiga- 
 tions that precede his work of classifying those with whom 
 he is afiiliated. He finds some who in the beginning give 
 promise of development into strong characters under the 
 stimulus of the right sort of life purpose, but in the end 
 reveal weaknesses that doom them to almost hopeless medi- 
 ocrity in life's activities. He finds others who in the beginning 
 
 124 
 
RURAL LEADERSHIP 
 
 exhibit few if any evidences of strength of character, but 
 in the end grow strong and finally mature, under wise super- 
 vision, into men of sturdiness and power. There are infinite 
 gradations between these two classes. The pleasure that 
 comes from arriving at an exact understanding of each case, 
 and from opening the way to the highest achievement possible 
 in each case, is a pleasure that gives infinite zest in spite of 
 the many disappointments inevitable in dealing with youth. 
 Many years ago a class of young people chose as their presi- 
 dent one of their number who was sociable, agreeable, regular 
 in attendance, faithful in the performance of stereotyped 
 duties, but who possessed no initiative, had a pliant nature, 
 and could not command the respect of a young man or 
 woman with a strong character. The result was, he was a 
 failure as a class president, which office his smile, handclasp 
 and equable disposition had won him. 
 
 A final essential of leadership is fairness. Anyone who 
 has had much experience with children or young people 
 realizes that they are gifted with intuitive keenness in passing 
 judgment on the treatment they receive at the hands of elders. 
 A teacher, for example, who shows partiality quickly impairs 
 his usefulness and practically destroys his influence over his 
 pupils. A little group of children or young people is filled 
 with the same democratic spirit that pervades the whole 
 national life, and their slogan is the square deal. So anyone 
 who aspires to be a leader of youth must make up his mind 
 that he will always be just; that, in fact, he will be so just 
 as to treat with equal consideration the boy or girl for whom 
 he cannot but have an antipathy and the boy or girl to whom 
 he is naturally drawn. 
 
 In listening to a group of young people discussing their 
 teachers one often hears remarks such as these : " Mr. So 
 and So certainly does give a fellow a square deal ; " " What 
 makes me Hke Miss So and So is, she plays no favorites ; " 
 and the like. As a grown-up person goes back in memory to 
 the teachers of his tender years, he loves most to dwell on 
 the experiences under teachers that showed absolute fairness 
 
 125 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 in their treatment of all pupils. He does not cherish any 
 unkindness for a teacher who punished him when he deserved 
 punishment, and after the first resentment his anger soon 
 disappeared because he knew that his punishment was de- 
 served. But the little acts of injustice that some teachers 
 perpetrated linger in one's memory all through the years and 
 awaken a feeling of bitterness whenever memory pushes them 
 across the threshold of consciousness. 
 
 Especially is fairness a requisite on the athletic field. 
 Here, when passion runs high and there is eagerness to win, 
 the slightest wavering on the part of the judge or the umpire 
 or the coach quickly has its effect. In a certain town, there 
 was an umpire who in the course of years acquired a reputa- 
 tion for being absolutely on the square. The result was, his 
 decisions were never questioned. Once in a while, as any 
 observing bystander could note, he made mistakes, but there 
 was no objection, for the reason that all had such implicit 
 confidence in him that they knew any error that he made was 
 simply an error of judgment. Every leader is frequently put 
 to most severe tests, since life is full of decisions, especially 
 if he takes an active part in community activities. His feel- 
 ings or prejudices or inclinations or ambitions, particularly if • 
 the vital tide is running a little low and physically he is some- , 
 what below par, often bring a tremendous pressure to bear 
 on the judgment, and perfect justice finds it a little difficult 
 to prevail. But it is tests such as these that fortify char- 
 acter against any assaults that might be made upon it and that 
 fit one for a successful work in his chosen field. i 
 
 Of the many good things that may be laid at the door of 
 inspired leadership only a few will be mentioned. Leadership 
 appeals to that something within most persons that stimulates 
 them to rise to higher levels. But even though the higher 
 levels be not attained, good is accomplished, since, as Brown- 
 ing says in his poem " Saul," " 'Tis not what man does that 
 exalts him, but what man would do." So whether, like Boye- 
 son's engineer, who went through life with an epic clamoring 
 for expression in his soul, a man realizes or fails to realize 
 
 126 
 
RURAL LEADERSHIP 
 
 his aspirations, he has become an infinitely better man and 
 has made his contribution, however modest it may be, to the 
 sum of human progress. Leadership exerts its influence 
 sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. Two illus- 
 trations will be given. In a certain town there was once a 
 talented girl who studied voice culture in a great conserva- 
 tory and later became a very noted singer. This same town 
 produced, during the next generation, one singer of inter- 
 national reputation, two other singers quite well known in 
 their own country, and several artists of lesser fame. Some 
 years ago, in a town of two thousand, there rose into prom- 
 inence a baseball player who became famous in one of the 
 big leagues, both as player and manager. During the decade 
 following this celebrity's triumphs, one young man developed 
 into possibly an equally skilled player and achieved the dis- 
 tinction of piloting a big league club to the championship one 
 year. Several other players of league calibre were pro- 
 duced, and the town has today the reputation of being one 
 of the greatest baseball towns of its size in the country. 
 
 Another good thing resulting from inspired leadership is the 
 influence it exerts on philanthropy. If the truth were known, 
 there are, for example, very few uplift institutions or bene- 
 factions anywhere in the country that cannot trace their origin 
 to a stimulus that emanated from inspired leadership. Some 
 years ago there was a town that had for a long time felt the 
 need of a Y. M. C. A. There was much agitation, and on 
 several occasions abortive efforts were made to finance the 
 institution. Finally, a campaign of education was launched 
 with the purpose of thoroughly familiarizing the people with 
 all phases of Y. M. C. A. work, in the hope that success would 
 crown the next effort to secure an institution. In the midst 
 of the campaign a certain elderly resident made his will and 
 arranged for the disposal of a larger fortune than anyone 
 thought he possessed. Not very long afterward the modest 
 but philanthropically inclined man died, and it was found that 
 he had made provision for an institution such as even the 
 most optimistic had never dreamed the town would possess. 
 
 127 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 This, with other cases that might be given, warrants the 
 encouraging generalization that money comes when leader- 
 ship SHOWS THE WAY. 
 
 A third good that grows out of inspired leadership is, it 
 paves the way for a crystallization of public opinion. Crys- 
 tallized public opinion with a fulcrum sufficiently large can 
 move the world, and it is beginning to move the world in 
 many ways. Public opinion is fast crystallizing in regard to 
 the uselessness and pernicious character of the liquor traffic, 
 and the time is approaching when not only America but all the 
 nations will eliminate the curse. Public opinion is fast crys- 
 tallizing in regard to the evangelizing of the whole earth, and 
 the time will surely come when all the peoples of earth will 
 both have heard of Jesus Christ and accepted Him as their 
 Savior. Many other similar movements might be mentioned 
 concerning which, in this contracting world, public opinion is 
 crystallizing. 
 
 It is only about fifteen years ago that a certain aggressive 
 minister fired the first shot at the strongly intrenched liquor 
 forces of his community. There followed a trench warfare 
 that lasted for years, but in the end the liquor forces were 
 routed and for nearly a decade now the city has been without , 
 saloons, and the dry sentiment is so pronounced that even ' 
 the suggestion that the city would be better off if it were to 
 discard prohibition is treated with the utmost contempt. But 
 it was different in the early days. The good minister who 
 fired the first shot was subjected to a thousand inconveniences 
 and unpleasantnesses because of his bold stand and in the end 
 lost his pulpit in that community. However, he started the 
 crystallization of public opinion that today is fully crystallized, 
 but he paid the price. And this thought of paying the price 
 will be the concluding thought of this chapter. 
 
 Christ, the greatest leader the world has produced, paid 
 the price, and it was the greatest price man could pay. But 
 He established a religion that is destined to bring under its 
 banner all the peoples of earth. So all leadership must 
 pay the price. There is no royal road to victory in the field 
 
 128 
 
RURAL LEADERSHIP \ 
 
 of leadership. Recently, Professor Charles R. Henderson, 
 of Chicago University, died prematurely, and the diagnosis 
 was, too great ardor in uplift activities for his strength. 
 Browning's quatrain will fittingly close this chapter. 
 
 That low man seeks a little thing to do, 
 
 Sees it and does it; 
 This high man with a great thing to pursue 
 
 Dies ere he knows it. 
 
 129 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 RURAL COOPERATION 
 
 DR. EMIL HAHN, writing in the Mcdizinische Blaetter, 
 states that a man weighing 150 pounds is worth $7.87. 
 His fat has a value of $2.60, but there is scarcely enough iron 
 to make a nail an inch long or lime to whitewash a good 
 sized fowl-house. The phosphorus would put heads on 2,200 
 matches and the magnesium would provide a very pretty fire- 
 works display. Of albumen there is sufficient for a hundred 
 eggs, while of sugar one could secure only a teaspoonful and 
 of salt a mere pinch. 
 
 Yet in spite of the low value of the several elements that 
 enter into man's body, the same is a marvelous combination, 
 the elements representing one combination and myriads of 
 cells another. The cells, for example, are so perfectly 
 adjusted to one another that under normal conditions they 
 fulfill in a very happy manner their functions. Nor is it an 
 easy task to throw them out of adjustment, since if some cells 
 refuse for a time to perform their proper functions other 
 related cells come to their rescue, so that one never notes 
 slight temporary discords in the activities of his cell system. 
 How different with man-made mechanisms ! To illustrate, 
 whenever, in an automobile, one spark plug fails to do its duty 
 or some other part is out of commission the whole machine 
 is handicapped and its progress is labored. Now, not only in 
 man's body is there perfect cooperation, but there is between 
 body and mind a higher cooperation, which represents the 
 complete human life. 
 
 Society is man multiplied. In society there are four dis- 
 tinct classes : the producer, the manufacturer, the transporter 
 
 K 130 
 
 I 
 
RURAL COOPERATION 
 
 and the " social server." ^ But how imperfect the coopera- 
 tion within each class and among the four classes ! Produc- 
 tion is affected by individualism, the greatest enemy of co- 
 operation. Manufacture is just beginning to wrestle with the 
 problems that concern employer and employed. Transporta- 
 tion has scarcely cast aside its swaddling clothes, and social 
 service, on its practical side, has made comparatively little 
 progress, and, on its philanthropic side, is just getting a good 
 start. But one sees perfect cooperation in the individual. 
 Man, the producer, gathers the food with which his body and 
 mind are nourished. His digestive tract takes the physical 
 food and by a process of manufacture prepares it to become a 
 part of the body, and his mental faculties take the spiritual 
 food and by a higher process of manufacture prepare it to 
 become a part of the mind. The physical food, after having 
 become a finished product, is transported by the blood to all 
 parts of the body, and the mental food after it has become a 
 finished product is borne by invisible means to the great 
 storehouse of the mind. The social servers of the body are 
 the senses and of the mind the higher faculties, and these 
 working together supervise and direct the complete life. Just 
 as there is perfect cooperation in the individual, so there will 
 be in God's good time perfect cooperation among individuals, 
 in society. 
 
 In the preceding chapter the conclusion was drawn that fur- 
 ther progress in Rural Society depended on leadership. In the 
 present chapter the thought will be developed that the big task 
 of leadership in Rural Society will be inaugurating a more 
 perfect cooperation. 
 
 The greatest obstacle in the path that leads to a higher rural 
 civilization is individualism. Life in the country fosters 
 individualism. No person on earth is more independent 
 than the farmer. In the village or the city the resident is, to 
 a greater or less extent, dependent upon the other residents, 
 
 ^ " Social server " is used in a broad sense and by " social service " 
 is meant all service not included in the other three classes: industrial, 
 commercial, intellectual, spiritual, humanitarian. 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 and so he learns through force of necessity to subordinate 
 his personal good to the general good. Close contact and 
 interdependence develop a spirit of yielding to the aggregate 
 will of the community and an inchnation to serve the wishes 
 of the great majority. The farmer, on the other hand, lives 
 the most self-sufficient life in the nation. During the " Age 
 of Homespun " very little was used on the farm that was not 
 produced there. But the age of coal and steam has taken away 
 much of the work that formerly engaged the attention of the 
 farmer folk, though even yet the farmer is not nearly so 
 dependent on the outside world as the outside world is 
 dependent on him. So, finding it unnecessary to adapt him- 
 self to the outside world to any great extent, he gives his 
 individualistic tendencies free play. 
 
 In the second chapter many instances of cooperation were 
 given and it was shown that the benefits accruing to the farmer 
 from cooperation were great. But in spite of the fact that 
 only good results flow from satisfactory cooperation, yet 
 attempts at cooperation are all too rare and touch the lives 
 of a very small percentage of the farm population. Of course 
 one of the things that deter farmers from entering more 
 freely into cooperative activities of a business character is the 
 dismal record of failures attending these in Rural America. 
 These failures, however, can be traced in almost every case 
 to incompetent leadership; hence the contention in the last 
 chapter that the first essential in the advancement of Rural 
 Life to higher levels is leadership. 
 
 Now, how can individualism be combated? By the 
 farmer's getting a vision of his true place in the national life. 
 The farmer is the chief producer of the nation. There are 
 a few other producers, as the miner, the forester, the fisher 
 and the hunter; but all these together sink into insignificance 
 compared with the farmer, who feeds all other classes of 
 society. Being the chief producer of the nation, his activities 
 represent the basis of the whole business fabric of the nation, 
 and upon his prosperity hinges the prosperity of all the 
 people. Occasionally, Wall Street is shaken by a greater or 
 
 132 
 
RURAL COOPERATION 
 
 less panic; at intervals the industrial world experiences de- 
 pression; frequently there are storm and stress periods in 
 Urban America; but so long as the crops of the farmer are 
 bountiful he is little affected by anything that may be taking 
 place off the farm. But let there be a general crop failure 
 throughout the country or a crop failure in one or more large 
 sections of the nation, and in a very short time the w^hole 
 nation suffers, and there is retrenchment all along the line. 
 So if the farmer can get a clear vision of the important place 
 he occupies in the nation, and can come to realize how greatly 
 general progress is dependent on his individual progress, it 
 may be that he will develop more of a cooperative spirit. 
 
 In the progressive churches of Protestant America a new 
 financial plan is being inaugurated. The new plan emphasizes 
 three cardinal thoughts: (i) getting into touch with every 
 member of the church, even down to the smallest child; 
 (2) welding the membership into a dynamic unity; (3) set- 
 ting free the energies of this great body in cooperative 
 activities. Those who have adopted this plan have discovered 
 that a church in which these three thoughts have been realized 
 quickly develops into a great force for righteousness and 
 greatly extends the scope of its work. If leadership is able 
 to put this plan into operation, the farmer will get a vision of 
 his true place in the nation and, under the stimulus of the 
 vision, play a greater part in rural life, and thus give Rural 
 America the place it ought to occupy in American civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 But the farmer, while representing the larger class of the 
 rural population, is not the sole resident of Rural America. 
 Residents of small villages and towns must likewise be taken 
 into consideration. Most of the villages and towns of the 
 country are collections of individuals for the most part 
 dependent on the residents of the contiguous rural territory 
 for their support. It is largely the trade of the farming 
 population that supports the villages and towns. Of course, 
 some villages and towns come more or less into touch with 
 the industrial side of the nation through small manufacturing 
 
 133 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 plants or other institutions that reach beyond the immediate 
 territory surrounding them. But the rule is that the activities 
 of the villages and towns of the country have to do with their 
 own people and the residents of adjacent territory. 
 
 Now, while the great obstacle to the development of the 
 spirit of cooperation on the farm is individualism, the obstacle 
 that prevents a higher cooperation in the village and town 
 is absence of community spirit. If one makes a study of 
 villages and towns he finds in many of them only flickering 
 sparks of the spirit essential to progress. The result is, hun- 
 dreds of the villages and towns of the nation today are 
 decadent. Of course, when one takes into consideration the 
 several facts — good roads, better facilities for getting from 
 place to place, loss of many little local industrial enterprises 
 due to improved methods of manufacture, organized compe- 
 tition of urban centers and growing cooperative activities for 
 buying and selling among the farmers themselves — he realizes 
 that the villages and towns have had a hard fight. 
 
 Good roads stimulate travel and make possible trips of greater 
 length. When mud roads were the rule, most of the year the 
 farmer was obliged to trade at the nearest village. Travel is 
 further stimulated by traction lines and automobiles. These 
 place even the remote farmer and his family in close touch with 
 the county-seat or the larger city. Centralized manufactur- 
 ing plants have robbed villages and towns of their little 
 industries, and, in the city, business combinations have been 
 the rule, with the result that there are today many depart- 
 ment stores and other commercial establishments whose 
 customers instead of being limited to local residents are not 
 even limited by state boundaries. And, because of the large 
 patronage enjoyed, goods can be sold cheaply, and thus 
 village and town competition is next to impossible. This sort 
 of development is greatly aided by the parcel post, which 
 makes possible the sending of almost all kinds of parcels and 
 packages considerable distances at small expense. Finally, 
 the tendency on the part of the farming population to organize 
 for the purpose not only of buying cheaply but of selling to 
 
 134 
 
RURAL COOPERATION 
 
 better advantage also affects the village and town. These five 
 facts are serious when considered with reference to the wel- 
 fare of the villages and towns of the nation that are depend- 
 ent largely on the residents of contiguous territory for their 
 support. 
 
 There is one redeeming circumstance, however : changes 
 have not come about all at once, and villages and towns have 
 been able gradually to adapt themselves to the new trend of 
 things. In the olden days, life in the village and town was a 
 comparatively sleepy life. Little effort had to be put forth by 
 the business interests because they were sure of the trade of 
 the contiguous territory. But in the course of the industrial 
 awakening, villages and towns began to see the handwriting on 
 the wall and adopted more progressive methods, with the 
 result that in many parts of the country today there are vil- 
 lages and towns that have magnificently risen to the demands 
 of the new times and grown in spite of the five major handi- 
 caps mentioned. The changed times have been the means of 
 rousing them from their lethargy and of causing them to 
 summon all their energies to the solution of the new prob- 
 lems that confront them. Hence, many villages and towns 
 have found the changed order of things a blessing in disguise. 
 They are today active, alive to all their interests, hopeful, opti- 
 mistic and keenly sensitive to the stimuli that contribute to 
 community development. The Saturday Evening Post told, 
 some months ago, of a store in a country town of i,ooo inhab- 
 itants, that built up, as a result of advertising and progressive 
 methods, an annual business of almost $400,000. Moreover, 
 the town as a town showed enterprise in all directions. On 
 the other hand, hundreds of villages and towns not possessed 
 of sufficient tenacity, resourcefulness and unity have suc- 
 cumbed to the handicaps imposed by the changed order of 
 things and are today leading decadent lives. 
 
 Two villages come to the writer's mind. Both are favorably 
 located in good agricultural sections and are almost the same 
 distance from larger towns and cities. Yet one is progressive 
 and prosperous, and the other is conservative and backward. 
 
 13s 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 It is doubtful if the citizenship, individually speaking, of the 
 former is better than that of the latter, and yet what a differ- 
 ence in their village life! In the former the business and 
 professional men are a unit in village activities. There is 
 constantly something doing looking to the welfare of the com- 
 munity. There are several churches all of which are fine new 
 structures. The school is an excellent building and under the 
 direction of a good corps of teachers. The business district 
 has an up-to-date appearance and the homes of the people 
 indicate contentment and happiness. One can not remain in 
 the village an hour without realizing that village life is on a 
 high plane in nearly all respects. The other village is not 
 decadent; but one who studies it sees that it has not risen to 
 its possibiHties. There are not so many evidences of tidiness 
 and neatness in either the business or the residence district. 
 The streets are not so well kept and the residents do not seem 
 to possess that wide-awake spirit that characterizes the resi- 
 dents of the other village. In village activities that should 
 interest all the people there is not that unanimity of effort or 
 enthusiasm that one finds in the other village. In grading the 
 two villages from the standpoint of all the activities of village 
 life, village number one would receive a far higher grade 
 than village number two, not because the inhabitants of the 
 former are in their individual capacity better, but because in 
 cooperative activities they greatly excel the inhabitants of 
 the latter. Villages are seldom compared in this way because 
 of the great number of individuals included, but how 
 frequently baseball nines and football elevens are thus com- 
 pared ! And the thought that is emphasized is that of team- 
 work. In 1914 the Boston National League team, after having 
 for a number of seasons played a very minor role in its league 
 of eight clubs, won not only the championship of its league but 
 the world championship as well, defeating in the world series 
 in four successive victories the team, the Athletics of Phil- 
 adelphia, that during the three or four years preceding this 
 series had been considered the greatest baseball aggregation 
 that the country in all its history had produced. Individually 
 
 136 
 
RURAL COOPERATION 
 
 the Philadelphia team was in a class by itself, and yet the 
 Boston club won four successive victories because of the most 
 superb exhibition of team-work the game has known. So it is 
 team-work, perfect cooperation, in the one village that has 
 put it on the map. It is the lack of team-work, of cooperation, 
 in the other village that has kept it farther down the scale 
 and on a lower plane. 
 
 One of the bugbears of the hundreds of villages in the 
 Mississippi Valley is the Mail Order House. A recent report 
 of a large Mail Order House showed sales for the year in 
 excess oi one hundred million dollars. The following is a 
 condensed statement of an article that appeared in The 
 Banker-Farmer for September, 1914. 
 
 Twenty-nine years ago, Hans Garbus of Iowa rented an 
 8o-acre farm. His possessions consisted of an old team, $50 
 in cash and a young wife. Being a man of integrity, he was 
 able to furnish his home and equip his farm on credit. The 
 first year was wet, resulting in a shortage of crops; so the 
 merchants of the near-by village, where he made his purchases, 
 were obliged to extend the time of his obligations. This they 
 gladly did, and, moreover, they continued to accommodate 
 him in his rise to affluence. In the course of time he had 
 acquired title to 200 acres of the best land in the state. Nine 
 years ago he concluded it would be good business to patronize 
 city mail order houses, and this he and many of his neighbors 
 began to do largely due to his influence, since he had become 
 a very influential man in his neighborhood. Then the near- 
 by village was quite progressive, having excellent schools, 
 wide-awake churches, active merchants and a most praise- 
 worthy community spirit. Then, too, Hans' farm would 
 readily command $195 per acre. Nine years pass. The 
 near-by village is a mere shadow of its former self. The 
 change was largely caused by organized buying from mail 
 order houses. The worst of it is, the present market value of 
 Hans' farm is $167 per acre (a depreciation of $5,600) and 
 all other farms near the little village have suffered a like 
 depreciation. This is due to the decadence of the village, 
 
 137 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 since there is little demand for farms at high prices far 
 removed from the advantages of flourishing villages. Today 
 Hans sees a light. He realizes that the town and the con- 
 tiguous country rise and fall together. He realizes that the 
 greatest prosperity, as well as the greatest benefits socially, 
 intellectually and spiritually, results from town and country 
 cooperating. 
 
 Another big problem that concerns Rural America has to 
 do with the unit of cooperation. The school district is the 
 smallest unit; but the most important units, especially in the 
 2,500 rural counties of the nation, are the village or town, 
 the township and the county. Each is an ideal cooperative unit 
 for certain purposes. For some purposes the boundaries of 
 these units must be disregarded and rather arbitrary lines 
 must be drawn. One can lay down few hard and fast rules 
 regarding cooperative units, since different sections of the 
 country differ so greatly. But one can say this: in all cases 
 where the larger unit can accomplish the greater results, the 
 larger unit should prevail. However, the point to be espe- 
 cially emphasized is, large units should cooperate with smaller 
 units in every possible way. To illustrate, an institution or 
 organization representing county cooperation should adapt 
 itself to all smaller cooperative units, such as school districts, 
 townships, villages, etc. Each should fulfill its particular mis- 
 sion and none should trespass on the others. 
 
 In the average agricultural county it is better to have one 
 ' well-organized and properly conducted library with numerous 
 branches than a number of small ill-organized and poorly man- 
 aged libraries scattered through the country, since, with one 
 library, funds are ample to employ competent librarians, to 
 purchase sufficient and suitable books and to supply all parts of 
 the county with library privileges. Thus, all the people coming 
 in touch with skilled librarians and having access to sufficient 
 well selected books, enjoy advantages that are not possible 
 where small library units prevail. Of course the people must 
 not be forced to come to the central library except when spe- 
 cial help is wanted or special volumes or records are to be 
 
 '^ 138 
 
RURAL COOPERATION 
 
 consulted. The library must be carried to the people, that the 
 advantages accruing from its use may be enjoyed in the 
 several communities of the county. This may also be said of 
 a number of institutions such as the county Y. M. C. A., county 
 Y. W. C. A., county hospital and some others. The head- 
 quarters of each must be centrally located, but the aim of 
 each should not be so much to draw persons, distantly located, 
 to them, as to carry the advantages they have to persons dis- 
 tantly located, with the idea all the time in mind of developing 
 every community in the county. 
 
 An interesting example of county-wide cooperation in the 
 establishing of institutions and organizations for county 
 work is to be found in Van Wert County, Ohio. Van Wert 
 County many years ago led the way in the county-library 
 field, and the great success the Brumback Library has 
 achieved in giving to its 29,000 rural population access to the 
 world's literature has made the library well known all over the 
 country. At present in this county there are in course of 
 construction an endowed county Y. M. C. A., an endowed 
 county Y. W. C. A., and an endowed county hospital. It is 
 believed that these four institutions through perfect coopera- 
 tion will be able to accomplish a work that will prove to be a 
 stimulus to scores of other rural centers. At any rate, the 
 cooperative work of the four institutions during the next few 
 years will be an interesting study. 
 
 A striking case of township cooperation comes from the 
 celebrated Illinois township which contains the three towns, 
 La Salle, Peru and Oglesby. Five institutions have been 
 welded into a unit for the benefit of all the people of the 
 township : a Tri-City High School ; a Manual Training and 
 Domestic Science Institution, with complete equipment in- 
 cluding a large assembly hall; a Social Center Building, con- 
 taining gymnasium, swimming pool and shower baths, game, 
 class, club, music and art rooms, and a library; a Hygienic 
 Institute, provided with a bacteriological laboratory, a special- 
 ized library and a small staff of experts whose duty it is to 
 keep the whole township on the highest plane of efficiency 
 
 139 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 from the standpoint of health and sanitation; and an Infant 
 Welfare Station. 
 
 Attention has just been called to the several units that are 
 to be found in Rural America, and emphasis has been placed 
 on the fact that great results may be attained through their 
 cooperation. Now a word might be said about the best 
 method of cooperation. Here, again, no hard and fast rules 
 can be given because conditions are so different in different 
 sections of the country. But this rule might be said to have 
 general application. Within each separate and distinct com- 
 munity center there might be a clearing-house managed by 
 the leaders representing all the activities and movements of 
 a community character in the community. If, for example, 
 a village were to establish a clearing-house, there would be 
 every likelihood that the village would enjoy a symmetrical 
 development, since all movements and activities would be 
 given their true place in the life of the village and a vast 
 amount of waste resulting through duplication of effort 
 would be eliminated. Take the work of charity alone. There 
 are, in every community, many organizations of a different 
 character that engage in charitable work, with the result that 
 some families receive too much, some receive too little, and a 
 great deal of harm is done through indiscriminate giving. A 
 clearing-house could take care of this work in a scientific 
 manner and accomplish, at the same time, a great constructive 
 work, which would in the end be the means of raising above 
 the poverty level many who either temporarily or permanently 
 have sunk below it, purely because of social conditions that 
 might be eliminated. Then a clearing-house of clearing- 
 houses would permit of much better work in the larger units. 
 A clearing-house system worked out in a county would not 
 only be the means of producing higher economic standards, 
 but would result in the placing of the collective citizenship 
 on higher levels intellectually and spiritually. Furthermore, 
 a system of clearing-houses would be the best means in the 
 world of taking advantage of the aid that from many sources 
 is coming from the outside : the Federal Government, the 
 ' |. state, great foundations and other organizations. 
 
RURAL COOPERATION 
 
 The chief problem of the country is economic, and all other 
 problems will yield to solution in proportion as this receives 
 attention. " Prof. F. H. Giddings has said that if all the 
 universities and all the pulpits and all the schools of this 
 country should unite in one idea they wish the people to 
 accept, it would not have the influence on them that the 
 experience of getting their living has : in the last analysis 
 the way we get our living shapes our characters and forms 
 our beliefs. For this reason it is essential that, in studying 
 the population, we should study first and with the greatest 
 care the economic conditions that prevail." ^ 
 
 The tendency of the past has been to consider the problems 
 of the country separately, and one of the problems most 
 neglected has been the economic problem. Unless each one 
 is studied with special reference to the others, and particularly 
 with special reference to those that are intimately related 
 to it, little comparative progress can be made. Take the 
 problem of education : A school district seldom advances 
 more rapidly educationally than it does economically. The 
 writer once made a study of two townships, one of which 
 had a centrahzed school and the other of which did not have 
 such an institution. In the former the standards of agri- 
 culture were high, a majority of the farms presented a fine 
 appearance, the roads were good, social life was above the 
 average, the churches and Sunday-schools were well attended 
 and in a flourishing condition and a get-together and work- 
 together spirit seemed to characterize the fifteen hundred 
 people of the township. Before the vote was taken to 
 build the school, public sentiment favored a centralized 
 school: the vote simply registered the wishes of the people. 
 
 The same thing holds true with reference to the problem 
 of the country church. A study of flourishing rural churches 
 reveals the fact that one never finds such churches in back- 
 ward districts. The best way to build up a flourishing church 
 is to build up the country where the church is located. In 
 
 1 Anna B. Taft, " Community Study for Country Districts," p. 23. 
 141 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 some cases results have been obtained in churches by getting 
 together the people of the community and getting as much 
 out of them as possible. But results of this kind are exceed- 
 ingly transitory and a church that by this method is built 
 up today may be down tomorrow. But a church that rises 
 because the whole community has been placed on a higher 
 plane agriculturally, socially, intellectually, spiritually, has 
 made fundamental progress. So the leaders of the future 
 in the country must be men broad enough to understand life 
 in its entirety and to work primarily for the development 
 of the community along all lines and secondarily fqr progress 
 in the field that engages their special attention. The country 
 wants no leaders that do not know something about all 
 country work, and all about some country work, and are 
 unable to correlate the activities of the ,country, giving every 
 activity its proper place. 
 
 A study of cooperative activities shows that much good 
 comes from them. They tend to eliminate selfishness. If a 
 man concerns himself solely with his own individual affairs, 
 unconsciously selfishness gets such complete possession of 
 him that he is almost incapable of unselfish effort. In 
 mingling with men in all kinds of undertakings, some for 
 profit and others for welfare purposes, he comes gradually 
 to subordinate his own desires to the dictates of the majority. 
 To the extent to which men in greater or lesser numbers can 
 work together and achieve success through their united efforts, 
 to that extent is the growth of selfishness in their natures 
 retarded, since the highest achievements of cooperative effort 
 presuppose the entire absence of selfishness. One of the 
 finest evidences of the growth of civilization through the 
 centuries is the fact of the gradual subsidence of selfishness 
 in the individual and the gradual growth of the philanthropic 
 spirit. 
 
 During the mobilization of her army, just before her 
 entrance into the great war, Italy found it necessary to ask 
 many railroad men to work to the limit of human endurance, 
 for which extra pay was promised; but, notwithstanding the 
 
 142 
 
RURAL COOPERATION 
 
 fact that the extra pay amounted to $600,000, not a cent was 
 taken by the men, and their reason for not accepting the 
 extra pay was expressed in these words : " We should feel 
 ourselves humiliated if we were not willing to give our toil 
 while others give their lives for their country." What a 
 beautiful exhibition of unselfishness! And this unselfish- 
 ness grew out of the cooperation of all Italians in making 
 their nation ready for a part in the world war. 
 
 Cooperation promotes patriotism. The trouble with many 
 rural communities is that a majority of their residents lack 
 rural loyalty. That this trouble can be corrected through 
 entrance into cooperative activities for the benefit of the 
 home community is evident from many instances. A case 
 from Wright County, Iowa, will suffice. Several years ago 
 the pupils of thirty-four schools in Wright County were 
 asked what they wanted to do. One hundred and fifty- 
 seven boys and one hundred and sixty-three girls said they 
 wanted to leave the farm, and seven boys and eleven girls 
 said they wanted to stay on the farm. Shortly afterwards, 
 a number of movements were inaugurated with the purpose 
 of interesting the young people in the things of the farm, 
 and three years later, when a similar vote was taken in the 
 same schools, only twelve boys and seventeen girls wanted 
 to leave the farm and one hundred and sixty-two boys and 
 one hundred and sixty-one girls wanted to stay on the farm.^ 
 Love for the country can be developed in the country as 
 easily as love for the city can be developed in the city, if 
 the same opportunities are provided in Rural America for the 
 development of rural loyalty as are found in Urban America 
 for the development of urban loyalty. In this case the county 
 superintendents gave the opportunities and the cooperative 
 activities developed the patriotism. Whenever one finds a 
 country community whose residents are filled with rural 
 patriotism one finds a community that is on the highway 
 of progress. 
 
 1 See Wallaces* Farmer. 
 
 143 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 Cooperation stimulates fellowship. As congestion is one 
 of the drawbacks of urban life, so isolation is one of the 
 drawbacks of rural life. In one way isolation in the country 
 has increased during the past few decades, since the older 
 districts of Rural America show a gradual decrease in 
 population because farms are growing larger and the improve- 
 ments in farm machinery make it possible for fewer men to 
 cultivate the farms of the nation. But coincidentally with 
 the decrease in the population of many rural sections, numer- 
 ous movements have come into existence that have resulted 
 in a greater mingling of rural residents in all kinds of 
 activities — business, social, intellectual, spiritual — than has 
 been the case since the Golden Age of Homespun. This 
 mingling means cooperation, and cooperation stimulates fel- 
 lowship. How much finer this fellowship is, if it has a 
 distinctly religious basis ! In Northern Michigan there is a 
 church that is a bright and shining light in the rural field.^ 
 The pastor of this church worked for sixteen years without 
 realizing the wonderful opportunities for service that were 
 right within his grasp. Finally, to use his own words, he 
 got a vision, and since then he has greatly extended the 
 boundaries of his parish and wonderfully increased the work 
 of his church. The people of a large community area have 
 been welded into a religious unit. What has resulted from 
 the fact of the church having taken the initiative in the 
 development of a more perfect cooperation? All movements 
 of a community character have less of selfishness with which 
 to contend than have similar movements in other rural sec- 
 tions in which the church has either been unable or failed 
 to assume the leadership. The most beautiful feature of 
 this growing rural fellowship is that it has a place for all 
 the people — adults, young people and children of both sexes. 
 Thus, larger opportunity is given for the ripening of 
 acquaintanceships into friendships and for the development 
 of intimacies into love and marriage. 
 
 1 See H. S. Mills, " The Making of a Country Parish." 
 144 
 
RURAL COOPERATION 
 
 Cooperation discovers latent talent. The greatest resources 
 of the nation are of a spiritual character. Rural America is 
 rich beyond the dreams of avarice in talents of a high order, 
 and let these talents be sought with the eagerness with which 
 men seek gold, and let them under the direction of leader- 
 ship be put through the refiner's fire, and they will emerge 
 from the crucible pure gold. It was never meant that man 
 should give the best strength of his life to the sordid activities 
 of acquiring the valuable material things of earth, and yet 
 all through the ages man has been sacrificing health and 
 strength and honor and friendship and love, yea life itself, 
 on the altar of temporal gain, while great stores of un- 
 developed human riches, riches that are not temporal but 
 eternal, are accessible to all. What a wonderful difference 
 between the riches that have permanent significance and those 
 that are temporal and perish with earth! The nugget of 
 gold that the miner finds is almost as valuable as the gold 
 eagle of the same weight. But the undeveloped talent is 
 as naught compared with the same talent transformed into 
 an efficient instrument, ready for service. Holden, the Corn 
 King, loved everywhere in the Corn Belt and possibly as 
 widely known today as any other living agriculturist, achieved 
 his great reputation largely through his work in Iowa, where 
 the corn yield of the state was increased several bushels per 
 acre through his efforts in the matter of seed selection. 
 Holden was a poor boy on a farm like thousands of other 
 poor boys on farms, but his God-given talent was developed, 
 and today not only Iowa but the whole nation is richer 
 because of his developed talent. How tremendously more 
 valuable is this developed talent that lay dormant in the mind 
 of the barefoot boy on his father's farm a generation ago! 
 " What the world needs is men who can do to agriculture 
 and horticulture what Edison did to electricity, Carnegie to 
 steel and Vanderbilt to transportation — develop its effi- 
 ciency." ^ Today the talent to do these wonderful things lies 
 
 ^ The Ohio Journal of Commerce. 
 
 145 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 dormant, and the expectation of every optimist is that the 
 cooperation of the next generation will discover some of this 
 talent for the benefit of humanity. 
 
 Cooperation develops symmetry. God gives to most persons 
 at birth all the materials for the development of a symmetri- 
 cal human being. The great trinity, body, mind and soul, 
 is the inheritance of all. What do most people do with this 
 ^reat inheritance? A study of human life reveals the fact 
 of awful neglect and misuse. Only here and there does one 
 see men and women who appreciate what God has given them 
 and develop their threefold nature, thus showing the world 
 what can be accomplished when the whole life is trained for 
 efficiency. Most persons are one-sided. Here is a man with 
 a magnificent physique, but with the mind and soul of an 
 infant. Soon the body begins to show the marks of age and 
 then the man is reduced to poverty, since the immortal part 
 of him has been neglected. Here is another man with a 
 marvelously developed intellect and a body that indicates 
 that his whole life has been dedicated to the intellectual to 
 the great detriment of the physical. The world admires 
 intellect, but its admiration increases when intellect has not 
 been built on the foundation of a weak body. Alexander 
 Pope, the invalid, had a great intellect, but an " interrogation 
 point " of a body. Sir Walter Scott had a great intellect 
 and a strong body. Whom does the world admire the more? 
 Again, a man may develop wonderfully his spiritual nature 
 with little thought for a trained intellect and a well-kept 
 body. No, it is the symmetrical man that the world admires 
 most today, and it is the symmetrical man that is accomplish- 
 ing the most in establishing the Kingdom here on earth. 
 
 The earth's greatest asset is the child, and the one thing 
 above everything else that appeals to the child is symmetry. 
 It is the man or woman who is in perfect sympathy 
 with the play life of childhood and who experiences with 
 the child the wild joy of reveling in physical activity; the 
 man or woman who can rise from the physical in easy man- 
 ner to the mental and carry the child on the wings of 
 
 146 
 
RURAL COOPERATION 
 
 imagination to the uttermost parts of the earth, thus stimulat- 
 ing the developing faculties of the child's intellect; the man 
 or woman that can, by an appeal such as is possible only in 
 natures of deep spirituality and perfect sincerity, get hold 
 of the inner life of childhood and pave the way for a beau- 
 tiful maturity of the higher powers — it is such a man or 
 woman alone who can be the means of causing childhood 
 to flower into the perfection of the symmetrical life. 
 
 Cooperation increases respect for personality. The most 
 sacred thing in all God's universe is human life, and yet how 
 common is the custom of looking upon human beings simply 
 as bundles of energy harnessed for profit, or as existences 
 that contribute to physical or social gratification. Each per- 
 son's life is sacred to himself, and just as he respects his own 
 life, so should he respect the lives of others. This demands 
 a literal application of the Golden Rule. Human intimacies 
 that rise to the higher planes are a source of the supremest 
 pleasure that life affords, but how bitter becomes the cup 
 of joy if the lower voices prevail in social intercourse! There 
 is an urgent need of greater respect for one another, and 
 especially is a renaissance of respect of man for woman 
 imperative. Civilization rises or falls with the regnancy or 
 decline of this holy respect. All the civilizations that have 
 perished, disintegrated because of the absence of respect on 
 the part of man for woman. No civilization can rise higher 
 than its respect for personalit}'. The following incident, 
 related by Prof. J. A. Cramb, in his book, " England and 
 Germany," is one of the most beautiful incidents of antiquity. 
 
 " On the night before Alexander of Macedon started for 
 the East on that career of conquest in which, like Achilles his 
 great exemplar, he was to find his glory and an early death, 
 he had a farewell interview with the man who had been his 
 tutor, now the master of a rising school of thought in the 
 shades of the Lyceum. And towards the end of the interview 
 Aristotle said to the Macedonian: 
 
 " ' You are about to start upon an enterprise which will 
 bring you into many lands and amongst many nations, some 
 
 147 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 already celebrated in arts and arms, some savage and 
 unknown. But this last counsel I give you : Whithersoever 
 your victories lead you, never forget that you are a Greek, and 
 everywhere draw hard and fast the line that separates the 
 Greek from the barbarian/ 
 
 " * No,' answered the youthful conqueror — he was barely 
 two-and-twenty — ' I will pursue another policy. I will make 
 all men Hellenes. That shall be the purpose of my victories.' " 
 
 Aristotle, the great philosopher, showed a supreme dis- 
 regard for all peoples except the Greeks. Alexander, the 
 world conqueror, cherished the ideal of raising all peoples to 
 higher levels. 
 
 Cooperation invites to service. In the field of cooperative 
 activities many persons are found who dedicate a large por- 
 tion of their time and all their strength to enterprises not 
 established for profit but for welfare purposes. 'Examples 
 of this sort are stimulating and arouse general emulation. 
 Most people engage just as eagerly in a work that involves 
 sacrifice of time, effort and money as they do in work whose 
 one purpose is material gain. In fact, they do so with greater 
 eagerness in all cases in which conditions are favorable, and 
 the most favorable conditions are found where there are 
 numerous examples of persons unselfishly giving the best there 
 is in them for the benefit of all. A few years ago a certain 
 rural church had a member whose name, because of his con- 
 duct and lack of interest in all matters that pertained to the 
 church, the pastor would have been justified in dropping from 
 the rolls of the church. But the pastor felt there was some- 
 thing in the fellow and believed he would yet make a strong 
 working member of the church. And the belief of the pastor 
 was justified, a complete transformation took place and the 
 erring member became a tower of strength among the little 
 group of workers. What contributed most to his change was 
 the activities of the others with whom he came into constant 
 contact. The psychologic effect of unselfish activity on the 
 minds of the selfish often leads to great results. A good 
 example of cooperation inviting to service is also found in 
 the enlistment of millions of men for the Great War. 
 
 148 
 
RURAL COOPERATION 
 
 A study of world progress reveals the fact that cooperation 
 is a COSMIC LAW, A DIVINE INJUNCTION. In the beginning there 
 were electrons; these acting cooperatively produced atoms; 
 these acting cooperatively produced molecules; these acting 
 cooperatively produced protoplasts; these acting cooperatively 
 produced, in the course of time, human beings. In human his- 
 tory the cooperative bodies have been the family, the tribe, 
 the clan and the nation. The next step will be a Federation 
 of Nations. This is inevitable — it is the will of Omnipotence. 
 
 Far back in the beginning, the individual toiled with his 
 primitive hand tools in a dark and dusty corner. Those were 
 the days of an almost infinite number of crude industrial units. 
 Finally Genius produced a Machine. What was the result? 
 A decrease in the number of industrial units and an increase 
 in the number of individuals representing each unit. The 
 beginning of the Age of Machinery marked the beginning of 
 Cooperation in the Industrial World. From time to time the 
 Machine was improved and with every improvement the 
 industrial units decreased and the number of individuals in 
 each unit increased. Finally, the larger units formed them- 
 selves into Trusts. The first Trusts, which represented sim- 
 ply a stage in Business Evolution, were selfish, and Humanity 
 suffered. Today, however, it is recognized that Trusts are 
 inevitable and that gradually they will prove to be infinitely 
 better from the standpoint of human service than an innumer- 
 able number of competing units. In due time there will be 
 cooperating World Trusts to serve the billion and a half 
 people of earth. 1 
 
 Jesus Christ came among men to give to the world the 
 Ultimate Religion. From the time of Christ to the time of 
 Luther and other great leaders, the Christian Church served 
 the needs of the most civilized portion of humanity. But 
 Luther, a world prophet, and his contemporaries, after a time 
 realized that while humanity was advancing, the Christian 
 Church was simply marking time. The result was a Great 
 
 ^Several thoughts in the two preceding paragraphs taken from The 
 Ohio Journal of commerce, January i, 191 6, p. 4. 
 
 149 
 
FIFTY MILLION STRONG 
 
 Reformation, which led to the establishment of a Church 
 more in harmony with the spirit of human progress. But 
 in the end the one Protestant Church was replaced by a great 
 number of Protestant Churches, many of which differed 
 simply in non-essentials. In the past generation, however, 
 the many Protestant Churches have begun to disregard the 
 things that separate them, which were given great emphasis 
 years ago, and to direct their attention to the things on which 
 they agree. This is a wonderful step in the direction of event- 
 ual church union, which some of the prophets of the present 
 day consider necessary before the evangelization of all the 
 peoples and races of earth can be undertaken in deadly earnest. 
 So in the religious world the next step will be church union, 
 and the final step will be the whole world brought to the foot 
 of the Cross. The New York Independent made the state- 
 ment in a recent editorial that there is today a " world con- 
 science." If this be true, then the future will see rapid prog- 
 ress in the establishing of the K;ingdom among men. 
 
 A study of world progress reveals the fact that cooperation 
 is playing an increasingly important part in world develop- 
 ment, and a study of world conditions warrants the con- 
 clusion that America is likely to dominate world activities 
 during the next generation. This fact and this conclusion 
 being rather generally accepted, the future of humanity is in a 
 measure dependent on the growth of the cooperative spirit in 
 the United States. And since America can advance no more 
 rapidly than the Rural Half of the nation progresses, the 
 National Forward Movement, yea, the World Forward Move- 
 ment rests with Rural America. 
 
 This little book has sought to make clear that, in the preseni 
 world crisis. Rural America will rise to the responsibility 
 placed upon her and do her part toward making the next 
 generation the greatest in all history. 
 
 ISO 
 
INDEX 
 
 Absentee landlordism, 60, 61 
 Alexander and Aristotle, 147 
 Ancestry, America's, 2 
 Anderson, Bishop W. F., ed., 123 
 Anderson, W. L., 45 
 Antrim, Saida B. & E. I., 33, 46 
 Aryan family, 2 
 Australia, land acts, 61 
 
 Banks, 57-59 
 
 Baseball, 127, 136 
 
 Blue sky laws, 64 
 
 Bonham, M. L., 113 
 
 Boy scouts, 27-28 
 
 Boys' and girls' club work, 56-57 
 
 Bruraback Library, 38, 139 
 
 Cabot, R. C, 19 
 
 Camp fire girls, 27-28 
 
 Candor, 11 5-1 16 
 
 Careers, rural, 105 
 
 Charlevoix, Michigan, 41 
 
 Chautauqua, rural, z'^ 
 
 Cheese factories, Minnesota, 7o 
 
 Church, rural, see Country cnurch 
 
 Cities, 9-14 
 
 Clearing house, village, 140 
 
 Club work, boys' and girls', see 
 
 boys' and girls' club work 
 " Common things of earth," 102 
 Community centers, 31-32 
 Community spirit, 134-137 
 Condition, America's, 6 
 Cooperation, economic, 65-72; 
 
 rural, 130-150; unit of, 138 
 Cooperative association, defined, 71 
 Country church, 75-82, 141 
 Country church conference, 19 15, 
 
 TT, 80, 106 
 Country school, see Schools, Rural 
 Country versus city, g-i8 
 County agricultural agent, 55-56 
 County fair, 30 
 County health agent, 83-86 
 County hospital, see Hospital, 
 
 County; 
 County libraries, 34-38, 138 
 County unit, 23-24, 138-139 
 Courage, 116-118 
 Cramb, J. A., 147 
 Creameries, Minnesota, 70 
 Credits, rural, see Rural credits 
 Crosby, Ernest: ** So he died for 
 
 his faith," 117 
 
 Delta, Colorado, 41 
 Demtonstration work, 56-57 
 Dietetics^ 92-93 
 Doughty, W. E., 4 
 " Drudgery divine," 10 1 
 
 Eaton County, Michigan, 41 
 Economic cooperation, see Cooper- 
 ation, economic 
 Economic problem, rural, 141 
 Edwards, Richard H., 19 
 Efficiency, in Rural America, 73-74 
 Eight week clubs, 44 
 Entertainment halls, rural, 29 
 Environment, America's, 3 
 Eugenics, in Rural America, 88-90 
 Extension work, 52-55 
 
 Fairness, 125-126 
 
 Faith, 1 18-120; America's, 7 
 
 Fello^yship, 144 
 
 Fertility, 14 
 
 Field, Jessie, 44, 112 
 
 Financial supremacy, 6 
 
 Fiske, G. W., 25, 90, no 
 
 Foundations, to handle bequests, ^2 
 
 Germantown, Ohio, 42, 46 
 Germany, dietetics in Great War, 
 
 Gray, R. L., 73 
 
 Greene County, Ohio, 41 
 
 Hamerton, Philip G., 19, 100 
 
 Health, 83-93; definition, 19; in the 
 life of Christ, 21 
 
 Health agent, see County health 
 agent 
 
 Health days, 83-84 
 
 Hershey Chocolate Company, com- 
 munity building, 32 
 
 Holden, the Corn King, 145 
 
 Home life, rural, 94-99 
 
 Home-owners, 17; Rural, 103-104 
 
 " Homespun age," 45, 132, 144 
 
 Hospital, County, 86-87, i39 
 
 Household service, 98-99 
 
 Humor, sense of, no- 112 
 
 Imagination, 11 2-1 13 
 Individualism, 131 
 Initiative and referendum, ^2 
 Iowa, County hospital law, 86 
 Ireland, land acts, 61 
 Isolation, in rural life, 144 
 
 Larcom, Lucy: " Common things 
 
 of earth," 102 
 Leadership, rural, 108-129 
 Library, County, see County 
 
 libraries 
 Library, rural, 33-38; township, 
 
 see Township libraries 
 Life, America's, 4 
 Live stock shipping association, 
 
 Minnesota, 71 
 Love, 94-99; definition, 19; ideal of 
 
 Christtianity, 22 
 
 151 
 
INDEX 
 
 Machinery, Age of, 149 
 Mail-order house, 137 
 Marketing bureaus, 68-69 
 Marketing and farm credits, 
 
 National Conference, 1915, 59, 
 
 60-62, 66-72 
 Marsh, George H., 87 
 Middle-man, 15 
 Mills, H. S-, 144 
 Minnesota, economic cooperation, 
 
 69-71 
 Monoma County, Iowa, 36 
 
 National Conference on Marketing 
 and farm credits, see Marketing 
 and farm credits. National Con- 
 ference, 1915 
 
 Nations, eight great, 3 
 
 North Carolina, boys' work, 26; 
 rural sanitation, 83-86 
 
 *' Nothing to do but work," iii 
 
 Ohio, agricultural extension under 
 Smith-Lever act, 54-55; pioneer 
 in County library movement, 35; 
 country churches, 80-82 
 
 Osborne, W. F., 119 
 
 Pearce, C. S., 19 
 
 Personality, 147 
 
 Philanthropy, 127 
 
 Play, in Rural America, 25-46; defi- 
 nition, 19; in the life of Christ, 
 19 
 
 Play grounds, 26-27 
 
 Play parks, 29 
 
 Play picnics, 41 
 
 Politics, in Rural America, 72 
 
 Prayer, 122-123 
 
 Prohibition, 7; see also Temper- 
 ance 
 
 Public opinion, 128 
 
 Quick wit, 115 
 
 Race admixture, 11 
 
 Reading of country people, 46 
 
 Rest, definition, 19; in the life of 
 
 Christ, 22; in Rural America, 
 
 100-102 
 Revivals, religious, 14 
 Roads, 64-65 
 Roberts, A, E., 45 
 Romance, in rural life, 106 
 Rural America, definition, 23; 
 
 perils of, see Country versus city 
 Rural church, see Country church 
 Rural cooperation, see Cooperation, 
 
 rural 
 Rural counties, 24 
 Rural credits, 59-62 
 " Rural Juliet," 94 
 Rural life bureaus, 52 
 Rural sanitation, see Sanitation, 
 
 rural 
 Russell, G. W., 16 
 
 Sanitation, rural, 83-86 
 
 School buildings, 49 
 
 Schools, rural, 48-52 
 
 Schools, urban, 48-49 
 
 Self-control, 121-122 
 
 Service, 148 
 
 Sill, Juliet: "Drudgery divine," 
 
 lOI 
 
 Slogans, Missionary and Temper- 
 ance, 7 
 
 Smith-Lever act^ 52-54 
 
 Social life, in Rural America, 45- 
 46 
 
 Spring Valley, Wisconsin, commu- 
 nity building, 32 
 
 Stocks and bonds, 64 
 
 Stores, cooperative, Minnesota, 71 
 
 Sunday school picnics. County, 40 
 
 Surveys, 40 
 
 Symmetry, 146 
 
 Sympathy, 124-125 
 
 Tact, 113-114 
 
 Taft, Anna B., 45, 141 
 
 Tate, W. K., 50, 51, 52 
 
 Taxation, 62-64 
 
 Team work, 15, 136 
 
 Temperance, 91-92; see also Pr^ 
 
 hibition 
 Tenantry, 17 
 Teutonic nations, 2 
 Township cooperation, 139 
 Township libraries, 35-36 
 Training, America's, 5 
 
 Undeveloped regions, 3 
 Urban America, 10-14, 23 
 Urbanitis, 16 
 
 Van Wert County, Ohio, 139; 
 
 pital, 87; Library, 38, 139 
 Villages, 135-138 
 Virility, 120 
 
 Wagner, Charles, 21 
 
 Wallace, Henry, 60 
 
 Will-power, 121-122 
 
 Windsor County, Vermont, 41 
 
 Winnebago County, Iowa, 31 .^j 
 
 Winthrop Normal and Industrie 
 
 College of South Carolina, 50 
 Work, definition, 19; in the life c 
 
 Christ, 20; in Rural Americ; 
 
 47-74 
 Worship, definition, 19; in the Hi 
 
 of Christ, 20; in Rural Americ; 
 
 75-82 
 Wright County, Iowa, 143 
 
 Young Men's Christian Associ; 
 
 tion, 33, 127; rural, 38-4i 
 
 County, 44, 139 
 Young Women's Christian Assoc 
 
 ation, 33; rural, 38-44, 9' 
 
 County, 44, 139 
 
 152 
 
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