THE RURAL COMMUNITY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO - DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO THE RURAL COMMUNITY BY LLEWELLYN MAcGARR, M.A, LINCOLN COLLEGE, LINCOLN, ILLINOIS gorfe THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922 All rights reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA \ COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and clectrotyped. Published March, 1922. >* '* \ i ' NorfajooS J. 8. Gushing Co. Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. TO THE MEMORY OF MY PARENTS 520598 & fje public scrjool must 00 foorfe of tfje moist funfca* mental kinti. It must teadj people to libe antJ to make a lib ing. Cjje rural scfjool fs tlje leabentng agent m trje tiefael= opment of farm life. It forill train a neto generation, clear^seeing anfc able to solbe its oton problems. FOREWORD COUNTRY life in America is improving. The out- look of country people is broadening, their sympathies are deepening, and the real satisfactions of life are in- creasing. In these regards the few are, however, far in advance of the many. A movement is now under way which purposes to show country people every- where how to live the more satisfactory life. There are many whose lives are too concentrated upon debt paying to be conscious of life as it passes ; others have lapsed into a state of inertia of body and mind which makes them cry out, ''Leave us alone; we are all right," while they live selfish, bickering lives, without any of the blessings which come from associating with and trying to please other people. The country life movement is largely one of en- couraging a higher standard of living in the home and of stimulating social activities of various kinds which relieve the isolation of country life. This can be done by showing what the more progressive farmers and farming communities are doing to make life worth while. It is believed that this educational work will lead to spontaneous efforts to live a more satisfactory life on the part of the farming population. The schools, churches, and clubs are the organized efforts for rural betterment. Through them is the greatest hope for stimulating the growth of a more vii viii FOREWORD satisfactory country life. This book should render an important service in that field. Leaders in country life improvement teachers, preachers, and progres- sive farm men and women will welcome it as a stimulating guide to better work. HENRY C. TAYLOR CHIEF OF BUREAU OF FARM MANAGEMENT DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D. C. One-time Professor of Agricultural Economics, University of Wisconsin. ACKNOWLEDGMENT THE author acknowledges with gratitude the in- valuable advice and criticism of Professor Henry C. Taylor, without whose help and encouragement this work could not have been written. Grateful acknowl- edgment is made, also, to Professor Richard T. Ely for his encouragement in this undertaking. Apprecia- tion is due Mrs. Henry C. Taylor for valuable criticism and for reading several of the chapters ; to Professor Charles J. Galpin for original ideas as to methods of studying the rural community, and for community maps which were designed by him as a part of his original work on the rural community ; to Professor Benjamin H. Hibbard for most of the material used in the paragraphs on agricul tural cooperation ; to Miss Mary Emogene Hazeltine, Preceptor of the Wis- consin State Library School, for use of materials neces- sary to research ; to Dr. Frank I. Drake, Superintendent of Mendota State Hospital, Mendota, Wisconsin, for valuable criticism relating to Chapter V ; to Attorney Miles C. Riley, Chairman of the Law Drafting Committee of Wisconsin State Legislature, and to Organizer Charles A. Lyman of the National Board of Farm Organizations for material on rural credit and agricultural coopera- tion ; to Dr. Henry N. Goddard, State Inspector of High Schools in Wisconsin, for material relative to rural high schools; to Mr. Shelby M. Harrison of the ix x ACKNOWLEDGMENT Russell Sage Foundation, for material on surveys ; to Mr. George W. Davies, County Superintendent of Schools of Sauk County, Wisconsin, for the use of school district maps. Finally, genuine appreciation is extended to all those friends who have in any way helped the writer to ac- complish this work. LLEWELLYN MACGARR MADISON, WISCONSIN, September 30, 1920. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE IN AMERICA i Dominance of Cities in American Life i Agriculture Has Failed to Advance Its Interests . 2 The Importance of Agriculture .... 4 The Awakening to Rural Life Problems . . 5 The Country Life Commission .... 6 The Country Life Problem 9 The Outlook for Rural Advancement Is En- couraging . . . . . . . .11 II CONTRASTS BETWEEN URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS . 18 The New America 18 Our Population Classified by Place of Residence . 20 Some Population Differences between Cities and Rural Districts .22 Difference in the Distribution of Wealth . . 28 Differences in the Political Situation ... 29 The Mutual Dependence of City and Rural Dis- tricts 30 The Rural Worker Should Know the Real Condi- tions of the City 32 III THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION TO THE RURAL COMMUNITY 36 Kinds of Surveys . . . . . . -37 The Development of the Idea .... 39 The Educational Survey . . . .40 The Purpose of a Survey 44 How to Make a Survey 44 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Technique of the Survey 46 Analysis of the Data Obtained .... 48 Surveys of Rural Communities .... 49 The Teacher May Be a Surveyor of Her District 54 Maps of the District 56 A Warning to Those Who Make Rural Surveys . 56 IV CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL COMMUNITIES . . 74 Physiographic Influences upon Rural Life . . 74 Relation of the Farm Neighborhood to the City or Village . .... 75 Political Environment of the Rural Community . 78 The Social Life 80 Religious Institutions 81 Industrial Influences on Cultural Conditions . 84 V SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS IN RURAL COM- MUNITIES . . 92 Inequality of Capacity of Individuals . . . 92 Types of Defectives . . ... .' 95 The Cost to Society . . ..... 103 The New Attitude toward the Subnormal . .103 Mental Tests for School Children . . '. 105 What the Rural Teacher Can Do to Help Defec- tive Children . : .' . . . -. . 109 VI THE DISTRICT SCHOOL . . . . * .116 Needed: An Adequate Rural School System . 116 Our Rural Schools Are Out-of -Date . . 117 Teachers Specially Trained for Rural Work Are Badly Needed . . . . ' .124 Proper Supervision . ... 125 Teachers' Tenure of Office and Salaries . 128 A Teacherage for Every Rural School . .129 Courses of Study Adapted to Present Rural Needs .130 Consolidated Schools ... . 134 Home Project Work . . ' 137 TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii CHAPTER PAGE VII RURAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS . . . . . 145 Attitude toward Rural Life 145 Rural People Have Lacked High School Edu- cation 147 The Recognized Need for Rural Secondary Edu- cation 147 Types of the New Rural Secondary School . .149 The Special Agricultural School . . . .149 The Consolidated Rural High School . . .151 The Ruralized Trade-center High School . .152 The Teacher of Agriculture 154 The Courses of Study . . . . .155 VIII CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES IN FARM LIFE . 162 Commercial Agriculture versus Domestic Agri- culture 162 The Agricultural Population .. . . . . 164 The Effects of Tenancy on Agriculture . .168 Rural Credits 172 Stimulating Productive Efficiency . . .175 Labor-saving Devices 181 Rural Cooperation 182 Good Roads and Other Means of Communica- tion 190 IX CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES IN FARM LIFE . . 207 Improvement in Agricultural Life . . . 207 University Extension Work 207 Farmers' Institutes 209 County Libraries . . . . . .210 Club Aims 216 Cooperation of Rural Organizations . . .218 The Social Center 219 Men's Clubs 224 Women's Clubs .225 Young People's Clubs 226 The Correlation of Religious Interests . . . 229 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A Model Farm Home Frontispiece PAGE Maps Showing Increase or Decrease of Population of Pennsyl- vania by Counties, 1900-1910 21 A Community Map Showing Extent of Education . . 50 A Community Map Showing Homes in Which Newspapers Are Taken .51 A Community Map Showing Proportion of Native and For- eign Born Residents 5 2 A Map Indicating the Organized Social Agencies of a Com- munity 53 A Rural School District Map 57 A Consolidated Church 83 Plan for a System of National Education . . . .156 Climbing the Agricultural Ladder 165 Stages from Tenancy to Ownership Shown by Age Groups 169 Map Indicating Tenancy in United States in 1910 . . 171 The Lincoln Highway 195 Industrial Zones about a City 196 Proportion of Rural Population Reached by Libraries in Indiana 210 Proportion of Urban Population Reached by Libraries in Indiana . . . . 211 Map of Traveling Library Service in Indiana . . .215 xv THE RURAL COMMUNITY CHAPTER I STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE IN AMERICA "Our civilization rests at bottom upon the wholesomeness, the attractiveness, and the completeness, as well as upon the prosperity of the country district." ROOSEVELT. Dominance of Cities in American Life. - - The last seventy-five years have seen an unprecedented growth of city population and city industries. In 1789, less than four per cent of our people lived in cities of 8000 or more ; while in 1920, our urban population had risen to 51.9 per cent. In some of our eastern industrial states, from two-thirds to three-fourths of the people live in towns and cities. We are no longer a predomi- nantly rural people. The rapid industrial develop- ment of the United States since the Civil War has been chiefly in those industries that center in large communities, and the rapid and steady growth of our urban population has been a natural result. With this industrial development has come a gradual and solid organization of city capital and of city labor, which has, in turn, brought about a high state of efficiency in all kinds of skilled work and in industrial 2 THE RURAL COMMUNITY management. These urban interests have not neglected definite, organized efforts to promote their own welfare. They have been quick to seek special legislation for their advancement. Lobbyists have been kept at the state capitals and at Washington. The great urban interests early secured, by one means or another, the advantages of good transportation facilities and rates, and other economic advantages which fos- ter urban industries. And they have taken a very active and organized part in state and national politics. Agriculture has been less successful in advancing its interests. Agriculture has not obtained, nor even sought, adequate protection of its interests, or its due proportion of political and social influence. It has been too largely a passive factor in the national life. The farmers, being independent workers and their own employers, have not felt an urgent need of organization, and have secured little special legislation in their own behalf. In other lines of industry the immediate pressure of competition has forced or in- duced alliances of capital, while the association of workers in large city plants has greatly facilitated labor organization. The farmers are not impelled by competition to combine with their fellows to ad- vance and to protect their mutual interests as the city business man is obliged to do. Independent workers on the land, five-eighths of whom are owners, cannot be organized so easily as day laborers liv- ing in a relatively small area and working in urban enterprises. Yet the enactment from time to time of the legis- STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE 3 lation needed to protect properly the interests of farm people, and to improve rural life, can be obtained only by the organized efforts of farmers who are constantly and collectively thinking on rural problems. Many of the laws enacted to promote agriculture have sprung largely from the urban need of more supplies, and have aimed at increased production, rather than at better distribution of farm products, or the securing of higher prices for the farmers. Likewise, the efforts heretofore made to improve rural life have frequently originated among educators interested in the welfare of the rural population, rather than among the farmers themselves. The farmers have not combined their strength and knowledge for their own benefit as they might have done. The stimulation and leadership of the thought of the farmers themselves are the great present needs for rural welfare. Our country people are individualistic and con- servative. Many of them have become farmers largely because of the relative independence of farm life. The management of farm work tends to develop and accentuate self-reliance and self-sufficiency. The city stands constantly on the firing line of new ideas. People of varying capacities, interests, and occupations mingle and stimulate each other to creative thought. The country, on the other hand, is thinly settled ; its people are more nearly alike in training and capac- ity, and are engaged in the same kind of work. Their environment does not so easily stimulate new thought and the development of new modes of life. The stimuli which have been arousing the farmers in many of the more prosperous farming districts to higher 4 THE RURAL COMMUNITY standards of life have come largely from the cities, and from schools and colleges located in the urban centers, rather than from farm life itself. In the long run, however, sound progress among the farmers must be the result of forces originating more largely in the farming communities. The country has been at a disadvantage in the matter of leadership, also. Its relatively sparse popu- lation has made impossible the development of any considerable number of leaders in a community. Moreover, a considerable proportion of the more ag- gressive and capable country people leave the farm and go to the cities. Numerous trained leaders are con- stantly showing the people of the cities what they need and how to secure it ; while the absence of such leader- ship is to-day, as it always has been, one of the great weaknesses of country districts. The lack has been met in part in recent years by a new rural leadership provided or aroused by the agricultural colleges, uni- versities, normal schools, theological seminaries, and the United States Department of Agriculture. Yet the need is far from satisfied. There is still a lack of that adequate leadership without which organized cooperation cannot be accomplished. The Importance of Agriculture. Agriculture is the basic industry of the world. Its importance, from the economic, political, and social points of view, makes ithe constructive development of rural welfare im- *perative. It is of more importance to mankind than any other one industry. It is the trunk of the gigantic industrial tree, from which most of the other industries branch, and from which they draw their sustenance. STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE 5 A prosperous agricultural interest is to a nation what a full dinner pail is to a working man. From agriculture we draw not only our food supply, but the raw mate- rials for half our manufactures. Nearly all activities that center in cities are so vitally related to agriculture that bankers, manufacturers, merchants, railroad men, and city wage earners are vitally concerned in main- taining its growth and development. But agriculture is more than an industry. It is a way of life. The farm and the farm home are inseparable. Merchants and manufacturers do not live at their places of business ; neither do their employees live at their places of employment. The architect does not dwell in his temple ; nor the engineer on his bridge ; nor the miner in his mine. .But the farmer's work is centered at his home. The life, as well as the income, of over one-half the people of the world, and of over one- third of the people of our own country, is de- termined by the activities and the surroundings of the farm. A vigorous, intelligent, and wholesome rural life is essential to sound and permanent national greatness. Yet agriculture has not kept pace with the other great American industries, and the quality of farm life has not improved so rapidly as the quality of life in the city. Isolation and limited educational oppor- tunities, and in many communities religious stag- nation, political disorganization, or unprogressive busi- ness methods, have combined to put the country at a disadvantage. The Awakening to Rural Life Problems. A con- sciousness that country life has not improved as it 6 THE RURAL COMMUNITY should has been gradually spreading throughout the United States during recent years. Political leaders interested in national welfare have succeeded in pro- moting agricultural legislation both at Washington and in many of the states. President Roosevelt, in 1908, appointed a Country Life Commission to investigate the economic and social aspects of agricultural life in America. The public hearings held by this Com- mission in the different sections of the United States during 1909 led to a widespread discussion of agri- cultural conditions. As a result, public thought was directed to certain definite aspects of the rural prob- lem, and efforts to improve rural life were stimulated throughout the nation. The Country Life Commission. This Commission was particularly interested in securing the opinions of the people themselves on the main aspects of rural life, and, to this end, distributed 550,000 copies of a detailed questionnaire in all sections of the country. 1 One hundred and fifteen thousand replies to this questionnaire, and public hearings held at thirty places in different parts of the country, convinced the Com- mission that there are eight serious deficiencies in American rural life which should be corrected by con- structive public policies. These are 1. The destruction or impairment of soil fertility by careless methods of farming and by erosion due to the reckless removal of forests. 2. The increasing difficulty in securing an adequate supply of skilled farm labor. 1 The questionnaire will be found at the end of this chapter. STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE 7 3. Speculation in farm lands and in water rights in irrigated districts. 4. Poor highways, which interfere both with the marketing of products and the education of country children. 5. Marketing methods and conditions which sub- ordinate the farmer's interests to those of railways and middlemen. 6. Lack of proper health protection for rural families. 7. Overwork of farm women, which causes many farm girls to go to the city and many farmers and their wives to leave the farm long before their working life should terminate. 8. The backwardness of rural schools. The decade which has elapsed since the publication of the Commission's findings has seen a rapid advance in many sections of the country in the improvement of farm life. The agricultural experiment stations, the agricultural colleges, the federal and state departments of agriculture, and thousands of progressive farmers scattered throughout the country, have furnished a leadership which has improved the methods of culture on hundreds of thousands of farms, and materially assisted the farmers in fighting noxious weeds, de- structive insects and animals, and plant and animal diseases. The annual and biennial reports of public officials are ordinarily considered " dry " reading. But some of the reports of the recently organized state depart- ments of agriculture are more interesting than a story, for they tell, in word and picture, the wizardry of man's 8 THE RURAL COMMUNITY conquest of the farmer's natural enemies. One catches the vision of the men who are making secure the world's food supply and who are teaching farmers how to conserve rather than waste soil fertility. The 1918 report of the Wisconsin State Depart- ment of Agriculture, organized in 1915, is a revela- tion of the awakening of agriculturists. In 1917 the state was faced by a " phenomenal shortage of seed potatoes." The Department of Agriculture obtained in other states, and distributed in Wisconsin, $74,000 worth of seed potatoes. This enabled Wisconsin to produce a large potato crop. Much of the seed corn had been ruined the preceding fall by frost. The Department of Agriculture obtained in Connecticut, New York, northern Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Minnesota, Washington, and Oregon, 19,148 bushels of seed corn for Wisconsin farmers. But these are only incidental activities. The every- day work of the Department has eliminated both the common and the purple barberry, which are the car- riers of black wheat rust ; has greatly reduced the various " scabs," which are destroying fruit and shade trees ; is attacking the diseases in the bee industry, locating and destroying the white pine blister rust, eliminating weeds, inspecting feeds sold to dairymen, improving the quality of stocks kept on farms, and accomplishing improvement in the technique and con- ditions of agriculture in Wisconsin, and, indirectly, throughout the country. The improvement of highways and the development of rural education have been two of the leading move- ments of the last decade. The increasing use of the STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE g automobile has interested the city man as well as the farmer in highway improvement, while growing inter- est, in schools and colleges, in the study of rural life has called more and more attention to the needs of the rural school. The labor problems of the farm, both in the field and the home, probably represent the phase of farm life which has thus far baffled efforts for material im- provement. But the increasing use of power-driven machinery has mitigated this situation in the more prosperous farming districts, even when it has been impossible to increase the supply of labor. The churn is disappearing from the farm, while power- driven washing machines, electric flatirons, running water, and electric as well as gas lights are coming into the farm home with increasing frequency. Me- chanical ingenuity is relieving, in part, the farm labor situation, even inside the house. A survey of farm life to-day does not, therefore, present such a dark picture as at the time when the Country Life Commission made its report, but one must not be deceived by the signs of progress. It is as easy to overestimate the forces of progress on the farm as to underestimate them. Only a beginning has been made. The bulk of the work lies before us. The Country Life Problem. This problem has both a social and an individual aspect. From the point of view of society, it is necessary to maintain upon our farms a high standard of American citizenship, and efficient, wholesome family and community life. From the point of view of the individual, it is necessary to make possible a satisfactory life and livelihood for 10 THE RURAL COMMUNITY every farmer who is efficient in his vocation. His energies must be as well rewarded in earnings and scale of living as are those of similar persons working in urban pursuits. Farm life must be satisfactory from the point of view of the race, of the nation, of the community, and of the farmer himself. It must be continually approaching the ideal, industrially, edu- cationally, socially. Corn clubs, tomato clubs, and pig clubs do not reach the heart of the problem. With these, and supplementing them, must go the organized activities which will mean to the rural community what the Boy Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, Young Men's Christian Associations, Young Women's Christian Associations, athletic, debating, magazine, literary, and music clubs, and free public libraries have meant to the cities and towns. Some of these organizations can be developed in the country districts. The benefits provided by all of them must in some way be made accessible. Rural improvement means developing a better people more intelligent, more capable of appreciating those finer things that lead to culture, more patriotic in the deep and genuine sense ; not merely " raising more corn to feed more hogs to buy more land to raise more corn." The farmer is of more consequence than the farm. Indeed, the farm can be improved only when the farmer is also improved. The place to begin is with the man behind the plow. Improved agriculture is a matter of fertile brain even more than of fer- tile field. Mind culture is essential to proper soil culture. Yet we must remember that the rate of educational STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE n and social progress depends in a certain measure upon the current economic conditions. The improvement of the man is essential to the improvement of pro- duction ; the increased income that comes with in- creased efficiency in turn becomes the basis of further improvement of the man. A degree of prosperity is essential to the improvement in culture of a popu- lation. One cannot say that production depends upon culture, or that culture depends upon production. The facts are that each is dependent upon the other and each promotes the other. Happy, enthusiastic, culti- vated people are rarely, if ever, found in the midst of grinding poverty. The mind works best and the spirit is freest in a sound body, well fed and well clothed. It is in successful communities that good homes, good schools, and the most progressive people are found. Social advancement and improvement in agricultural production must go together. Neither can be attained alone. The Outlook for Rural Advancement is Encourag- ing. Farmers are middle class people, neither ener- vated by luxury nor crushed by poverty. When they once clearly see their own needs and possibilities and the means of attaining them, they are capable of forging ahead speedily. The first difficulty (and it is often a serious one) encountered in many rural com- munities is that of convincing the farmers that rural life can be materially and somewhat rapidly improved if the farmers set themselves to the task. In the end, the work of rural development is a problem to be dealt with from within, rather than from without, the farm- ing community. The country people must depend 12 THE RURAL COMMUNITY largely upon themselves to solve their problems. The sons and daughters of farmers, trained in agricultural colleges and similar institutions and returning to farm life, are already commencing to provide a new type of leadership. The number of progressive farmers is in- creasing. There is a more widespread study of rural matters and a greater willingness to cooperate and to organize. Farmers are learning to use their political power more effectively, and a clearer understanding of the relation of farming to the other great industries, and of its strategic place in the national life, is extend- ing to farmers and non-farmers alike. Slowly but surely, farmers are acquiring a social point of view. Rural people are beginning to understand that the forces that make for rural betterment must themselves be rural, and they are looking more than ever before for guidance to those persons within the community whose positions peculiarly fit them to raise rural life to a better plane. Teachers and clergymen are among the natural leaders in rural betterment. Few rural communities can have Young Men's Christian Association, Boy Scout, or other professional social workers, and the stimulus to social advancement must come largely from the schools and the churches. The teacher or clergyman who is prepared to serve the general human needs of a farming community, particularly among the young people, has a real opportunity. He can influ- ence and lead the community in constructive peace- time patriotism, the patriotism that helps the nation to attain its ideals, not simply to defend its shores. It will be long before rural communities will be able STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE 13 to afford corps of professional social workers com- parable to those at work in the cities, and the task of rural social betterment must be accomplished very largely by the farmers themselves, led by the school teachers, clergymen, and trained agriculturists who are living in the communities. 1 One of the first duties of rural leaders is so to in- terpret the real meaning of American democracy as to build up in our rural districts an intelligent, clear- seeing, patriotic citizenship that makes for national solidarity and strength. Our composite democracy a mosaic of many races, nationalities, and religions will endure only if successive generations are trained to a faith in its intrinsic worth and to an understanding of its real meaning. The perfecting of this democracy from generation to generation is the goal of the nation. Such perfecting is attained only by making its ideals of human welfare become facts of human welfare. To millions of our children the legislators, jurists, executives, editors, social workers, voters, parents of to-morrow America and the democracy for which she stands will mean almost entirely the interpretation which the teachers, preachers, and other social workers of to-day are able or willing to give to these terms. Their interpretation will be read in terms of the in* stitutions which they construct. The time has come when those who believe in democracy are demanding that the word be made flesh ; that dreams become 1 Some very practical suggestions with regard to leadership in rural communities, and also plans for the promotion of rural social work, will be found in the Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, 1917, pp. 611-647. 14 THE RURAL COMMUNITY realities. The next generation will be more insistent than our own upon real rather than shadow democracy. QUESTIONNAIRE SENT OUT BY THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION The following list of questions was sent out by the Country Life Commission to over 550,000 people in rural communities : 1. Are the farm homes in your neighborhood as good as they should be under existing conditions ? 2. Are the schools in your neighborhood training boys and girls satisfactorily for life on the farm ? 3. Do the farmers in your neighborhood get the returns they reasonably should from the sale of their products? 4. Do the farmers in your neighborhood receive from the rail- roads, highways, trolley lines, etc., the services they reasonably should have ? 5. Do the farmers in your neighborhood receive from the United States postal service, rural telephones, etc., the service they reason- ably should expect ? 6. Are the farmers and their wives in your neighborhood satis- factorily organized to promote their mutual buying and selling in- terests ? 7. Are the renters of farms in your neighborhood making a satisfactory living ? 8. Is the supply of farm labor in your neighborhood satisfac- tory? 9. Are the conditions surrounding hired labor on the farms in your neighborhood satisfactory to the hired man ? 10. Have the farmers in your neighborhood satisfactory facilities for doing their business in banking, credit, insurance, etc.? 11. Are the sanitary conditions of farms in your neighborhood satisfactory ? 12. Do the farmers and their wives and families in your neigh- borhood get together for mutual improvement, entertainment, and social intercourse as much as they should? STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE 15 13. What, in your judgment, is the most important single thing to be done for the general betterment of rural life? Following each of these questions were the subquestions : a. Why? b. What suggestions have you to make ? QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY The following list of questions provides material for at least two reading circle meetings. The first four questions and the first reference will provide material for the first meeting. The remainder of the questions and references will be abundant material for the second meeting. Special problem work : Teachers' clubs and reading circles will find it worth while to have individuals or small committees each take one of the questions asked by the Country Life Commission and study local conditions in the light of the particular question. The report of this committee should form the basis of group dis- cussion. These discussions could be taken up from time to time during the course of the work. 1. What do various writers mean by "The Country Life Problem"? 2. What do they consider to be the heart of this problem? 3. What was the Country Life Commission? Discuss its mem- bers and the work done by it. 4. State briefly the findings of the Commission in the order of importance given by the Commission. Would you give them in this order for all rural communities in this country ? Arrange them as they should rank in your own community. 5. What is meant by calling agriculture our " basic indus- try"? 6. What other industries are dependent upon or grow out cf agriculture ? 7. State some ways in which the business of manufacturing differs from the business of agriculture. 8. What needs of farm people have been neglected ? 9. In what ways have farm people received especial attention in recent years ? 16 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 10. How can farm people work out their own development? Do you think this can be accomplished within one generation ? 11. Do you think that other industries should help in the de- velopment of agriculture? How? 12. What is meant by "social work"? Who are social workers? Who in our rural districts might be called social workers ? 13. Why have rural districts not had the services of well- trained social workers? Why have those desiring to do social work gone to the cities ? 14. State some of the things which rural people can do to help in the development of rural life. 15. Make a list of at least six men and women, not mentioned in the references to this chapter, who have written along the line of rural betterment. 16. Make a list of at least six universities and colleges that have been leaders in the country life movement. 17. How many books bearing upon rural life do you own ? How many have you read ? 1 8. Do you think rural teachers should be required to read such books? 19. Name some of the activities of your State Department of Agriculture and State Agriculture College similar to those of Wisconsin. 20. What is the United States Department of Agriculture doing to help country life? REFERENCES BAILEY, LIBERTY HYDE. The Country Life Movement in the United States, pp. 201-220. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1911. . The State and the Farmer, Chapter II, pp. 56-69. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1908. BUTTERFIELD, KENYON L. Chapters in Rural Progress, Chapters I, II, pp. 1-22. University of Chicago Press, 1908. GILLETTE, JOHN M. Constructive Rural Sociology, Chapters I, II, III. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE 17 PLUNKETT, SIR HORACE. The Rural Life Problem of the United States, Chapters I-IV. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1910. TAYLOR, HENRY C. Agricultural Economics, Chapters I, II, VIII, XI. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1919. U. S. COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. The Report of the Country Life Commission. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1910. WEEKS, RUTH MARY. The People's School, Chapter VI. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1912. CHAPTER II CONTRASTS BETWEEN URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS The New America. America passed through her adolescence in the nineteenth century. At the begin- ning of the century, she was in her infancy, not only politically but also industrially. Before the Civil War she began to use steam power to drive fac- tory machinery, boats, and trains. Electricity gave her the means of keeping the people in far separated states in constant communication with each other and the outside world. Steam, electric, and gasoline power ; the telephone, telegraph, and wireless ; the railroad, automobile, and aeroplane ; the public school, public library, and daily newspaper; and the added labor power of thirty- three million people who left Europe in the century preceding 1919 to make new homes in America, all have combined to transform America from a relatively small agricultural nation to a great nation with hundreds of teeming cities, among which are some of the largest and most cosmopolitan in the world. The America of the Civil War resembles the America of the present only as the child resembles the man. It is hard to realize that the large scale production and the transportation system of the present time, the gigantic combinations of capital, the international 18 URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS 19 trade unions, and the concentration of population in manufacturing centers have developed in America since the Civil War. Around rapidly expanding in- dustries, cities have sprung up like magic. To furnish them with labor, immigrants have come from Europe by millions. The efforts of individual businesses to acquire adequate supplies of raw materials, to utilize by-products profitably, and to secure the profits of the successive stages in the process of manufacture and sale, have induced the combination of related indus- tries and the creation of new, complex industries, until single corporations often produce a hundred or more different commodities. The new urban life which was the accompaniment of this industrial miracle of the nineteenth century could not but have a powerful fascination for the youth of the agricultural districts of the United States. The variety of economic opportunity, the surging life of city streets, the recreation and amusement facilities, the educational agencies, the volume and intensity of urban life, have drawn a multitude of aspiring and energetic youth from the country districts to the cities. Retired farmers, and those wishing to take life easily in their declining years, have made up another, though smaller, town ward stream. The student interested in rural life and welfare can- not interpret American rural life correctly without seeing it in relation to the accompanying urban life of the nation. The extent to which we are becoming a town- and city-dwelling nation must be known before we can finally decide upon our rural policies. It makes a great deal of difference, too, whether the 20 THE RURAL COMMUNITY majority of our people are living, or tend to live, in hamlets small clusters of houses in the country having no village organization and but a hundred or so inhabitants ; in minor villages of from five hundred to a thousand people ; in major villages and towns of from a thousand to six thousand residents ; in minor cities with a population of six to twenty thousand ; or in the larger cities. Our Population Classified by Place of Residence. - The essential fact in the situation is that our rapid industrial development has brought a corresponding increase in our strictly urban population. In 1789 less than 4 per cent of our people lived in cities ; in 1920, 51.9 per cent lived in cities and in towns of more than 25OO. 1 The Census Bureau, in 1900, made this 2500 limit the boundary between urban and rural districts, and divided our population into three classes : rural, semi-urban, and urban. The rural population includes all towns of 2500 and less as well as the open country. The semi-urban class includes towns of from 2500 to 4000. The urban class includes all towns of 4000 and more, together with 1158 smaller towns in New England made up of people whose interests are urban. It is interesting to note the differences in age distri- bution in city and country districts. In the latter there are more people under fourteen years of age and over forty-five than in the cities ; in the cities there 1 The city- ward drift of population during the nineteenth century is by no means confined to the United States. The nations of Western Europe, and even outlying agricultural countries like Australia, have experienced the same phenomenon. See maps- PER CENT OF INCREASE OR DECREASE OF POPULATION OF PENNSYLVANIA, BY COUNTIES: 1900-1910 In case of decrease the per cent la Inserted under the county name. TOTAL POPULATION RURAL POPULATION The population of the purely agricultural districts is decreasing, while that of the counties in which mining and manufacturing are dominant is increasing. 21 22 THE RURAL COMMUNITY are more people of from fifteen to forty-five years than in the country. This is in part due to the migration of young adults from Europe to American cities ; in part, to their migration from our rural districts to the cities. The large percentage of young adults in cities is one reason for the vigorous, aggressive life of urban centers. The relatively large proportion of children and old people in the country puts the rural district at a certain disadvantage. Some Population Differences between Cities and Rural Districts. - - The greater density of population in cities is another factor that tends to differentiate city and country life. A city has many people living in a comparatively small area. A city of 20,000 people will often have from 400 to 600 families per square mile, whereas a typical rural community in the Middle Atlantic States will scarcely average more than ten families per square mile. In the rural sec- tions of many of our Western States, there is often not one family to the square mile. Consequently, the city suffers from congestion ; the rural community, from isolation. Area is not so necessary to the industries carried on in towns and cities as it is to farming. When a manu- facturer or a merchant wishes to increase his business, he may do so in either of two ways : by spreading his plant over more land or by adding another story to his present building. The farmer has not so great an opportunity to increase his output on a given land area. He can increase his output per acre up to a certain point by farming what land he has more in- tensively, but he soon finds that further application of URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS 23 effort to the same piece of land is unprofitable. Farm- ing, by its very nature, must spread over more area than do city industries. It cannot so largely increase its output on the same land area as city industries often can. It is, of course, true that when land is cheap both manufacturers and farmers use more area than when it is especially valuable. Other essential differences between town and country industries may be noted. Constant contacts with people are characteristic of city occupations. The artisans, tradesmen, business, and professional people of the city are in almost constant contact with their fellowmen. Their success frequently depends upon ability to work advantageously with other people. City workers have little direct contact with nature and crude natural forces. The farmer, on the other hand, is engaged in an industry in which he meets natural forces at first hand, and his contact with his fellow- men is correspondingly less. City industries, again, make greater use of the division of labor. The productive process is commonly minutely subdivided and, in some factories, each laborer performs but a single operation. He becomes a rapid and skillful workman ; time is saved ; more goods are produced ; cost is lowered ; and profits are increased. Of course, not every worker in manu- facturing industries is subjected to such close division of labor, but the principle is employed wherever con- ditions permit. Modern industrial organization has made this division of labor possible. Agriculture admits of much less division of labor than other in- dustries, because there are fewer processes than in 24 THE RURAL COMMUNITY manufacturing, and these processes cannot be simul- taneously performed. For example, when a farmer plants corn, he must wait several weeks before he can cultivate it. After a number of cultivations, he must wait again while nature develops and ripens the corn. When the corn is ready, the farmer again gives it his attention and prepares it for use or for market. No two of these processes can possibly be carried on at the same time, owing to the time element necessary, and the corn grower must use his own labor and that of his hired help at many different tasks between the corn-growing operations. In like manner, each worker must perform a variety of tasks each day, such as the caring for and feeding of horses and other stock, the harnessing of teams, the milking of cows, the care and operation of machinery, the driving of an automobile, field work, fence repairing, not always all on the same day but all in the course of a few weeks. A much larger percentage of farm workers than of urban workers are self-employed. Sixty-two and a half per cent of the farmers in this country are farm owners. This means that over half of them are both capitalists and laborers. Half of the workers on farms belong to the farmers' families a situation very different from that in cities, where members of the employers' families are seldom found as workers in their establishments. The distinction between the employing and the employed classes is sharp in the cities ; but is not so sharp in most rural districts. Urban industry is carried on by a relatively small group of capital-controlling employers, a relatively large group of employees, and a considerable middle URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS 25 group of salaried managers and superintendents. In agriculture, on the other hand, the capitalist, or land owning group, includes a much higher percentage of the total number of people than the city capitalist class does of the city population ; while the hired farm laborers are a correspondingly smaller proportion of the entire rural population than are the city laborers of the city population. But, as a matter of fact, the rural capitalist is generally a capitalist only in the strictly technical sense and has little in common with the in- dustrial or corporation magnate. He is himself a hand worker and has many of the sympathies and points of view of the manual worker. The typical farmer is an independent worker, capable and resource- ful. He knows weather, soils, machinery, plants, animals, birds, bees, and insects. He knows how to plow, sow, till, reap, prune, buy, and sell. He paints, builds, plans, and executes. He is both a mental and a manual worker. He deals with the forces of nature more than with economic and social forces, but he must have good business sense, for his financial success depends upon wisdom in determining which crops his soil and available labor will raise, and for which of these he will find a ready market. He deals less with other men than the city business man does, but the business transactions in which he participates are of vital importance, for they determine whether his work will or will not bring him an adequate income. He may not need so much selling skill as an urban busi- ness man, but he none the less needs good judgment in his transactions. The location of cities is determined by factors 26 THE RURAL COMMUNITY favorable to industrial development, such as natural harbors, waterways, railways, accessibility of raw materials, and labor supply. Natural harbors have always been good locations for cities, and never more so than at the present time, because they are bound to become both shipping and railway centers. It was inevitable that cities should be built where Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Duluth, and San Francisco now stand. But harbors are not the only transportation advantages which lead to the establishment and growth of large cities. As in ancient times cities sprang up where caravan routes crossed, so Kansas City, Omaha, Denver, and many other American cities owe their rapid development to the transcontinental railway systems. Other cities, like Pittsburgh, Birmingham, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Grand Rapids, have grown up largely because of their accessibility to the raw material used in some particular industry. Still others have been favored by a particular supply of labor. New York City, for example, has obtained control of the ready-made cloth- ing business largely because of the supply of cheap immigrant labor constantly entering the city. Similarly, within the individual city, the location of specific plants or industries is frequently determined by the presence or absence of particular advantages. The flour and saw mills, for instance, are found on the river bank, where they can use water power ; iron foun- dries, in the outer part of the city where land values permit a large area for the individual plant ; the plants which manufacture foodstuffs, along street car lines where the passing of throngs of people furnishes natural URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS 27 advertising ; and the retail stores, where car lines cross and there is easy access for a maximum number of people. Inasmuch as farming is an industry made up of many enterprises, land that will not grow good crops will serve, often, for grazing or for such an enterprise as poultry raising. A means of transportation, good highways, an available market, and a sufficient supply of labor are, of course, essential to successful farming under present conditions. But, in any case, a farm must have soil that will grow marketable produce, a supply of labor, and an available market. A city, on the other hand, is more dependent on its environs than is a farm. To progress industrially, a city must have adequate transportation facilities, a labor supply suf- ficiently diversified to meet the needs of all its in- dustries, an easily obtainable supply of raw materials for its particular industries, and a sufficient and con- stant food supply. The city is quite as complex socially as it is in- dustrially. All sorts, conditions, and races of people are to be found in large industrial centers. Agri- cultural districts in America, on the other hand, are apt to be more homogeneous in both racial and social types. This is not true of the South, of course, where the color line appears in economic as well as in social class lines ; nor of certain districts in the northern and western states, where sharp racial lines separate the farm owners from the farm laborers. But a great variety of races and nationalities is seldom found in one agricultural community, and the typical American condition is one of homogeneity and substantial equality rather than the reverse. 28 THE RURAL COMMUNITY There are many " colonies " of immigrants in our agricultural as well as in our urban districts, and these create a distinct and important national problem. Such communities are fields in which our teachers can perform great service by bringing to these new Ameri- cans, who come to our shores full of hope and enthu- siasm for this new land and who, too often, find the reality far below their dreams, some vision of our best achievements, aims, and aspirations. The steady and rising tide of immigration from the less developed countries of eastern and southern Europe challenges our teachers to redoubled effort. Settlements of Ital- ians, Poles, Croatians, Ruthenians, and many other eastern, southern, and southeastern European peoples in many country districts call for intelligent endeavor on the part of the rural teacher to weld a foreign-born but sturdy and promising population into an American unity ; repeating the problem which we faced and al- lowed to solve itself in earlier years, in the many rural colonies of peoples from northwestern Europe, such as the Germans and Swedes. The difference in the distribution of wealth forms another contrast between the city and the rural district. There is a wider range of difference between the richest and poorest classes in the cities than in the country. Multimillionaires are not found in typical farming districts, while extreme poverty is likewise uncommon on the land. Farmers are middle-class people on a fairly uniform economic plane. In the United States, one seldom sees great wealth concentrated in one rural family. City capitalists, playing at farming, using it merely as a diversion, and spending only a few weeks URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS 29 each summer on their country estates, are not rural people in the usual and accepted sense of the term. Agriculturists, on the whole, all belong to the same social class and respond to the same economic, social, and cultural influences. Cities, large and small, are centers of recreation. One of the strong attractions which cities hold out to the youth of rural districts is found in the chance for " fun " which they offer. The lack of recreation is one of the serious defects of most rural communities and presents one of the gravest problems confronting those interested in rural welfare and development. The same thing is true of the differences in edu- cational and religious advantages between town and country. 1 The political situation is likewise different in town and country. The complexity of city politics is in striking contrast to the simple machinery of the rural district. But rural politics, though comparatively simple, are not entirely free from the graft and in- efficiency which have so often disgraced our cities. County politics have in many localities been a. by- word for graft and inefficiency. There is a big political task before democracy in rural America as well as in urban America. But rural politics are simplified by the facts that the " plums " in county politics are few, and that the farmer is never dependent upon an alder- man or other henchman for a job. His neighbors know his political faith ; and he votes singly, as an individual, rather than as a hidden unit in a " block " of voters. 1 The educational contrasts are more fully discussed in Chapter VI, and the religious in Chapter IV 30 THE RURAL COMMUNITY Good school work in history, civics, and economics will go far toward eliminating from our rural districts the political weaknesses that have existed there. The Mutual Dependence of City and Rural Dis- tricts. No nation to-day lives unto itself. Much less does any section or industrial class of a nation so live. In colonial days, every farm was nearly self- sufficing. In an article published in The American Museum in 1787, an old farmer writes : " At this time my farm gave me and my whole family a good living on the produce of it, and left me one year with another hundred and fifty silver dollars, for I never spent more than ten dollars a year which was for salt, nails, and the like. Nothing to eat, drink, or wear was bought, as my farm provided all." It is still true that the coun- try depends much less upon the city than the city does upon the country, but it is also true that farmers have become more and more dependent upon the city for manufactured goods during recent years, and no modern farm can carry on its work without the use of tools, machinery, and facilities which it can obtain only from the city. An occasional trip to town may even yet supply the " store goods " necessary to the usual farm home, but no farmer, without the assist- ance of city manufactured equipment, can now hope to compete in the market place. It is probably true that in case of extreme necessity, the country could dispense for months with town goods, while the cities could not survive a week without the food sup- plies of the country. But this does not remove the fact that there is interdependence of city and farm. Moreover, the increasing dependence of the farmer URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS 31 upon ready-made goods is obliging him to strive for a larger cash income than heretofore. The fact that goods leaving the farm are sold at wholesale prices, while those coming to the farm are bought at retail prices is a vital one in the economics of agriculture, and must be borne in mind when dis- cussing business cooperation among farmers. The interdependence of town and country is not confined, however, to material things. An ever increasing number of farm boys and girls are going to town and city for higher education, and either return bringing new habits and ideals from the metropolis, or else become city dwellers. Country life develops strong, reliant, resourceful individuals whom the cities are constantly absorbing ; urban life produces new material improvements, new ideas, and new modes of life which gradually overflow the city limits. The city is tending more and more to dominate the thought and action of our nation. New York City is the financial center of this country. Public opinion is educated, molded, and controlled by our urban press. Most of our literary productions dealing with economic, social, political, and educational questions portray city conditions and the conceptions of city people along these lines. With but few exceptions, our most astute politicians are products of municipal political training. The majority of our largest and most influential colleges and universities are located in or near large cities. City-trained men with city ideas are educating the future legislators, judges, at- torneys, and other administrators of our state and federal affairs. The nation's great hope for the foster- 32 THE RURAL COMMUNITY ing of its rural interests rests with the state universities of the Middle West, where rural thought and influences are yet predominant, and where agriculture as an in- dustry is thoroughly respected. In this portion of the country, as in the early days of our nation's history, the majority of the legislators and leaders are either country-born, or have sufficient appreciation of rural interests and life to give recognition to agricultural wel- fare. But on the whole while present conditions con- tinue, we may expect the urban element of our popula- tion to be the controlling element in our national life. The Rural Worker Should Know the Real Condi- tions of the City. In view of the foregoing facts, we must expect that the predominance of the city will continue, and that the interrelations between the city and the rural district will increase. There will be no danger to the national welfare in this condition of city predominance if our leaders appreciate the rela- tive value of our rural population to the nation as a whole, and if rural interests are carefully and faithfully administered. But the interrelations of the city and the country must be made more wholesome, and mutu- ally stimulating. It is quite true that all rural young people will not care to stay on the farm any more than that all city youth care to engage in city occupa- tions ; but the over-drainage of the country by the city must be checked and kept within a limit safe for the country and the nation alike. As rural conditions improve and people become more prosperous and better educated, there will be a gradual leveling in the purely cultural aspects of rural life which will go far toward meeting these necessities. With the passing of years, URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS 33 we hope that country people will take pride in devel- oping estates, not on a large, but rather on a small or a medium scale, such as a cultivated taste and a sense of the beautiful can achieve with moderate means. The teacher who appreciates the tremendous re- sponsibility which her work imposes upon her will seek to lead in this development by helping rural people to see the possibilities in rural life and the ways in which it can excel that of larger communities. The rural teacher should be able to make clear to the boy and girl dissatisfied with country life and ignorantly anxious to get to the city, that the average rural family can live in much greater comfort and inde- pendence than can the city family of equal means ; while the youth who go from the country to the city only too often become servants, policemen, street car conductors, or fill other subordinate positions, from which they would be glad to return to their comfort- able homes. In order to advise farm children and their parents wisely, the rural teacher must know city conditions well enough to be able to dispel effectively the glamour in which the country boy and girl see the city; to point out truthfully its difficulties, require- ments, and opportunities ; to inspire a living, working faith in the value of rural life ; and to enable them to choose in the light of understanding that sphere best suited to their abilities and ambitions. QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY (These questions will suffice for at least two reading circle or class meetings. Some of them can be used as research problems, if desired.) 34 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 1. What is the fundamental difference between the city and the rural district ? How long could cities exist without the products of the rural districts ? 2. Name some general ways in which the city and the rural district differ. Can these differences ever be overcome or will they always exist ? 3. Name some of the great problems with which cities have always had to deal. Are these problems inherently characteristic of the city, or can they be solved ? 4. Name some of the great problems of the rural district. Are these inherent or can they be solved ? 5. State the causes of the growth of cities. Will our American cities continue to grow ? Could our nation prosper if three-fourths of our people were to live and work in the cities ? Are there ways by which the undue growth of cities can be checked? 6. The government classification of our population. How would you classify the population of your school district ? Of your State ? 7. The classification of our centers of population. Classify the centers of population in your county. 8. Make a list of the large cities of your State and try to see why each is located where it is. Why is your county seat located where it is? 9. In how many ways is the rural district related to the city ? Will these relations continue to exist? 10. Why should the rural teacher know something of the con- ditions in cities ? 11. Name some influences that lure young people from the farms to the city. 12. Picture to yourself an ideal location for a farm. For a city. 13. What do you understand by the division of labor in manu- facturing? Why is such a division not possible on an average- sized farm ? Is it possible on a large country estate ? 14. What do you understand by an industrial class? A social class? 15. Do you know of a rural community that has at any time fallen into political disrepute? If so, what were the reasons for its doing so ? 1 6. Why do cities have to fight constantly against political URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS 35 corruption? Name some of the conditions in cities that are con- ducive to political corruption. 17. Why is it possible for cities to exert a predominating in- fluence in such matters as literature, art, music, religion, and education? In what ways does your nearest large city influence your rural community ? 1 8. Why does the rural teacher's position offer so splendid an opportunity for leadership ? 19. What do you understand by social psychology? 20. Wherein does the social psychology of the city differ from that of the rural district ? REFERENCES ANDERSON, WILBERT L. The Country Town, Chapters II, III, IV. Baker & Taylor Company, New York, 1911. BAILEY, LIBERTY HYDE. The Country Life Movement in the United States, pp. 14-20; 31-43. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1911. BUTTERFIELD, KENYON L. Chapters in Rural Progress, Chapter II, pp. 17-22. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1908. CARVER, THOMAS NIXON. Principles of Rural Economics, Chapters I, PP- I 3~ 2 ^t HI, pp. 117-130. Ginn and Company, Bos- ton, 1911. FISKE, GEORGE W. The Challenge of the Country, Chapter I. Association Press, New York, 1912. GILLETTE, JOHN M. Constructive Rural Sociology, Chapter IV. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1913. GRAYSON, DAVID. Adventures in Contentment. Doubleday, Page & Company, Garden City, N. Y., 1907. HOWE, FREDERICK C. The City : the Hope of Democracy, Chapters I, II. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1905. Ross, EDWARD ALSWORTH. What is America, Chapters VI, VII. Century Company, New York, 1919. TAYLOR, HENRY C. Agricultural Economics, Chapter IX. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1919. TOWNE, EZRA T. Social Problems, Chapters I, II. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. VOGT, PAUL L. Introduction to Rural Sociology, Chapters VII, XX-XXV. D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1917. CHAPTER III THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION TO THE RURAL COMMUNITY " Self-knowledge, self- reverence, self-control, these three Lift men to sovereign power." So speaks the poet-philosopher. But country people have not adequately known either the possibilities of rural life, or the extent to which they have failed to attain them. They have not, in the great majority of rural communities, taken inventory of their com- munity life, nor learned to direct it into the channels of progressive evolution. They have lacked that " self- knowledge " which is essential to the best progress of the rural folk of America. A survey, or study, of the community by the people living in it will be found to be a profitable undertaking. It will reveal facts about the community which were either unknown or the importance of which was not recognized. It will pave the way for community undertakings. It will direct the people's attention to the real causes instead of the assumed causes of un- desirable conditions which obtain among them. 1 It 1 During 1918, a town in central Missouri suffered a severe epidemic of typhoid fever. Hundreds were stricken and scores died. It was during the war, and the excited people immediately supposed that the water supply had been poisoned by German agents. A few piously declared the epidemic an "act of God." The physicians of the town, however, advised a sanitary survey, which discovered that the town sewage was leaking into the water mains. The assumed cause was German agents. The real cause was defective sewer pipes. 36 THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 37 will reveal to the neighborhood needs of which it was not fully aware, and perhaps suggest the means of satisfying those needs. Kinds of Survey. A survey may be either practi- cal or scientific, and in either case may be compre- hensive or partial. By far the most common and generally useful type of survey is the practical survey, which has for its aim the immediate improvement of some particular phase of community life. Its method may be scientific ; but its object is the solution of a pressing problem. An orchard survey made for the purpose of ascertaining why trees are dying in a given district would be obviously practical. Immediately practical, also, was the search for the origin of the typhoid epidemic in central Missouri. A scientific survey aims not to relieve some critical situation, but rather to contribute to general knowledge. It makes a systematic and accurate study of some com- munity or condition, and endeavors to deduce from the facts ascertained scientific conclusions. The careful studies which have been made of selected townships by certain agricultural colleges are of this type. The results of such a scientific survey may be, and of course should be, put to practical use, but the motive for undertaking it is technical and scholarly, and the survey is made by the research student, or specialist. The practical survey is often partial rather than comprehensive. It examines only one or a few of the different phases of community life in order to reach a conclusion on some particular point. Partial sur- veys might deal, for instance, with such subjects as the nationalities and standards of life represented in a 38 THE RURAL COMMUNITY community ; the creameries of a county ; the crops raised in a township ; the highway conditions of a section of a state ; or the educational conditions that obtain in a school district. Sometimes it is under- taken to enlist public support for measures which a part of the community are advocating, or to " back up " the efforts of some public official who needs and deserves public support. A comprehensive survey, practical or scientific, con- siders all the essential facts about a community and all phases of its life. Such a survey covers the physio- graphical, industrial, social, religious, political, sani- tary, hygienic, aesthetic, and psychological conditions of the area studied. For example, the rural surveys made by the Massachusetts Federation of Churches, the Massachusetts State Agricultural College, and the Federal Children's Bureau go into such detail on each aspect of farm life that as many as four hundred questions are sometimes asked in a single question- naire. Such elaborate investigations are, of course, not always necessary to secure a comprehensive knowl- edge of a given community. Sometimes, before making an intensive survey, a community makes a preparatory survey which might be classified as a " pathfinder " or " preliminary " survey. A preliminary survey aims at a quick diag- nosis of local conditions and enables the investigators to prepare better detailed plans for the more thorough undertaking. Often a short survey, without the use of detailed questionnaires, reveals enough local facts to permit the planning of an intelligent program for community THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 39 advance over a short period, as from one to five years. Surveys conducted for such a purpose must aim to dis- cover the assets and liabilities of the community, and the forces with which to build, as well as what to build. The Development of the Idea. - - The social survey in the modern sense began with the investigation which Charles Booth made of the poor in London. 1 Mr. Booth devoted many years and considerable money to this inquiry into general conditions under which the poorer classes lived. The data used for his report, which appeared in sixteen volumes from 1891 to 1903, were derived from the records of school inspectors, from information gathered by charity workers, and from researches made by Mr. Booth himself. A very elaborate community survey was made in the city of Pittsburgh in 1907-8 by Mr. Paul U. Kellogg and a corps of collaborators. The people, the work, and the cultural conditions of the Pittsburgh steel district were all carefully investigated by trained social workers. 2 This survey not only served as the basis for a new educational and philanthropic program in the city of Pittsburgh, but stimulated other com- munities to similar self-examination. Buffalo, Spring- field, and many other cities have surveyed either the whole community or some particular portion of it. 1 See BOOTH'S Life and Labor of the People of London. 2 The volumes in "the Pittsburgh survey are : BUTLER, ELIZABETH B. Women and the Trades. BYINGTON, MARGARET F. Homestead: The Household of a Mill Town. COMMONS, JOHN R. (and others). The Pittsburgh District. Symposium edited and in part written by John R. Commons. EASTMAN, CRYSTAL. Work Accidents and the Law. FITCH, JOHN A. The Steel Workers. KELLOGG, PAUL U. Pittsburgh: The Gist of the Survey. 40 THE RURAL COMMUNITY Agricultural colleges and other agencies have made intensive studies of rural communities. Churches and schools and business, political, and welfare organiza- tions have likewise found the survey an important means of analyzing their problems and attaining greater efficiency. 1 The Educational Survey. The usefulness of the social survey as a means of community progress may be illustrated by an examination of the results attained by educational surveys. Between 1897 and 1914 many school surveys were made in Belgium, England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, New South Wales, New Zealand, and the United States. Many of these have led to valu- able results. Scales and other tests for measuring the educational progress of individual pupils, and stand- ards for the comparing of schools and school systems, have made the facts obtained in different localities comparable. More than thirty educational surveys were made in the United States previous to 1916 ; and the surveys completed or in progress during 1919 brought the total up to eighty-one. One of the earliest of these was the study of the Chicago school system by the Educational Commission of Chicago in 1897. This commission was appointed by the Mayor, and repre- sented the City Council, the Board of Education, and the general public. An important educational survey was conducted in Cleveland in 1906 by a com- mission appointed by the Board of Education of that city. This commission investigated the government, 1 See appendix to this chapter for a list of notable surveys. THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 41 supervision, and courses of study in the public schools of the city. Twenty-seven states have made state-wide surveys of their educational systems since 1907, and a number of other states have made partial surveys. The studies made of the secondary schools of Wisconsin in 1912, of the rural and village schools of Colorado in 1914, and of the vocational schools of Indiana in 1916 are examples of this type. School surveys have been of three rather distinct types. Some try to measure the efficiency of the schools in terms of child-development. Others seek to determine what part of the technical work of the mechanical or other occupations can be taught in the public schools. The third type endeavors to measure the efficiency of schools in terms of general industrial preparation. This involves an investigation of the trades to determine what further vocational training can be offered in the schools that will correlate with actual industrial life and to discover the limitations of industry as an educative force. In other words, the investigation covers both the schools and the economic world which surrounds them, whether industrial or agricultural, and aims to effect a closer cooperation between the industries and the schools of the com- munity. The primary object of all these investigations has been to help those in charge of our educational system to utilize all that is good in the present system, to discard what is defective, and to employ new methods where needed. Their influence is already felt in the rating and standardizing of the school systems of 42 THE RURAL COMMUNITY different states and cities. Excellencies and defi- ciencies have been sought out and made known to the country at large as well as to the community directly concerned. The published reports have been an excellent means for the molding of public opinion and have encouraged a constructive attitude toward edu- cation. Backed by popular knowledge, scientific methods are driving indifference and waste put of our school systems. The results attained in the educational world through careful school surveys are but typical of the benefits attained in many other fields of activity through sur- veys. They are one of the best means for producing enlightened public opinion and stimulating public action. A survey, of whatever kind and in whatever type of community, should be made a community enterprise. Individuals or groups should never forget that in America social progress comes through the good judg- ment and will of the majority of the people. Much of the actual work in a survey may have to be done by specialists, but when their report is completed, public opinion will decide how many of their recommendations shall become effective. It is the right of the whole community to participate in the undertaking from the beginning to the end. When the American people, or any section of them, clearly understand what is needed and how to attain it, we can usually depend upon them to do their best. The thing which retards prog- ress is in most cases a lack of popular understanding of what needs to be done and how to do it. Nearly every community survey has discovered THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 43 that one of the most important needs of the city or the rural district studied has been a better school system. In many cases it has resulted in larger and better schools. This is an important forward step. The rallying of a community for the improvement of its schools is a stimulus to more intelligent democ- racy. It is an educator of the civic conscience. It leads to immediate cooperative action on a community- wide basis, and citizens are taught to think in terms of community welfare instead of simply in terms of private welfare. It is often the means of causing many individuals to see for the first time the relation- ship of the various component parts of the community. The currents and cross-currents of community life, once only a maze, are now untangled and become in- telligible. The welfare and progress of the entire community becomes the popular aim, and all classes become more united in the ideal of a better common life. New local leaders, drawn from the different classes, are discovered. No other means can so easily produce a unified interest for community betterment. This is exactly the result at which a survey should aim. It is designed to arouse community action. The facts it reveals are of little value unless they crystallize public sentiment and result in the adoption of a definite policy and program for the community. When once a community is characterized by an educated and enlightened public opinion, it begins to plan its future more carefully and wisely. Its people begin to understand that civic planning does not imply merely flower beds, lily ponds, landscape gardening, gigantic public works, and prodigious expenses. They 44 THE RURAL COMMUNITY realize that it means foresight and preparation for the- protection, welfare, and happiness of all classes of the community. But community unity, a social consciousness in the minds of the citizens, and intelligent, broad-spirited public opinion will not be attained in any comrfiunify simply by a community survey, no matter how efficient such a survey may be. It represents only a starting point. It furnishes material ^which public-spirited citizens can use for the formation' and guidance of public opinion. It is a tool, not a panacea. Surveys, then, have very generally accomplished two definite results : first, they have proved an edu- cational force and have focused public opinion on certain definite local conditions ; second, they have supplied the areas surveyed with a comprehensive, unified, well worked-out program for social advance. The Purpose of a Survey. Neither personal curi- osity, nor muck-raking, nor " exposure " can justify an inquiry into the lives of people such as a survey usually necessitates. The % only purpose that can justify such an inquiry is that of social and civic betterment. A survey must be prompted by a sincere 4 desire for constructive work in community life, and a conviction that the information essential to such constructive work is not now available. It will be interested in ascertaining the resources, assets, and positive forces in the community as well as the defects, abnormalities, and negative forces. It will be an inventory of assets and liabilities, eventuating in a program for bettering the life of the community. How to Make a Survey. Before any social survey THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 45 is undertaken, three questions must be satisfactorily answered by those who desire to make it : 1. Has the community to be surveyed any known problems or conditions to which especial attention should be given ? 2. Can the survey be made a means of improving the community ? 3. Does a representative group of the people of the community desire that such a survey be made ? The writer has already suggested that a more or less informal preliminary survey of the community must be made before a thorough formal survey can either receive popular support or be wisely planned. A very useful preliminary survey can often be made by sounding the opinions of physicians, ministers, teachers, lawyers, merchants, bankers, wage earners, and other citizens. Sometimes it can be done by assembling a committee of citizens representing the different ele- ments in the community to discuss the life of the community, or certain aspects of it. A surprising amount of concrete information is often obtained by such a meeting. In this way, one learns what the people are thinking about, and what they think they need and desire for the improvement of their community life. Some of the most important facts concerning a com- munity may be obtained in this informal way. It is often possible to get a community interested in self-examination by calling attention to some particu- lar condition in the community to which the attention of some of the most intelligent citizens has been di- rected, such as the conditions in the schools or a bad housing condition. 46 THE RURAL COMMUNITY j Another important preliminary step is the selection of the group of persons in the community who are to carry out the survey. Not every prominent citizen is adapted to this particular task. It requires alert, honest-minded, and public-spirited citizens. The pro- gram must be of the people, and yet must be directed by real leadership. Technique of the Survey. An investigation that is thoroughly and wisely planned is well on the road toward completion. There are at least four important matters which should be carefully worked out in the plan ; the information to ^be sought^ the sources from \ which it will be sought, 43ie methods to be -used in / obtaining it, and the selection of the persons who are to gather it. It is a serious mistake to try to gather more kinds of information than are essential for the purpose which the survey is seeking to accomplish. Many a social survey has been impaired by the effort to do too much. The group in charge of the investigation should care- fully analyze the value of each proposed question sug- gested as a part of the investigation, and select the ones which are (a) of real importance, and (b) capable of being satisfactorily answered. To be more explicit, these questions should be (i) simple enough to be readily understood, (2) as often as possible so stated that they can be answered "Yes" or "No," (3) so stated that they will not arouse resentment, (4) such as will not be answered with bias or prejudice, (5) not unnecessarily inquisitorial, (6) such that they will be corroboratory, (7) such as will unmistakably cover the point of information desired. The smaller the THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 47 number of topics selected for investigation, the larger the probability of success. Equal care must be exercised that the plan may cover all of the matters which are essential or im- portant. Frequent surveys cannot be made of any given community. An investigation cannot soon be repeated. It should be sufficiently inclusive to form the basis of community policies for some years. The nature of the topics selected for investigation is in part conditioned upon the methods of collecting information which can be, or are to be used in the survey. A set of questions which would be usable in a house to house canvass of a district might not be practicable at all if the data were to be collected by, or obtained from, the children in the schools, or by questionnaires mailed to business men or to the people's homes. If a group of experienced investigators are to collect the data, more questions can be covered than if inexperienced or volunteer workers are used. If a study is to be made of local records or other docu- mentary evidence, the information in them can be more exhaustively extracted than if questions must be asked of the residents of the community. It is usually advisable to prepare a blank, or ques- tionnaire, in which the various questions for investiga- tion will be clearly and definitely stated ; but much better results will be obtained in the collection of the data asked for, if each worker memorizes the questions and does not fill out the blank in the presence of the person from whom information is obtained. Unless a questionnaire is very elaborate, it is not at all difficult for field workers to become so familiar with their 48 THE RURAL COMMUNITY questionnaires that they can extract from the persons interviewed all of the information necessary to fill out the blank, and then enter the data in the blank after the termination of the interview. The area to be covered is another important point to be decided. It must be large enough to make the information valuable. It must include enough " cases " to permit dependable generalizations. One cannot safely draw conclusions from too few cases. On the other hand, it must not be too large to per- mit thorough work. Sometimes investigators use the " sample plot " method, choosing one or more typical neighborhoods, communities, townships, or counties for study, instead of trying to cover an area beyond their resources. This can be done with some accuracy by a committee familiar enough with the district to know what constitutes a typical community, or after a preliminary survey such as has already been dis- cussed. Usually a particular city, ward, rural school district, or other definite political division is the area to be investigated, and the unit of investigation is, therefore, predetermined. Analysis of the Data Obtained. - - The most im- portant phase of an investigation is the interpretation of the data collected. Inadequate or erroneous inter- pretation may waste or misapply some of the most important facts gathered. A person or a small com- mittee of open-minded persons of education and ability should interpret the data obtained. In some cases the area studied is a kind of social crazy quilt. The interviewer of the survey must see these differ- ently-colored patches the different aspects of the life THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 49 of the people in their mutual relationships. In the survey they have asked and tried to answer such questions as, for example : Why do all the Italians in the community investigated live in a little colony of shacks ? Why are most of them men ? Why do they all do unskilled work ? Why do they have a parochial school ? Why do they take their children out of school at the earliest age permitted by law ? Is there hidden crime in this colony ? Why have they such slight social relations with their American born and bred neigh- bors? In what respects have the rest of the com- munity caused these conditions by a failure to develop proper relations with these Italian people? Or, why do so many farmers leave their machinery out-of-doors in winter? Why is there so much typhoid fever in the community? Why are there so many churches and why is each so poorly attended ? The analysis of the survey, finally, should be pub- lished in a report which sets forth and interprets the facts obtained and suggests remedies for outstanding defects in the community life. This report should be as concise as possible, in simple English, and in a pleasing literary style. Statistical tables and charts should be printed in appendices to the report, which should itself be devoted to a simple, clear description for the community of its assets and its defects, and of proposed community policies. Surveys of Rural Communities. We come now to the immediate purpose of this discussion, the desir- ability and the technique of such surveys in rural com- munities. Fortunately, the very excellent, construc- tive studies of rural communities which have already 50 THE RURAL COMMUNITY been made, furnish suggestive guidance for communi- ties undertaking a self-examination. 1 The rural com- munity is of course not nearly so complex as the urban A SOCIAL SURVEY CENTURIA COMMUNITY, POLK CO., WIS. An excellent way of showing the educational status of each child ill the community. Note the lack of high school education here. community. The three principal social groupings in rural life are the home, the neighborhood, and the com- munity. A neighborhood is a collection of homes in a single locality having one or more common interests 1 To Professor G. F. Warren of the Dept. of Farm Management, New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University, must be given the credit for making the first farm survey. In the summer of 1903 Professor Warren personally made an orchard survey of 574 farms in Wayne County, New York. THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 51 and surrounded by practically the same social en- vironment. A district school, a church, a grange hall, a mill, or a cooperative creamery often serves as the rallying point for such an area. It may be a num- A SOCIAL SURVEY CENTURIA COMMUNITY, POLK CO., WIS. This map shows the number of newspapers taken in each home of the community. ber of homes somewhat near together and all belonging to the same nationality, such as a Swedish settlement. Sometimes the genial hospitality or the personal leader- ship of one prominent home or individual kindles the spirit of neighborliness in homes near by and gives a name to the neighborhood, such as " the Jones neighborhood." 5 2 THE RURAL COMMUNITY The community includes all the homes which try to satisfy at a common center their fundamental com- mon needs, such as those for food, clothing, imple- ments, money, high school education, amusement, and _CENTUR|A COMMUNITY, POLK CO., WIS. This rural community map reveals the fact that in most of these homes one or both of the parents are foreign born. fraternal organization. The word " community" im- plies common interests and privileges, a sharing of many things in common. The center of the community is usually, though not always or necessarily, a village, or trade-center. Such a trade-center serves a com- munity area, or trade-basin, whose area is very often determined by such natural barriers as hills, moun- THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 53 tains, streams, and swamps. Roads, trolley lines, railways, and canals, also, play a part in determining the area of a community. Sometimes the whole com- munity is within a township or county ; sometimes it A SOCIAL SURVEY CENTURIA COMMUNITY, POLK CO., WfS. GAN.ZED AGENClE 1 * I > &* 1 V > f MJ 1 A rural community map showing the homes influenced by commercial, religious, and educational organizations. laps over into other political units. Density of popu- lation is also a determining factor in community area. In the thinly settled West, the area of the trade-basin is much greater than in the more thickly populated East, where there are villages within one to four miles of the majority of farm homes. The village sustains a vital relationship to the farm- 54 THE RURAL COMMUNITY ing community which surrounds it. The people living in the village are engaged in business mainly to supply the needs of the outlying farm homes of the district. The village is the pantry, safe, shop, medicine chest, playhouse, and altar of the community at large. The village homes, in thus serving the needs of the scattered homes of the farm people, become a part of the rural community. On the other hand, the rural homes make the business interests of the village homes pos- sible. Neither the village home nor the farm home could exist by itself ; the one depends upon the other ; and the outlying farm homes and their village center make up together the community group which forms the natural basis for any rural survey. The Teacher May Be a Surveyor of Her District. - Often the most convenient rural unit for investigation is the school district ; and the teacher is in many cases the most logical and suitable person to carry through an investigation. She may have been in the community long enough to know the people intimately, and the course of her regular work gives her many opportunities for obtaining information that she might not be able to write into a report, but which would help her to interpret wisely the facts obtained in the survey. The rural teacher may have a closer personal knowledge of the community than any worker could possibly have in any city district. A rural survey is the easiest kind to make, as there are few people, the community life is not complex, and there is usually but one industry. Especially valuable township, county, and state surveys can readily be compiled from these district studies. THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 55 Every teacher should become skilled in this work, as it is only by knowing and understanding the prob- lems of her community that she can hope to render maximum service to the people. The information obtained by a survey, formal or informal, aids her in her school work ; it helps her to know in what ways her school can and should serve the community ; and it reveals in what ways and to what extent the people will support her work. It gives her the knowledge necessary for intelligent leadership in the community. A teacher who desires to make a survey of her school district can ordinarily secure assistance and support from many sources. A great deal of information can be obtained from the pupils. Physicians, attorneys, ministers, and county agricultural agents will be glad to furnish information along their respective lines, provided they are convinced that it will not be used in any way that will endanger their work and impair their usefulness in the community. Progressive farm- ers and business men will be glad to aid in what they see is a step toward a better community for their children. The teacher who desires a better knowledge of her district, but does not believe the time is ripe for a formal survey, can often acquire a rather detailed knowledge of the community by becoming personally acquainted with all or at least most of the families of her district. By tactful questioning and by carefully noting what she sees in and about the homes as she visits them, she will, if she wishes, be able to make a survey without raising the question among the people at all. While it will not be as satisfactory as a real survey, it will be far better than ignorance of the district. 56 THE RURAL COMMUNITY Maps of the District. Valuable results can often be obtained by the preparation of maps of the district. A teacher can give her pupils a deeper interest in, and a better knowledge of, their community by guiding them in such map preparation. The maps, filled in with the details of the community, constitute in them- selves a considerable survey. There is no better way of stimulating interest in local geography, history, and social and industrial conditions than such sur- veying and mapping of a community by its children. When the survey is planned so that the school children can share in the investigation of rural conditions, farm life takes on a new meaning and commands a new respect, while the findings of the survey make more intelligible nearly every study in their curriculum. 1 History, civics, agriculture, domestic science, hygiene, geography, nature study, and the study of English are all vitalized by the information which students may gather for a district survey. Such an investigation has an academic as well as a civic justification. It is a means of socializing education. The map that is given on the next page, which was prepared in a school in Sauk County, Wisconsin, shows something of what can be done in this way. A Warning to Those Who Make Rural Surveys. Whoever undertakes to make a survey of a rural dis- trict assumes a task requiring much tact and common 1 In March of 1919, the boys of the high school in Boyceville, Wis- consin, made a survey of the live stock in the district. This survey was made at the request of the United States Department of Agricul- ture, which at that time was making a nation-wide investigation of the amount of live stock in this country. Thousands of schools aided in this survey. THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 57 sense. The investigator should constantly bear in mind that rural people are very conservative and are inclined to be suspicious of any one who inquires into A rural school district map drawn by Miss Mabel A. Sullivan, a teacher in Sauk County, Wisconsin. The data for this map were collected by the seventh and eighth grade pupils of Miss Sullivan's school. County Supt. George W. Davies has been a pioneer in this work. their personal affairs. He should be able and willing to give them acceptable assurance that the inquiry is being made in the right spirit and for proper reasons. Above all else, antagonism 'and neighborhood enmities must not be aroused. Gossip must not be carried from house to house in the course of the collection of data. The information gathered from each individual must be strictly confidential. It should be told to no one, either during or after the survey. In the final publica- tion of a report, personal facts must be carefully dis- tinguished from social. Unless the rural worker fully 58 THE RURAL COMMUNITY appreciates the responsibility assumed in investigating other people's affairs, he or she has no right, morally or otherwise, to make a survey, formal or informal. There are many partial surveys, such as the number of silos in a district, or the number of young people not in high school, that may be fully reported to any one concerned or interested without arousing ill- feeling on the part of any resident, and without damag- ing any one's standing in the community, but such matters as mortgages or money income are strictly personal, and concern only those who have a right to know about them. The writer believes the survey to be invaluable in the hands of the discreet and re- liable, but it may be an instrument of destruction to all concerned in the hands of the unwise and irrespon- sible investigator. The following list of surveys will furnish rich material for special reading, topics, and discussions. The student of rural affairs should give especial attention to the rural surveys. The Social Survey, by Carol Aronovici (The Harper Press, Philadelphia, 1916), contains a more detailed list of surveys. CITY SURVEYS HARRISON, SHELBY M. The Springfield Survey. Russell Sage Foundation, New York City, 1918. HARRISON, SHELBY M. Topeka Improvement Survey. Russell Sage Foundation, New York City, 1914. KELLOGG, PAUL U. The Pittsburgh Survey. Russell Sage Founda- tion, New York City, 1909. POTTER, ZENAS L. Newburgh Survey. Russell Sage Foundation, New York City, 1913. THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 59 EDUCATIONAL SURVEYS AVER, F. C. (and others). Constructive Survey of the Public School System of Ashland, Oregon. University of Oregon, Eugene, Ore., 1902. DUGGAN, M. L. Educational Survey of Tift County. State Edu- cational Department, Atlanta, Ga., 1918. (Also studies of other Georgia counties made by same Department.) FOGHT, HAROLD W. Rural School System of Minnesota. Bulletin No. 20, 1915, United States Bureau of Education, Washington. MORSE, H. N., and EASTMAN, E. R. An Educational Survey of a Suburban and Rural County. Bulletin No. 32, 1913, United States Bureau of Education, Washington. PARRISH, C. L. Survey of the Atlanta Public Schools. Board of Education, Atlanta, Ga., 1914. PENNSYLVANIA STATE EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. Report on Rural Schools. Harrisburg, 1914. SARGENT, C. G. Rural and Village Schools of Colorado. Colorado Agricultural College, Ft. Collins, 1914. . . . . Report of Rural School Commission of North Dakota. Grand Forks, 1912. , . . . Report of the Special Educational Commission, State of Connecticut. Hartford, 1902. RURAL SURVEYS BRANSON, E. C. Economic and Social Surveys of Fulton and Bibb Counties. State Normal School, Athens, Ga., 1912. GALPIN, CHARLES JOSIAH; DAVIES, G. W. ; and STONE, GRACE WYMAN. Social Surveys of Rural School Districts. Circular 122, Extension Service of the College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin. THOMPSON, CARL W., and WARBER, G. P. Social and Economic Survey of a Rural Township in Southern Minnesota. Bulletin, University of Minnesota, 1913. WARBER, G. P. Social and Economic Survey of a Community in Northeastern Minnesota. Bulletin, University of Minnesota, 60 THE RURAL COMMUNITY WELD, Louis D. H. Social and Economic Survey of a Community in the Red River Valley. Bulletin, University of Minnesota, 1915. WILSON, W. H., and ASHENHURST, J. O. Rural Survey in Kansas. Department of Church and Country Life, Presbyterian Church, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City, 1913. (This organization has also made many other rural surveys.) QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY (This list of questions, together with the Plan for Study of Popu- lation Characteristics, contains material for three or four reading circle, club, or class meetings.) 1. Define the term "social survey." Name and define the different kinds of surveys. 2. What is the only object, from an ethical as well as a social point of view, in making a survey ? 3. Discuss the development of the use of the survey in Europe. 4. Discuss the development of the use of the survey in the United States. 5. Discuss the value of the educational survey. What results have been accomplished by its use? What part do you think the school survey will play in the education of the future ? 6. Discuss fully the process of making a survey. 7 . Define the terms ' ' estate, ' ' ' ' neighborhood, " " community, ' ' ''district," "locality." 8. Name some of the local conditions that determine the extent of a community. 9. Name some of the ways in which the rural district and the trade-center are related. Why is the term "trade-center" used? 10. What is the chief value of community maps ? 1 1 . Work out a series of maps of your own community, locating native and foreign-born farmers, owner and tenant farmers, farmers who are church members and those who are not, farmers who have children attending rural school, high school, or college. (It is also possible to work out maps showing other educational conditions.) 12. What have you learned from the making of these maps? Are such maps of educational value to the children of your district ? To the parents of your district? THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 61 13. Do you think the use of the survey can be overdone ? 14. State three warnings relative to the making of surveys which should be given to every rural worker who is contemplating the making of a survey. 15. What do you consider the chief value of a survey? State some of the results of surveys. Plan for Study of Population Characteristics of a Rural Community Prepare map, but enter no physiographic data on it except to show streams. Study nationality of families of district and indicate on map, giving particular attention to location and size of " settlements" of particular nationalities. In the course of preparation of this map, collect data showing dates when different settlers, and groups of settlers, came to the district, the places from which they came, reasons why they came, and how they happened to come to this particular neighborhood. Often matters of much social and historical interest relative to the population of a community are not recognized and appreciated by the people until some definite study of this kind brings them to light. Romance, heroism, and idealism have been written into the life of many a rural community in terms of practical living without the people's realizing the drama of their own individual and com- munity lives. This study may do much to inspire and integrate the community. Some of the topics to be given special attention are : 1. Number of homes in the district, average number of people in each, and average number of rooms in each house. 2. When and by whom was each farm settled? Are any of these pioneers still living in the community? How many of their descendants ? Are any of the houses or other buildings erected by pioneers yet standing ? 3. Of what race and nationality were these pioneers ? What races and nationalities are represented in this district at the present time? Are any of the residents recent immigrants? Of what nations and peoples ? How many foreign-born residents are there in the community ? Has immigration at any time changed the charac- ter and general type of the community ? How many of the present population are of native-born stock ? Of foreign-born stock ? 62 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 4. How many widows? Widowers? Divorced people? Single people of marriageable age? Children under 12 years of age? Children from 12 to 17 years of age? Young people from 1 8 to 25 years of age? This will show whether the district is losing its youth or holding them, and whether the age distribution is normal as compared with the rest of the country. 5. Has the population of the district appreciably increased or decreased at any particular time? If so, why has it done so? How many people have gone from the district to towns or cities within the past 20 years? Ten years? Five years? Do the young people or the old people leave these farm homes for the town and city ? Why do they leave ? What effect does this have upon rural leadership ? 6. Are there any insane, feeble-minded, blind, or crippled persons? Chronic invalids? Paupers? Criminals? How are they being cared for ? Is this the best method that is practicable in this district ? 7. Are there social classes due to race, nationality, religion, wealth, or culture, or do people mingle freely as one social body? Is the neighborhood broken up into factions because of feuds, quarrels, or disagreements ? 8. Have the immigrants transplanted to this district Old World institutions ? Do these interfere with wholesome American citizenship ? 9. Are the people conservative or progressive? Is their standard of living advancing? 10. Are the homes isolated or are they built in groups ? 11. Are there occasions when all the people assemble, such as harvest homes, grange meetings, pioneers' day? 12. Are there farmers' clubs? Women's clubs? Fraternal organizations ? Cultural and social clubs to which both men and women belong ? 13. Is there a social center ? Which is the better rallying point for the social center, the church or the school? In what ways does a social center serve a rural people? 14. How many community events are there each year? Are they largely attended ? When are they held ? Why are they held at this time ? THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 63 15. Do any of the farm people attend club meetings or social events in the village? Does the village have a wholesome or an unwholesome effect upon the rural people? What provision for recreation and social life is made for the young people ? Suggestions for Study of Industrial Conditions 1 . How far is this district from the nearest large city ? The nearest town? Are there evidences that the city affects the life and interests of this rural district ? With which is the rural district chiefly concerned, the production, the distribution, or the exchange of goods ? The city ? 2. Are there mines in this community? Oil or gas wells? What effect do these have upon the farming of this district ? 3. Is farming the only industry of this district? Are there cheese factories, creameries, milk condensaries, or canneries? Are these factories owned by people living outside the district ? What advantages would a cooperative business owned by residents of the community have over a business owned by non-resident capital- ists? What opportunities are there for these farmers to invest their savings in enterprises that build up the community ? 4. Is general, or diversified, farming the rule ? Is there any specialized farming? Single crop farming? 5. What labor-saving machinery is used on the farms ? In the homes ? How many of the farmers hire help for farm work ? For the work in the home ? To what extent does this year-round, crop- season, or short-season help? How does seasonal work on the farm affect the schools ? Do the farmers' wives work in the fields ? What effect does this have upon the home life ? How many hours a day do the farmers work ? Women ? Children ? Hired hands ? 6. Do the farmers in this district cooperate in any way in buying or selling ? In what ways ? How successfully ? 7 . Are there rural credit facilities available for the farmers of this state ? What are they ? Do they meet the needs of the farmers ? 8. Are there silos in the district? If so, on what proportion of the farms ? 9. How many automobiles? What effect do they have upon the social life of the community? Upon farming as a business? 10. How many tenants are there in this district? Why are 64 THE RURAL COMMUNITY these people tenants ? Are they related to the owners of the farms they are working? Do they rent on a share, cash, or share-cash basis ? What is the average size of the tenant farms ? 1 1 . How many of the farms are mortgaged ? Who holds these mortgages individuals, local banks, or corporations ? 12. Do the farmers in this district systematically fight weeds, insects, animal pests, and animal diseases? 13. Do fruit, vegetable, grain, and stock buyers buy through this district? Do the farmers have any cooperative selling as- sociations ? 14. About how many hundred dollars' worth of produce does each of the farmers in this district sell each year ? Which make th2 largest incomes and have the best homes those with a grade school education, those who have been through a high school, or those who have attended agricultural college? Do any of the farmers have a system of bookkeeping of their farm operations ? 15. Is there a government experiment station in this community ? Has the county an agricultural agent? What are the duties of a county agricultural agent ? 1 6. In what condition are the homes? Are the homesteads well planned and well laid out? What styles of architecture are represented in this district? 17. Do the farms change ownership often? Are they being built up or are they being allowed to run down? Are there any differences between farms operated by owners and farms operated by tenants in this respect? 1 8. Do the farmers in this district work under favorable or un- favorable conditions ? Give reasons for the conditions in this case. 19. If you were obliged to choose between the owning of a farm of 100 acres in your district or a $2500 per year position in a manu- facturing plant in a city, which would you choose? Why? REFERENCES ARONOVICI, CAROL. The Social Survey, pp. 1-33; 131-174; 194-252. The Harper Press, Philadelphia, 1916. FLANAGAN, ROY K. Sanitary Survey of the Schools of Orange County, Virginia. Bulletin 17, 1914, United States Bureau of Educa- tion, Washington, D. C. THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 65 GALPIN, CHARLES JOSIAH. The Social Anatomy of an Agricultural Community. Research Bulletin 34, The Experiment Station of the University of Wisconsin. GALPIN, CHARLES JOSIAH; DA VIES, G. W. ; and STONE, GRACE WYMAN. Social Survey of Rural School Districts. Circular 122, Extension Service of the College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin. GILLETTE, JOHN M. Constructive Rural Sociology, Chapter XVIII. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1913. HARRISON, SHELBY M. Community Action through Surveys. Russell Sage Foundation, New York City, 1916. HART, JOSEPH K. The Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1913. MONAHAN, A. C., and COOK, KATHERINE M. Educational Survey of Wyoming. Bulletin 29, 1916, pp. 83-95, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. RICHMOND, MARY ELLEN. Social Diagnosis. Russell Sage Foun- dation, New York City, 1917. (A community which purposes to make a survey should study this book carefully.) VOGT, PAUL L. Introduction to Rural Sociology y Chapter XXVII. D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1917. WEEKS, ARLAND D. The Psychology of Citizenship, Chapters I, VII, VIII. A. C. McClurg & Company, Chicago, 1917. SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY OF THE RURAL HOME / General Information. 1 . Date of survey. 2. County. 3. Township. 4. School district. 5. Name of compiler. 6. Source of information. // Location of Home. 1 . Main road, or by-road. 2. General geographical features. A seashore, a river, a plain, or mountains. View from the house. 66 THE RURAL COMMUNITY /// Valuation of Home. 1. Number of acres in farm. 2. Style and condition of house. 3. Kind and condition of other buildings on the farm. 4. Valuation of the property. 5. Assessment valuation of the property. 6. Tax rate (total amount of all taxes). 7. Is property insured? 8. Is property mortgaged? Rate of interest paid on mortgage. 9. Name of the mortgagor. 10. Is the value of the land increasing or decreasing? n. Is the total valuation of the property increasing or decreasing ? IV Household. 1. Head of household. 2. Years of head in this county. 3. Years of head in this school district. 4. Is head married, unmarried, or divorced ? 5. Race and nationality of head. 6. Race and nationality of helpmate of head. 7. Number in family. Age of each. 8. Number in household other than family. 9. Children at home. 10. Children not at home. Where located? 1 1 . Children dead. 12. Children married. 13. Children defective. a. Physically defective. Maimed or crippled? De- formed? Blind? Deaf? Deaf and dumb? Epileptic ? Neurasthenic ? b. Mentally defective. Idiots? Imbeciles? Mo- rons ? Insane ? c. Moral defectives. Criminals? Inebriates? Ju- venile delinquents? Tramps? 14. Has family permitted any near relative to be a pauper ? THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 67 V Economic Status of Household. 1 . Number of years head has been a farmer. 2. Number of years on this farm. 3. Miles from nearest village. 4. Miles from nearest market for farm produce. 5. Amount and condition of machinery used on farm. 6. Amount and condition of labor-saving machinery used in the house. 7. Do children help with farm work ? 8. Does wife help with farm work ? 9. Number and sex of hired help. 10. Sources of cash income. 1 1 . Probable amount of cash income per year. 12. Kind of farming special or general. 13. Does head of household believe in cooperative en- terprises ? 14. How does head invest savings? 15. Do children and wife have their own spending money or allowances? Do they earn this money them- selves ? 1 6. Are farm accounts kept ? 17. General appearance of farm. 1 8. Does head of household keep in touch with an agricul- tural college ? 19. Status of wife or homemaker. a. Number of rooms in house. b. Running water in house. c. Bathroom. d. Cistern. e. Pump, inside or outside of house. /. Washing machine. g. Cream separator. h. Is butter made at home ? i. Kind of stoves. Heating system. j. Lighting system. k. Refrigerator. /. Fireless cooker. 68 THE RURAL COMMUNITY m. Charcoal or electric iron. n. Condition of front and back yards. o. House painted ? p. Are doors, windows, and porch screened? q. Telephone. r. Hired help. s. Does each child have household duties ? /. Does wife help milk and do chores ? u. Does wife help in field in rush seasons ? v. Is dressmaker hired ? w. Is work of household systematized and is house kept in order ? VI Educational Status of Household. 1. Highest school attended by father. 2. Highest school attended by mother. 3. Highest school attended by older children. Highest school which children hope to attend. 4. Children in school at present. 5. Where is the nearest high school? 6. Where do children attend high school ? 7. Do parents take active interest in the district school? Ever visit the school? Attend school entertain- ments? Invite teacher to their home? 8. Distance of home from the school. 9. Number of days in school session. 10. Number of days attended by each child of the family. VII Religious Status of Household. 1 . Church attended by each member of household. 2. Attendants or members? 3. Number of meetings attended on Sunday. 4. Number of meetings attended during week. 5. To what religious organizations do parents belong? 6. To what religious organizations do the children belong ? 7. Devotional exercises in home. Bible in home. 8. Reasons for not attending church. 9. Church offices held by members of family. 10. Contribution of family to church. THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 69 VIII Social Status of Household. 1. Organizations to which father belongs. 2. Organizations to which mother belongs. 3. Organizations to which children belong. 4. Opposed to card playing ? 5. Opposed to dancing? Number of dances attended in a year. Town dances ; country dances. 6. Attend theaters ? Number of plays seen in a year. 7. Attend musicals ? Number of musicals attended in a year. 8. Attend lectures? Number of lectures attended in a year. 9. Have social gatherings at home ? 10. Well liked in neighborhood ? 1 1 . Visits made to neighbors. 12. Visits made outside neighborhood. 13. Attend county fair ? 14. Harvest home picnics. 15. Neighborhood gatherings. 1 6. Athletic contests. 17. Visits to city. 1 8. Do children play games ? 19. Do children play in neighborhood groups ? 20. Treatment of hired help. IX Cultural Status of Household. 1. Home music. Piano, violin, organ, phonograph, singing. 2. Reading. a. Books. Fiction. Non-fiction. b. Magazines. c. Newspapers. Dailies. Weeklies. Local or city. 3. Does family get books from library ? 4. Reading done on Sundays or other days ? . Parents read to children? 70 THE RURAL COMMUNITY X ^Esthetic Status of Household. 1. Architecture of house. 2. Plan and condition of lawn. 3. Condition of porches. 4. Condition of floors and walls. 5. Furniture. 6. Pictures. 7. Flowers and shrubbery. 8. Weeds and rubbish. 9. General cleanliness. XI Sanitary Condition of Home. 1. Sources of water supply. 2. Running water in house. 3. Bathroom. 4. Stable drainage. 5. House drainage. 6. Outside toilet. 7. Disposal of garbage. 8. Screens on doors and windows. 9. Method of heating. 10. Method of lighting. 1 1 . Kind and amount of sickness- during past year. 12. Causes of sickness. 13. Accidents. 14. Cost of medical attendance. 15. Nursing. 1 6. Neighborhood aid. XII Social Psychology of Community and Household. 1. Public opinion of community. Strong or weak? United or divided ? 2. Ideals of community. High or low? Active or in- active ? Leadership. Any community leaders? Does com- munity respond to leadership ? Any leaders in this family? THE SURVEY AND ITS ADAPTATION 71 4. Is family influenced by community conditions ? Does it hold aloof ? Is it ostracized ? 5. Degenerating influences in community? In this household? Gambling? Undesirable individuals? 6. Does family belong to an aristocratic or controlling element in the community? Does family show class prejudice ? 7. Has family ever taken part in unusual fads, feuds, or lynchings ? 8. Is family superstitious ? 9. Is family highly emotional ? ; C 1 N> W ;? 55 z ^ PH H H S S3 | <| H PURPOS TIME OF ULAR MEETING O s HH H ^ S PH i H H ^ DATE OF ORGANIZATION 1 X ,0 c o J= to 3 o U g ^ ^ .2 a > < '3 co Hi Nixanng '/L, Q Jj s *o c o g, w IT* "s S s u) 11 : onan \ a ' ' M JMMUNITY E -o > -o'5' x ^ |^ y>-- 1 & SOCIETY o Pn O a 3 H ?I S !o SUNDAY SCHOOL : : : : N a B 1 |ul I I J| 1 u nn K > o i CHURCH GAZINES IN 1 1 IB-' 1 | | a ' J : : < :B tf a : * 1 N O 3 | ||^ 5 g .a j'-S^ 2*2 g ^ a a H 1 S 5 ^ w - .'w J3 _ [S 3 g -o .y o *> g ^ lit ^ h aoy & o 4- ,UJ -, " 4J >. t3 04= C w W ^O "S s ^ "K BOHfl M 1 s 1 Head of Home LIST OF NEWSPAPERS llll 73 CHAPTER IV CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL COMMUNITIES The rural teacher and the rural citizen should be equipped with a good knowledge of the characteristic features of American country life. They should under- stand the influence of different kinds of physiographic conditions upon the life, the ideas, and the temperament of the people who live under these conditions ; the relation of farming to the village or town business and industries ; the peculiarities of rural political, religious, educational, and social institutions. It is the purpose of this chapter to suggest some of the aspects of rural life that should be well understood. Physiographic Influences upon Rural Life. The physical characteristics of a farming community exer- cise a determining influence upon it. Rural Illinois would have played a far different role in the nation's life if, instead of its broad, rich prairies, it had been covered with hills like those of Tennessee. A rough, rolling district practically always raises crops different from those of a level country. Each has its own peculiar difficulties in developing neighborhood life, maintaining strong schools and churches, and keeping in contact with the outside world. How often two neighborhoods separated only by a stream or a range of hills have developed differences that would never have obtained had the physical barrier not intervened ! 74 CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 75 Significant differences in temperature, rainfall, drain- age, surface and subsoils, and other physical peculi- arities of agricultural lands, are often present in rela- tively small areas. These, in turn, react upon the thought, the life, and the temperament of the people whose livelihood depends upon these differences in nature's endowment of the land. The study of the local physiography is therefore important for any one who would understand the people and the life of any locality, and some suggestions for such studies by rural teachers and their pupils will be found at the end of this chapter. Relation of the Farm Neighborhood to the City or Village. -- The relation of the farming community to the village in its midst, or to the city near which it is located, is another important element in rural life. This relationship is always a complex one. The urban center is a market in which the farmer buys and sells ; banks and borrows. It is there that he finds much of his recreation and there his children find their high school training and many of their associates. The urban newspaper furnishes him with his news, both general and local. Its telephone exchange is his means of conversation with his neighbors. Its railroad connects him with the outside world. It is the center of local, sometimes of county and state politics. It is the center of concentrated, unified community in- fluences. It makes a great deal of difference, therefore, to any farming community, with what kind of town or towns it is in contact. In New England, in certain parts of the Middle States, and in a few other places of this 76 THE RURAL COMMUNITY country, there are many counties in which there are several large towns, or even large cities. Frequently, in these counties, the urban population constitutes much the larger portion of the total population of the county. In the Western and in the Southern States, on the other hand, the agricultural group constitutes the majority of the population in most of the counties. To illustrate : In Rhode Island, 96.7 per cent of the people live in towns and cities ; in Massachusetts, 92.8 ; in New York, 78.8 ; in Kansas, 29.2 ; in Ten- nessee, 20.2 ; in Mississippi, 11.5; in North Dakota, n.o. To state the matter conversely, 3.3 per cent of the people in Rhode Island live in the rural dis- tricts ; 7.2 in Massachusetts ; 21.2 in New York ; 70.8 in Kansas ; 79.8 in Tennessee ; 88.5 in Mississippi ; 89.0 in North Dakota. In Rhode Island, Massachu- setts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, from 75 to 96.7 per cent of the people are town and city dwellers. In Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Colorado, Maryland, New Hampshire, Maine, Washington, and California, from 50 to 75 per cent of the people are urban, while in North Dakota, New Mexico, Mis- sissippi, Arkansas, North Carolina, and South Carolina, less than 15 per cent of the population is urban. It is possible to prove almost anything about the influence of cities upon rural communities by citing the effects of one city or another upon the surrounding country neighborhoods. Cases can be found where rural politics have been debauched by urban political interests ; where good rural government has been corrupted by city influences ; and where an undue proportion of the county funds have been used for the CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 77 benefit of the cities or towns in the county to the neglect of rural welfare. Everywhere cities can be seen robbing the farms of their young people, while the farming communities are forced to depend for part of their labor upon those less desirable persons who go to the country only during harvest. On the other hand, there are many rural com- munities which have been able to substitute intensive for extensive cultivation because of the enlarging demand of near-by urban markets, and which have thereby been enabled to raise their standard of living, give their children a better education, and attain a higher level of citizenship. The good roads in many counties have been built largely out of city taxes and by city initiative. Over these roads the farmer can reach his markets the year round, and they make all the advantages of the town continuously available to him. Even counties containing no large city, but containing two, three, or four large country towns, frequently afford a much richer and more satisfactory life for the farmers living within them, because of the better roads, schools, churches, newspapers, theaters, the electric light and telephone service, and other advantages which the large towns bring within the reach of the farmers. Recognition of the mutual benefits to town and country which are possible when the two elements cooperate for the general welfare is important. The interests of town and country are not antagonistic, or even separate. Each depends upon the other, and mutual understanding and cooperation can enrich the lives, as well as the bank accounts, of both. 78 THE RURAL COMMUNITY Whenever a county is practically absorbed by a city, as by Philadelphia, New York, or St. Louis, there is little use in discussing the county as a rural problem. Under such conditions, the life of the en- tire county is absolutely dependent upon and domi- nated by the city. But when a considerable portion of the county remains agricultural, as in Hennepin County, Minnesota, in which Minneapolis is located, or in Kent County, Michigan, which includes Grand Rapids, the interests of the rural section of the county are sufficiently distinct to receive separate consider- ation. Such a situation usually results in a continuous struggle in politics between the rural and the urban sections of the county a struggle in which the rural interests seldom hold their own. But this struggle for political control does not necessarily terminate in detriment to either the urban or the rural section of the county, though it does sometimes. Many counties, of course, are almost purely rural. No town large enough to dominate the rural life is found within their borders. This condition gives the farmers entire control of their own affairs, but deprives them, to a large extent, of outside stimulus. Such counties sometimes make good progress ; some- times but little progress. Political Environment of the Rural Community. We have already referred to the importance of the physical environment as a molding influence in the life of any country community. The political environ- ment, though largely invisible, is another and similar ever-present influence. Schools, roads, tax rates, CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 79 moral conditions, the tone of the newspapers, and many other important features of the community's life are given their character, wholly or in part, by the political conditions that obtain in the county and township. Sometimes the real source of an evil in a locality will be found in the county government or in the county political organization. There is little opportunity in a county for purely political issues; i.e., for a division of the people on questions of political principle. In a county, the field of public problems consists almost entirely of the administration of such public matters as the assess- ment and collection of taxes ; the construction of roads and bridges ; the drainage of swamps ; the control of local education ; the care of paupers, criminals, and defectives ; and the administration of justice. Such matters seldom raise questions of abstract political principle. Instead, they require for their efficient administration honesty, intelligence, technical skill, and a spirit of service. But in many rural communities the real problems of county government are lost sight of in the devo- tion to parties whose differences, if they have any, are found in national political issues rather than in policies of local administration. " Party govern- ment," in these localities, has become a tradition, an institution, sometimes almost a religion. With the minds of the people diverted from local to national issues, county politics often degenerate into quarrels over plunder. They are controlled neither by the truly national issues nor by the local issues. The political party subordinates its county interests to its 8o THE RURAL COMMUNITY national politics, and the people in the end fail to get many of the benefits which they should receive for the taxes they pay. The Social Life. The social life of a community embraces so many conditions and forces that the teacher will find it a rich field for thought and in- vestigation. Race, nationality, religion, the amount of wealth, and the degree of culture, all have their effects upon the life of the community. It makes a great deal of difference whether a community is pre- dominantly English, or German, or Italian ; whether it is Catholic or Protestant ; or whether it is a mixture of many nationalities and diverse religious sects. It makes a difference whether it is rich or poor ; whether all its people are approximately equal in wealth, or whether there are extremes of wealth and poverty. It is important that the people of the community be brought into frequent contact with each other, and yet many rural communities are split into groups, factions, or neighborhoods by barriers of race, religion, neighborhood quarrels, prejudices, and the like. A teacher who endeavors to foster social intercourse in her district will often find that the undertaking is one that tests her tact, social training, and character. Nearly every rural community needs social develop- ment, so that there shall be enough social life for all ages and elements of the community, and that this social life shall be of the right kind. By the whole- someness, fullness, and spontaneity of social relations within a district, the welfare worker can test the effec- tiveness of past education and endeavor, and the need for further constructive effort. CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 81 Religious Institutions. --The home, the church, and the school are the three socially fundamental in- stitutions of our present civilization. Each is essential to our life to-day. When any one of them fails to recognize or to perform its duty, the community, whether rural or urban, is bound to suffer. Our churches and schools have had to bear a double burden, namely, serving the needs of our own people, and developing and cultivating a large class just recovering from the effects of recent serf and peas- ant life in Europe. Our cities have made special effort to care for the immigrant class, and philan- thropists have given largely for the education of the negro. The rural church, however, has not held its own with our American stock those who have at least four generations of ancestors born and bred in this country who worked and sacrificed for the making of this country. Of the 225,000 rural churches in the United States to-day, reliable data show that 85 per cent are either declining or standing still. The main reasons for the decadence of the rural church may be summarized as follows : 1. Too many creeds, resulting in a divided ministry. 2. A lack of adaptation to modern conditions, to scientific intelligence, and particularly to agricultural needs. 3. The attraction of the churches in the near-by towns and cities. 4. Inadequate salaries for ministers. 5. Poorly prepared country pastors. 6. The great social and economic changes of the age. Means of transportation, shifting land values, 82 THE RURAL COMMUNITY and the increase in tenancy in certain parts of the country have all aided in making our people migratory. It is difficult for the rural church to find lay leaders who are permanent and long-time residents of the community. To strike at the root of this religious backwardness in our rural districts, the right leadership must be developed, religion must be socialized, auxiliary work must be inaugurated in trade centers, and cooperation must be substituted for disunion and division. To begin with, our theological seminaries must establish a new and adequate standard for the country minister. They must offer special courses for rural service and encourage the best young men from rural districts to train for the rural ministry. The Christian Church has never needed leaders as it does to-day, and it needs them nowhere more than in the rural district. Rural life tends to make people too conservative and set in their ways and views. To combat this excess of con- servatism, leadership of a high order is necessary. The church must work hand in hand with all agencies that make for betterment of the community, economic, social, and religious. To succeed in work of this nature, the clergyman must be equipped at the seminary. In addition to the work at the seminary, which ought to follow a four years college course, some field work with a good Young Men's Christian Association secretary, and a year's work in an agricultural college, specializing in rural social science, would comprise a course of training that would make of an able and earnest young man a capable rural pastor. It is not probable that such an ideal course of training can be required of rural pastors CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 83 in the immediate future. But the need for better trained men is evident. An increase in rural pastors' salaries that will make it worth while to secure proper training is indispensable to this end. But the clergyman cannot carry the whole burden. As a remedy for the religious and social neglect of rural young people, specially trained Young Men's Christian Association and Young Women's Christian Associ- ation secretaries who can also teach physical train- ing and outdoor games should be employed in every rural trade-center, or at least in every rural county. THE CONSOLIDATED RURAL CHURCH AT MIDDLEFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS The union of the Baptists and the Congregationalists of this community was brought about by Dr. William Tenny Bartley in 1897. The country town is nearly always a problem as to both morals and recreation. Through the rural manhood 84 THE RURAL COMMUNITY division of the Young Men's Christian Association, the majority of rural young men and women could be brought together in wholesome, purposeful activity. No other branch of the organization has a field of more unlimited opportunity. There is ecclesiastical, economic, and social waste in the present system. The churches will have to federate to accomplish the needed work. The Massa- chusetts Federation of Churches is meeting with great success in combining small church bodies in rural districts, and in thus welding the community into closer social unity. The minister, the teacher, the physician, and the agricultural agent should unite their forces in their work for community betterment. The minister and the teacher, in particular, must stand for all that is upright and constructive. The rural teacher who does not attend a church and ally herself with all the forces that make for the moral and spiritual welfare of the community is a detriment rather than a help to the cause of real education. The teacher who refuses to do this has yet to learn the tremendous re- sponsibility resting upon those engaged in the teaching profession. Industrial Influences on Cultural Conditions. We are often surprised to learn how much the religious, educational, and social life of a people depends upon the kind of work they do. The wage earner working too many hours has little time for social recreation or educational advancement. People who live beyond the reach of churches do not usually devote much time to religious exercises or observances. The children CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 85 of the very poor seldom have much encouragement or opportunity to acquire an education. Moreover, the natures of many people are quickly influenced by the kind of work they do, being either coarsened and hardened by their daily round of toil, or refined and ennobled. Unfortunately, there are many kinds of work that tend to develop the lower rather than the higher qualities of human nature. A knowledge of the industrial activities of the community is essential to enable the social worker or teacher to determine what sort of training for the chil- dren of that particular community will best assist them to start favorably in the working world ; and what steps are necessary to promote local industrial efficiency and the welfare of the workers. 1 PLAN FOR STUDY OF THE PHYSIOGRAPHY OF A RURAL COMMUNITY 1 . Draw a map of your school district or community, sketching in the boundaries of each farm. Have the size, extent, and shape been determined in whole or in part by natural barriers or entirely by legal requirements ? Indicate the name of the owner or tenant on each farm; mark abandoned farms "x." Such a map will not only vitalize geography by giving the pupils a practical understand- ing of what a map means, but it will furnish a key to district popu- lation and a chart of the size of agricultural holdings. 2. Sketch in all hamlets, villages, streams, lakes, swamps, woods, hills, places noted for beautiful scenery, historical land- marks, schools, churches, grist mills, saw mills, and any other places of interest. These facts will teach local geography, unearth much interesting history, and point out undeveloped resources. 1 Suggestions for the detailed study of the local industrial situation will be found at the end of Chapter III. 86 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 3. Indicate the vicinities in which flowering trees, shrubs, and wild flowers are found. While collecting this information, it is wise to learn the different kinds of trees, birds, and wild animals found in the district. This will give vitality and interest to the nature study work given in the school. 4. Are there evidences that Indians once lived in this neighbor- hood? Locate such evidences in case there are mounds or other Indian burying grounds. To what nation and tribe did they belong ? 5. Have each member of your reading circle make a series of maps showing some of the details of the social, religious, and indus- trial life of the district in which she teaches. Before gathering the data for these maps, discuss in meeting all the important and un- usual features of each district represented by the members of the circle. These maps should be brought to the circle meetings as soon as they are completed. They will add greatly to the interest of the next five lessons. QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY Physiography 1 . What is the average temperature in the district in January and February? In July and August? 2. Are crops ever killed by frost ? By drought ? Frequently ? 3. Is the district subject to cyclones and other unusual storms? Population 1. What is the density of population for your State? For your county? For your district? Locate least populous sections and most populous. Why do these differences obtain? 2. What nationalities have given this country her best farmers? 3. What nationalities do we rarely, if ever, find engaged in farming? How do you account for this fact? 4. Do newly arrived immigrants employ the same methods in farming as do our American farmers? Explain your answer. 5. Discuss the original make-up of the American people. 6. What nationalities predominated in this country before 1870? CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 87 7. Discuss immigration to this country since 1870. 8. What effect has this later immigration had upon the United States socially, industrially, and educationally? 9. Discuss the merits and demerits of each of the great streams of immigration to this country. 10. Discuss the immigration laws passed by the United States during the past forty years. Political Conditions 1 . What do you understand by a political division of a country ? A territorial division ? 2. Discuss the township as found in the United States. 3. Discuss the county as found in the United States. 4. In what ways do the states exercise control over their cities ? Over their towns and villages? Over the rural districts? 5. Locate on a map the most populous sections of the United States. Why are these sections so populous? Consider your State in this manner. 6. What are the advantages of incorporation to a major town ? What are the disadvantages ? To a minor city ? 7. What do you understand by a highly centralized govern- ment ? Why does the government of a nation tend to become more highly centralized as it grows older? Is there such a tendency in this country? 8. In how many ways is a county generally organized ? 9. To what conditions is most of the political corruption in counties due? 10. What are the chief merits of a civil service system based on merit? 11. Is there political corruption in your county? If so, what are the reasons for it ? 12. How many district, school, township, county, state, and national officers reside in your community? 13. What is the local unit of government in your State the township or the county? What is the territorial unit below the township? Above the township? Below the state? 14. What political parties are represented in your community? Are there political organizations other than political parties? 88 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 15. Are there naturalized citizens among the voters? Do all those eligible to vote use their franchise ? If not, why not ? 1 6. Are the voters interested in local, state, and national issues? Do they discuss these issues understandingly ? Religious Conditions 1. Distinguish between religion, creed, sect, denomination. 2. Name at least four fundamental principles upon which all creeds should be able to agree. How can the present number of creeds be diminished? 3. Is it the essentials or the non-essentials of religion that have given rise to so many creeds? 4. What is the fundamental purpose of religious organizations ? 5. Why do ministers and teachers generally prefer to work in the city rather than in the rural district ? Can the rural district remedy this condition of affairs, or does the fault lie with the ministers and the teachers? 6. State some facts that tend to prove that people's conceptions along religious lines change somewhat from generation to generation. 7. What do you understand by the ''socialization of the church"? Do you think this socialization of the church can be overdone ? 8. Name some of the conditions that have arisen during the past twenty-five years that are drawing people away from the church. 9. Could you expect strong churches in a community made up entirely of tenants ? 10. Do you think a city born, bred, and educated minister should be sent to a rural church ? Defend you opinion. 11. How many churches are there in your community? How many creeds do they represent? Are these creeds progressive or conservative ? 12. How many Sunday Schools are there? How many young people's societies ? What percentage of the young people do these organizations enroll? 13. Are the pastors residents of the rural district or do they live in town? Are they foreign or American born, bred, and educated ? CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 89 14. What is the membership of each church ? What percentage of the members are men? Women? Could fewer churches care for the people? Are the churches "dead" or "alive"? 15. Are the pastors ready and willing to work with the teacher for the betterment of the community ? Do the pastors work with each other for the good of the community ? Social Life 1 . Is the social life in the rural community in the United States more democratic than in the city ? 2. Make out a list of the twenty-four social events for your community covering the entire year. Arrange these events accord- ing to the seasons. Allow four events to the entire community, ten for the young people, six for the women, four for the men. Name some social gatherings that always occur in summer. In winter. Arrange three programs for social gatherings that will be new and successful. 3. Make out a list of the social events of your community during the past year. In what ways did these gatherings contribute to the welfare of the community ? REFERENCES Physiography GALPIN, CHARLES JOSIAH. Rural Life, Chapters I-II. The Century Co., 1918. LESCOHIER, DON D. The Labor Market, Chapter XIV. The Mac- millan Company, 1919. Aspect of Rural Life GILLETTE, JOHN M. Constructive Rural Sociology, Chapter III. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. TOWNE, EZRA T. Social Problems, Chapter I. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. VOGT, PAUL L. Introduction to Rural Sociology, Chapter II. D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1917. 90 THE RURAL COMMUNITY Population ARONOVICI, CAROL. Americanization. (Read carefully this entire work.) Keller Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minn., 1919. BOGARDUS, EMORY S. Americanization. The entire work. Uni- versity of Southern California Press, Los Angeles, 1920. DAVIS, PHILIP. Immigration and Americanization. Ginn and Company, Boston, 1920. LESCOHIER, DON D. Americanization. (In preparation at date of publication of this book.) Ross, EDWARD A. The Old World in the New. The entire book. Give special care to Chapters I, IX, X, XI, XII. The Century Company, New York, 1914. TOWNE, EZRA T. Social Problems, Chapters II, III. The Macmil- lan Company, New York, 1916. Political Conditions DOLE, CHARLES F. The Young Citizen. The entire book. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston, 1899. FORMAN, SAMUEL E. The American Republic, Chapters I, II, VIII, IX, XI, XII. The Century Company, New York, 1917. GARNER, JAMES W. Government in the United States, Chapters I, II. American Book Company, New York, 1920. GUITTEAU, WILLIAM B. Government and Politics in the United States, Chapters II-VI; VIII-XVII. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1921. . Preparing for Citizenship, Chapters I-X. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1913. HART, ALBERT B. Actual Government as Applied under American Conditions, Chapters I-V; X-XII; XXVIII-XXX. Long- mans, Green, and Company, New York, 1919. The Teaching of Community Civics. Bulletin 23 (1915), United States Bureau of Education, Washington D. C. Religious Conditions BEARD, AUGUSTUS F. The Story of John Frederick Oberlin. The entire work. Pilgrim Press, Boston, 1909. CHARACTERISTICS OF RURAL COMMUNITIES 91 BRICKER, GARLAND A. Solving the Country Church Problem. Chapters I, II, IV, V, VI, VIII, IX, XII, XIV, XVI, XVII. The Jennings and Graham Company, Cincinnati, 1913. CARVER, THOMAS NIXON. Principles of Rural Economics, Chapter VI. Ginn and Company, Boston, 1911. GILLETTE, JOHN M. Constructive Rural Sociology, Chapter XV. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. GROVES, ERNEST R. Using the Resources of the Country Church, Chapters I, II, IV, VI, VIII, XII. Association Press, New York, 1917. WILSON, WARREN H. The Church of the Open Country, Chapters I, II, IV, V, VII, VIII. The Missionary Education Move- ment, New York, 1911. Social Life BUTTERFIELD, KENYON L. Chapters in Rural Progress, Chapter XL University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1908. CROW, MARTHA F. The American Country Girl. The entire work. Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York, 1915. CURTIS, HENRY S. Play and Recreation for the Open Country, Introduction and Parts I, II, III. Ginn and Company, Boston, 1914. FISKE, GEORGE W. The Challenge of the Country, Chapters II, PP- 39-47 5 V, pp. 1 17-139. Association Press, New York, 1912. GALPIN, CHARLES JOSIAH. Rural Social Problems. Fourth Annual Report of the Wisconsin Country Life Conference. Bulletin No. 711, College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin. GILLETTE, JOHN M. Constructive Rural Sociology, Chapter VI. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. TAYLOR, HENRY C. Agricultural Economics, Chapter XXX. The Macmillan Company, 1919. CHAPTER V SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS IN RURAL COMMUNITIES Inequality of capacity and of attainment is character- istic of the individuals of every community, urban or rural, in America or in any other land. When the men who wrote our Declaration of Independence declared that all men were equal, they did not say, nor did they believe, that all men are equal in capacity. They said that all men have an equal right to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness. Equality of opportunity to make the most of our selves, in propor- tion to our varying abilities and degrees of industry, was the right which they fought to secure for us. None recognized more clearly than they that men cannot all run with the same speed, work with the same energy, think with the same clearness, save with the same thriftiness. These differences between men would not constitute a serious social problem if all men were possessed of normal faculties and able to care for themselves. But, unfortunately, nearly every community has in its midst, or has sent to asylum or jail, persons who are feeble-minded, crippled, epileptic, insane, or criminal. Some of these defectives are in a much worse condition than others, but none of them can safely be left to make their way in the world alone. 92 SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS 93 Before discussing in detail the various classes of defectives, dependents, and delinquents who are found in rural as well as in urban communities, it will be worth while to note the facts of inequality as observed among those whom we may call " normal " people. By far the larger part of society is made up of what we know as the normal or average individual. There are also certain individuals recognized by their fellows as above the average in mental or moral attainments, and there are others falling below the average into a state which mankind in general calls defective. There are those in every farm community who seldom or never get good crops while their neighbors on adjoin- ing farms raise satisfactory crops year after year. There are those who never succeed in rising above the ranks of the day laborer, while a majority of those who started on the same level with them are attaining farm ownership and independence. Some start with nothing and achieve a competence ; others inherit a competence and end their lives in poverty. These differences in life-results are due largely to the natural endowment of the individuals and to their early home life, partly to differences in their mental and moral training, and, less frequently, to differences in oppor- tunity. When we turn our attention entirely to those who have succeeded, we again observe inequality, for not all are equally successful ; not all are equally gifted. The subnormal are just as unequal. The mental, moral, and physical defectives of every human kind vary in the degrees and types of their subnormality. Mental defectives range from those who are simply 94 THE RURAL COMMUNITY dull to the idiotic and the insane : physical defectives, from the frail to the paralytics ; moral defectives from those who lack the will or capacity to attain the moral standards accepted by the community as proper, to those who are vicious and criminal. These physical, mental, and moral defects are in some cases congenital and in some cases incurred during the individual's lifetime. For instance, some of the deaf, dumb, and blind are born with their limitations ; others are born normal and become deaf, dumb, or blind through disease or accident. On the whole, those who are born normal are probably less severely hampered. Congenital physical defects often find their origin in a diseased condition of the parents, or in inherited nervous weakness, and are therefore the manifestations of a defective physical constitu- tion. Accidental defects, however, such as the blind- ness often due to the carelessness or incompetence of the attending physician at the time of birth do not neces- sarily imply any deficiency in the person's physical con- stitution. The same is true of those defects of hearing, sight, and the respiratory organs which are due to such diseases as scarlet fever, or of the lameness due to in- fantile paralysis. Such defects are probably more prevalent in rural than in city districts in proportion to the population, because the services of a competent physician are more difficult to obtain. Industrial accidents are more common in some city industries than in agriculture, owing to the greater number of persons engaged in the manufacturing in- dustries, but recent investigations of farm accidents SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS 95 have shown a startling accident rate in agriculture. Fatal or serious accidents are frequently caused on the farm by steam threshing machines, corn shelters, and other kinds of power machinery ; while horses, cattle, and heavy materials have always been the causes of frequent serious injuries. With the increased knowledge of physical reconstruction which has de- veloped during the war, it is entirely possible that all those not totally incapacitated may be so fitted with artificial limbs and so trained that this type of the physically defective need not continue to be a drain upon public benevolence. The teacher in a rural district should be alert to direct the attention of the people in her district to all available means of re- lief for remediable defects. Types of Defectives. Some children are born with- out capacity or with only a limited capacity for mental development. Others receive some shock or are sub- jected to disease or to unfortunate environment with the result that their mental development is arrested at an early stage. At the bottom of the mental scale are the idiots, whose mentality ranges from absolute zero to that of a normal child of three years. Imbe- ciles have capacity to attain the mental development of a normal child of from three to seven years ; while the morons are those whose mentality is similar to that of a normal child of from seven to twelve years. It is probably needless to say that no hard-and-fast lines can be drawn between these various classes, and that there are many persons who cannot be included in these classes who have mental peculiarities which interfere with their success in life. Their minds are 96 THE RURAL COMMUNITY often active but ill-balanced, resulting in defective judgment and poor self-direction. It must also be remembered that when the psychologist says that an adult has a mind equal to that of a five-year-old child, he does not mean that the adult has the mind of a five-year-old child. For even the mental defective has a wider experience than a child and a differ- ent physical development. His emotional responses, as well as his mental and physical responses, will be modified by the fact that he is an adult. What is meant is that his capacity to acquire knowledge and to reason is subject to the limitations of the mind of an average child of the age named. Persons who are born mentally abnormal are re- ferred to by psychologists as " aments," while those who reach maturity with apparently normal minds and then lose their mental control and balance are known as " dements." Dementia or insanity is of varying degrees of severity, and often has an hereditary basis in a " predisposition " or weakness, which causes persons who lack mental stability to break down under some life strain or stress. Sometimes it is due to a deterioration of the physical structure of the brain, due to the so-called social diseases, and certain other diseases. In many cases of insanity among wives of farmers, the particular strain which brings about the breakdown has been found in monotony, isolation, and overwork. The automobile and rural telephone should do much to relieve this particular strain. Epilepsy is another form of ill-balanced mentality. Its causes are unknown. The person so afflicted is SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS 97 usually of an attractive personality between " spells," but the fact that these attacks cannot be foretold, and that they leave the patient in an exhausted con- dition, render it difficult for those so afflicted to be economically independent. Owing to the bad effect which seeing attacks of epilepsy has upon children and adults alike, it is desirable that those subject to frequent and severe attacks should not mingle in general society ; and for their own good they should be guarded from any stress which may aggravate the trouble. These patients are unable to adapt themselves to the conditions of a complex society. Teachers and other rural leaders can do much to alleviate the condition of the insane and the epileptic in their communities, by disseminating correct infor- mation about them. Many people still believe that the cause of these forms of disease is possession by some evil spirit. Others consider insanity and epilepsy a disgrace. Neither assumption is true, any more than is the case with other diseases. People abhor them because they do not understand them. Some physical or nervous defect as yet unascertained is undoubtedly at the root of the trouble in many kinds of insanity. While endeavoring to secure the best kind of treatment for these unfortunates, the social worker in rural com- munities can also do something to remove the stigma from the families of those so afflicted, through educa- tion of the popular mind. The most noticeable class of moral defectives are certain types of criminals. Recent studies in psycho- pathic wards have disclosed the fact that many who have been classed as criminals are in fact high grade 98 THE RURAL COMMUNITY morons or other types of subnormal persons whose mental defects have not been discovered until they have committed crimes. In other cases, criminals are made by their environment ; by their sense of the injustice of the existing social order ; by their training in early life ; or by the fact that they are naturally of a weak character or of low vitality and cannot withstand the stress and strain of life's temptations. 1 Some are anachronisms ; they belong to a period of history not our own, and perhaps in some less organized society would have been the heroes of song and story. Many of the automobile bandits and the daring daylight robbers may perhaps come under this classification. They are possessed of a spirit of daring and deviltry for which there is no place in our complex social or- ganization. However, there are undoubtedly many criminals who are such simply because they have become embittered against society or have not been properly prepared for life. They are the Ishmaels of our times. Crime is to them both a game and a means of livelihood. They hunt men as men hunt game, seeking to get what they can without giving anything in return. But this is only one side of the case. If there are found in society individuals of an unsocial and anti- 1 "I appeal to those who have charge of our reformatories to know if crimes now are not mostly due to diseased bodies or brains, or to defective mentality; to minds over-clouded by brooding among shadows ; or due to lowered resistance, to low vitality, and the stimu- lants craved as an offset to low vitality; to the over-close contact forced by congested living, and the nervous irritability due to the fore- going conditions." Mrs. Albion Fellows Bacon, in Conference on Social Work, 1917, p. 198. SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS 99 social character, there are also distinctly criminal classes which breed and train their own kind. Crimi- nals are made both by heredity and by environment, and it is difficult to state which is the stronger force ; but the children of criminal classes are the victims of both. The rural districts are not afflicted by a criminal class to the same extent as are the cities. The tendency of the habitual criminal is to drift to the city because there he feels himself to be less conspicuous and less lonely than in the country, and because personal con- duct in the country cannot well be concealed. A large proportion of the actual crime in rural communities is committed by hoboes and by the transient laboring classes which invade many agricultural districts in re- sponse to the demand for seasonal labor. The 'willing pauper is another type of moral de- fective. A willing pauper is a destitute person who is habitually and willingly dependent upon charity. With him, pauperism is a condition of character - a weakness and instability which has reduced a person who often appears to be otherwise mentally and physically sound, to a state in which he does not sup- port himself nor assume the responsibilities of normal life. He poses as the victim of misfortune, but in fact desires only to live as a parasite. He is morally incapable of working regularly. He has neither self- respect nor self-reliance. Such paupers are usually dependent upon public almshouses and county farms for the necessities of their existence, though some are supported in their homes by means of private charity. The expression " willing pauper " is used in speaking 100 THE RURAL COMMUNITY of them because there are many persons classified in our statistics as paupers who receive charitable assist- ance unwillingly. Old age, sickness, unemployment, the death of a wage earner or of a child's parents, compel many persons to receive aid who would prefer to be self-supporting. Legally, and statistically, such persons are paupers ; morally, they are not. On the other hand, it should be noted that too free a charity often results in the pauperization of its re- cipients. In rural districts, these dependents are often cared for in county poor farms, where the honest person and the willing pauper unfortunately meet on equal terms and in daily association. In other cases they receive what is known as " out-door " relief from the county; that is, some support is given them in their homes. Nei- ther method is really satisfactory. The almshouses are often badly conducted. Thousands of children are born each year in almshouses, to continue lines of heredity that should be decisively terminated. Young children are often housed among professional paupers and persons of vicious habits and go out into the world with ideas of life that almost inevitably bring them back to the almshouse, to the insane asylum, or to the jail. Out-door relief, on the other hand, is generally in the hands of men who are ignorant of the conditions which breed pauperism and of the significance of the facts of pauperism, and is so ignorantly administered that it too often results in building up a permanent class of dependents. The term juvenile delinquent is used to designate all children and young people who, being of an age at SOCIALLY DEFECTJV/>J#p;iViqU/*LS 101 which the law recognizes accountability, have trans- gressed the law. All such offenders from seven to seven- teen years of age are included in this class. They are either placed under the care of a probation officer or committed to a reformatory institution. The na- ture of the offense and the general conditions of the offender determine the action of the court in doing what it deems necessary for the child and for society under the existing laws of the state. Little has been done in rural communities to care for juvenile delinquents in any adequate manner. In many states children are tried as criminals in adult courts, and in some states where a juvenile court has been established, only one-half of the courts so established have paid probation officers. However, there is a growing in- terest in the subject, and there are juvenile courts or probation officers covering rural districts in no less than eighteen states. Another class of defectives are the habitual drug- takers, commonly known as " drug fiends." Medi- cal experts generally admit that the use of habit-form- ing drugs has greatly increased in the United States during the past ten years, in spite of restrictive legis- lation. The drug habit is, of course, not transmitted by heredity, but the weakness which drugs satisfy may persist in a family for generations. A tendency toward the drug habit may thus be characteristic of a certain line of descent. Except in the underworld, where the gang spirit and the constant search for new sensation are largely responsible for the habit, the use of drugs is ordinarily due to the injudicious nurse or physician, 102 TItE RURAL COMMUNITY or to the patent medicine vendor. Physicians relieve intense suffering in response to the pleading of a pa- tient, and frequently the habit of taking the drug is unconsciously started. The broad and easy road to drug addiction is the use of patent medicines, especially headache and sleeping potions. While druggists are forbidden by law to prescribe, they can, nevertheless, advise ; and the temptation to advise the use of the medicines they have for sale is often too great for people of strong commercial tendencies to withstand. Drug-takers are so sensitive and secretive that no enforced restrictive legislation will ever reveal them all in any community. It will, however, reveal the majority of them. Probably the best example of legis- lation against the illicit traffic in drugs is the Boylan Act, which went into effect in New York State on July I, 1914. As a result of this Act, thousands of these victims appealed to the hospitals for cures. On March i, 1915, the Harrison Act, passed by Congress, put habit- forming drugs under federal control. Under the provisions of this Act, no druggist can dispense any opium derivative or any drug derived from cocoa leaves unless it is prescribed by a physician, in which case the physician's narcotic number must be attached to the prescription, as well as his home address and place of business, and the patient's full name and address. Degeneration signifies a deteriorated condition, a declining in qualities. There are physical, mental, and moral degenerates. Such persons have been re- duced from a higher to a lower condition or type. A SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS 103 person may degenerate without becoming defective, yet degeneracy very soon leads to defectiveness, and it underlies much of our poverty, pauperism, and crime. The annual cost in dollars and cents of supporting the immense number of defectives in the United States, not including the cost of crime, is estimated to be about $400,000,000. Add to this the enormous loss in un- developed ability, as well as the unknown expendi- ture of time and energy on the part of physicians, nurses, teachers, and social workers, and it is evi- dent that effective measures must be taken to stop " the propagation of these social defectives who underrun society like. devil- grass" Up to the present time our methods of distributing charity have actually helped the defective to propagate his kind instead of pre- venting him from doing so. But such methods must be stopped. Just as state commissions have suc- ceeded in controlling the spread of the gypsy moth, the boll weevil, and the foot-and-mouth disease, so effective measures must check the increase of de- fectives and in course of time eliminate them from our social fabric. The New Attitude toward the Subnormal. - Through all the ages of history until recently the feeble-minded, the demented, the halt, the maimed, the blind, and the infirm, have been subject to more or less ridicule and cruelty. But within the past twenty- five years a remarkable change has taken place in the public attitude toward these unfortunates. The study of the social and physical causes which produce de- fectives has partly awakened the public conscience. 104 THE RURAL COMMUNITY Our states are beginning to abolish the words " Insane Asylum" from their statute books and to substitute the name " Hospital for the Insane." The change of name reflects a complete change in the point of view. An asylum is a place of refuge, a place of hiding, of se- clusion. A hospital is a curative institution which exists to relieve and to discharge the patient well and strong into normal living. In the hospitals for the insane the inmates are given special treatment adapted to their particular conditions. Though we are still far from having attained the skill in treating mental diseases that we have attained in treating other sorts of ailments, distinct progress is being made. Unfortu- nately, the general public is not so well informed along these lines as it needs to be, while in many insti- tutions the unfortunate inmates are still the victims of much cruelty and illtreatment, due to the ignorance of the attendants. It is necessary, if we are to reduce materially the number of defectives in the nation, that there be a more widespread knowledge as to the conditions which produce these types. Moreover, our schools must be made to serve all the children of all the people, of every capacity and every class ; and education must be more than a matter of reading, writing, and arithmetic. It is time to recognize that home conditions, the public health, recreation conditions, and school conditions are but different aspects of the life of the same group of people, and that no one of them can be administered without taking the others into account. The goal of America's educational system, urban and rural, must be that every child of whatever capacity, in and out SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS 105 of school, shall have the cultural training necessary to make him an efficient American citizen, and the practical training that will enable him to achieve such a vocation and to be given such ; a start in life as his capacity will permit ; and that if defective, he shall be placed where he will endanger the welfare neither of himself nor of society at large. Teaching must be individualized ; the child must be studied no less carefully than the curriculum ; and methods must be as much specialized and as solidly based on anat- omy, physiology, and psychology as medicine is to-day. There is a sequence in the order in which the senses develop, and in all sense training we should follow that sequence. Every teacher should under- stand the natural way in which children grow. Much of our present teaching retards rather than aids this development. The best of it is often bungling and ineffective. The understanding of these developmental processes is especially imperative in the handling of backward children, a large percentage of whom could be brought up to the normal by scientific training. The subnormal child and the backward child are to-day two of the greatest problems of our educational sys- tem. Neither of these classes is being properly cared for, and both are continually aggravating our problems of crime, poverty, and mental defectiveness. Mental Tests for School Children. - - The use of mental tests has given us a more accurate estimate of the number of mental defectives in our public schools. It has been found that thirty- three per cent of all our public school children in the first five grades are two and a half years retarded ; and that two per cent io6 THE RURAL COMMUNITY of these are mentally defective or below the normal in mental capacity. Retardation, or backwardness, does not necessarily mean that the child has either physical or mental disease, defect, or lack. A retarded child is one who is not up to the work of other children of the same age. If the causes of his retardation can be removed, it will be only temporary. His backwardness may be due to illness, to bad home conditions, to malnutrition, to a poor school curriculum, to poor teaching, to a bad neighborhood. He may have been held back in his physical and mental development by lack of suffi- cient or proper food, by adenoids, by need of glasses, by enlarged tonsils, by an unhappy home, or by other conditions over which the teacher has no direct con- trol, yet which she should try to remedy by bringing to bear upon the case all her ingenuity and all the power vested in the school system. There are cases in which the cause of retardation can be removed, and other cases in which the child has an ineradicable or incurable defect. When, although he has attended school regularly under favorable condi- tions, and although thorough examination by a com- petent physician reveals no serious physical defect, he nevertheless remains three years or more behind his grade, the teacher may be fairly sure that he is mentally defective. It must, however, be constantly remembered that a child may be backward in one way, yet very bright in others, and that school back- wardness alone does not prove defectiveness. It does so only when it is accompanied by other unmistakable signs. SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS 107 From the pedagogical point of view, there are three classes of children : the normal, the subnormal, and the abnormal. A normal child, so far as the school is con- cerned, is one who conforms to the standard set by the majority of children of the same age. This implies an all-round development, physical, mental, and moral. A subnormal child is one who falls below this standard. The term implies some degree of arrest of development, or an incapacity to develop. The term abnormal is used to designate departure from the normal, whether above or below, and includes gen- iuses as well as idiots. Our school system is at pres- ent attuned to the mediocre child, and the curriculum makes little provision for the subnormal types, for the abnormal, or for those who measure somewhat above the average, though not sufficiently so to be classed as geniuses. The mental tests referred to are sets of questions and performances prepared by psychologists which are intended to reveal whether or not the person tested is normal ; or if subnormal, to what grade of subnormality he belongs. One of the most important tests was originally devised by Alfred Binet, a French psychologist, and is called the Binet-Simon Measuring Scale for Intelligence. It was designed for use with the school children of Paris. The first series of the test was given to the public in 1905. The second series, a revision by Binet and Simon, appeared in 1908. The Binet tests endeavor to measure native ability or capacity. They gauge degrees of intelligence. By this means, children can be classified according to their io8 THE RURAL COMMUNITY mental age, and special attention given those who are retarded and troublesome even when correctly classified. .In 1911, Dr. Henry Herbert Goddard of Vineland, New Jersey, made a few changes in this test, making it more adaptable to American children. A further revision was published in 1917 by Professor Lewis M. Terman of Leland Stanford Junior University. It is known as the Stanford Revision and Extension of the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale. 1 Nearly one hundred cities in the United States are now using the Binet-Simon method to detect men- tally subnormal children in the schools. It is used also in most of the institutions for the feeble-minded and the delinquent, and in our juvenile courts. It is a valuable device when thus used by experts, but only those who are thoroughly trained in such work should be permitted to decide on a child's mentality by a Binet-Simon test. Both special training and ex- perience under the direction of an expert are neces- sary to qualify one to assume the responsibility of pro- nouncing a child subnormal and confining it to in- stitutional life, or even of subjecting it to special classi- fication in the schools. In 1907, Professor S. A. Courtis of Detroit, Michi- gan, began experimenting with a set of tests that would measure mental attainment or school progress in the 1 This book and the material for giving the test can be secured from the Houghton Mifflin Company at reasonable rates. Results will be likely, however, to be misleading unless the person giving the test has a wide background of experience from which to draw comparisons and conclusions. SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS 109 different studies of the school curriculum. The first of these tests was published in 1910. They measure the products of school training and are designed for normal children. At the present time, Professor Courtis has four sets of tests : two for progress made in arithmetic, one for reading, one for writing. These tests are not lesson sheets or examinations. They are tools for the investigation of the school progress made by pupils in the different subjects, and are intended to serve four purposes : finding our actual conditions as to school progress in educational systems, in single schools, in separate classes, and in individuals ; dis- covering the natural laws of mental development operative in school work ; making possible measuring experiments that will help to settle all questions of educational procedure ; securing the information needed for setting standards for the guidance of teachers and super in tenden ts . 1 The rural school teacher should be familiar with the fact that such tests can be made and with the principles that underlie them, but should not herself try to make tests. She may be able, however, to have such tests made in her school by an expert in the course of a sur- vey or as a special experiment. But no such step could be taken without the full understanding and the support of a responsible group of the citizens of the district. What the Rural Teacher Can Do to Help Defective Children. First of all, the teacher must help to teach the public that the regular school is not the place for 1 Copies of these tests may be obtained from Dean S. A. Courtis, Detroit Teachers' College, Detroit, Michigan. no THE RURAL COMMUNITY defective children. The subnormal do not get the training they need, and often develop either into a menace or a burden to society. These children need specially designed institutions in which they will be shielded from abuse and curiosity. Secondly, the teacher should do all in her power to help establish a county psychiatric clinic at some convenient center, where all backward children could be examined free of charge by persons who are thoroughly trained for this work ; or she should endeavor to bring about the employing of a county school nurse who could give the children of each school an examination for physical and other defects at specified intervals. There are scores of defective children throughout our rural districts who are receiving neither medi- cal aid nor institutional training. The rural teachers can seek out these unfortunate ones and help to get them into schools and institutions. It is in- finitely better for the community and for the defec- tives themselves to have them segregated in institu- tions where they are protected by an environment suited to their needs and capacity. No sentimental reasons should stand in the way of this segregation, and the rural teacher must learn to combat with solid reasons that feeling against " putting a loved one away " which is most persistent in conservative country districts. The relatives of the defective are entitled, however, to proof that the unfortunate mem- ber of their family will receive kind and understand- ing care in the institution, and every effort should be made to expose the conditions in any institution which fails to meet properly its responsibility. The rural SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS in teacher should also do all within her power to im- prove the home conditions of her pupils. Sanitary conveniences, heating, ventilation, clothing, the se- lection and proper preparation of foods, personal hy- giene, the care of children, and first aid are of the utmost importance to rural people. This effort at improving the home must be tactfully made and cannot be pressed unduly, but the rural teacher is, above all else, a social betterment worker and should ally herself with every social agency that is trying to improve living conditions and should bring her con- stituents into touch with these forward movements. The rural district is at present in need of seeding rather than of harvesting seeding with ideas which will eliminate the causes which lead to much human waste, social defectiveness, misery, and crime. TERMS WITH WHICH EVERY RURAL TEACHER SHOULD BE FAMILIAR Norm, standard, type, average, atavistic, normal, sub- normal, abnormal, cretin, ament, pervert, brachycephalic, microcephalic, dolicocephalic, hydrocephalic, natal, prenatal, postnatal, clinic, laboratory, diagnosis, prognosis, alienist, psy- chiatrist, psychiatric, insanity, lunatic, idiot, imbecile, moron, deviate, remedial, ameliorative, amentia, stigmata, congenital, mongoloid or mongolian, eptoloid, epileptic, psychosis, adenoids, neurosis, neurotic, neurasthenic, paralysis, Jukes, Kallikaks, Nams, Ishmaels. TESTS WHICH THE RURAL TEACHER CAN MAKE There are simple tests which can be made by rural teachers untrained in more scientific methods and removed from clinical centers where expert advice can be secured, yet which will help 112 THE RURAL COMMUNITY her roughly to gauge her students' mental power and her own pedagogic success. The following are easy to give, and will often be found helpful in deciding upon simple cases : A. Reading. 1. If a child picks up a book and holds it naturally; if he does not mutter, mumble, or stammer ; and if he reads articulately and fluently with fair intonation and emphasis, he scores well. Use simple reading matter within the comprehension of other children of his age. 2. Can he recall what he has read ? Does he understand it ? B. Arithmetic. Can he reason? Use simple and practical problems concerning things with which he is familiar. C. Dictation. Use simple sentences easily comprehended by him. These tests are merely pedagogical and reveal only the child's ability to be educated along certain academic lines, yet none the less they may assist the teacher to sift out the pupils in need of special separate attention. QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY The first seventeen questions and the references supplied will provide material for one meeting. The remaining questions and references will provide material for a second lesson on this subject. 1. What is a defective individual? 2. Name different kinds or classes of defectives. Describe each type. 3. Distinguish between poverty and pauperism. What are the general causes of poverty? 4. Distinguish between insanity and feeble-mindedness. 5. Distinguish between a pauper and a dependent. 6. Distinguish between an idiot, an imbecile, and a moron. 7. What is meant by degeneracy? Name some classes of degenerates. 8. What is meant by a "juvenile delinquent" ? 9. Where and when was the first juvenile court established SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS 113 in the United States? Name some of the leaders in this move- ment. 10. What are the social causes of def ectiveness ? Name the four which you think are the most important. 11. Define eugenics. What is the purpose of eugenic marriage laws ? What is a hygienic marriage law ? 12. About how much def ectiveness is said to be due to heredity ? To environment ? 13. How many generations do you think it will be necessary to educate along the line of right living before the number of de- fectives will be lessened by one half ? 14. In how many ways do social defectives cause expense to society ? 15. Name all the means at our command at present for the decreasing of social def ectiveness. 1 6. What can each of us, as individuals, do to help in reducing this tremendous burden to society ? 17. Have the schools been doing their duty in this matter of preventing and reducing defectiveness ? If not, why ? 1 8. Why should vocational education and vocational guidance be extended as rapidly as possible ? What are some of the dangers to be avoided in these lines of educational work ? 19. What is meant by mental retardation? Give some causes of retardation. 20. How would you proceed to decide whether or not a child was mentally defective ? 21. Distinguish between temporary retardation and permanent retardation. 22. Give some of the stigmata of the mental defectiveness. Could you diagnose a case of idiocy ? Of imbecility ? 23. Discuss the different tests which have been designed for the measuring of intelligence. 24. Name some of the uses being made of these tests. 25. Do you think rural teachers should be able to administer first aid? Are the schools teaching practical hygiene? 26. What can a rural teacher do to help in this great movement to relieve society of the presence and burden of social defectiveness ? H4 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 27. What are the problems of your community along these lines of defectiveness ? Can you suggest feasible remedies? What can you do to help in this matter? Is the community awake to its duty? 28. Why do higher standards of living lessen -the problems of social wreckage ? REFERENCES ARTHUR, GRACE. "An Application of Intelligence Tests to the Problem of School Retardation." School and Society, vol. 10, pp. 614-620; Nov. 22. 1919. BRECKENRIDGE, SOPHONISBA P., and ABBOTT, EDITH. The De- linquent Child and the Home. Survey Associates, Inc., New York, 1912. DEVINE, EDWARD T. Misery and Its Causes, Chapters I, II, III, IV. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1913. DUGDALE, RICHARD L. The Jukes, Part I. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1910. GEORGE, WILLIAM R. The Junior Republic, Its History and Ideals. The entire work. D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1909. GILLETTE, JOHN M. Constructive Rural Sociology, Chapters XI, XVII. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. GODDARD, HENRY. The Kallikak Family. The entire work. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1912. GUYER, MICHAEL F. Being Well Born, Chapters I, II, V, VI, VIII, IX, X. Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1916. HART, HASTINGS HORNELL. Juvenile Court Laws in the United States. Introduction. Survey Associates, Inc., New York, 1910. HEALY, WILLIAM. Honesty. The entire work. Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1915. HENDERSON, CHARLES R. An Introduction to the Study of Depend- ent, Defective, and Delinquent Classes, Part III. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston, 1901. HOLLANDER, JACOB H. The Abolition of Poverty. The entire work. Hough ton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1914. SOCIALLY DEFECTIVE INDIVIDUALS 115 HOLMES, ARTHUR. Backward Children. The entire work. Bobbs- Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1915. HUNTER, ROBERT. Poverty, Chapters I, II, III. The Mac- millan Company, New York, 1912. LESCOHIER, BOND. The Labor Market, Chapters XIII, XIV. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1919. MOSBY, THOMAS S. Causes and Cures of Crimes, Chapters II, V. C. V. Mosby Company, St. Louis, 1913. OSBORNE, THOMAS MOTT. Society and Prisons. The entire work. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1916. PARMELEE, MAURICE F. Poverty and Social Progress, Chapters V, XX, XXX. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. PUFFER, J. ADAMS. The Boy and His Gang. The entire work. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1912. RICHARDS, ELLEN H. Euthenics. (A Plea for Better Living Con- ditions.) The entire work. Whitcomb & Barrows, Boston, 1912. SOLONBERGER, ALICE W. One Thousand Homeless Men. The entire work. Survey Associates, Inc., New York, 1911. TOWNE, EZRA T. Social Problems, Chapters VIII-XIV ; XVII. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. VOGT, PAUL L. An Introduction to Rural Sociology, Chapters VIII, XI. D. Appleton and Company, 1917. CHAPTER VI THE DISTRICT SCHOOL Needed : An Adequate Rural School System. - The greatest need of the rural community of to-day is a school system that is especially designed to pro- vide for rural needs. A system borrowed from a city, no matter how well it has worked there, is not certain to serve the needs of a country district. The country districts, unfortunately, have not been as quick as the cities to realize the importance of adapt- ing their educational methods to their own particular needs. Educators are beginning to understand that the cities and the rural regions are essentially differ- ent and that each must develop its own educational system. There are at least four reforms which are needed to adapt our rural schools to the needs of our rural people : (1) teachers, supervisors and county superintend- ents who are specially trained for rural work ; (2) more and better supervision of school work ; (3) courses of study adapted to present rural con- ditions ; (4) properly equipped school plants. Some states and localities have attained these reforms, at least in part, but the major portion of our rural school system is backward. The vital importance of an efficient system of rural schools to the welfare of the nation justifies a demand 116 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 117 that the federal government take definite steps to promote and insure an adequate system of rural edu- cation. Such a federal policy can hardly be attained until the federal Bureau of Education is taken out of the Department of the Interior and made a Depart- ment of Education with a secretary in the Cabinet. That the educational welfare of the nation should be represented by a subordinate bureau of the federal government is a national disgrace. We are the only important nation to-day that does not have a Secretary of Education of Cabinet rank. There must be a federal department of education in the United States, and in it a Bureau of Rural Education. Our Rural Schools Are Out-of-Date. Sixty- two per cent of the children of America are educated in rural schools ! Read that sentence over again. Keep it in mind as you read this chapter. Over one-half the children of our nation attend one-room district schools, where a single teacher vainly endeavors to teach several, often eight, different grades. In some states, as many as four-fifths of all the children are in the one-room school. Over half our farmers have no more than a sixth grade educa- tion. In parts of many of our states, seventy-five per cent of the rural pupils leave school before they have finished the sixth grade. Illiteracy in rural territory is twice as great as in urban territory. Nearly forty-eight per cent (47.7) of our rural schools have an enrollment of ten pupils or less, and only 8.5 per cent have an enrollment of twenty or more pupils. Such small schools lack the spirit and enthusiasm which is present in larger schools, and a one-teacher Ii8 THE RURAL COMMUNITY rural school cannot possibly, especially in the usual short term, give the school work needed by farm boys and girls of to-day. Such schools cannot teach agriculture as a business, or the art of home- making and manual training ; nor can they carry out the project work so essential to the binding together of school and home. In a few instances in a half dozen states, resource- ful, ingenious, enthusiastic teachers have succeeded in improvising a little apparatus and in adding to their program of eight grades of elementary work some simple work in manual training and in domestic science. But these successes have been possible very largely because of the hearty response of unusually intelligent communities. Here and there one finds a well-built, neatly painted, well-kept rural school, sometimes with two or three rooms, but commonly the schoolhouse is a little one- room, weather-beaten building by a lonely roadside. A little to the rear are two out-buildings, often wretch- edly cared for. The interior of the schoolhouse is generally unpainted and it is equipped with hard, straight seats and uncomfortable desks that make it anything but inviting. What wonder the pupils leave at their first opportunity ? A water pail with a tin cup, a " volcano " stove, and a raised or lowered window generally do duty for drinking fountain, heating, and ventilation. There are none of the societies, glee clubs, orchestras, or athletics that give such zest to school work in urban centers and that should fill a place in adolescent life. Occasionally a teacher of ex- ceptional personality provides some small substitute, THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 119 but frequently school life in the country means nothing more than the effort to master the work of the first eight grades under difficult conditions, softened only by noon-hour play on the school playground. The backwardness of the rural schools has been due to a number of causes. The farmers in many sections of the country have not yet realized the value of edu- cation to a farmer. The writer has personal knowl- edge of several rural schools where the people actually boast of having from three to six teachers in a term of eight months. Taxpayers who pride themselves on their shrewdness in matters of dollars and cents fail to see the important fact that they could realize twice as much on every dollar expended for their schools if they gave the teachers active and hearty support in the discipline and curriculum of the school. The rural school has been held back by the failure of the farming population to realize the cash value of educa- tion to their business, as well as its value to citizenship. The comparative poverty of the country school district, the decentralization of our school system, and the lack of central supervision and control have been other important impediments to the progress of the rural school. A country school, like a city school, must draw its pupils from homes near to the school, so that the child can get to school and home again without overfatigue. The total number of families within a child's walking distance from a country school is necessarily small, under American agricultural condi- tions. Ordinarily, none of the families are well-to-do. The total amount of property taxable for the sup- 120 THE RURAL COMMUNITY port of a given school is often too small to support a good school in a typical rural school district. Even when the aids to rural schools distributed by some states are taken into account, the funds available are often too small to support a school of the quality needed by every American child. Frequently, the district does not provide for its schools as well as it could afford to do, and the lack of state-wide standards for rural schools and of state supervision has permitted the locality to provide only such education as it chose. Even when a state realizes the need for good rural schools, and establishes a well -organized course of study for rural schools, as New York State has done, the one-room school presents almost insuperable obsta- cles to really efficient educational work. Supervision by the state and county of the teacher's work is generally inadequate ; the teacher is not able to specialize ; and the effort to teach all the subjects in all the grades dissipates her time and energy without commensurate results. This situation is aggravated by the frequent change of teachers. Relatively few districts hold their teachers more than one, two, or three years. Many districts seldom hold a teacher an entire year. Others seldom hold a teacher an entire term. The rural school, be- cause of the low wages, hard work, and lack of sup- port of the teacher by the community, which characterize a majority of them, are very commonly taught by young girls who are waiting to get married, or who are using the rural school as a stepping stone to a better education and to a town or city school. THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 121 The situation is much better in those states, counties, and townships in which the one-room schools have been discarded and the consolidated school has been provided for the children from a number of school dis- tricts. The consolidated school permits the grading of the pupils in separate rooms and under teachers who are specialists in the teaching of one or two grades ; makes possible the development of a real school spirit ; and provides a sufficient financial support to enable the school to get manual training and domestic science equipment, and to provide courses of a semivocational character. But it must not be forgotten that such schools have not yet become typical representatives of American rural education. The one-room, one- teacher, inefficient district school continues to be our dominant type of rural school. How different the situation in city schools ! While far from ideal in many cases, they are far in advance of the rural schools. Though the older school buildings are often not of the best type, most of the newer buildings are equipped with up-to-date heat- ing, lighting, and ventilating systems. Some south- ern cities have gone so far as to install cold-air sys- tems in the school buildings so that the pupils may be able to study better during the hot months. Pro- gressive cities, north and south, have well-equipped manual training and domestic science rooms, and often school libraries, gymnasiums, lunch rooms, and other conveniences. More and more attention is being paid to the child's physical welfare. Physical examinations by school physicians, and supervision of the diet and clothing of 122 THE RURAL COMMUNITY the child by school nurses are becoming common. In some cities if the school nurse or the school's home visitor finds that a family is not financially able to provide what is needed by a child, the case is called to the attention of philanthropic individuals or that of organizations which see that the need is taken care of. Warm lunches are frequently served in the school buildings at little or no cost, as conditions necessitate. The city high schools have scientific laboratories, libraries, a large assembly room or hall, and other special facilities. College preparatory, commercial, technical, manual training, and domestic science courses are frequently offered. In the most advanced school systems, vocational guidance helps the child to choose the course best suited to his capacities and situation. Beside all these advantages, there are athletic associa- tions, glee clubs, orchestras, literary societies, debating clubs, and various social clubs, all of which add to the attractiveness of school life. Public libraries, art museums, zoological gardens, botanical gardens, thea- ters, and supervised playgrounds supplement the school plant in many of the larger cities. In a rapidly increasing number of states, continua- tion schools, at which attendance is compulsory for about eight hours a week, are provided for those boys and girls who have left the day schools and entered industrial life. The instruction they receive is closely related to their vocation and supplements and interprets their industrial experience. Backward, subnormal, crippled, and tubercular chil- dren are, in a number of cities, separated from the nor- THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 123 mal children and given special training by teachers who have specialized in methods of training such children. The efficiency of the city school system is being steadily improved under the administration and super- vision of educational experts of large caliber. A corps of specialists, supervisors, heads of depart- ments, and special officials look after the various phases of the school work. Moderate-sized cities, of course, provide less of this specialized supervi- sion than the larger cities, but it is present in all city school systems to a greater or less extent. Never before in the history of the world has education been so freely offered to the great mass of the common people as in certain of our largest cities at the present time. The country is not the city. It has not the city's needs ; nor has it the city's resources. Urban school systems cannot be reproduced in toto in rural dis- tricts, but the interest in education which is so characteristic of American cities can be fostered in the country. The development of the best schools possible can become an objective in rural life as it has been in urban life. Through consolidation of district schools into centralized grade schools equipped for up-to-date educational work, teaching standardized courses prepared for rural schools, with teachers trained especially for rural work and receiving salaries such as will enable them to preserve their self-respect, and with adequate supervision by the state and the county, a rural school system can be developed which will meet the needs of rural life in America as well as the city schools meet the needs of urban life. 124 THE RURAL COMMUNITY Teachers Specially Trained for Rural Work Are Badly Needed. Statistics recently compiled by the United States Bureau of Education show that 32.3 per cent of the rural teachers in the United States have no professional training of any nature. Four per cent have not completed the eighth grade of the elementary school, and 32 per cent have not com- pleted a high school course. Only 3.2 per cent have received normal school diplomas. The teachers in our rural schools are inadequately prepared for their work. They are also overburdened. Sixty-six per cent (66.2) of them are teaching eight grades or more and conducting twenty- five to thirty- five recitations daily. These figures very largely ex- plain why we have a backward rural school system, and why we have relatively few progressive rural leaders. Another impediment of the rural school is the transient teacher the young men or women who teach in rural schools to earn enough to enable them to complete their college courses or their training for some profession. These young people are likely to be immature both in mind and in character and fre- quently care nothing about the pedagogic art. They are oftentimes a positive detriment to the community life and to the cause of education as well. The rural population is now awakening to the need for trained and thoroughly competent teachers, and to the fact that the rural school at present does not fulfill the demands for rural education. To be a successful farmer to-day a man must, as one farmer expressed it, " know about soils, soil drainage, soil chemistry, soil physics, the relation of crops to soil and climate, the THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 125 rotation of crops, fertilization, ... be a good buyer and seller, a good manager, and must know something about bookkeeping." A man cannot learn all these things, nor acquire the vision to see his need of them, without an adequate elementary education. Professional requirements for teachers must be raised, and salaries that will attract superior ability must be paid. Teachers should be the best educated and best paid of all our public workers. There are several states in which the average annual salaries of the rural schools is less than the annual cost of supporting a pauper in the county almshouse. Our higher in- stitutions of learning must provide courses that will adequately prepare rural teachers not only to teach rural grade and high school classes, but to be leaders in all phases of rural life. For instance, the country teacher should have a fair knowledge of social science in order to make the school a source of strength to the community, to retain the best of each generation as permanent country residents, and to mold rural minds to creative social thought. Proper Supervision. Every state should organize a closely knit, strongly centralized school system. The state commissioner of education should have large powers and be able to carry out his policies and make his directions effective, unhampered by any political in- fluence. He should be assisted by specialists chosen solely for their ability as educators. Favoritism and politics have no place in any part of our school system. The administration of rural schools must be made a learned profession, and specialists in the state edu- 126 THE RURAL COMMUNITY cational department must lead in the constructive improvement of rural school standards. There is, fortunately, a growing feeling that county superintendents of schools should be trained men and women with educational experience and acquaintance with rural conditions ; that they should be supported by a competent corps of supervisors ; and that they should have clerical assistance for their office work. A county superintendent of schools in the United States combines within himself the characters of a min- ister of public instruction, an inspector of schools, a licenser of teachers, and a professor of pedagogy. He occupies a position wholly .unlike that of any scholastic officer found in any European country. An office comprising these varied and extensive duties clearly requires both broad and specialized training. The county superintendent of schools should be more than a mere adviser of local school boards or teachers. He should have important regulative and administrative powers. He should have a voice in the engaging of teachers and the fixing of salaries ; at least to the extent of fixing minimum standards. He should participate in the control of school funds within his county and should be consulted as to the amount of school tax to be levied. He should have some advisory control over school books and courses of study ; arid should have power to enforce school attend- ance laws, if local officials are derelict. He should also be a member of, or a consulting adviser to, any adminis- trative board in control of the township or the county schools. In 1911, thirty- four states having county superintend- THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 127 en ts reported that these superintendents were elected by popular vote and had no assistants. In the majority of these states, the superintendents had no voice in the choice of textbooks or of teachers, nor in the levying of taxes. In sharp contrast to this condition, we find that city superintendents are not elected by popular vote, but are chosen on account of their ex- perience and fitness to do the work. Boards of edu- cation are leaving to the superintendents practically the entire direction of school affairs. The rural schools, however, are still very much decentralized, and the local officeholder often insists upon attempting to administer matters about which he knows little or nothing. Domination of the rural schools by the county superintendent is not altogether desirable ; but a centralized policy is very necessary. This will perhaps be best attained by a small county board, with the superintendent as a member, which will have control and supervision of textbooks, courses of study, and school standards. Improved supervision is essential to the improve- ment of the individual schools. Throughout the United States, the county is yet, with a few exceptions, 1 the unit of rural school administration. In many counties there are from one hundred to six hundred schools. The best superintendent can hardly give effective supervision to so many schools scattered over so large an area. Consequently, many rural districts have had almost no supervision. There has been an awakening to this fact, and, since 1911, a number of states have provided supervisors or 1 New England, New York, Virginia, and Nevada. 128 THE RURAL COMMUNITY assistants to aid the superintendent in his extensive duties. Several states have divided the counties into districts averaging about one-fourth of a county. A supervisor of one of these districts has from twenty to sixty teachers under his direction and has some chance to do good work. This is a great forward step in rural education. Wherever we find the one-room district school pre- dominant, there should be a supervisor for each town- ship ; but where the consolidated school prevails, the county may not be too large an area for good super- vision, especially if the supervision is departmental in its character. Teachers' Tenure of Office and Salaries. Se- cure tenure of office, as a means of keeping experienced and efficient teachers and of preventing a constant changing of the teaching body, is now well established in many cities. Some states have recently begun to extend this condition to the rural districts. The average length of time rural teachers in the United States remain in one school is 13.8 months. In a study of the tenure of office of the rural teachers of North Carolina, made in 1911, it was found that 63 per cent were teaching their first year in their present positions ; 23 per cent their second year ; 8 per cent their third year. Only 6 per cent were teaching more than their third year in the position they then occupied. The tenure of office of both teachers and county superintendents has been much too short for effective service. At least one year of work in a district is necessary to learn its peculiar social and economic features, yet the majority of teachers seek a THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 129 new field at the end of each school year. Perhaps both communities and teachers are to blame for this deplorable condition. Efficient and desirable teachers should be given permanent tenure of office and an annual increase in salary until a just maximum is reached. Such a practice would keep more capable teachers in the pro- fession, as well as in the same school. Teachers would then be more likely to become community leaders, and could work out, through a period long enough to test its value, a consistent educational and social policy. A Teacherage for Every Rural School. Another feature of the new rural school system should be the teacherage, which should be located on or near the school grounds. It should be a model rural home with modern equipment and a well laid out lawn, and should serve as a standing lesson and example to the community. One of the chief reasons why desirable and capable teachers do not remain longer in the rural schools is the absence, in many localities, of satis- factory living conditions. Other nations have recog- nized and met this need. In Denmark, every rural school has its teacher's house with kitchen garden and flower garden. It is the permanent residence of the educational leader, who, as a rule, continues his work in one school from ten to fifty years. Many school- masters in that country devote their entire lives to one or two communities. In France, every public school teacher is provided at public expense with living quar- ters. The same system is spreading through Sweden, Norway, and Finland. The United States has made 130 THE RURAL COMMUNITY some tentative beginnings in this direction. The State of Washington is providing living quarters for teachers. North Dakota, in 1914, had twenty- two schools with teacherages. Mississippi, North Carolina, Illinois, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Minnesota have made promising experiments. In Hawaii one-third of the schools have cottages built at public expense. A teachers' house is particularly necessary to the larger consolidated school which it is now agreed will be the typical rural educational institution of the future. Courses of Study Adapted to Present Rural Needs. A more adequate curriculum for rural schools is an essential accompaniment to the other reforms men- tioned, and will follow as a matter of course the lifting of the standards for rural teachers. The boys and girls of to-morrow must be given a wider and clearer vision, and a training that will beautify and make fruitful the hills and valleys of our land. To this end, we must reorganize the rural courses of study so that all phases of rural life and all classes of rural children shall receive attention. Agriculture is a field for dis- tinguished achievement. The successful farmer of to-day is a scientist, a naturalist, and a business man. He understands the meaning of efficiency as applied to time, energy, and money. If we can keep a fair proportion of our most vigorous, capable, enterpris- ing, and idealistic young people on the farm for the next generation, our problem of rural life development will be on the high road to solution. These young idealists must be inspired with a rural loyalty that is born of kinship, love of home, and a vision of the possibilities of rural life that will make them willing to THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 131 serve mankind in the agricultural district. A practi- cal study of agriculture, while necessary, is not enough. The curriculum must be broad enough to direct at- tention to, and arouse interest in, all phases of country life and the agencies at hand for the achievement of the highest possibilities on the farm. Home life must not be neglected in the new curric- ulum of rural schools, for the home is one of the funda- mental institutions of American life, and particularly of American farm life. The public schools of both city and country have too long overlooked the fact that girls need training in home-making. Or, perhaps it would be truer to say that, since many homes no longer train girls as home-makers, it now becomes the duty of the public schools to help with the task. The cen- sus of 1910 shows that 86.7 per cent of the women in America twenty-five years of age and over are married. Most of them begin their married life with little under- standing of the duties they should assume and practi- cally no preparation for them. A rural school teacher who has been trained in domestic science as well as in the teaching of the three " R's" will be able to render material assistance to the overworked farmer's wife. The average country woman, even in America in this twentieth century, does not always occupy an enviable position. Her working day is quite as long as that of her husband, and her husband has one advantage, namely, that in one day in seven he rests. Not so his wife ! Her rest day is often her busiest one, for rela- tives or neighbors may come in to call and to dine. Labor-saving devices for the household have been slow to appear on the market slower in reaching the 132 THE RURAL COMMUNITY home that needs them. The farmer has his agricultural machinery many years before the wife obtains a wash- ing machine or running water in the house. Indeed, the development of the machine age in agricultural production must precede the machine age in the home. But even when this is taken into consideration, it is true that wives often use the old hand utensils of their grandmothers long after modern housekeeping devices have been at their disposal. The well- trained, tactful rural teacher should be able to do much to pro- mote modern methods of housekeeping on the farm. Relief for the farm woman from the strain of over- work is essential to her social efficiency. A half-sick drudge is a poor wife and an even poorer mother, and the small margin of time if indeed there be any which she has left for social pleasure and mental cultivation makes it nearly impossible for her to keep up with current events, to do any general reading, to enjoy or direct her family's life, and to mingle in neighborhood life. The domestic science course in rural schools should therefore stress scientific planning of housework and the use of labor-saving devices, and the real meaning of home-making. Furthermore, the woman is handicapped by her surroundings. The farm homestead is frequently neither so attractive nor so convenient as it might be made. The rural school curriculum may well in- clude an attractive course in farm home planning. Plans for artistic houses which can be built at a mod- erate cost and which are suitable to a rural setting should be placed in the hands of every farm boy and girl. THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 133 The curriculum may also include a study of the natural environment of the neighborhood, the trees, shrubs, and native flowers which can with little diffi- culty be used in beautifying the farmstead. This part of the course might be advantageously connected with the home project work described later in this chapter. The civic and political side of rural life should also be related to the curriculum, so that the young people of the rural districts may have a clearer con- ception of the times in which they live. Ideals which will make stronger and better citizens must be implanted, developing a patriotism as strong and active in peace as in war. The school must help the home and the church in raising the social and ethical standards of the masses and in relieving our nation of its great burden of crime, poverty, mental defective- ness, and disease. In a democracy, the school must do what the home and the church fail to do, because the public school can be controlled by public opinion and public authority to a greater extent than any other institution. The quality of our citizenship in the lower classes is now almost entirely in the hands of our school teachers; and the social life of our people must tend continuously upward. The school term should be as long as local conditions will permit nine or ten months for the younger pupils and not less than seven or eight for the older ones who must help with the farm work. The outside reading, nature study, and project work of these older pupils should be under the supervision of the teachers during the months when they are not in attendance. 134 THE RURAL COMMUNITY If the district is not able to maintain a school for so many months, state or federal aid should bring it up to the required standard. Education is a national matter, for a boy or girl educated in Maine may spend the latter part of his life in Louisiana or California. Yet no district should be permitted to cease local taxa- tion and depend upon outside funds. Consolidated Schools. In contrast to the one- room, one- teacher school, with seven or eight pupils in as many grades, there is now developing in many parts of the country the township consolidated school. The superintendent of one such school describes the school plant in an announcement to the patrons of the school : ' ' The rooms have been newly cleaned and re- decorated, and all needed equipment and supplies are at hand. Seven experienced teachers are instructing in the ten grades offered by the school this year, and an approved course of study is providing practical and efficient development for the 160 pupils enrolled." A month later, in another bulletin, the same super- intendent writes : ' The school nurse is examining pupils now for physical defects, and parents should consult a reliable adviser immediately to have same relieved, for they cause poor work in most cases." Then follows some practical suggestions for the care of the child's health in the home, proper food for the school lunch, and the practice of " health chores." This school provides a warm lunch for the children, the materials for which can be supplied by the parents. A night school is conducted two nights a week for three months during the winter, for all who de- sire work in the common branches. The high school THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 135 work is being rapidly extended, and the school is a center for many kinds of community activities. Public transportation to and from school is provided by law in that state, so that the pupils who live at any distance from the school are spared the difficulties of traveling back and forth on foot in summer heat and winter cold, and in the rains and storms of spring and fall. The anxiety of parents to secure for their chil- dren as good an education as their neighbor's children are receiving will cause a keener interest in good roads, for the law provides that when roads are impass- able transportation will not be supplied. The school described is typical. It is not one of the best. Its plant, so the superintendent says, is already inadequate and an addition is hoped for by another year. With 12,000 such schools in the United States in 1915 and the number constantly growing, the prospect for rural education is unquestionably improving, and the hope for a more healthful country life seems near at hand. However, large sections of the United States are still untouched by this movement, and there are spots here and there in the states which are most advanced that have not yet measured up to their possibilities. The advantages of such a school are many and obvious. A few of them may be enumerated. More children are educated and all receive a better educa- tion than in the old type of school. The courses of study in the grades can be better correlated with the work in agriculture in the high school. Various types of courses can be given, suited to the various needs. 136 THE RURAL COMMUNITY Better teachers can be secured, each one trained in her subject or in the teaching of certain grades. More men will be attracted to the ranks of teaching. Better super- vision is possible. Social center work may be established in the school building. The assembly room is large enough for lectures and entertainments, and for those programs prepared by pupils which are always inter- esting to parents and to the whole community. The good will of the entire community is thus obtained for the school and loyal support is secured. The school becomes an active agency for rural life better- ment, as each teacher can have a particular phase of the community life for his or her special line of social service work. The teacher of athletics and gym- nasium work for boys can look after the social life and training of the young men ; the teacher of gymnastics for girls can look after the social life and training of the young women ; the domestic science teacher can visit the homes and work among the farmers' wives ; the teachers of agricultural subjects can act as advisers to the farmers on such matters as crops, weeds, insect pests, animals, co- operative buying and selling, dairying, and the fruits of the district. The community would have at its service expert advice and help along all lines of ac- tivity. Such a school provides an education that will fit boys and girls for rural life. Most of the work is an actual part of the children's lives. It gives rural children work in hygiene, in social and moral training, in home-making, and in economics sub- jects that will develop standards that will guide them in the perplexities of twentieth-century conditions. THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 137 There may be places in the United States where, because of climate, topography, or scanty population, the one-room school must be retained. In such in- stances, it should be made the best possible unit of its type, and the township or county should make provi- sion for the children to continue their education at the nearest secondary school. In case a consolidated school cannot be effected, a two- or three-room school would be better than the one-room type, as a larger group of pupils makes possible more school activities and requires enough teachers to care for different lines of work. Home Project Work. It is clear that the purpose of teaching does not stop with the school walls, but reaches out into the world in which the children live. Of this world, the home is for the child the most im- portant factor. The best way for the teacher to reach the home is by requiring the pupils to do at home what they have learned at school, and to assist the pupils in forming their plans for work at home. This is a logical and necessary part of both agricultural and domestic arts work, in that both are essentially vocational and require concrete experience as the basis of instruction. Moreover, school work that is connected with the actual conditions of the home will tend to keep the pupil interested and enthusiastic. The spirit of friendliness and cooperation between the school and the home is developed. The School -f The Home = Progress. Parents have more faith in a school that teaches their children something immediately practical and worth while. The teacher of agriculture can, through his 138 THE RURAL COMMUNITY pupils, reach every patron in the district, giving to each a clearer appreciation of the problems involved in the work of the farm. The teacher of domestic arts has much missionary work to do along the line of teaching sane and healthful living, and good taste. She has the opportunity to become the friend and adviser of every home-maker in the district. Work of this sort, assigned by the teacher and per- formed in connection with the home routine, is called a " home project." Projects may be grouped ac- cording to their chief aim, as production projects, the chief purpose of which is to produce an agricultural product at a profit ; demonstration projects, where the chief aim is to demonstrate improved methods or materials ; experimental projects, where there is un- certainty as to the results ; or improvement projects, where students undertake the improvement of plants and animals, the home grounds, or the farm in gen- eral, with little hope of immediate results. During the progress of his school work, a pupil should engage in projects in each of these four classes ; and in con- nection with the high school course in agriculture, such work can be carried further along more techni- cal lines. The work of these projects is in every case immensely practical. Through such work as garden- ing, canning, or poultry-raising, the boys and girls learn to appreciate the meaning of ownership, and they develop a sense of responsibility which fits them for citizenship. Through it also, a partnership may be developed between parents and their children, and parents who encourage these home projects find that their children become keenly interested in the THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 139 farm and the home. However, the teacher who has charge of the home project work must see that there is a genuine cooperation between parents and children ; otherwise the partnership is a mere empty husk. Projects may be very simple indeed, involving for the younger pupils such things as doing their ordi- nary domestic chores by improved methods, helping mother keep the house neat and attractive, sleeping with open windows, bathing regularly, a dozen other things easy to do but of infinite social value. School credit should by all means be given for such home work, not only because it is an incentive to the pupil, but because it is a much better test of ability than is much of the work done at school, and because it touches the home in a vital way. Judging from what has been accomplished in the line of project work in various parts of this country, we have reason to expect that, when handled by adequately prepared teachers, it should be a means of giving the school work a new value in the estimation of the parents, of making the teacher a recognized force in the community, of making the pupils feel that school work is an actual part of life, of vital- izing and making more thorough the school curric- ulum, and of developing skill in farm and home operations. QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY i. Weigh our rural schools in the balance of your knowledge and experience in the rural community and try to ascertain in how many ways they are found wanting. 140 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 2. Why have the schools of our cities progressed more rapidly than the schools of our rural districts ? 3. Why have city schools failed to meet the needs of rural people ? 4. In what respects to you think the schools in our cities surpass the schools in our rural districts ? 5. Is it possible for the rural districts to have schools as good as those in the cities ? Defend your opinion. 6. Do you think the one-room district school is responsible in part for the backward condition of our rural districts ? 7. Why have farmers generally opposed the raising of the tax rate ? 8. State six disadvantages of a one-room rural school. 9. Are there subjects which should be taught to-day to rural young people in the grades which cannot be given- in a one-room district school? Name these subjects. 10. Name some educational advantages of the rural districts which have not yet been made use of by the rural schools. Why have these advantages not been utilized? 11. Is the education of our young people a matter of local or of national concern? 12. Do you believe that the federal government should grant aid to new states and to those struggling under adverse conditions ? Defend your opinion. 13. What should be the aims of the educational system of a democracy in this century? 14. In how many ways have our rural schools failed to meet the needs of rural people? What will remedy these shortcomings of the district school system? Defend your opinion. 15. State seven things which all our rural schools must do to meet the needs of our rural people and to justify the taxes ex- pended for their maintenance. 1 6. What is the greatest need of our rural people to-day? De- fend your statement. 17. Why has it been so difficult to obtain a federal Secretary of Education with a seat in the Cabinet ? Go back to our colonial era and trace out the reasons for this condition. THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 141 1 8. Why has teaching been permitted to serve as a stepping stone to other professions ? 19. What effects will the requiring of professional training have upon the profession of teaching? Will it raise teaching above the position of a stepping stone to other professions ? 20. In what ways have the town and city high schools been a source of weakness to most of the rural districts ? Does this con- dition prevail at present ? If so, how can it be remedied ? 21. Plan out a campaign by which you think you could awaken rural people to their educational needs and by which you could arouse them to action. 22. What is the work of a school supervisor? 23. State the duties of a county superintendent of schools in your state. 24. What is meant by "tenure of office " ? 25. Is a school manse or teacherage always advisable for a one- room school? State some arguments in favor of teacherages. Are they necessary for consolidated and other large schools ? Are they desirable ? If so, why ? 26. Define "home project" work and give advantages of such work when managed by able teachers. 27. Using your own homestead as a project, consider what could be done to improve the arrangement of the lawn and residence. Discuss the style of architecture best suited to this particular setting. What local trees, shrubs, vines, and flowers could you combine in the plan for the grounds about the farm buildings, especially for the lawn? Why has the architecture of farm homes been of such an inferior grade? Make a collection of at least a dozen pictures of residences that would be suitable for a rural setting and for a farm home. Make a list of at least a dozen names that would be appropriate for rural homesteads, as Brook Farm, Cloverdale, etc. 28. State the kinds of training which the rural schools must provide if they are to meet the present needs of rural people. 29. State some advantages of the consolidated rural school. 30. In case it is not possible for a district to have a consolidated school, what is the next best thing to be done ? 142 THE RURAL COMMUNITY ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS The following questions will lead to a clearer understanding of school conditions in any rural district : 1 . How could the school system in your district be reorganized to secure the advantages of unified administration enjoyed by city schools ? 2. Is yours a climate or locality in which consolidation is inadvisable or impossible ? 3. How would standardization help the rural schools in your district ? 4. Would a county system of taxation improve the school conditions in your district ? 5. Have you known instances where rural boards of education have failed to obey state laws ? 6. What advantages would your school district gain by providing a teacherage, or publicly owned residence for the teacher or teachers ? Should such a home be a part of the school plant ? 7. Have you noticed any results of rural neglect of physical education and health ? 8. Has the teaching of agriculture been neglected? 9. In what ways have the small rural high schools in your vicinity been neglected ? 10. Do you observe a need of training in domestic economy among your girls ? 1 1 . How could your school be provided with a library ? 12. How could better rural school officers be secured in your district ? 13. Does your rural school lack equipment ? Why? 14. What effects do roads have upon schools ? 15. Could your school be used as a social center? Plan a rural school building which will readily adapt itself to community meet- ings. 1 6. What salary is paid the teacher in your district? What is the teacher's average length of service in your school? Why do your teachers leave? What preparation do you require? 17. Make out a course of training which you would consider ideal for the rural teacher in your district. THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 143 1 8. How long is the school term in your district ? Is your school plant idle for any large share of the time ? Can all the children in your district attend during the whole term ? Could special arrange- ments be made to fit the needs of pupils who can come only part of the time ? 19. There are in this country five and a half millions of illiterate men and women. Many millions more can barely read and write. How came such a condition to exist in this country ? What classes make up this illiterate element? 20. Write to the Bureau of Education, Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C., for the last annual report of the Commissioner of Education. REFERENCES BETTS, GEORGE H. New Ideals in Rural Schools. The entire work. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1913. BETTS, GEORGE H., and HALL, OTIS E. Better Rural Schools. Chapters I, X, XII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVIII, XIX, XXI, XXIV, XXVIII, XXIX. Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1914. COOK, KATHERINE M., and MONAHAN, A. C. Rural School Super- vision. Bulletin No. 48, 1916, United States Bureau of Edu- cation, Washington, D. C. CUBBERLEY, ELLWOOD P. The Improvement of Rural Schools. The entire work. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1912. . Rural Life and Education, Chapters I, II, IV, VII. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1914. DRESSLAR, FLETCHER B. Rural Schoolhouses and Grounds. Bulle- tin No. 12, 1914, United States Bureau of Education, Washing- ton, D. C. FOGHT, HAROLD W. Efficiency and Preparation of Rural School Teachers. Bulletin No. 49, 1914, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. GILLETTE, JOHN M. Constructive Rural Sociology, Chapter XV. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. HODGES, W. T. Important Features in Rural School Improvement. Bulletin No. 25, 1914, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. 144 THE RURAL COMMUNITY JARVIS, C. D. Work of School Children During Out-of-School Hours. Bulletin No. 20, 1917, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. LARSON, W. E. The Wisconsin County Training Schools for Teachers in Rural Schools. Bulletin No. 17, 1916, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. McKEEVER, WILLIAM A. Farm Boys and Girls, Chapters VIII, XVI, XVII. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1912. MONAHAN, A. C. Consolidation of Rural Schools and Transportation of Pupils at Public Expense. Bulletin No. 30, 1914, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. . County- Unit Organization for the Administration of Rural Schools. Bulletin No. 44, 1914, United States Bureau of Edu- cation, Washington, D. C. . The Status of Rural Education in the United States. Bulle- tin No. 8, 1913, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. MONAHAN, A. C., and WRIGHT, R. H. Training Courses for Rural Teachers. Bulletin No. I, 1913, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. QUICK, HERBERT. The Brown Mouse. The entire book. Bobbs- Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1915. RANDALL, J. L. Educative and Economic Possibilities of School- Directed Home Gardening in Richmond, Indiana. United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. WILLIAMS, J. HAROLD. Reorganizing a County System of Rural Schools. Bulletin No. 16, 1916, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. Illiteracy in the United States. Bulletin No. 20, 1913, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. Special Features in City School Systems. Bulletin No. 31, 1913, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. CHAPTER VII RURAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS A correct attitude toward rural life is important in the rural secondary schools. Such schools have in many ways been a source of weakness rather than of strength to the communities which have supported them, in their effect upon the minds and interests of the farm youth. They have been a direct means of taking out of the community the very manhood and womanhood so necessary to the future prosperity and advancement of the locality. Because of a lack of vision and under- standing of the possibilities in rural life, the teaching and the work given have tended to destroy the stu- dents' respect for country life and their interest in it, and have diverted them into the professions or urban businesses instead of keeping them in the rural com- munity as intelligent farmers and rural leaders. State Superintendent of Education Morrison, of New Hamp- shire, called attention to this fact in his biennial report for 1907-8. " During the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century every group of three or four towns had its academy, usually an endowed institution. Out of these academies went a steady stream of sons and daughters who were, other things being equal, always the strongest of the generation, for otherwise they would not have gained this education. Seldom did they settle upon the old farm or in the home town. Their education had fitted them for other things. . . . They became lawyers, or physicians, or clergymen, or schoolmasters, or business men in the cities, and the girls went 146 THE RURAL COMMUNITY with them, prevailingly, to be their wives. Their children grew up under city conditions and went to city schools. The unambitious, the dull, the unfortunate boys and girls of the old countryside, who could not get to the academy, as a class remained behind and became the dominant stock. And they reproduced their kind for another generation, upon whom the same sorting process was carried out. Then the factory system seized upon the strong limbed and restless, albeit slow-witted, and began to sort them out and remove them. Finally, the Civil War came and struck down the idealists by the wholesale, mostly boys and young men who had not yet reproduced themselves in a new generation. Now upon a journey through rural New England you will see fine old mansions, showing by their architecture that they date back well toward the beginning of the nineteenth century, and ample old homesteads with their capacious barns, all of them more or less in a state of decay. Of many nothing but the cellar hole, and, at first sight, an unaccount- able orchard is left. These were the homes of a race which lived and prospered, which cleared the land, and built homes, and added barn to barn, which accumulated wealth, and gave virile expression of itself in church, in state, and in educational institutions. . . . But that race allowed its sons and daughters to be educated away from the farm and the country and from the State. In their place today, we too often have a dwindling town, a neglected farm, a closed church, an abandoned schoolhouse." City and country legislators, educators, and farmers, all of us in fact, admit these conditions and accept the verdict that we have not been either awake or doing our duty. In our proper and commendable zeal to educate the heathen in foreign lands, to provide the best possible conditions for the newly arrived immi- grant child, and to reform our cities, we have forgotten and neglected our own kindred and country neighbors. The wide discrepancy between the quality of educa- tion provided city children and that provided country children should not continue. Our rural districts RURAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS 147 should have schools that will meet the needs of their children and build up the self-respect of their people. Rural People Have Lacked High School Educa- tion. Since the establishment of the Boston English High School in 1821, the free high schools of our towns and cities have grown rapidly in number and have continued to expand in the amount and kind of work they offer. The American people have been generous in their support of the grade schools, but it is the high school that has won their lavish enthusiasm. Notwithstanding this development of secondary edu- cation in the towns and cities, the rural districts have been totally neglected save for those academies and high schools in such urban centers as are easily accessible to rural people. Consequently, the cost of tuition and the lack of a convenient means of trans- portation have deprived all except a few of our rural young people of a secondary education. " Within a few miles of the border of a city with a magnificent school system, with palatial buildings, with trained teachers and supervisors, with elaborate library and technical equipment, with careful health supervision of its children, in short, with every conceivable opportunity, may be found the educational facilities of a backwoods civilization." l The Recognized Need for Rural Secondary Educa- tion. We find in America to-day a very general belief that industrial workers should receive some degree of industrial training at public expense. Agri- culture is a basic industry, upon the prosperity of which national welfare largely depends. In state after state there is evidence of a demand for courses in agri- 1 Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1913. 148 THE RURAL COMMUNITY culture more thorough and advanced than is possible in the elementary school. A demand is arising for rural secondary education. In some states, this further teaching of agriculture is required by law in all high schools accessible to rural districts ; in others, separate agricultural institutions have sprung full-fledged from the fiat of legislatures, without regard to their relation to the already existing educational system or to the supply of teachers prepared to give the required work. But it is now generally recognized that advanced courses in agriculture must be definitely and intimately related to the general system of education, and that such courses can be most profitably given in the high school. Moreover, our high schools should base their pro- grams, in part at least, on the life and interests of the district in which they are located, and should give some courses of study especially adapted to the needs of their respective communities. Thus, the high schools of New England will differ in part from those of the South and of the Middle West, and each section of the nation will develop schools that serve its own partic- ular agricultural and social needs. Social workers who see beneath the surface of our national life and who understand that the safety of our democracy depends upon improving standards of life y agree that a high school education must be made pos- sible to every child. This secondary school work must be suited to the needs of the students, to those who desire to go to college, or into business, farming, or home-making. A high school education is the very least that a citizen of to-morrow can get along with in either RURAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS 149 town or country if he is to live successfully under our present industrial and social conditions. Types of the New Rural Secondary School. With the growing recognition of this need for secondary education for our country people have come three types of rural high schools. The first, the special agri- cultural school, came as a protest by our farmers against the failure of our schools to teach agriculture as a vocation ; the second, the consolidated high school, was a movement toward economy and efficiency ; the third, the trade-center high school, is an adapta- tion of an already existing institution. These three types are found in every section of the United States, and all together there are more than 2000 public and private secondary institutions now giving some sort of agricultural education. The Special Agricultural School. - - The first of the three types of rural high schools just enumerated, the special agricultural school, is strictly vocational. It teaches only agriculture, manual training, and domestic science. It has been especially designed for farmers' sons and daughters. Only those who are fourteen years of age and who have completed the eight grades of the elementary school are admitted. The first special agricultural school was established in 1888 at Abbeville, Alabama. According to the latest information available, there are now about sixty-eight of these institutions, of eight different types, scattered over seventeen states. They are organized, in some cases, as state agricultural high schools and are supported by the state, as in Minne- sota and California. In other states, they are district 150 THE RURAL COMMUNITY agricultural high schools and are supported by a dis- trict of the state. Alabama has one for each of her congressional districts, while Georgia, Virginia, and Oklahoma have one for each of their judicial districts. Arkansas was divided arbitrarily for this purpose into four districts and given one such school for each dis- trict. In a number of states, the county is the unit of area, as in Wisconsin where the State pays two-thirds of the annual expense if the total is not over $9000. The courses of study in these schools range from short courses of fourteen weeks for two years, to courses of nine or ten months' duration for a period of two to four years. Most of the student's work is done at the school ; much of it by the laboratory method. In many of these schools, the students spend forty hours per week at the school plant. This type of agricultural school meets the needs of a large number of young people who have only a rural grade school education. The short winter course is particularly helpful to this class of students, who would otherwise be unable to take the special training they thus receive. It relieves the agricultural col- lege of some of its winter short-course work, and of some of the elementary work which the college must do under the old system. It has helped the high school to see its possibilities and to realize that it can add courses in agriculture to its present work, thus proving that agriculture has a place in the high school. It can give practical work in farming, and adapt its courses to the particular needs of the local community. It fosters and develops many rural organizations, and sends its students back to the farm to work not only for RURAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS 151 the improvement of their own farm, but also for the improvement of the whole community. Some of the objections to the special agricultural school are that it serves too large an area ; it does not fit into our present school system ; the courses offered cover too narrow a range for American citi- zenship. Dormitories are not provided, and the young people must live away from home and in such private homes as will admit them, at a time when home life is particularly necessary for their moral training. Furthermore, it is not accessible to all the rural young people, nor would it be desirable to have all the young people from the farm districts studying only such agri- cultural courses as are offered. All rural children are not " land minded," and consequently do not desire to follow farm life, any more than do all city children desire to follow distinctly city vocations. The Consolidated Rural High School. The sec- ond type of rural high schools, the consolidated high school, has come as a logical development from the consolidated rural grade school. The essential differ- ences between the special agricultural school and the consolidated rural high school are found in the courses of study they offer and in the degree of accessibility The agricultural school is essentially vocational, offer- ing only three courses : agriculture, manual training, domestic science. The consolidated rural high school is broader and more cultural, bringing all classes of the community together in one social body. It gener- ally offers four courses ; namely, classical, commercial, domestic arts, and agricultural. Thus it serves those who wish to go to college or into business as well as 152 THE RURAL COMMUNITY those who wish to return directly to the farm. Each of these courses should give four years of work, although short sessions should also be provided for those who can- not attend during the entire school year. In addition, graduate courses may be offered to those who have completed regular work but who do not intend to go to college. The consolidated school makes possible a closely knit rural school system, and should be arranged on the Six and Six Plan. The grades can then antici- pate the work of the high school, especially in the courses given in science. The following plan is sug- gested : Elementary Department, grades 1-6 High School I J u _ n i_ r S School, grades 7-9 Senior High School, grades 10-12 This organization would put the consolidated rural high school somewhat on a par with the best city schools. It would make it possible to provide teachers who are specialists in their lines of work, and would tend to hold pupils in school longer than is done under the old Eight and Four Plan. A consolidated school plant consisting of a school building with a good-sized auditorium and a lunch room, a teacherage, barns, stock, machinery, and some land for garden experiments, can easily be made a community power-house radiating strong currents of constructive and progressive thought. The Ruralized Trade-Center High School. - Where the population is not too sparse, nor the climate too severe ; where the roads are good, and the trolley RURAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS 153 or train service favorable, a small town high school can frequently serve the outlying rural districts. Under such a plan, however, sharp watch must be kept that agriculture, manual training, and domestic science are taught as vocational subjects, not merely as " urbanized trimmings." The " Minnesota Plan," as the Putnam Act passed in Minnesota in 1909 is sometimes called, provides an excellent system for the association of rural schools with a Central School for the purpose of extending the influence of the Central School to the rural schools. Any high, consolidated, or graded school may be- come a Central School and draw state aid by meeting the requirements laid down by the State High School Board. This Central School is usually located in a trade-center ; and if there is a high school in con- nection with the Central School, it can give not only "ruralized" courses in agriculture, manual training, and domestic science, but also send out teachers of these subjects to begin the work in these lines in the district schools associated with it and under its super- vision. Thus the students in the rural grade schools are prepared to begin the work given along vocational lines in the high school. While this type of high school is not purely agricultural, it can, nevertheless, give adequate recognition to the needs of country boys and girls who desire training to fit them for agricultural life. In Iowa, the law creating the consolidated school provides that " when a city, town, or village contain- ing a school population of twenty-five or more is in- cluded within any consolidated independent district," then the school building " shall be located within the 154 THE RURAL COMMUNITY limits of the city, town, or village, or upon lands con- tiguous to such limits." So that, in this case, the consolidated school and the trade-center school become identical. As mentioned in the preceding chapter, the Iowa law provides for the transportation of pupils to and from the school. The Teacher of Agriculture. Agriculture is a science and loses much if not taught by the laboratory method. This means, first, that the rural high school must be well equipped and have well-prepared teachers. Such teachers are even now not easy to secure. It is more than sixty years since the opening of our first agricultural college. 1 During these past six decades, agricultural colleges have provided the nation with teachers of agriculture, rather than with actual farmers, yet the supply has not multiplied so rapidly as the schools in which agriculture is now being taught, and furthermore, many of these graduates have been em- ployed by the government and by manufacturers and distributors of agricultural supplies, and so have been drawn away from the teaching profession. The in- structor in agriculture must understand his subject in order to make the work in agriculture in the rural high schools effective. He must have, also, adequate training in pedagogic methods. All colleges of agriculture should give a special course for high school teachers, such as is now being offered in many state universities, state col- leges of agriculture, normal schools, and high schools offering teachers' training courses for rural teachers. A state association of all agriculture teachers and 1 Michigan State Agricultural College opened for instruction on May 13, 1857. RURAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS 155 supervisors would help to form a unity of purpose among these rural leaders and would stimulate prog- ress in methods of instruction. The success of high school agricultural instruction will be furthered if the teacher settles permanently in the district where he is working. Every teacher of agricultural subjects should be employed for a term of eleven months on at least a three-year contract. This arrangement would make it possible for him to super- vise the home project work of the students throughout the year and to carry out experiments over a long enough period to demonstrate their value. The Courses of Study. The courses should be culturally as well as vocationally adequate for American citizenship. Besides the necessity for giving rural people a thorough education that will make them efficient and businesslike farmers and that will serve the special needs of each community, the rural high school has the purpose of training leaders in the spiritual enrichment of country life. For this reason, the study of agriculture and domestic arts must have the cultural elements necessary to the making of a finer people. Courses given in the Danish Folk Schools or other European models are insufficient for Americans. The American farmer is not a peasant; he is a master of rural destiny. As such, he should re- ceive from the public schools the elements of a liberal edu- cation which would prepare him not only for business success, but for transforming this success into a rich and satisfying life, for sharing in the cultural and political affairs of the nation, and for leading others to a higher plane of living. A SUGGESTED NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION FOR THE UNITED STATES Secretary of Education, Nkt \Cbrn, on (Policy i Rural School^ ormmg, Na ) t.Cora.c rvCity Sckoois (Policy) 1 (Policy) Common, Sckools Collegiate Comrnou Sckools Collegiate Institutions Institutions State Com. < f Eiucatiorv t> (St&if oF Stsste Inspectors) d & _tem ($ ickools l^ry EUra City^ Jchools 3aJry rctary Secon City Supt. stcUry Sccot Supervisors Principal*) This system would, if rightly administered, give rural people the educa- tional advantages which their life and interests are urgently requiring. 156 RURAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS 157 To meet the present needs of the rural community, the high school course in the types of schools dis- cussed in this chapter should include the following subjects for the boys: 1. The soil. 2. Plant and field-crop production. 3. Garden and orchard crops. 4. The breeding, feeding, and care of domestic animals. 5. Principles and methods of dairying. 6. Farm mechanics and manual training. 7. Drainage. 8. Landscape architecture. 9. Agricultural economics and farm management. 10. Rural sociology. 11. At least three years of English, besides a half year of prac- tical business English. 12. Three years of history (ancient, medieval, and modern, United States) besides a half year in practical civics. 13. Three years of pure science (physics, i year; chemistry, I year; botany, one-half year; civic biology, one-half year). 14. Two and a half years of mathematics (algebra, I year; geometry, I year; farm arithmetic, one-half year). 15. Geography (one-half year of commercial geography; cne- half year of agricultural geography; one-half year of physical geography). 1 6. Public speaking, especially debating. 17. Personal hygiene and first aid. The course of study for girls should include, on the vocational side, the following subjects : 1. General cookery and dietetics. 2. Invalid cookery. 3. Sewing and the study of fabrics. 4. Millinery. 5. Marketing and shopping. 6. Laundering. 158 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 7. Household chemistry. 8. Household sanitation. 9. Household decoration. 10. Household management and accounts. 11. Personal hygiene, first aid, and simple nursing. 12. Care of children, especially infants. 13. Landscape architecture. Work in English, history, civics, geography, eco- nomics, sociology, public speaking, hygiene, first aid, physical culture including out-of-door games and sports, should be required of both sexes in rural secondary schools. Home project work is especially important in connection with the high school, as it ties the work of the school up to the home. Training for the home project may be secured in part by means of a school project, if the school has sufficient resources in the way of garden plots, fields, live stock, and barns. The boys and girls of this age will be interested in the organization into clubs of all in the school who are en- gaged in the project work and in affiliation with other such clubs in the country. All such project and club work should be closely supervised throughout the year and records kept of the work of each pupil. The American Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations recommends that at least one fourth of the students' time be given to agri- culture or to domestic arts, and the remaining three fourths to general education. Possibly one third of the time would not be too much for strictly voca- tional study, providing this time included the home project work. RURAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS 159 Should the student decide to go to college, the course described will admit him to all courses not re- quiring a foreign language. Should he not go to college, he will have had a cultural as well as a voca- tional secondary education. He will have an intelli- gent and sympathetic interest in farm life, a con- ception of the dignity of scientific agriculture as a business, and a broader view of his community and of the world at large. The study of debating is especially recommended for all juniors and seniors in high school, as it trains the student to gather material and to think clearly and consecutively. Moreover, it arouses the interest of the entire community in the question debated, and serves as a popular advertiser of issues before the public mind, since of course, only up- to-date questions should be discussed. QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. Give two reasons why the rural districts should have high schools especially designed for their needs. 2. What are the special educational needs of the rural districts? 3. How have rural people succeeded in getting a high school education ? In what ways other than in tuition have they paid for this education? 4. What conditions resulted in the establishment of special agricultural schools ? 5. What conditions have brought about the consolidated rural high school ? The trade-center high school ? 6. Is it possible or even advisable to establish consolidated schools in all parts of this country? What should be done for localities in which such schools cannot be established ? 7. Should the same course in agriculture be given in all rural communities ? The same course in domestic science ? 160 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 8. Arrange a course of study for a rural high school in Min- nesota. In Mississippi. In Maine. In California. In Colorado. In your own community. 9. Why has the study of agriculture not been admitted to the schools until recently ? 10. Do you think that every girl should be required to study domestic arts ? Be able to defend your opinion. 11. What are some of the advantages of the "home project" method in teaching agriculture and domestic science in rural high schools ? 12. Name some schools to which teachers may go for special work in agriculture. For work in domestic arts. REFERENCES BRICKER, GARLAND A. The Teaching of Agriculture in the High School, Chapters I-IV, VI-VIII. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1911. BROWN, H. A. The Readjustment of the Rural High School to the Needs of the Community. Bulletin No. 20, 1912, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. BROWN, JOHN F. The American High School, Chapters XII, XIII. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1909. DAVENPORT, EUGENE. Education for Efficiency, Part I, Chapters I, III, VI; Part II (Entire). D. C. Heath and Company, Boston, 1914. . What is Involved in Vocational Education. Bulletin, Vol. 12, No. 19, University of Illinois. ELIOT, CHARLES W., and NELSON, ERNESTO. Needed Changes in Secondary Education. Bulletin No. 10, 1916, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. FOGHT, H. W. The Danish Folk High School. Bulletin No. 22, 1914, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. GALPIN, CHARLES JOSIAH, and JAMES, JOHN A. Rural Relations of High Schools. Bulletin No. 288, Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Wisconsin. HUMMEL, WILLIAM G. and BERTHA R. Materials and Methods in High School Agriculture, Chapters I, II, III, XIII. The Macmillan Company, 1913. RURAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS 161 LEAKE, ALBERT H. The Means and Methods of Agricultural Education, Chapters V, VIII, XII. Houghton Mifflin Com- pany, Boston, 1915. ROBISON, C. H., and JENKS, F. B. Agricultural Instruction in High Schools. Bulletin No. 6, 1913, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. STIMSON, R. W. The Massachusetts Home-Project Plan of Vo- cational Agricultural Education. Bulletin No. 8, 1914, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. WEEKS, RUTH MARY. The People's School, Chapters I, III, VI. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1912. . Socializing the Three R's. The entire work. The Mac- millan Company, New York, 1919. Vocational Secondary Education. Bulletin No. 21, 1916, United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. CHAPTER VIII CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES IN FARM LIFE Commercial Agriculture versus Domestic Agriculture. During the pioneer period of American agriculture each farm produced principally for its own consumption, and sold only a small fraction of its product, and that in the local market. But during the last one hundred years, the proportion of farms producing for the market rather than for domestic consumption has steadily increased, until to-day the typical American farm produces those things for which its soil and climate are best adapted, sells them for money, and then pur- chases with the money the necessaries for farm life. One of the most recent steps in this evolution from domestic to commercial farming has been the dis- appearance of butter and cheese making from the farm. Twenty years ago the churn was a characteristic uten- sil on the farm and the progressive farmer was marked by the possession of a cream separator and an improved churn. To-day the cream is separated on the farm, in those sections of the country where any considerable number of milch cattle are kept, and then sent to the creamery. The farmer buys his butter and cheese. Butter making has passed from the domestic into the commercial stage in farm economy. This fundamental change in the nature of the farm industry, which brings it into intimate relationship with the urban industries which similarly produce their specialties for sale, and which buy the raw materials 162 CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 163 produced on the farm and sell manufactured articles to the farmer, has worked profound changes in agri- culture as an industry and in farm life. It has brought the farmer into the life of the world. Fluctuations in the value of money, in industrial prosperity, in credit conditions, in transportation facilities or rates, all register their effects promptly and sharply in his busi- ness. He has become a business man who must watch business conditions as well as the conditions of produc- tion on his farm. The war between the nations of Europe profoundly affected American agriculture long before America was embroiled. A depression in Europe or a famine in India will soon affect agricultural prices and farm incomes in America. A new industrial process which uses more flax than the old method will stimulate flax production, and may therefore reduce the acreage of some of the other small grains, thus causing their prices to rise. This in turn may result in an enlargement of grain acreage the next year and a decrease in grazing. Meat prices may thus eventually be affected by an increased use of flax. This case but illustrates the intricate relation of each kind of farming to the whole industrial fabric of the' nation. The increasing complexity of the agricultural in- dustry in this new stage of its development has directed attention to the subject of agricultural economics, which was recognized as a distinct branch in economic study only about fifteen years ago. 1 Agricultural 1 Professor Henry C. Taylor's Introduction to Agricultural Economics, published in this country in 1905, was the first text on this subject to appear in the English language. This book, rewritten and enlarged, appeared in 1919 under the title, Agricultural Economics (The Macmillan Company). 1 64 THE RURAL COMMUNITY economics, with which every rural teacher, minister, or other rural leader, as well as every progressive farmer, should be well acquainted, involves a discussion of the relations of land, labor, and capital, and of production and distribution in rural areas, as well as of the rela- tion of agricultural to urban economic life. The Agricultural Population. There are in this country three economic groups in agriculture : farm owners, tenants, and farm laborers. Fully one half of the farm laborers of America are members of the families of the farmers on whose farms they work. They are not wage earners, except when they work from time to time for neighbors or go to more or less distant fields during the harvest season. The other half of the farm laborers work for wages on other people's farms. A large proportion of these are young, and many of them eventually leave the farm and enter other kinds of work. Others work intermit- tently on the farm and in lumber woods, in city indus- tries, and on contracting jobs. The harvest seasons in the several sections of the country, such as the Cali- fornia fruit harvests or the Middle West grain harvest, temporarily attract into farm employment a large number of persons who work most of the year in other kinds of employment and constitute no real portion of the truly agricultural section of our population. Confining our attention to those persons members of farmers' families, both owners and tenants, and hired laborers on the farm who work all or most of the year on farms, it is important that we notice the different individuals and groups in the farming industry. An examination of any farming community in America Climbiog tke Agricultural The way up this ladder must be kept open, and the farmer must be en- couraged to climb. 165 1 66 THE RURAL COMMUNITY reveals the fact that there are some persons in it who never have attained and never will attain farm owner- ship. They will spend their lives either as tenants or as farm laborers. It also reveals that many of those who have attained farm ownership were at an earlier period in their lives either farm laborers or tenants oftentimes laborers, then tenants, then owners of mortgaged farms, and finally complete owners of farms. Pro- fessor H. C. Taylor has graphically described this progress, so common in America, from the status of farm laborer to tenant, and then to ownership, as the agricultural ladder. It is indeed a ladder, and one which hundreds of thousands of Americans have climbed from economic dependence to economic independence. But not all who start as farm laborers succeed in climbing the ladder. Many do not try to climb. Others who try are unfit. Others are unfortunate. Some, like many of the negro tenants of the South, are in the grip of creditors who unfairly prevent them from achieving independent ownership. As a result of differences in ability, in self-control and industry, in thrift, in ambition, and, to a less extent, in opportu- nity, some who start as farm laborers remain in that class or leave the farm entirely, others spend their lives as renters, and others become farm owners, often well- to-do. A considerable number of farm boys who work for a time as laborers or tenants either inherit enough capital to get a start toward farm ownership, or are given a start by their parents, but many get their start by their own thrift and that of their wives. The distinction between farm ownership heavily burdened by debt and complete farm ownership is CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 167 a significant one. It is the distinction between di- vided and single ownership of the farm and its output. In 1910, sixty- two per cent of the farm operators in the United States were owners, but nearly thirty-four per cent of the farm operators were working mortgaged farms. In other words, only one third of all our farmers owned their farms free of debt. From 1890 to 1900, the number of mortgaged farms increased nearly five percent, and from 1900 to 1910, it increased nearly three per cent. From 1890 to 1910, therefore, the percentage of mortgaged farms was growing, in spite of the fact that farming as a business greatly improved during this time. This increase in farm mortgages is not yet alarming, but it shows a trend that, taken in connection with an accompanying growth of tenancy, should be closely watched that its full significance may be ascertained. An increase in the number of farm mortgages and in tenancy does not necessarily mean an increasing dependence of farmers upon other people's capital. Nor does it necessarily mean that money-lending capitalists are getting control of the farm lands of the United States, and reducing the farming class to a state of dependence. Tens of thousands of farm mort- gages are negotiated each year in the United States by farmers who borrow money to buy more land, machinery, or stock. The circulars of the farm mort- gage loan companies of the Upper Mississippi Valley, for instance, show that a large proportion of the farm loans which these companies make are to farmers who are borrowing to increase the size of their operations just as city business men borrow to enlarge their i68 THE RURAL COMMUNITY business. Increases in tenancy are often due to similar causes. They may mean that young farmers are finding increasing difficulty in becoming owners, or they may mean, as they do in many portions both of the northern and of the southern agricultural states, an in- crease in the number of young men who are emerg- ing from the farm labor class, and moving toward farm ownership. The Effects of Tenancy on Agriculture. An increase in farm tenancy may, however, produce evil results in agricultural production, even when it is a sign of progress in the individual. Tenants, especially those who remain tenants, are apt to mine out the soil fertility, because their interest is in the immediate rather than the eventual production of the farms they are working, and thus they may cause a decline in the output and value of the farm property. The farm owner is vastly more interested in his farm and in his community than is the renter, and gives his attention to long-time, rather than to short- time, interests. A tenant must be an unusually earnest man to take more than a passing interest in the institutions of a community in which he knows he will live only a year or two. The fact that one denomination alone has abandoned 1500 rural churches in one state is at least partly explained by the fact that nearly half the farmers of that state are tenants. Without a more settled land tenure, it is difficult for schools, churches, and community enterprises in general to adopt definite policies and work toward their achievement. A perma- nent and numerous tenant class ought to be avoided by the United States, not only because it impedes agricul- 170 THE RURAL COMMUNITY tural efficiency and community progress, but because the separation into classes produces jealousies and animosities between owners, tenants, and laborers. It is absentee ownership and tenancy which in large measure explain the agricultural backwardness of many European peoples. America, and particularly our farm people, must see to it that the rungs on the agricultural ladder leading from the status of farm laborer to tenant and to ownership are not too far apart. If the way up this ladder is obstructed at any place, the number of farm laborers and tenants increases unduly and owner- ship declines. As this country grows older, and as the population increases and the free land disappears, the price of land will naturally rise, and it will become more and more difficult for the man who starts with nothing but his hands to become a farm owner. Ten- ants are recruited almost entirely from the laboring class ; they are therefore usually handicapped by initial lack of capital, and it is already becoming in- creasingly difficult for a farm laborer to become a tenant, as more money is needed to equip a farm for successful operation under present conditions. It is essential that the lease system be standardized and improved. There are several reasons for this. A better lease system will lengthen the time of residence of tenants in one place and they will thus be encouraged to make improvements and forward-looking calculations. Even with the very best system of land tenure, we must always have a great many tenants. It has been estimated that thirty per cent of the farmers of this coun- try are tenants. This is normal in an old community. 172 THE RURAL COMMUNITY Many of the tenants are children or relatives to whom the farms will ultimately pass ; and other tenants are climbing the agricultural ladder, as stated. In the case of those who will always need direction and coopera- tion, tenancy will prove more satisfactory than in- dependent ownership. We cannot enter into the com- plex aspect of tenancy at this time. It is obvious, how- ever, that since so large a percentage of the land must be occupied by tenants, special emphasis should be laid upon all measures which tend to secure the kind of tenancy that is best from the social and economic point of view, and to establish conditions that will enable those who have the capacity for it to climb the agricultural ladder. It is of course true that we do not have such a well- defined class of landed proprietors as in Great Britain and Mexico. Our population, owing to continual immigration and to our freedom to move about and engage in whatever calling we may desire, is too shift- ing to permit the forming of a landed class. Except pos- sibly in the case of estates owned by city capitalists, and in some special kinds of farming, there is, as yet, no marked concentration of farm ownership in this country. The size of farms generally is decreasing. In 1850, the average size of farms in the United States was 210 acres ; in 1910 it was 138.1 acres. This matter of size is influ- enced largely by the length of time the country has been settled, and by the kind of farming carried on in the different sections. Different parts of the United States show a wide variation as to the size of farms. Rural Credits. The chief remedy for protracted tenancy and mortgage indebtedness and the one that CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 173 will most facilitate the climbing of the agricultural ladder, is a credit system adequate to the needs of American farmers and adapted to American social and economic conditions. Such a system will include both short-time, small-amount, low-rate credit, and long-time, large-amount, low-rate credit. A short- time, low-rate credit system, managed by the govern- ment through the post office, would save many crops and meet many emergencies. The Federal Farm Loan Act, passed on July 17, 1916, and signed by Presi- dent Wilson, is our first attempt to provide national credit for the farmer. The act operates through a Federal Farm Loan Board of five members and pro- vides for twelve Federal Farm Land Banks, located in twelve districts covering the entire nation. Farmers wishing to obtain loans must form loan associations through which they can obtain these loans from the Federal Banks. Loans upon first mortgages are made to farmers or prospective farmers who apply through these associations, to the amount of fifty per cent of the appraised value of the land, irrespective of improvements, and twenty per cent of the value of the improvements. The loan to each borrower may not be less than $100 nor more than $10,000. But in order to secure a loan the farmer must subscribe for one five-dollar share of stock in the association for each $100 borrowed, so that the actual maximum of a loan under this act is $9500. The time for which loans may be made is not less than five years nor more than forty years. The rate of interest is nominally five per cent, although the expenses incurred in making the loan increase the rate a little. The interest rate 174 THE RURAL COMMUNITY plus these additional expenses must not exceed six per cent per annum. One of the finest features of this act is the provision that every mortgage shall contain an agreement providing for the payment of the loan on an amor- tization plan by means of a fixed number of annual or semiannual installments sufficient to cover the interest rate, the charge for administration and profits, and such amounts to be applied on the principal as will extinguish the debt within a period to be agreed upon. After five years from the date of the loan, additional payments may be made on any interest date, so that the debt may be paid prior to the date when payment is due an advantage to the farmer which is lacking in any other type of mortgage loan. This act is a step in the right direction but it does not meet the needs of all our farm people. It serves those who need credit the least, and fails to aid the ten- ant and the farm owner just starting with small means, because it is difficult for them to become members of a loan association. The farmers should agitate this issue of adequate rural credit until the present Farm Loan Act is properly amended to provide personal credit and small-amount, short-time loans. Thousands of farm families spend their entire lives paying off mort- gages, never knowing what normal life is on a farm. If a farmer could buy a farm, build a comfortable dwelling and outbuildings, equip it with implements, machinery, and live stock, and be sure that he would have forty years in which to pay for it, he could mean- while raise his family properly in peace of mind and get the best out of life. There can be no doubt CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 175 whatever that adequate rural credit will go a very long way toward solving the problems of the farmer. Other means of helping to make farm ownership pos- sible to more farmers have been advocated. It has been claimed that a progressive land tax rising in rate as the size of the holding increased would keep land out of the control of the few and thus make it more obtainable to the many. Moreover, such a tax might keep farms from becoming unnecessarily large, and would tend to encour- age more intensive and scientific farming. On the other hand, large holdings are essential to some kinds of farm- ing, and no taxation system should make such holdings impossible. Progressive taxation of land values is one of many current problems which need thorough investi- gation and which should be carefully discussed before being adopted. Our history is full of warnings against rash and ill-considered legislation. In the end, over- hasty legislation produces reactions and delays real prog- ress. Minor improvements in the present system of land registration are undoubtedly required, and a system pre- venting delays in real estate transfers and lowering the cost of securing a deed should be devised. Stimulating Productive Efficiency. We have so far discussed the status of agricultural labor, the relation of the farmer to the land he tills, and the ways in which he can secure his capital. Methods of pro- duction, or of tillage and farm management, constitute the next problem of agricultural economy to be con- sidered. Scientific farming and better household arrangements are the aims of the school instruction in agriculture and domestic arts discussed in previ- ous chapters. There are, however, two special agencies 176 THE RURAL COMMUNITY for stimulating productive efficiency which at this point demand consideration. Organized federal aid for agriculture was begun on May 15, 1862, when Congress created a Department of Agriculture as a subdivision or bureau of the De- partment of the Interior. On February 9, 1889, President Cleveland signed an act raising the Depart- ment to the first rank in the executive civil service and giving its administrative officer a seat in the Pres- ident's Cabinet. The history of federal aid to agri- cultural education in this country shows three distinct periods, each of which centers around one or more Congressional Acts. The first was the period of formation, beginning with the Morrill Act, signed by President Lincoln in 1862. This was the result of the untiring effort of Senator Justin L. Morrill of Vermont, since known as the Father of the Land Grant Colleges. During the throes of the Civil War, when it was uncertain whether or not the nation would survive, Senator Morrill took the stand that it would survive, and that in ic; survival, it would depend upon agriculture for wealth and progress. The act therefore provided that the federal government should grant a portion of its public lands for the establishment of agricultural colleges in all the states. In the older states, there were no public lands, but each of these states was given a cer- tain number of acres of Western land, in proportion to the number of representatives and senators it had in Congress. Thus the old states, such as New York and Massachusetts, had the same opportunity to have the benefit of this grant as the territories and new states CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 177 where the lands were located. This land was to be sold and the interest of five per cent on the proceeds was to be used as a perpetual endowment for an agricultural college in each state. Despite the fact that a number of states squandered their grants, selling the land in some instances for less than fifty cents per acre, the purpose for which the grants were made has been realized. In every state and territory of the Union except Alaska there is an agricultural college endowed, partially or fully, by the proceeds of the original grant. This was our first national effort to promote agricultural education. Unfortunately, we had no organized material on agricultural education and no teachers equipped for the work, and consequently the science taught at first had little agricultural flavor. Further acts passed in 1890 and in 1907 provided sub- stantial annual subsidies to colleges maintained in accordance with the first Morrill Act. The second period was one of constructive develop- ment and research, beginning with the Hatch Act of 1887, which was signed by President Cleveland. This Act provided experiment stations in connection with the agricultural colleges. This was a great forward movement in agricultural research and training, as these stations gathered material for a solid teaching basis. The results of the research done by the experiment stations were disseminated by government bulletins, and careful scientific work in agriculture was now made possible. In 1906 the second Experiment Station Act, or the Adams Act, duplicated the annual appro- priation for experiment stations given to each state under the Hatch Act. 178 THE RURAL COMMUNITY The third period, culminating in the Smith-Lever Act and the Smith-Hughes Act, is one of dissemination of information. The Smith-Lever Act, signed by President Wilson in 1914, provides for cooperative agricultural extension work by the state agricultural colleges and the United States Department of Agri- culture. Its chief purpose is to "aid in diffusing practical information on subjects relating to agriculture and home economics," and it aims to give practical instruction in agriculture and home economics to persons living in the rural districts but not attending the agricultural colleges. This is the first time that the government has recognized home economics in its acts of appropriation. The Smith-Lever Act includes, therefore, all the people, women as well as men. The Smith-Hughes Vocational Education Act, signed by President Wilson in 1916, is also one of dissemination. It provides an appropriation for the purpose of having the federal government cooperate with that of the states in paying the salaries of teachers, supervisors, and di- rectors of agricultural subjects ; and of teachers of trade, home economics, and industrial subjects. It creates also a Federal Board of Vocational Education to administer the provisions of the Act ; to make studies, investiga- tions, and reports ; to aid in the organization and con- duct of vocational education ; and to cooperate with state boards of education in carrying out the provisions of this law. It includes both the city and the rural district, and the day, evening, and continuation schools. The appropriation for agricultural education is to be allotted to the states in the proportion which their rural population bears to the total rural population in CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 179 the United States, not including outlying possessions. This is the broadest and most generous of all the federal education acts yet passed in the interests of industrial and agricultural people. The essential difference between these two Acts is that the Smith-Lever Act expends federal money through the agricultural colleges and experiment stations for agricultural extension work. The Smith- Hughes Act expends federal money through a state board for the purpose of vocational education carried on by both day and evening schools. The agencies through which the federal government aids agricul- tural education under these acts are the state agricul- tural colleges, experiment stations, extension centers, and those secondary schools teaching agriculture. Any of these agencies not in receipt of federal aid are missing assistance that could materially widen their scope and heighten their efficiency. The states, too, are coming to a fuller realization of their duty to rural people and, consequently, are becoming more generous in their aid to rural interests. Agricultural colleges and experiment stations are or- ganized under state laws and receive the largest share of their financial support from the state. The college of agriculture stands for the whole range of country life in both its productive and its social phases. It should therefore be an organic part of the state system of agricultural education, and while it should not try to administer the system, it should be intimately associ- ated with the controlling factors. 1 1 should help in secur- ing better farm practice, organize better farm business, and develop a better farm life. Through the support i8o THE RURAL COMMUNITY of the county agricultural agents, through state normal schools for the training of rural teachers, through providing county supervisory teachers and assistants to county superintendents, and finally through a public li- brary commission giving some degree of library service to rural districts as well as to towns and cities, many states are directly aiding the cause of agricultural efficiency. The county farm bureaus and the county agri- cultural agents are becoming* a very positive force for agricultural development. They are supported jointly by the federal, state, and county governments. In 1919, thirty-eight county agricultural agents in Wisconsin made trips to 13,766 farms, helped 114 farmers' organizations, and held 1539 meetings, which were attended by a total of 1 1 6,942 persons. They spent sixty-two per cent of their time in the field. In addition to this these agents were consulted 61,466 times during the year by farmers, and wrote 1842 articles on farm matters for the press. Before leaving the subject of government aid as an agency in the development of rural life, several things must be emphasized. The rural life problem affects the entire nation, and not the individual state alone. For this reason, state aid should be given to all those counties within the state, and federal aid should be given to all those states that have unusual burdens or adverse conditions. It is of national con- cern that some states can keep their rural schools in session only six months in a year. If it is good for chil- dren in one state to have nine months of schooling each year, it is certainly good for children in the other states. Backward states and counties should be helped to higher CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 181 standards as rapidly as is consistent with sound de- velopment. Another point to remember is the neces- sity for efficient use of all money appropriated for rural life development. There can be no doubt that those in charge of the funds appropriated for this purpose are doing good and earnest work. There are, however, ways in which this work could be brought more for- cibly to rural people and by which much more en- thusiasm could be created. These methods must be brought to the attention of administrative agents everywhere and incorporated into our scheme for rural progress. Finally, all rural social workers must cooper- ate to the fullest degree. The rural physician, attorney, teacher, preacher, Young Men's Christian Association and Young Women's Christian Association secretaries, and county agricultural agents should be acquainted with each other, should know what the government as a whole and what each individual is trying to do, and should unite their forces to secure the most effec- tive use of state and federal assistance in the bet- terment of their community. Labor-saving Devices. Intelligent ambition, scien- tific methods, and up-to-date equipment are the es- sentials for productive farm efficiency. There are a number of reasons why farmers are annually coming to use more and better labor-saving devices. The use of machinery on a modern farm is profitable from a financial standpoint in that it saves both time and labor in farm operations. As farm laborers become less available, farmers are obliged to use more and more machinery. This will result in the farmers' becoming more skillful and more intelligent, and in their having 182 THE RURAL COMMUNITY more time and energy, as well as more inclination, for mental cultivation and social diversion. If a fair price for farm products accompanies this extended use of machinery, farmers will thus achieve a large step in the pursuit of happiness. Conditions of modern agriculture have compelled the farm men, for the past generation or more, to adopt the use of machinery. The women of the farm home are just now beginning to come into their own in the employment of time-saving and labor-saving devices. The invention of such devices for the home came a little later than that for the farm. But many inventions, such as carpet sweepers, wheel trays, fireless cookers, gasoline stoves, iceless refrig- erators, bread mixers, charcoal irons, power churns and washing machines, gas or electric lighting, power dynamos, in-door water systems, and screen doors and windows have now become available for the farm home as well as for the home in the city, and they make the farm a far more attractive place than it was formerly. Every inducement should be used to get farm people to make their homes as comfortable and pleasant as possible, and to emancipate them- selves from the perpetual tyranny of poorly planned, hand-done work both in the house and on the farm. Rural Cooperation. The division of labor, which has taken place in the manufacturing industries in recent years to so great an extent that it has become the source of new human problems, has not affected farm life in any comparable way. Indeed, it has yet to be developed to its full usefulness in the agricultural occupations. Because every farmer has had to attend CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 183 to all the various kinds of business connected with farm work, including producing, buying, and selling, he has not attained the skill in some of these things which he needs to attain. It is not enough that the farmer produce a bumper crop. His entire crop may go to waste for lack of proper marketing facilities. Cooperation in agriculture is an application of the theory of division of labor. In the early days, every farm woman separated the cream from the milk, churned it, and took the butter to market and sold it for whatever price the grocer in the small town would pay. Now, in dairy districts, the whole milk is often carried to a cooperative creamery, and there separated, churned and worked into butter, and sold in distant markets where prices are better than could be obtained from the local dealers. In addition to saving much labor on the individual farms, the improved conditions of assured cleanliness, the possibilities of advertising a product to extend its market, and the increase in production, are large factors in favor of cooperative effort in farming communities. The farmers produce the milk; the butter maker at the creamery does all the work formerly done in a dozen or a score of homes; a board of directors and a business manager, often chosen from among the stockholders of the creamery, attend to the marketing of the product and to other related business matters. Rural cooperative associations are of four main types, each denned by its purpose ; namely production, sale, purchase, and service. These may be illustrated by (i) a cooperative association which owns a thresh- ing machine, tractor, or other piece of expensive machin- 184 THE RURAL COMMUNITY ery for use in accelerating production ; (2) one which is interested mainly in selling produce from the several farms, as a live stock shipping association ; (3) one in which the members select one of their number to purchase material which requires expert judgment, as, for instance, a cattle breeders' association, the members of which all raise a special kind of cattle ; or a mer- cantile association, the members of which receive a discount from the retail price of all goods bought ; (4) a company interested in some kind of rural service, as a telephone company. Two or more of these types may be combined within the same organ- ization, and this is usually the case with a cooperative creamery or cheese factory, where goods are both produced and sold ; or with such a company as a live stock association which buys the stock for the individual farmers and sells for them. Cooperation of any kind implies in the first place a cooperative man, one who is willing to work with others for the good of all, and to sacrifice his own gain if the good of the group may be furthered thereby ; one who can see that in the long run, his own welfare will be advanced if the community in which he lives comes up to as high a standard as the majority are capable of attaining, but at the same time loves his neighbors enough to seek their welfare along with his own. The commercial attitude is good as far as it goes, but in most cases there must be a mutual confidence and esteem in the group or they will not hold together. Distrust of one another will disrupt a group quicker than anything else, and cooperation should not be undertaken where the feeling of trust is CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 185 lacking. Questions of race prejudice, religion, and politics often interfere with what would otherwise be a successful cooperative organization. Some men cannot grant that a man who has sprung from a different nationality than their own, or who holds different views from theirs in religion or politics, can possibly be right about anything. Accordingly, these associations thrive best in a well-developed community where neighbors have had a chance to know each other over a period of years and so have got rid of their prejudices through personal contact. On the other hand, co- operation in business often leads to a growing esteem, or at least a toleration, in other matters. But business dealings between friends are frequently the source of bitter feelings and misunderstandings, especially if there has been only an implied under- standing in the first instance. This characteristic of human nature makes it essential that a cooperative association should employ from the beginning business- like methods and an adequate system of bookkeeping. Responsibility in an association of this kind is diffused, and often everybody looks to somebody else to see that things go right. Even the board of directors does not take so much interest as it would in the case of a corporation, for the investment is relatively small. Some of the difficulty will be overcome if definite parts of the responsibility are assigned to certain members, with an agreed compensation for the amount of time expended, either in looking after the business of the concern or in keeping the books. Indeed, the question of leadership is of the utmost importance, and if the cooperative association is doing business on J86 THE RURAL COMMUNITY a large enough scale, a competent manager should be employed, and should be paid a proper salary. Farmers must learn that they are business men, and like successful business men, they must pay a man who serves them what he is worth. We cannot get something for nothing, and the highest priced man is often the cheapest in the long run. Having then the right type of men, the right kind of community, and the right kind of leadership, what next is necessary to successful cooperation? Money, in the form of capital. Too little capital to carry the business over a dull period has often been a cause of failure of cooperative associations as well as of individuals and corporations. Two chief methods have been used to secure money needed by farmers' cooperative associations ; first, borrowing, much as an ordinary corporation would borrow its capital, by the issuance of stocks ; second, the payment by each mem- ber of the association of a specified sum, usually from ten to a hundred dollars, which entitles him to membership and all the privileges of the association. If a farmer does not have the ready money, he can usually give a note for it, to be paid either in a lump sum or by with- holding a part of the proceeds due him. It is much better for farmers' organizations to run their business without depending too much on their ability to borrow money, though they are usually able to borrow when necessary. The profits of a cooperative organization come from the savings made in purchasing, or the higher price received in selling, or, in other cases, from the benefit which comes from having at command a machine or a CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 187 kind of service which would not be possible for an in- dividual farmer working alone. 1 Economic cooperation is never to be sought as an end in itself, but only as a means to an end. It grows out of the felt needs of the community, and operates only so far as it can supply these needs. It might be used more frequently than it is, but it cannot be thrust upon a people. It grows out of economic conditions, rather than out of the fact that it is an attractive principle in the abstract. For this reason farmers should beware of promoters who are interested in them only to the extent of getting easy money out of com- missions for selling stock and equipment. In the creamery business, the promoters have reaped a rich harvest over a long period of years. There is no reason why commissions should be paid for such organizing when there are many men, loyal to the cause of agri- cultural cooperation, who are doing such work in the spirit of service. It is well that farmers place the organization of their cooperative enterprises in the hands of one of their number or of some competent professor in their state agricultural college, or of a government or county agricultural agent. The most successful cooperation will tend to use existing agencies as far as may. be, instead of trying to overturn the existing order of society. Many people blame the middlemen for present-day high prices ; yet these same middlemen are a response to a real need in the process of industrial evolution. 1 For a statement of methods of organizing, and of dividing the profits, see "Agricultural Cooperation," by Professor B. H. Hibbard, Bulletin 238, University of Wisconsin, pp. 17 ff. 1 88 THE RURAL COMMUNITY They have furnished the place of exchange between the producers of raw material and the factories, and again between the factories and the consumers. A few of them may be used very successfully in connection with the cooperative association, instead of being entirely displaced. Their displacement would cause much unnecessary unemployment and maladjustment. The Citrus Fruit Growers of California have shown what may be accomplished by means of working with the middlemen. The advantages of cooperation are many. They may be stated briefly. It often results in the standard- ization and the improvement of the quality of products. This, in turn, means higher prices for the farmer. The difference between a good and a poor quality is often the difference between profit and loss. A co- operative company can afford to advertise and so extend the boundary of its markets and the demand for its goods. Marketing methods are made more efficient, and so loss through inefficient marketing is overcome. Cooperation educates the farmers along business lines, and also in the social spirit. It is not strange that cooperation is becoming a motive force in rural and national life. One great weakness of a cooperative company in America is its limitation to one community when a wider scope of activity would be more profitable. A group of unfederated companies is almost sure to compete within itself. Local companies frequently invade one another's territory for trade and compete with each other in selling. When they are dealing alone, they may be discriminated against or boycotted CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 189 by certain manufacturers ; but if they are dealing as a federation they can break down this discrimination and secure equitable treatment. Federation makes pos- sible for farmers the collective bargaining so much talked about by workers in other industries. The largest and best known examples of state federations of agricultural producers in America are the Cali- fornia Fruit Growers' Exchange and the Wisconsin Cheese Producers' Federation, each of which is made up of local and district organizations. The largest and most successful marketing union at the present time is the company made up of local cooperative grain companies in about ten of our leading corn and wheat producing states. In this latter instance, the actual marketing is done by each local company as best it can, but all the local companies are organized into an association for promoting the interests of the grain producing industry. The main purpose of such a federation is by no means an attack upon legitimate middlemen, but rather the introduction of intelligent business methods into the work of buying and selling farm products, just as such methods have been used in other great industries for the last half century. Agricultural cooperation has met with great success in European countries, the best examples being found in Denmark, Holland, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, and Italy. The unusual success of cooperation in these countries is due in part to the stability of their populations and in part to their organization and federation. The local associations federate into dis- trict units, and the district units, in turn, federate into THE RURAL COMMUNITY a national organization ; thus all units work together as an entirety. All rural social workers, including teachers and pastors, ought to acquaint themselves with the efforts of farmers to increase and improve production and eliminate waste in the present system of distributing and marketing farm products. These matters un- doubtedly call for the interest and enthusiasm of rural educators, because agricultural prosperity means a more satisfying life for all the men and women on our American farms. Good Roads and Other Means of Communication. - Farmers can achieve land ownership, secure a satis- factory labor supply, achieve productive efficiency and organize for profitable buying and selling; but supplies and products cannot travel to and from the farm without good roads and available transportation facilities. The value of good roads has been recog- nized practically ever since civilization began. Com- merce, travel, and warfare, as well as the development and military control of distant countries, have all been largely dependent upon the length and the quality of the world's highways. The greatest road builders of ancient times were the Romans, whose broad highways through Gaul and Britain still remain examples of excellent engineering. The most famous of these roads is perhaps the Appian Way in Italy, which was begun by Appius Claudius in 312 B.C. In general, Roman roads were built in straight lines, five yards wide, regardless of ordinary grades, and were paved to a great depth, the several layers of stone and con- crete sometimes aggregating three feet in thickness. CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 191 Upon such solid foundations did the bonds of empire rest! The work of organized road making in the United States dates from about 1800. Of course, there were the old colonial roads, like the Glade Road of Southern Pennsylvania over which ammunition and supplies for the western forts passed during the Revolution ; and as early as 1786 there was a turnpike of sixty-six miles between Philadelphia and Lancaster, Pennsyl- vania a masterpiece of its kind, paved with stone and overlaid with gravel, so that it was never impas- sable even during the most severe seasons. But the great highways of the early days were constructed later, in the course of western settlement. Boone's Lick Road (so called because of a deer lick at one place on the route) was surveyed from St. Charles, twenty- six miles west of St. Louis, to Old Franklin, Missouri, in 1815. This road brought into Missouri a stream of settlers from Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. Immigration was turned toward cen- tral Missouri, and six years later this state came into the Union. Perhaps the old turnpike that is talked of most to-day is the Old National or Cumberland Road begun in 1806 at Cumberland, Maryland. The State of Maryland had built a turnpike from Baltimore to Cumberland, so the National Road was continued westward from this point. It was constructed by sections and finally reached Vandalia, Illinois, in 1840. This is only sixty-nine miles east of St. Louis, the intended terminus; but it never reached that terminus. It was built partly from funds derived by the federal 192 THE RURAL COMMUNITY government from the sale of public lands in the states traversed, but additional appropriations were neces- sary. The Great National Pike, as it was called, was for many years under federal control, but by 1856 the government had turned it all over to the various states through which it passed. It crossed western Maryland, southwestern Pennsylvania, and Ohio, Indi- ana, and Illinois as far as Vandalia. The cities of Wheeling, Columbus, Indianapolis, Terre Haute, and Springfield are on this route. Hills were leveled and valleys filled, and all the bridges were built of stone except the one across the Monongahela River at Browns- ville, Pennsylvania. It was a splendid thoroughfare along which passed two streams, one made up of the canopied wagons of the pioneers on their way to Kansas, Colorado, or California ; the other, of loads of produce going eastward to the markets from the farms on either side of the Pike. Among the other roads that played important parts in the 'early history of the different sections of this country are the Post Road from Boston to New York ; the Seminole Trail from Washington to Atlanta, Georgia, and thence to Birmingham, Alabama ; the Dixie Trail from Gettysburg to Roanoke, Virginia; the Capitol Highway from Washington to Jacksonville, Florida ; the Tri-State Road from Chicago to Daven- port, Iowa, a continuation of which passes through Des Moines to Omaha, and is called the River- to- River Road ; the Overland Trail once used by the United States Government for carrying mail and passengers from Chicago to the Pacific Coast ; the Chisholm Trail from Kansas to Texas ; the Emi- CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 193 grant Trail of South Dakota ; the Platte River Road of Nebraska ; the Blue Grass Road of Iowa ; the Baltimore Trail of Kansas ; the El Camino-Sierra Route, linking Nevada and California ; the Santa Fe Trail from Santa Fe to Kansas City ; and the Oregon Trail through the states of Idaho and Washington to Vancouver, B. C., and the Sound. In spite of the number of these trails of highways, they have not yet been linked into a national road extending either from the Atlantic to the Pacific or from the Lakes to the Gulf, though great progress toward this end has been made in recent years. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the different States began to appreciate the importance of road con- struction for their local agricultural development ; and since the beginning of the twentieth century, a vigorous campaign for good roads has been carried on by both city and country districts. As a result, many new roads have been constructed or are under process of construction. The first transcontinental route of the country is the Lincoln Highway. Extend- ing from New York City to San Francisco, leading from one state to the next in a direct route, taking easy grades, avoiding the great cities yet adjacent thereto, it is to be a great trunk line, a transcontinental artery. The bed of this road is to be from twelve to twenty feet wide, of concrete broad, smooth, approximately dustless a road for continual and heavy traffic at all seasons of the year. Most of the expense of building and maintenance is being borne by those states through which it passes. Because of the route laid out for this road, a number of the 194 THE RURAL COMMUNITY states will be able to use stretches of their state roads or other improved roads for their sections of the Highway. It will, indeed, be a worthy memorial to the president who preserved our Union. The increased activity in road building has caused a proportionately large increase in the amount of money expended for that purpose. In 1913, approximately $206,000,000 was spent on roads in the United States, as compared with $79,000,000 in 1904, an increase of 250 per cent. This new attitude toward roads has been due in large measure to the increased use of automobiles, both motor trucks and passenger cars. Two centuries ago, the pack horse took produce to the market ; next came the wagon ; and now the self- propelled vehicle has cut the distance from farm to market at least fifty per cent and has greatly increased the size of the load which can be transported at one time. The farmer can now procure an automobile as easily as his grandfather could a top buggy; but the motor vehicle has introduced into traffic a new element of speed which was not contemplated by McAdam and the other highway engineers of the nineteenth century, and which makes it necessary that roads be better built than in the past. Vehicles are no longer light and slow-moving. The automobile truck is replacing on the farm the slow-going wide- tired wagon, and as it will go wherever the roads per- mit, its possibilities of service are tremendous. But steep grades and sharp curves are impossible for speedy automobile traffic ; and apart from consid- erations of speed, the increase in the amount of traffic on the roads necessitates a radical improvement in X Iri 0> a PQ a> 5 I tS CJ 2 B s I 1 r s si 195 196 THE RURAL COMMUNITY road building, especially the adaptation of the roads to the vehicles which are to be used on them. Just as all roads once led to Rome, so, to-day, all roads lead to towns and cities. This is why interurban, suburban, and rural highways concern both the city INDUSTRIAL ZONES ABOUT A CITY Note the effect of streams, swamps, mountains, and railroads upon the con- tour of these zones. and the rural district. About every city, there exists a belt of rural territory which is linked to it in the closest fashion. Much of the city's food is grown in this CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 197 belt and more would be if means of communication were better. Sundry other industries due to the pres- ence of the city are carried on in this area. The resi- dents for many miles around are valuable customers of the city's shops. Moreover, good roads will enable city workers to live in the suburbs or in the open country. It is said that one third of all the industrial workers of Belgium live outside of towns, and cultivate small holdings of land. In every way, the city stands to gain by equipping rural and suburban roads to carry heavy traffic with speed and economy, and these facts explain why boards of commerce have taken such an active part in the good-road propaganda. Farmers, too, are generally good-road advocates. Good roads enable them to get their produce to market more quickly and cheaply and in better condition than would be the case if the traveling were difficult. Cheap motors and good roads will enable the farmer or dairyman living in the agricultural zone that feeds a city to reach his market within half or three quarters of an hour, without losing practically half a night's rest on every trip, as is necessary oftentimes when horses are used for hauling produce. With a market always readily accessible, it pays to work land to a greater de- gree of production ; thus good roads increase the value of farm land. In New York State in 1912, the average value of all farm lands on dirt roads was $35 per acre, while the value of those on macadam roads was $51. State aid given to counties and other local units has accelerated good-road progress. New Jersey began this state aid movement in 1891 by the passage of her State Highway Law. Massachusetts and Vermont 198 THE RURAL COMMUNITY followed a year later. By 1904, fifteen states had State Highway Departments, and to-day there are only six states without them. State aid is important because of the money which it induces counties and townships to spend for good roads, rather than for the money which it gives directly from the state treasury, as this latter is usually only a third of the total expense. It is a method of arousing local interests and of enlisting local support for the cause. Although the introduction of the automobile gave a great impetus to road building within the various states, nothing short of a World War in which America was embroiled was able to influence the nation as a whole to see the need of national highways which would bind the states together as a single unity, instead of pro- viding merely a means of transportation within forty- eight separate units. The military necessity of good roads along the sea and gulf coasts and from the national capital to the numerous points of defense along this coast line was a strong factor in causing Congress to pass the Federal Aid Road Act in 1917. By means of this Act the federal government will provide any state with a sum of money, which must, however, be dupli- cated by the state, for the purpose of building and main- taining highways. The money thus provided by the federal government cannot be given to the counties to be frittered away in small driblets in township roads that lead nowhere, but must be expended in state highway systems which can be linked into a great net- work of national highways leading from one state to another and so from one end of the country to the other. Such a system of roads covering the entire country would CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 199 have value for military preparedness, but more than this, it would have direct bearing on food prices in peace as well as in war. While there has been so much activity and so much agitation with regard to good roads, only a small pro- portion of the roads in this country can be classed as improved. Most of the work is yet to be done. Some states have made costly mistakes in road building. They must put down better roads than they have, so far, or face continually the real highway problem of maintenance and reconstruction. Only such roads as will last from twenty to thirty years are economical. The two types of roads that meet this requirement are made from Portland cement concrete or from vitrified brick laid on a concrete foundation. Such roads should be built in all places where traffic is heavy and rapid, especially on the main roads leading into the cities. Of course, such highways are expen- sive, but in the long run they will pay for themselves by their superior endurance and the small cost for annual upkeep. Even the initial high cost of brick and cement could probably in some cases be greatly lessened if the state made its own brick and cement and used in the making the labor of convicts and of the un- employed in our cities. Each federal census shows an alarming number of people unemployed from one to twelve months in every year. The building of roads could be made a national employment reserve for lean seasons and years. Some of those engaged in seasonal trades, and some of the unemployed, could be brought out of the city for those months in which road building is pos- sible in the rural districts. 200 THE RURAL COMMUNITY Roads in our rural districts should have a roadbed at least nine feet wide where traffic is light, and at least sixteen feet wide where the traffic is heavy. They should be durable, mudless, and dustless ; and the roadside should be beautified. The effect of such roads on rural life can scarcely be overestimated. They touch the social, educational, and religious, as well as the industrial, aspects of life. When a central locality can be easily and quickly reached, a social center, a consolidated school, or a church will be far less likely to suffer from a lack of attendants. Trolley lines are rendering a great service to rural people as well as to those city workers who live in the outlying rural districts. Thousands of rural districts are not reached by railroads, but trolley lines may eventually serve them and connect them with towns and rail- roads. However, trolleys can never take the place of serviceable roads. Good roads are operating in large measure to break down the farmer's isolation. They make possible the operation of many other agencies, which depend for their success upon the condition of the highways. Rural free delivery of mail was begun experimentally on October i, 1896, on three routes, namely, from Charlestown, from Uvilla, and from Halltown, West Virginia. Nine months later, rural mail service had grown to 82 routes, emanating from 43 post offices in 29 states. On June 30, 1918, there were 43,453 rural mail routes operating from 18,813 post offices ; and now every state has rural free delivery of mail and parcel post. About this time eight mo tor- vehicle routes were es- tablished between important market centers. These CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 201 routes were designed primarily to promote the conserva- tion of food products. They reduce cost to the ultimate consumer by making more accessible the productive zone in the vicinity of large cities, thus benefiting alike the farmer-producers and the city-consumers. So suc- cessful was this experiment that the motor-vehicle service has been extended, and 105 trucks are now in operation over 823 routes. When good roads, rural free delivery and parcel post, county libraries, and the telephone, reach the ma- jority of farm houses, the isolation of country life will have passed, and with the passing of isolation by far the larger part of the Rural Life Problem will go also. QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY These questions and references will provide abundant material for three or four meetings. 1. Define the terms business, enterprise, farming, agriculture. 2. Prove that farming is necessarily a scientific business. 3. Upon what conditions does success in fanning depend at the present time ? 4. What do you understand by an industrial zone ? 5. What conditions determine the location and extent of these zones ? 6. Why do such matters as schools, home life, public health, clubs, and the church affect the business side of farm life? 7. Does the business side of farm life affect the schools, home life, public health, clubs, and churches? Consider these two ques- tions very carefully. 8. Discuss the two general classes of farmers in the rural districts. The three specific classes of farm workers. 9. Why do so many young people leave the farm? So many older people ? 202 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 10. Why do farmers no longer produce on their farms all the things they use there ? 11. Why are there so many tenants in this country? So many mortgaged farms? (See United States Census for 1910 for percent- age of tenancy and mortgaged farms.) 12. Discuss fully the provisions of the Federal Farm Loan Act passed in 1916. 13. Discuss long-time and short-time farm credit in Europe. Are such credit systems applicable to this country ? Why has the United States been so late in passing a Farm Loan Act ? 14. Why has the average size of farms in this country been de- creasing ? Did the Civil War have any effect upon the size of the farms in the South ? Has the scarcity of farm labor affected the size of farms ? What about the increased use of farm machinery ? 1 5 . Discuss the ' ' agricultural ladder. ' ' Name some of the things that will help farmers to climb this ladder more easily and quickly. 16. Why does such a state as Illinois have so much tenancy? 17. In how many ways does tenancy affect rural life? 1 8. Why are high prices for land a matter of interest to the en- tire population of a nation? Consider this matter very carefully. 19. What are the provisions of the last Homestead Act? Is there any homesteading being done at the present time? If so, where? (Write to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, Washington, D. C., for data.) 20. Name some of the ways of making farm ownership possible to more farmers. 21. What do you understand by cooperation? What are some of the purposes of cooperation? 22. What is meant by organized cooperation in agriculture? What is the purpose of organized agricultural cooperation? 23. State clearly the difference between a stock corporation and a cooperative association. 24. Why have most of the farmers' cooperative associations been for the purpose of marketing produce and securing better prices ? 25. State two chief reasons why farmers must learn to market their produce more intelligently and efficiently. CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 203 26. Why have farmers found it necessary to buy cooperatively ? 27. Name some of the proper persons to establish cooperative enterprises for farmers. Why should farmers beware of profes- sional promoters ? 28. Name the essentials of successful agricultural cooperation. 29. Why should agricultural cooperative associations federate? 30. Illustrate the advantages of the federation of local or- ganizations into state and interstate federations. 31. Are agricultural cooperative associations going to be in- creasingly necessary to farmers? Defend your opinion. 32. State at least four reasons why they are necessary to-day. 33. Are these associations an attack on middlemen? Have middlemen treated farmers fairly in buying or selling? 34. Are farmers to blame for the high cost of living ? 35. Do we have too many middlemen? Why do we have so many? 36. Name the advantages of agricultural cooperation to non- farmers and consumers. 37. Why have such countries as Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Ireland been forced to develop agricultural cooperative associations ? 38. What is being done in this country to further organized agricultural cooperation ? 39. Make a list of labor-saving devices for farm work which have come into use during the past seventy-five years. 40. Make a list of labor-saving devices for the work of the home which have come into use during the past one hundred years. 41. Does the use of complicated and expensive machinery necessitate a higher grade of labor ? 42. Name the advantages of labor-saving devices to farm people. 43. Trace the development of the United States Department of Agriculture. In how many ways does it serve rural people ? 44. Name the three periods in the history of federal aid to agriculture. 45. Discuss the laws passed and the work started during each of the three periods. 46. What is the difference between the Smith-Lever Act and the Smith-Hughes Act? 204 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 47. What agricultural extension work is being done in your county? 48. Is it possible for all rural young men to attend a State College of Agriculture ? In what ways can a rural high school help young men who have passed the usual school age ? 49. Name some ways in which state governments help rural people. 50. Do any of the forces influencing rural life act alone, or do all these forces act and react upon each other ? 51. State as many reasons as you can why good roads are necessary to rural districts. 52. When did the work of organized road-making begin in the United States? 53. Discuss the Lincoln Highway. 54. State the reasons why the movement for good roads has recently aroused so much interest and support. 55. State the reasons why farmers are enthusiastic advocates of good roads. 56. Of what value are good rural roads to city people ? 57. Discuss the best kind of roads to build. 58. How can the cost of building roads be reduced? Of main- taining roads ? 59. State some general suggestions for the building of rural roads. 60. In how many ways may trolley lines serve the rural districts ? Are they serving the rural districts as fully as they should? Ex- plain. 61. Discuss rural free delivery of mail in this country. 62. Discuss the parcel post service in this country. REFERENCES BUCK, SOLON J. The Granger Movement, Chapters I, II, III, V, VII, IX. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1913. BUTTERFIELD, KENYON L. The Farmer and the New Day, Chapters XII, XIV; Appendices I-IV. The Macmillan Company. New York, 1919. CONSTRUCTIVE ECONOMIC FORCES 205 CARVER, THOMAS NIXON. Principles of Rural Economics, Chapters I, II. Ginn and Company, Boston, 1911. CLAY, HENRY. Economics: An Introduction for the General Reader, Chapters III, IV. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916 ELY, RICHARD T. Private Colonization of Land. Bulletin No. I, American Association for Agricultural Legislation, Madison, Wisconsin, 1918. GILLETTE, JOHN M. Constructive Rural Sociology, Chapters X, XX, pp. 162-174. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. HIBBARD, BENJAMIN H. Agricultural Cooperation. Bulletin 238, Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Wisconsin. . The Settlement of Public Land in the United States. Uni- versity of Wisconsin, 1917. HIBBARD, BENJAMIN H., and HOBSON, ASHER. Cooperation in Wisconsin. Bulletin 282, Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Wisconsin. HOLMAN, CHARLES W. Cooperative Packing Plants. National Agri- cultural Organization Society, Madison, Wisconsin, 1917. LYMAN, CHARLES A. The Cooperative Society in Wisconsin. Na- tional Agricultural Organization Society, Madison, Wisconsin, 1917. MCCARTHY, CHARLES. The Cost of Living and the Remedy. Na- tional Agricultural Organization Society, Madison, Wisconsin, 1916. Copies of the three bulletins listed above can be secured from the National Board of Farm Organizations, Washington, B.C. MORMAN, JAMES B. The Place of Agriculture in Reconstruction, Chapters VIII-XIII. E. P. Button & Co. New York, 1919. . The Principles of Rural Credits. The entire work. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1915. MYRICK, HERBERT. The Federal Farm Loan System. The entire work. The Orange Judd Company, New York, 1916. PAGE, LOGAN W. Roads, Paths, and Bridges, Chapters I, II, IV-VIII, X, XL The Macmillan Company, New York, 1912. PLUNKETT, SIR HORACE. The Rural Life Problem of the United States, Chapters V, VI, VII. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1910. 206 THE RURAL COMMUNITY POWELL, GEORGE H. Cooperation in Agriculture, Chapters I, II, III, VI, VII, XL The Macmillan Company, New York, 1910. RAVENEL, SAMUEL W. Ravenel's Road Primer for Children. The entire work. A good book for adults, also. A. C. McClurg & Company, Chicago, 1912. SPILLMAN, W. J. ; ELY, RICHARD T. ; and GALPIN, CHARLES JOSIAH. Papers on Tenancy. Bulletin No. 2, American Association for Agricultural Legislation, Madison, Wisconsin. TAYLOR, HENRY C. Agricultural Economics, Chapters XIV-XVI, XIX-XXIII, XXVII, XXVIII, XXX. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1919. TOWNE, EZRA T. Social Problems, Chapters XV, XVI. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. VOGT, PAUL L. Introduction to Rural Sociology, Chapters III-VI, XII-XIV. D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1917. The Lincoln Highway. Lincoln Highway Association, Detroit, Michigan. CHAPTER IX CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES IN FARM LIFE Improvement in agricultural life is at present stim- ulated by a number of social agencies. Reference has already been made to the work of the United States Department of Agriculture, which has, in recent years, been an educational force of constantly increasing effec- tiveness in rural life. Its experiment stations, bulle- tins, field agents, and speakers, and its influence on legislation, both federal and state, have been of the greatest value to rural progress, and have done much for the cultural as well as for the economic aspects of American farm life. The contribution of the agricultural colleges to farm life has been supplemented in recent years by the Ex- tension Divisions of more than four hundred univer- sities, colleges, and normal schools in all parts of the country. University Extension Work. That department of universities called the University Extension devotes it- self to teaching outside the university or college proper. The work is conducted either by correspondence or by lecturers sent out from the institution giving the course. This kind of nonresident college study is making education available to thousands of people who are unable, for one reason or another, to attend a higher institution of learning. The work offered is so or- 207 208 THE RURAL COMMUNITY ganized that it may be done by a student working alone or with a group. Some of the courses, such as those offered by the Extension Divisions of the University of Wisconsin and the University of Chicago, carry credit toward a college degree ; others are of a more elementary character. The formal courses offered by these extension di- visions are, however, but a fraction of their educational service. The University of Wisconsin Extension Di- vision, for instance, has a department of debating and public speaking which furnishes complete programs for an entire year's work for clubs and similar organ- izations. It furnishes, also, suggestions, books, and pamphlets to any citizen, school, debating team, or group that is making a study of any subject, and which requests material. The department of visual instruc- tion sends out to all parts of the state sets of stereop- ticon slides and moving picture films for exhibition. Hundreds of sets of pictures of high quality on every sort of subject are kept in stock at the University. Well-planned series of programs are offered schools and communities, and those selecting any one set are listed together as a "circuit." The various sets of pictures constituting the selected program are then sent out to each of the several communities on the circuit, and on a given date each community ships the one that it received first to a community specified by the Uni- versity. Each set of pictures goes to each of the com- munities on the circuit before it returns to the Univer- sity, and the whole process of transferring them from community to community is so well worked out and watched that the pictures are seldom late and rarely CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 209 go astray. This plan makes available to every country school in the state that desires them hundreds of sets of pictures, at so small a cost as to make it possible for every community to afford the service. Other branches of the Extension Division assist the local communities in developing community singing and dramatics, social centers, parent-teachers' as- sociations, better health conditions, better understand- ing of political and economic problems, and better local government. Farmers' Institutes. Another kind of extension work is in the form of Farmers* Institutes. These institutes, too, take instruction to the people at their own homes and particularly benefit the adults. The first meeting of this kind in the United States was held in Hudson, Saint Croix County, Wisconsin, on November 24 and 25, 1885. The work given at these institutes has always been strictly utilitarian. Although at first planned only for men, women's interests are now being pro- vided for in matters of domestic economy, first aid, and home nursing. Much of the instruction is given by practical farmers who have done worth while things ; the more scientific part of the work is done, however, by the teaching staffs of agricultural colleges and by county agents. At one time nearly every state in the Union operated these institutes under a special state bureau, but in recent years a number of states have turned them over to their agricultural colleges as ex- tension work belonging properly to these schools. Demonstrations such as are now being carried out by the states under the provisions of the Smith-Lever Bill will doubtless absorb still more of this farmers' in- 2IO THE RURAL COMMUNITY stitute work in the future, yet there is a place for the institute, and it can accomplish much practical good for the farmer. County Libraries. Another agency for the enrich- ment of rural life is the recently established county li- brary. The need of such an institution has been well stated by P. P. Claxton, former United States Commissioner of Education : 1 "The increase in interest in public libraries during the last three decades has been great. Through public taxation and private donations, libraries have been established in almost all cities and larger towns in the United States. Many of these are housed in costly buildings. Many of them are served by expert librarians and trained assistants. However, much more than half of the men, women, and children of the United States live in the open country and in the smaller towns and cities out of reach of the city libraries. Probably seventy per cent of the entire population of the country have no access to any adequate collec- tion of books or to a public reading room. In only about one third of the counties of the United States is there a library of 5000 volumes or more. In only about 100 of these do the village and country people have free use 1 See .preface of Mr. and Mrs. Antrim's excellent book, The County Library. The library facilities which Indiana provides for her rural people are almost entirely lack- ing, yet this state is one of the most progres- sive in this field of educational work. CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 211 of these libraries. In this, as in so many other things, the very people who need help most and who would be most benefited by it have been neglected." In a few instances, city libraries have been opened to country and village people. In many small towns and villages, small subscription libraries, open a few hours in the week, have a precarious existence. In several states, circulating libraries afford some relief. But none of these minister to the country people in a way or to an extent to be compared with the service which the large and well-endowed pub- lic libraries render city people. The taxable prop- erty of small towns, villages, townships, and rural districts is not sufficient to en- able them to sup- port good libraries without state or county aid. One of the best plans is the county library, supported by taxes levied on all the taxable property of the county, managed by trained librarians, and having branches in all the towns, villages, and schools of the county. Co- operation is as necessary here as in other matters of public welfare. That no county, however poor, may be without the means to support such a library there Nearly three fourths of Indiana's urban people enjoy the benefits of the public library. 212 THE RURAL COMMUNITY should be state aid for public libraries just as there is in most states for public schools. No community should be deprived of access to all the books of which it can make good use. What may be done for all the people of a county through a county library and its branches is well illus- trated by the Brumback Library of the city and county of Van Wert, Ohio, the first library in the United States attempting to serve an entire county in this way. This is also the best possible illustration of how city and county, the private individual and the general public, may cooperate. Mr. John Sanford Brumback, a mer- chant and banker of the town of Van Wert, and his heirs, gave the money for the handsome library building, the city gave the site in its beautiful wooded park, and the upkeep of the library and its branches is pro- vided from taxes levied on the property of the county at large. This library works by means of sixteen branch libraries scattered throughout the county ; through these its books circulate at regular intervals. The books are carefully chosen to serve the interests of village and farm people, and bring the world of infor- mation and culture into the farm home. The Brumback Library was opened in 1901. Since then the following states have made some kind of pro- vision for county libraries : Ohio, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, California, Maryland, Washington, Oregon, Nebraska, New York, Iowa, Arkansas, Idaho, Tennessee, South Dakota, Texas, and Montana. In 1916, there were fourteen states in which county libraries were recognized by law. In seven out of these fourteen, the county may establish a library ; in the other CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 213 seven, the county may adopt an existing library or make a contract with it. In the other states, county libraries may be organized but under no particular law. After a study of the library laws in the fourteen states that have undertaken the establishment of county libraries, we would suggest that two provisions be embodied in every county library law : 1. Every county library law should provide for a tax on the taxable property of the whole county. 2. Every county library law should provide that the county commissioner may enter into an agreement with the trustees of some established library in the county to furnish the county library service. This is the easiest way to secure a county library, and such a county library is to be preferred to none at all. However, it is much better if the law permits a county so desiring to erect its own library building. A state having these fundamental provisions in its county library law would have a workable plan that would, if libraries were to be organized under it, promote the library movement in the state. Such a movement has for its chief ideal the betterment of all the people, is essentially demo- cratic, and is in line with the best progressive legis- lation of to-day. The advantages of a county library are many. The remote rural districts can be reached by means of dis- tributing branches in the trade centers. Such libraries prevent young people from losing the reading habit they have formed while in school, and aid the people, old and young, in the selection of books. Every dis- trict school can be made a substation of the county library distributing system, thus making possible bet- 214 THE RURAL COMMUNITY ter country school libraries, attracting the grown people to the school building, and adding to its attraction as a social center. County libraries can serve the ministers, physicians, and attorneys who are just starting on their professional careers and who cannot afford to buy the many books necessary to enable them to keep abreast of the times. By means of bulletins and by giving out literature relative to the causes which they represent, an enterprising library may advertise betterment organizations of both the county and the local district. The county is an area large enough to support such an institution ; townships are frequently too small to do so. A county library would have funds needed for hiring experienced librarians and assistants and would be able to acquire first class equipment. A county library supplying a large area gives better serv- ice than a number of small libraries scattered over the same area. Moreover, it makes for economy of books and of administration. No books need be idle, as all can be kept in circulation continually. In a number of states, a few progressive counties have devised another method of getting books to the people living in remote rural districts. Those who have been the leaders in this movement believe it is the duty of the public library to take the book to the man back in the country, rather than to wait for him to come for the book. They are missionaries in the cause of popular education. In 1905, the Washington County Free Library of Hagerstown, Maryland, put a book wagon into operation in that county. This meant the rural free delivery of books. In 1912, an automobile was purchased which made it possible to reach more ^Travefing library stations. '*Public libraries served by traveling libraries. This map shows the traveling library service enjoyed by the people of Indiana in 1916. 215 2l6 THE RURAL COMMUNITY homes. The State Public Library Commission of Dela- ware maintains book wagons in two of its three coun- ties. The Narragansett Library at Peacedale, Rhode Island, and the Plainfield Public Library, Indiana, each have automobile service. Seventy-five or more volumes are placed in these wagons or automobiles, in charge of an agent familiar with books, who studies the tastes and the needs of the people served and brings to their attention those volumes which they will find most profitable and entertaining reading. In several states, county agricultural agents have contrived similar means of getting more good reading matter to their people. One such agent in Montana devised a traveling library case on the back of his automobile. The county library has aimed from the first to supply the best reading for the largest number at the least cost. Public libraries no longer serve mainly the scholar and the few. They are working more and more with the many, serving those of all callings and of all degrees of intelligence. They are a necessary adjunct to the public school, helping to raise the general level of intel- ligence and to influence the general public to read more and better literature. County circulating libraries financed in part or in whole by the state would seem to be a practical solution of the rural library problem. Club Aims. Rural clubs should do four things : develop a good community spirit and a spirit of neighborliness ; give to each citizen a realization of the part he can play in the life of the community, and of his duty toward it ; organize the community ; bring to light special ability in young people, and develop and train them for leadership. The two things to avoid are CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 217 dividing the community into factions and "over-club- bing' ' it. Having too many clubs is almost as undesirable as having too few, since none will accomplish serious work. Just enough to meet the business, social, edu- cational, and religious needs of the people will prevent stagnation, keep alive community spirit, and give the stimulation necessary to normal, happy living. "What a tremendous advantage it is to farmers to have such organizations ; what a lever they can pull and control ! You will understand the difference between a rural population and a rural community, between a people loosely knit together by the vague ties of a common latitude and longitude, and a people who are closely knit together in an association and who form a true social organism, a true rural community. I assert that there never can be any progress in rural districts or any real prosperity without such farmers' organizations. Wherever rural prosperity is not reported of a country, inquire into it and it will be found that there was a rural population but no rural community, no organization to promote common interests and unite people in defense of them. "It is the business of the rural reformer to create the rural com- munity. It is the antecedent to the creation of a rural civilization. ... It is a great adventure, the building up of a civilization the noblest which could be undertaken by any person. It is at once the noblest and most practical of all enterprises, and I can conceive of no greater exaltation for the spirit of man than the feeling that his race is acting nobly, and that all together they are performing a service, not only to each other, but to humanity and those who come after them, and that their deeds will be remembered. It may seem a grotesque juxtaposition of things essentially different in character to talk of national idealism and then of farming, but it is not so. They are inseparable. The national idealism which will not go out into the fields and deal with the fortunes of the work- ing farmers is a false idealism. Our conception of civilization must include, nay, must begin with the life of the humblest, the life of the average man or manual worker, for if we neglect them we build in sand. The neglected classes will wreck our civilization. The 218 THE RURAL COMMUNITY pioneers of a new social order must think first of the average man in field or factory, and so unite these and so inspire them that the noblest life will be possible through their companionship. If you will not offer people the noblest and the best, they will go in search of it. Unless the countryside can offer to young men and women some satisfactory food for soul as well as body, it will fail to attract or hold its population, and they will go to the already overcrowded towns, and the lessening of rural production will affect production in the cities and factories, and the problem of the unemployed will get still keener. The problem is not only an economic problem. It is a human one. Man does not live by cash alone, but by every gift of fellowship and brotherly feeling society offers him. . . The country is the fountain of the life and health of the race. . . . Truly the creation of a rural civilization is the greatest need of our time. The fight is not to bring people back to the land, but to keep those who are on the land contented, happy, and prosperous. We must organize the country people into communities, for without some kind of communal life men hold no more together than the drifting sands by the seashore" l Cooperation of Rural Organizations. There should exist a better and more definite cooperation between all those agencies that are working for the development of farming interests. At a recent meeting of the New York State Agricultural Society, Dr. Liberty Hyde Bailey suggested that the State Legislature should define the policy of the State in reference to agricultural education and rural affairs, in order that the whole of the work might be coordinated and a definite plan projected. He laid down the following principles : i. The State should define its policy in the develop- ment of country life. 1 From an address on The Rural Community delivered to the American Commission of Agricultural Inquiry at Plunkett House, Dublin, on July I5i 19131 by George W. Russell, known to the literary world as "A. E." CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 219 2. It should name the classes of institutions that it proposes to utilize in the execution of this policy. 3. It should define the functions of the different classes of institutions. 4. It should state the organic relationship that should exist between them. Although these suggestions were made with educa- tional institutions in mind, they can be applied with great benefit to rural organizations in general. In the existence of many independent, unrelated organ- izations there is great danger of waste of money, time, and effort. The different aspects of the present rural problem require a number of organizations. However, that the best results may be achieved, there should be an agreement and a division of labor among them, and also a unity of purpose so that all can be united as a common force when occasion arises. All rural organizations might be united into county, state, and national federations, thus combining unity of action and concentration of power with local autonomy. // cannot be too emphatically stated that all rural social workers should work together in unity of spirit and purpose. Whenever a clergyman is too sanctimonious, narrow, and conservative to recognize the work of the veterinarian, physician, and lawyer, or whenever the physician, lawyer, and clergyman consider the school teacher as beneath their serious notice, or the school teacher considers all those in the community, except herself, as ignoramuses, there can be no unity of spirit or purpose, and no cooperative activity. The Social Center. The most logical rallying point for the organizations in any district is the social center. 220 THE RURAL COMMUNITY Long ago, it became apparent to thinking people that schoolhouses locked and idle at least half the day were not yielding the greatest returns upon the investment they represented. At the same time, leaders in search of a place in which to get a neighborhood together for pur- poses of social, civic, and cultural progress saw the possi- bility of a wider use of the school plant than had been hitherto conceived. This idea was not without its prece- dent. The old-time spelling, writing, and singing schools of three generations ago were a community effort along somewhat similar lines. With the stagnation of farm and village life, such enterprises fell into disuse, and it was in a city that this old custom was first revived. The school center which was opened on November i, 1917, in Rochester, New York, was one of the first in this country to receive a public appropriation. Thirty states have within recent years enacted laws tending toward the development of the enlarged use of the public school plants out of school hours by others than school officials and pupils. Although in all these states such legislation is not yet effective, there are probably more than a thousand social centers in the United States, and the number is constantly increasing. Cities have widely advertised these organizations as a part of their social welfare work ; and in a number of states, the rural social center movement is developing along lines that are making for permanent and constructive work. The two places where the social center is most needed are the foreign communities of America whether urban or rural - - and our rural districts. For the foreign-born it may serve as a training school in Ameri- CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 221 can ideals and standards ; for our American-born farm people, it is primarily an acquaintance-maker and a social agency. It brings all the residents of the com- munity together, broadening and deepening their knowl- edge of each other; using their friendliness, good- will, enthusiasm, and cooperation as a constructive force for improving local conditions; and enriching and making happier each life affiliated with it. Such an organization, to succeed in drawing all the people of a rural community together in bonds of mutual sympathy and confidence, must have an accessible location and a suitable building; some organized, responsible control ; capable leadership ; a definite program of constructive work along the lines of special interest of the community ; frequent occasions that will appeal to all ages and both sexes and that will unite the entire community as one social body. The schoolhouse rather than the church or the town hall is the logical place in which to start a social center. All creeds and classes feel more at home in a schoolhouse than they do in a church of any one denomination ; and the young people will be more attracted to the school- house than to the town hall, unless, as has been done in a few cases, a community hall be especially planned for the purpose. But if the schoolhouse has been planned, or modified, with a view to its use as a social center, the expense of building a community hall will not be necessary. Every consolidated school building should have a commodious assembly hall and a well-equipped dining room. The kitchen used for the domestic science courses will, of course, be adaptable to the use of clubs and other gatherings at which it 222 THE RURAL COMMUNITY is desired to serve food. The building may also have club rooms for the different clubs of the community, in which they may hold their meetings and keep their equipment. The dining room and. gymnasium may be used for parties and other festive occasions. In a school building of this kind, the social center will have its ideal and natural setting as a part of the edu- cational life of the community. It is not necessary, however, to wait until such a building can be provided before starting the work of the social center. Often the community must be made more sociable before the farmers and their families will see the need for a commu- nity building. The little one-room school has been used in many cases as the nucleus for a later development into a much larger work. The school teacher may do much to arouse interest by organizing her pupils and having them advertise the movement in their homes. This work has progressed so far in Texas, for example, that few school buildings are being constructed without regard to their possible use by communities for other than school purposes. A community center, even a small one, will not run itself. It must have some form of organization behind it, as well as the backing of the community in general. The teacher may be the prime mover in getting the work started, but a representative body of people in the com- munity must take an active part in the conduct of the work. One way to secure such a body is to call a meeting of the whole community and have a board of directors elected or appointed, each one of whom shall have supervision of some one branch of the work to be undertaken, and who should as a whole determine CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 223 the policies of the social center. A secretary to this board will be necessary if the work is to be carried on as a unit. In some cases, the school teacher may, for an additional compensation, be employed in this capacity. This board, with its secretary, constitutes the controlling body and furnishes the leadership required. It will also outline a constructive program in the line of the activities most desired by the people of the community, including clubs for older men and women, and for younger people, boys' clubs, girls' clubs, lecture courses, motion picture entertainments, school plays, and many other forms of activity suited to each particular commu- nity. In some of the rural centers, a program is provided for every Friday night. In one community meeting of this kind an experience meeting was held following the regular program. The testimony of one farmer is in- dicative of the type of programs that had been given : " I have learned things by attending these meetings that mean money to me. The information we got to-night on cotton and on seed corn selection means a ten per cent increase in my next year's crops, anyway. That's one of the reasons why my wife and I come twelve miles every time you folks meet together." The benefits of the social center movement are many. Such centers provide a place and an opportunity for self-expression not always found in rural life, expression in play for both old and young, expression of opinions upon matters of public importance. " The social cen- ter," said a former speaker of the Texas House of Rep- resentatives, " can be the means of informing legislators as to what the people want. If you tell us, we'll give you what you want. The trouble with most legislators is, 224 THE RURAL COMMUNITY that they don't know what to give the people. ' ' Further- more, the social center is a means of organizing acquaint- anceship. Without it, friendship is apt to be a desultory thing based upon proximity of the farms rather than upon a mutuality of interests, and a spasmodic thing limited to chance calls. But in a social center, all the com- munity can get together and come to know each other through regular meetings and organized activity, which are, after all, the best way of getting acquainted. Every social worker in the rural community should train himself for intelligent, purposeful leadership. Able and faithful leadership is recognized to be as nec- essary in rural development as elsewhere. Such leader- ship requires initiative, organizing ability, sympathy with human failings and human aims, trained intelligence, vision, together with a knowledge of existing conditions, and a capacity for recognizing ability in others who may become leaders. The young people who have been born and brought up on the farm, with their wealth of idealism and enthusiasm, will make the best leaders ; for a permanent resident leadership is more valuable than that of an occasional visitor, such as the govern- ment agent, although this leadership is also indispensable. Men's Clubs. In rural communities men's clubs have in most cases been chiefly concerned with the busi- ness of farming, and have not given attention to the cultural side of life. The struggle with nature, to make her produce as much as possible, has kept the farmer's nose to the grindstone. But the farmer of to-day who attends regularly the meetings at his community center will get, in addition to information about seed or soil, pleasant diversion in the way of music or dramatics CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 225 provided by the young people of the community, or a thrilling motion picture reproduction of a novel or play ; and so his cultural development is secured along with the increased knowledge of his business. Women's Clubs. Long ridiculed as inefficient, gossipy, and time-consuming, women's clubs have come to com- mand respect. The woman's club idea was highly de- veloped and widespread long before farm women decided that they had problems worthy of consideration and dis- cussion. They had been too busy with the cares of their own households to take time to think, read, and talk about the many things of vital interest to the home that are now so generally the topic of discussion in the women's clubs of the rural district. More than ten thou- sand rural home-culture clubs of different kinds have now been organized in the United States. Such clubs have a very definite bearing upon life on the farm, for whatever improves the health and intelligence and broadens the outlook of the farm woman improves also the farm and the community. But even yet there is great need for agitation on this subject. Often where prosperity is indicated by great barns filled with plenty, a dilapidated house devoid of beauty, comfort, and convenience will be in evidence. The association of women in clubs has been helpful in removing some of these conditions in the home, for the woman attend- ing club meetings acquires a feeling that it makes a difference what the neighbors think, and that she must have as good things as the other women have ; she gets new ideas of the way things may be done ; she acquires a new outlook that makes her work easier and adds zest to tasks that might otherwise be drudgery. 226 THE RURAL COMMUNITY A definite study program for such clubs is much better than random discussion, as it will inspire the women to take a little time for the required reading which they might think they could not spare from their work if the subjects were based entirely upon general infor- mation. Such subjects as food values and food con- servation, household management and sanitation, heat- ing, lighting, water systems for the farm home, birds, wild flowers, the vegetable and the flower garden, cur- rent events, and the lives and works of various authors, will find a ready response in the minds of these farm women. A healthy, happy, well-informed woman makes a vastly better home-maker than an ignorant drudge, and the woman's club can do much in improving both the health and the mentality of the farm woman. Young People's Clubs. Like the clubs for older people in the rural community, young people's clubs may combine work with play. Just as the home is an essen- tial part of the farm, so the play time of the young folks may be linked up with their interest in the work of the farm. More than half a million young people are members of government agricultural clubs which are known as Four H Clubs. The work of these clubs is fourfold, dealing with Head, Hand, Heart, and Health, and combines admirably the social aspect of boy and girl nature with the individualism so essential to success- ful farming. An H is conferred on the members for special work. In qualifying for a Head H, the boy or girl must prove that he or she has a mind and knows how to use it. Schooling, home reading, observation, short courses, carefulness in preparing work for the club project, are some of the matters taken into consideration. CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 227 Skill in handicraft is a matter of test in competing for the Hand H. Touch, steadiness, dexterity, handi- ness with tools, endurance, are factors in granting this honor, as well as things actually made by the boy or girl about the farm or the home. The Heart H is harder to win, and perhaps also it is harder to gauge the fitness of any person for this honor. Bigness of heart and unself- ishness, service to others, club cooperation, and daily devotions are the main factors, but Sunday school or church activity, practical Christianity, and love of nature are also taken into consideration. Creed has no place in this organization, and the boy or girl without church affiliation is as likely to receive the honor as a church member. The play side of life enters largely into the gaining of the Health H. Team games, swimming, running, jumping, and throwing are big factors, although general physical condition, breathing, and condition of sight, hearing, and teeth cover a large number of points. The possible development of clubs of this kind in a typical agricultural state, when the matter has received proper attention, may be illustrated by the State of Wisconsin, where more than twenty-one thousand young people belong to these clubs. The club organ- izations number 1273. Each club has its special project or projects under the direction of a club leader. A big feature of the club has been the demonstration work. One hundred and fifty trained teams recently gave demonstrations in four lines of work; namely, poultry, potatoes, canning, and sewing. Thousands of people witnessed these demonstrations. Nearly all the county fairs had a junior department in 1919, and the state fair had the largest department in history. 228 THE RURAL COMMUNITY About five hundred boys and girls were in camp at the state fair. Social leaders should not overlook the possibilities of such clubs as these for the development of an all-round life for boys and girls. A large proportion of the young people engaged in this activity are members of organized clubs and as a rule these club meetings are conducted without the presence of the older members of the community. Such clubs make an appeal to the "gang instinct" of young people, and they also serve to develop a sense of responsibility and the capacity for going ahead without depending upon the leadership of an adult. In organizing clubs for young people, the social leader should take into consideration the kinds of clubs already in existence in the community and utilize them. Or- ganized Sunday school classes, Boy Scout troops, and Camp Fire Girls' groups may be utilized as the basis of an agricultural club, and all the clubs may be united into a federation for social and recreational purposes. It is never wise to pile up the number of organizations to which young people belong, especially if one organ- ization can be found which will provide for the de- velopment of physical, mental, spiritual, and social characteristics. The Boy Scout movement has done wonderful things for city boys, by giving them contact with the out- of-doors, a knowledge of the joy of achieving personal skill, and an appreciation of the pleasure to be derived from helpfulness. Such activities as they conduct are sorely needed, particularly in the small towns and in the rural districts. CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 229 The Camp Fire Girls and the Girl Scouts are kindred organizations which aim to develop the qualities of service, health, education, and beauty in growing girls. Rural teachers can do a service to the young people of their community by acquainting them with the work of these organizations and, where other organizations doing similar work are not already in the field, by organ- izing the young people into clubs of this kind. The Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Women's Christian Association are doing val- uable service in rural districts as well as in the cities. In 1916, there were in the United States 113 county Young Men's Christian Association secretaries and 19,000 members of the association living in rural dis- tricts. Of these, 14,000 were boys and the remaining number were men. The Young Women's Christian Association does not have quite so good a showing, but a beginning has been made. In 1917, the Young Women's Christian Association had 23 organizations with a membership of 8183. However, this number does not include all the rural young women affiliated with the Young Women's Christian Association, as many belong to the association in their nearest town or city. The association is now training county secretaries for rural work. The Correlation of Religious Interests. Seven church buildings in a town of a thousand people is not an uncommon thing in the Middle West, and perhaps also in some other parts of the United States. Freedom to worship after the dictates of one's own conscience has been carried to an extreme, and differences in belief and and practice have been emphasized. But the trend at the 230 THE RURAL COMMUNITY present time is toward elimination of divisions based upon some minor statement of creed, of the existence of which many of the communicants are unconscious, and toward union of the various church organizations into one efficient body within a local community. The Interchurch World Movement, organized in 1919, has helped to bring about some degree of that unity which so many desire but which so few communities are able to consummate. If the social worker in rural dis- tricts can influence the people of any community to unite for their religious observances, a great step will have been taken toward the development of a community spirit, and the undertaking of other community activities. Church differences are apt to be strong in the country, and their submergence may need to be the first step in the introduction of other social agencies. In some instances the church may be the organization in which all the other social organizations of the community will be centered. The community church is coming to be in some localities a solution of the problem of individual and sectarian differences. By this means, cooperation is substituted for religious competition. The aim of the community church is not to tear down existing denom- inational lines, but rather to adapt the form of religious organization to the peculiar local situation. Instead of having half a dozen or more small and inefficient churches, it is possible in this way to develop one healthy, live organization which can employ one well- paid and well-trained worker, able to devote his whole time and energy to the task. A striking example of this kind of work is the People's Church at East Lansing, Michigan. This church is becoming a "social experiment CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 231 station," and is the heart of the social and civic life of the town. The church building is open seven days a week, and young people's club meetings, Boy Scout meetings, potluck suppers, meetings of women's and men's organi- zations, and dramatic performances are all held in the church. The congregation is composed of people from many walks of life. Here may be found, with their families, laboring men, business men, farmers, active and retired, college professors, lawyers, and doctors. If a church can succeed with so varied a membership, the average farm community ought to find cooperation in religion a simple matter. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX For information concerning methods of organization in your community of some of the social agencies described in this chapter, consult the following : University Extension Work and Farmer's Institutes. The State University or the State Agricultural College. County Libraries. Mr. and Mrs. Antrim's book, The County Library. (Or confer with your county agent.) Social Centers. A Community Center; What It Is and How to Organize It. Bul- letin, 1918, No. ii ; United States Bureau of Education. Men's Clubs. See articles by E. Davenport on " Farm Bureaus and Their Fed- erations," in The Country Gentleman, Feb. 7, 1920. Women's Clubs. Write to the Extension Division of your State University. Young People's Clubs. i. Four H Clubs. Confer with your county agent, or write to Mr. George Farrell, in charge of Boys' and Girls' Club Work, States' Relations Service, Washington, D. C. 232 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 2. Boy Scouts of America, 200 Fifth Ave., New York City. 3. Camp Fire Girls, 118 E. 28th St., New York City. Religious Organizations. 1. Young Men's Christian Association, 347 Madison Ave., New York City. 2. Young Women's Christian Association, 600 Lexington Ave., New York City. 3. Interchurch World Movement, 105 Fifth Ave., New York City. 4. Organized Sunday School Classes. Write to your own denominational headquarters or to the International Sunday School Association, Mailers Building, Chicago, Illinois. 5. The Community Church. See article by Earl R. Trangmar, "The People's Church," in The Country Gentleman, June 2, 1919. QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. Am I equipped for rural leadership? a. Am I sympathetic? That is, am I one of these people, or am I merely trying to lead and direct them ? b. Have I a sincere respect for rural life and for rural people ? c. Have I formed a distinct mental picture of what I want this community to be and to accomplish? d. Can I lay out a plan to attain this ideal in the most logical way ? How much of the work can be accom- plished this year? Next year? e. With how many rural leaders in other places can I confer ? /. Can I carry out this program for community betterment alone, or must I find helpers ? Is it wise for me to do all of this work myself ? g. Who are the individuals in my community whom I can train to take my place later ? 2. State some of the things which rural people can do to help in the development of rural life. 3. Make a list of at least six men and women not mentioned in the references in this chapter, who have written along the line of rural betterment. 4. Make a list of at least six universities and colleges that have been leaders in the country life movement. CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 233 5. How many books bearing upon rural life do you own? How many have you read? 6. Do you think rural teachers should be required to read such books? 7. State all the arguments you can in favor of public libraries. 8. Give a brief summary of the development of county libraries in the United States. 9. Write to your State Department of Education and learn if your state has a State Library Commission. If it has such a Commission, when was it established and what are its duties ? 10. In what ways do such Commissions serve the rural districts ? 11. Write to your State Library Commission and learn the number of county libraries in your state. Draw a map of your state, showing by black dots the number and location of these libraries. 12. State some of the methods which have been used to help people in remote rural districts to secure books. 13. From how many sources can your reading circle or club secure the books now being used for its winter's study ? 14. Is there a public library of any kind in your community? Is it serving the people as it should? 15. By what means can a teacher get books to every citizen in his or her district? 1 6. Make a list of all persons over twelve years of age in your school district and classify them (i) as to the work in which they are engaged, and (2) as to the extent of their education. Make a list of one hundred books that would be interesting and useful to these people. 17. Why are social conditions so important to the rural com- munity? What are some of the values of well-conducted clubs of any kind ? 1 8. Name four general kinds of organizations which have grown up in rural communities. Can a community be over-organized? What organizations are now existent in your community ? 19. In case you are not satisfied with the social conditions in your community, what do you consider the best method of improv- ing them ? 234 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 20. What are the purposes of the Boy Scout movement ? When, where, and by whom was this organization formed ? 21. Make a list of the boys of your community who should be enrolled in this organization. Is there a local leader who could help in this work? Are there several young men who could be trained as Scout Masters in your community? Would this work help you to serve your community to a greater degree than you are now serving it ? 22. What are the purposes of the Camp Fire Girls? When, where, and by whom was this organization formed ? 23. Consider the girls of your community just as you have considered the boys under question 21. 24. What is the value of a literary club to a rural community ? 25. Make out a one-year program for a literary club, using material which you think would be of greatest interest to a majority of the people in your community. 26. Arrange a one-year program for a woman's club, using only material relative to the home. 27. State some of the values of debating societies for rural young people. Make a list of at least a half dozen live subjects you would like to hear debated. 28. Do you think it would be a good plan to federate all the rural athletic clubs in a county into one organization which would meet once a year? Do you approve of federation of all kinds of rural clubs ? 29. What is a social center? When and where were the first social centers established in the United States ? What are the main purposes of a social center? 30. What results may be expected from the rural social center ? 31. What qualities are necessary to leadership? How may resident leaders be trained for rural districts and retained there ? 32. Why should rural teachers, clergymen, physicians, attorneys, county agricultural agents, all work together in unity of purpose and action ? 33. Make a list of songs which you would like to have used for community singing in your community. Include in this list patriotic and national songs, college songs, songs from classical compositions, your state song, standard hymns, Christmas songs, CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL FORCES 235 and old favorite songs such as "Annie Laurie." State some of the benefits of community singing. Could you start such a movement in your community? What do you think of a group of your best singers learning a half dozen Christmas carols and driving from home to home singing these under the windows on Christmas Eve ? 34. What would be the value to your community of a coordi- nation of all the religious organizations in it? REFERENCES ANTRIM, SAIDA B. and ERNEST. The County Library, Part III. Pioneer Press, Van Wert, Ohio, 1914. ATHEARN, W. S. Religious Education and American Democracy, Chapters I-III. Pilgrim Press, Boston, 1917. BAILEY, LIBERTY HYDE. The Country Life Movement in the United States, pp. 201-220. The Macmillan Company, New York. 1911. . The State and the Farmer, Chapter II to p. 132. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1908. BURCHENAL, MARY H. The Story of a Book Wagon, State Library Commission, Dover, Delaware. BUTTERFIELD, KENYON L. Chapters in Rural Progress, Chapters I ; II to p. 22 ; XIV. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1908. CURTIS, HENRY STODDARD. Play and Recreation for the Open Country, Chapters XV-XIX. Ginn and Company, Boston, 1914. GALPIN, CHARLES JOSIAH. Rural Social Centers in Wisconsin. Bulletin 234, Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Wisconsin. . Rural Social Problems. Bulletin 711, College of Agri- culture, University of Wisconsin. GILLETTE, JOHN M. Constructive Rural Sociology, Chapters I, V. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916. HALL, ELIZA CALVERT. Aunt Jane of Kentucky. The entire work. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1910. PLUNKETT, SIR HORACE. The Rural Life Problem in the United States. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1911. 236 THE RURAL COMMUNITY SETON, ERNEST THOMPSON. Boy Scouts of America. The entire work. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1910. TAYLOR, HENRY C. Agricultural Economics, Chapter XXIX. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1919. WEEKS, RUTH MARY. The People's School, Chapter VI. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1912. Sixth Annual Report. Washington County Free Library, Hagerstown, Md. INDEX Act, Adams, 177; Drug, 102; Farm Loan, 173 ; Federal Road, 198; First Experiment Station, 177; Hatch, 177; Morrill, 176; Second Experiment Station, 177; Smith-Hughes, 177; Smith- Lever, 177. Adams Act, 177. Agricultural ladder, 165, 170. Agriculture, change in industry in, 162; complexity of, 163; domestic, 162 ; importance of, 4 ; in high schools, 154; interests in, 2; ladder of, 165, 170; legis- lation relating to, 2 ; modern, 162 ; more than an industry, 5 ; population interested in, 164; processes in, 24 ; reports on, 7, 8. Alaska, 177. Aments, 96. America, 18, 170. American Association of Agricul- tural Colleges, 158. Automobile, 9, 198. Barberry, Japanese, 8. BOOTH, CHARLES, 39. Boy Scouts, 10, 228. Brumback Library, 212. California Fruit Growers' Ex- change, 189. Camp Fire Girls, 10. Capitalist, rural, 25. Centers, social, 219. Children, retardation of, 106. Church, consolidated, 83; deca- dence of, 81 ; rural, 12, 168, 229. Cities, i ; dominance of, 31 ; in- dustry in, 24 ; location of, 25 ; people of, 3, 20, 21 ; percentage of people in, 76; politics in, 29; schools of, 121 ; workers in, 24. CLEVELAND, GROVER, 177. Clubs, 10, 228, 216, 224, 226. Community, 53 ; characteristics of farm, 74 ; center, 222 ; extent of, 53 ; plan for study of rural, 85 ; religious life of, 8 1 . Country Life Commission, 6. County, farm bureaus, 180; li- braries, 210, 213; superintend- ent of schools, 126. Danish Folk Schools, 155. Data, analyzing survey, 50. Defectives, mental, 95-96; moral, 97- Defectiveness, cost of social, 182. Defects, social, 92, 94. Degeneration, 102. Delinquents, juvenile, 100. Dependents, ament, 96 ; cost of, 182; idiot, 95; imbecile, 95; in rural districts, 100; moron, 95 ; pauper, 99. Drugs, laws relating to, 102 ; takers of, 101. Economic forces, constructive, 162. Education, in consolidated schools, 121, 130, 134, 151; in rural schools, 7, 12, 116, 117, 130; in rural secondary schools, 145, 147; national system of, 156; service of teachers in, 28, 33, 97, 105, 109, 120, 124, 133, 164. Efficiency, 175. Epilepsy, 96. 237 2 3 8 INDEX Farm, bureaus, 180; industry, change in, 162; labor, 6; la- borers, 1 66; lands, 6; lease sys- tem, 170; mortgages, 167; op- erators, 167; ownership, 166; tenancy, 168, 171 ; women, 7, 131 ; workers, 24, 32. Farmers, federal aid for, 176; re- tired, 19. Farming as an industry, 27. First Experiment Station Act, 177. Folk Schools, Danish, 155. GODDARD, HENRY HERBERT, 108. Hatch Act, 177. Health, 7. Highways, 7, 8, 190-201 ; ancient, 190; Lincoln, 193-195; state aid for, 193 ; types of, 199. Idiots, 95. Illinois, owned farms in, 169; rented farms in, 169. Imbeciles, 95. Industrial zones, 196. Insanity, 96. Institutes, farmers', 209. Interdependence of city and rural district, 30, 75. Interests, agricultural, 2. Iowa plan, 153. KELLOGG, PAUL U., 39. Labor, 9; saving devices, 131, 181. Land in Illinois, 169. Lease, farm, 170. Legislation, agricultural, 2. Libraries, Brumback, 212 ; county, 210, 213. Life of a community, religious, 81 ; social, 80. Lincoln Highway, 193-195. Machinery, 9. Mail, rural free delivery of, 200. Marketing, 7. Mental tests, 105, 107 ; Bine"t- Simon, 107-108; Courtis, 108; Stanford Revision, 108 ; which rural teachers can make, 1 1 1 . Minnesota plan, 153. Morons, 95. Morrill Acts, 176. Motor vehicles, 200. National system of education, 156. Neighborhood, 52. Paupers, 99. Politics in rural community, 78. Population, 19; agricultural, 164; classified, 20 ; urban, 20, 21. Project work, home, 137, 158. Proprietors, landed, 172. Public schools in a democracy, 41, 44. Questionnaire, used by Country Life Commissioner, 14; for study of rural community, 85. Religious life of a community, 81. Retardation of children, 106. Roads, see Highways. ROOSEVELT, THEODORE, i, 6. Rural, capitalist, 25; churches, 12, 168, 229; clubs, 10, 216, 224, 226; colonies, 28; cooperation, 182-187, l8 9 2l8 J credit, 172; development, 10; free delivery of mail, 200 ; high school courses, 157; leadership, 4, 12, 13; life problems, 5, 9, 201 ; people, 3 ; politics, 29 ; population in Pennsylvania, 21 ; population in United States, 76; schools, 7, 12, 116, 117, 130; school district map, 57 1 secondary schools, 145-147; social grouping, 52; teachers, 28, 33, 97, 105, 109, 120, 124, 133, 164. INDEX 239 Schools, rural, 7, 12, 116, 117, 130; rural secondary, 145-147, 149; supervision of, 125 127 ; district map, 57; special agricultural, 149 ; backwardness of rural, 119; trade-center high, 152. Second Experiment Station Act, 177. Smith- Hughes Act, 177. Smith-Lever Act, 177. Speculation in farm lands, 6. Stanford Revision of Binet-Simon Test, 108. State aid for roads, 193. Survey, 9, 36; analyzing data of, 50 ; Buffalo, 39 ; comprehen- sive, 39 ; educational, 40 ; kinds of, 37 ; making of, 56 ; maps, 48-51; partial, 37; pathfinder, 38 ; Pittsburg, 39 ; practical, 37; preliminary, 38; purposes of, 41, 44; school map, 57; scientific, 37; teacher's, 54. TAYLOR, HENRY C., 163. Teacherage, 129. Teachers, 28, 33, 54, 97, 105, 109, 120, 124, 133, 164. Tenure of office for teachers, 128. Terms which teachers should know, in. Tests which rural teachers can make, in. Trade-center high school, 152. Trails, 192 ; see Roads, Highways. Types, of defectives, 95 ; of roads, 199; of rural high schools, 149. Urban industry, 24. University extension work, 207 . WILSON, WOOD ROW, 173. Wisconsin Cheese Producers' Fed- eration, 189. Workers, urban, 24. Young Men's Christian Associa- tion, 10, 181. Young Women's Christian Associa- tion, 10, 181. s?S5.^.25* ve*i^7 *> 8e ^^ ^020598 il UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY