{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30563/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30563","id":"gutenberg_30563","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30563","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - American","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Sociology","Christian sociology","Country life"],"text":"Produced by Tom Roch, Carla Foust, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images produced by Core Historical\nLiterature in Agriculture (CHLA), Cornell University)\n\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note\n\n\nMinor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer\nerrors have been changed and are listed at the end. All other\ninconsistencies are as in the original.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EVOLUTION OF THE COUNTRY COMMUNITY\n\n\n\n\n   THE EVOLUTION OF\n\n   THE COUNTRY\n\n   COMMUNITY\n\n   A STUDY IN RELIGIOUS SOCIOLOGY\n\n   BY\n\n   WARREN H. WILSON\n\n\n\n   THE PILGRIM PRESS\n   BOSTON   NEW YORK   CHICAGO\n\n\n\n\n   _Copyright, 1912_,\n   BY LUTHER H. CARY\n\n\n   THE PILGRIM PRESS\n   BOSTON\n\n\n\n\n   TO\n\n   MISS ANNA B. TAFT\n\n   WHO FOUND THE WAY OF\n\n   RURAL LEADERSHIP\n\n   IN SERVICE ON THE NEGLECTED BORDERS OF\n\n   NEW ENGLAND TOWNS\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe significance of the most significant things is rarely seized at the\nmoment of their appearance. Years or generations afterwards hindsight\ndiscovers what foresight could not see.\n\nIt is possible, I fear it is even probable, that earnest and intelligent\nleaders of organized religious activity, like thousands of the rank and\nfile in parish work, will not immediately see the bearings and realize\nthe full importance of the ideas and the purposes that are clearly set\nforth in this new and original book by my friend and sometime student,\nDr. Warren H. Wilson. That fact will in no wise prevent or even delay\nthe work which these ideas and purposes are mapping out and pushing to\nrealization.\n\nThe Protestant churches have completed one full and rounded period of\ntheir existence. The age of theology in which they played a conspicuous\npart has passed away, never to return. The world has entered into the\nfull swing of the age of science and practical achievement. What the\nwork, the usefulness, and the destiny of the Protestant churches shall\nhenceforth be will depend entirely upon their own vision, their common\nsense, and their adaptability to a new order of things. Embodying as\nthey do resources, organization, the devotion and the energy of earnest\nminds, they are in a position to achieve results of wellnigh\nincalculable value if they apply themselves diligently and wisely to the\ntask of holding communities and individuals up to the high standard of\nthat \"Good Life\" which the most gifted social philosopher of all ages\ntold us, more than two thousand years ago, is the object for which\nsocial activities and institutions exist.\n\nIn one vast field of our social territory the problem of maintaining the\ngood life has become peculiar in its conditions and difficult in the\nextreme. The rural community has suffered in nearly every imaginable way\nfrom the rapid and rather crude development of our industrial\ncivilization. The emigration of strong, ambitious men to the towns, the\nsubstitution of alien labor for the young and sturdy members of the\nlarge American families of other days, the declining birth rate and the\ndisintegration of a hearty and cheerful neighborhood life, all have\nworked together to create a problem of the rural neighborhood, the\ncountry school and the country church unique in its difficulties,\nsometimes in its discouragements.\n\nTo deal with this problem two things are undeniably necessary. There\nmust be a thorough examination of it, a complete analysis and mastery of\nits factors and conditions. The social survey has become as imperative\nfor the country pastor as the geological survey is for the mining\nengineer. And when the facts and conditions are known, the church must\nresolutely set about the task of dealing with them in the practical\nspirit of a practical age, without too much attention to the traditions\nand the handicaps of an age that has gone by.\n\nIt would not be possible, I think, to present these two aspects of the\nproblem of the country parish with more of first hand knowledge, or with\nmore of the wisdom that is born of sympathy and reverence for all that\nis good in both the past and the present than the reader will find in\nDr. Wilson's pages. I welcome and commend this book as a fine product of\nstudies and labors at once scientific and practical.\n\n                                           FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS.\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\n   CHAPTER                              PAGE\n\n        INTRODUCTION                      IX\n\n      I THE PIONEER                        1\n\n     II THE LAND FARMER                   18\n\n    III THE EXPLOITER                     32\n\n     IV THE HUSBANDMAN                    48\n\n      V EXCEPTIONAL COMMUNITIES           62\n\n     VI GETTING A LIVING                  79\n\n    VII THE COMMUNITY                     91\n\n   VIII THE MARGIN OF THE COMMUNITY      108\n\n     IX NEWCOMERS IN THE COMMUNITY       123\n\n      X CO-OPERATION                     142\n\n     XI COMMON SCHOOLS                   158\n\n    XII RURAL MORALITY                   171\n\n   XIII RECREATION                       189\n\n    XIV COMMON WORSHIP                   208\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe church and the school are the eyes of the country community. They\nserve during the early development of the community as means of\nintelligence and help to develop the social consciousness, as well as to\nconnect the life within the community with the world outside. They\nexpress intelligence and feeling. But when the community has come to\nmiddle life, even though it be normally developing, the eyes fail. They\nare infallible registers of the coming of mature years. At this time\nthey need a special treatment.\n\nLike the eyes, the country church and country school register the health\nof the whole organism. Whatever affects the community affects the church\nand the school. The changes which have come over the face of social life\nin the country record themselves in the church and the school. These\ninstitutions register the transformations in social life, they indicate\nhealth and they give warning of decay. In a few instances the church or\nschool require the attention of the expert even in the infancy of the\ncommunity, just as the eyes of a child sometimes need the oculist, but\nwith normal growth the expert is called in for problems which have to\ndo with maturity.\n\nIn these chapters the center of attention will be the church, regarded\nas an institution for building and organizing country life. It is not\nthe thought of the writer that the church be treated in ecclesiastical\nterms. It is rather as a register of the well-being of the community\nthat the church is here studied. The condition of the church is regarded\nas an index of the social and economic condition of the people. The\nsources of religion are believed by the writer to be in the vital\nexperiences of the people themselves. In the process of religious\nexperience the church, the Bible, the ministry and other religious\nmethods and organizations are means of disciplining the forces of\nreligion, but they are not the sources of religion.\n\nThe church in the country above all other institutions should see what\nconcerns country people as a whole. If vision be not given to the\nchurch, country people will suffer. The Christian churches are rich in\nthe experience of country people. The Bible is written about a \"Holy\nLand.\" The exhortations of Scripture, especially of the Old Testament,\nare devoted to constructive sociology, the building and organizing of an\nagricultural people in an Asiatic country. Many of the problems are\noriental, but some of them are precisely the same as are today agitating\nthe American farmer. Religion is the highest valuation set upon life,\nand the country church should have a vision of the present meaning as\nwell as the future development of country life in America.\n\nThe country church ought to inspire. It is the business of other\nagencies, and particularly of the schools and colleges, to impart\npractical and economic aims. But these will not satisfy country people.\nNo section of modern life is so dependent upon idealism as are the\npeople who live in the country. Mere cash prosperity puts an end to\nresidence in most country communities. Commercial success leads toward\nthe city. The religious leaders alone have the duty of inspiring country\npeople with ideals higher than the commercial. It remains for the church\nin particular to inspire with social idealism. Education seems\nhopelessly individualistic. The schoolmaster can see only personalities\nto be developed. It remains for the preacher to develop a kingdom and a\ncommonwealth. His ideals have been those of an organized society. The\ntradition which he inherits from the past is saturated with family,\ntribal and national remembrances. His exhortations for the future look\nto organized social life in the world to come. He should know how to\nconstruct ideals out of modern life, which are organic and social.\n\nBeyond these two duties I am not sure that the churches in the country\nhave exceptional function. The writer is not a teacher, and what is said\nin this book about the country school is said solely because of the\ndependence of all else upon this institution. The patient, detailed and\nextensively constructive work in the country must be done by the\neducator. It is well for the church to recognize its limits, and to\nmagnify its own function within them. Vision and inspiration are the\nduty of religious leaders. The application of these in a variety of ways\nto the generations of young people in the country is an educational task\nwhich the church can do only in part.\n\nBut the great necessity of arousing the church at the present time to\nits duty as a builder of communities in the country is this. In all\nparts of the United States country life is furnished with churches.\nPerhaps not in sufficient degree in some localities, but in general the\ntask of religious organization is done. These religious societies hold\nthe key to the problem of country life. If they oppose modern socialized\nideals in the country, these ideals cannot penetrate the country. If the\nchurch undertake constructive social service in the country, the task\nwill be done. The church can oppose effectively; it can support\nefficiently. This situation lays a vast responsibility upon all\nChristian churches, especially upon those that have an educated\nministry; for the future development of the country community as a good\nplace in which to live depends upon the country church.\n\nThis is not the place to discuss whether a population can be improved\nand whether a community can be saved. The pages that are to follow will\ndiscuss these questions. It is the writer's belief that a population can\nbe improved by social service, that the community is the unit in which\nsuch service should be rendered in the country, and that by the vision\nand inspiration of the church in the country, this service is\nconditioned. He believes with those who are leading in the service among\nthe poor in the great cities that the time has come when we have\nsufficient intelligence to understand the life of country people, in\norder to deal with the causes of human action; we have sufficient\nresources wherewith to endow the needed agencies for the reconstruction\nof country life; and we have a sufficient devotion among men of\nintelligence and of means to direct this constructive social service\ntoward the entire well-being of country people and of the whole\ncommonwealth.\n\nThe writer is indebted for help in the preparation of this book to Miss\nFlorence M. Lane, Miss Martha Wilson and to Miss Anna B. Taft, without\nwhose assistance and criticism the chapters could not have been prepared\nand without whose encouragement they would not have been undertaken;\nalso to his teachers in Columbia University, especially Professors\nFranklin H. Giddings and John Bates Clark whose teachings in the Social\nSciences furnish the beginning of a new method in investigating\nreligious experiences.\n\nNEW YORK, July, 1912.\n\n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF THE COMMUNITY\n\nI\n\nTHE PIONEER\n\n\nThe earliest settlers of the American wilderness had a struggle very\ndifferent from our own, who live in the twentieth century. Their\neconomic experience determined their character. They appear to us at\nthis distance to have common characteristics, habits and reactions upon\nlife; in which they differ from all who in easier times follow them.\nThey have more in common with one another than they have in common with\nus. They differ less from one another than they differ from the modern\ncountryman. The pioneer life produced the pioneer type.\n\nTo this type all their ways of life correspond. They hunted, fought,\ndressed, traded, worshipped in their own way. Their houses, churches,\nstores and schools were built, not as they would prefer, but as the\nnecessities of their life required. Their communities were pioneer\ncommunities: their religious habits were suitable to frontier\nexperience. Modern men would find much to condemn in their ways: and\nthey would find our typical reactions surprising, even wicked. But each\nconforms to type, and obeys economic necessity.\n\nThere have been four economic types in American agriculture. These have\nsucceeded one another as the rural economy has gone through successive\ntransformations. They have been the pioneer, the land farmer, the\nexploiter and the husbandman. Prof. J. B. Ross of Lafayette, Ind., has\nclearly stated[1] the periods by which these types are separated from\none another. It remains for us to consider the communities and the\nchurches which have taken form in accordance with these successive\ntypes.\n\nProf. Ross has spoken only of the Middle West. With a slight\nmodification, the same might be said of the Eastern States, because the\nrural economy of the Middle West is inherited from the East. His\nstatement made of this succession of economic types should be quoted in\nfull:\n\n\"The agrarian occupation of the Middle West divides itself into three\nperiods. The first, which extends from the beginnings of immigration to\nabout the year 1835, is of significance chiefly because of the type of\nimmigrants who preempted the soil and the nature of their occupancy. The\nsecond period, extending from 1835 to 1890, had as its chief objective\nthe enrichment of the group life. It was the period in which large\nhouses and commodious barns were erected, and in which the church and\nthe school were the centers of social activity. The third period, which\nbegan about the year 1890, and which is not yet complete, is marked by a\ntransition from the era of resident proprietors of the land to that of\nnon-resident proprietors, and by the fact that the chief attention of\nthe land owners is paid to the improvement of the soil by fertilization\nand drainage and to the increasing of facilities for communication and\nfor the marketing of farm products.\"\n\nEach of these types created by the habits of the people in getting their\nliving, had its own kind of a community, so that we have had pioneer,\nland farmer, exploiter and husbandman communities. Indeed all these\ntypes are now found contemporaneous with one another. We have also had\nsuccessive churches built by the pioneer, by the land farmer, by the\nexploiter and by the husbandman. The present state of the country church\nand community is explained best by saying that it is an effect of\ntransition from the pioneer and the land farmer types of church and\ncommunity to the exploiter and husbandman types.\n\nThe pioneer lived alone. He placed his cabin without regard to social\nexperience. In the woods his axe alone was heard and on the prairie the\nsmoke from his sod house was sometimes answered by no other smoke in the\nwhole horizon. He worked and fought and pondered alone.\nSelf-preservation was the struggle of his life, and personal salvation\nwas his aspiration in prayer. His relations with his fellows were purely\ndemocratic and highly independent. The individual man with his family\nlived alone in the face of man and God. The following is a description\nby an eye witness of such a community which preserves in a mountain\ncountry the conditions of pioneer life[2].\n\n\"It is pitiful to see the lack of co-operation among them. It is most\nevident in business but makes itself known in the children, too. I\nregard it as one reason why they do not play; they have been so isolated\nthat they do not allow the social instinct of their natures to express\nitself. This, of course, is all unconsciously done on their part.\nHowever, one cannot live long among them without finding out that they\nare characterized by an intense individualism. It applies to all that\nthey do, and to it may be attached the blame for all the things which\nthey lack or do wrongfully. If a man has been wronged, he must\npersonally right the wrong. If a man runs for office, people support him\nas a man and no questions are asked as to his platform. If a man\nconducts a store, people buy from him because he sells the goods, not\nbecause the goods commend themselves to them. And so by common consent\nand practise, the individual interests are first. Naturally this leads\nto many cases of lawlessness. The game of some of our people is to\nevade the law; of others, to ignore the law entirely.\"\n\nThe pioneer had in his religion but one essential doctrine,--the\nsalvation of the soul. His church had no other concern than to save\nindividuals from the wrath to come. It had just one method, an annual\nrevival of religion.\n\nThe loneliness of the pioneer's soul is an effect of his bodily\nloneliness. The vast outdoors of nature forest or prairie or mountain,\nmade him silent and introspective even when in company. The variety of\nimpacts of nature upon his bodily life made him resourceful and\nself-reliant; and upon his soul resulted in a reflective, melancholy\negotism. His religion must therefore begin and end in personal\nsalvation. It was a message, an emotion, a struggle, and a peace.\n\nThe second great characteristic of the pioneer was his emotional\ntension. His impulses were strong and changeable. The emotional\ninstability of the pioneer grew out of his mixture of occupations. It\nwas necessary for him to practise all the trades. In the original\npioneer settlement this was literally true. In later periods of the\nsettlement of the land the pioneer still had many occupations and\nrepresentative sections of the country even until the present time\nexhibit a mixture of occupations among country people most unlike the\nordered life of the Eastern States. Adam Smith in \"Wealth of Nations\"\nmakes clear that the practise of many occupations induces emotional\nconditions. Between each two economic processes there is generated for\nthe worker at varied trades a languor, which burdens and confuses the\nwork of the man who practises many trades. This languor is the source of\nthe emotional instability of the pioneer.\n\nThe pioneer's method of bridging the gap between his many occupations\nwas simple. When he had been hunting he found it hard to go to plowing:\nand if plowing, on the same day to turn to tanning or to mending a roof.\nWhen the pioneer had spent an hour in bartering with a neighbor he found\nit difficult to turn himself to the shoeing of a horse or the clearing\nof land. For this new effort his expedient was alcohol. He took a drink\nof rum as a means of forcing himself to the new occupation. The result\nis that alcoholic liquors occupy a large place in the economy of every\nsuch pioneer people.\n\nIn the mountain regions of the South, where the pioneer remains as an\narrested type, the rum jug occupies the same place in the economy of the\ncountryman as it occupied in the early settlements of the United States\ngenerally. These \"contemporary ancestors\" of ours in the Appalachian\nregion have all the marks of the pioneer. Their simple life, their\nvaried occupations, and the relative independence of the community and\nhousehold, sufficient unto themselves, present a picture of the earlier\nAmerican conditions. It is obvious among them that the emotional\ncondition of the pioneer grew out of his economy and extended itself\ninto his church.\n\nThis emotional instability of the pioneer shows itself in his social\nlife. The well known feuds of the mountain people exhibit this\ncondition. Feeling is at once violent and impulsive. The very reserve of\nthese unsmiling and serious people is an emotional state, for the meager\ndiet and heavy continued strains of their economic life poorly supply\nand easily exhaust vitality.\n\nThe frontier church exhibited emotional variability. It expressed itself\nin the pioneer's one method; namely, an annual revival of religion. In\nthe pioneer churches there were few or no Sunday schools or other\nsocieties. In those regions in which the pioneer has remained the type\nof economic life Sunday schools do not thrive. Societies for young\npeople, for men, women and children do not there exist. The church is a\nplace only for preaching. Religion consists of a message whose use is to\nexcite emotion. Preaching is had as often as possible, but not\nnecessarily once a week. Essential, however, to the pioneer's\norganization of his churches is a periodical if possible an annual,\nrevival of religion. The means used at this time are the announcement of\na gospel message and the arousing of emotion in response to this\nmessage. There is little application of religious imperative to the\ndetails of life. There is no recognition of social life, because the\npioneer economy is lonely and individual. The whole process of religion\nconsists in \"coming through\": in other words, the procuring of an\nindividual and highly personal experience of emotion.\n\n\"Beneath the surface of life in these people so conservative, and so\nindifferent to change as it is, there runs a strain of intense\nemotionalism. When storms disturb the calm exterior, the mad waves lash\nand beat and roar. And in religion this is most apparent. With them\nemotionalism and religion are almost interchangeable quantities,--if\nthey are not identical.[3]\n\n\"It is in the revival service that you see the heart of the stolid\nmountain man unmasked. The local mountain preachers know this fact well\nand use it with great effect. A word must be said about these men who\nwork all through the week alongside of their fellows and preach to them\non Sunday. In some places there is a custom of holding service on\nSaturday and Sunday. These men have generally 'come through'--a term\nused to describe the process beginning with 'mourning' and continuing\nthrough repenting and being saved. And generally they are men of\npersonality. They have a certain power with men, anyway, and they are\nkeen to see the effect of things on their audiences. Some of them have\nlearned to read the Bible after they have been converted. It is not so\nmuch what they say that counts. If people looked for that they would go\naway unfilled. But they have another thing in mind. They want to feel\nright. They go to church occasionally during revival drought, but always\nduring revival plenty. They go to get 'revived up.' The preacher who has\nthe best voice is the best preacher. He sways his audience. The more\nignorant he is, the better, for then the Spirit of God is not hindered\nby the wisdom of man. The spirit comes upon him when he enters the\npulpit. He speaks through him to the waiting congregation. Of course\nthey do not know what he is saying for the man makes too much noise. But\nthey begin to feel that this is indeed the place where religion can be\nfound and where it is being distributed among the people.\n\n\"Generally revivals occur as they have always done, about three times a\nyear. At these services the method requires that exhorters should be\npresent and perform. Several do so at the same time. The confusion is\ngreat but the people breathe an atmosphere that begins to infect them.\nSooner or later weeping women are in the arms of some others' husbands\nbegging them to come to the mourning bench. Young girls single out the\nboys that they like best and affectionately implore them to begin the\nChristian life. All the time the choir is singing a swinging revival\nhymn; the preacher is standing over his audience shouting 'Get busy,\nsinners,' and two or three boys are scurrying back and forth carrying\nwater to the thirsty ones, while little groups of the faithful are\nhovering over a penitent, smothering sinner, trying to 'pull her\nthrough.' During this kind of a meeting which I attended at one time a\nwoman 'got happy' and went around slapping everyone she could get her\nhand on, and skipping like a schoolgirl.\"\n\nThe pioneer church has not fully passed away. Its one doctrine and its\none method have still a place in the more elaborate life of the modern\nchurch. Like the rum jug which is preserved for medicinal purposes, the\nrevival has a use in the pathology of modern church life. The doctrine\nof personal salvation which is of chief concern, in the ministry to the\nadolescent population[4] of the modern church, is just as vital as ever;\nthough it is not the only doctrine of the church of the husbandman,\nwhich has come in the country.\n\nA relic of the pioneer days is the custom known as the \"Group System.\"\nBy this a preacher comes to a church once a month, or twice, and\npreaches a sermon, returning promptly to his distant place of residence.\nThe early settlers of this country who originated this system were\nlonely and individualized. They believed that religion consisted in a\nmere message of salvation, so that all they required was to hear from a\npreacher once in a while.\n\nBut the districts in which the \"Group System\" is used have grown beyond\nthis religious satisfaction and the \"Group System\" no longer renders\nadequate religious service. Religion has become a greater ministry than\ncan be rendered in the form of a message, however well preached.\n\nLike all outworn customs, this one breeds abuses as it grows older. Its\nvalue having passed away, it has forms of offensiveness. In sections of\nMissouri where the farmers are rich they say with contempt, \"None of the\nministers lives in the country.\" The \"Group System,\" in a territory of\nMissouri comprising forty-one churches, organizes its forces as follows:\nthese forty-one churches have nine ministers who live in five\ncommunities and go out two miles, ten miles, sometimes thirty miles, in\nvarious directions, for a fractional service to other communities than\nthose in which they live. Each of the two big towns has more than one\nminister and none of the country churches has a pastor. Thus the value\nof the family life of the preacher is cancelled. After all this\norganization and division of the men into small fractions among the\nchurches, there are sixteen of these churches which have neither pastor\nnor preacher.\n\nThis \"Group System\" can be improved, as is done in Tennessee, by the\nshortening of the journeys which must be made by the minister from his\nhome to his preaching point. Nevertheless, it gives to the country\ncommunity only a fraction of a man's time. He can interpret religion in\nonly three ways; in the sermon, the funeral service and the wedding.\nUnfortunately mankind has to do many other things besides getting\nmarried, buried or preached at.\n\nThe country community needs a pastor. It is better for the minister who\npreaches to the country to live in the country. There are some parts\nwhich cannot support a pastor, but the minister to country churches\nshould know the daily round of country life. Religion can never be\nembodied in a sermon; and when religion comes to be limited to a formal\nact it is tinged with suspicion in the eyes of most men. Sermons and\nfunerals and weddings become to country people the windows by which\nreligion flies out of the community. Especially among farmers, religion\nis a matter of every-day life. What religion the farmer has grows out of\nhis yearly struggle with the soil and with the elements. His belief in\nGod is a belief in Providence. His God is the creator of the sun and the\nseasons, the wind and the rain. The man who does not with him share\nthese experiences cannot long interpret them for him in terms of\nscripture or of church.\n\nThe policy of the newer territories of the church must be to translate\nthe \"Group System\" into pastorates. The long range group service should\nbe transformed into short and compact group ministry; the pastor should\nlive in the country community and the length of his journey should never\nbe longer than his horse can drive. A group of churches which are not\nmore than ten miles apart constitute a country parish. Some few active\nministers are able to make thirty to forty miles on horseback on a\nSunday, among a scattered people. This is well, but as soon as the\nrailroad becomes an essential factor in the monthly visit of ministers\nto the country, religion passes out of that community.\n\nThe service of the country preacher, in other words, is essentially\nconfined to the country community, and the bounds of the country\ncommunity are determined by the length of the team haul or horseback\nride to which that population is accustomed. Within these bounds\nreligious life and expression are possible. Immersed in his own\ncommunity, the life of the minister and of his family attain immediate\nreligious value. The whole influence of the minister's home, the service\nof his wife to the people, which is often greater than his own, and the\ndevelopment of his children's life, these are all of religious use to\nhis people.\n\nA recent speaker upon this matter said, \"I doubt if even the Lord Jesus\nChrist could have saved this world if he had come down to it only once\nin two weeks on Saturday and gone back on Monday morning.\"\n\nThe pastor, then, is the type of community builder needed in the\ncountry. The pastor works with a maximum of sincerity, while sincerity\nmay in preaching be reduced to the lowest terms. He is in constant,\nintimate, personal contact. The preacher is dealing with theories and\nideals not always rooted in local experiences. The pastor lives the life\nof the people. He is known to them and their lives are known to him. The\npreacher may perform his oratorical ministry through knowledge of\npopulations long since dead and by description of foreign and alien\ncountries. It is possible to preach acceptably about kingdoms that have\nnot yet existed. But the work of a pastor is the development of ideals\nout of situations. It is his business to inspire the daily life of his\npeople with high idealism and to construct those aspirations and\nimaginations out of the daily work of mankind, which are proper to that\nwork and essential to that people.\n\nAn illustrious example of such ministry is that of John Frederick\nOberlin,[5] whose pastorate at Waldersbach in the Vosges consisted of a\nservice to his people in their every need, from the building of roads to\nthe organization and teaching of schools. It would have been impossible\nfor Oberlin to have served these people through preaching alone. Being a\nmature community, indeed old in suffering and in poverty, they needed\nthe ministry of a pastor, and this service he rendered them in the\nimmersion of his life with theirs, and the bearing of their burdens,\neven the most material and economic burden of the community, upon his\nshoulders.\n\nThe passing away of pioneer days discredits the ministry of mere\npreaching, through increasing variation of communities, families and\nindividuals. The preacher's message is not widely varied. It is the\ninterpreting of tradition, gospel and dogma. His sources can all be\nneatly arranged on a book shelf. One suspects that the greater the\npreacher, the fewer his books. On the contrary, the pastor's work is\nnecessitated by growing differences of his people. He must be all things\nto many different kinds of men. In the country community this intimate\nintercourse and varying sympathy take him through a wider range of human\nexperience than in a more classified community. He must plow with the\nplowman, and hunt with the hunter, and converse with the seamstress, be\nglad with the wedding company and bear the burden of sorrow in the day\nof death. Moreover, nobody outside a country community knows how far a\nfamily can go in the path to poverty and still live. No one knows how\neccentric and peculiar, how reserved and whimsical the life of a\nhousehold may be, in the country community, unless he has lived as\nneighbor and friend to such a household. The preacher cannot know this.\nNot all the experience of the world is written even in the Bible. The\nspirit shall \"teach us things to come.\" It is the pastor who learns\nthese things by his daily observation of the lives of men.\n\nThe communities themselves in the country differ widely, even in\nconformity to given types, and when all is said by the general student,\nthe pastor has the knowledge of his own community. It belongs peculiarly\nto him. No one else can ever know it and there are no two communities\nalike. In the intense localism of a community, its religious history is\nhidden away and its future is involved. The man who shall touch the\nsprings of the community's life must know these local conditions with\nthe intimate detail which only he commands who daily goes up and down\nits paths. This man is the pastor. Except the country physician, no\nother living man is such an observer as he.\n\nThe end of the pioneer days means, therefore, to religious people, the\nestablishment of the pastorate. The religious leader for the pioneer was\nthe preacher, but the community which clings to preaching as a\nsatisfactory and final religious ministry is retrograde. In this\nretarding of religious progress is the secret of the decline of many\ncommunities. The great work of ministering to them is in supplanting the\npreacher, who renders but a fractional service to the people, by a\npastor whose preaching is an announcement of the varied ministry in\nwhich he serves as the cure of souls.\n\nThe pioneer days are gone. Only in the Southern Appalachian region are\nthere arrested communities in which, in our time, the ways of our\nAmerican ancestors are seen. The community builder cannot change the\ntype of his people. He can only wait for the change, and enable his\npeople to conform to the new type. For this process new industries, new\nways of getting a living are necessary. The teacher or pastor can do\nsomething to guide his people in the selection of constructive instead\nof destructive industry.\n\nIn East Tennessee and in the mountain counties of North Carolina\nlumbering industries are for the time being employing the people. The\nresult will be a deeper impoverishment; for the timber is the people's\ngreatest source of actual and potential wealth. The leaders of the\nmountain people should teach reforestation with a view to maintaining\nthe people's future wealth.\n\nIn a mountain county of Kentucky a minister seeing that his people\nneeded a new economic life, before they could receive the religious life\nof the new type, organized an annual county fair. To this he brought,\nwith the help of outside friends, a breed of hogs better than his\nmountain people knew. He cultivated competition in local industries,\nweaving and cooking; and started his people on the path of economic\nsuccess of a new type.\n\nIn conclusion, the pioneer was individualistic and emotional. These\ntraits were caused by his economic experience. While that experience\nlasted, he could be made no other sort of man than this. To this type\nhis home and his business life and his church conformed. Within these\ncharacteristics the efficiency of his social life was to be found.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: \"The Agrarian Changes in the Middle West,\" by J. B. Ross,\nin American Journal of Economics, December, 1910.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Rev. Norman C. Schenck.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Rev. Norman C. Schenck.]\n\n[Footnote 4: \"Youth,\" by G. Stanley Hall.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Story of John Frederick Oberlin by Augustus Field Beard,\n1909.]\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE LAND FARMER\n\n\nI shall use the term land farmer to describe the man who tilled the soil\nin all parts of the country after pioneer days. He is usually called\nsimply the farmer. This is the type with which we are most familiar in\nour present day literature and in dramatic representations of the\ncountry. The land farmer, or farmer, is the typical countryman who in\nthe Middle West about 1835 succeeded the pioneer, and about 1890 was\nfollowed by the exploiter of the land.\n\nIn the Eastern States pioneer days ended before 1835. The land farmer\nwas the prevailing type throughout New England, New York, New Jersey and\nPennsylvania as early as 1800. In the South the contemporary of the land\nfarmer was the planter or slave holder. The modified type in the South\nwas due to an economic difference. The labor problem was solved in the\nSouth by chattel slavery; in the North by the wage system. It is true\nthat throughout much of the South the small farmer held his own. These\nmen conformed to the type of the land farmer. But in the South they did\nnot dominate social and political life as the slave holder did. In the\nEastern States the whole social economy was, until a generation after\nthe Civil War, dominated by the land farmer.\n\nThe characteristics of the land farmer are: first, his cultivation of\nthe first values of the land. His order of life is characterized by\ninitial utility. He lived in a time of plenty. The abundance of nature,\nwhich was to the pioneer a detriment, was to the land farmer a source of\nwealth. He tilled the soil and he cut the timber, he explored the earth\nfor mines, seeking everywhere the first values of a virgin land. As\nthese first values were exhausted, he moved on to new territories. All\nhis ideas of social life were those of initial utility. The rich man was\nthe standard and the admired citizen. The policies of government were\ndominated by the ideas of a land holding people. Individualism proceeded\non radiating lines from any given center. The development of personality\nis the clue to the history of that period.\n\nThe second characteristic of the land farmer was his development of the\nfamily group. He differed from the pioneer, whose life was lonely and\nindividual, in the perfection of group life in his period. He differs\nfrom the exploiter who succeeds him in the country today in the fact\nthat exploitation has dissolved the family group. The experience of the\nland farmer compacted and perfected the household group in the country.\nThe beginnings of this group life were in the pioneer period, but there\nwas not peace in which the family could develop nor were there\nresources by which it could be endowed. The classic period of American\nhome life is that of the land farmer. The typical American home, as it\nlives in sentiment, in literature and in idealism, is the home of the\nland farmer.\n\nThird, the land farmer owned his home. He built upon his farm a\nhomestead which in most cases represented his ideal of domestic and\nfamily comfort. He built for permanence. So far as his means permitted\nhe provided for his children and for generations of descendants after\nthem. He consecrated the soil to his people and to his name by setting\napart a graveyard on his own land, and there he buried his dead.\n\nFourth, the land farmer had neighbors. His well-developed family group\nwould not have been possible without other groups in the same community\nand the independence of the family group was relative, being perfected\nby imitation and economic competition. The land-farmer type came to\nmaturity only when the whole of the land was possessed, when on every\nside the family group was confronted with other family groups, and\nneighborliness became universal. The family group is dependent through\nintermarriage and relationship upon other groups in the community.\nFamily relationships thus came in the land-farmer communities to be very\ngeneral. Some rough and crude forms of economic co-operation also grew\nup in this period, as modifications of the competition on which the\nland-farmer type is based.\n\n\"The farmer type produced a definite social life,\" says Prof. Ross. \"The\nsecond period, extending from 1835 to 1890, had as its chief objective\nthe enrichment of the group life.\"\n\nFifth, the land farmer competed, by group conflict, with his neighbors.\nProperty was regarded by the land farmer as a family possession.\nCompetition was between group and group, between household and\nhousehold. The moral strength as well as the moral deficiencies of this\ntype of man flow from this competition. He considered himself\nessentially bounden to the members of his own group by obligations and\nfree from moral obligations to others. The son received no wages from\nhis father for work on the farm and the daughter did not dream of pay or\nof an allowance for her labor in the house. The land farmer conceived of\nhis estate as belonging to his family group and embodied in himself.\nTherefore he had no wage obligations to son or daughter and he felt\nhimself obliged so to distribute his property as to care for all the\nmembers of his household. This economic competition compacted the family\ngroup and formed the basis for the social economy of the country\ncommunity. The land farmer had no ideal of community prosperity. His\nthought for generations has been to make his own farm prosperous, to\nraise some crop that others shall not raise, to have a harvest that\nother men have not and to find a market which other men have not\ndiscovered, by which he and his farm and his group may prosper. It is\nhard to convince the land farmer, because of his immersion in this group\nconflict, that the farmer's prosperity is dependent upon the prosperity\nof other groups in the community.\n\nThe presence of the small group is the sign of normal social life. The\ngroup is not complete in itself, but is a unit in human association. So\nthat the farmer economy had its social life and its own type of\ncommunities. The economy of the farmer period represents the ideals born\nin the pioneer nation. The community of the farmer is the destination of\nthe life of the pioneer. The farmer still practises a variety of\noccupations. His tillage of the soil and his household economy are the\nmost conservative in all American population. He uses modern machinery\nin the fields, but to a great degree his wife uses the old mechanisms in\nthe kitchen and in the household. The laborers employed on the farm are\nreceived into the farmer's family under conditions of social equality.\nThe man who is this year a laborer may in a decade be a farmer. The\ndignifying of personality with land ownership has been such a general\nsocial experience in the country that every individual is thought of in\nthe farmer period as a potential landowner.\n\nThe institutions of the rural community of the land-farmer type are the\ncountry store, the rural school, and the church. The country store deals\nin general merchandise and is a natural outgrowth of the stores of the\npioneer period in which barter constituted the whole of the commerce of\nthe community. In the pioneer store but a few commodities were imported\nfrom the outer world. The greater part of the merchandise was made in\nthe community and distributed in the store. But the farmer's rural\neconomy is the dawning of the world economy and the general store in the\nfarming community becomes an economic institution requiring great\nability and centering in itself the forces of general as well as local\neconomics.\n\nThe general storekeeper of this type in the country is at once a\nbusiness man, a money lender, an employer of labor and the manager of\nthe social center. He sells goods at a price so low as to maintain his\nlocal trade against outside competition. He loans money on mortgages\nthroughout the community, and sells goods on credit. Judgment of men and\nof properties is so essential to his business that if he can not\njudiciously loan and give credit he cannot maintain a country store.\nAround his warm stove in the winter and at his door in summer gather the\nmen of the community for discussion of politics, religion and social\naffairs. In addition to all else, he has been usually the postmaster of\nthe community.\n\nThe one-room rural school which is the prevailing type throughout the\ncountry is a product of the land-farmer period. Its prevalence shows\nthat we are still in land-farmer conditions: and the criticism to which\nit is now subjected indicates that we are conscious of a new epoch in\nrural life.\n\nIt fits well into the life of the land farmer because it gives obviously\na mere hint of learning. It has been the boast of its advocates that it\ntaught only the \"three Rs.\" Its training for life is rudimentary only:\nit gives but an alphabet. The land farmer expected to live in his group.\nSecure in his own acres and believing himself \"as good as anybody,\" he\nrelied for his son and daughter not upon trained skill, but upon native\nabilities, sterling character, independence and industry. Of all these\nthe household, not the school, is the source. So that the one-room\ncountry school was satisfactory to those who created it.\n\nIn another chapter the common schools are more fully discussed. Here it\nmay be said only that the creation of such a system was an honor to any\npeople. The farmers who out of a splendid idealism placed a schoolhouse\nat every cross roads, on every hilltop and in every mountain valley,\nexact a tribute of praise from their successors. The unit of measurement\nof the school district, on which this system was based, was the day's\njourney of a child six years of age. Two miles must be its longest\nradius. The generation who spanned this continent with the measure of an\ninfant's pace, mapped the land into districts, erected houses at the\ncenters, and employed teachers as the masters of learning for these\nlittle states, were men of statesmanlike power. The country school is a\nnobler monument of the land farmer than anything else he has done.\n\nThe rural \"academy\" was the most influential school of the land farmer's\ntime. Situated at the center of leading communities, in New England,\nPennsylvania and the older Eastern States, it was often under the\ncontrol or the influence of the parish minister. It generally exerted a\ngreat influence for the building of the church and the community. Its\nteachers were men of scholarly ideals. Its students were from the\nlocality, being selected by ambition for learning, and by their ability\nto pay the tuition.\n\nThe development of the high schools has generally resulted in the\nabandonment of the academies. A few have survived and have adapted\nthemselves to new times. But it is to be doubted whether the common\nschools have so far done as much for building and for organizing country\ncommunities, for providing local leadership, for building churches, as\ndid the rural academies of New England, Pennsylvania and other Eastern\nStates.\n\nThe farmer's church is the classic American type of church at its best.\nThe farming economy succeeded to the pioneer economy without serious\nbreak. The troubles of the country church have their beginnings in the\nperiod of the exploiter which is to follow, but the farmer developed the\nchurch of the pioneer with sympathy and consistency. The church of the\nfarmer still values personal salvation above all. The revival methods\nand the simplicity of doctrine have remained, but the farmer has added\ntypical methods of his own.\n\nThe effect of this individualism is exhibited in the multiplication of\nchurches among farmers. So long as it is admitted that the church is for\npersonal salvation, it does not need to be a social institution. A small\ngroup is as effective as a large one for securing salvation for\nindividuals. Two churches or three may as well serve a community as one,\nif personal salvation be the service rendered. The gospel is for the\nfarmer good tidings,--not a call to social service. The result of the\nfarmer period has been, therefore, the multiplication of competitive\ncountry churches. An instance of this competitive condition is: the\ncommunity in Kansas in which among four hundred people resident in a\nfield, there are seven churches, each of them attempting to maintain a\nresident pastor. In Centre County, Pa., in a radius of four miles from a\ngiven point, there are twenty-four country churches. In the same\nterritory within a radius of three miles are sixteen of these country\nchurches. This condition is satisfactory to the ideals of the farmer. If\nthe farmer type were permanent these churches might serve permanently\nfor the ministry of personal salvation. They are well attended by devout\nand religious-minded people. Their condemnation is not in the farmer\neconomy but in the inevitable coming of the exploiter and the husbandman\nwith their different experience and different type of mind.\n\nIn this period the minister frequently is himself a tiller of the soil.\nMany of the older churches had land, ten or twenty or forty acres, which\nthe minister was expected to till, and from it to secure a part of his\nliving. A church at Cranberry, N. J., had a farm of one hundred acres\nuntil the close of the nineteenth century. But with the coming of the\nexploiter and the husbandman the minister ceases to be an agriculturist.\n\nLike unto the tillage of the soil by the minister was the \"donation\" to\nthe minister, of vegetables, corn, honey and other farm products. At one\ntime this filled a large place in the supply of the minister's living.\nIn various communities the custom has remained with fine tenacity in the\npresentation to the minister of portions of farm produce throughout the\nyear. But the portions so given are fewer, as years pass, and the total\nquantity small. The donation of vegetables and farm produce has survived\nin but a few places. The modes of life which succeeded to the farmer\neconomy are dependent on cash for the distribution of values, and the\n\"donation,\" if it remain at all, is a gift of money. Frequently the\n\"donation\" has survived as a social gathering, being perpetuated in one\nof its functions only, its earlier purposes and its essential form being\nforgotten.\n\nThe church of the land farmer corresponded by logical social causation\nto the social economy of this type. It was seated with family pews\ngenerally rented by the family group and sometimes owned in fee. In the\nSouth the slave-holding churches, which have all passed away, had\ngalleries for the slaves, who worshipped thus under the same roof with\ntheir masters. The preaching of this period was directed to the\ndevelopment of group life. Its ethical standards were those of the\nhousehold group, in which private property in land, domestic morality,\nfilial and domestic experiences furnished the stimuli.\n\nThe land-farmer's church had some organizations to correspond to the\ndifferences in social life. The presence of the children in the family\ngroup is represented in the Sunday schools and parochial schools built\nduring this period. The schools are in many cases highly organized, with\nseparate recognition of infancy, adolescence and middle life. In\nProtestant churches the particular concerns of women and the religious\nservice rendered by them take form in women's societies in the churches,\nmostly charitable and missionary.\n\nFinally, at the close of the land-farmer period, about 1890, there\nsprang up the young people's societies, which in the ten closing years\nof the land-farmer period reached a membership of hundreds of thousands\namong the Protestant churches. These societies of young people\nwere organized in the churches to correspond to the growing\nself-consciousness among adolescent members of the land-farmer's\nhousehold. The young men and women in the maturing of the family group\ncame to have a life of their own. As frequently happens, the family\ngroup reached its highest development and perfection just before it was\nto pass away.\n\nThe church of the land-farmer is the typical Protestant church of the\nUnited States. So influential has the farmer been in national life that\norganized religion has idealized his type of church. It has been\ntransported to villages and towns. It has become the type of church most\nfrequent in the cities.\n\nNearly all the Protestant churches in New York City are land-farmer\nchurches; \"and that,\" says a noted city pastor, \"is what ails them.\"[6]\nThis church centers its activities in preaching, rents or assigns its\npews to families, and organizes societies for the various factors of the\nfamily group. It has Sunday schools, women's, men's and young people's\nsocieties, with only one minister to supervise them all.\n\nThe transformation of this type of church, so deeply rooted in the\nidealism of the whole people, into a church better suited to city,\nfactory, town and mining settlement, has been the problem for Protestant\nbodies to solve in the past twenty years. The beginning of this\ntransformation, it is striking to observe, came at the end of the\nland-farmer period, about 1890.\n\nThe land-farmer, then, whose period according to Prof. Ross, extended\nfrom 1835 to 1890 in the Middle West, is the best known agricultural\ntype. He is the typical countryman as the countryman is imagined in the\ncities and recorded in our literature. It has been the American hope\nthat he should be the land-owner of the days to come. In East Tennessee\nthe farmer is still the type of landowner in country communities. In\nsome portions of Michigan and Minnesota the farmer type gives character\nto the whole population, but generally throughout the country the\nprocesses described by Prof. Ross have undermined the integrity of the\nfarmer type and broken his hold upon leadership of the country\npopulation. Within the last two decades, since 1890, the farmer has been\ngradually discouraged and has realized that his economy is not suited to\nsurvive. The most representative farming communities today are those of\nScotch or Scotch-Irish people, whose instinctive tenacity, their\n\"clannishness,\" has perpetuated longer than in other instances the rural\neconomy and the country community.\n\nIn using the term land-farmer I am aware of its close resemblance to the\nterm exploiter. The word itself points to exploitation of land. The land\nfarmer has used the raw materials of the country. He has tilled the soil\nuntil its fertility was exhausted and then moved on to the newer regions\nof the West, again to farm and to exploit the virgin riches of a\nplenteous land. The planter in the South, possessing frequently more\nthan a thousand acres, was accustomed to till a portion of one hundred,\ntwo hundred or four hundred acres, until its fertility had been\nexhausted. Then he moved his slaves to another section, cleared the land\nand cultivated it until its power to produce had also been exhausted.\nThe difference between land-farming and exploitation is the absence of\nspeculation in land in the former period.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[Footnote 6: Rev. Charles Stelzle.]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE EXPLOITER\n\n\nThe third type in American agriculture is the exploiter. Between the\nfarmer and the husbandman there is an economic revolution. In fact the\nexploiter himself is a transition type between the farmer and the\nhusbandman. \"The fundamental problem in American economics always has\nbeen that of the distribution of land,\" says Prof. Ross. The exploiter\nis, I presume, a temporary economic type, created in the period of\nre-distribution of land. The characteristic of the exploiter is his\ncommercial valuation of all things. He is the man who sees only the\nvalue of money.\n\nIt was natural that with the maturing of an American population, the\nexploitation of the natural resources should come. We have exploited the\nforest, removing the timber from the hills and making out of its vast\nresources a few fortunes. We wasted in the process nine-tenths for every\none-tenth of wealth accumulated by the exploiter. We have exploited the\ncoal and iron and other minerals. The exploitation of the oil deposits\nand natural gas reservoirs has been a national experience and a national\nscandal. The tendency to exploit every opportunity for private wealth\nhas characterized the past two decades.[7]\n\nThere are those who exploit the child vitality of the families of\nworking people, and the States have put legal checks in the way of child\nlabor. The exploitation of the labor of women has gone so far as to\nthreaten the vitality of the generation to be born, and laws have been\npassed which forbid the employment of women except within limits. The\nethical discussion of the past decade is largely a keen analysis of the\nmethods of exploitation of resources, of men and of communities, and an\nattempt to fix the bounds of the exploitation of values for private\nwealth.\n\nThere are those who exploit the farm. \"Farms which from the original\nentry until 1890 had been owned by the same family, or which had changed\nowners but once or twice, and whose owners were proud to assert that\ntheir broad acres had never been encumbered with mortgages, since 1890\nhave been sold, in some instances as often as ten times, in more\nnumerous instances four or five times, and a large part of the purchase\nprice is secured by encumbering the estates!\"[8]\n\nAgriculture, especially of the Middle West, is affected in all its parts\nby the exploitation of land. To a traveller from the Eastern States, the\nselling and re-selling of farm land, without fertilization or\nimprovement by any of the successive owners, is a source of amazement.\n\n\"The new lands opened under the Homestead act of half a century ago were\noften exploited for temporary profit by soil robbers who were experts of\ntheir kind. Owing to such farm management, the yield of the acre in the\nUnited States gradually decreased. Very little intensive farming was\ndone.\"[9]\n\nThe commercial exploitation of land dissolves every permanent factor in\nthe farm economy. The country community of the land-farmer type is being\nundermined and is crumbling away under the influence of exploitation.\nThe pioneers were a Westward emigration, pushing Westward the boundaries\nof the country at the rate of fifty miles in a decade; but since 1890\nemigration has been eastward, and it is made up of farmers who move to\never cheaper and cheaper lands to the East, the tide of higher prices\ncoming from the West. Already in central Illinois the values of land\nseem to have reached the high water mark. About Galesburg \"the Swedes\nhave got hold of the land and they will not sell.\" Among the last\nrecorded sales in this district were some at prices between two hundred\nand two hundred fifty dollars per acre.\n\nIt is not generally understood that this exploitation of farm lands has\nextended over nearly the whole country. Its spread is increasingly\nrapid in the last two years. In the Gulf States and the Carolinas and in\nTennessee and Kentucky prices of farm land have increased in the last\nfive years from twenty-five to one hundred per cent. Even in the most\nconservative counties in Pennsylvania the prices of farm land have\nincreased twenty to twenty-five per cent.\n\nThe sign of this exploitation is a rapid increase in the market values\nof farm land, due to frequent sale and purchase. This increase is\nindependent of any increase in essential value to the farmer. The net\nincome of the farmer may have been increased only five per cent, as in\nthe State of Indiana, whereas the values of farm land have increased in\nthe same period more than one hundred per cent. That is, the speculative\nincreases have been twenty times as much as the agricultural increase.\n\nAlong with this change in farm values goes the increase or decrease in\nthe number of tenant farmers and the shifting of the ownership of land\nto farm landlords. In some parts of the country this exploitation has\ntaken a purely speculative form. In all parts it is speculative in\ncharacter, but in some sections of the country the exploiters are\nthemselves farmers and the process is imposed upon the farmers\nthemselves by economic causes. This is true of the Illinois and Indiana\nlands, which are under the influence of a system of drainage, but there\nare other portions of the country in which the process is chiefly\nspeculative. In some Western States the exploitation of farm land is in\nthe hands of speculators themselves, doing real estate business purely\nas a matter of trade. It would be a mistake, however, to attribute a\nprocess so general as this one to the power exerted by a class of real\nestate agents. Its causes are deeper than the commercial process. They\ngo into the very roots of modern life. This should be clearly\nunderstood, because when frankly realized it compels the adjustment of\nsocial, educational and religious work to the period of exploitation.\n\nThe effect of this process is upon all the life of country people. It\nhas created its own class of men. There was no intention in the mind of\nearlier Americans that we should ever have a tenant class in America.\nThe assumption on which all our ideals are built has been that we would\nbe a land-owning people, but we are confronted with a tenantry problem\nas difficult as any in the world. The process of exploiting land has\nadded to the social and economic life of the country the farm landlord,\nwhose influence upon the immediate future of the American country\ncommunity, church and school, in all sections will be great, and in many\ncommunities will be dominating.\n\nThe exploitation of land has produced the retired farmer. He is a pure\nexample of the weakness of the exploiter economy. Originally he was a\nhomesteader, or perhaps a purchaser of cheap land in the early days. He\nexpected not to remain a farmer, but hoped for removal to the East or\nto a college town. The motives which animated him were varied, but among\nthem none was so prominent as a desire for better education than was\nprovided for his children in the country community of the farmer type.\nSo that at forty or fifty years of age he seized an opportunity to sell\nhis land, as the prices were rising, and retired to the town with a cash\nfortune for investment.\n\nImmediately the economic forces to which he had submitted himself made\nof him a new type, for the retired farmer in the Middle West is a\ncharacteristic type of the leading towns and cities. Some whole streets\nin large centers are peopled with retired farmers. The civic policies of\nscores of small municipalities are controlled in a measure by them, so\nthat journalists, religious leaders, reformers and politicians have very\nclear-cut opinions as to the value of the retired farmer.\n\nThe analysis of this situation is as follows. While the land which he\nsold continued to increase in value, his small fortune began to diminish\nin value. The interest on his money has been less every ten years;\nwhereas he formerly could loan at first for six and sometimes seven per\ncent, he cannot loan safely now for more than five or six per cent.\n\nMeantime the prices of all things he has to buy are expressed in\ncash,--no longer in kind as on the farm; and these cash prices are\ngrowing. In the past decade they have almost doubled. This means that\nhe is a poorer man. His money has a diminished purchasing power and he\nhas a smaller yearly income.\n\nIn addition to this, his wants, and the wants of the members of the\nfamily are increased two or three times. They cannot live as they lived\non the farm. They cannot dress as they dressed in the country. The\npressure of these increasing economic wants, demanding to be satisfied\nout of a diminished income, with higher prices for the things to be\npurchased, keeps the retired farmer a poor man. The result is that the\nretired farmer is opposed to every step of progress in the growing town\nin which he lives. He opposes every increase of taxation and fights\nevery assessment. He dreads a subscription list and hates to hear of\ncontributions. Although an intelligent and pious man, he has come to be\nan obstacle to the building of libraries, churches and schools and\nopposed to all humane and missionary activities. He is suffering from a\ngreat economic mistake.\n\nBefore leaving the exploiter it is to be said he also has his church.\nThe exploiter has built no community. He has contributed the retired\nfarmer to the large towns and small cities of the Middle West. It is\nnatural, therefore, that few exploiter churches are found in the\ncountry. But in the larger centers there are churches whose doctrine and\nmethods are those of the exploiter. Indeed, at the present time the\nexploiter's doctrine in ethics and religion is highly popular. It is\nthe doctrine of the consecration of wealth.\n\nThere are in the larger cities churches whose business is to give;\nSunday after Sunday they hear pleas and consider the cases of college\npresidents, superintendents of charities, secretaries of mission boards\nand other official solicitors. These churches have systematized the\ndiscipline of giving. Their boards of officers control the appeals that\nshall be made to their people. Such churches are highly individualist in\ncharacter, and the preacher who ministers in such a church has a\ndoctrine of individual culture and responsibility.\n\nThe exploiter's doctrine of systematic giving has gone into all of the\ncommunities in which prosperous people live. It has become a moral code\nfor millionaires, and the response to it is annually measured in the\ngreat gifts of men of large means to institutions which exist for the\nuse of all mankind.\n\nBut not all the farm exploiters retired from the farm. The stronger and\nmore successful have become absentee landlords. These men have invested\ntheir cash in farm lands. Distrusting the investments of the city\nmarket, and fearing Wall Street, they have purchased increased acreage\nin the country, and when the local market was exhausted, they have\ninvested in the Southwest and the far West, buying ever more and more\nland. They have proven that \"It is possible to maintain a vicious\neconomic method on a rising market.\"[10]\n\nThese landlords have leased their land in accordance with mere\nexpediency. No plans have been made in the American rural economy for a\ntenantry. The lease, therefore, throughout the United States generally\nis for only one year. This gives to the landlord the greatest freedom,\nand to the tenant the least responsibility. Neither is willing to enter\ninto a contract by which the land itself can be benefitted. The landlord\nis looking for the increase of the values of land, and is ever mindful\nof a possible buyer. Moreover, he is watchful of the market for the crop\nand of the size of the crop, so that he desires to be free at the end of\nthe year to make other arrangements.\n\nThe tenant on his part is somewhat eager to do as he pleases for a year.\nHe expects to be himself an owner, and he does not expect to remain\npermanently as a tenant on that farm. He reckons that he can get a good\ndeal out of the land in the year, and is unwilling to bind himself for a\nlong period. \"The American system of farm tenantry is the worst of which\nI have knowledge in any country.\"[11]\n\nIt is true that in some parts of the country leases of three and five\nyears are granted to tenants by the landlords. At Penn Yan, New York, a\nreliable class of Danes secure such leases from the owners. I am aware,\nalso, that in Delaware, in an old section dependent upon fertilization\nfor its crops, where the land is in the hands of a few representatives\nof the old farmer type who have held it for generations, that the\ntillage of the soil shows specialization. The landlord and the tenant\nco-operate. The leases, while they are for but a year, specify how the\nland shall be tilled, how fertilized. They require the rotation of crops\nand the keeping of a certain number of cattle by the tenants. The\nlandlord personally oversees the tillage of several farms. This seems\nthe beginning of husbandry, instead of exploitation of the land.\n\nAnother instance of the landlord who is more than a mere exploiter is\nthat of David Rankin, recently deceased. In the last years of his life\nMr. Rankin owned about thirty thousand acres of land in Missouri. It was\nsaid in 1910 that he had seventeen thousand acres of corn. He had a\ngenius for estimating the values of land, the expensiveness of drainage,\nand the possibilities of the market. He was an expert buyer of cattle,\nand a master of the problems entering into progressive farming on a\nlarge scale.\n\nFrom his vast acreage Mr. Rankin sold not one bushel of corn. All his\ncrops \"went off on four legs.\" \"He drove his corn to market,\" as they\nsay in the Middle West. He bought cattle from the ranches, for none were\nbred on his own land. He fattened them for the market, translating corn\ninto beef and he was well aware of the values of pork in the economy of\nsuch a farm. Nothing went to waste. According to the formula in\nNebraska, \"For every cow keep a sow, that's the how.\" Mr. Rankin made\nlarge profits from his cattle and hogs.\n\nIt is true that he cared nothing for the community or its institutions.\nOn his wide acres family life was replaced by boarding-houses. Schools\nand churches were closed, and many farmhouses built by the homesteaders\nrotted down to their foundations. But David Rankin was a husbandman, if\nnot a humanist. His tillage of the soil was successful in that it\nmaintained the fertility of the soil, that it produced large quantities\nof food for the consumer, and that it was profitable.\n\nThe following is a description of community life under the influence of\nsuch great landlords, by a Western observer:--\n\n\"The city of Casselton, North Dakota, was originally started about the\nyear 1879. Thirty years ago the first settlers came to this great\nprairie region from the New England and Central States. It was shortly\nbefore this or about this time that the Northern Pacific Railroad was\nbuilt across this western prairie. The government gave to the road every\nother section of land on each side of the railroad for thirty miles as a\nbonus. That land was sold in the early days by the railroad to\npurchasers for fifty cents an acre. It was some of the finest farming\nland in the wide world. Out of those sales grew some of the immense\nfarms that have been so famous over the country and while they are great\nbusiness concerns managed with fine business ability, yet they are not\nmuch of a help in the settling of the country. Here within one mile of\nCasselton is the famous Dalrymple farm of twenty-eight thousand acres.\nThis farm employs during the busy season what men it needs from the\ndrifting classes and puts no families on its broad acres. These men are\nhere a short season in the summer, then are gone. They are rushed with\nwork for that season, Sundays as well as other days from early morning\nto late at night, making it almost impossible to touch their religious\nlife or even to count them a part of the community life.\n\n\"Another farm is the Chaffee farm of thirty-five thousand acres. Mr.\nChaffee is a thorough business man but is a fine Christian and places a\ngood family on each section of land. He allows no Sunday work. Has a\nlittle city kept up in beautiful condition in the center of his land\nwhere he lives with his clerks and immediate helpers. Here they have a\nneat little Congregational church and support their own minister. His\nfine influence is felt all over the country. The partners in this farm\nalso have a land and loan corporation and also a large flour mill in\nCasselton which employs about twenty-eight men, running day and night\nduring the busy season.\n\n\"There are many farms smaller, from one thousand acres and up. Many also\nof a quarter section. Casselton was built simply as a center for this\nbeautiful and rich farming region. It is in the center of a strip six\nmiles long and twenty-five miles wide which is said to be one of the\nfinest sections in the land. There are other towns sprung up in the same\nsection also. Through the past thirty years farmers have retired, well\nto do, and moved into the city. Here are now maintained excellent\nschools.\"\n\nIn conclusion: the exploitation of farm lands is a process with which\nthe church in the country cannot deal by persuasion. It is an economic\ncondition. They who are engaged in this process or are concerned in its\neffects are in so far immune to the preacher who ignores or who does not\nunderstand these economic conditions. Their action is conditioned by\ntheir status. They will infallibly act with relation to the church in\naccordance with the motives which arise out of their condition. That is,\nthey will act as tenant farmers, as retired farmers or as absentee\nlandlords. They must be treated on these terms. Their whole relation to\norganized religion will be that of the condition in which they live and\nby which they get their daily bread. This is a matter independent of\npersonal goodness. The church is dependent not on personal good\ninfluences, but upon the response which a man makes in accordance with\nhis economic and social character.\n\nFor instance, in Wisconsin a church worker found that thousands of acres\nin a certain section were owned by a Milwaukee capitalist. He found\nthat the tenant farmers on these acres were poor and struggling for a\nbetter living, and he could not, among them, finance an adequate church.\nHe promptly went to Milwaukee and secured five minutes of the time and\nattention of the absentee landlord. When he had stated the case and the\nreasons why this large owner should give to the country church on his\nacres, the man promptly said, \"You have stated what I never before\nrealized and I will give you a contribution of one hundred dollars per\nyear for that church until you hear from me to the contrary.\"\n\nIn contrast to this there is in Central Illinois a large estate of five\nthousand acres. The owner lives in a distant city and his son tills the\nland. It is known among the neighbors that the son has orders to oppose\nall improvements of churches and of schools, \"because there is no money\nfor us in the church or the school.\"\n\nIt is useless to complain of the position in which a man is. The\nminister's duty is to utilize him in his own status and to enable him to\npractise the virtues which are open to him. The retired farmer can\nbecome an active and devoted evangelist, preacher or organizer. He\nshould be made a leader in the intellectual development of the farmer's\nproblem of the region. He has leisure and intelligence and is often a\ndevout man. It is the business of the minister to transform this into\nreligious and social efficiency. The temperance movement in the Middle\nWest has had generous and devoted support from the retired farmers\nliving in the towns. The families of these one time farmers are seeking\nafter culture. The literary and aesthetic aspects of the community can\nwell be committed to members of these families. Their value for the\ncommunity is probably in these directions. Above all it is the business\nof the minister to sympathize with the life they are living and to\nenable them to live it to the highest advantage.\n\nThe energies of the church should be devoted to the tenant farmer. Of\nthis more will be said in another place. He also must be treated in\nsympathy with his social and economic experience and the religious\nservice rendered to him must be the complete betterment of his life as\nhe is trying to live it. He is not a sinner because he is a tenant and\nwhat he does as a tenant is therefore not a misdemeanor, but a normal\nreaction upon life. The church can help him in purging his life from the\niniquities peculiar to a tenant and a dependent. The noblest motives\nmust be brought out and the life he is to live should be given its own\nideals.\n\nAbove all the period of exploitation must be understood by the teacher\nand the preacher to be a preparation, a transition through which country\npeople are coming to organized and scientific agriculture. Gradually the\ninfluence of science and the leadership of the departments and colleges\nof agriculture are being extended in the country. Little by little,\nwhether through landlord or tenant, farming is becoming a profession\nrequiring brains, science and trained intelligence. The country church\nshould promote this process because only through its maturity can the\ncountry church in the average community find its own establishment. The\nreconstruction of the churches now going on corresponds to the\nexploitation of the land. The duty of the church in the process of\nexploitation is to build the community and to make itself the center of\nthe growing scientific industry on which the country community in the\nfuture will be founded.\n\nThe religion of the exploiter moves in the giving of money. Consecration\nof his wealth is consecration of his world and of himself. The church\nthat would save him must teach him to give. His sins are those of greed,\nhis virtues are those of benevolence. His own type, not the least worthy\namong men, should be honored in his religion. No man's conversion ever\nmakes him depart from his type, but be true to his type. Therefore the\nreligion for the exploiter of land is a religion of giving, to the poor\nat his door, to the ignorant in this land, and to the needy of all\nlands.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 7: The Conservation of Natural Resources in the United States,\nby Van Hise.]\n\n[Footnote 8: J. B. Ross--\"Agrarian Changes in the Middle West.\"]\n\n[Footnote 9: Secretary of Agriculture, James Wilson at the United States\nLand and Irrigation Exposition, Chicago, Nov. 19, 1910.]\n\n[Footnote 10: The Rural Life Problem in the United States, by Sir Horace\nPlunkett.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Dean Chas. F. Curtiss, State College of Iowa.]\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE HUSBANDMAN\n\n\nThe scientific farmer is dependent upon the world economy. He is the\nlocal representative of agriculture, whose organization is national and\neven international. He raises cotton in Georgia, but he \"makes milk\" in\nOrange County, New York, because the market and the soil and the climate\nand other conditions require of him this crop.\n\nHe is dependent upon the college of agriculture for the methods by which\nhe can survive as a farmer. Tradition, which dominated the agriculture\nof a former period, is a disappearing factor in husbandry of the soil.\nThe changes in market conditions are such as to impoverish the farmer\nwho learns only from the past. Tradition could teach the farmer how to\nraise the raw materials, under the old economy, in which the farmhouse\nand community were sufficient unto themselves. But in a time when the\nwool of the sheep in Australia goes halfway round the world in its\npassage from the back of a sheep to the back of a man, the sheep farmer\nbecomes dependent upon the scientist. He cannot afford to raise sheep\nunless the scientific man assures him that in the production of wool\nhis land has its highest utility. \"The American farm land is passing\ninto the hands of those who will use it to the highest advantage.\"[12]\n\nThe dependence of the scientific farmer or husbandman upon the world\nmarket and upon the scientists who are studying agriculture enlarges the\ncircle of his life from the rural household to the rural community. In\nthe rural community agriculture can be taught; in the household it\ncannot. The only teaching of the household is tradition; the teaching of\nthe community is in terms of science. The country school and the country\nchurch take a greater place as community institutions just so soon as\nthe farmer passes out of the period of exploitation into that of\nscientific husbandry.\n\nThe husbandman is the economist in agriculture. He is to the farm what\nthe husband was to the household in old times. One is tempted to say\nalso that the husbandman is he who marries the land. American farm land\nhas suffered dishonor and degradation, but it has known all too little\nthe affection which could be figuratively expressed in marriage. The\nBible speaks of \"marrying the land.\"--\"Thy land shall be called Beulah\nfor thy land shall be married.\" Side by side in this country we have the\nlands which have been dishonored, degraded, abandoned, dissolute, and\nthe lands husbanded, fertilized, enriched and made beautiful.\n\nThe husbandman or rural economist cares more for qualities than for\nquantity. He works not merely for intensive cultivation of the soil, but\nalso for the preservation of the soil and use of it in its own terms, at\nits highest values.\n\nThe principle at work is not the increase in the farmer's material gains\nor possessions. The husbandry of the soil is not a mere increase in\nmarket values. It is a deeper and more ethical welfare than that which\ncan be put in the bank. \"Agriculture is a religious occupation.\" When it\nsustains a permanent population and extends from generation to\ngeneration the same experiences, agriculture is productive in the\nhighest degree of moral and religious values. In the words of Director\nL. H. Bailey, of Cornell, \"The land is holy.\"\n\nThis is especially true at the present time, when the land is limited in\namount. Already the whole nation is dependent upon the farmer in the\ndegree intimated by the statement of Dean Bailey. \"The census of 1900\nshowed approximately one-third of our people on farms or closely\nconnected with farms, as against something like nine-tenths, a hundred\nyears previous. It is doubtful whether we have struck bottom, although\nthe rural exodus may have gone too far in some regions, and we may not\npermanently strike bottom for sometime to come.\"[13]\n\nThe service of the few to the many, therefore, is the present status of\nthe husbandman. The very fact that one-third of the people must feed\nall the people imposes religious and ethical conditions upon the farmer.\nThe dependence of the greater number for their welfare upon those who\nare to till the soil brings that obligation, which the farmer is well\nconstituted to bear and to which his serious spirit gives response.\n\nThis means that with the growing consciousness of the need of scientific\nagriculture there will arise, indeed is now arising, a new ethical and\nreligious feeling among country people. The church which is made up of\nscientific farmers is a new type of church.\n\nA notable testimony to the influence of the church in developing\nhusbandry is by Sir Horace Plunkett,[14] who testifies to the religious\ninfluence that led to the agrarian revolution in Denmark.\n\n\"My friends and I have been deeply impressed by the educational\nexperience of Denmark, where the people, who are as much dependent on\nagriculture as are the Irish, have brought it by means of organization\nto a more genuine success than it has attained anywhere else in Europe.\nYet an inquirer will at once discover that it is to the 'High School'\nfounded by Bishop Grundtvig, and not to the agricultural schools, which\nare also excellent, that the extraordinary national progress is mainly\ndue. A friend of mine who was studying the Danish system of state aid to\nagriculture, found this to be the opinion of the Danes of all classes,\nand was astounded at the achievements of the associations of farmers not\nonly in the manufacture of butter, but in a far more difficult\nundertaking, the manufacture of bacon in large factories equipped with\nall the most modern machinery and appliances which science had devised\nfor the production of the finished article. He at first concluded that\nthis success in a highly technical industry by bodies of farmers\nindicated a very perfect system of technical education. But he soon\nfound another cause. As one of the leading educators and agriculturists\nof the country put it to him: 'It's not technical instruction, it's the\nhumanities.' I would like to add that it is also, if I may coin a term,\nthe 'nationalities,' for nothing is more evident to the student of\nDanish education or, I might add, of the excellent system of the\nChristian Brothers in Ireland, than that one of the secrets of their\nsuccess is to be found in their national basis and their foundation upon\nthe history and literature of the country.\"\n\nEvery observer of these Danish Folk High Schools testifies to their\nreligious enthusiasm, their patriotism and above all to the songs with\nwhich their lecture hours are begun and ended. A graduate of these\nschools living for years in America, the mother of children then\nentering college, said, \"Those songs helped me over the hardest period\nof my life. I can always sing myself happy with them.\" The spirit which\npervades the schools was influential in Danish agriculture, as\nexpressed in the title of Grundtvig's best known hymn, \"The Country\nChurch Bells.\" Under such an influence as this has the agricultural life\nof Denmark taken the lead over its urban and manufacturing life.\n\nThe modifying influence of husbandry upon the church and its teaching is\nillustrated in the following incident. A farmer in Missouri had a good\nstand of corn which promised all through the summer to produce an\nexcellent crop. Abundance of sun and rain favored the farmer's hope that\nhis returns would be large, but in the fall the crop proved a failure.\nThe farmer at once cast about for the cause of this disappointment. He\nhad his soil analyzed by a scientist and discovered that it was\ndeficient in nitrogen. The next year he devoted to supplying this lack\nin the soil and in the year following had an abundant return in corn.\n\"Now that experience turned me away,\" said he, \"from the country church,\nbecause the teaching of the country church as I had been accustomed to\nit was out of harmony with the study of the situation and the conquest\nover nature. I had been taught in the country church to surrender under\nsuch conditions to the will of Providence.\" The country church of the\nhusbandman must therefore be a church in harmony with the tillage of the\nsoil by science. Like the farm households about it, the church will\npossess a large wealth of tradition, but the church of the scientific\nfarmer must be open to the teachings of science and must be responsive,\nintelligent and alert in the intellectual leadership of the people.\n\nA church of this sort is at West Nottingham, Maryland. The minister Rev.\nSamuel Polk, had been discouraged by the inattention of his people to\nhis message. He had come to feel that this is an unbelieving age and had\nsurrendered himself to the steadfast performance of his duties, the\npreaching of the truth faithfully and the ministry to his people so far\nas they would receive it. In addition he had the task of tilling forty\nacres of land which belongs to the church. This he was doing faithfully,\nbut without much intelligent interest.\n\nAn address on the country church in an agricultural college sent him\nhome with new ideas. He saw that his life as a farmer and as a preacher\nhad to be made one. He determined to preach to farmers and to till his\nland as an example of Christian husbandry. He began as a scholar by\nstudying the scientific use of his land. He found at once that the\nfarmers about him were forced to study the tillage of their soil,\nbecause it had been exhausted of fertility by methods of farming no\nlonger profitable. In the first year the preacher raised, by means of a\ndust mulch through a dry summer, a crop of one hundred and seventy-five\nbushels of potatoes. Meantime his preaching had been enlivened with new\nillustrations and he was enabled to enforce, to the amazement of his\nhearers, new impressions with old truths. The Scripture teaching which\nhad become dull and scholastic became live and modern, as he preached\nthe Old Testament to a people who were recognizing the sacredness of\nland. His audiences began to increase. His influence on his people very\nshortly passed bounds and reserves. When at the end of the season his\npotato crop came in, the farmers gave sign of recognizing his leadership\nas a farmer and as a preacher. Within a year this man had taken a place\nas a first citizen, which no one else in the community could hold.\nBecause he was a preacher he could become the leading authority upon\nfarming and because he must needs be a farmer he found it possible to\npreach with greater acceptance.\n\nThis pastor gave up the methods of bookish preparation for preaching. He\npreached as the Old Testament men did, to the occasion and to the event.\nHe spoke to the community as being a man himself immersed in the same\nlife as theirs. On a recent occasion when a woman was very sick in one\nof the farm houses and had suffered from the neglect of her neighbors,\nhis sermon consisted of an appeal to visit the sick. That afternoon the\ninvalid was called on by thirty-eight people and sent a message before\nnight, begging the minister to hold the people back.\n\nThere are a few ministers throughout the country who are successful\nfarmers. Many ministers are speculators in farm land. They belong in the\nexploiter class. One more instance should be given of the preacher who\npromotes agriculture. In a recent discussion the writer was asked, \"Do\nyou then believe that the minister should attend the agricultural\ncollege,\" and he replied, \"No. The agricultural college should be\nbrought to the country church.\"\n\nAt Bellona, New York, the ministers of two churches, Methodist and\nPresbyterian, united with their officers in a farmers' club, to which\nothers were admitted. This club under the leadership of Rev. T. Maxwell\nMorrison, makes the nucleus of its work the study of the agriculture of\nthe neighborhood and the improvement of it. Lecturers from Cornell\nUniversity are brought throughout the year into the country community to\ntake up in succession the various aspects of farming which may be\nimproved. The market is studied, by chemical analysis the nature of the\nsoil is determined, and the possibilities of the community are raised to\ntheir highest value by careful investigation.\n\nThis farmers' club has social features as well. Other topics besides\nfarming are occasionally studied but the business of the club is\neconomic promotion of the well-being of the community. Incidentally, it\nhas furnished a social center for the countryside. The churches which\nhave had to do with it have been enlarged, their membership extended and\neven their gifts to foreign missions have been increased in the period\nof growth of the farmers' club.\n\nThe elements of permanent cultivation of the soil are found in greater\nnumbers among the Mormons, Scotch Irish Presbyterians, Pennsylvania\nGermans, who are the best American agriculturists, than among the more\nunstable populations of farmers. Those elements, however, are, simply\nspeaking, the following.\n\nA certain austerity of life always accompanies successful and permanent\nagriculture. By this is meant a fixed relation between production and\nconsumption.[15] Successful tillers of the soil labor to produce an\nabundant harvest. They live at the same time in a meager and sparing\nmanner. Production is with them raised to its highest power and\nconsumption is reduced to its lowest. This means austere living. Such\ncommunities are found among the Scotch Irish farmers. Lancaster County,\nPennsylvania, is peopled with them and their tillage of the soil has\ncontinued through two centuries.\n\nA notable illustration is in Illinois. The permanence of the conditions\nof country life in this community is indicated by the long pastorate of\nthe minister who has just retired. Coming to the church at forty-eight\nyears of age, after other men have ceased from zealous service, he\nministered forty-two years to this parish of farmers, and has recently\nretired at the age of ninety, leaving the church in ideal condition.\n\"The Middle Creek Church is distinctly a country charge, located in the\nSouthwest corner of Winnebago Township, of the County of Winnebago.\n\n\"The church was organized in June, 1855, in a stone schoolhouse. The\npresent house of worship was erected and dedicated in 1861. Five\nministers served the church as supplies until 1865, when the Rev. J. S.\nBraddock, D. D., became the pastor and carried on a splendid work for\nforty-two years, when he laid down his pastorate in 1907, at the age of\nninety.\"\n\n\"This community was settled by homesteaders and pioneers in the early\ndays of the West. Many of them came from Pennsylvania and some of them\nwere of Scotch descent. The history of the community has been but the\nhistory of the development of a fertile Western Prairie country. It was\nsettled by strong Presbyterian men, and their descendants are now the\nbackbone of the community. There has been little change, but steady\ngrowth.\"\n\nThe second element in the community of husbandmen is mutual support.\nProfessor Gillin of the University of Iowa has described to me the\ncommunity of Dunkers whom he has studied,[16] being deeply impressed\nwith their communal solidarity. Whenever a farm is for sale these\nfarmers at the meeting-house confer and decide at once upon a buyer\nwithin their own religious fellowship. In the week following the\nminister or a church member writes back to Pennsylvania and the\ncorrespondence is pressed, until a family comes out from the older\nsettlements in the Keystone State to purchase this farm in Iowa and to\nextend the colony of his fellow Dunkers. Reference is made elsewhere to\nthe communal support given to their own members who suffer economic\nhardship. The serious tillage of the soil necessarily involves mutual\nsupport and the husbandman's life is in his community.\n\nThe third factor in communal husbandry is progress. Everyone testifies\nto the leadership of the \"best families\" in the transformation of the\nolder modes of the tillage of the soil to the newer. It is impossible\nfor the scientific agriculturist to make much improvement upon a country\ncommunity until the more progressive spirits and the more open minds\nhave been enlisted. Thereafter the better farming problem is solved.\nThere can be no modern agriculture in a community in which all are\nequal. The communities of husbandmen will be as sharply differenced from\none another, so far as I can see, as men are in the great cities.\nLeadership is the essential of progress. Gabriel Tarde has clearly\ndemonstrated that only those who are at the top of the social scale can\ninitiate social and economic enterprises. The cultivation of the soil\nfor generations to come must be highly progressive. To recover what we\nhave lost and to restore what has been wasted will exhaust the resources\nof science and will tax the intelligence of the leaders among\nhusbandmen.\n\nFor this reason the ministers, teachers, and social workers in the\ncountry should be not discouraged, but hopeful, when confronted with\nrural landlords and capitalists. The business of the community leader is\nto enlist in the common task those persons whose privileges are superior\nand inspire them with a progressive spirit. Without their leadership the\ncommunity cannot progress. Without their privileges, wealth and superior\neducation, no progress is possible in the country.\n\nIf these pages tell the truth, then agriculture is a mode of life\nfertile in religious and ethical values. But it must be husbandry, not\nexploitation. Religious farming is a lifelong agriculture, indeed it\ninvolves generations, and its serious, devoted spirit waits for the\nreward, which was planted by the diligent father or grandfather, to be\nreaped by the son or grandson. Men will not so consecrate themselves to\ntheir children's good without the steadying influence of religion. So\nthat agriculture and religion are each the cause, and each the effect,\nof the other.\n\nIf this is true, then the country church should promote the husbandry\nof the soil. The agricultural college should be brought into the country\nparish, for the church's sake. Indeed the minister would do well if his\nscholarship be the learning of the husbandman. No other science has such\nreligious values. No other books have such immediate relation to the\nwell-being of the people. The minister is not ashamed to teach Greek,\nor Latin,--dead languages. Why should he think it beneath him \"to teach\nthe farmer how to farm,\" provided he can teach the farmer anything? If\nhe be a true scholar, the farmer, who is a practical man, needs his\nlearned co-operation in the most religious of occupations, that the land\nmay be holy.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 12: Rural Economics, by Prof. Thos. Nixon Carver.]\n\n[Footnote 13: \"The Country-Life Movement,\" by L. H. Bailey.]\n\n[Footnote 14: \"Ireland in the New Century,\" by Sir Horace Plunkett.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Professor Thomas Nixon Carver.]\n\n[Footnote 16: See Chapter V.]\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nEXCEPTIONAL COMMUNITIES\n\n\nMost of this volume is devoted to the average conditions which prevail\nthroughout the United States. The attempt is made to deal with those\ncauses which are generally operative. It is the writer's opinion that\nthe causes dealt with in other chapters are the prevailing causes of\nreligious and social experience in the most of the United States. As\nsoon as the community, after its early settlement, becomes mature, these\ncauses show the effects here described. But there are exceptions which\nshould be noted and the cause of their different life made clear. These\nexceptions are represented in the Mormons, the Scottish Presbyterians\nand the Pennsylvania Germans.\n\n\"The best farmers in the country are the Mormons, the Scotch\nPresbyterians and Pennsylvania Germans.\" This sentence expresses a\ngeneral observation of Prof. Carver of Harvard, speaking as an\neconomist. The churches among these three classes of exceptionally\nprosperous farmers show great tenacity and are free from the weakness\nwhich otherwise prevails in the country church. There is a group of\ncauses underlying this exceptional character of the three classes of\nfarmers.\n\nThese exceptional farmers are organized in the interest of agriculture.\nThe Mormons represent this organization in the highest degree. Perhaps\nno other so large or so powerful a body of united farmers is found in\nthe whole country. They have approached the economic questions of\nfarming with determination to till the soil. They distrust city life and\ncondemn it. They teach their children and they discipline themselves to\nlove the country, to appreciate its advantages and to recognize that\ntheir own welfare is bound up in their success as farmers, and in the\ncontinuance of their farming communities. This agricultural organization\ncenters about their country churches. They have turned the force of\nreligion into a community making power, and from the highest to the\nlowest of their church officers the Mormon people are devoted to\nagriculture as a mode of living.\n\nThis principle of organizing the community consciously for agriculture\nresults in the second condition of the life of these three exceptional\npeoples.\n\nThey build agricultural communities. The Mormons are organized by an\nidea and by the power of leadership. They have recruited their\npopulation through preachers and missionaries. This new population is\nwoven at once into the fabric of the community. They are not merely\nemployed in the community: they are married to the community. The\norganization on which the Mormon community is based becomes embodied at\nonce in a society, with its own modes of religious, family, and moral\nfeeling and thought.\n\nThese two principles are discovered in the Pennsylvania Germans. For\nmore than two centuries they have continued their settlements in\nPennsylvania. They are today a chain of societies loosely related to one\nanother through religious sympathy and a common tradition, but united\nonly in the possession of certain characteristics. They also are an\norganization for agricultural life, though not so consciously organized\nas the Mormons. Their societies are older and they have replaced with\ninstinctive processes that which is among the Mormons a matter of logic\nand shrewd application of principles.\n\nThe life of the Pennsylvania Germans is expressed in the community. They\nhave as much aversion to other people as they have fondness for their\nown. Their religion consists of a set of customs in which to them the\ncharacter of the Christian is embodied. These customs can be expressed\nand embodied only in the life of common people working on the land. They\nmake plainness, industry, and patience, austerity of life and other\nagricultural virtues constitute sanctity. It is impossible to believe\nsincerely in their mode of life and not be a farmer. It is easy to\nbelieve the Pennsylvania Germans' code, if one is a farmer, and it is\nprofitable as well.\n\nThe Scotch and the Scotch Irish Presbyterians represent a third\nprinciple of agricultural success. Their churches are tenacious and\ntheir country communities outlive those of the average type. In them is\nrepresented in the highest degree the principle of austerity. By this I\nmean, as defined by an economist, the custom of living so as to produce\nmuch and consume little. These people look upon life with severity. They\nhave little sympathy with the expansive and exuberant life of the young.\nThe men of the community, who are the producers, occupy a relatively\ngreater position than the women, who are the consumers. They exemplify\nto a slight degree the conscious organization for agriculture, and in a\nhigh degree the resultant social life which we have noted among the\nMormons and the Pennsylvania Germans; but to the highest degree the\nScottish Presbyterians represent this self-denial and rigidity of\nlife--which appears in the others also--and they embody it in their\ncreed. This austerity gives to them a forbidding character, and robs\nthem of some of the esthetic interest attaching to the other two, but it\nis possible that they are more nearly the ideal type of American farmer\nbecause of certain other traits possessed by them.\n\nThe Scotch farmer has not in the United States settled in communities or\ncolonies, as he has in Canada, but the typical farming community of this\nstock is Scotch Irish. As Prof. R. E. Thompson has shown,[17] the\nemigrants from the North of Ireland, who are themselves of Scotch\nextraction, have colonized extensively. That is, they have settled\ntheir populations so as to cover a territory and possess it for\nthemselves. But the Scotch, from whom they derive many characteristics,\nhave settled no colony in the world except in the North of Ireland.[18]\nThe peculiarity of these Scotch Irish farming settlements, as shown\nespecially in Pennsylvania, is their capacity to produce leaders in\nsympathy with the whole of American life. The Mormons produce leaders,\nbut their influence is compromised by religious prejudices. The\nPennsylvania Germans have produced no leaders whom they can call their\nown, and very few writers or educators. The Scotch Irish, on the other\nhand, considered as farmers, have contributed an extraordinary\nproportion of the leadership of the United States. They have been able\nto maintain their own communities in the country and to find for these\ncommunities a sufficient leadership, and they have sent forth into the\ngeneral population a multitude of men for leadership in the army, in the\nlegislatures, in the colleges and universities, and above all, in the\npulpit.\n\nIn these three types of successful farmers religion is an essential\nfactor. No history can be written of the Mormons, of the \"Pennsylvania\nDutch\" or of the Scotch Presbyterian without recording their religious\ndevotion, their obedience to leaders, to customs and to creed. One\ncannot live among them without feeling the peculiar religious\natmosphere which belongs to each of them. They are admirable or\nobnoxious, according as one likes or dislikes this religious character\nof theirs, but it pervades the whole life of the community. If it be\ntrue that there is no type of farmer--except the scientific farmer of\nthe past few years--who has succeeded as these three types have\nsucceeded, and there is no country community so tenacious as their\ncommunities are, and if it be true that these farmers more uniformly\nthan other farmers are religiously organized, then it follows that there\nis an essential relation so far as American agriculture goes, between\nsuccessful and permanent agriculture and a religious life. The country\nchurch becomes the expression of a permanent and abiding rural\nprosperity. Agriculture is shown by its very nature to require a\nreligious motive. An element of piety appears to be necessary in the\nmakeup of the successful farmer.\n\nIn these three types of successful farmer there appears another\nprinciple which is common to them all. They are not only organized for\nfarming, but they are organized as a mutual prosperity association,\nbased on their consciousness of kind. Prof. Gillin has called attention\nto the habit of the Dunkers in Iowa, who are of the Pennsylvania German\nsects, by which they extend their farming communities.\n\n\"The thing that is needed is to make the church the center of the social\nlife of the community. That is easier where there is but one church than\nwhere there are several, but federation is not essential. Thought must\nbe taken by the leaders to make the church central in every interest of\nlife. I know of a community where that has been done. It is the\ncommunity located south of Waterloo, Ia., in Orange Township. It is\ncomposed of an up-to-date community of Pennsylvania Dutch Dunkers. From\nthe very first they have made the church central. When these great\nchanges of which I have spoken began to occur, the leaders of that\ncommunity began to take measures to checkmate the attractions of the\ntowns for their young people. For example, Fourth of July was made a day\nof celebration at the church. When the people of other communities were\nflocking to town by hundreds, the youth of that community were\ngathering, in response to plans well thought out beforehand, to the\nchurch grounds where patriotic songs were sung, games were played, a\npicnic dinner was served, and a general good time was provided for the\nyoung. They have also arranged that their young people have a place to\ncome to on Sunday nights where they can meet their friends. The elders\nlook to it that provisions are made for the gatherings of the young\npeople on Sunday so that they shall 'have a good time,' with due\narrangements for the boys and girls to get together under proper\nconditions for their love-making. Even their church 'love feasts' held\ntwice a year, are also neighborhood gatherings for the young people. The\nchurch is the center of everything. Is a farmers' institute to be held\nin the community, or a teachers' institute? The church until very\nrecently was open to it. Is a farm to rent or for sale? At once the\nleaders get busy with the mail, and soon a family from the East is on\ntheir way to take it. This country church has not remained strong and\ndominant in the country just by accident or even by federation. It has\nsurvived because it had wise leaders who have met the changes with new\ndevices to attract the interest of the community and make the church\nserve the community in all its affairs, but especially on the social\nside. Such thought takes account of the 'marginal man' too. The hired\nman and the hired girl, the foreigner and the tramp are welcome there.\nNo difference is made. There is pure democracy. With the growth of the\nclass spirit I do not know how that can survive. These hirelings are not\ntalked down to; they are considered one with the rest. They will some\nday get enough to buy a farm and become leaders in the community,\nperhaps. The church is theirs as much as anyone's else. It looks after\ntheir interest, not only for the hereafter, but here and now. Under its\nfostering care they form their life attachments, it provides for their\nsocial pleasures, it is the center to which they come to discuss their\nfarming affairs or whatever interests them. And in spite of the fact\nthat the preaching has little contact with life and its interests, so\nstrong is the social spirit that the preaching can be left out of\naccount. What could be accomplished were the preaching as consciously\ndirected to forwarding the social interests of the community one can\nonly speculate.\"[19]\n\nThus they work for the propagation and extension of their own community.\nThe Scotch Presbyterians in like manner favor their own kindred and\ntheir kindred in the faith, though, I think, in a lesser degree. The\nMormons are consolidated both by formal organization and by instinctive\npreference for their own in a multitude of co-operating habits, through\nwhich they build up their communities and contend with one another\nagainst their economic and religious opponents. It is not enough to say\nthat this is clannishness; it is a mingling of kinship and religious\npreferences. It constitutes the strongest form of agricultural\nco-operation to be found in the United States.\n\nA Quaker community represents ideal community life. There is none poor.\nThe margin of the community is well cared for by the conscious and\ndeliberate service of the central and leading spirits in the community.\n\nAt Quaker Hill, New York, there has been for almost two centuries a\ncommunity of Friends. The Meeting has now been \"laid down\" but the\ncustoms and manners by which these peculiar people maintain their\ncommunity life have been wrought into the social texture of the present\npopulation of Quaker Hill. During two centuries this community has\ncared for its own members in need. It was not beneath the dignity of the\nMeeting to raise money and purchase a cow, early in the eighteenth\ncentury, to \"loan to the widow Irish,\" and at the close of the\nnineteenth century, the few Quakers and the many Irish and other\n\"world's people\" took part more than once in subscriptions by which the\nburden was borne, which had fallen upon some workingman or poorer\nneighbor through the death of horse or cow, or even to bear the expense\nincidental to the death of his child.\n\nThese Quakers co-operated in their business life. They made themselves\nresponsible that no member of their Meeting should be long in debt. From\n1740 for 100 years and more, the records of the Meeting show that\nmarriage was made impossible and other vital experiences were forbidden\nby the Meeting, unless the individual Quaker paid his debts and\nmaintained his business on a level dictated by the common opinion of the\nQuaker body.[20]\n\nIn 1767, Oblong Meeting of Quaker Hill, New York, began the legislative\nopposition of the Society of Friends to the institution of slavery. This\ngreat economic movement expressed the degree to which the Quaker\ndiscipline merged the religious life in the economic life. This\nconsolidation of religious and economic life was essential in the\ncommunity building of the Quakers.\n\nIt is surprising to many to discover that the \"Pennsylvania Dutch\" were\npart of the same movement of population which brought the Quakers into\nPennsylvania. William Penn spoke German as well as English. His mother\nwas a German. When he inherited his father's claim against the British\nCrown, and received from Charles the Second the grant of that extensive\nterritory in America on which he launched his Holy Experiment, he began\nto advertise and to seek for settlers on the Continent as well as in\nEngland.\n\nWilliam Penn was a Quaker, and on the Continent he found immediate\nresponse in the greatest number of cases among the various branches of\nMennonites, Anabaptist, and other sects, who shared a common group of\nbeliefs and experienced at this time a common persecution. William Penn,\ntherefore, reaped a harvest of responses in the territory between the\nmouth of the Rhine and the Alps. His proposal made its own selection,\nand brought to America a population calculated like the Quaker\npopulation for the building of communities. The largest single\ncontribution was made by the Palatinates, who were at that period\nundergoing extreme persecution.\n\nThe communities founded within the first century after the opening of\nPennsylvania have remained to the present day, and the earliest\nestablishments of Mennonites and Quaker communities in Pennsylvania have\nbeen duplicated in the westward stream of immigration, especially in\nOhio and in Iowa. These people are roughly called the \"Pennsylvania\nDutch.\" Even when one meets them in Michigan, Iowa or Minnesota, this\nname clings to them, and the form of social organization which they\nelaborated in Eastern Pennsylvania still persists.\n\nThis social organization has varying characteristics. It is somewhat\ndifficult to analyze the intricate windings and entanglements of\ndoctrinal and practical belief in custom among the Mennonites, Amish and\nDunkers. Old school and new school have been formed in almost every one\nof these sects. Eccentric and peculiar principles of belief in\norganization have formed the lesser and the least permanent groups; but\nthere is a common principle in them all. Their ability to form\ncommunities in the midst of hostile populations and adverse conditions\nhas been due to the co-operation between their religious and their\neconomic habits.\n\nThe \"Pennsylvania Dutch\" have simple doctrinal characteristics. They\nhave never worked out in detail the logic of their beliefs. They put the\nweight of their organization upon practical customs, as the Quakers did.\nIn some cases, this applied to clothing; in some or all of these sects\nto the manner of speech; to family customs; but, the one peculiar\nprinciple in it all, which has been vital to the success, to the\npersistence, to the wide extension of these sectarian groups has been\nthat the religious life has penetrated the economic life. They have not\npermitted members of their community to be poor. They have turned the\nattention of their religious sympathies to the economic margin of the\ncommunity. They have enforced the payment of debts, and they have\ngoverned and controlled marriage conditions. By subtle enforcement of\ncustom having the power of laws, they have governed the community in its\nvital relations, and perfected the system by which the poorest man shall\nmake his living and by which the richest man shall make his fortune.\n\nRecently, I was in Lancaster, Penn., and passing through a market I was\ntold by a resident that all the truck farming of the market for that\ncity had come into the hands of the Amish, and my friend added, \"If you\ngo at an early hour to buy, and ask the price of certain vegetables, you\nwill probably be told, 'We do not know the price yet; we will have to\nwait until all the farmers come in.'\" That is, after two hundred and\nmore years of living as farmers in this section of Pennsylvania, these\nsectarians maintain their community life, co-operate in the monopolizing\nof an industry, and in fixing the price of the monopolized product in\nthe markets of a Pennsylvania city.\n\nThis survey of community-building peoples in America may throw light\nupon the recommendations of Sir Horace Plunkett for the organization of\ncountry life upon an economic basis. The present writer heartily agrees\nwith him that the center of the community must be economic. He says that\n\"Better business must come first\" in constructive policies for American\ncountry life, but \"by failing to combine, American and British farmers\npersistently disobey an accepted law.\"\n\nSocial division is the impending danger which threatens the future of\nthe American community in the country. For if the analysis of\nagricultural success in this chapter is correct, then the farmer is\nexceedingly dependent upon his neighbor, and the permanence of rural\npopulations depends upon the social unity of the farmers in the\ncommunity. The highest expression of this social unity is in the\nfarmer's religion. Worship thus becomes a symbol of agricultural\nprosperity. The writers and the orators have then truly spoken who\nsymbolized the beauty of rural life in the church steeple. The farmer\nhimself seems to recognize, in the church spire rising above the roofs\nof the hamlet, the symbol of prosperous and satisfactory life in the\ncountry.\n\nAs the tillers of the soil come to the necessity of co-operation in the\nnew order of life in the country, as the old isolation passes away and\nthe modern farmer comes to recognize his necessary dependence upon other\nfarmers in the community, a common place of worship will become\nnecessary to the community. One church will of necessity express the\nlife of the community and the periodic meeting of all the people in one\nhouse of worship will be the highest and most essential symbol of the\nfeeling and the thought and the aspirations of that community after\ntrue prosperity and permanence.\n\nThe purpose of this chapter has been to present the general\ncharacteristics of the most exceptional communities in the country.\nThese are Mormon, Scotch Presbyterian and Pennsylvania German. By their\nvery names they indicate religious organization of the community and\n\"birthright membership\" associations. They are grouped under the one\nprinciple, that in them the religious organization is an expression of\ntheir social economy. Their social and economic life is under the\ndomination of their religion.\n\nThese farmers are organized in the interest of agriculture. The\nresultant social life constitutes a most intense organization in which\nvoluntary and conscious combination matures in instinctive union\nembodied in blood relationship, neighborliness and economic union. These\npopulations show the correspondence between economic and religious\nausterity. Thrift takes the form of dogmatic repression and finally\ntheir organization and their relationship express themselves in\norganized efforts for the well-being of the community. They deliberately\nas well as instinctively co-operate.\n\nIt is the writer's belief that these exceptional communities exhibit the\nprinciples on which American life must be organized, if the farmer is to\nbe a success, if his schools are to progress, his churches to be\nmaintained, and if the country community is to be a good place to live\nin. None of these populations can be imitated. It would be impossible\nfor a community to take over their modes any more than it could imbibe\ntheir motives. The study of them throws light upon the problem of\ncountry life in America. Above all things it illustrates the especial\nunion of the country church with the social economy of the farmer and\nhis household. It shows that the life of country people is co-operative,\nthat it is undermined by division and disunion and that in the open\ncountry where man is least seen his society is most evident. The\ndependence of each man upon his neighbor is increased in modern times by\nthe thinning out of the rural population and the increased economic\nburden laid upon the farmer.\n\nFinally, the exceptional populations present an exceptional victory over\neconomic and natural forces. They abolish poverty within their own\nbounds. Every one of the communities just described turns the power of\nits common organization upon the problem of maintaining the lower margin\nof the community. They who are in danger of falling behind are sustained\nand carried on. None in these communities is permitted to fall into\npauperism. The workingman without capital, whether he be in their\nmeetings or only employed on their farms, is kept from want. The widow\nwith her little house and one cow is insured against the loss of any\nfeature of her small property. This seems to me to be the greatest\ntriumph of these communities. It is the test, I am convinced, of their\norganizations and of their success. In this they demonstrate one of the\ngreatest possibilities of country life. They show that in the open\ncountry it is possible for men to live without the suffering and\ndegradation of poverty.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 17: History of American Presbyterianism, by R. E. Thompson.]\n\n[Footnote 18: An exception to this statement must be noted, in the\nScotch settlements in Canada and Nova Scotia.]\n\n[Footnote 19: Professor John L. Gillin, in American Journal of\nSociology, March, 1911.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Quaker Hill, by Warren H. Wilson.]\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nGETTING A LIVING\n\n\nThe core of a community must be economic. The main business of life is\nto get a living.[21] The reason for existence of any community is found\nin the living which it supplies its residents. Men are attracted to a\ncommunity by the increases in their living furnished by that community.\nThe first element in the getting of a living is the securing of daily\nbread, shelter, clothing and the satisfaction of physical needs. It is a\nmistake to think of the community as beginning in religious\ninstitutions--narrowly understood--or in social gatherings or in\neducational service. The initial human experience is the finding of\nfood.\n\nBut the getting of a living is a long process. A living is more than\nbread, and a roof and a coat. In quest of a living men go from the\ncountry to the town and from the town to the city. They migrate from the\nsmall city to the large. In each of these moves they secure a further\nelement in their living. Each of these communities is characterized by\nthe increase which it contributes to the living of its citizens, but in\nevery community the initial experience is the securing of daily bread,\nshelter, clothing and material economic gains. Whatever is done,\ntherefore, for the community in a service to all the people must have\ninitial concern with the purely economic welfare of the people.\n\nSir Horace Plunkett's book, \"The Rural Life Problem of the United\nStates,\" develops this principle very clearly. He shows that in the\nCountry Life Movement in Ireland it was necessary to go into the very\nheart of the people's aspirations, and organize their economic needs.\n\nIt is necessary to understand the word \"economic\" if one would read\nthese pages aright. Economic matters are not those of mere money. The\nword has a greater meaning than has the word finance. It connotes\npoverty as truly as wealth, and is greater than both. The economic\nmotive animates men in the quest of those vital satisfactions which the\nindividual craves, and the social group requires. Professor John Bates\nClark has somewhere described this motive as the desire to preserve the\npresent status, with slight improvement, for oneself and one's children\nafter him; the desire to live on the same economic standard in one's own\ngeneration; and to be reasonably assured of the same security for one's\nchildren. This is not the desire to get rich, though in individual cases\nit is changed into a desire for wealth. But it is a far more general,\nindeed a universal aspiration, which inspires most of the work of the\nworld. Industry is based on it. Civilization is propelled by it. It is\nthe desire to get a living and the quest of a living.\n\nI believe that this economic motive is religious. It is the quest of\nwhat a man has not, but feels to be his. It engages his utmost efforts.\nIt is labor for his wife and children and for all his group fellows, and\ntherefore is involved in his holiest, most self-forgetting feelings. It\ntakes him back to his parents and reminds him constantly of his\nancestors. He forms his ideas of justice in his economic experiences.\nHis ultimate conviction as to the goodness or the badness of the world\nare the outgrowth of his experience in getting a living. Therefore his\neconomic life is his wrestle with nature and with society. It generates\nin him all the religion he has.\n\nI suppose it was for this reason that Jesus said \"I am come that they\nmay have life, and that they may have it abundantly.\" Probably his\nmeaning was economic, in part, in the saying, \"Man shall not live by\nbread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.\"\nThe quest of a living is a satisfaction of successive economic wants, of\nwhich bread is but the first. Every truth that mankind knows involves\nmen in an economic want. Education is one of the most general wants. It\ncomes in the series somewhat later than bread. The love of music is an\neconomic want, which comes generally later than education. But both are\na part of a living. I believe that the quest of education and the love\nof music are religious, just as much as the desire for daily bread. One\nmight enumerate the whole series of economic wants, to satisfy which is\nto live, but religion is the total of the reflections, and the complex\nof customs which result from the lifelong quest for a living among\ncommon folk. At its highest it is expressed by St. Augustine, \"O God,\nthou hast made us for thyself, and our souls are not at rest until we\nfind ourselves in thee.\" Bread is the first economic want, and God is\nthe greatest and the last.\n\nEconomic wants among common folk are usually the source of religious\nfeeling. Few people desire to be rich; a lesser number strive to get\nwealth; and very few attain a fortune. The most of men seek and get a\nliving. The best of men, and the most religious, are those whose\neconomic experience brings them a series of satisfactions, beginning\nwith bread, clothing, shelter, education in the essentials, music and a\nlittle aesthetic culture, and gradually extending into higher forms of\nhuman enjoyment. The simplest religious craving is for economic\nassurance of supply. \"The Lord is my Shepherd: I shall not want,\" is on\nthe most thumbed page of the Bible. The play of these economic\naspirations among poor people results in all the simpler and most\ngeneral religious feelings. With the rise of the aspirations of the\nindividual, and the ideals of the group, toward higher satisfactions,\nthe religious experiences should become nobler, more refined. The\npenniless college student who prays for an education should be a nobler\nworshipper than the fisherman who asks his mud-divinity for a good\ncatch. The group of Oberammergau players who present the Passion Play, a\nhighly complex satisfaction of wants, should be nobler believers and\nworshippers than herdsmen who out on the hills pray for the increase of\ntheir flocks and for a better price for wool.\n\nCommunities differ from one another according to the living which they\nsupply, or the wants which they satisfy. Modern men will not live in a\ncommunity that does not satisfy a pretty long series of wants. For\ninstance, a graduate of the American common schools will desire bread,\nclothing, shelter--all of comfortable quality--and education for his\nchildren better than his own, musical enjoyment, aesthetic culture, the\npossession of some books, access to many magazines and the reading of a\ndaily paper; and varied opportunities for the exercise of the play\nspirit. The country community satisfies, in most of the United States,\nonly the first of these. It is a place for securing food, clothing and\nshelter of a comfortable sort. Country people have in the past ten years\nsecured also a better supply of reading matter. Almost all the rest of\nthe series is lacking. The reason for the rural exodus is in the most of\ncases the quest of education and of music, the craving for aesthetic\nculture, and the desire for recreation. Country towns and small cities\ntherefore have come to be centers of education, of amusement and of\n\"culture.\" They are the first step upward on the series of economic\nsatisfaction. Men who have made some money on the farm \"move into town,\"\nfor the satisfaction of the later wants in the series.\n\nNone of these wants is itself sinful, for all of them make up life. They\nare the steps on the way from bread to God. The business of the teacher\nand preacher of religion is to know the wants of his people: study those\nwhich are satisfied in his community, and so to build the community that\nfor most of its people and for the most desirable people, all the vital\nnecessities of life shall be satisfied, in the community in which the\ndesire for bread is satisfied. The problem of amusement exhibits these\nprinciples clearly. Farming is austere, and few farming communities have\nrecreation adequate to the demand of the young people and the working\npeople who live on the farms. Agriculture is becoming more systematic\nand more exacting in its demands: and systematic work creates a demand\nfor organized play. As this demand is not satisfied in the\ncountry--indeed it is less generally satisfied now than in former\ntimes--the youth and workingman from farming communities go to the towns\nand larger villages for amusement. These centers of population have a\ndisproportionate burden therefore of cheap vaudeville shows, saloons,\nprofessional baseball games, and moving-pictures.\n\nThese amusements are, to a degree, abnormal in character because those\nwho enjoy them are away from their home community, and are suffering a\nreaction from pent-up desires. Just as the lumberman or cowboy or sailor\nwhen he comes to town \"tears loose and paints the town red,\" so, in a\nmilder degree, the farmer's son or hired man, because he has at home no\nrecreations supplied by his church or school, patronizes in the town or\nsmall city a cheaper and nastier theatre than one would expect to find\neither in that town, or in his home community. The remedy is to make the\ncountry community adequate to the wants of those who live there. The\nchurch should promote recreation. The public school should supply\nentertainment of a high standard, both to satisfy the play instinct and\nto elevate the youth's ideals of amusement. The community which works\nshould be dependent on no other community for play.\n\nCommon-school education is a function which country communities have\nsurrendered to the centers of population. The one-room country school\nhas long been inadequate; but the farmer has not improved it, preferring\nto rely upon the town schools to which he will remove his family after\nhe has made enough money on the farm. I am told that about Crete,\nNebraska, a recent census revealed that half the normal child population\nis missing from the country districts; and double the normal child\npopulation is found in Crete. The quest of adequate schooling explains\nthe condition, which speaks ill for the country community of Nebraska.\n\nIn all these cases religious service consists in completing the\ncommunity. The supply of wants, which are widely and keenly felt, is a\nreligious act. This has been the reason for the success of the Du Page\nPresbyterian Church in Illinois.[22] The minister, Mr. McNutt, in a\nreligious spirit so well supplied the recreative life needed in the\ncommunity, that the community has been made whole. Just as Jesus made\nsick or maimed men whole, as a religious act, so the community builder\nwho supplies to working farmers something besides labor on the land, is\nmaking the community whole.\n\nThe perfecting of the common school system in McNabb, by Mr. John Swaney\nand other Friends, and in Rock Creek by Mr. R. E. Bone and other\nPresbyterians, was a religious act for their communities in Illinois.\nThe farmers who have money can move to the town, but to complete the\ncountry community is to satisfy the economic wants of the poor. The\nwants of the poor are always of religious value.\n\nMoreover, the satisfaction of all wants in the community itself is a\nmoral gain. If individuals live this life in the bounds to which their\ngroup and family associations are confined, the steadying influence of\nsociety is at its greatest. Jacob Riis[23] noted among immigrants the\nworking of a lower sense of obligation due to absence from accustomed\nhome associations. Communities are compacted of the strongest moral\nbonds. If churches would make men righteous they cannot do better than\nto complete the community, especially in the country, as a place to live\nin: making it a place for education as well as profit: of play as well\nas work, of worship as well as of material comfort.\n\nUnfortunately churches in the country are too often recruiting stations\nfor the cities and colleges. The ministers are respectable pullers-in\nfor the city show. Nothing rejoices them so much as to help their young\nmen and women find a position in the city; unless it be to have a bright\nlad or girl go off to college. When a country minister was reminded that\nall these departures weakened the country community, and that very few\nof them benefitted the lad or girl who goes to the city, he replied \"you\ncannot blame them; there is nothing here to keep them.\"\n\n\"The rural exodus\" has had its Moses in the rural college student, its\nAaron in the country minister, and its Miriam in the country school\nteacher. These three have led a generation out of the country to perish\nin the wilderness. For only a pitiful few of those who leave the country\ncome to prominence in the city. The most gain but a poor living there,\nand very many go to ruin. The church should be the savior of the\ncommunity, as her Master is of the soul.\n\nIt seems to me that this is done in a church in Ottumwa, Iowa, of which\nDr. W. H. Hormell is minister. It is in a stock-yards district, and the\ndaily occupation of many of the members is unclean, of some revolting.\nBut the church is a dynamo of spiritual forces. It supplies the\nexperiences most opposite to those of the slaughter-house. A half-dozen\nchapels in surrounding neighborhoods, most of them in the country, are\noutposts of the church, for each of which a superintendent is\nresponsible: and thus a man who is an underling at the slaughter-house\nis a leader in the quest of eternal life. The whole company of workers\nwith the pastor, constitute a spiritual cabinet of the district. It is\nnot surprising that this church fascinates men. The minister cannot be\npersuaded away, and a like devotion pervades his group of workers. The\nintensity of the industrial labor is matched by the intensity of Bible\nstudy, prayer and evangelism. The degradation and repulsion of the\nleading industry of the place are equalled by the unworldly nobility and\noptimism of the leading church. This church does not attempt to mend the\ncommunity--which might be found impossible--but only to serve the\ncommunity by supplying the satisfaction for spiritual wants.\n\nAccording to the law of diminishing returns, the first satisfactions of\nany want have infinite value. What does this mean but that they have\nreligious value? The first drink of water to a famished man calls forth\na fervent \"Thank, God.\" The first book printed is a Bible. The first\nlanding on American soil was a solemn religious occasion--and still is\nfor the immigrant. So the first gains of money are of religious value to\nthe poor. The first hundred dollars to a mechanic's family is invested\nin a dozen benefits. The first thousand dollars which a working farmer\nsaves go into a home, a piano or books, or an education for a child. It\nis all moral and spiritual good. Later thousands have diminishing moral\nand spiritual values. Most of the churches and homes in America were\npaid for out of the tithes of men and women who owned at the time a\nmargin of less than a thousand dollars.\n\nThis is the reason for the religious character of economic life. The\nmost of people spend their lives with less than a thousand dollars. They\nare poor, and money does them good, not harm. They need to know how to\nuse it. But the getting of their living is a process prolific in\nreligious feeling, because economic matters have to them the infinite\nvalue of first satisfactions of all the simplest wants of life.\n\nThe salvation of the community will be accomplished in satisfying the\nhigher wants of those whose lower wants are satisfied. For those who\n\"have made money\" supply schools; for those who work supply recreation;\nfor the sick hospitals; for the invalid build sanitariums; and for all\nmen supply social life, the greatest need of human life on earth. For\nthose who are thus united to the community, and to one another in the\nintricate network of associations, the opportunity of worship together,\nand of sharing common spiritual interests becomes the highest economic\nwant.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 21: \"I come that they may have life, and may have it\nabundantly.\"--Jesus, in John 10:10.]\n\n[Footnote 22: \"Modern Methods in the Country Church,\" by Matthew Brown\nMcNutt.]\n\n[Footnote 23: \"The Making of an American,\" by Jacob Riis.]\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE COMMUNITY\n\n\nThe country community is defined by the team haul. People in the country\nthink of the community as that territory, with its people, which lies\nwithin the team haul of a given center. Very often at this center is a\nchurch, a school and a store, though not always, but always the country\ncommunity has a character of its own.[24] Social customs do not proceed\nfarther than the team haul. Imitation, which is an accepted mode of\nsocial organization, does not go any farther in the country than the\ncustomary drive with a horse and wagon. The influence of leading rural\npersonalities does not extend indefinitely in the country, but\ndisappears at the boundary of the next community. Intimate knowledge of\npersonalities is confined to the community and does not pass beyond the\nteam haul radius. Within this radius all the affairs or any individual\nare known in minute detail; nobody hopes to live a life apart from the\nknowledge of his neighbors; but beyond the community, so defined, this\nknowledge quickly disappears.\n\nMen's lives are housed and their reputations are encircled by the\nboundary of the team haul.\n\nThe reason for this is economic and social. The life of the countryman\nis lived within the round of barter and of marketing his products. The\nteam haul which defines the community is the radius within which men buy\nand sell. It is also the radius within which a young man becomes\nacquainted with the woman he is to marry. It is the radius of social\nintercourse. Within this radius of the team haul families are accustomed\nto visit with ten times the frequency with which they pass outside this\nradius. Indeed, for most of them, one might say that social intercourse\nis a hundred times as frequent within the team haul as without it.\n\nThe average man would define the community as \"the place where we live.\"\nThis definition contains every essential element, locality, personal and\nsocial relations, and vital experiences. The community is that complex\nof economic and social processes in which individuals find the\nsatisfactions not supplied in their homes. The community is the larger\nsocial whole outside the household; a population complete in itself for\nthe needs of its residents from birth to death. It is a man's home town.\n\nThis conception of the community as a vital common possession explains\nthe relation of religious, educational, ethical, economic institutions\nto one another. The community is the clearing-house of all these\ninfluences. It is the medium by which they exchange with one another,\nin the interest of human life. The perfection of this exchange and the\nabundance of communal influences makes the community good and desirable,\nor poor and undesirable.\n\nSometimes one says that the community is \"a good place to live in.\" When\nit is ample for the needs of individual lives men move into it, and the\naverage man finds there a contented and satisfied life. The decay of the\ncommunity is indicated by the departure of individuals and of families\nin quest of a better centre for the supply of vital human needs. Some go\nto make more money elsewhere, some depart for educational advantages and\nsome move away because social life is lacking or religious privileges\nare not suitable. But these four vital essentials, economic, ethical,\neducational and religious, make up the elements in the community's\nservice to the individual.\n\nThe community is sometimes corrupted by vicious principles in its\nconstruction; and then its members are in proportion defective. It\nproduces in excessive degree idiots, blind, deformed, neurotic, insane\nor criminal individuals.\n\nThe community, thus defined, is normally furnished with certain\ninstitutions essential to the life of the people. In earlier days the\ncommunity was sufficient unto itself. Very little was imported.\nEverything for use in the community was raised therein and manufactured\nin the households. A system of exchange gradually was effected through\nthe country store. The country store of 1770 in Duchess County, New\nYork, had an amazing relation to a wide population. The radius of the\nlife dependent upon it was the same as the radius around the Quaker\nMeeting, beside which this store was placed, and all the goods used in\nthe community with few exceptions were produced and manufactured in this\nradius of the team haul of ten miles.[25]\n\nNowadays the country community has normally a store, a blacksmith shop,\na church and a school. In the recent past certain classes of peddlers\nregularly visited the country community, though their place in the rural\neconomy is diminishing. The country store in many communities is already\nclosed and its maintenance is surrounded with increasing difficulty. So\nlong, however, as the horse drawn vehicle is the type of transportation\nin the country, the elements of the country community must remain\nsubstantially the same.[26]\n\nThe economic life of the community is necessarily a part of the general\neconomic life of the population as a whole. The world economy has in the\npast hundred years, with the perfection of the means of transportation,\ntaken the place of the communal economy. In 1810 every country community\nwas obliged to manufacture its own raw products so far as possible\nwithin its own limits. In 1910 it was no longer profitable for even a\ncountry community to do so. The result is that the economic life of the\ncommunity is usually expressed in a specified industry to which the\nwhole community is primarily devoted. If it be a rural community this\norganization takes the form of a \"money crop.\" In the corn belt there\nare other products raised from the soil besides corn, but the world\neconomy assigns to that fertile section the producing of corn as the\nmost profitable and the simplest task. In the coal region it tends to\nthe highest efficiency for the labor of the region to be concentrated\nupon the supply of this fuel, although in addition the surface of the\nsoil may be cultivated and in the larger population centers other\nindustries are coming in to exploit the superfluous labor. None of these\ncompetes with the primacy of the coal industry, which the world economy\nassigns to that community.\n\nIt is essential that in every community there should be one or more\nindustries by which men may live. It tends to the highest well-being of\nthe community, that is, to its possession of a maximum of vital\nattraction for individuals, that this industry should supply a variety\nof sources of income; that is, wages, profits and interest. If the\ncommunity can retain in its own bounds the owners of its industries, at\nleast in some numbers, and the capitalists whose wealth is invested in\nthese industries, it is of great service. If it can make life\nattractive for wage-earners in these industries, the completeness of\nthat community has its testimonial in this variety and wealth of\nattraction. The weakness of many American communities is shown in their\ninability to retain within their bounds the owners of the businesses and\nthe employers of labor. The ideal character of some communities in\nMassachusetts is due to the fact that in the same streets there daily\nmeet capitalists, superintendents, foremen and wage-earners who are\nalike interested in the local industries.\n\nThis power of the community to attract and hold individual lives,\nsupplying them with the vital necessities for which the individual\ncraves, is dependent in America upon educational institutions more than\nupon any other factor. The French philosopher Desmoulin has said that\nthe Anglo-Saxon supremacy is due to the Anglo-Saxon love of the land and\nof education. The American represents these two passions, and of the two\nthe love of education is at present, the stronger. The community which\nis weak in its schools will not hold its people. The generation who at\npresent are the largest owners of American wealth are eager for\neducational advantage: and the incoming stream of immigration promises\nthat in the days to come this craving for education will not diminish,\nbut will increase.\n\nThe country community has been peculiarly weak in its educational\nfacilities, by a strange dullness and inertia due to the economic\nprostration of the farming industry. For the two decades following 1880\nthe country schools have failed to keep pace with the city schools.\nProf. Foght says, \"While the public attention has been centered on work\nand plans for the improvement of the city schools a great factor for or\nagainst the public weal has been sadly neglected. This is the rural\nschool. One-half of our entire school population attend the rural\nschools, which are still in the formative stage. The country youth is\nentitled to just as thorough a preparation for thoughtful and\nintelligent membership in the body politic as is the city youth. The\nState, if it is wise, will not discriminate in favor of the one as\nagainst the other, but will adjust its bounties in a manner equitable to\nthe needs of both. Heretofore the rural schools have received very\nlittle attention from organized educational authority.\"[27]\n\nThe effect of this neglect of the country school in the face of the\nconstructive statesmanship which has led in perfecting the city school\nis seen in the exodus from the country community of very large numbers\nof the most successful farmers. Evidences are abundant that this exodus\nfrom the country community is primarily a quest of educational\nadvantage. Not in every case would the departing family confess that\nthey were seeking better schools: but it is probable that the majority\nof them while giving a variety of primary reasons for moving would\nassign the desire for education as the uniform secondary reason for\ndeparting from the country community.\n\nIt is impossible for the country church to retain its best ministers.\nMany reasons enter into this, but always at the top of the list is the\ndesire for better educational opportunities for the ministers' children.\nThe advice has become proverbial in theological seminaries, \"Go to the\ncountry for five years.\" It is said that in New England there are three\nclasses of country ministers and the first of them is the bright young\nman who will not long be in the country.\n\nThe ethical, sometimes called the social factor in the community's life,\nis no less essential. Organized work requires organized recreation.\nEvery community which has a systematic economy by which its residents\nget their living is found to have a systematic though usually informal\nand unrecognized provision for recreation. Somewhere in the bounds of\nevery working town in America is a playground. It is not the result of\n\"the playground movement,\" but of the play necessity in human nature.\nThe open lots where the town is not built up, the railroad yard, the\nyard of a factory or the town common are used by common consent by the\nyoung people and the working-people of the town as a playground.\n\nThe departure of many persons from country communities is due to the\nlack of social life: and the fascination of the city for bright and\nenergetic young men and women is due to the variety of recreation and\ninterest which it provides to those who expect to work and are willing\nto work. Regular work means regular play. This fact cannot be too well\nlearned by those who study the religious and moral life of modern men.\nThe need of play is as real as the need of food or of sleep.\n\nThis recreational life is highly ethical. The craving of the young and\nof working-people for common places of recreation is a normal craving\ndue to the development of conscience as well as to weariness of body.\nThe exactions of modern labor create a craving for free and voluntary\nmovement. Those who are hired to work, and those who if they are\nemployers are bound to the routine of the desk or of the bench, seek to\nbreathe deeply the air of happy and self-expressive action. The result\nis that play, especially team work, is highly moral. It is not only\npersonal and self-expressive, but it involves co-operation,\nself-surrender, obedience and the correlation of one's own life with\nother lives in a glorious complex of experiences, unexampled elsewhere\nin modern life for their ethical value in developing adolescent minds in\nthe common humanities and moralities. The playground is an essential\nfield in the preparation of good citizens and it is not to be wondered\nat that in country communities, where all provision of recreation is\ndifficult, and no public provision of playgrounds is thought of by those\nin authority, that young people and working people, indeed all classes\nof the population, tend to move away.\n\nThe religious attraction of the community has just as real a value for\nthe satisfaction of individual life as the economic or ethical or the\neducational. \"Mankind is incurably religious,\" and the life from birth\nto death cannot be complete in average cases without religious\nexperience. Indeed the conscious testimony of men to the community's\nreligious value for them is greater than any of the others. Religious\nexperience is indeed a form of community conscience. To many men the\nchurch and the community are one. We cannot within our definition grant\nthis; but the testimony to the religious character of the country\ncommunity is a classic in American thought. The early days of every\ncommunity are hopeful and optimistic. The tendency has been therefore\nfor each religious communion to establish its own church. These early\nProtestant churches were expressions of the community sense on behalf of\nthese people. The average American can best think of the community in\nterms of a church and a school. For building up the community,\ntherefore, the maintenance of religious institutions is essential.\n\nWe are concerned in these chapters most of all with the American\ncommunity in the country. Not because it is more important, but because\nit is easier to understand and affords a better model for interpreting\nother communities more complex and highly organized. In it one may see\nthe processes which affect the town and city communities; shifting of\npopulation, economic changes, educational improvement or retrogression\nand the processes of social life which express themselves in moral\nconditions. The community is the field in which may be observed the\nprosperity of the people as a whole. It is the local exhibit in which\nthe average man shows what has come to pass throughout the commonwealth\nas a whole.\n\nAmerican rural communities have been under the influence of swift and\nsudden changes during the years of railroad development. This is\nexhibited in the country community very clearly. There almost all the\ncauses which are at work in the city are seen and their operation is\neasier to observe and to measure than in a city community. It is the\ngeneral impression that the country community has suffered greatly\nthough the loss of population. This is probably due to the diminishing\nagricultural activity of the country. Thirty-four counties in Ohio are\nproducing less than the same counties were producing before the Civil\nWar. It is natural that the population of these counties should be on\nthe whole smaller than at that time. But it is more probable that the\nsocial, educational and moral life of the people of these counties who\nstayed in the country is slacker and less vigorous than in 1860.\nSometimes the population of a community remains stationary but the\neconomic weakness expresses itself in a retarded social, ethical and\nreligious life.\n\nThere is high authority for the statement that the sifting of the\ncountry community in recent years has on the whole improved it. Wilbert\nL. Anderson says, \"If this emigration of the best were the whole story,\nit would be impossible to refute the charge of degeneracy. There is,\nhowever, another aspect of the matter. The industrial revolution has put\na pressure upon rural life that is more important even than the\nattraction of cities. That pressure has aggravated the severity of the\nstruggle for existence, and this grinding of the mill of evolution has\ncrushed the weaker strata of the population. Among those who have gone\nare laborers and their families, the owners and occupants of the poorest\nlands--the famous abandoned farms, and the weaklings and dependents.\nMany of these have swollen the crowds of the factory towns; others have\nsupplied unskilled labor to the cities; in not a few cases they have\ngone to their destruction in the slums, where residues of decadent folk\nfinally disappear. The human material that was most susceptible to\nalcohol has gone into the mills of the gods. When all is summed up, the\nclearance at the bottom is not less significant than the loss at the top\nof the social scale. Natural selection works as effectually in toning up\nthe species by weeding out the worst as 'natural selection reversed'\nworks for degeneracy through the removal of the best. This purgation\nhas been overlooked; whether it offsets the injury in the highest\nstratum is a fair question, but obviously no man is wise enough to\nanswer it. The opinion may be hazarded that when the two influences are\ncompounded, it will be found that the average child has moved but a\nlittle way up or down the scale. This is a local question to which there\nare as many answers as communities. The net result of these changes is a\ngain in homogeneousness; in the country town the dream of equality is\nnearer realization to-day than ever before.\"[28]\n\nIt is the writer's belief that, allowing for local variation, this\nstatement is the best generalization of the condition throughout the\ncountry. The rural population has been specialized. The country\ncommunity is finding its own kind of people. It has not yet, through\nsuitable institutions, learned to cultivate its problems and to train\nits own leaders. That is precisely what will be accomplished through the\nbuilding up of the country community with which we are here concerned.\nBut already the country population is homogeneous and is selected with a\nview to fitness for the environment of the rural community. As the city\nis breeding its own stock, who are possessed with the problem of city\nlife and devoted to the interests of the city, so the country in the\nshifting of modern populations is coming to have its own kind of people;\namong whom the problems of the country community are beginning to be\ndiscussed and the interests of the country community are being provided\nfor by suitable organizations.\n\nThe building of communities, therefore, will provide the positive\nagencies requisite for the needs of the present population in the\ncountry. The purpose of those who serve the country population shall be\nthe construction of suitable institutions by which country life shall be\nmade worth while. These institutions must be economic, for the securing\nof prosperity to country people, social institutions which shall build\nup their moral character and life, educational institutions whereby the\nproblems of country life shall be understood in the light of all human\nlife, and religious institutions which shall crown the life of country\npeople with hope and animate the individual with the spirit of\nself-sacrifice on behalf of all the people of the community and of the\nworld.\n\nThe church should be a community center. There may be other centers of\nthe community where other functions are assembled, but the church should\nlift up her eyes to the horizon in which she lives and comprehend all\nthe people in her service and affection. This does not mean that they\nshall all be members of that church. The community spirit is itself\ngrowing. Frequently the country community has attained a unity which the\nchurches ignore. For the church to become a community center means that\nit represents in itself the united life of the people. Whatever be\ntheir common interest that interest dwells in the church.\n\nIn Hernando, Mississippi, the people are united. The interest of one is\nthe concern of all. Under the leadership of the families of old\nland-owners the whole community responds to common impulses and is\norganized under common ideals. No poor child of either a white or a\nnegro household is neglected or is overlooked. Yet in this community\nchurches have no federation and ministers have no regular means of\nworking together. A charity organization was recently formed in this\ncommunity as an organ by which the community should care for its poorer\nmembers. This society was formed outside of the churches, no one of\nwhich had the right to be a center for the community. It is true that\nministers and members of these churches were leaders in this community\nenterprise, but the churches as organizations were not a part of it,\nalthough its purposes are purely Christian.\n\nProf. Alva Agee insists that \"The country church does not serve the\ncommunity's needs as the community sees those needs.\" His meaning is\nthat when a community enterprise is to be launched the promoter of it\nfinds it necessary in the country to avoid the churches, lest his\nenterprise be entangled in their differences. He is embarrassed also by\ntheir lack of a community spirit. Frequently the same persons who to the\nchurch contribute no community spirit are in the community itself\nleaders of common enterprises.\n\nIn contrast to these conditions the instance of Du Page Church at\nPlainfield, Illinois, of which Rev. Matthew B. McNutt was recently the\nminister, exhibits the power of a country church to make itself the\ncenter of a whole community. This church, which in a year became famous\nthroughout the land, has earned its repute by ten years of devoted\nservice of its minister and the growing affection and union of its\npeople. The church serves so well the social needs of the community that\na social hall once popular has been closed and three granges in\nsuccession have attempted to organize in the community and have failed.\nYet Du Page Church is passionately devotional and intensely missionary.\nIts social life is but a legitimate expression of its community sense.\nThe minister and his people have had the power to see and to inspire a\ncommon life among the people in the countryside.\n\nThis chapter has been intended as a definition of the country community.\nIts radius is the team haul, because the horse has been the means of\ntransportation in the country. The community is the round of life in\nwhich the individual in the country passes his days: it is his larger\nhome. The definition of this greater household of the country must be\nflexible, but however it be defined, it is the characteristic unit of\nsocial organization among country people. The map of the United States\noutside the great cities is made up of little societies bordering\nsharply upon one another, differing from one another socially and\nreligiously. These little societies are the proper fields in which the\nlife of the church and the school is lived. Of these small societies the\nchurch and the school are the expressions. In church and school the\ncountry community has its highest life.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 24: The author expresses his indebtedness for this definition\nto Dr. Willet M. Hays of the Department of Agriculture at Washington.]\n\n[Footnote 25: Quaker Hill, by Warren H. Wilson.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Professor C. J. Galpin of University of Wisconsin has done\nprecise work of great value, in defining the country community, as it\ncenters in the village. See his pamphlet, \"A Method of Making a Social\nSurvey of the Rural Community,\" a bulletin of the Agricultural\nExperiment Station of the University of Wisconsin.]\n\n[Footnote 27: \"The American Rural School,\" by Harold W. Foght.]\n\n[Footnote 28: \"The Country Town,\" by Wilbert L. Anderson, D.D.]\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE MARGIN OF THE COMMUNITY\n\n\nThe change of ethical consciousness among church people in recent years\ntakes the form of a transference of interest from the individual to the\ncommunity. The literature of religious and ethical thought is full of\nappeal to \"serve the community.\" The working out of any religious or\nethical force in modern society is guided by the closely compacted and\nhighly organic character of present-day social life.\n\nIn the old times in America, which have so recently gone, men were of\none class; the community was homogeneous; universal acquaintance\nprevailed.\n\nThe unit of value in American life until recent years was the successful\nman, because we faced a continent unexplored. Unpossessed commercial\nresources were before the people. The standard of the time of Horace\nGreeley was the standard of individual success, of initial utility. The\ntown boasted of the man it had \"turned out.\" The church measured its\nvalue by the rich and benevolent farmer or merchant, and by the\nindividuals whose piety or literary success seemed to express the life\nof the church. There was an opportunity for all, because crude\nresources, numberless openings offered themselves to every one who had\ncharacter, industry and brains.\n\nWithin a decade the American people have become conscious that their\nresources are numbered. The free lands of the West are assigned. The\ntons of coal under the ground are estimated. The amount of timber, of\ncopper and of iron still unexploited is known, and public discussion is\ncentered upon the limits to the growth of the American population, and\nthe possibilities of more economical organization of life. We can no\nlonger waste as once we could. The problem is now a problem of economy.\nInstead of the standards of a time of plenty we are confronted with\nproblems of bare subsistence.\n\nIn times of plenty, when resources are not yet exhausted, men's lives\ndiverge and the individual is the unit of thought and feeling. The\nnatural result of a time of plenty is the development and the endowment\nof personality. But in times when a bare subsistence is the condition\nwith which many are confronted, men are drawn together and the community\nbecomes the unit of thought and feeling. Industry as it matures brings\nmen together. It becomes evident that they depend upon one another.\n\nMen who in a time of plenty would seek an independent fortune, under\nconditions of bare subsistence are contented to secure employment and to\nbecome dependent upon others. The problems of subsistence open\nopportunities for exploitation and the stronger become related to great\nnumbers of weaker members of the community. Thus men's lives are\nintensified, and the conditions out of which thought and feeling arise\nare social conditions rather than individual.\n\nThe country community under these circumstances rises into new\nsignificance. In the early pioneer days the country community for a\nsimilar reason was much in thought and feeling, because then men were\nseeking a bare subsistence in the contest with nature. This\nconsciousness was lost as soon as the pioneer days were past and the\nabundance of nature began to enrich mankind instead of antagonizing him.\nNow, again, the country community has come into prominence because men\nare confronted with a struggle to maintain an acceptable standard of\nliving.\n\nIn dealing with a social whole, to accomplish certain purposes one must\ndeal with it in social terms. Social service is not quantitative, but\nqualitative. Ministry to a community is not uniformly applied to all the\nmembers. In social service there is no such thing as equality of all the\npopulation. The differing values of men in a social population are\ndetermined, as other values are measured, by the working of the law of\ndiminishing returns.\n\nRoughly stated, this law is that successive additions of any valued\nthing bring ever diminished returns. The first quantity of anything is\nof infinite value. For later increments the value is measurable, and\never less with the increase. The application of this law in economics is\nstated as follows by Professor John Bates Clark:\n\n\"Labor, as thus applied to land, is subject to a law of diminishing\nreturns. Put one man on a quarter section of land, containing prairie\nand forest, and he will get a rich return. Two laborers on the same\nground will get less per man; three will get still less; and, if you\nenlarge the force to ten, it may be that the last man will get wages\nonly.\"\n\n\"Modern studies of value, show that doses of consumer's goods, given in\na series to the same person have less and less utility per dose. The\nfinal utility theory of value rests on the same principle as does the\ntheory of diminishing returns from agriculture; and this principle has a\nfar wider range of new applications.\"\n\n\"We have undertaken to generalize the law that is at the basis of the\ntheory of value. In reality, it is all-comprehensive. The first\ngeneralization to be made consists in applying the law, not to single\narticles, but to consumers' wealth in all its forms. The richer man\nbecomes, the less can his wealth do for him. Not only a series of goods\nthat are all alike, but a succession of units of wealth itself, with no\nsuch limitation, on its forms, becomes less and less useful per unit.\nGive to a man not coats, but 'dollars,' one after another, and the\nutility of the last will still be less than that of any other. The\nearly dollars feed, clothe and shelter the man, but the last one finds\nit hard to do anything for him.\"[29]\n\nBy this law successive deposits of immigrants and successive gains in\nthe American population are reducing the valuation of men for religious,\nmoral and educational use. The first man in any historic experience is\nof infinite value. The first American, Columbus, will be famous forever,\nbut not because of any talents or enterprises of his. As a matter of\nfact he blundered in discovering America and died ignorant of the feat\nhe had actually accomplished. But because he was the first white man on\na new continent he had infinite historical value. When the early\nEuropeans were increased to ten or to one thousand each of them entered\ninto fame, though men like John Smith were commonplace enough in their\nperformances. Their fame is measurable, but still great. When the number\nof Americans was increased to eight millions everyone thought himself a\ngreat citizen, the founder of a family and a potential millionaire.\nThose were still the days of exceptional personality. The type of man in\nthose times was the landowner, the pioneer and the statesman. But now\nthere are ninety million Americans, all the valuable lands are assigned,\nall the best positions are filled, every job is taken, and ten million\nof the population are concerned about the problem of daily bread. These\nten million people are the marginal Americans. They are breadwinners,\nand the breadwinner is the unit of value on whom the standard of\nAmerican social and religious life is measured. So far as there can be\nan American type on whom policies in public life are measured, that type\nis today the breadwinner. In the city the breadwinner is a working man\nor an immigrant. In the country the marginal man is the tenant farmer;\nor a working farmer, though he be the owner. The marginal man represents\nthe value of all men in the community.\n\nThe law of diminishing returns works in the factory for fixing the wages\nin any scale which prevails throughout a level of pay. It is equally\nefficient in leveling men in the community. The employer does not pay\nthe working man on any level of wages in accordance with the value of\nthe few brilliant, trusty or inventive men in that group, but he pays\neach man just that wage which he must offer to the last man he hires.\nThe marginal man standardizes the wage. The religious values of men are\nstandardized not upon the brilliant or saintly or accomplished, not upon\nthe well-to-do members of the community, but upon the poor who are just\nable to stand and maintain themselves in the life of that community.\n\nThe working of this law is not a matter of persuasion. It is the\ninflexible condition with which religious and ethical institutions are\nconfronted. Churches should therefore estimate their policies by the\nresponses of the marginal people of the community. Religious standards\nof value should be measured by final utility, not initial utility. The\ncomplaint against the church today is reducible to this: that she\nstandardizes her ideals and her policies in accordance with the\nprosperous and well-to-do. The eloquence and the character of her\nministers, the kind of music with which God is worshipped, the\ncomfortable pews, the carpets on the floor, are all of them unlike the\npublic hall which is supported by the dues of the poor. The taste\nexpressed in church matters is rather literary and aesthetic than\npopular. The church which would appeal to the whole community must\nstandardize her work upon the poor man, and make her appeal to him.\n\nThis principle is not only scientifically correct, but it works out in\npractise. A minister who came into a well organized country community,\nwhere there were a few land-holders, many tenants and numbers of farm\nlands, found that the only appeal by which the whole community could be\nreached was an appeal directed to the marginal people in the community.\nWhen he sought the tenant farmer, he secured with him the land-holder,\nand when he went after the hired man on the farm, he secured the farmer\nwho employed him. When he gained the adherence of the boys and girls he\nsecured the support of their parents, and when he rendered service to\nlittle children, he could safely rely upon the gratitude and loyalty of\ntheir mothers and fathers.\n\nThis was the kind of work which Jesus did. He frankly made a selection\nof the people to whom he should minister.[30] He knew no phrases about\nall men being equal, and he made no profession of impartiality such as\ntoday causes many ministers to loiter among the well-to-do, who care not\nfor them. Jesus said he had no time to spend with well people, because\nhe was sent to the sick. But the philosophy of his action was seen in\nthe fact that when he ministered to the sick he himself helped the well.\nHe \"preached the gospel to the poor,\" but not because he had any\nprejudice against the rich. By ministering to the poor he applied his\ngospel to the margin of the community. That gospel has been of equal\nvalue to the rich man, because the spiritual experiences of the poor are\nthe experience also of the rich. The modern minister who goes after rich\nmen specifically, or who goes after them with the same vigor with which\nhe seeks the poor, will receive but a grudging welcome. But if he\nawakens the gratitude and support of the poor, he will find himself\nsought by the rich, and sustained by their abundant gifts.\n\nMr. Gilbert K. Chesterton, the English critic, has somewhere finely said\nthat the Master in his words to Simon Peter, \"Thou art Peter, and upon\nthis rock I will build my church,\" clearly recognized that Peter was a\nshuffler and a weakling and a coward and it was upon just such common\nmaterial that the church was founded. It was not to be an aristocratic\norganization. Its foundations were not laid upon skill and genius in\nhuman character, but upon the weaker and commonplace traits, which\nuniversal mankind possesses.\n\nSo definite was the appeal of Jesus to the marginal people of his time,\nthat he has been twice criticized unjustly; once in his own time by the\nPharisees, and again in our time by the Socialists. The latter have\nclaimed that Jesus was \"class conscious,\" that he was a partisan of the\npoor, a proletarian radical. The unscientific character of Socialism is\ndisplayed in this comment upon Jesus. His appeal was to the whole\ncommunity, as through Christian history his message has come uniformly\nto men of all degrees, rich and poor, ignorant and learned, bad and\ngood. The religious genius of Jesus is shown in the fact that he\nrecognized what the Socialist does not, that to appeal to the whole\ncommunity a prophet must address his plea to the people on the margin of\nthe community. His measure of value must be final utility.\n\nOne may go at large into this tempting field in illustrations. The\nartistic experience of mankind is abundant in illustration of it. There\nis no beauty of the ocean save in its shores--the margin of the\nboundless expanse. Literary descriptions of the experiences of human\nlove are made up of descriptions of the margins of love. Married life is\ndepicted in courtship, and the sentiments of affection are described in\nscenes of parting and meeting, which are the margins of companionship.\n\nThis principle should be fundamental in all policies of reconstruction\nof religious and ethical institutions. In the training of men for\nreligious service and for ethical leadership they should be accustomed\nto think in terms of communal wholes, and this thinking will use as its\nunits of measure the characteristics of the marginal life. It is for\nthis reason that temperance reform in America has been so influential\nwithin the past two decades. It is a communal form of ethics. It demands\nthat the community should act together in safeguarding the weaker\nmembers of the community, the young men, and the working people. The old\ntemperance propaganda was individualistist. It recorded its results in\nthe number of persons who signed the pledge. Its results were almost as\ngratifying if the pledges were signed by well-doing and orderly people\nas if they were signed by drunkards. The modern temperance movement\ndraws its influence from its proposed effect upon the agricultural\nlaborer.\n\nThe theological seminary of the past has been a literary institution.\nDuring the period of its development the typical Christian was the\nbright and aspiring young man in a community of boundless resources. To\nsuch a man books are the interpreters of life. But in the modern period\nwith the congested population and close social organization, human\nfellowship is an experience of greater value to most men than books.\nSince the time of the invention of printing successive quantities of\nliterature have been given to the world, and under the law of\ndiminishing returns literature has come to have for many very small\nreturns. At the time of the Protestant Reformation the value of books in\nthe hands of the common people was infinite. For several generations\nalong with the extension of universal education this infinite value of\nbooks continued for the people on the margin of the educated world. But\nnowadays everybody in American progressive communities can read and\nwrite: and in a universally educated population we arrive at the final\nutility of books in human use. Great masses of poor people and also many\npeople of means use books within narrow limits only. They do not buy\nthem, they do not read them, they do not think in literary terms. Yet\nthey have access to books and they turn from them with a clear sense of\nintelligent preference for other human values. Books are to them but an\nalphabet and social life is the story.\n\nMy own impression is that the life of the marginal man is social rather\nthan literary. His religion will be a social religion rather than a\nbiblical religion. The weakness of Protestantism is that it stubbornly\ninsists upon literary interpretation of God and upon a biblical\nministry, while the population around these Protestant churches\nexemplifies the diminished value of literature for spiritual uses.\n\nThe religious and ethical service of the days to come must interpret\nthe social life of the people. The great mass of the people care as\nlittle for wealth as they do for books. The same argument as to the\ndiminished returns of literature may be repeated to describe the\ndiminished returns of private property. The economic revolution since\nfeudal days has exhausted the values of private property in satisfying\nhuman need. The time was when property had an infinite value for\nexpressing personality. In days to come private property will still have\nthis value for many individuals. But among common folks generally\nprivate property does not seem to have boundless value for human\nsatisfaction. Working men as I have known them do not take pains to get\nrich. They know the way to wealth by economy and accumulation, but they\ndo not take it. They have a vast preference for the social intercourse,\nfriendly interchanges and mutual dependence by which their life is\nrefreshed, strengthened and sustained. Ethical policies of the future\nwhile using literature and private property as efficient implements must\ninterpret social life itself as a flowing spring of religion and\nmorality.\n\nThe training of religious and ethical leaders should be undertaken in\nthe theological seminary and in the university in such manner as to\nstandardize the influence of these institutions, by the life not of the\nexceptional man, but of the common man. The influence of educated men\nmust be used to reconstruct churches and societies upon the standards\nnot of the wealthy, the learned, the genius and the well-to-do, but by\nthe experiences of the poor, the workingman and the immigrant. The\nstandard in all religious and ethical institutions which profess to\nrepresent the community is today graded up to the professional and\nexceptional. The reconstruction necessary is to grade down so that the\nappeal shall be to the poor and struggling man whose condition is in\njeopardy, and whose status in the community is as yet undetermined.\nInstitutions which appeal to the community as a whole must standardize\ntheir policy to the level of the margin of the community.\n\nThe reconstruction of the theological seminaries is necessary, if they\nare to fit men for service in communities. They render now a service\nwhich is so valuable that one cannot pass over them lightly. They train\nthe candidate for the ministry by a process which develops and engages\nhis piety. Other university courses either ignore his religious feeling,\nor if they develop it, do not harness it to the task of social\nimprovement. The theological seminary lays the yoke of service upon the\nneck of prayer. This alone justifies its existence as a servant of the\nchurch in the community. However, the instruction in the seminary is\nrigidly grouped around courses in dead languages; which are jealous of\ninstruction in a living tongue. The history of discarded doctrines and\nof discredited teachers is minutely taught through months, to the\nexclusion of courses upon modern, living people, whose religious\nexperience is rich and striking. The purpose of seminary instruction is\npersonal culture instead of efficiency. It is the theory of the teachers\nwherein they disagree with all other professional teachers, that \"We do\nnot make preachers: the Lord makes them.\" They try therefore to impart\nculture and personal distinction.\n\nThe seminaries need first of all flexibility of courses. The whole\ntraditional schedule should be made elective. The demands of the time\nwould then have free course in the seminary, and would rearrange the\ninstruction according to actual present need. The cultivation of\npractical piety should receive more attention. The social life of the\nstudents, in close association with their professors and under religious\nstimuli, should be made a more powerful force than it usually is, in\ncreating a common ideal of service to which the seminary should commit\nitself. Above all, the seminary of theology should teach sociology and\neconomics, as a religious interpretation. Students should after a year's\nclass-room work be made to investigate and report upon actual\nconditions, should be delegated to study social movements, report upon\nthem, and to lead in discussing them. They should be trained in the use\nof statistics, in graphic display of conditions, and in the use of\npublic reports. In the senior year they should be employed definitely in\npractical work for populations, under instructors. After graduation the\nyoung minister should, more generally than now, be employed as an\nassistant to an older minister, in a large organization.\n\nThe influence of such social training would itself reform seminary\ninstruction. Thrust into a present-day curriculum, social science is a\nforeign and alien intruder; but its value would soon be demonstrated and\nother courses would be made over in new harmony with it. If some courses\nbe dropped, even if whole chairs be abandoned, it is better than that\nthe whole theological seminary be abandoned by students--which is the\napparent fate hanging over certain seminaries! What has here been said\nis true of the schools of theology in all denominations, and applies\nalike to both the conservative and the liberal.\n\nIn conclusion, the writer believes that the church's future is with the\nself-respecting poor. Jesus and nearly every leader of a great religious\nmovement was of the poor and labored with the poor. The sources of\nreligion are those named in the Beatitudes: poverty, meekness, sorrow,\nhunger, ostracism; and those are all social experiences. The service of\nthe church should be to these; and in serving the marginal people, whose\nlife is composed of the Beatitudes, the church will serve all men.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 29: \"The Distribution of Wealth,\" by John Bates Clark.]\n\n[Footnote 30: Luke, 6:20 ff; 15:1 ff.]\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nNEWCOMERS IN THE COMMUNITY\n\n\nOne general cause is bringing new people into the average country\ncommunity. The exploitation of land expresses the transition from the\nperiod of the land farmer to that of the scientific farmer or\nhusbandman. The signs of this exploitation are the retirement of farmers\nfrom the land, the incoming of new owners in some numbers and of tenant\nfarmers in a large degree, into the country community. The influence of\nthe absentee landlord begins to be felt in communities in which the\nlandowner was until 1890 the only type. In most of the older states\nimmigration from foreign lands has not greatly affected the country\ncommunity. In Wisconsin, Minnesota and other states of the Northwest\nsubstantial sections of the community are invaded by people of sturdy\nGermanic and Norse extraction. In New England the Poles, French,\nPortuguese and some Jews are settling in the country. But throughout the\nstates of the Union as a whole the population, both the newcomers and\nolder stock, are American.\n\nThe dates of this exploitation of land are, generally, from 1890 onward.\nReference is made elsewhere to the description of this process in the\nMiddle West.[31]\n\nIndependent of these causes the same process has appeared in the South,\nin Georgia, Mississippi and in West Tennessee, as well as other states.\nIn sections in which the values of land have not been doubled, as in\nIllinois and in Indiana they have, the same exodus from the farm and\ninvasion of the country community by new people has taken place.\n\nOne cause of this exploitation of land is the shrinkage in size of the\nolder families. Everywhere the exploitation of land is the greatest\nwhere the soil is the richest and the farmers the most prosperous. Even\nin the exceptional populations such as the Scotch Presbyterians and\nPennsylvania Germans, this effect of agricultural prosperity is slowly\nat work.\n\nIn Chester County, Pennsylvania, and in Washington County, where the\nmost substantial farmers in the country are found, the families in the\npresent generation are small. Many of the older stock have no children.\nFamilies which have retained the title of their land for eight\ngenerations are losing their hold upon the soil, by the fact that they\nhave none to inherit after them.\n\nAnother cause of this exploitation of land is the increasing number of\nsmall farms in certain regions. This means that in certain sections the\nfarming population has a new element, for the holders of these small\nfarms are many of them new to the community.\n\nThe process, which is made clear by the census of 1910, is this. The\nearlier retirement from the farms was by sale, the farmer taking money\ninstead of land. The second stage of retirement from the farm was\nthrough absentee landlordism and the placing of tenants on the farm.\nThis process has come to an end in many sections of the Middle West,\nwith the return of the sons of the landlord to the family acres in the\ncountry, so that there is a sort of rhythm in the flow of population\nfrom the country into the town and backward to the land. In this process\nthere is no invasion by new people, except the temporary residence of\nthe tenant farmer in the country, and some of these have in the process\ngained a footing by ownership of land. But this ebb and flow of\npopulation out of the country community and back again has weakened and\nstrained the country church and school and has not yet begun to\nstrengthen them. There is every evidence that with a pleasant and\nagreeable country life the country community can retain the best\nelements of this population, which comes and goes. The country church\nand school ought to take measures to retain the best of the country\npopulation through these changes.\n\nThrough all these causes the presence of a large proportion of aliens in\nthe community who are American born, but locally unattached by birth or\nownership, has effected great changes in the country church, and other\ncommunity institutions. The State of Illinois, which has a tenant farmer\npopulation of more than 50 per cent in its richest sections, has\nsuffered severely through the loss of many country churches. There is no\nprecise measure of this loss, but a sociological survey recently made in\nIllinois indicates that in the past twenty years more than fifteen\nhundred country churches have been abandoned in the State. This\nstatement must be accepted as approximate, but the number is likely to\nbe greater rather than less. This abandonment of country churches has\ncome in the same period in which the proportion of tenant farmers has\ngreatly increased. Reference is made elsewhere to a similar condition in\nthe State of Delaware, in which the churches of the old land-owners have\nbeen abandoned and replaced at heavy expense with poorer churches built\nby the incoming tenant farmers.\n\nEverywhere in the United States this process has in some measure\naffected the country. It does not much matter whether the proportion of\ntenants is increasing or decreasing, the present effect is one of\ninstability. In New England where in the past ten years tenantry has\nbeen diminished ten per cent, the country churches are weakened as\nelsewhere. The churches have not yet had time to recover while the\npopulation is in a state of change.\n\nThe old order in the country is crumbling. The church is an expression\nof stability. The people on whom the church always depends for its\naudiences, its enthusiasm and its largest accessions, are marginal\npeople, working men, adolescent youths and those who are coming to a\nposition in the community. The exodus of these from the country\ncommunity, or the incoming of persons in these classes into the country\ncommunity, has been unfavorable to the country church at the present\ntime.\n\nIt may be said at this point that a state of transition is for the time\nbeing unfavorable to ethical and moral growth. Moral conditions are\nsustained by custom, and where customs are in change, moral standards\nmust themselves be in transition. The country community is moral so far\nas adhering to the standards of the past is concerned. But the\npopulation themselves who have to do with the country are undergoing\nextraordinary moral change, with incidental loss, and many of the\nproblems of the United States as a whole are made more acute by the\nwaste of the country community. Among these should be cited the\namusement question in the small town, the decadence of the theatre in\nthe cheaper vaudeville, the white slave traffic and the social disorders\npeculiar to unskilled laborers, many of whom come from country\ncommunities of the United States and Europe.\n\nIt must be remembered, too, that the rural free delivery and the\ntelephone have entered the country community in the past twenty years\nand their effect has not yet been recorded. It has probably been in the\ndirection of chilling instead of warming the social life of the\ncountry. The old acquaintance and the intimate social relations of the\ncountry community have not been helped by the telephone: and along with\nthe presence of aliens in the community, one-fourth or one-half or\nthree-fourths of the population, the telephone has had the effect of\nlowering the standards of intimacy and separating the households in the\ncountry one from another. The rural free delivery has put country people\ninto the general world economy and for the time being has loosened the\nbonds of community life.\n\nIn those states in which the trolley system has been extended into the\ncountry, for instance Ohio and Indiana, the process of weakening the\ncountry population has been hastened. Sunday becomes for country people\na day of visiting the town and in great numbers they gather at the\ninter-urban stations. The city and town on Sunday is filled with\ncareless, hurrying groups of visitors, sight-seers and callers, who have\nno such fixed interest as that to be expressed in church-going or in\nsubstantial social processes. For the time being inter-urban trolley\nlines have dissipated the life of the country communities.\n\nThe duty of the church in the country under these conditions can be\naccomplished only under a widened horizon. The minister and the leaders\nof the church must lift up their eyes. They need not be discouraged if\nfor the time being they accomplish little, for the period of\nexploitation must come to an end normally with the exhaustion of its\nforces, before the better day can come. But this period is one of\nenlargement. The units of social life will be spaced farther apart. The\ncountry community will advance as soldiers say, \"in open order.\" This is\ntrue for the family life, in which the father, the mother and the\nchildren have greater freedom from one another; as well as in the\ncommunity, in which neighbors become less intimately dependent on one\nanother. The church must therefore preach the world idea. At this time\nof transition the country church should undertake its foreign missionary\nservice. The great causes of the Kingdom which are world-wide should be\npresented to country people when they are lifting up their eyes from\nlocal confines to look at the world and the city and the nation. As the\ndaily paper comes into the farmer's household the farmer's church should\ninterpret the history of the time in missionary terms. The literature of\nthe great missionary agencies should be distributed in the farm\nhousehold. Wherever the catalogue of the big store in Chicago or New\nYork is found on the center table, beside it should be placed a modern\nbook expressive of missionary evangelism. As the mind of the countryman\ndevelops to comprehend the world in his daily thought under the impetus\nof a daily newspaper, his conscience and his religious experience should\nbe expanded correspondingly.\n\nIn a time of exploitation of land the country church should regenerate\nits financial system. The system of barter passes away in the day of\nspeculation in farm land; and the country church which can find means to\nendure the period of exploitation must put its financial system on a new\nbasis. The tenant farmer is crudely striving through problems of\nscientific agriculture. He may, indeed, be a soil robber, but by his\nwaste of economic values he and other men are learning to conserve. The\nfinancial system of the church should be placed at this time on a basis\nof weekly contribution, for with the tenant farmer comes system, cash\npayments, regular commercial processes. The business administration of\nthe church must be made to correspond.\n\nThe country minister and schoolteacher must therefore become prophets of\nthe intellect and of the spirit, in the new order. If they cannot\nminister to the new intelligence of the farmer and his children, their\ninstitutions will necessarily decay. The farmer who succeeds in the new\nsocial economy of the country will not endure old sermons which were\nappropriate in his father's time. The emphasis must not be placed on\ntradition, but upon inductive study. The preacher must not feed the\npeople on special instances, but upon representative cases. The\nintelligence of the new type of farmer will not be satisfied with\nsensations and with the unusual; but he demands to be trained in\nstandards of the new day, when science, system, organization and world\neconomy are making their demands on him and his very soul is concerned\nin his response to those demands.\n\nThe task of dealing with newcomers in the country community is\neducational, financial and recreative. One should add that it is also\nevangelistic, but I have in mind the possibility that these newcomers\nmay be Catholics with whom Protestant evangelism will not be successful.\nIt is possible also that they will be of another Protestant sect from\nthat of the reader of this chapter, so that to evangelize them would\nmean proselyting. The writer believes very heartily in rural evangelism.\nIt is an essential process in building the country church. These\nchapters are devoted primarily to the building of the country community\nand in that process the securing of members for the country church is\npreliminary only. Leaving, therefore, the question of rural evangelism\nfor treatment in another place, let us take up the educational treatment\nof the newcomer in the country community.\n\nThe proper machinery for this education is the common school and the\nSunday school. As the common school is treated elsewhere, the use of the\nSunday school in organizing the rural population belongs here. Few\nchurches realize the power and value of Sunday-school training. I am\ninsisting that the life of country people is religious. The use of the\nSunday school is to train the young of the community in religion. All\ncountry people accept the Bible as a holy book. They all believe in the\neducation of their children and in much greater numbers than they will\nrespond for a church service their children will respond to the work of\nreligious culture on Sunday at the church. The Sunday-school\norganization is interdenominational. Its lessons and its methods are a\ncommon heritage of the churches at the present time. The machinery is\nperfect, but the Sunday-school leaders lack vision and they lack the\nprogressive spirit. If only the teachers and ministers realized the\nvalue of the Sunday school and its acceptance with the people, there\nwould be needed no other machinery for building the country community.\n\nThe Sunday-school should be a close parallel to the day school. If the\nday school in the community has any progressive features, the Sunday\nschool should use these and improve them. Between the two there should\nexist the closest sympathy, not formal or definitely organized, but\nactual and expressed in parallel lines of work. Where the day school is\ngraded, the Sunday school should accept the same grading, strongly\norganizing all its classes. The pupils in the Sunday school should pass\nby successive promotions from teacher to teacher and from grade to\ngrade.\n\nIf the day school in the country is unprogressive and is taught by a\nsuccession of indifferent persons, the Sunday school should practise\nunder the guidance of religious leaders those principles of modern\npedagogy which should be used in the common schools. Graded lessons,\nthe organization of material and progressive development of religious\ntruth from the simpler to the more complex, should find their place in\nevery Sunday school. The opportunity for service to the whole community\nthus offered through the Sunday school is excelled by none in the\ncountry community.\n\nThe upper classes of the Sunday school should be organized. Young men\nand women especially, who are in danger of finding the Sunday school\nirksome because their intelligence has passed beyond its control, should\nbe organized in classes which on week days have a club or society\ncharacter. The Sunday school should use as an ally their tendency to\norganization and should satisfy their social needs by giving them\nregular and approved opportunities for meeting and for pleasure.\n\nAnother principle which the Sunday school can practise for the benefit\nof the community is the centralization of religious teaching. Even if\nthe common schools are not centralized, the children for the Sunday\nschool should be brought to the church from outlying regions in hired\nwagons every week. It is better that a large Sunday school be maintained\nunder efficient leadership than that a number of small schools with\nindifferent teachers should be maintained in various school districts.\nThe larger body can have better leadership. It is more closely under the\nsupervision of the minister, who is generally the superior in education\nof the laymen, and the social value of the meetings of the Sunday\nschool will be greater in the larger body. All the arguments which make\nfor the centralization of the day school have force for the\nconsolidation of Sunday schools in one large school.\n\nThe Sunday school offers a basis for church federation. In the community\nit is frequently possible for Sunday schools to be united and for the\nadvantages of this common teaching to be made even greater because all\nthe children of the various churches are in one body. The best\nleadership and the best teachers are thus secured and the community\nspirit is cultivated through the young people and more loosely attached\nmembers of the community.\n\nThe older classes of the Sunday school on a basis of study of the Bible\nshould be organized for practical ends. The adult Bible class can be\nmade to have all the influence of the grange in the country community.\nThe fathers and mothers of the community may meet throughout the week\nsocially. They may undertake together the study of the economic life of\nthe community. Lecturers from the agricultural college, representatives\nof the Play Ground Movement, of the county work of the Y. M. C. A., of\nhistorical societies interested in the community's past and other\nrepresentatives of national movements, may be welcomed and heard by this\norganized class, the basis of which is religious education.\n\nWhat I am urging may be accomplished by any church in some measure,\nhowever divided the community may be. It is the business of the\nindividual church which has a vision of the community as a whole to act\nas if it were a federation of churches. Frequently ministers are in\nfavor of church federation, as if that process were an end in itself.\nThe writer believes that the individual church can accomplish the ends\nof federation if the union of churches can do so. The best means for\neffecting federation of churches is to practise the program of\nfederation until it shall come about.\n\nThe community made up in a degree of new families and the community in\nwhich the newcomers are young men and women, children of the residents,\nare bound to educate these invaders of the community, whether they come\nfrom without or whether they come by \"birthright membership,\" in the\nspirit of benevolence. The giving of money to public uses is one of the\ncherished social forces of our time. The country community is just\nentering into the day of cash. The period of barter is over. The farmer\ntherefore needs in his ethical and his religious training, to have\ndefinite culture as a philanthropist. The future of the farm-hand in\nAmerica is still very hopeful. The tenant farmer expects to be an owner.\nThe farmer's son believes himself to have a future. These hopes from\nearliest years should be disciplined by the practise of giving. For this\nend the church is a rarely well fitted means. The financial system of\nthe church must be made democratic. The custom of renting pews belonged\nin the land-farmer period. The writer does not suggest that it be\nabolished because it can often serve a more democratic purpose in its\nmature forms under careful supervision than any substitute, but it is\nall important that the country church be a training-school in the\nconsecration of money to the uses of the community and of the kingdom of\nGod.\n\nFor the average countryman the kingdom of God should be embodied in the\ncountry community. This is not to say that his vision should be narrow.\nOn the contrary his vision is often of the spread-eagle sort. He\noverlooks the opportunities for benevolence which are near at hand. He\nbelieves in foreign missions sometimes, and contributes impulsively to\nthe support of men in China who are paid a better salary than the pastor\nin his own community. He applauds the gifts of millionaires and of city\npeople generally to hospitals, but he ignores the ravages of disease in\nhis own community. The divine imperative is that the country community\nbe first organized, by those who live there, for local well-being. For\nthis, contributions of money are necessary and they must be made by all\nin the community.\n\nThe question has been raised frequently whether an endowment is not\nnecessary for the country church. The writer began his ministry in a\ncountry church which was generously endowed. He still believes in the\nvalue of endowment for some country communities. Ex-President Eliot of\nHarvard recently commended the principle of endowment to the New England\nCountry Church Association, as a solution of the rural problem.\nPresident Butterfield of Massachusetts Agricultural College has\nemphasized the same principle. It is quite likely that in the Eastern\nStates where the country community has been depleted by the departure of\nan extraordinary number of families and individuals, an endowment would\nbe of value for the country church. One must not hold to a theoretic\nopposition to such a method. The important thing is to provide a trained\npastor for the country community. In these Eastern communities a larger\nproportion of the former members of the community have prospered than in\nWestern communities. Many of them are very rich. In these cases it is\nbut natural that an endowed church in the country community express the\nministry of the more prosperous citizen to his poorer brethren, but\neverybody knows that these depleted communities--I will not say these\nexcessive fortunes--are among the most lamentable factors in American\nlife.\n\nThe endowment of the church, however, is a very poor apology for a bad\nsituation. It has but limited use, and the creation of a large fund to\nbe used in the country community necessitates careful supervision by men\nof such business ability as are not usually found in a country\ncommunity. To remedy such conditions as those with which President\nEliot and President Butterfield are most familiar is a specific\nproblem. It is not the general situation throughout the United States.\nThe purpose of these chapters is to make plain the way by which the\naverage American community may escape depletion, may retain the\nleadership of its best minds and may prosper in a democratic way. I am\ninterested more in training the country population for the future than\nin mending the mistakes of the past. But I believe that for depleted\ncountry communities in New England, New York and Pennsylvania an\nendowment of the country church would in many instances be effective:\nand for them alone.\n\nLet the country church undertake its financial problem in a\nbusiness-like way. At the beginning of the year make a budget of all the\nmonies needed for the year's work. Face the issues of the year frankly.\nPay to the minister and to other employees of the church a sufficient\namount to provide them with needful things throughout the year. A living\nwage is not enough. The minister especially needs a working salary. With\nlittle variation throughout the country as a whole the minister in the\nrural community should have in order to minister to his people, to\neducate his children and to look forward without fear to old age, twelve\nto fourteen hundred dollars a year and a house. Many country communities\nhave a more expensive standard, and there are a few in which less is\nrequired. But in Southern States and in Western communities I have found\nthe conditions, created by the prices which prevail throughout the\ncountry as a whole, at this standard.\n\nWhen the budget of the year is prepared, including missionary and\nbenevolent gifts, it should be distributed by the officers through\nconsultation with all the members of the church, young and old, rich and\npoor, in such way as to secure a gift from every one and to meet the\nobligations of the church as a whole. For the moral values of the\nsituation the small gift of the poor and of the child are even more\nimportant than the large gift of the well-to-do. For the securing of\nthese gifts the envelope system, especially the so-called duplex\nenvelope, is the best means which can be generally used by churches. It\nis a method flexible enough to reach every member and it represents in\nits duplex form the double motive of giving to the community itself and\nto those larger national and missionary enterprises to which the country\nshould contribute.\n\nThe third method of developing the country community is recreative. I\nmention it here for completeness of statement. Another chapter is\ndevoted to recreation in the country community. The amusements and\nrecreations of the country community are immersed in moral issues. The\nethical life of the community is the atmosphere in which social pleasure\nis taken. Therefore the recreations of the community are to be provided\nand supervised by those who would undertake to create a wholesome\ncommunity life. A maximum of provision and a minimum of supervision are\nrequired. Country life is devoid of means for recreation. Some one must\nprovide it. Usually it is either neglected altogether, and the result is\ndullness and monotony; or it is provided for a price, and the result is\nan organized center of immorality. Recreation requires but little\nsupervision. The presence of older persons, and those of a humane\nfriendly spirit, is usually necessary to the games. These are based on\nhonor and with a few simple principles the young people and working\npeople of the community will organize their own play and find therein a\ngreat benefit.\n\nTo summarize this chapter, the acute problem in many communities today\nis the merging of the life of newcomers in the community into the\norganized social life which is older and more settled. This task belongs\nabove all to the country church. Many of the detailed applications are\nfor the school to follow out, but the business of the church is to see\nand to inspire. If the church is not democratic, the community will be\nhopelessly divided. If the church welcomes the newcomer and finds him a\nplace, the community will be inspired with a democratic spirit. The task\nof the church is indicated in the new prosperity of the country which\ntends from the first to remove from the community those who prosper. The\nchurch's business is to win to the community all who come into it and to\nrelease from its hold as few as possible.\n\nIn a discussion of country life in a Tennessee college town the question\nwas asked of a professor of agriculture who was speaking about farm\ntenantry, \"What should the church do for the tenant farmer?\" \"Borrow\nmoney for him and help him to buy land,\" said the professor.\n\nSuch a solution might be the church's task, but the example of England's\npolicy for Ireland shows that the professor commended a governmental\nrather than a religious service. For it is found that the Irish\nfarmer--a tenant on land whereon his ancestors have for centuries been\ntenants--when he secures the land in fee through the new policies of the\nBritish Government, frequently deserts the country community, selling\nhis land to a neighbor. Some sections of Ireland are said to have a new\nkind of small tenantry and a new sort of small landlord. The task of the\ncountry community begins where the task of government leaves off. It is\nto inspire the resident in the country with a vision, and to lay upon\nhim the imperative, of building up the country community out of the\nnewcomers, who enter it by birth or by migration.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[Footnote 31: \"The Agrarian Changes in the Middle West,\" by J. B. Ross.]\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nCO-OPERATION\n\n\nIn contrast to other classes of the population country people have a\nmarked preference for individual action and an aversion to co-operative\neffort. The causes of this are historical. In general these causes are\nof the past and they are not a matter of persuasion. The American farmer\nhas not co-operated in the past because: first, the necessities of his\nlife made him independent and impatient of the sacrifices necessary in\nco-operating with his fellows. We have still many influences of the\npioneer in modern life. So long as agriculture is solitary work and its\nprocesses take a man away from his fellows, co-operation will be\nretarded. So long as the countryman has to practise a variety of trades,\nhe will be emotional, and the social life of the country will be broken\nup by feuds, divisions, separations and continued misunderstandings. No\nmere education as to alleged right and wrong can plaster over the old\neconomy with new ethical standards. Until the loneliness and the emotion\nare taken out of farming country people cannot co-operate.\n\nA good part of the United States is still in the land farmer period. The\ncharacteristic of the land farmer is his cultivation of group life. The\nhistorical process by which this group life is broken up is\nexploitation. Farmers whose lands have not been exploited and whose\ngroup life has not suffered the undermining influence of exploitation\nwill not normally co-operate. I am convinced that in most farming\nterritories the loyalty of the countryman to his group is the second\nreason for his refusal to co-operate. Again, this refusal of his is not\nsubject to persuasion. He is obeying an economic condition which shapes\nhis life and controls his action. Striking instances are furnished in\nmany regions of the amazing disloyalty of farmers to one another, and to\ntheir own pledged word. These are to be explained by the type to which\nthe farmer in these sections conforms. We must not expect the land\nfarmer to obey the ethical standards of the husbandman.\n\nA good instance of this conformity to type was furnished in the case of\nmeetings held in Louisiana and Western Mississippi among the farmers who\nraise cotton. The occasion of the meetings was the approach of the boll\nweevil to their districts. The attendance upon the meetings was large,\nindeed universal. The situation was clearly understood and the speakers\nsecured from the farmers present a promise quite unanimous to refrain\nfrom cultivating cotton for a year. The purpose of this was to meet the\nboll weevil with a territory in which he would find no food. Thus his\nmarch eastward across the cotton field would be arrested.\n\nThe farmers having made their promise and agreed heartily in the\nproposal, adjourned. Weeks and months passed and the time approached for\nplanting cotton. Farmer after farmer, who had attended these meetings\nand given his promise, privately decided that he would plant a cotton\ncrop and secretly expected that he would secure a larger price that year\nbecause so many of his neighbors were to raise other crops. When the\nfull season for planting cotton had come it was discovered that so many\nfarmers had planted cotton that the plan of co-operation was a failure,\nand the whole district went back to cotton, with full prospect of\nassisting the boll weevil in his course toward the East. The reasons for\nthis action lie in the type of farmer who thus found it impossible to\nco-operate. Each of these farmers regarded above all other things the\nsuccess of his own farm and his own family group. In contrast to this\ninterest no other claim, no exhortation and not even his word given in\npublic had any lasting influence upon his action.\n\nThe third element in the inability of country people to co-operate is\nthe ideal of level democratic equality which prevails in the country.\nWhere universal land-ownership has been the rule every countryman thinks\nhimself \"as good as anybody else.\" So long as this ideal prevails, that\nsubjection of himself to another, and the controlling of his action by\nthe interests of the community, are impossible. The farmer cannot\nco-operate when he thinks of social life in terms of pure democracy.\nThere must be a large sense of team work, a loyal and instinctive\nobedience to leaders, a devoted spirit which looks for honest\nleadership, before there can be co-operation. These things come not by\npersuasion, but by experience. Co-operation is the act of a mature\npeople. Not until country people have passed through earlier stages and\ndiscarded earlier ideals can the preacher and the organizer and the\nteacher successfully inculcate a spirit of co-operation.\n\nCountry churches are highly representative in their present divided\ncondition. This multiplication of churches in the country is lamentable\nchiefly because it registers the divided state of country life. It is\ntrue that divided churches are religiously inefficient, but it is vastly\nmore important that divided churches are embodiments of what one country\nminister calls \"the tuberculosis of the American farmer, individualism.\"\n\nIt was natural for the pioneer to desire a religion in terms of a\nmessage of personal salvation. Personality in his lonely life was the\nnoblest, indeed the only form of humanity known to him, therefore the\nherald was his minister and emotion was his religion. It is very natural\nfor the land farmer to organize religion in terms of group life. His\nchurches were only handmaids of his household. They had but the\nbeginnings of social organization. They taught the ethics of home life,\nof the separate farm and of a land-owning people. Obviously the church\nfor the pioneer and for the land farmer could be a very weak and\nindifferent organization, but efficient for the religious needs of those\nindependent, self-reliant types of countrymen.\n\nFor these reasons in all parts of the country the pitiful story is heard\nof divided communities. One need not recite it here. It usually is the\naccount of three hundred or four hundred people with five or six country\nchurches. At its worst there is a small community in which missionary\nagencies are supporting ministers who do not average one hundred\npossible families apiece in the community. The condition of Center Hall,\nPennsylvania, has been described in another chapter, in which there are\nwithin a radius of four miles from a given point twenty-four country\nchurches. This community represents a condition of transition from the\nland-farmer type to that of exploitation. Some of these churches are the\nold churches of the land-owning resident farmers, but the most of them\nare said to be the newer churches of tenants who have come into the\ncommunity. Our present concern is to recognize the relation of the\ndivided churches to the divided social life of the community. The\ncriticism of the country community must be made on an understanding of\nthe stage of development to which that community has attained. Whatever\nis planned for the upbuilding of the country community must be planned\nin harmony with the well-known facts of rural development.\n\nBusiness life introduces into the community a new standard of values.\nCash and credit take the place of barter. The exchange in kind on which\noriginally the community depended comes to an end. Business life very\nshortly induces combination. The whole of modern business presents a\nspectacle of universal combination and co-operation. The farmer who is\nmost conservative is surrounded on all sides by the aggressive forces of\nbusiness. Combined in their own interest they compete with him on\nunequal terms. He stands alone and they stand combined.\n\nAmericans are looking with growing interest on the experience of Denmark\nwhere a multitude of co-operative associations represent the spirit of\nthe people. This spirit has been deliberately cultivated in the land for\nforty years. It is the universal testimony of observers that the\nprosperity of Denmark is dependent on these co-operative agencies and\nupon this united spirit. The exodus from the country has been arrested,\nagriculture has been made a desirable occupation, profitable for the\nfarmer and most probable for the state, and the people as a whole have\ntaken front rank in social and economic welfare. Essential to this\nconstructive period of Denmark's life is co-operation.[32]\n\nIn Sir Horace Plunkett's recent book, \"The Rural Life Problem in The\nUnited States,\" he develops this principle clearly. He says that in the\norganization of country life in Ireland it was necessary to go into the\nvery heart of the people's experience and organize their economic and\nsocial processes in forms of co-operation.\n\n\"When farmers combine, it is a combination not of money only, but of\npersonal effort in relation to the entire business. In a co-operative\ncreamery for example, the chief contribution of a shareholder is in\nmilk; in a co-operative elevator, corn; in other cases it may be fruit\nor vegetables, or a variety of material things rather than cash. But it\nis, most of all, a combination of neighbors within an area small enough\nto allow of all the members meeting frequently at the business center.\nAs the system develops, the local associations are federated for larger\nbusiness transactions, but these are governed by delegates carefully\nchosen by the members of the constituent bodies. The object of such\nassociations is primarily, not to declare a dividend, but rather to\nimprove the conditions of the industry for the members.\n\n\"It is recognized that the poor man's co-operation is as important as\nthe rich man's subscription. 'One man, one vote,' is the almost\nuniversal principle in co-operative bodies.\n\n\"The distinction between the capitalistic basis of joint stock\norganization and the more human character of the co-operative system is\nfundamentally important.\n\n\"In this matter I am here speaking from practical experience in Ireland.\nTwenty years ago the pioneers of our rural life movement found it\nnecessary to concentrate their efforts upon the reorganization of the\nfarmer's business.\n\n\"1. We began with the dairying industry, and already half the export of\nIrish butter comes from the co-operative societies we established.\n\n\"2. Organized bodies of farmers are learning to purchase their\nagricultural requirements intelligently and economically.\n\n\"3. They are also beginning to adopt the methods of the organized\nforeign farmer in controlling the sale of their butter, eggs and poultry\nin the British markets.\n\n\"4. And they not only combine in agricultural production and\ndistribution, but are also making a promising beginning in grappling\nwith the problem of agricultural finance. It is in the last portion of\nthe Irish programme that by far the most interesting study of the\nco-operative system can be made, on account of its success in the\npoorest parts of the Island. Furthermore, the attempt to enable the most\nembarrassed section of the Irish peasantry to procure working capital\nillustrates some features of agricultural co-operation which will have\nsuggestive value for American farmers.\n\n\"A body of very poor persons, individually--in the commercial sense of\nthe term--insolvent, manage to create a new basis of security which has\nbeen somewhat grandiloquently and yet truthfully called 'the\ncapitalization of their honesty and industry.' The way in which this is\ndone is remarkably ingenious. The credit society is organized in the\nusual democratic way explained above, but its constitution is peculiar\nin one respect. The members have to become jointly and severally\nresponsible for the debts of the association, which borrows on this\nunlimited liability from the ordinary commercial bank, or, in some\ncases, from Government sources. After the initial stage, when the\ninstitution becomes firmly established, it attracts local deposits, and\nthus the savings of the community, which are too often hoarded, are set\nfree to fructify in the community. The procedure by which the money\nborrowed is lent to the members of the association is the essential\nfeature of the scheme. The member requiring the loan must state what he\nis going to do with the money. He must satisfy the committee of the\nassociation, who know the man and his business, that the proposed\ninvestment is one which will enable him to repay both principal and\ninterest. He must enter into a bond with two sureties for the repayment\nof the loan, and needless to say the characters of both the borrower and\nhis sureties are very carefully considered. The period for which the\nloan is granted is arranged to meet the needs of the case, as determined\nby the committee after a full discussion with the borrower. Once the\nloan has been made, it becomes the concern of every member of the\nassociation to see that it is applied to the 'approved purpose'--as it\nis technically called. What is more important is that all the borrower's\nfellow-members become interested in his business and anxious for its\nsuccess.\n\n\"The fact that nearly three hundred of these societies are at work in\nIreland and that, although their transactions are on a very modest\nscale, the system is steadily growing both in the numbers of its\nadherents and in the turnover,--this fact is, I think, a remarkable\ntestimony to the value of the co-operative system. The details I have\ngiven illustrate one important distinction between co-operation, which\nenables the farmer to do his business in a way that suits him, and the\nurban form of combination, which is unsuited to his needs.\"\n\nThe traditional economy that centered in the farm household was\nindependent. The ethical standards of country life recognized but small\nobligations to those outside the household. Farmers still idealize an\nindividual, or rather a group, success. They entertain the hope that\ntheir farm may raise some specialty for which a better price shall be\ngained and by which an exceptional advantage in the market shall be\npossessed. The conditions of the world economy are imposing upon the\nfarmer the necessity of co-operation.\n\nThe prices of all the farmers' products are fixed by the marginal goods\nput upon the market. For instance, the standard milk for which the price\nis paid to dairy farmers, is the milk which can barely secure a\npurchaser. The poor quality, relative uncleanness, and the low grade of\nthe marginal milk dominate the general market in every city, and the\nfarmer who produces a better grade gets nothing for the difference. It\nis true that there is a special price paid by hospitals and a limited\nmarket may be established by special institutions, but we are dealing\nhere with general conditions such as affect the average milk farmer and\nthe great bulk of the farmers. It is on these average conditions alone\nthat the country community can depend.\n\nCo-operation is the essential measure by which the producer of marginal\ngoods can be influenced. To raise the standard of his product it is\nnecessary to have a combination of producers. So long as the better\nfarmer is dependent by economic law upon those prices paid for marginal\ngoods, the only way for the better farmer to secure a better gain is to\nengage in co-operation which shall include the poorer and the marginal\nfarmer.\n\nIn the Kentucky counties which raise Burley tobacco, a few years ago the\ntenant farmer was an economic slave. He sold his crop at a price\ndictated by a combination of buyers. He lived throughout the year on\ncredit. His wife and his children were obliged to work in the field in\nsummer. He had nothing for contribution to community institutions.\nIndeed, he very frequently ended the year without paying his debts for\nfood and clothing.\n\nThe organizations of these farmers which have been formed in recent\nyears for self-protection have been blamed for some outrageous deeds.\nPersons in sympathy with these organizations have burned the barns of\nfarmers unwilling to enter the combination. They have administered\nwhippings and threats right and left in the interest of the farmers'\norganization. In their contest with the buyers to secure a better price\nthey have reduced to ashes some of the warehouses of the monopoly to\nwhich they were obliged to sell their tobacco. These public outrages are\nworthy of condemnation. The writer believes that they were not essential\nto the process of co-operation by which the farmers fought their way to\nbetter success, though the effect of these acts is a part of the\nhistorical process.\n\nBut the combination of farmers has redeemed the poorer, the tenant\nfarmer and the small farmer from economic slavery. His representatives\nnow fix the price of the product. There is one buyer and one seller,\ncompetition being eliminated; and the price at which the tobacco is sold\nis the farmers' price, not the manufacturer's price. As a result the\nfarmers are able to hire help. The wife and children no longer work in\nthe field. The bills are paid as they are incurred, instead of credit\nslavery binding the farmer from year to year. Last of all this\nprosperity has taken form in better roads, better schools and better\nchurches. It remains only to be said that among the farmers engaging in\nthis co-operative union there were many preachers and pastors of the\nregion. They took a large part in the combinations of farmers which\naffected this great gain. They recognized that the fight of the farmers\nfor self-respect and for free existence was a religious struggle and\nthat the church had a common interest in the well being of the\npopulation to which it ministered.\n\nAnother instance of co-operation is seen in Delaware and on the \"Eastern\nShore\" where the soil had been exhausted. Methods of slavery days were\nunfavorable to the land and after the War it was long neglected. In\nrecent years a new type of farmer has come into this territory. By\nintensive cultivation with scientific methods, he is raising small\nfruits, berries, vegetables and other products, for the nearby markets\nin the great cities. The success of these farmers has been dependent\nupon their produce exchanges. They have learned, contrary to the\ntraditional belief of farmers, that there is a greater profit for the\nindividual farmer in raising the same crop as his neighbor, than there\nis in an especial crop which competes in the market for itself. That is\nto say, in shipping a carload of strawberries the farmer gets a better\nprice when the car is filled with one kind of berry than he would\nreceive if the car was made up of a number of separate consignments\nunder different names and of different varieties. Co-operation has been\nbetter for the individual than competition.\n\nIt at once becomes evident that co-operation is an ethical and a\nreligious discipline. As soon as the farming population is saturated\nwith the idea, which these farmers fully understand who have prospered\nby co-operation, the religious message in these territories will be a\nnew message of brotherhood. The old gospel of an individual salvation\napart from men and often at the expense of other men will be enlarged\nand renewed into a gospel of social salvation. No man will be saved to a\nHeaven apart or to a salvation which he attains by competition or by\ncomparison, but men shall be saved through their fellows and with their\nfellows. The country church, of all our churches, will teach in the days\nto come the gospel of unity.\n\nThe writer's own experience as a country minister was a perfect\nillustration of this union of all members of a community. In the\ncommunity Quakers, Irish Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and\nBaptists were represented in nearly equal numbers. With people widely\ndiverse in their economic position, though dependent upon one another,\nit became evident to all that the only religious experience of the\ncommunity must be an experience of unity. Under the leadership of an old\nQuaker who supplied the funds and of two others of gracious spirit and\nbroad intellect, the whole community was united, on the condition that\nall should share in that which any did. One church was organized to\nreceive all the adherents of Protestant faith and one service of worship\nunited all, whether within or without the church. Even the Roman\nCatholics once or twice a year for twenty years have been brought\ntogether in meetings which express the unity of the countryside.\n\nOther instances there are of co-operation among churches in the country,\nbut their number is not great. There is a supplementary co-operation in\nthe division of territory in some states. The church at Hanover, N. J.,\nhas a territory six miles by four, in which no other church has been\nestablished. This old Presbyterian congregation has peopled its\ncountryside with its chapels and has assembled the chapel worshippers\nregularly at its services in the old church at the graveyard and the\nmanse.\n\nIn Rock Creek, Illinois, the Presbyterian Church has a community to\nitself, and ministers in its territory with the same efficiency with\nwhich the Baptist church across the creek ministers to its territory, in\nwhich it also has a religious monopoly. These two congregations respect\none another and have a sense of supplementing one another, which is a\nform of co-operation. The ideal expressed in these two instances is\ncherished by many. It is hoped that religious bodies may agree in time\nto divide the territory, to give up churches, to sell or transfer\nproperty rights and to shift their ministers from communities which have\ntoo many to those communities not served at all. But the way for this\nco-operation as an active principle has not yet opened. Its value is in\nthose communities which have had it from the first as an inheritance.\nIt has so far not proven a remedy to be applied for the cure of existing\nevils.\n\nThe writer believes that the path of co-operation is the efficient and\nslow one of economic and social organization rather than the delusive\nshort-cut of religious union. People cannot be united in religion until\nthey are united in their social economy. The business of the church is\nto organize co-operative enterprises, economic, social and educational,\nand to school the people in the joy, to educate them in the advantages,\nof life together. Co-operation must become a gospel. Union requires to\nbe a religious doctrine. It will be well for a long time to come to say\nbut little about organic union of churches and to say a great deal about\nthe union in the life of the people themselves.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[Footnote 32: \"Rural Denmark and Its Lessons,\" by H. Rider Haggard. See\nalso the Bulletins of the International Institute of Agriculture at\nRome, Italy.]\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nCOMMON SCHOOLS\n\n\nThe weakness of the common schools in American rural communities shows\nitself in their failure to educate the marginal people of the community,\nin their failure to train average men and women for life in that\ncommunity, in their robbing the community of leadership by training\nthose on whom their influence is strongest, so that they go out from the\ncommunity never to return; and in their general disloyalty to the local\ncommunity with its needs and its problems.\n\nIt is the boast of the people of the country school district that their\nschool has \"sent out\" so many people of distinction. On a rocky hillside\nin a New England town there stands, between a wooded slope and a swamp,\nan unpainted school building. Within and without it is more forbidding\nthan the average stable in that farming region. But the resident of that\nneighborhood boasts of the number of distinguished persons who have gone\nforth from the community, under the influence of that school. This is\ncharacteristic of country places and country schools. The influence of\nthe school, so far as it has any, is that of disloyalty to the\nneighborhood. It robs the neighborhood of leadership. It does nothing\nto cultivate a spirit of sympathy with the life that must be lived\nthere. For every one whom it starts upon the exodus to other places it\nleaves two at home uninspired, indifferent and mentally degenerate.\n\nAnother fault of the one-room country school, which makes it a weak\nsupport of the country community, is its lack of professional support.\nAmong four hundred teachers in such schools, throughout the country, not\none in a hundred expects to remain as a country schoolteacher for a\nlifetime. There is no professional class devoted to the country school.\nIts service is incidental in the lives of men devoted to something else.\nIt is a mere side issue.\n\nBesides, its building is inadequate. Too many needs, impossible to\nsatisfy, are assembled in a single room. Too many grades must be taught\nthere for any one child to receive the intense impression necessary for\nhis education.\n\nThe third great fault of the country school is its total lack of\nintelligent understanding of the country. Its teaching is suited to\nprepare men for trade, but not for agriculture. Instead of making\nfarmers of the sons of farmers, the majority of whom should expect to\nfollow the profession of their fathers, the country school prepares them\nfor buying and selling, for calculation and for store keeping. It starts\nthe stream of country boys in the direction of the village store, the\nend of which is the department store or clerical occupation in a great\ncity.\n\nThe improvement of the one-room rural school is possible within narrow\nlimits only. A recent book[33] gives most sympathetic attention to this\nproblem of improvement, while asserting that reorganization alone will\nbe adequate to the situation. But there are improvements which, within\nthe limitations of the one-room school, are possible. The supervision of\nthese schools may be made closer and more efficient. By bringing to bear\nupon them the oversight of experts in education the grade of teaching\nmay be elevated. The important principle is to discover the proper unit\nof supervision. The town is too small and the county unit too large. It\nis probable that with some rearrangement the county can be made the\nproper unit of supervision, but the school should determine its problems\non a principle independent of political divisions. The first need of the\ncountry school at the present time is to be adapted, by such supervision\nof the district as shall correlate the country school with the units of\npopulation resident in the country. In some places the district to be\nsupervised by one superintendent should be not much larger than a\ntownship, in other places it might approach the bounds of a county, but\nin all instances the supervising officer should have the relation of an\nemployed expert to the problems of the country. It is not enough that\nuntrained farmers or tradesmen occasionally visit the school in an\nindifferent manner. Their indifference is the natural attitude of men\nuntrained in the task assigned to them. The officer who supervises\nshould be well adapted to his task and should visit with frequency,\ncriticize with trained intelligence, and train his teachers in a\nconstructive educational policy suitable to the district.\n\nAnother improvement in rural schools may be had in a better normal\ntraining of the teachers. At the present time the normal schools are\ninadequate to the task of supplying teachers and beyond the supplying of\nteachers for the city, they stop short. The training of teachers for\ncountry schools must become a part of the normal provision for the\nstates.\n\nThe minimum salary for teachers is a most important consideration. A\nprimary difficulty in the present situation is that the country school\nteacher is ill paid. It is therefore impossible to secure and to retain\nin the country persons of adequate mental and cultural value. In order\nto secure funds for better payment of teachers, a readjustment of the\ntaxation in the various states is probably necessary, but this will be\nslow of accomplishment. Some results may be effected in another way by a\nminimum salary for teachers throughout the State. In this manner a\nbetter grade of teachers can be secured for all schools.\n\nThe most important improvement, however, in the country schools is\nalmost impossible in the one-room school. It is the teaching of the\ngospel of the land. Out around the country school lies the open book of\nnature. First of books the pupils should learn to read the book of\nnature. The life of the birds and animals, so familiar to the children\nyet so little known; the growth of plants, their beauty and their use,\nand the nature, the tillage and the maintenance of the soil, are all\nlessons easy to impart to those who are themselves instructed, yet the\npresent system of shifting teachers makes such instruction impossible.\nIt is the opinion of expert educators that the study of agriculture is\nimpossible in the one-room country school. With this opinion the writer\nagrees, yet so great is the necessity of this very improvement and so\nslow will be the changes which look to consolidation of schools, that\neffort should be made at once by those in charge of the country school\nto teach the children the lesson of the soil, of plant life, of animal\nand bird life and of the world about them. These lessons are necessary\nto their economic success. They are the very beginning of their\nhappiness in the country and of love for the country. In teaching them\nthe country school can best perform its duty to the present generation.\n\nThe centralizing of country schools is the adequate solution of the\npresent situation. By this means the children from a wide area are\nbrought to a modern school building suitably placed in the country. When\nnecessary they are transported to and from the schools in wagons hired\nfor that purpose, in charge of reliable drivers. In this consolidated\nschool building, which has taken the place of three, five or even seven\none-room district schools now abandoned, there shall be at least two and\nit may be five teachers. This group of teachers forms a permanent\nnucleus and a center for the life of the country. The children are\nassembled in a sufficient number to provide a large group, and their\nsocial life is enjoyable as well as mentally stimulating. The weaknesses\nof the one-room district school are in this institution corrected. There\nis permanence in the teaching force, professional service, cumulative\ninfluence, and the interests of the community find in the school a loyal\ncenter of discussion. The consolidated rural school is an institution\nfor the first time adequate to the task of building up the whole\npopulation.\n\nThe first use to which the centralized rural school is adapted is to\nhalt the exodus from the country. The country community has now no check\nupon the departure of its best people. The sifting of the country\ncommunity is done, not by the community itself, but by outside forces,\nunfriendly and unintelligent as to the interests of the country. The\ncentralized rural school will retain in the country those who should be\ninterested in the country community. This will be accomplished by the\nstudy of agriculture, which can adequately be taught only in a graded\nschool in the country. But much can be done even by the supply of an\nadequate system of education in the country community.\n\nAt Rock Creek, Illinois, the retirement of farmers to the cities and\ntowns had gone so far in 1905 that the intelligent and devoted members\nof the community, who did not desire to leave the place where their\ngrandfathers had first broken the prairie sod, took counsel as to the\nwelfare of the community. The superficial fact of most consequence was\nthe presence of tenant farmers in the community. These tenants, however\ndesirable personally as neighbors, were of a short term of residence.\nFrom one to five years was their longest term on one farm. The social\nlife of the community and its religious interests were beginning to\nsuffer. The sons of the early settlers, therefore, laid their plans by\nwhich to control the selection of tenants.\n\nTheir first plan was to form a farmer's union or syndicate, which should\nundertake to run the farms of those who were retiring from the land.\nThis plan seemed promising and the makers of it congratulated themselves\nupon controlling the future of the community. But reflection showed that\nthis method would have the effect of retiring more farmers from the land\nand turning over the hiring of tenants to the few remaining loyal\nowners, who would come in a short time to constitute the local real\nestate agencies; while the majority of the owners would enjoy themselves\nin towns and villages round about.\n\nThe result was that the farmers undertook not to control the tenancy,\nbut to build up the community itself. They deliberately undertook the\nreconstruction of the schools. Three school districts were merged in\none. An adequate building in which a group of teachers is employed was\nerected. The children are transported in wagons hired for that purpose.\nThe grounds about the school building are made pleasant; and the school,\nlocated near the manse and the church which had most influenced the\nchange, forms now a strong community center for a wide region.\n\nThe result is all that could be desired. The retirement from the farms\nhas been checked; the neighborhood has become specially desirable for\nresidence. Farmers who had gone to the town find now that as good or\nbetter schools are to be had in the community where their property lies\nand where they pay their taxes. The rental price of land has increased\nand it is difficult for tenants to come into the community unless they\nare willing to pay an added rental in return for better school\nprivileges. The whole countryside has received an impetus and the\ndepression of country life has for this community departed. Mr. R. E.\nBone, \"the fourth red-headed Presbyterian elder Bone in the Rock Creek\nChurch,\" takes great pride in the building up of the community which has\nbeen effected through the consolidated school.\n\nA more mature example is the John Swaney Consolidated School in\nIllinois. Here the leadership and generosity of John Swaney, a member of\nthe Society of Friends, have effected the consolidation of four school\ndistricts at a point two miles from the village of McNab. This purely\nrural consolidation was not effected without a contest. Indeed the McNab\nschool has had to fight for the gains it has made from the very\nbeginning. The school-house stands by the roadside, not even surrounded\nby a group of residences. The grounds are peculiarly beautiful, being\nshaded by great trees and extending in ample lawn about the building. In\nthe rear are stables for the horses which transport the children daily\nfrom the outer bounds of the consolidated district.\n\nThe school building contains four class-rooms with physical and chemical\nlaboratories. In one room are apparatus for cooking and sewing. In the\nbasement is a well-lighted shop where benches for manual training are\nplaced at the use of the boys. In the third story is an auditorium so\nample as to accommodate a basket-ball game and about two hundred\nspectators. Frequent gatherings occur here in a simple spontaneous way.\nThis common school has all the social and intellectual power of the\nold-fashioned country academy which once was so useful in the Eastern\nStates. A principal and four women teachers form the faculty of the John\nSwaney school. The number of scholars in 1910 was one hundred and five,\nthe number of boys slightly exceeding that of girls. Of these about half\nwere in the primary and the grammar grades and about half in the high\nschool. Of the latter some twenty-five were tuition pupils from outside\nof the district, so that the actual school group of the McNab\nconsolidated school, the children of the tax-payers, was in that year\neighty in number.\n\nThe difference between the social life of eighty young people and eight\nor eighteen young people, which one may find in a one-room school in the\ncountry anywhere, is very great. Needless to say that the John Swaney\nschool has athletic teams, tennis tournament, baseball games, literary\nand debating contests and is a strong aggressive force lending life and\nvitality to the whole countryside. The older families of the\nneighborhood are Quakers. The newer half of the population is of\nGermanic stock. The influence of the school is upon all its pupils. The\nhigh school retains practically all the sons of the Quaker families and\nsome of the newer population whose interest in education is less.\n\nBut the crowning distinction of the John Swaney school is in its study\nof agriculture, or broadly speaking in its industrial training. For with\nagriculture must be classed manual training and domestic science. By\nJohn Swaney's generosity twenty acres of land were presented to the\nState for an experiment farm. This land adjoins the school grounds and a\nregular part of the curriculum for the young men is the study of\nagriculture. The result of this interpretation of country life in forms\nof scholarship is that substantially all the graduates of the high\nschool annually go to the State University for training in scientific\nagriculture, expecting to return to the farms and become rural residents\nof Illinois. At the present time no more profitable training could be\ngiven these young men and women. But aside from this economic\nconsideration, the social and moral value to the community in the return\nof these young men and women to their own soil and the scenes of their\nchildhood is beyond estimation. The Quaker Meeting in this community is\nnot \"laid down;\" the church is not abandoned. Indeed all the activities\nof the community are built up and the best of the community perpetuated\nthrough the medium of this modern consolidated school.\n\nTo sum up this chapter, the improvement of the one-room common schools\nis possible, but for the satisfaction of the needs of the modern country\ncommunity that improvement is inadequate. The one-room country school is\nan institution which in itself cannot be made to minister to modern\ncommunity life. It is simple and modern life is complete. It is casual\nand irregular while the forces with which it has to deal are\nsteady-going and cumulative in their power. It is inexpert and served by\nno specialized professional class, while modern life calls for the\nservice of experts in every direction. It has no social value, while\nmodern life is always social in its forms of action and requires social\ninterpretation for its best effects.\n\nA closing word should be said for a type of schools which has been\nperfected in Denmark. They are known as the \"Folk High Schools.\" These\nare popular schools, adapted to the teaching of adults to get a living.\nDenmark has an adequate supply of technical schools, and these latter\nare not established to train scholars or scientists. Their use is to fit\nmen and women to meet the issues of life, at home, hand in hand, with\nskill and enthusiasm. They use few text-books and have no examinations,\nand six months are sufficient for a course of study. The schools are\nreligious and their foundation was the work of Rev. N. F. S. Grundtvig.\nIn songs and in patriotic exercises, all their own, they idealize\ncountry life and the work of the mechanic.\n\nThe academies of earlier days in rural America were centers of a similar\ninfluence. But with the growth of the public-school system these have\nbeen generally abandoned. It is a question whether some of them would\nnot serve a need which is felt today, if only they would train men for\nmodern country life with the same success which they once had in\ntraining leaders for a former period.\n\nThen all the people lived in the country. Now only a third of the people\nare concerned with the farm. So that the education of the modern country\nboy or girl would require to be carried on in a different manner, in\norder to retain the best of them in the country. The example of the\n\"Folk Schools\" offers an analogy to what might be done in American\ncountry life, if the academy could be transformed into an institution\nfor the education of the young in the country.\n\nAll observers testify that the \"Folk High Schools\" have been the first\ninfluence in transforming Denmark in the past forty years, from a nation\neconomically inferior to a nation rich and prosperous. This change has\nbeen wrought through the betterment of the farmers and other country\npeople, by means of education in country life; and this education has\nbeen economic, patriotic, co-operative and religious. So perfect has it\nbeen that it is hard to analyze; but the acknowledged center of it has\nbeen a system of schools in which the problem of living is taught as a\nreligion, an enthusiasm and a culture.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[Footnote 33: \"The American Rural School,\" H. W. Foght.]\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nRURAL MORALITY\n\n\nThe moral standards of the pioneer type and of the land-farmer type\nprevail in the country. The world economy has precipitated on the farm\nan era of exploitation which has not yet reached its highest point.\nMeantime, according to the ethical ideals of the pioneer and of the\nfarmer, country people are moral.\n\nThe investigations of the Country Life Commission brought general\ntestimony to the high standards of personal life which prevail in the\ncountry. In such a representative state as Pennsylvania the standard of\nconduct between the sexes was found to be good. The testimony of\nphysicians, among the best of rural observers, was nearly unanimous, in\nPennsylvania, to the good moral conditions prevailing in the intercourse\nof men and women in the country. This indicates that the farmer economy\nhad superseded the economy of the pioneer.\n\nThe moral problem of the pioneer period consisted of a struggle for\nhonesty in business contracts, and purity in the relation of men and\nwomen. The story of every church in New England and Pennsylvania, until\nabout 1835 at which Professor Ross dates the beginning of the farmer\nperiod, shows the bitter struggle between the standard accepted by the\nchurch and that of the individuals who failed to conform. The standard\nwas inherited from the older communities of Europe. The conduct of\nindividuals grew out of the pioneer economy in which they were living.\nChurch records in New England and New York State are red with the story\nof broken contracts, debt and adultery. The writer has carefully studied\nthe records of Oblong Meeting of the Society of Friends in Duchess\nCounty, New York, and from a close knowledge of the community through\nalmost twenty years of residence in it, it is his belief that there were\nmore cases of adultery considered by Oblong Meeting in every average\nyear of the eighteenth century than were known to the whole community in\nany ten years at the close of the nineteenth century. The farmer economy\nin which the group life of the household prevailed over the individual\nlife had by the nineteenth century superseded the pioneer period, in\nwhich individual action and independent personal initiative were the\nprevailing mode.\n\nThe coming of the exploiter into the farm community brings a new set of\nethical obligations concerning property and contracts. The farmer has\nperfected the individual standards of the pioneer but he is not yet\nendowed with social standards. He knows that it is right to give full\nmeasure when he sells a commodity, but he does not yet see the evil of\nbreaches of contract. Farmers of high standing in their communities for\ntheir personal character, who are truthful and \"honest\" in such\ncontractual relations as come down from their fathers, have been known\nto use the school system of the town for their own private profit, or\nthat of members of their families, and to ignore financial obligations\nwhich belong to the new period, in which money values have taken the\nplace of barter values.\n\nA good illustration is that of a deacon in a country church, whom I once\nknew. His word was proverbially truthful. As widely as he was known his\nreputation for piety and simple truthfulness, for honesty and purity of\nlife were universal. I do not think that he was consciously insincere,\nbut as a trustee in administering a fund devoted to public uses he\nseemed to have a clear eye for only those enterprises through which he\nor members of his family could indirectly secure incomes. Entrusted with\na public service which involved the improvement of the school system, so\nfar as he acted individually and without prompting by those who had been\naccustomed all their lives to modern methods, his action was that of\nloyalty to his own family and relationship. In so doing he regularly\nwould betray the community and the public interest. Yet he seemed to do\nthis ingenuously and without any conception of the moral standards of\npeople used to the values of money.\n\nI have known the same man, whose standing among farmers was that of a\nblameless religious man, to borrow money, and in the period of the loan\nso to conduct himself as to forfeit the respect of people used to\nhandling money. To them he seemed to be a conscious and deliberate\ngrafter. The explanation in my mind is that he suffered from the\ntransition out of the pioneer and farmer economy into the economy of the\nexploiter.\n\nThe history of the sale of lands in the country, in the recent\nexploitation of farm-lands, contains many stories of the breach of\ncontract of farmers, and the inability of the farmer to sell wisely and\nat the same time honestly. Contrasting the farmer in his knowledge of\nfinancial obligation with the broker in the Stock Exchange, the latter\ntype stands out in strong contrast as an admirable example of financial\nhonesty to contracts, even if they be verbal only. The farmer on the\nother hand has no conception of the relations on which the financial\nsystem must be built. He is not an exploiter to begin with, but a\nfarmer.\n\nThe transition from the older economy to the new is illustrated in the\ndairy industry which surrounds every great city. The dairy farmer has\nideas of right and wrong which are purely individualistic. He believes\nthat he should not cheat the customer in the quantity of milk. He\nrecognizes that it is wrong, therefore, to water the milk, but he has no\nconception of social morality concerning milk. He gives full measure:\nbut he cares nothing about purity of milk. He is restless and feels\nhimself oppressed under the demands of the inspector from the city, for\nventilation of his barns and for protection of the milk from impurity. I\nhave known few milk farmers who believed in giving pure milk and I never\nknew one whose conscience was at ease in watering milk. That is, they\nall believe in good measure and none believes in the principle of\nsanitation. They stand at the transition from the old economy to the\nnew.\n\nA story is told among agricultural teachers in New York State to the\neffect that an inspector following the trail of disease in a small city\ntraced it to impure milk supplied by a certain farm. In the absence of\nthe man he insisted on inspecting the dairy arrangements, being followed\nfrom room to room by the farmer's indignant wife. Finally he said, \"Show\nme the strainer which you use in the milk,\" and she brought an old\nshirt, very much soiled. Looking at it in dismay the inspector said,\n\"Could you not, at least, use a clean shirt?\" At this the woman's\npatience gave way and she declared, \"Well, you needn't expect me to use\na clean shirt to strain dirty milk!\"\n\nThe packing of apples for market illustrates the transition from the\nfarmer economy in which the ethical standards are those of the\nhousehold, or family group, to the world economy in which the moral\nstandards are those of the world market. Apples are packed by all\nclasses of farmers, regardless of varying religious profession, in an\nindifferent manner. The typical farmer hopes by competition with his\nneighbors to gain a possibly better price. Instances of such successes\nas come to certain family groups are endlessly discussed by farmers; and\nthe highest ideal that one meets among farmers who sell apples\nthroughout the Eastern States is expressed in the instance of some\nfamily who have improved their own farm and their own orchard, so as to\nwin for the family or the farm a reputation in some particular market\nand thus to gain a higher price.\n\nContrast with this the marketing of apples by the Western fruit growers'\nAssociations. Among them, as for instance in the Hood Valley, Oregon,\napples are packed not by the farm owner with a view to competing with\nhis neighbors, but by the committee representing the whole district. The\nindividual farmer has no access to the market. He cannot hide his poor\nfruit in an envelope of his best fruit, so as to deceive the buyer. The\ncommittee has a reputation to maintain on behalf of the association, not\nof the individual. The apples are marketed on their merits in accordance\nwith a certain standard. The impersonal demands of the world economy are\nkept in mind. The individual farmer and farm are forgotten. The result\nis that these far western growers, whose fruit is said in the East to be\ninferior in flavor to the apples of New York and New England, can sell\ntheir product in the eastern market at a higher price per box than the\nNew York or New England farmer can secure per barrel.\n\nThe transition from farming to exploiting has brought out in full view\nthe wastefulness of the farmer economy which is being succeeded by\nexploitation. The whole doctrine of conservation belongs in this\ntransition. Economy means, literally, housekeeping. The same meaning\nappears in the word husbandry. It is a principle of saving. Its\nextraordinary value at the present time is due to our sudden sense of\nthe wastefulness of farm life in recent years. Edward van Alstyne, an\nagricultural authority in New York, says, \"We farmers think we are most\neconomical, but we are the most wasteful of all men.\" The wastefulness\nof American farming begins in the tillage of too many acres. The farmer\nprefers wide fields even at the cost of poor crops.\n\nThe New York Central Railroad, which is carrying on a propaganda of\nhusbandry, has appointed a man as expert farmer who increased the yield\nof potatoes on his land from sixty to three hundred bushels per acre.\nThis brings out clearly that his neighbors are still producing sixty\nbushels per acre, wasting four-fifths of their land values. This waste\nis a wrong that should be denounced in the country church just as\nsternly as doctrinal sins, which have occupied the attention of country\nministers in the past.\n\nExpert farmers say that if corn-stalks for fodder are left out in the\nfield until they are fed to the cattle they lose forty to fifty per cent\nof their food values. This waste is sinful, but the sin is visible only\nin the new economy of exploitation which counts all values in terms of\ncash. No sooner is the sinfulness of waste observed than its connections\nwith moral delinquencies of country people becomes clear. In the\nimprovement of rural morality due to the sifting of country people\nduring the farmer period, it becomes evident that among a people so\nserious-minded some delinquencies still remain. The immoralities that\nstill lurk and fester in the country are due very largely to waste. This\nwaste of human things is parallel to the waste of economic values.\n\nIn a conference there was some difficulty in persuading a certain\ncountry minister to speak. When finally he arose he said, \"I am not much\ninterested in the scientific analysis of the country church. All I am\ninterested in is sin.\" One wonders whether he was dealing with the sins\nof the country in their causes or in their effects, or was he simply\nconcerned with the sins which consist in opposing the doctrines of his\nparticular denomination, whatever it was. This wastefulness of the\nvalues in the soil enters into the social life of the country. Farmers\ncare as little for the social values as for land values. Young men and\nwomen ignore the moral importance of little things. They are not taught\nthat coarseness is wrong. They are not made to realize that cleanliness\nand courtesy and reverence for the human body are of vital importance in\nlife.\n\nCountry people are prudish and they cover with a strict reserve all\ndiscussion of the moral relations of men and women. Yet in the same\ncommunities there is loose private conversation and coarse references\nare common. The strict standard of the household prevails within its\nlimits. Books and magazines must not discuss, however seriously, the\nproblems of life. But in the intercourse of the community there is not\nthe same care. The moral life of country people requires cultivation of\nthe leisure hours, the casual talk, the occasional meetings of men and\nwomen, and especially of young people.\n\nThe sale of votes in every election is a fixed quantity in the life of\ncertain country towns. It is to be counted on each year. The number of\nvotes for sale in each town is a known proportion of the whole, and\nthrough certain counties the selling of votes is the political factor\neverywhere present. These uniform facts point to a common cause. That\ncause is the degeneration of a proportion of the rural population into\npeasantry.\n\nThe growth of a peasant population in America is surely our greatest\ndanger. A peasantry is a rural population whose moral and spiritual\nstate are controlled by their material states. There may be rich\npeasants, though most peasants are poor. Peasants are a specialized\nclass, incapable of self-government and controlled by some political\nmasters who exercise for them essential rights of citizenship. The\npeasants in Europe are the last to receive the ballot. In America they\nare the first to surrender the ballot by selling their votes.\n\nA young minister called to a country parish denounced the sale of votes,\nin his first year, and publicly fixed the whole blame on a prominent\npolitical leader of the town, who was there present in the church. His\ncriticism was resented by the whole community. He was right, and so were\nthey. It is well to denounce the purchase of votes, but the duty of the\ncountry church to Americanize the peasant class is the greater duty. The\npresence of such a class in a town infallibly leads to this iniquity.\nThe sale of votes is as bad as the sale of woman's virtue, and both have\nan automatic tendency to degrade the population.\n\nThe danger sign of peasantry is a degraded standard of life. In this\ntown there is one household in which nobody works but the mother. \"How\nthey live beats me,\" is the public comment of the neighbors. Through the\nwinter into that house are crowded the father and mother, two sons and\ntwo daughters, the husband of one daughter and their two children, with\nthree other small children, whose presence in the house is due to the\nloose good nature of the family. There is an indolent uncle of these\nchildren. None of the household follows any gainful occupation. The\ntable is furnished with potatoes and pork. The attraction of the\nhousehold is the easy, loose, good-nature of all its members. There is\nno one to complain of the indolence of the five grown men who lounge\nabout through the winter days.\n\nThe presence of such a household in a town means degradation. Three of\nthese men can be purchased for money to vote, though they cannot be\nhired for money to work. The daughters of the household are an equally\ndangerous factor in the countryside. The cause of this moral peril is\nthe low grade of living to which the family has sunk. There is no known\nstate of ill-health to account for their indolence. The first duty of\nthe church in such a community is to regenerate such a household and to\nlift the standard of ambition of its members.\n\nSlowly the country town is coming to realize that its reputation as well\nas its progress is determined by this grade of citizen. No exceptional\nsuccess on the part of one or more families and no substantial goodness\nby a whole grade of the population can compensate for the lowering of\nthe standard of the whole town by these people. The life and death, the\nreputation and the progress of the town are dependent upon the\nextinguishment of these peasant conditions.\n\nThis is illustrated by the fact that where votes are for sale in a town\nthose purchased votes determine the election in the majority of cases.\nThey constitute the movable margin between the two parties; and by\nshifting them one way or the other the political policy of the town is\ndetermined. This fact illustrates the whole moral situation of the town,\nfor just by the same flexible margin is the moral life of the town\ndetermined. The duty of the church therefore is with the people upon\nthe economic and social margin of the life of the rural community.\n\nThe farmer's moral standards are opposed to combination. He believes in\npersonal righteousness and family morals. He does not believe in the\nmoral control of the individual or the household by the economic group.\nIt has been impossible, therefore, to combine the farmers in the East in\nany general way so as to control their markets by maintaining a high\nstandard of product. The only control that is dreamed of by the leaders\nof the farmers is the control of the quantity of their products. They do\nnot think of combination which will control themselves, and so maintain\na higher quality of product in order that thus they may dominate the\nmarket in the great city.\n\nThe present state of ethical opinion among Eastern farmers is not in\nsympathy with the ethical demands of city populations. The Western fruit\ngrowers' associations have fixed the standard for the farmers who raise\nthe fruit, first of all, and by means of this standard they have\nconquered the market in distant cities. The standard to which they\ncompel their members to conform is the standard of the demand in the\nworld market. If the milk farmers about New York City are to combine\nthey must first impose a self-denying ordinance upon their own members\nand furnish the city with a quality of milk in harmony with the demands\nof modern sanitary experts. This is an ethical principle not of the\npioneer or the farmer economy, but of the new husbandry to which very\nfew farmers have conformed.\n\nIn the building of country communities, therefore, the ethical teaching\nmust be of a new order. There is already a general teaching of morality\nin the country churches. The temperance reform is a moral propaganda\nborn of the farmer economy. The expulsion of the saloon from country\nplaces has been in obedience to the farmer's conscience. The temperance\nreform exhibits the transformation from individual ethics which were\nadvocated in 1880 to communal ethics which are represented in the local\noption aspects of this reform. In 1880 the individual was asked to sign\nthe pledge of total abstinence. In those days it was as important that\ninnocent children sign the pledge as that drunkards sign it. The lists\nof pledge signers were padded with the names of persons who had never\ntasted strong drink. In 1893 the Anti-Saloon League began its agitation,\nwhich has proceeded among country people with increasing influence. The\nindividual is ignored and the pledge is signed now by the community, by\nthe county or by the state. The attack is not upon the individual\ndrunkard, but upon the community institution, the saloon. This is a\ngreat gain in the direction of social ethics. It illustrates the\ntransformation from the pioneer whose impact was upon the individual to\nthe standards of the exploiter period in which the impact is upon the\ncommercial institution. The local option movement has had its growth in\nthe period of exploitation dated by Prof. Ross from 1890. In this\nmovement the country churches have been distributing centers, the places\nof discussion and nuclei of moral energy.\n\nIf the general moral standards of country people are to be transformed\nfrom the pioneer formulae to those of the modern world economy, the\ncountry churches must be led by men trained in economics and reinforced\nby a thorough knowledge of social processes. The temperance movement\nalready begins to show the deficiencies of a propaganda purely negative.\nIts leaders have shown no conspicuous sympathy with the play-ground\nmovement, which is an essential part of the same ethical process. If the\nsaloon is expelled something must be put in its place, but the\ntemperance reformers have not been wise enough for substitution: they\nhave only been skilful in expulsion. Country life, in its representative\ncommunities, suffers today from monotony and emptiness.\n\nThe ministers, teachers and other rural leaders need the training which\nwill equip them in positive and aggressive social construction. As the\neconomy of the exploiter comes in to transform the country community it\nis necessary for the preacher and the teacher to train the population in\nthe ethical standards of the new time. Naturally new contractual\nrelations will prevail in business, and trusts will be committed to the\nleading men in the farming community, for which they need definite moral\npreparation. There is many a farmer in the United States who may be\nsafely entrusted with the honor of a woman, but cannot be entrusted with\na million dollars to spend in the interest of the community. In many a\ncountry community it is perfectly safe to leave the door unlocked, but\nit is not safe to purchase a quart of milk for a child. There is many a\nfarmer from whom it is morally safe to purchase an acre of ground, but\none cannot be sure in purchasing a cow from him that she will not be\ntuberculous. These are new standards not required by the old economy and\nnot taught in the old meeting-house.\n\nOne defect of the country church at the present time is that it has for\nthe countryman no message appropriate to the struggle in which he is\nactually attempting to do right. Many churches in the country teach only\nthe standards of right and wrong to which the farmers already conform.\nFor a short time a new minister is popular with them because his new\nvoice and his fresh elocution contain a subtle flattery. He denounces\nthe sins to which they are not inclined and praises the virtues which\nthey have learned to practise from their fathers. But after about six\nmonths of such preaching the farmer wearies of a preacher with no new\nmessage. Indeed the countryman is puzzled and perplexed by modern\nsituations about which the minister has no knowledge. The farmer is\nforced to be an economist, but the minister has never studied economics.\nThe farmer is face to face with problems of exploitation. The values\nnot merely of land but of money are in his thought. But the preacher has\nhad no training in finance and he cannot speak wisely or surely upon the\nmarginal problems with which the farmer is perplexed.\n\nThe household economy of the farm is no longer sufficient. The sins are\nnot merely those of adultery and disobedience and disloyalty. They are\nthe sins of the world market and the world economy. In these moral\nsituations the minister is silent. He knows nothing about them. He is\ninclined merely to object if the farmer purchases an automobile. He does\nnot see what the automobile is to do for the agriculturist. Sunday\nobservance, total abstinence, family purity, honesty as to personal\nproperty, these are his stock in trade and these alone. It requires,\ntherefore, a genius to preach in the country, because only the most\nbrilliant preaching can render traditional moral standards interesting\namong country people.\n\nIt is proverbial among ministers that \"the best preachers are needed in\nthe country.\" The reason for this is that none of the preachers has any\nbut an outworn standard to preach. They must reinforce it with\nextraordinary eloquence in order to keep it attractive. Very ordinary\nmen, however, if they understand the modern spirit, can hold the\nattention of country people. The grange has ministered to the farmer's\nconscience. Yet its leaders have been commonplace men, unknown to the\nnation at large. The great movements which have influenced the farmer\nin the past twenty years have most of them been pushed to success by men\nunknown to any but farmers. What orator has come into national\nprominence out of the enterprises of agricultural life in the past two\ndecades? The farmer does not need great eloquence, but he does need a\nthorough understanding of the moral and spiritual situations arising out\nof the exploiter process in which he is immersed. He needs moral\nteachers for the era of husbandry which is dawning in the country.\n\n\"There is an actual and most conspicuous dearth of leadership of a high\norder in rural life. This is evident when we consider the economic and\nsocial importance of the agriculturists. The agriculturists constitute\nabout half of our population, they owned over 21 per cent of the total\nwealth in 1900, and in 1909 their products had a value of $8,760,000, or\njust about one-third that of the entire nation for that year. Yet this\nvast and fundamental element of our nation elects no farmer presidents,\nhas scarcely any of its members in congress, but few in state\nlegislatures as compared with other classes; it has no governors nor\njudges. In fact, this class is almost without leadership in the sphere\nof political life and must depend on representatives of other classes to\nsecure justice. Economically it is relatively powerless likewise,\npossessing practically no control over markets and prices through\norganization in an age when organization dominates all economic lines,\naccepting interest rates and freight rates offered it without the\nability to check or regulate them, and buying its goods at whatever\nprices the industrial producers set. Its leadership up to the present\ntime has been of the sporadic and discontinuous sort. It has been\nindividualistic, lacking social outlook and vision. Consequently for\ncommunity purposes its significance has been slight.\"[34]\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[Footnote 34: Prof. John M. Gillette, in American Journal of Sociology,\nMarch, 1910.]\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nRECREATION\n\n\nThe time has passed in which the amusements of the community can be\nneglected or dismissed with mere condemnation. In the husbandry of the\ncountry every factor must be counted. We are dealing no longer with a\nfatalistic country life, but with the economy of all resources.\nTherefore the neglecting of the play life and ignoring the leisure\noccupations of a country people are inconsistent with the new economy.\n\nMoreover the ancient method of condemning all recreations passed away\nwith the austere economy of earlier days. The churches in the country no\nlonger discipline their members for \"going to frolics.\" The country\ncommunity no longer is of one mind as to the standard by which\nrecreation shall be governed. Yet every event of this sort is closely\ninspected by the general attention.\n\nThe experience of the cities, in which social control has gone much\nfarther than in the country under the deliberate harmonizing of life\nwith economic principles, has much to contribute for the building up of\nrural society through various means, among which is recreation.\n\nThe need of recreative activities in the country is shown by recent\nsurveys undertaken in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and\nKentucky by the Presbyterian Department of Church and Country Life.\nGenerally, throughout the farming population, it was discovered that no\ncommon occasions and no common experiences fell to the lot of the\ncountry community. In the course of the round year there is, in\nthousands of farming communities in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois,\nno single meeting that brings all the people together. The small town\nhas its fireman's parade, to the small city comes once a year the circus\nand to the great city comes an anniversary or an exposition. Every year\nthere is some common experience which welds the population, increases\nacquaintance and intensifies social unity. The tillage of the soil in\nthose farming communities from which the blacksmith, the storekeeper,\nthe peddler and the shoemaker have departed, is very lonely.\n\nThe telephone is the new system of nerves for the rural organism, but\nthe telephone is a cold, steel wire instead of the warm and cordial\npersonal meetings with which the countryside was once enlivened. In\neighty country towns in Pennsylvania, of which fifty are purely\nagricultural, we found in our survey only three that had a common\nleadership and a common assembling. The life of the people in these\ncommunities is so solitary as to be almost repellent. Their social\nhabits are those of aggressive loneliness. This isolation in the\npioneer days made the country people cordial to the visitor: but in the\ncoming of the new economy the farmer shrinks from strangers, because he\nhas become accustomed to social divisions and classifications in which\nhe feels himself inferior; so that the loneliness of country life has\nbecome not merely geographical, but sociological. The farmer is shut in\nnot merely by distances in miles, but by distances of social aversion\nand suspicion. Difference has become a more hostile influence in the\ncountry than distance.\n\nOrganized industry necessitates organized recreation. The subjection of\nmind and body to machine labor requires a reaction in the form of play.\nAll factory and industrial populations, without exception, provide\nthemselves with play-grounds of some sort. In the city where no public\nprovision is made the streets are used by the boys for their games, even\nat the risk of injury or death from the passing traffic. Jane Addams has\nshown, in a fine literary appeal in her \"The Spirit of Youth and the\nCity Streets,\" the necessity of some provision for the recreations of\nthe young and of working people in a great city.\n\nThis necessity is not primarily due to congestion of the population. Its\nreal sources are in the system and organization by which modern work is\ndone. This necessity is as characteristic of the rural community as it\nis of the city, for on the farms as well as in the factory towns labor\nis performed by machinery. This means that through the working hours of\nthe day, from eight to twelve in number, the attention of the worker\nmust be concentrated upon one task, patiently and steadfastly pursued.\nThe machine worker exerts himself in the control of great powers, horse\npower or steam power, committed to his charge. He has no opportunity for\nlanguor or rest. He has no choice. His job drives him. His movements are\nfixed and regulated by the nature of the machine with which he is\nworking, and of the task to be accomplished. At the end of the day he\nhas acted involuntarily and mechanically until his own powers of will\nand choice are accumulated. Being repressed through long hours of\nprescribed labor he is ready for a rebound. His nature demands\nself-expression. This self-expression takes the form of play.\n\nThe recreation which results is organized. The laborer in a factory or\non a railroad is conscious of organization by the very nature of his\nwork. He labors with a machine driven by powers unseen but of whose\noperation he is aware, in a great plant wherein his own labor is\nco-ordinated with that of other workers like unto himself. The hours of\nself-devotion and prescribed attention leave him free for sympathy with\nthe other workers, whose action and whose toil are organized with his\nown, and on whose skill and devotion his life and limb and the\ncontinuance of his job are dependent. When he turns to recreation he\nnaturally seeks to continue the silent communion with his\nfellow-workers. The repressed personal energies are already prepared\nfor team work. He comes out of the factory bubbling over with good\nfellowship and seeking for comradeship in the self-expression which the\nlong hours of the day have denied him.\n\nThe result is that in every factory town the open spaces are devoted to\nplayground uses. Vacant lots, unoccupied fields, and the open street are\nused by men and boys for their games.\n\nExactly the same experience results from school and college organization\nof education work. The student in the common schools does not choose his\ncourse; it is prescribed for him by his family and by society. He does\nnot go to school because he is mentally ambitious, but because the\nstandards of universal education require it of him. Especially in the\ncolleges which inherit a great name and attract young men and women for\nsocial advantage, the students are characterized by an involuntary\nsubjection to the routine of modern pedagogy. Educational discipline is\nimposed upon them through the long hours of lectures and laboratory and\nrecitations. The students in high school and college are accumulating a\nrebound of voluntary action. This organized self-expression takes the\nform of school and college athletics, which has long since been adopted\nas a part of the educational routine. No considerable number of\neducators are in favor of abolishing it, and only a few venture to\nbelieve in restricting college athletics. Its moral value is everywhere\ntacitly recognized, and pretty generally it is consciously accepted by\ncollege and school faculties.\n\nPlay of this sort has great moral value. We are hired to work, and we do\nit without choice or enthusiasm, but in play the natural forces and the\npersonal choice are at their maximum. Every action is chosen and is\nsaturated with the pleasure of self-expression. The result is that play\nhas high ethical value.\n\nEspecially has organized recreation great moral power, because it\ninvolves team work, and the subjection of the individual to the success\nof the team. Organized recreation teaches self-denial in a multitude of\nexperiences which are all the more powerful because they are not\nprescribed by any teacher or preacher, but are the free natural\nexpression of the human spirit under the government of chosen associates\nworking out together a common purpose.\n\nTherefore it is necessary to use play for the recreation of country\nlife. The word is literal, not figurative. It is not a problem merely of\ngames, nor the question of gymnasium, but a profound ethical enterprise\nof disciplining the whole population through the use of the play spirit.\nThis question must be approached on the high plane of the teaching of\nmodern theorists, and the experience of such practical organizations as\nthe Young Men's Christian Association.\n\nThe Christian Associations began their work in the lifetime of present\ngenerations and for accomplishing certain purposes they have used\nrecreation. They provided a gymnasium, at first, in order to get men\ninto the prayer-meeting. They offered social parlors in which young men\ncould always hear the sound of sacred song. But the Young Men's\nChristian Association has traveled far from its crude and early use of\nrecreation. Some of the early Association leaders are still living and\nstill leading. They have steadily advanced with care and wisdom in the\nuse of recreation. Within very recent years the leaders of the\nAssociations have countenanced the use of billiard tables. No longer is\nthe gymnasium an annex to the prayer-meeting. It has values of its own.\nWithout moralizing, these practical men have discovered that the social\nparlors were good for ends of their own and not merely as a place for\nhearing the distant sound of hymns. In other words, recreation is a form\nof ethical culture.\n\nRev. C. O. Gill, who was captain of the Yale football team in 1890, has\nhad an extended experience among farmers. He says, \"The reason why\nfarmers cannot co-operate is in the fact that they did not play when\nthey were boys. They never learned team work. They cannot yield to one\nanother, or surrender themselves to the common purpose.\" The writer,\nobserving Mr. Gill coaching a university team, commented upon the good\nspirits with which a player yielded his place on the team just before\nthe victory. Mr. Gill had removed him, as he explained to him, not\nbecause he played poorly, but because a new formation required a\nrearrangement of the team. In reply to comment upon the player's\nself-forgetfulness, Mr. Gill said, \"Football is the greatest school of\nmorals in the country. I learned more ethics from the coaches when I was\nan undergraduate in Yale, than from all other sources combined.\"\n\nIt is this high ethical value of recreation which causes the working man\nto defend his amateur baseball team, and makes it so hard to repress\nSunday games. The working man admits the high value of the Sabbath, but\nhe sets a value also upon recreation, and without analysis of the\nphilosophy either of the Sabbath or of the play-ground, stoutly\nmaintains the goodness of recreation and its necessity for those who\nhave labored all the week. \"I work six days in the week, and I must have\nsome time for recreation,\" is the working man's answer to all Sunday\nreformers. Waiving for a moment the question of the Sabbath, the human\nprocess to which the working man testifies is exactly as he describes\nit. Organized labor and systematic industry will react on any population\nin the form of systematic recreation.\n\nThe Play-ground Movement, therefore, is extending itself throughout the\ncountry by the very influence of modern industry. Given intelligence to\ninterpret it, and one understands at once the desire of philanthropic\nand public spirited men and women to provide \"a playground beside every\nschool building, open for all the people.\"\n\nDr. Luther H. Gulick, who was born of missionary parents, was trained in\nreligious schools, graduated as a physician, employed for years in the\nYoung Men's Christian Association, and then made Play-Ground Director in\nthe New York Public Schools, has become legitimately the heir of the\nexperiences of the modern social conscience. He has summed up the\nphilosophy of working men, students, and of the people whose lives are\nsystematized, in a sentence: \"There is a higher morality in the\nreactions of play than in the experiences of labor.\"\n\nThe tradition of the church has been opposed to amusement and\nrecreation. The church of our fathers recognized the moral possibilities\nof play by calling all play immoral. The early Quakers filled their\nrecords in the eighteenth century with denunciations of \"frollicks.\"\nConsciously they denounced amusement, acting no doubt in a wise\nunderstanding of the rude, boisterous character of the pioneer's social\ngatherings. Only unconsciously did the Quakers cultivate the spirit of\nrecreation in their social gatherings. It was permitted to have but few\nand repressed opportunities. The decadence of the Quaker church is\nprobably due, in a considerable measure, to their stubborn unwillingness\nto see both sides of this question. They saw that recreation was\nimmoral. They refused to see that its possible moral value was as great\nas its moral danger.\n\nExtensive correspondence with working pastors, by means of a system of\nquestions sent out from a New York office, has brought this result. In\nanswer to the question, \"What amusements of moral value are there in the\ncommunity?\" the answer, \"Baseball, boating, tennis, golf, bicycling,\netc.\" A smaller number of recreations was named in answer to the inquiry\nfor immoral sports. The subsequent question, \"What is your position\nbefore the community?\" brought from the minister very often this answer:\n\"I am known to be opposed to all sports.\" Few ministers realize the\ninconsistency of this position. They stand before the community as the\nprofessed advocates of public and private morality, and they stand also\nbefore the community as the professed and violent opponents, often, of\nthe public sports which are known to the young men and workingmen\ngenerally as promoters of ethical culture and moral training. Is it any\nwonder that the churches, in these communities, are often deserted by\nthe common people?\n\nIn Lewistown, Pa., the old Presbyterian Church there, seeing the\ncongested character of the town population and the need of\nbreathing-places for the young people and working people, looked about\nfor a recreation field. The only available ground is the old cemetery,\nin which the earlier members of the congregation have buried their dead.\nThis, the only open spot in the center of the town, it has been proposed\nto turn into a playground, the bodies of the dead to be disinterred and\nlaid reverently away in a quieter place, and the ground newly\nconsecrated to the needs of the living, and of the young. The action\ncontemplated by this fine old church is emblematic of the modern spirit.\nChristianity is no longer a mere reverence for death and the other\nworld. But it is an energetic service to the young, and the working\npeople, in this present world. It is no longer a solemn reverence for\nthe salvation of the individual soul in a heaven unseen, but it is a\nsocial service, no less serious, unto the living and unto the young and\nthe employed.\n\nCertain modern sports, such as baseball, are free from the corruption\nwhich has attached itself to horse-racing and pugilism. This corruption\nis not in racing a horse, or punching an opponent. It is in the\ndishonesty of the race, for horsemen believe that \"there never was an\nhonest horse-race,\" and the followers of the prize ring are constantly\nsuspicious that the fight will be \"fixed.\" The first question they ask\nafter the decision of the referee is generally, \"Was it a frame-up?\" The\nmoral power of baseball, tennis, football and the other most popular\nsports, is in the confidence that the game is fairly played. This\nfairness of the game is the widest extended school of ethical culture\nthat the American and British population know. Honorable recreation\ntrains in courage, manliness, co-operation, obedience, self-control,\npresence of mind, and in every other of the general social virtues. It\nmakes men citizens and good soldiers when need comes. This was the\nmeaning of the remark of the Duke of Wellington, when, after the\nconquest of Napoleon, he returned to view the playground at Eton, and\nsaid, \"Here the Battle of Waterloo was won.\"\n\nFor the building up of a community, therefore, the promotion of\nrecreation is an essential. Just as necessary as the providing of common\nschools for all the people, is the provision of public play-grounds for\nall the people. As many as are the school houses so many, generally\nspeaking, should be the play-grounds accessible to all, under the care\nof trained and responsible leaders, in which, without too much\ngovernment, the free movements of the young and the abounding\nself-expression of the great mass of the employed shall have opportunity\nto work out their own education through play, into public righteousness.\n\nThe training of citizens for days to come demands exactly the qualities\nwhich are imparted on the play-ground. Morality is not taught and\nethical culture is not imparted by precept, though precept and\nexhortation have their due place in the analysis of moral and spiritual\nmatters, for the thoughtful. But the great number of people are not\nethically thoughtful, and in the acquirement of righteousness all people\nare unconscious. The desired action in moral growth is universally\nspontaneous. The most sober and intellectual of men must be caught off\nhis guard and must be lured into voluntary actions before any moral\nhabits can be formed in him. Mere analysis of truth or self-examination\nmakes no man good. But men become good by doing things first, and\nthinking of them afterward. They can be just as good if they never think\nabout them, though thinking about ethical matters renders a service to\nthe community as a whole.\n\nIt should be the duty, therefore, of the churches, who are acknowledged\nbefore the whole community as repositories of the conscience of men, to\npromote public recreation. Where necessary the church should even\nprovide a play-ground. In Galesburg, Ill., fifteen churches are\nco-operating, through their men's societies, in a central council of\nforty members. This Council is made up in the form of four Committees of\nten. Each Committee considers one great interest of the community. One\nof these interests is recreation. It is the duty of this Committee in\nwinter to provide musical and literary entertainment and lectures. In\nthe summer this Committee has secured the use of the Knox College\nrecreation field, and employing a trained man, has opened it throughout\nthe summer as a play-ground for all the children of the city.\n\nThe use of recreation for the building up of a community seems to\ninvolve expensive apparatus and sometimes does so. Mrs. Russell Sage at\nSag Harbor, Long Island, has expended many thousands of dollars in the\nexperiment. Interested in the children, of whom there are about eight\nhundred in the town, through the experience of giving them a Christmas\ntree, she determined to devote to their use a piece of land on the\nborders of the village, formerly used as a fair ground. This work is to\nhave local value for the children of this community, and has been used\nas a demonstration center of the efficiency of recreation as a moral\ndiscipline among the young.\n\nBut most communities have not so much money to spend. The proposal of a\nplay-ground or of a gymnasium is itself sufficient to condemn the\ndoctrine of play. \"We cannot afford it,\" settles the whole question. In\nthe country expensive apparatus is not necessary; nor do the farmer's\nson and daughter require in recreation so much physical exercise. The\ngymnasium is an artificial and expensive machinery for inducing sweat,\nbut the farmer needs no such artificial machine. The problem is purely\none of play, not of exercise. For this purpose a careful study of the\ncommunity, and of its tendencies and inclinations, is necessary. The\ngreat essential of recreation in the country is the opportunity to meet\nand to talk. Therefore the social life of gatherings in the church, and\nin the schoolhouse, no matter what their program, provided it be\ninnocent, is valuable. Farmers will attend an auction, and go a long way\nto a horse-race, or gather at a fair, without any intention of buying or\nselling. The fundamental service rendered by the county fair and the\nauction is an opportunity afforded to converse. This exercise of the\ntongue is far more important in rural recreation than the exercise of\nthe biceps. But country people cannot talk without an occasion which\nunlocks their tongues. They must not be directly solicited to converse\nor they are silent. If the occasion is provided and is made to be\nsufficiently plausible its greatest success will be in conversation.\n\nIn almost every country community, therefore, there should be revival,\nin various forms, of the old \"Bees,\" which had so much of a place in the\nformer economy. If there is a widow who has no one to cut her wood, the\nmen of the country church should assemble to do it. If there is a\nhousehold whose bread winner and husbandman has died at the time of\nplanting corn, let the men of the community gather at an appointed day\nand till the ground for the family, whose grief is greater at that\nmoment than their need. Let the women of the community assemble at noon\nto provide an abundant repast. This was recently done by a countryside,\nat the instigation of the minister, and the effect of it was lasting in\nits values as well as intense in the joy of the day's work. It seems, in\nview of the need of recreation, that no other quality is so important in\nthe country community as a lively leader. Resourceful, energetic and\nfertile men in the rural ministry can accomplish vastly more than\nconventional, orderly and proper men.\n\nThe church in which I began my ministry used to have a play every\nChristmas. We built out the pulpit platform with boards, we hung it\naround with curtains, giving dressing-room space, and we placed lanterns\nin front for foot-lights. The first play we gave made us anxious, for\nthe neighborhood was an old Quaker settlement; but we found that the\nQuakers enjoyed the play immensely and were the best actors. We made it\na genuine expression of the Christmas spirit. We abolished the old\n\"speaking pieces.\" Our little stage offered the young people team work,\ninstead of individual elocution. The rehearsals filled a whole month\nwith happy and valuable meetings. Everybody co-operated in the labor\nnecessary to prepare the decorations and to take them down, during\nChristmas week, and on the night of the play everybody was on hand,\nCatholic, Protestant and heathen.\n\nThe holidays of the passing year suggest the recreations of the country\nchurch. These should not necessarily be productive of sweat, but the\ncountry boy and girl do need the recreation of laughter and happy\nmeeting and social liveliness. Farm work is lonely and monotonous. Such\nimmorality as there is in the country has direct connection with the\ntedium and dullness of long hours out-doors, alone. The recreations of\ncountry life should be meetings for the celebration of great events of\nthe year. Easter expresses ideas which are age-old among country people:\nit is both a pagan festival and a Christian anniversary. If Easter is\ndeveloped in a celebration of song or procession, of sermon and of\ndecoration, with full use of its symbolic value, it is sure to bring the\nwhole countryside together, in an experience of the New Year rising from\nthe grave of winter and of the divine Lord risen from the dead.\n\nMost country communities have no such celebration. In very many the\nwhole year passes without neighbors meeting for a common social\nexperience. This is why people move to the city, because every city,\ngreat and small, has in the course of the year some events which bring\nall the people to the curbstone. Country life has few such times and\ntherefore it is dull, because the richest experience of mankind is the\nexperience of common social joy. The best recreation is acquaintance and\nconversation. The farmer's son spends many hours in silence. He wants\nsomeone to help him to talk, and to talk unto some purpose.\n\nThe Fourth of July is celebrated in Rock Creek, an Illinois community,\nby a \"wild animal show.\" Instead of explosives, which are discouraged,\nthe boys of the community bring together in small cages their animal\npets. The boys are encouraged to make small carts for the transportation\nof their pets, and the crowning event of the day is the procession of\nthese carts, in an open place, before the great dinner, at which the\ncountryside sits down together.\n\nRecreation in the country, above all, should revolve about something to\neat. The farmer's business is to feed the world, and country people\nlove, above all things, the social joy of eating. Farmers' wives are the\nbest cooks and the country household perpetuates its culinary\ntraditions. Especially does a permanent farm population enrich its\nhousehold tradition with delicious recipes and beautiful customs of the\ntable. Thanksgiving Day should be the great celebration of the round\nyear in the country. What a comment upon the country community it is\nthat so few communities in the country meet together, in response to the\nPresident's proclamation of thanksgiving, to express gratitude unto the\nbountiful Father of all.\n\nThe country church should minister to country people in some effective\ngathering of all the countryside. A most fruitful method now in use is a\ncorn judging contest for the boys.\n\nIn the Middle West the Corn Clubs for boys have had an extraordinary\nvalue, and in the South, also, the Farmer's Co-operative Demonstration\nWork has made use of the boys in the country community for demonstrating\nprogressive methods on the farm. Thanksgiving Day can be prepared for in\nthe preceding spring, and the boys and girls who have managed a garden,\nor half acre, through the summer can make their showing at that time.\nSuch a competitive showing in the country, in the production of the\nstaple crop, is sure to bring together the whole countryside.\n\nThe local history of the country community is a fruitful source of\nrecreation. Farmers look to the past, and even the new people in the\ncountry are keen to hear the story of the old settlers and of the early\npioneers. Nothing is of greater value in developing and refreshing\ncountry life than to enrich it by celebrating its early history.\n\nRecreation is essential to the moral life of any people. It is the\nconstructive method of making individuals into good citizens. Especially\nvaluable is it as a means of educating the young people and the working\npeople of the community. The craving for this social training and\nethical experience drives many out of the country community. Conversely,\ntraining in social morality is to be undertaken especially by the\nchurch, which possesses the conscience of the country community. This\ntraining is expressed in the one phrase; the promotion of recreation.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nCOMMON WORSHIP\n\n\nThe worship of God is an expression of the consciousness of kind. \"This\nconsciousness is a social and a socializing force, sometimes exceedingly\ndelicate and subtle in its action; sometimes turbulent and all-powerful.\nAssuming endlessly varied modes of prejudice and of prepossession, of\nliking and disliking, it tends always to reconstruct and dominate every\nmode of association and every social grouping.\"[35] This description by\nProfessor Giddings is so near to a description of worship, that it is\nstartling.\n\nOf all human acts of the conscientious man worship is the most highly\nsymbolic. They who worship are alike, and in their likeness are unlike\nto others. It is an expression of their awareness of resemblance and of\ndifference. The definitions of consciousness of kind, as a sociological\nprocess, go a long way to explain without further comment, both the\nstrength and the weakness of the churches in America.\n\nThe churches have to struggle with a narrow and small social horizon.\nFew people are so conscious of their kinship with all others in their\ncommunity that they desire those others to worship with them. The sense\nof unlikeness to others is, unfortunately, as strong in their feelings\nas the sense of likeness unto their own. In the American community with\nmany newcomers, and some foreigners, this sense of unlikeness is\nnatural. It is not to be wondered that men should think themselves more\nlike unto their old neighbors than unto the new. It is not surprising\nthat with new economic processes men should ignore their unity with\nthose who co-operate with them in getting a living, and should be\nconscious of their unity with those whose living comes in the same form.\nAs a result, we have working men's churches and \"rich men's clubs,\"\n\"college churches,\" \"student pastors,\" churches which minister to old\nfamilies, and new chapels built by tenant farmers. But these phases of\nworship are peculiar to the times of transition in which we live. The\nimmaturity of our economic processes, and the greater immaturity of our\neconomic knowledge, explain the failure of worshiping people to assemble\nby communities; but the process which assembles men of kindred mind to\nworship together now is capable of bringing men together in larger\nwholes.\n\nThe spirit of federation is in the air. The longing for religious unity\nis a response to the stimuli of common experience in the same locality.\nMen who meet throughout the week, if they worship at all, discover a\ndesire to worship together. The coming of great occasions and the\ncelebrations of anniversaries, train them in some common assemblies. I\nremember how the tidings of the death of President McKinley brought\ntogether all the people of the community in an act of worship. Their\nresponse to a profound sense of danger was a community response, and the\nchurch which was prompt to open its doors, found men of all faiths\nwithin.\n\nAt a recent meeting of the National Body of one of the greatest\nProtestant churches, proceedings were halted by the moderator, who read\na telegram announcing the friendly action of another religious body.\nThis action looked toward union of the two denominations. It was a\nresponse to overtures from the body there in session. Instantly the\nwhole assembly sprang up, applauding and cheering, and led by a clear,\nmusical voice, broke out in a hymn. That hymn is profoundly sociological\nin its language, and its use is increasing among Christian people. It\nexpresses that worship which is a consciousness of kind. Its words are\n\n   Blest be the tie that binds\n     Our hearts in Christian love:\n   The fellowship of kindred minds\n     Is like to that above.\n\n   Before our Father's throne\n     We pour our ardent prayers;\n   Our fears, our hopes, our aims, are one,\n     Our comforts and our cares.\n\n   We share our mutual woes,\n     Our mutual burdens bear,\n   And often for each other flows\n     The sympathizing tear.\n\n   When we asunder part,\n     It gives us inward pain;\n   But we shall still be joined in heart,\n     And hope to meet again.\n\nIt would be hard to find a member of a Protestant church in America,\namong the older denominations, who does not know these words, and is not\naccustomed to use them in response to the stimuli of kinship with other\nProtestant Christians.\n\nThe consciousness of kind is an awareness of differences and\nresemblances. It is a finding of one's self among those to whom one is\nlike, and an aversion to those unto whom one is not like. Worship is an\nexpression of this common likeness. It is an enjoyment of fellowship.\n\nThe experience of worship is impossible in an atmosphere of difference.\nThis is a reason for the cleavage of denominations, and the splitting of\ncongregations. Without this separating, men could not enjoy the uniting,\nand without the aversion, men could not taste the sweets of fellowship.\n\nThis brings us very near to the sacred experiences in which men find\nGod. A very early chapter in the Bible describes God as the \"Friend\" of\na man. In the succeeding pages he becomes the King, the Priest, the\nProphet, and the Father of men. In every one of them the mind of the\nworshiper has expressed a profound sense, that God is found by the soul\nin society. Herbert Spencer has insisted that all religion is ancestor\nworship, that is, it grows out of the family group.\n\nSimmel teaches that religion is the resultant of the reactions of the\nindividual with his group fellows, and with the group as a whole.\nChristian folk are accustomed to express this by calling one another\n\"brothers\" and \"sisters,\" meaning clearly that religion is a social\nexperience.\n\nThis is not the place for extended biblical interpretation, but I am\nconvinced that the whole course of scripture will testify to this, that\nin the peaceful, continuing, social unities men have found God, and in\nthe differences, in their group conflicts, in their wars, and in the\noppositions to their enemies, there has been found no religious\nexperience. That is, such conflict has intensified unity, and the\nresulting unity has been ever richer in religion: but the thoughts for\nGod have come forth clothed always in terms and titles of fellowship,\nunity and kinship.\n\nIn country communities this principle explains the divisions and the\nunities of religious life. In many towns, the Presbyterian church, for\ninstance, is the church of the old settler and the earlier farmers. A\nnew denomination has come in with the tenants and the invaders. That is,\nmen have found it impossible to worship in a constant experience of\ndifference. It is true that their difference is an element in their\nreligion, because the consciousness of difference is an element in the\nconsciousness of kind.\n\nIn the Southern States, the white slave-holders worshiped, before the\nwar, in the same congregations with their negro slaves. They were\nconscious of the plantation group, and of the economic unity with their\nwork-people. When emancipation came and the slaves were made free, they\nmust needs worship apart; and today, throughout the whole South, the\nnegro churches have been erected to express the consciousness of kind,\nboth on the part of the white and of the black.\n\nIf this argument has force, it goes to prove that religion is, in a\nsmall community, the strongest organizing force. The seeking after God\nrequires as a vehicle the consciousness of likeness and difference. It\ncan only proceed along those lines.\n\nThe earnest desire of many common folk to know God is a working force,\nwhich follows the cleavage of social classification. The churches become\nexpressions of social forms. In the country particularly, where life is\nsimpler and changes are slower, the church becomes an almost infallible\nindex of the social condition of the people.\n\nThe duty, then, of the religious worker, and the task of the prophet and\nthe seer, is to enlarge the consciousness of kind. Worship is to be\nplaced on a larger plane. Americans must be taught to see their unity\nwith immigrants. Owners of land must be made to recognize that they are\none with their tenants. The employer must be shown that his alliances\nare with those who help him to get his living. At once, when this task\nis put before us, we see the futility of the ideals of our time. Church\nworkers and other teachers have played up before the eyes of the people\nthose ideals which separate men into artificial classes. The\nconsciousness of kind has been a consciousness of money and\nconsciousness of belonging to old families, or a consciousness of the\nideals of higher education. A great many American families live in the\nideal of sending their boys and girls to college. This leads them to\nfeel a difference between themselves and the larger number of people who\ndo not care for higher education, and who discover no energies in\nthemselves that move on the path of learning. The result is that their\nworship is narrow; churches become culture clubs: the preachers are\nexponents of literature: the service of worship is a liturgy of esthetic\npleasure.\n\nThe true consciousness of kind must be economic and social. There is no\nescape from this for religious people. They must go deep down to the\nunities with men who co-operate with them in getting a living. The\nPittsburgh mill owner has no other unity by which he can find himself at\none with his foreign born mill-hand, than the fact that he and the\nmill-hand are fellow workers in the mill.\n\nWhat other bond of union is there between the farm landlord and the farm\ntenant? They have no common idealism. The one reads books, the other\ndoes not. The one sends his son to college, the other sends his into the\nstable and the field. The one is enjoying a life of leisure and his\nhands are clean; the other sweats, saves, and produces, in soiled\nclothing, and with hard, coarse hands. They have only one basis of\nunity, namely, that they co-operate in tilling the soil, and in the\nproducing of food and raw materials. The teacher, or preacher, who\nattempts in this case to escape the economic unity, will find no other.\n\nThe trouble with most of the ideals which express themselves in\ndiversified worship, is that they are peculiar to the life of leisure,\nthey are a part of \"the leisure class standard.\" Many teachers and\npreachers reiterate similar demands which can only be responded to by\npeople who do not have to work.\n\nFrom this leisure class standard our ideals must be changed to the\nstandard of work, and the man who has vision is he who shall see the\neconomic, the industrial unities, and who with compelling voice, will\ncall men together to worship in a new consciousness of kind.\n\nMinisters in the country are feeling this very deeply. The pastor who\nministers to a whole community, boasts of it. He realizes he is serving\na true social unit. This is the joy of many country churches which might\nbe named, and the lack of it is the blight of many other country\ncommunities. It must be clearly born in mind, however, that the church\ncan not organize a unity that is apart from the life of men. Religion\nis the expression of social realities. There can be no \"federation\" of\nthose who are not conscious of their likeness and of their resemblances.\nThis means that the religious teaching of days to come must be a\nteaching of the real unities of mankind. For in these true bonds of\nunion men are brought together. The efforts to assemble them in\nartificial bonds, however ideal, will be futile.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[Footnote 35: \"Descriptive and Historical Sociology,\" by Prof. Franklin\nH. Giddings, p. 275.]\n\n\n\n\nSELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\nBOOKS\n\n   The Conservation of Natural Resources in the United States,\n     Chas. R. Van Hise,                        The Macmillan Co.\n\n   The Rural Life Problem of the United States,\n     Sir Horace Plunkett,                      The Macmillan Co.\n\n   Principles of Rural Economics,\n     Thomas Nixon Carver,                       Ginn and Company\n\n   The Country Life Movement in the United States,\n     L. H. Bailey,                             The Macmillan Co.\n\n   Ireland in the New Century,\n     Sir Horace Plunkett,                           E. P. Dutton\n\n   The American Rural School,\n     Harold W. Foght,                          The Macmillan Co.\n\n   The Country Town. A Study of Rural Evolution,\n     Wilbert L. Anderson,                 The Baker & Taylor Co.\n\n   Descriptive and Historical Sociology,\n     Franklin H. Giddings,                     The Macmillan Co.\n\n   Rural Denmark and Its Lessons,\n     H. Rider Haggard,                     Longmans, Green & Co.\n\n   Quaker Hill, A Sociological Study,\n     Warren H. Wilson,                         Privately printed\n\n   Youth,\n     G. Stanley Hall,                          D. Appleton & Co.\n\n   The Presbyterian Church in the United States,\n     Robert E. Thompson,                   Chas. Scribner's Sons\n\n   Chapters in Rural Progress,\n     Kenyon L. Butterfield,      The University of Chicago Press\n\n   The Country Church and the Rural Problem,\n     Kenyon L. Butterfield,      The University of Chicago Press\n\n   The Story of John Frederick Oberlin,\n     Augustus Field Beard,                     The Pilgrim Press\n\n   The Church of the Open Country,\n     Warren H. Wilson,             Missionary Education Movement\n\n   The Day of the Country Church,\n     J. O. Ashenhurst,                       Funk & Wagnalls Co.\n\n   The Distribution of Wealth,\n     John Bates Clark,                         The MacMillan Co.\n\n\nARTICLES REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT\n\n   The American Journal of Sociology, March, 1911,\n     Statement by John L. Gillin.\n\n   The American Journal of Sociology, March, 1911,\n     The Drift of the City in Relation to the Rural Problem,\n     John M. Gillette.\n\n   Modern Methods in the Country Church,\n     Matthew B. McNutt,            Missionary Education Movement\n\n   A Method of Making a Social Survey in a Rural Community,\n     C. J. Galpin,                       University of Wisconsin\n                                  Circular of information No. 29\n\n   Bulletins of International Institute of Agriculture,\n                                                     Rome, Italy\n\n   The Political Science Quarterly, December, 1910,\n     The Agrarian Changes in the middle West,\n     J. B. Ross\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n   Abandoned country churches, 126\n\n   Absentee landlords, 32-39\n\n   Academy,--Old New England, 25\n\n   Addams, Jane, 191\n\n   Adult Bible Class, 134\n\n   Agee, Prof. Alva, 105\n\n   Agriculture, teaching of, 167\n\n   Amish, 74\n\n   Amusement, problem of, 84\n\n   Anabaptist, 72\n\n   Anderson, Wilbert L., 102\n\n   Anti-Saloon League, 183\n\n   Apples, marketing of, 175\n\n   Augustine, Saint, 82\n\n   Austerity, 57\n\n\n   Bailey, L. H., 50\n\n   \"Bees\", 203\n\n   Bellona, N. Y. 56\n\n   Boll weevil, 143\n\n   Bone, R. E., 86\n\n   Braddock, Rev. J. S., 58\n\n   Breach of contract, 174\n\n   Breadwinner, type, 113\n\n   Butterfield, Kenyon L., 137\n\n\n   Casselton, N. D., 42\n\n   Centralized school, 163\n\n   Chaffee, farm, 43\n\n   Chester County, Pa., 124\n\n   Chesterton, Gilbert K., 115\n\n   Christmas play, 203\n\n   Church, Budget, 138\n     Envelope system, 139\n     Financial system, 130\n     Records, 172\n\n   Clark, John Bates, 80, 111\n\n   College athletics, 193\n\n   Columbus, Christopher, 112\n\n   Community center, 104\n\n   Consciousness of kind, 208, 213\n\n   Corn Clubs, 206\n\n   Country Fair, promoted, 17\n\n   Country Life Commission, 171\n\n   Cranberry, N. J., church at, 27\n\n   Crete, Nebraska, 86\n\n\n   Danish Folk Schools, 52, 169\n\n   Delaware, produce exchanges, 154\n\n   Demonstration work, 206\n\n   Denmark, 51, 147\n\n   Desmoulin, 96\n\n   Diminishing returns, law of, 88, 110\n\n   Donation, system, 27\n\n   Dunkers, 58, 67\n\n   Du Page Church, 106\n\n\n   Eliot, Ex-President of Harvard, 137\n\n   Endowment of churches, 136\n\n   Exploitation of land, 32-33, 123, 124\n\n\n   Family group, 19\n     Shrinkage of, 124\n\n   Farm laborers, 22\n\n   Federation of churches, 135, 209\n\n   Foght, Harold W., 97, 160\n\n   Fourth of July celebration, 205\n\n\n   Galesburg, Ill., 201\n\n   Galpin, Prof. C. J., 94\n\n   Giddings, Prof. Franklin H., 208\n\n   Gill, Rev. C. O., 195\n\n   Gillette, Prof. John M., 188\n\n   Gillin, Prof., 57, 58, 67\n\n   Greeley, Horace, 108\n\n   Group system, 10, 11, 12\n\n   Grundtvig, Bishop, 51, 53, 169\n\n   Gulick, Dr. Luther H., 197\n\n\n   Haggard, H. Rider, 147\n\n   Hanover, N. J., 156\n\n   Hays, Willet M., 91\n\n   Hernando, Mississippi, 105\n\n   Holidays, celebration of, 204\n\n   Homestead act, 34\n\n   Hood River Valley, Oregon, fruit growers, 176\n\n   Hormell, Dr. W. H., 88\n\n\n   Illinois, 126\n     Survey of, 190\n\n   Immigrants, in country districts, 123\n\n   Indiana, survey of, 190\n\n   Ireland, Christian Brothers, 52\n     Co-operative organizations, 147-151\n     Country Life Movement, 80\n\n\n   John Swaney Consolidated School, 165-166\n\n\n   Kentucky, co-operative organizations, 152\n     Survey of, 190\n\n\n   Lancaster County, Pa., 57\n\n   Land values, 34\n\n   Leadership, 187\n\n   Lewistown, Pa., 198\n\n\n   McNab, Ill., 166\n\n   McNutt, Rev. Matthew B., 86, 106\n\n   Marginal man, 113\n\n   Massachusetts communities, 96\n\n   Mennonites, 72\n\n   Middle Creek Church, 58\n\n   Minimum salary, 161\n\n   Missouri, survey of, 190\n\n   Money crop, 95\n\n   Mormons, 57, 62-78\n\n   Morrison, Rev. T. Maxwell, 56\n\n   Mountain community, 4\n\n   Mountaineers, 6, 8, 16\n\n\n   New England Country Church Asso., 137\n\n   New York Central R. R., 177\n\n\n   Oberammergau, 83\n\n   Oberlin, John Frederick, 14\n\n   Oblong meeting, 71, 172\n\n   Ohio, counties less productive, 101\n\n   Ottumwa, Iowa, 88\n\n   Over churching, 26, 145, 146\n\n\n   Palatinates, 72\n\n   Pastor, need of, 13\n\n   Passion Play, 83\n\n   Penn, William, 72\n\n   Penn Yan, N. Y., 40\n\n   Pennsylvania Germans, 57, 62-78\n\n   Pennsylvania, survey of, 190\n\n   Planters, south, 18\n\n   Playground, 98\n\n   Playground movement, 134, 196\n\n   Plunkett, Sir Horace, 51, 147\n\n   Polk, Rev. Samuel, 54\n\n   Poor, ministry to, 115\n\n   Protestantism, 118\n\n\n   Quaker Hill, 70, 94, 155\n\n   Quaker meeting, McNab, 168\n\n   Quakers, 70, 197, 204\n\n\n   Rankin, David, 41\n\n   Recreation, importance of, 139, 194\n\n   Retired farmers, 36-38\n\n   Retirement from farm, process described, 125\n\n   Revivals, 7, 8, 9\n\n   Riis, Jacob, 87\n\n   Rock Creek, Ill., 156, 164, 205\n\n   Ross, Prof. J. B., 2, 21, 29, 32, 184\n\n   Rural evangelism, 131\n\n   Rural exodus, 87, 97\n\n   Rural free delivery, 128\n\n\n   Sag Harbor, L. I., 201\n\n   Sage, Mrs. Russell, 201\n\n   Schenck, Norman C., 4\n\n   School, country, 23, 85, 60, 159\n\n   Scientific farming, 48\n\n   Scotch-Irish, 30, 57, 62-78\n\n   Simmel, 212\n\n   Slave-holding churches, 28\n\n   Smith, Adam, 5\n\n   Smith, John, 112\n\n   Socialism, 116\n\n   Social service, 110, XVI\n\n   Spencer, Herbert, 212\n\n   Store, country, 22, 94\n\n   Sunday Schools, 131, 134\n\n   Swaney, John, 86\n\n\n   Tarde, Gabriel, 59\n\n   Teachers, training of, 161\n\n   Team play, ethical value, 99\n\n   Telephone, rural, 128, 190\n\n   Temperance movement, 46, 117, 183\n\n   Tenant farmers, 35\n     Tenants' lease, 40\n\n   Thompson, R. E., 65\n\n   Theological seminaries, 119-120\n\n   Trolley, inter-urban, 128\n\n   Types, economic, 3\n\n\n   Utility, initial, 108\n     Marginal, 109\n\n\n   Van Alstyne, Edward, 177\n\n   Vote selling, 179\n\n\n   Washington County, Pa., 124\n\n   Waterloo, Iowa, community church, 68\n\n   Wealth, conservation of, 47\n\n   West Nottingham, Md., church at, 54\n\n   Winnebago, Ill., 58\n\n\n   Young Men's Christian Association, 134, 194\n\n   Young People's Societies, 28\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's note\n\n\nThe following changes have been made to the text:\n\nPage xi: \"IX\" changed to \"XIII\".\n\nPage 2: \"are separated form\" changed to \"are separated from\".\n\nPage 6: \"langour\" changed to \"languor\".\n\nPage 17: \"this be brought\" changed to \"this he brought\".\n\nPage 22: \"desti-period\" changed to \"destination\".\n\nPage 29: \"estended\" changed to \"extended\".\n\nPage 30: \"recorded in out literature\" changed to \"recorded in our\nliterature\".\n\nPage 86: \"individiuals\" changed to \"individuals\".\n\nPage 94: \"In 1910 every country community\" changed to \"In 1810 every\ncountry community\".\n\nPage 105: \"embarassed\" changed to \"embarrassed\".\n\nPage 107: Footnote 24: \"Willett\" changed to \"Willet\"\n\nPage 116: \"proletarean\" changed to \"proletarian\".\n\nPage 123: \"Portugese\" changed to \"Portuguese\".\n\nPage 150: \"gradiloquently\" changed to \"grandiloquently\".\n\nPage 191: \"Addam\" changed to \"Addams\".\n\nPage 192: \"elf-expression takes the form\" changed to \"self-expression\ntakes the form\".\n\nPage 197: \"inmoral\" changed to \"immoral\".\n\nPage 198: \"disintered\" changed to \"disinterred\".\n\nPage 206: \"frutiful\" changed to \"fruitful\".\n\nPage 208: \"expresssion\" changed to \"expression\".\n\nPage 209: \"immaturity of our ecnomic\" changed to \"immaturity of our\neconomic\".\n\nPage 220: \"Lewiston\" changed to \"Lewistown\".\n\nPage 221: \"XII\" changed to \"XVI\".\n\nPage 221: \"Tard\" changed to \"Tarde\".","title":"The Evolution of the Country Community: A Study in Religious Sociology","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":53914}