Rural dean

“ Why not organize classes in dandelion digging, berry picking, currant picking, and even, once in a while, weeding, by having a series of field and harvesting days under the direction of the school teacher with the coöperation of the parents? Why not have able-bodied boys in these rural schools released from book work in April and 154 remain out of school until the first of November, and then require them to attend school faithfully for six days a week during the rest of the year? ”

“ He will be less interested, perhaps, in the balanced ration and more interested in using the products of the community on the camp table. He will not be interested in the records required by school officials so much as in those expected of him by the farm-bureau agent. In short, his idea is to promote agriculture and not to promote the county Y.M.C.A. movement, the back-to-the-farm movement, or any other movement which may be allied with the farm-cadet service.
It is not possible to find any one man who is socially, pedagogically, and agriculturally minded. ”

“ It was the rural way of life that shaped the county and his demands which needed to be met.
At first glance this farmer's life seems tempered by nature and largely self-contained. The daily routine was established by seasons and sunlight; fortunes were made or lost at the mercy of the wind and rain. A farm was not only the farmer's livelihood and workshop but his home. Thus, unlike the city worker whose occupation was entirely separate from home concerns, country life had a total integration. ”

“ The local grange, more than any other organization, provides a forum for the discussion of the problems of agriculture and country life, and is thus a powerful agency for the creation of public opinion on any matters of community concern. The management of its business and the participation in the lecturer's programs furnish the best opportunity for the development of leadership and for training in public speaking, so that the local Grange has been the means of discovering and training much of our best rural leadership. ”

“ Out of the peculiar environment of the farmer grow his peculiar social needs, namely, better organization, fuller and richer education, quicker communication. To meet these supreme needs we find a growing and already powerful coterie of farmers' organizations, somewhat heterogeneous but rapidly developing plans of agricultural education, and a marvelous evolution of the means of transportation for body, voice, and missive. These needs and these agencies are selected as the conspicuous and vital element in the sociological problem that confronts the rural pastor. ”

“ It ought to be evident what a tremendous advantage it is to farmers in a district to have such organizations, what a lever they can pull and control. I have tried to indicate the difference between a rural population and a rural community, between a people loosely knit together by the vague ties of a common latitude and longitude, and people who are closely knit together in an association and who form a true social organism, a true rural community, where the general will can find expression and society is malleable to the general will. ”

“ In view of this apparent change in the attitude of people toward the farm problem, it may not be idle to suggest some possible errors that should be avoided when we are thinking of rural society. The student will doubtless approach his problem fortified against misconceptions—he probably has thoughtfully established his view-point. But the average person in the city is likely to call up the image of his ancestral home of a generation ago, if he were born in the country, or, if not, to draw upon his observations made on a summer vacation or on casual business trips into the interior. ”

“ One who knows the discontent of urban-minded people who have continued to live in the country can hardly doubt that habit has tended to conserve the rural population in a way that it does not now. And one must not forget the pressure of the discontent of these urban-minded country parents upon their children. The faculty of any agricultural college is familiar with the farmer's son who has been taught never to return to the farm after graduation from college. That the city-minded preacher and teacher add their contribution to rural restlessness is common thought. ”

“ Hartt's interesting clinic over a decadent hill-town, the suggestive fast-day proclamation of Governor Rollins of New Hampshire a few years ago, the marvelous development of agricultural education, the renewed study of the rural school, the widespread and growing delight in country life, have all aroused an interest in and presage a new attention to rural conditions. This is well. The sociologist can hardly afford to omit the rural classes from the scope of his study, especially if he desires to investigate the practical phases of his subject. ”

“ The present-day course of study in the agricultural college does not, however, fully meet this demand for rural leadership. The farm problem has been regarded as a technical question, and a technical training has been offered the student. The agricultural college, therefore, needs "socializing." Agricultural economics and rural sociology should occupy a large place in the curriculum. The men who go from the college to the farm should appreciate the significance of the agricultural question, and should be trained to organize their forces for genuine [Pg 34] rural progress. ”

“ The rural communities in America are feeders of the cities; in them is the nursery of the men and women who are to become leaders in the larger circles of business and professional life, in journalism and literature, in religion and social reform. Many a rural teacher or pastor has built himself into the affections of a boy or a girl, incarnating for them the noblest ideals and stimulating them to achievement and service in an environment that he himself could never hope to fill and with a power of influence that he could never expect to wield. ”

“ All students of social affairs agree that the movement of our people to towns and cities should be checked and the tide turned the other way. So important is the matter considered that a concerted national movement has recently been undertaken to study the conditions of rural life with a view to making it more attractive and so stopping the drain to the city.
Middle-aged farmers move to the town or city for two principal reasons: to educate their children and to escape from the monotony of rural [Pg 14] life. ”

“ Out of this movement will issue most happily a great social optimism in the country and individualism will lose nothing by being adjusted to modern [Pg 154] social needs. The chief agencies that socialize rural thinking are the church, the school, the press, secret societies and clubs, and the industry of farming itself.
The effective rural church as a socializing agency has a commanding position. Even the inefficient church has more social influence than appears on the surface. In a considerable part of the area of social inspiration the Church has an absolute monopoly. ”

“ They show an appreciation of a function of these agencies that has been neglected. The first item in rural social progress is that the country preacher, the rural teacher, the country doctor, the country editor, the agricultural editor, the agricultural college professor, and especially the farmer himself, shall see the social need of the farm community. But to assert, for instance, that the church shall be the social center of that community may lead to a partial and even to a fanatical view of things. ”

“ Already there is a small but certain movement of people toward the country and the vocation of agriculture. A period of agricultural prosperity, the reaction of men and women against the artificialities of city life, the development of farming through the application of science, and numerous other factors have made country life more congenial and have focused attention upon its further needs. It is natural, therefore, that the rural school should receive an increased share of attention. ”

“ Let us, in this chapter, investigate some things which, although apart from the school and education in any technical sense, are truly educative, in the best sense.
Leveling Down.—One thing that sometimes impresses the close observer who is visiting in the country and in farm homes is that there exists in some rural localities a kind of "leveling down" process. People become accommodated to their rather quiet and unexciting surroundings. Their houses and barns, in the way of repairs and improvements, are allowed gradually to succumb to the tooth of time and the beating of the elements. ”

“ The intelligent student who possesses the true spirit of helpfulness may find in the rural problem ample scope for both his brain and his heart. But he will make a fundamental and irreparable error if he starts out with the notion that pity, charity, and direct gifts will win the day. You may flatter the American farmer; you cannot patronize him. He demands and needs, not philanthropy, but simple justice, equal opportunity, and better facilities for education. He is neither slave nor pauper.
To conclude: There is a farm problem, and it is worth solving. ”

“ I must say it seems to me that the life many of our refined and educated clergy lead in remote, out-of-the-way rural districts, is not altogether an enviable one, for, as a rule, the society of such is sadly restricted, and the conversational powers of the farmers and agricultural labourers are apt to be somewhat limited, not to say monotonous. Arcadia has its delights, but they are not academical. The chief charms of ruralism to some people are to be found second-hand in “open-air” books! ”

“ The landlord, wise in his generation, provided newspapers liberally as well as beer, and had his reward. The people who gathered there of an evening included two or three farmers, a couple of professional gentlemen—not the vicar; a man of property, the postman, the carrier, the butcher, the baker and other tradesmen, the farm and other labourers, and last, but not least, the village sweep. A curious democratic assembly to be met with in a rural village in a purely agricultural district, extremely conservative in politics. ”

“ Rather we must estimate the Grange value of the future by its quiet, steady, unfaltering efforts, continued year after year, in thousands of local communities—many of them far removed from the busy activities of men—to bring the rural people together, to teach them the fundamentals of coöperation, of efficiency, of teamwork, of practical educational progress, and of the value of a forward-looking rural program, into whose accomplishments all the people of a locality may conscientiously enter.... ”

“ It has been my privilege for one-third of a century to have known rather closely many of the men and women who have been instrumental in bringing the rural problem to its present stage of advancement. They have been public-minded, able, far-seeing men and women, and they have rendered an unmeasurable service. The rural movement has been brought to its present state without any demand for special privilege, without bolstering by factitious legislation, and to a remarkable degree without self-seeking. ”

“ It includes practically every device that has been suggested for rural betterment.
There are two interesting facts about these rural institutions: (1) None of them is doing a tithe of what it ought to be doing to help solve the farm problem. The church is apparently just about holding its own, though that is doubted by some observers. Rural schools are not, as a rule, keeping pace with the demands being made upon them; comparatively few students in the whole country are studying scientific agriculture. ”

“ Herdsmen—one would expect to find them scattered by reason of their occupation. Besides, a sky continually bright, a genial clime, a picturesqueness of scene—all seem to invite to rural life; and yet I have ridden for hours, a succession of lovely landscapes rising before my eyes, all of them wild, wanting in that one feature which makes the rural picture perfect—the house, the dwelling of man! Towns there are; and at long intervals the huge hacienda of the landed lord, walled in like a fortress; but where are the ranchos, the homes of the common people? ”

“ This study of country life opportunity and analysis of various phases of the rural problems in America has been written at the request of the International Committee of Young Men’s Christian Associations, particularly for their County Work and Student departments. The former desired a handbook for the training of leaders in rural Christian work and the latter a textbook for the use of college students in Christian Associations wishing to study the fundamentals of rural social service and rural progress. ”

“ In many agricultural colleges and state universities, we find an increasing proportion of students coming from the cities for training in the science of agriculture [Pg 35] and the arts of rural life. This is a very significant and encouraging fact. It shows us that the tide has begun to turn. Rural life is coming to its own, for country life is beginning to be appreciated again after several decades of disfavor and neglect. ”

“ He will have a good deal to do with the farm-cadet idea, and in the winter he will doubtless be thinking of the type of camp which he will establish or with which he will be connected. He may decide that he can do best by organizing a labor-distributing camp on his own initiative, or that he will serve as an assistant at the state-farm training camp, or that he will take his boys, if they are village boys, to the outskirts of the village and establish a coöperative camp ”