Chapters in Rural Progress Part 8

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

CHAPTER XI

OPPORTUNITIES FOR FARM WOMEN

While rural life is often supposed to be fatally deficient in facilities for growth because of its isolation, the women living on our farms are thought to be the especial victims of this lack of social opportunity.

No doubt there is much of truth in the popular opinion. Modern city life unquestionably tends to enliven, to sharpen, to put a razor-edge on capacity. Naturally the women as well as the men of the city are thus stimulated. An instance of the opportunities constantly presented to the city women is the rapid multiplication of women's clubs, which, especially in smaller towns, are absolutely revolutionizing the life of womankind. But have not the women of the country some resources of a similar character? Can they not in some way break the bonds of isolation? Are there not for them some of the blessings that come from a highly organized society? Are there not, in the country also, opportunities for the co-operation of mind and heart for common service?

I think all these questions can be answered in the affirmative. It is at least worth while to endeavor to describe several means by which the woman of the farm can keep pace with her urban sister, and under conditions not so discouraging as many may suppose.

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

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

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

So far we have found that existing inst.i.tutions for women in rural districts bring together merely the women of the farm. In the women's section of the inst.i.tutes half the audience is usually from the town.

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

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

In the realms of higher education the girl who is to stay upon the farm has not been wholly neglected. In Kansas, Iowa, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan, at least, and in connection with the agricultural colleges of those states, courses for women (including domestic science) have been provided. They are well patronized by girls from the farm.

Many of these girls do not marry farmers; many of them do. And their college training having thus been secured in an atmosphere more or less agricultural, they must inevitably take rank among their sisters of the farm as leaders in demonstrating what farm life for women may be.

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

With the advent of better highways, electric car lines, rural free delivery, and the rural telephone, each of which is looming on the horizon as an important feature of American farm life; with the Grange or similar organization in every school district; with the development of courses for women at all our colleges of agriculture, and the logical complement of such courses in the form of college extension--farmers'

inst.i.tutes, reading-courses, traveling libraries, lecture and correspondence courses--we shall find farm life taking on a new dress, and perhaps farmers' wives may come to enjoy the envy of those women who are unfortunate enough not to have married farmers.

CHAPTER XII

THE COUNTRY CHURCH AND PROGRESS

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

At the outset let us be sure that we have sympathy with the countryman as such. It is often argued that the rural question, or any phase of it, as for instance the question of the rural church, is important because the country supplies the best blood to the city--and a roll-call of the famous country-born is read to prove the point. This may be all true.

But it is only a partial view, for it places the emphasis upon the leaving of the farm, whereas the emphasis should be placed upon the farm and those who stay there. We may praise the country because it furnishes brain and brawn for the world's work; we may argue for country life because it possesses a good environment in which to rear a family; we may demand a school system that shall give the country child as good a chance as the city child has. In all this we do well. But we do not yet stand face to face with the rural problem.

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

All these things give to the rural social problem a distinctive character and give rise to the great social needs of the farmer. What are these needs? I name three: (1) _Completer organization._ Farmers do not co-operate easily. They never had to co-operate largely under the old regime, for pioneer farming placed a premium on individualism. The present century however, with its emphasis upon organization and co-operation, calls the farmer to the task with the warning cry that unless he does organize he is in danger of losing his present industrial, political, and social status. (2) _Better education._ The rural schools may not be so deficient as to deserve all the scorn heaped upon them by educational reformers; but it is little enough to say that they can be vastly improved. They are not keeping up with city schools.

The country is especially lacking in good high-school privileges. Of technical training too, in spite of forty years of agricultural colleges, the country is sadly in need. Neither in primary grades, in high schools, in special schools, is there an adequate amount of study of the principles of agriculture--principles which an age of science demands must be mastered if the independent farmer is to be a success.

(3) _Quicker communication._ Isolation has been the bugbear of farm life. It must be overcome partly by physical means. There must be a closer touch between individuals of the cla.s.s, and between farmers and the dwellers in the town and city.

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

There are three things the country pastor may do in order to bring his church into vital contact with these great sociological movements. Of course he _may_ ignore them, but that is church suicide. (1) He may recognize them. This means first of all to understand them, to appreciate their influence. There is a law of the division of labor that applies to inst.i.tutions as well as to individuals. This law helps us to understand how such inst.i.tutions as the Grange and farmers' inst.i.tutes are doing a work that the church cannot do. They are doing a work that needs doing. They are serving human need. No pastor can afford to ignore them, much less in sneer at them as unclean; he may well apply the lesson of Peter's vision, and accept them as ministers of the kingdom.

(2) He may encourage and stimulate them. The rural pastor may throw himself into the van of those who strive for better farming, for a quicker social life, for more adequate educational facilities. He can well take up the role of promoter--a promoter of righteousness and peace through so-called secular means. Thus shall he perform the highest function of the prophet--to spiritualize and glorify the common. But the rural pastor can go even farther. (3) He may co-operate with them. He may thus a.s.sist in uniting with the church all of those other agencies that make for rural progress, and thus secure a "federation," if not "of the world," at least of all the forces that are helping to solve the farm problem; and he may thus found a "parliament," if not "of man," at least of all who believe that the rural question is worth solving and that no one movement is sufficient to solve it.

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

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

Inasmuch as the latter course is at present offered in few academic inst.i.tutions in the United States, it might well be urged that brief courses in rural sociology be offered at the many summer schools.

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

2. The second suggestion looks toward the establishment of a social-service church, or an inst.i.tutional church, or again, as one has phrased it, a "country church industrial." There seems to be a growing feeling that the country church may become not only the distinctively religious center of the neighborhood, but also the social, the intellectual, and the aesthetic center. No doubt there is untold power in such an idea. No doubt the country church has a peculiarly rich and inviting field for community service. It would be gratifying if every country pastor would study the possibilities of this idea and endeavor to make an experiment with it. I have, however, a supplemental suggestion, at this point. It is not possible to make of every rural church an inst.i.tutional church. The church is notably a conservative inst.i.tution. The rural church is in this respect "to the manner born."

Rural church members are likely to be ultra-conservative, especially as to means and methods. Even if this were not true, we might well lament any attempt to establish a social-service church that endeavored to make the church the sole motive power in rural regeneration, that failed to recognize, to encourage, and to co-operate with the other social forces which we have mentioned. But if every country pastor cannot have a social-service church, is it not possible that every country church shall have a social-service pastor? There are some things the church cannot _do_; there is nothing it may not through its pastor _inspire_.

There are some uses to which the country church cannot be put; there are no uses to which the country pastor may not be put--as country pastors know by experience. The pastor ought to be an authority on social salvation as well as on personal salvation. He ought to be guide, philosopher, and friend in community affairs as well as in personal affairs. Is he not indeed the logical candidate for general social leadership in the rural community? He is educated, he is trained to think, he is supposed to have broad grasp of the meaning of affairs, he usually possesses many of the qualities of leadership. He is _relatively_ a fixture. He is less transient than the teacher. He is the only man in the community whose tastes are sociological and who is at the same time a paid man--all this aside from the question of the munificence of his stipend. Let us then have the social-service rural church if we can; but let us have the social-service rural pastor at all hazards, as the first term in the formula for solving the sociological problem of the country church.

3. Co-operation among rural churches. The manifest lack of co-operation among churches seems to many laymen to result in a tremendous waster of power. Of course it is a very hard problem. But is it insoluble? It would seem not. One would think that the plan of union suggested by Dr.

Strong in _The New Era_ is wholly practicable. But the burden of the suggestion at this point is this: Cannot the churches unite sufficiently for a thorough religious and sociological canva.s.s? If they cannot federate on a theological platform, can they not unite on a statistical platform? If they cannot unite for religious work, can they not join hands long enough to secure a more intelligent basis for their separate work? It seems to me that this sort of union is worth while, and that it is something in which there could be full union, in which "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free."

4. The pastor may aid if not lead in the federation of rural social forces. The idea involved is substantially this: Given a farmers'

organization that ministers chiefly to industrial and economic ends, though incidentally to moral and educational ones; a school system that feeds chiefly the accepted educational needs, though acting perhaps as a moving force in industrial and social betterment; a church which is chiefly a religious inst.i.tution, but which touches the life of the community at many other points--given these things and the obvious next step is co-operation among them all, in order that a well-balanced kind of social progress may result. This form of federation means the attempt to solve the farm problem at all points. It suggests that the army of rural progress shall march with the wings abreast the center. It means that the farmer, the editor, the educator, the preacher--all, shall see the work that needs doing, in all its fulness, and, seeing, shall resolve to push ahead side by side.

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

CHAPTER XIII

A SUMMARY OF RECENT PROGRESS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agricultural schools have been talked about for a century, and during the early part of the last century several were started. The first permanent agricultural college was opened in 1857, in Michigan. The Morrill Act of 1862 gave rise to a system of such colleges and today there will be found one in every state and territory, besides several for the colored people of the South. Up to 1890, these colleges had been not wholly satisfactory and the farming cla.s.s was not patronizing very fully their agricultural courses. The fault belonged both to the college and to the farmers. The farmers were skeptical of the value of agricultural education, and the colleges were often out of sympathy with the real needs of the farmers, and in fact found it difficult to break away from the pedagogical ideals of the old educational regime. Since 1890, however, there has been a complete change of sentiment in this respect, particularly in the Middle West. There the "land-grant"

colleges, whether separate colleges or whether organized as colleges of state universities, are securing magnificent buildings for agriculture, are offering fully equipped courses, and are enrolling as students some of the best men in college, whom they are educating not only for agricultural teachers and experimenters but also for practical farmers.

Of course, there are many grave problems connected with this subject, many farmers who do not yet respond to the call for educated agriculturists, and some colleges that do not yet appreciate their opportunity. But the change for the better has been so marked that all agricultural educators are extremely optimistic.