Chapters in Rural Progress. Butterfield Kenyon Leech
there to find their careers, and there to lead in the movements for rural progress. A decade ago it was not easy to find colleges which believed that this could be done, and some agricultural educators have even disavowed such a purpose as a proper object of the colleges. But the strongest agricultural colleges today have pride in just such a purpose. And why not? We not only need men thus trained as leaders in every rural community, but, if the farming business cannot be made to offer a career to a reasonable number of college-trained men, it is a sure sign that only by the most herculean efforts can the farmers maintain their status as a class. If agriculture must be turned over wholly to the untrained and to the half-trained, if it cannot satisfy the ambition of strong, well-educated men and women, its future, from the social point of view, is indeed gloomy.
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 rural progress. The college should, as far as possible, become the leader in the whole movement for solving the farm problem.
The farm home has not come in for its share of attention in existing schemes of agricultural education. The kitchen and the dining-room have as much to gain from science as have the dairy and the orchard. The inspiration of vocational knowledge must be the possession of her who is the entrepreneur of the family, the home-maker. The agricultural colleges through their departments of domestic science – better, of "home-making" – should inaugurate a comprehensive movement for carrying to the farm home a larger measure of the advantages which modern science is showering upon humanity.
The agricultural college must also lead in a more adequate development of extension teaching. Magnificent work has already been done through farmers' institutes, reading courses, co-operative experiments, demonstrations, and correspondence. But the field is so immense, the number of people involved so enormous, the difficulties of reaching them so many, that it offers a genuine problem, and one of peculiar significance, not only because of the generally recognized need of adult education, but also because of the isolation of the farmers.
It should be said that in no line of rural betterment has so much progress been made in America as in agricultural education. Merely to describe the work that is being done through nature-study and agriculture in the public schools, through agricultural schools, through our magnificent agricultural colleges, through farmers' institutes, and especially through the experiment stations and the federal Department of Agriculture in agricultural research and in the distribution of the best agricultural information – merely to inventory these movements properly would take the time available for this discussion. What has been said relative to agricultural education is less in way of criticism of existing methods than in way of suggestion as to fundamental needs.
Wide generalizations as to the exact moral situation in the rural community are impossible. Conditions have not been adequately studied. It is probably safe to say that the country environment is extremely favorable for pure family life, for temperance, and for bodily and mental health. To picture the country a paradise is, however, mere silliness. There are in the country, as elsewhere, evidences of vulgarity in language, of coarseness in thought, of social impurity, of dishonesty in business. There is room in the country for all the ethical teaching that can be given.
Nor is it easy to discuss the country church question. Conditions vary in different parts of the Union, and no careful study has been made of the problem. As a general proposition, it may be said that there are too many churches in the country, and that these are illy supported. Consequently, they have in many cases inferior ministers. Sectarianism is probably more divisive than in the city, not only because of the natural conservatism of the people and a natural disinclination to change their views, but because sectarian quarrels are perhaps more easily fomented and less easily harmonized than anywhere else. Moreover, in the city a person can usually find a denomination to his liking. In the country, even with the present overchurched condition, this is difficult.
The ideal solution of the country church problem is to have in each rural community one strong church adequately supported, properly equipped, ministered to by an able man – a church which leads in community service. The path to the realization of such an ideal is rough and thorny. Church federation, however, promises large results in this direction and should be especially encouraged.
Whatever outward form the solution of the country church question may take, there seem to be several general principles involved in a satisfactory attempt to meet the issue. In the first place, the country church offers a problem by itself, socially considered. Methods successful in the city may not succeed in the country. The country church question must then be studied thoroughly and on the ground.
Again, the same principle of financial aid to be utilized in the case of the schools must be invoked here. The wealth of the whole church must contribute to the support of the church everywhere. The strong must help the weak. The city must help the country. But this aid must be given by co-operation, not by condescension. The demand cannot be met by home missionary effort nor by church-building contributions; the principle goes far deeper than that. Some device must be secured which binds together the whole church, along denominational lines if must be, for a full development of church work in every community in the land.
Furthermore, there is supreme necessity for adding dignity to the country parish. Too often at present the rural parish is regarded either as a convenient laboratory for the clerical novice, or as an asylum for the decrepit or inefficient. The country parish must be a parish for our ablest and strongest. The ministry of the most Christlike must be to the hill-towns of Galilee as well as to Jerusalem.
There is still another truth that the country church cannot afford to ignore. The rural church question is peculiarly interwoven with the industrial and social problems of the farm. A declining agriculture cannot foster a growing church. An active church can render especially strong service to a farm community, in its influence upon the religious life, the home life, the educational life, the social life, and even upon the industrial life. Nowhere else are these various phases of society's activities so fully members one of another as in the country. The country church should co-operate with other rural social agencies. This means that the country pastor should assume a certain leadership in movements for rural progress. He is splendidly fitted, by the nature of his work and by his position in the community, to co-operate with earnest farmers for the social and economic, as well as the moral and spiritual, upbuilding of the farm community. But he must know the farm problem. Here is an opportunity for theological seminaries: let them make rural sociology a required subject. And, better, here is a magnificent field of labor for the right kind of young men. The country pastorate may thus prove to be, as it ought to be, a place of honor and rare privilege. In any event, the country church, to render its proper service, not alone must minister to the individual soul, but must throw itself into the struggle for rural betterment, must help solve the farm problem.
The suggestion that the country church should ally itself with other agencies of rural progress may be carried a step farther. Rural social forces should be federated. The object of such federation is to emphasize the real nature of the farm problem, to interest many people in its solution, and to secure the co-operation of the various rural social agencies, each of which has its sphere, but also its limitations. The method of federation is to bring together, for conference and for active work, farmers – especially representatives of farmers' organizations, agricultural educators, rural school-teachers and supervisors, country clergymen, country editors; in fact, all who have a genuine interest in the farm problem. Thus will come clearer views of the questions at issue, broader plans for reform, greater incentive to action, and more rapid progress.
In this brief analysis of the social problems of American farmers it has been possible merely to outline those aspects of the subject that seem to be fundamental. It is hoped that the importance of each problem has been duly emphasized, that the wisest methods of progress have been indicated, and that the relation