Morals in the Rural Community | Social Disease and its causes | The Social Stimulus to Morality

MORALS IN THE RURAL COMMUNITY

Social Disease and Its Causes.—Rural morals are a phase of the public health of the community. Immorality is a kind of social disease, for which the community needs to find a remedy. The amount of moral ill varies widely, but it can be increased by neglect or lessened by effort, as surely as can the amount of physical disease. Moral ill is due to the individual and to the community. The judgment of the individual may be warped, his moral consciousness defective, or his will weak. He may have low standards and ill-adjusted relationships. Selfishness may have blunted his sympathy. All these conditions contribute to the common vices of community life. But the individual is sometimes less to blame than the community. Much moral ill is a consequence of the imperfect functioning of the community. A man steals because he is hungry or cold, and the motive to escape pain is stronger than the motive to deal lawfully with his neighbor; but if the community saw to it that adequate provision was made for all economic need, and if moral instruction was not lacking, it would be unlikely to happen. Similar reasons may be found for other evils. It is as much the business of the community to keep the social atmosphere wholesome as it is to keep the air and water of its farms pure. It should provide moral training and moral exercise.

How Morals Develop.—Without attempting a thoroughly scientific definition of morals, we may call good morals those habitual acts which are in harmony with the best individual and social interests of the people of the community, and bad morals the absence of such habits. Of course the acts are the consequence of motives, and in the last analysis the question of morals is rooted in the field of psychology or religion; but the inner motive is revealed in the outward act, and it is customary to speak of the act as moral or immoral. Moral standards are not unvarying. One race differs from another and one period of history differs from another. Primitive custom was the first standard, and was determined by what was good for the group, and the individual conformed to it from force of circumstances. If he was to remain a member of the group and enjoy its benefits he must be willing to sacrifice his selfish desires. His consciousness of the solidarity of the group deepens with experience, and his feelings of sympathy grow stronger, until impulsive altruism becomes a habit and eventually a fixed and purposeful patriotism. By and by religion throws about conduct its sanctions and interprets the meaning of morality. However imperfect may be the relations between good morals and pagan religions, Judaism and Christianity have combined religion with high moral ideals. The Hebrew prophets declared that God demanded justice, kindness, and mercy in human relations rather than acts of ceremony and sacrifice to himself, and Jesus made love to neighbor as fundamental to holiness as love to God. Such a religion becomes dynamic in producing moral deeds.

The Social Stimulus to Morality.—It is customary to think of the homely virtues of truthfulness, sobriety, thrift, and kindliness as individual obligations, but they are not wrought out in isolation. Isolation is never complete, and virtue is a social product. The farmer makes occasional visits to the country store, where he experiences social contacts; there is habitual association with individual workers on the farm or traders with whom the farmer carries on a business transaction. His personal contacts may not be helpful, and his wife may lack them almost altogether outside of the home; the result is often a tendency toward vice or degeneration, sometimes to insanity or suicide, but it is seldom that there are not helpful influences and relations available if the individual will put himself in the way of enjoying them. Good morals are dependent on right associations. Human beings need the stimulus of good society, otherwise the mind vegetates or broods upon real or fancied wrongs until the moral nature is in danger of atrophy or warping. Family feuds develop, as among the Scotch highlanders or the mountain people in certain parts of the South. Lack of social sympathy increases as the interests become self-centred; out of this characteristic grow directly such evils as petty lawlessness, rowdyism, and crime. The country districts need the help of high-grade schools and proper places of recreation, of the Young Men's Christian Association or an association of like principles, and most of all of a virile church that will interpret moral obligation and furnish the power that is needed to move the will to right action.

Rural Vices.—The moral problems of the rural community do not differ greatly from those of the town. The most common rural vices are profanity, drunkenness, and sexual immorality. Profanity is often a habit rather than a defect in moral character, and is due sometimes to a narrow vocabulary. It is a mark of ignorance and boorishness. In many localities it is less common than it used to be. The average community life is wholesome. Not more than twenty per cent of American rural communities have really bad conditions in any way, according to the investigations made by the United States Rural Life Commission in 1908. Considering the monotony and hardships of rural life, it is much to the credit of the people that most communities are temperate and law-abiding. Intemperance is one of the most common evils; there is a longing for the stimulant of liquor, which appears in some cases in moderate drinking and in other cases in the habit of an occasional spree in a near-by town, when reason abdicates to appetite. Lumbermen and miners, whose work is especially hard and isolation from good society complete, have been notorious for their lapses into intemperance, but it is not a serious problem in three out of four communities the country over, and a wave of temperance sentiment has swept strongly over rural districts. Gambling is a diversion that appeals to those who have few mental and pecuniary resources as an offset to the daily monotony, but this habit is not typical of rural communities.

Investigations of the Rural Life Commission showed that sexual immorality prevails in ten to fifteen per cent of the rural communities, and they trace much of it to late evening drives and dances and unchaperoned calls, but on the whole the perversion of the sex instinct is less common than in the cities. The young are generally trained in moral principles, the religious sanctions are more strongly operative, and the conduct and character of every individual is constantly under the public eye. Young people in the country marry at an earlier age than in the city, and husband and wife are normally faithful. Crime in the country is peculiar to degenerate communities, elsewhere it is rare. Juvenile delinquency occurs, and there are not such helpful influences as the juvenile court of the city; on the other hand, most boys are in touch with home influences, feel the restraint of a law-abiding community, and know that lawbreaking is almost certain to be found out and punished.

Community Obligation.—Moral delinquency in the rural community lies in the failure to provide social stimulus to individual members. The farmer has as good reason to be ambitious for success and to feel pride in it as has the city merchant, but he has small local encouragement to develop better agriculture on his own farm. He has as much right to the benefits of association in toil and co-operation in effecting economies and disposing of his products as the employer or working man in town. He is equally entitled to good government, to wholesome recreation, to a suitable and efficient education, and to the spiritual leadership of a progressive church. Without the spur of community fellowship his life narrows and his abilities are not developed. With the help of community stimulus the individual may develop capacity for individual achievement and social leadership of as fine a quality as any urban centre can supply. It is well known that the strong men of the cities in business and the professions have come in large proportion from the country. If such qualities developed in the comparative isolation and discomfort of the past, it is a moral obligation of rural communities of the future to do even more to produce the brawn and brain of city leaders in days to come.

READING REFERENCES

Wilson: The Evolution of the Country Community, pages 171-188.

Anderson: The Country Town, pages 95-106.

Dealey: Sociology, pages 146-165.

Hart: Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities, pages 166-175.

Hobhouse: Morals in Evolution, I, pages 364-375.

Spencer: Data of Ethics, chapter 8.

Report of Committee on Morals and Rural Conditions of the General Association of Congregational Churches of Massachusetts, 1908.

Healthy and Beauty in the Community | Principles of Organization

HEALTH AND BEAUTY

Health and Beauty in the Community.—Rural government formerly limited its range of activity to political and economic concerns. The individualism of Americans resented the interference of government in other matters. If property was made secure and taxed judiciously for the maintenance of public institutions, the duty of government was accomplished. The individual man was prepared to assume all further responsibility for himself and family. Such matters as the health of a rural community and its æsthetic appearance were left to individual initiative and generally were neglected. On many occasions the housewife showed her sympathy and kindliness by nursing a sick neighbor, but the members of the community had little appreciation of the seriousness of contagion and infection, no knowledge of germs, and small thought of preventive measures. The appearance of their buildings and grounds was nobody's business but their own. They had no conception of the social obligation of each for all and of all for each. The result was an unnecessary amount of illness, especially of tuberculosis and typhoid fever, because of insanitary buildings and grounds, and a general air of shabbiness and neglect that pervaded many communities. It was not that the people lacked the æsthetic sense, but it had not been trained, and in the struggle for the subjugation of a new continent all such minor considerations must give way to the satisfaction of elemental wants.

Slowly it is becoming understood that health and beauty are matters that demand public attention and regulation. Good fortune and happiness are not purely economic and political concerns. Well-kept roads, clean and well-planned public buildings, sanitary farm structures, properly drained farm lands, and pure drinking water may not add to the number of bushels an acre, but they prolong life and add to its comfort and satisfaction.

When it seems no longer strange to bother about health conditions, it will be relatively easy to give attention to rural æsthetics. If a schoolhouse or a meeting-house is to be erected, it will give greater satisfaction to the community if the principles of good architecture are observed and the building is set in the midst of trees and shrubbery and well-kept lawn. With such an object-lesson, the people of the community will presently contrast their own property with that of the public, the imitative impulse will begin to work, and individuals will begin to make improvements as leisure permits. There are villages that are ugly scars on a landscape which nature intended should be beautiful. With misdirected energy, farmers have destroyed the wild beauty of the fence corners and roadsides, mowing down the weeds and clearing out the brush and vines in an effort to make practical improvements, while with curious oversight they have permitted the weeds to grow in the paths and the grass to lengthen in the yard. Many a farm in rural communities has untidy refuse heaps, tottering outbuildings, rusting machinery, and general litter that reveal the absence of all sense of beauty or even neatness, yet the farmer and his wife may be thrifty, hard-working people, and scrupulously particular indoors. Their minds have not been sensitized to outdoor beauty and hideousness. They forget that nature is æsthetic; they live in the midst of her beauty, but their eyes are dim and their ears are dull, and it is difficult to instruct them. Happily, recent years have brought with them a new sense of the possibilities of rural beauty. Children are learning to appreciate it in the surroundings of the schoolhouse and the tasteful decorations of its interior; their elders are buying lawn-mowers and painting their fences, and America may yet rival in attractiveness the fair countryside of old England.

Is the Town Healthier than the Country?—It has been commonly believed that country people are healthier than townspeople. Their life in the open, with plenty of exercise and hard work, toughens fibre and strengthens the body to resist disease. It has also been supposed that the city, with its crowded quarters, vitiated air, and communicable diseases, has a much larger death-rate. It is true that city life is more dangerous to health than a country existence if no health precautions are taken, but city ordinances commonly regulate community health, while in the country there is greater license. Exposure gives birth to colds and coughs in the country; these are treated with inadequate home remedies, because physicians are inconveniently distant or expensive, and chronic diseases fasten themselves upon the individual. Ignorance of hygienic principles, absence of bathrooms, poor ventilation, unscreened doors and windows, and impure water and milk are among the causes of disease.

There is as much need of pure air, pure water, and pure food in the country as in the city, and the danger from disease is no less menacing. The farmer loses vitality through long hours of labor, and is susceptible to disease scarcely less than is the working man in town. And he is more at fault if he suffers, for there is room to build the home in a healthful location, where drainage is easy and pure air and sunshine are abundant; there is water without price for cleansing purposes, and sanitation is possible without excessive cost. In most cases it is lack of information that prevents a realization of perils that lurk, and every rural community should have instruction in hygiene from school-teacher, physician, or resident nurse.

Rural Health Preservers.—Three health preservers are needed in every rural community. These are the health official, the physician, and the nurse. There is need first of one whose business it shall be to inspect the sanitary conditions of public and private buildings, and to watch the health of the people, old and young. It matters little whether the official is under State or local authority, if he efficiently and fearlessly performs his duty. Constant vigilance alone can give security, and it is a small price to pay if the community is compelled to bear even the whole expense of such a health official. Community health is often intrusted to the town fathers or a district board with little interest in the matter; on the other hand, the agent of a State board is not always a local resident, and is liable to overlook local conditions. It is desirable that the health official be an individual of good training, familiar with the locality, and with ample authority, for in this way only can safety be reasonably secure.

It is by no means impracticable to give a local physician the necessary official authority. He is equipped with information and skilled by experience to know bad conditions when he sees them and to appreciate their seriousness. Whether or not a physician is the official health protector of the community, a physician there should be who can be reached readily by those who need him, and who should be required to produce a certificate of thorough training in both medicine and surgery. If such a medical practitioner does not establish himself in the district voluntarily, the community might well afford to employ such a physician on a salary and make him responsible for the health of all. As civilization advances it will become increasingly the custom in the country as well as in the city to employ a physician to keep one's general health good, as now one employs a dentist to examine and preserve the teeth. Medical practice must continually become more preventive and less remedial. It may seem as if it were an unwarranted expansion of the social functions of a community that it should care for the health of individuals, but as the interdependence of individuals becomes increasingly understood, the community may be expected to extend its care for its own welfare.

The Village Nurse.—Alongside the physician belongs the village or rural nurse. Already there are many communities that are becoming accustomed to such a functionary, who visits the schools, examines the children, prescribes for their small ailments or recommends a visit to the physician, and who stands ready to perform the duties of a trained nurse at the bedside of any sufferer. The support of such a nurse is usually maintained by voluntary subscription, but there seems to be no good reason why she should not be appointed and paid by the organized community as a local official. She is as much needed as a road-surveyor, surely as valuable as hog-reeve or pound-keeper. It is a valid social principle, though rural observation does not always justify it, that human life is not only intrinsically more valuable to the individual or family than the life of an animal of the herd, but it is actually worth more to the community.

The Village Improvement Society.—To secure good health conditions, interested persons in the community may organize a health club. Its feasibility is well proved by the history of the village improvement society. There are two hundred such societies in Massachusetts alone, and the whole movement is organized nationally in the American Civic Federation. Their object is the toning up of the community by various methods that have proved practicable. They owe their organization to a few public-spirited individuals, to a woman's club, or sometimes to a church. Their membership is entirely voluntary, but local government may properly co-operate to accomplish a desired end. Expenses are met by voluntary contribution or by means of public entertainments, and its efforts are limited, of course, by the fatness of its purse. Examples of the useful public service that they perform are the demolition of unsightly buildings and the cleaning up of unkempt premises, the beautification of public structures and the building of better roads, the erection of drinking troughs or fountains, and the improvement of cemeteries. Besides such outdoor interests village improvement societies create public spirit, educate the community by means of high-class entertainments, art and nature exhibits, and public discussion of current questions of local interest. They stand back of community enterprises for recreation, fire protection, and other forms of social service, including such economic interests as co-operative buying and marketing and the extension of telephone or transportation service.

The initial impulse that sets in motion various forms of village improvement frequently comes from the summer visitor or from a teacher or minister who brings new ideas and a will to carry them into action. In certain sections of country, like the mountain region of northern New England, summer people are very numerous, through the weeks from June to October, and not a few of them revisit their favorite rural haunts for a briefer time in the winter. It is not to be expected that they are always a force for good. Sometimes they make country residents envious and dissatisfied. But it is not unusual that they give an intellectual stimulus to the young people and the women, compel the men to observe the proprieties of social intercourse, and encourage downcast leaders of church and neighborhood to renewed industry and hope. They demand multiplied comforts and conveniences, and expect attractive and healthful accommodations. Where they purchase and improve lands and buildings of their own they provide useful models to their less particular neighbors, and thus the leaven of a better type of living does its work in the neighborhood.

Principles of Organization.—The principles that lie at the basis of every organization for improvement are simple and practicable everywhere. They have been enumerated as a democratic spirit and organization, a wide interest in community affairs, and a perennial care for the well-being of all the people. Public spirit is the reason for its existence, and the same public spirit is the only force that can keep the organization alive. Every community in this democratic country has its fortunes in its own hands. If it is so permeated with individualism or inertia that it cannot awake to its duties and its privileges, it will perish in accordance with the law of the survival of the fittest; if, on the contrary, it adopts as its controlling principles those just mentioned, it will find increasing strength and profit for itself, because it keeps alive the spirit of co-operation and mutual help.

READING REFERENCES

Hart: Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities, pages 66-82, 106-130.

Gillette: Rural Sociology, pages 147-167.

Harris: Health on the Farm.

Farwell: Village Improvement, pages 47-53, Appendix.

Waters: Village Nursing in the United States.

Rural Government | The Necessity of Government | The Will of the People | Two Types of Rural Government

RURAL GOVERNMENT

The Necessity of Government.—Institutions of recreation and culture are in most cases the voluntary creation of local groups of individuals, except as the state has adopted a system of compulsory education. Government may be self-imposed or fixed by external authority, in any case it cannot be escaped. It can be changed in form and efficiency; it depends for its worth upon standards of public opinion; but it cannot cease to exist. As the activity of the child needs to be regulated by parental control in the home and by the discipline of the teacher in the school, so the activity of the people in the community needs to be regulated by the authority of government. Self-control on the part of each individual or the existence of custom or public opinion without an executive agency for the enforcement of the social will, is not sufficient to safeguard and promote the interests of all. Government has everywhere been necessary.

The Reign of Law.—The existence of regulation in the community is continually evident. The child comes into relation to law when he is sent to school to conform to the law of compulsory education. He goes to school along a road built and maintained by law, takes his place in a school building provided by a board of education or school committee that executes the law, and accepts the instruction of a teacher who is employed and paid according to the law. His hours of schooling and the length of terms and vacations are determined by the same authority. During his periods of recreation he is still under the reign of law, for game laws regulate the times when he may or may not hunt and fish. When he grows older and assumes the rights of citizenship he must bear his part of the burdens of society. He has the right to vote as one of the lawmakers of the land, but he is not thereby free to cast off the restraints of law. He must pay his proportion of the taxes that sustain the government that binds him, local, State, and federal taxes. He must perform the public duty of sitting on a jury or administering civic office if he is summoned thereto. Even in his own domicile, though he be householder and head of a family, he may not injure the public health or morals by nuisances on his own premises, his financial obligations to creditors are secured against him by law, even the possession of his acres is made certain only by public record. It makes no difference whether the legal restrictions under which he lives are local or national, they are all a part of the system for which he and his neighbors are responsible, and which as citizens they are under obligation to maintain.

. Political Terms.—It is important to understand and use correctly certain terms which occur in this connection. The state is the people organized for the purpose of exercising the authority of social control. In its sociological sense it is not restricted to a large or small area, but in political parlance it is used with reference to a large district which possesses a certain degree of authority over all the people, as the State of New York, or the sovereign state of Great Britain. Government is the institution that functions for social control in accordance with the will of the people or of an individual to whose authority they submit. Politics is the science and art of government, and includes statesmanship as its highest type and the manipulation of party machinery as its lowest type. Law is the body of social regulations administered by government ostensibly for the public good. Each of these may be and in the past has been prostituted for private advantage. In the state one man or a small group has seized and held the sovereign power through the force of personal ascendancy or the prestige of birth or wealth, and has used it for himself, as history testifies by numerous examples. The forms of government in many cases have not been well adapted to the functions that they were designed to perform. The despotic administrative agencies that were overthrown by the French Revolution were ill-adapted to the governmental needs of the lower classes. Much of the governmental machinery of the American republic has not matched the constitutional forms that were originally provided, and the Constitution has had to be stretched or amended if the government of the founders of the republic was not to be revolutionized. So law and politics have had to be reorganized, revised, and reinterpreted to fit into the social need. Law is a conservative factor in progress, but it adapts itself of necessity to the demands of equity.

The Will of the People.—On the continent of Europe rural government is arranged usually by the central authority of the nation; in America it is more independent of national control. On this side of the water the colonial governments often interfered little with local freedom, and after the Revolution the people fashioned their own national organization, and in giving it certain powers jealously guarded their own local privileges. They were willing to sacrifice a general lawmaking power and grudgingly to permit the nation to have executive and judicial authority, but they retained the management of local affairs, including the raising and expenditure of direct taxes. Local government, therefore, has continued to reflect the mind of the community, a mind occasionally swayed by emotional impulse, but usually controlled by a love of order, and by an Anglo-Saxon pride in self-restraint. The will of the people has made the government and sanctions its actions. It may be that the will is not fixed or united enough to force itself effectually upon a set of public officials, and may await reform or revolution to become forceful, yet in the last resort and in the long run the will of the people prevails. By the provisions of a democratic constitution judgment is frequently passed by the people upon the administration of government, and it is within their power to change the administrative policy or to reject the agents of government whom they have previously elected. Locally they have the advantage of knowing all candidates for office. The efficiency of rural government depends much on its revenue, and farmers are reluctant to increase the tax rate; slowly they are learning the value of good roads and good schools.

The Ancient History of the Community.—The government of the rural community has a history of its own, as has the community itself. This government gradually fits itself to meet local needs, but it is slow to put away the survivals of earlier forms and customs that have outlived their usefulness. The history of the community goes back to primitive times, when the clan group recognized common interests and acknowledged the leadership of the chief or head man. Custom was the law of the clan, and its older members assisted the chief in interpreting custom. Government in the community developed in two ways, one along the path of centralization of authority, the other in the growth of democracy. One tendency was to attach an undue importance to ancient custom, and to throw about it a veil of sanctity by connecting it with religion. Such a community in its conservatism came to possess in time a static civilization, but it lacked virility and commonly fell under the control of a neighboring energetic community or prince. This is the usual history of the Oriental community. The other tendency was to adapt local law and organization to changing circumstances, and to make use of the abilities of all the members of the community, to give them a voice in the local assembly, and a right to hold public office. Such progressive communities were the city states of Greece, the republic of Rome, and the rural communities of the barbarian Germans before they settled in the Roman Empire. When the Greek communities became decadent they fell under foreign dominion; Rome imperialized the republic, but never forgot how to rule well in her municipalities; the Germans passed on their democratic ways to the English, and from that source they were brought to America.

Two Types of Rural Government.—In America there have been two types of rural government growing out of the manner of original settlement. In New England the colonists settled near together in villages grouped about the meeting-house. One or more villages constituted a town for purposes of government. In these small districts it was possible for all the citizens to meet frequently, and in an annual assembly the voters of the community elected their officers and adopted the necessary local regulations. Long custom transplanted oversea had kept a close connection between church and state, and until the new American principle of separation was universally adopted, the annual town meeting in Massachusetts was a parish meeting, in which the community voted with reference to the needs of the church as well as of the state. In the South community life was less closely knit, and town meetings were not in vogue. The parish held its vestry meetings for the transaction of ecclesiastical business, for episcopacy was the established church; overseers of the poor were elected at the same meetings. There were county assemblies for social and judicial purposes, but in each a few prominent people in the neighborhood managed affairs and perpetuated their privileges, as among the landed gentry of England. It was in these ways that popular government continued along the path of material and social progress in the North, while in the South a plantation aristocracy conservatively maintained its colonial ideas and institutions, including slavery.

With wider settlement there was an extension of these sectional differences, except near the border of both, where a blending of the two took place to some extent. County organization was necessary for a time, while the country was thinly settled, but neighborhoods organized as school districts, and by a natural process the school district became the nucleus of a township government, at first for school purposes and later for the self-government of the whole community. In some cases, as in Illinois, it was made optional with the people of a county whether they would organize a township government or not, but wherever the two systems entered into comparison and competition the township government proved the more popular. As long as pure democracy remains there must be a small local unit of government, and the New England town meeting seems wonderfully well adapted to the purpose of self-government. The recent tendency to extend democracy in the form of political primaries and the referendum is a stimulus to such organization, and it may be expected that the town system will continue to extend, even in the South.

Town and County Officials.—The town meeting is held in a public building. In colonial days the close connection between church and state made it proper that the meeting should be in the meeting-house; in the West, where the school was the nucleus of local organization, the schoolhouse was the natural voting place. In present-day New England even a small village has its town house, containing a large hall, which serves for town meetings and for community assemblies for various social purposes. In the town meeting the administrative officers, called selectmen, are chosen annually, and minor officers, including clerk, treasurer, constables, and school committee; there the community taxes itself for the salaries of its officials, for the support of the town poor, for the maintenance of highways, and for such modern improvements as street lights and a public library. Personal ability counts for more than party allegiance, though each political party usually puts its candidates in the field. An important function of the local voters is the decision under the local-option system that prevails in the East, as to whether the sale of intoxicating liquors shall be licensed for the ensuing year; under an increasing referendum policy the acts of the State legislature are frequently submitted for review to the local voters.

Where the town system does not exist or is part of a larger county, officers are elected for more extended responsibility. The functions of county officers are mainly judicial. Among the county officers are the sheriff elected by the people to preserve order and justice throughout the region, the coroner whose duty has been to investigate sudden death or disaster, and to hold an inquest to determine the origin of crime if it existed. The county commissioners or supervisors are executive officers, corresponding to the selectmen of the town; the clerk and treasurer of the county have duties similar to the town officers with those titles.

Political Relations and Responsibilities.—The local community, alike under township and county government, is a part of a larger political unit, and so has relations with and responsibilities to the greater State. The town meeting may legislate on such matters as the erection of a new schoolhouse or the building of a town highway, but it cannot locate the post-office or change the location of a State or county road. It may make its local taxes large or small, but it cannot increase or diminish the amount of the State tax or regulate the national tariff. The townsman lives under the jurisdiction of a law that is made by his representatives in the State legislature or the national Congress, and he is tried and punished for the infraction of law in a county, State, or national court. As a citizen of these larger political units he may vote for county, State, and national officials, and may himself aspire to the highest office in the gift of his countrymen.

Political Standards.—To a foreigner such a system of government may seem exceedingly complex, but by it self-government is preserved to the people of the nation, and a good degree of efficiency is maintained. There are problems of social control that need study and that produce various experiments in one State or another before they are widely adopted; there is corruption of party politics with unscrupulous methods and machinery that is too well oiled with "tainted" money; but local government averages up to the level of the intelligence and morals of the community. If the schoolhouse is an efficient centre for the proper training of boys and girls to understand their social relations and civic responsibilities, and if the meeting-house is an efficient centre for the discussion of social ethics and a religion that moves on the plane of earth as well as heaven, then the town house will give a good account of itself in intelligent voting and clean political methods. If the school-teacher and the minister have won for themselves positions of community leadership, and are educators of a forceful public opinion, and if the community is sufficiently in touch with the best constructive forces in the national political arena to feel their stimulus, the political type locally is not likely to be very low. A self-governing people will always have as good a government as it wants, and if the government is not what it should be, the will of the people has not been well educated.

READING REFERENCES

Fairlie: Local Government in Counties, Towns, and Villages.

Fiske: Civil Government in the United States, pages 34-95.

Henderson: Social Elements, pages 292-317.

Hart: Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities, pages 92-105.

Cooley: Social Organization, pages 402-410.

The New Rural School | Nature Studey in teh Rural School | Improvement in Economy and Efficiency | What the University Can Do

THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL

Nature Study in the New Rural School.—In striking contrast to such a defective rural institution as has been presented is the new rural school and the country-life movement of which it is a vital part. The first step in the new education is a growing recognition of the function of the school to relate its courses of study and its activities to the daily experience of the pupil. The background of country life is nature; therefore nature study is fundamental in the new curriculum. Careful observation of natural objects comes first, until the child is able to identify bird and bee and flower. To knowledge is added appreciation. The beauty of fern and leaf, of brookside and hillside, of star-dotted and cloud-dappled sky, is not appreciated by mere observation, but waits on the education of the mind. This is part of the task of the teacher. The economic use of natural objects and natural forces is secondary, and should remain so, but the new education takes the knowledge which has been gained by observation and the enthusiasm which has been distilled through appreciation, and applies them to the social need. Agriculture comes to seem not only an occupation for economic ends, but a vocation for social welfare also. With all the rest there is a moral and religious value in nature study. Nature is pre-eminently under the reign of law; obedience to that law, adjustment to the inexorable demands of nature, are essential to nature's children. No more wholesome moral lesson than this can be taught to the present generation of children. Nature ministers also to the spiritual. Power, order, beauty, intelligence speak through the language of the natural world to the human soul, and the thoughtful child can be led to see through nature to nature's God. Such a God is not a theory; in nature the divine presence is self-evident.

All theory in the new rural school is based on experimentation. Together the new teacher and the pupils beautify the grounds and the interior of the school building; they plan and make gardens and try all sorts of gardening experiments; they grow the plants that they study, and, best of all, they see the process of growth; from the use of soil and seed and proper care they learn lessons in practical agriculture that give satisfaction to all employed as book studies alone never could, and they make possible a far better type of agriculture when the pupils have fields of their own. Nor is it necessary for pupils to wait for their maturity, for many a lesson learned at school and demonstrated in the neighborhood is promptly applied on the neighboring farms.

The Study of the Individual.—A second subject of study in the new rural schools is the individual. Nature study is essential to a rural school, but "the noblest study of mankind is man." Though it is highly important that the individual should regard social responsibility as out-weighing his own rights, it would be unfortunate if the importance of the individual were ever overlooked. The nature of the physical self, the requirement of diet and hygiene, the moral virtues that belong to noble manhood and womanhood, the possible self-development in the midst of the rural environment that is the pupil's natural habitat are among the worthy subjects of patient and serious study through the grades. Neither physiology, psychology, nor ethics need be taught as such, but the elementary principles that enter into all of them belong among the mental assets of every individual.

Rural Social Science.—In the same way it is not necessary and perhaps may not be advisable to teach rural sociology or economics by name, even in the high school. With the extension of the curriculum to include agriculture, there is need of some consideration of the principles of the ownership and use of land, farm management, and marketing. Practical instruction in accounts, manual training, and domestic science find place in the new school. Fully as important as these is it to explain the social relations that properly exist in the home, the school, and the neighborhood, to show the mutual dependence of all upon one another, and to point out the advantages of co-operation over a prideful individualism and frequent social friction. Along with these relationships, or supplementary to them, belong the larger relations of country and town and the reciprocal service that each can render to the other, the characteristics and tendencies of social life in both types of community, and the effects of the changes that are taking place in methods of doing business and in the nature and characteristics of the people of either community. Following these topics come the problems of rural socialization through such agencies as the school, the grange, and the church, and the application of the principles already learned in a study of social relations.

Improvement in Economy and Efficiency.—While the curriculum of the schools is being fitted to the needs of the community, it is desirable that there should be improvement of economy and efficiency in the whole system of education. This is being accomplished partly by better supervision and teaching, but also by a consolidation of schools which makes possible better grading, an enlarged curriculum, improved teaching, and a deeper interest among the pupils. But one of the best results that come from school consolidation is to the community itself. A consolidated school means a larger and better-equipped building. It often has a large assembly hall, a library, and an agricultural laboratory. The new school has within it tremendous potencies. It may become under proper direction an educational centre for people of all ages and degrees of attainment. Continuation schools for adults, especially the young and middle-aged people, who were born too soon to enjoy the advantages of the new education, are possible in the late autumn and winter. Popular lectures and demonstrations on subjects of common concern and entertainments based on rural interests find place at this centre. Mixed occasionally with a rural programme belongs instruction in wider social relations and world affairs.

The Teacher a Community Leader.—With the consolidated school comes the well-trained teacher, and such a teacher deserves new recognition as a community leader. In Europe and in some parts of rural America the teacher has a permanent home near the schoolhouse, as a minister has a parsonage near the meeting-house. Such a teacher has an interest in community welfare, and a willingness to aid in community betterment. Whether man or woman, he becomes naturally a community leader, and with the backing of public sentiment and adequate support a distinct community asset. Such a teacher is more than a school instructor. He becomes a social educator of the people by interpreting to them their community life; he becomes a social inspirer to hope, ambition, and courage as he unfolds possible social ideals; he becomes a guide to a new prosperity as he defines the methods and principles on which other communities have worked out their own local successes. Through the medium of the teacher the neighborhood may be brought into vital contact with other communities in a district or whole county, and may be brought together to consider their common interests and to try experiments in co-operation, first for educational purposes and then for general community prosperity.

At first the rural teacher in many localities will have enough to do with securing proper accommodations for the children in school, for good buildings frequently wait for a teacher who has the courage to demand and persist in getting them; but the larger work for the community is only second in importance and adds greatly to the responsiveness of the older people to the suggestions of the teacher. One great weakness in the past has been the short term of service of the average teacher. It takes time to accomplish changes in a conservative community, and the new education will be successful only as the new teacher becomes a comparative fixture. To build oneself into the life of a rural community as does the physician, and to ennoble it with new ideas and higher ideals, is a missionary service that can hardly be surpassed at the present time in America.

Higher Education.—The normal school, the rural academy or county high school, and the college have their part in rural education. It rests with the normal school to supply the trained teacher and the normal schools rapidly are meeting the demands of the present situation. Training classes for rural teachers have been established in high schools or academies in twelve or more States. More and more these higher schools are relating their courses of study to the rural life in which so many of them are placed.

What the University Can Do.—An increasing number of young people from the country are going to college. The college was founded on the principle of educating American youth in a higher culture than local elementary schools could provide. It is the function of the college and the university to open wider vistas for the individual mind than is otherwise possible, to do on an infinitely larger scale what the teacher is attempting in the elementary grades. These higher schools are passing through a humanizing process; they are making more of the social sciences and the art of living well; and they are allying themselves with practical life. In the case of established institutions with traditions, and often with trustees and alumni of conservative tastes and tendencies, there are difficulties in the way of their rapid adaptation to vocational needs. It is probably best that a certain class of them should stand primarily for intellectual culture, as technical and agricultural schools stand for their specialties, but the true university should be representative of all the social interests of all the people in the State.

An illustration of what the university can do in social service for a whole State occurs in the recent history of the University of Wisconsin. It conceived its function to be not solely to educate students who came for the full university course. It considered the needs of the people of the State, and it planned to provide information and intellectual stimulus for as wide a circle as possible. It provided correspondence courses. It sent out a corps of instructors to carry on extension courses. It made affiliations with other State institutions. It reached all classes of the people and touched all their social interests. It became especially useful to the farmers. In spite of scepticism on the part of the people and some of the university officers, those who had faith in the wider usefulness of the university pushed their plan until they succeeded in organizing a short winter course in agriculture for farmers' sons and then for the older farmers, branched out into domestic courses for the women, and even made provision for the interests of the boys and girls. Reaching out still further, the university organized farmers' courses in connection with the county agricultural schools, established experiment stations, and encouraged the boys to enter local contests for agricultural prizes. By these means the university has become widely popular and has been exceedingly beneficial to the people of the State.

The Public Library.—While the school stands out as the leading educational institution of the rural community, it is by no means the sole agency of culture. Alongside it is the library. Home libraries in the country rarely contain books of value, either culturally or for practical purposes. Circulating libraries of fiction are little better. School libraries and village libraries that contain well-selected literature are to be included among the desiderata of every countryside. A few of the great books of all time belong there, a small collection of current literature, including periodicals, and an abundant literature on country life in all its phases. It is the function of the library to instruct the people what to read and how to read by supplying book lists and book exhibits, and by demonstrating occasionally through the school or the church how books may be read to get the most out of them. In the days before public libraries were common in this country, library associations were formed to secure good literature. Such associations are still useful in small communities that find it impossible to sustain a public library, and they serve as a medium for securing from the State a travelling library, which has the special advantage of frequent substitution of books. Or the school library may be the nucleus of a literary collection for the whole community—advantageously so if the school building is kept open as a community centre.

Reading Circles and Musical Clubs.—The value of the library to the public consists, of course, not in the presence of books on the shelves, but in their use. Such use is encouraged by the existence of literary or art clubs and reading circles. They supply the twofold want of companionship and culture. The proper basis of association is similarity of interests. Local history or geology, nature study, current public events in State or nation, art in some of its phases, or the literature of a particular country or period, may be the special consideration of a club or reading circle; in every case the library is the laboratory of investigation. One of the conspicuously successful organizations of the last thirty years, showing how organization grows out of social need, is the Chautauqua movement. Starting as an undertaking in Sunday-school extension by means of a summer assembly and local reading circles, in which the study of history, literature, and science was added to Bible study, the movement has grown, until it is represented by a thousand summer institutes, with numerous popular lectures and entertainments, and it is one of the most useful educational agencies anywhere in the United States.

Every community is interested in music. Music has a place on every programme, whether of church, school, or public assembly. A musical club is one of the effective types of organization for those who are like-minded in country or town. There are two varieties of organization, the first of persons who join for the pleasure that comes from agreeable society, the second of those who enter the organization for the musical culture to be obtained. Whether for diversion or study, a musical club is well worth while. Under the influence of music antagonisms soften, moroseness disappears, and sociability and good cheer take their place. The old-fashioned singing-school was one of the most popular of local social institutions; something is needed to fill its place. A club or band for the serious study of instrumental music not only gives culture to individuals, but is also an asset of increasing value to a church or community.

Woman's Clubs.—These have become so common that they need no special description, but as a social phenomenon they have their significance. They mark a new era in the emancipation of ideas; they are indicative of a new interest and ambition, and they are training-schools for future citizenship. They are of special value because of the wide areas of human interest that are brought within scope of discussion. For rural women they are a great boon, and while they have been most numerous in the larger centres, they may easily become a universal stimulus and guide to higher culture everywhere. In the absence of a grange they may serve as a centre of farm interests, and discussion may be made practical by the application of acquired knowledge to local problems, but their great value is in broadening the women's horizon of thought and interest beyond their own affairs. If rural men would organize local associations or brotherhoods for similar assembly and discussion of State and national interests they could multiply many times the benefits that come from the associations and discussions that occur on special days of political rally and voting. The rural mind needs frequent stimulus, and it needs frequent association with many minds. For this reason the cultural function is to be provided for by a method of congregation and organization approved by experience, leadership is to be provided and occasional stimulus applied, and life is to be enriched at many points. It is for the people themselves to carry on such enterprises, but the initiation of them often comes from outside. Usually, perhaps, the number of people locally who have a real desire for culture are few, but it is through the training of these few that judicious, capable leaders of the community are to be obtained.

READING REFERENCES

Hart: Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities, pages 197-277.

Cubberley: Rural Life and Education, pages 161-347.

Carney: Country Life and the Country School, pages 336-340.

Davis: Agricultural Education in the Public Schools.

Eggleston and Bruére: The Work of the Rural School, pages 193-223.

Howe: Wisconsin: an Experiment in Democracy, pages 140-182.

Country Life, pages 200-210.

Foght: The American Rural School, pages 254-281.

Rural Education | Three Fundamental Principles of Education |

RURAL EDUCATION

The School as a Social Institution.—There is one institution in every American community that stands as the gateway into the promised land of a richer life. This is the school. It supplements home training and prepares for the broader experiences of community existence. Into it goes the raw material of the bodies and minds of the children, and out of it comes the product of years of education for the making or marring of the children of the community. The school of the present is of two types. One is the relic of an earlier time, with few changes in equipment, organization, or function; it has not shared in the process of evolution enjoyed by certain other institutions of society. The other type is progressive. It has been continually finding adjustment to its environment, fitting itself to meet local needs, and is therefore abreast of the times in educational science. The demand of the age is that the progressive school keep advancing, and as fast as possible the backward school work up to the standard of efficiency.

It is a sociological principle that every social institution approximates to the standards of the community as a whole. If community life is static, school and church stay in the ruts; if it is retrograding, they are losing ground; if it is progressive, they gradually show improvement. On the other hand, the community frequently feels external stimulus, first through one of its institutions, so that the institution becomes a means of betterment. Recent years furnish examples of a new impulse generated in the neighborhood by a teacher or a minister who enters the locality with new ideas and unquenchable zeal.

Three Fundamental Principles of Education.—There are three fundamental principles that ought to have recognition in every school. The first of these is the principle that education is to be social. The pupil has to learn how to live in the community. In the home he becomes socialized so far as to learn how to get along with his own relatives and intimates, but the school teaches him how to deal with all sorts of people. He gets acquainted with his environment, both social and physical. What kind of people are living in the homes of the neighborhood? What are their characteristics, their ideals, their failings? What are their occupations, their race or nationality, their measure of comfort, poverty, or wealth? How are they hindered or helped by their natural surroundings, and have they easy means of communication and transit with the outside world? What are the principles that govern social intercourse, and how can the pupil learn to put them into practice? How is he to reconcile his own individual rights with his social obligations? These are fundamental questions that deserve careful answer, and that must be made a part of the school curriculum if the community is to enjoy social health. It matters little how such subjects are named in any course of study, but it is essential that the principles of social living should be taught under some title.

A second principle of education is that it should be vocational. The school children, after graduation, must make their own way in the world. Every normal youth looks forward in anticipation to the time when he will be earning his own support and the support of a family of his own. Every normal girl hopes to be mistress of a home of her own. There are certain things that they need to know if they are to make a success and to build happy homes. Their first business is to know how to make a home. Naturally they want to know the story of the family as a social institution, how the home is purchased or rented, the essentials of a good home, both in its equipment and in the spirit that animates it, the duties and rights of every member of the family, and the relations of the family to the community. The question arises: How may the home-maker provide for the support of the family? What are the available occupations, and how by manual and mental training may he equip himself for usefulness? How may the home-keeper do her part to make the home attractive and comfortable by a study of domestic science and home-management? Obviously, the curriculum should have a place for such studies as these that are so essential to peace and happiness and comfort in the home.

A third principle is that education is to be cultural. Social and vocational knowledge are essential, broad culture of the mind is highly desirable. No citizen of the United States is expected to grow to maturity ignorant of the simple arts of reading or spelling correctly, writing a fair hand, and solving correctly the simple problems of arithmetic. Beyond this many schools provide a smattering of æsthetic training through music and drawing. These are subjects of study in the elementary schools. But culture involves more than these. An appreciation of literature, of the meaning and value of history, of the importance of science in the modern world, of the life of nations and races outside of our own country, of right thinking and right conduct with reference to all our individual relations, constitutes for all persons a mental training that is almost indispensable. To acquire this cultural education requires time and the elimination of the less valuable from the accepted course of study. It is a most wholesome tendency that is prolonging the terms and the years of compulsory education if that education is based on the right principles, and that is discussing the possibility, first, of using part of the long summer vacation to supplement the work of the present school year, and, secondly, of giving to the young people of every State a free university education. It is never to be forgotten that culture may and should go on through life, but that will not occur unless habits of study are formed in early years, and the school years will always remain the golden opportunity for an education.

Education as It Is.—On these fundamental principles every educational system should be built. Actual education falls far short of the standard. This standard cannot be reached without proper educational ideals, expert teaching, and adequate equipment. The ideal has been narrow. Stress is put upon one type of education. In the past it has been cultural above the lower grades, and, because it has been almost exclusively so, more than half the pupils have dropped out of school before entering high school. In recent years there has been a new emphasis on practical training, and vocational courses have tended to crowd out some of the cultural courses. The social education which is most important of all has been incidental or omitted altogether. Public opinion needs to be educated to the point of understanding that all three types of training are imperatively needed.

There is a serious difficulty, however, in the way of a supply of teachers for this broad education. It is necessary to extend reform among the normal schools, but this can take place only after they have felt the demand from the grades. Another difficulty is the expense of providing the necessary equipment for vocational education. This does not prevent the introduction of social teaching or a proper attention to culture, but courses in manual training and domestic science usually cost more than most school boards are willing to meet. This is not an insurmountable obstacle, for cheap appliances are in the market and better school boards can be elected when the people want them.

Wanted—a Better Rural Education.—The school in the rural community has its own peculiar weaknesses. First among these weaknesses is the fact that education is not in terms of rural experience. It is an accepted educational principle of instruction to begin with that which is simple and familiar, and to work out to that which is complex and more remote. On that principle the rural school should make use of local geography, of rural material in arithmetic, of literature and music with a rural flavor, of nature study with drawings from nature. The opposite has been the case, with the result that the child appreciates neither his surroundings nor his opportunities, but looks upon them as something to be avoided for the more important urban life, with whose activities he has become familiar through his daily tasks.

A second weakness is that rural education omits so much of importance to the child who must make his living in the country. To discuss rural conditions in a natural and systematic way, beginning with the family and working out into the social life of the community; to study the economic side of life first on the farm and then in the neighborhood, getting hold of the underlying principles of agriculture, becoming familiar with the action of various soils and crops and the best methods of cultivation and protection from harm, to prepare by a few simple lessons in household science for the responsibility of the home, is to provide the bases of success and happiness for the boys and girls of the country. Rural education, therefore, needs redirection.

The Quality of Teaching.—The child in the country has a right to as good instruction as the city child, but because of the poverty and penuriousness of school districts and the maintenance of too many small schools, rural communities pay small salaries and cannot command good teaching. There are thousands of schools scattered over the country with less than ten pupils in attendance, housed in cheap, unattractive buildings, with teachers who have had no normal-school training, and who have no enthusiasm for the work they have to do. They may hear twenty or more classes recite on numerous subjects in the course of a day, but there is no stimulus to teacher or pupil, and school hours provide little more than a conventional method for passing the time. In such communities as these there is rarely any efficient superintendence of teaching by a paid supervisor, and the school board is unqualified to judge on any other basis than the cost of schooling for a limited number of weeks.

The small district school has the effect of strengthening the isolation that is the bane of the country regions. It continues to exist because every farmer wants the school near by for the convenience of his own family. The history of the "little red schoolhouse" throws a glamour of romance about the district headquarters, but in actual experience the district school has outlived its usefulness. There is a strong movement to consolidate district schools and at some conveniently central point, with attractive and ample grounds, to build, equip, and man a school adequate to the needs of the community. Experience shows that the expense need be no greater, because better teachers can be secured for a given expenditure when fewer are needed, and with a greater number of scholars there may be a regular system of grading and classes large enough to arouse enthusiasm and ambition. The district school operates on the principle of division of labor in educational production, but it does not enjoy the benefits of co-operation or combination for efficiency, while the consolidated school secures these advantages and at the same time a better division of labor through the grades. Rural education needs reorganization.

A Discouraging Environment.—Too many a rural community, like old China, has been facing the past. It has lacked courage and ambition. The atmosphere has been one of gloom and discouragement. This community temper appears in the social groups; it is felt in the home, and it is present in the school. It has been typical of whole sections of rural country. Dilapidated school buildings, plain and unkempt in appearance and cheap in construction, have been set in the midst of barren surroundings, unshaded by trees and unadorned with shrubs, without walks or drives to the entrance, and without even a flagpole as an evidence of patriotic enthusiasm. Inside the building there is insufficient light and ventilation, and the old-fashioned furniture is ill adapted to the needs of the pupils. The whole structure is almost devoid of the conveniences and modern devices for making school life either comfortable or worth while. In such an environment there is none of the stimulus that the school should furnish. The best pupil, who might respond quickly to stimulus, tends to sink to the level of the meanest, the mental horizon, cramped at home, is hardly broadened during school hours, and the main purpose for the existence of the institution is not achieved.

READING REFERENCES

Fiske: The Challenge of the Country, pages 151-170.

Foght: The American Rural School, pages 154-253.

Carney: Country Life and the Country School, pages 133-301.

Kern: Among Country Schools.

Gillette: Rural Sociology, pages 233-263.

Bryan: Poems of Country Life.

Rural Institututions | The Comploexity of Social Life | The Village and the Country Store

RURAL INSTITUTIONS

The Complexity of Social Life.—Closely allied to the agencies of recreation are the institutions that promote sociability and incidentally provide means of culture. It is not possible to separate social life into compartments and designate an institution as purely recreational or cultural or religious. There is a blending of interests and of functions in such an organization as the grange or the church, as there is in one individual or group a variety of interests and activities. The whole social system is complex, interwoven with a multitude of separate strands of personal desires and prejudices, group clannishness and conservatism, rival institutions developing friction and continually compelled to find new adjustments. Society in constantly in motion like the sea, its units continually striking against one another in perpetual conflict, and as continually melting into the harmony of a mighty wave breaking against the shore and forming anew to repeat the process. The difference is that social life is on an upward plane, its activities are not mere repetitions of a process, but they result in definite achievement, which in the process of centuries becomes an accumulated asset for the race. The most lasting achievements are the social institutions.

The Village and the Country Store.—Of all the social institutions of the rural community, the most important is the village itself. There scattered homesteads find their common centre of attraction; there houses are located nearer together and the spirit of neighborliness develops; there tradesmen and professional persons make their homes and at the same time diversify interests and provide for the wants of the community. The school and the church are often located in the open country, but the village forms the nucleus of social intercourse and there are most of the institutions of the community.

The most primitive among these institutions is the country store. It has economic, social, and educational functions. It supplies goods that cannot be produced in the community, it serves as a mercantile exchange for local produce. It helps to remove the necessity of home manufacture of many articles. On occasion it may include an agency for insurance or real estate; it is frequently the village post-office; it contains the public bulletin-board; often the proprietor undertakes to perform the banking function to the extent of cashing checks. Socially the store serves a useful purpose, for it is the centre to which all the inhabitants come, and from which radiate lines of communication all over the neighborhood. It is a clearing-house for news and gossip, and takes the place of a local press. It was formerly, and to some extent is still, the social club of the men of the community during the long winter evenings. As such it performed in the past an educational function. Boxes, firkins, bales of goods, superannuated chairs, and the end of a counter constituted the sittings, and men of all ages occupied them, as they listened to harangues and joined in the discussions. The group constituted the forum of democracy, where politics were frequently on debate, where public opinion was formed, where conservatism and progressivism fought their battles before they tested conclusions at the ballot-box, where science and religion entered the lists, where local interests were threshed out in the absence of more general excitement and crops and agricultural methods filled in the pauses. In recent years the store circle has degenerated. The better class of habitual members has organized its lodges or found satisfaction in the grange, while the hangers-on at the store, barber-shop, or other loafing-place indulge in small talk on matters of no real concern.

The Sewing Circle.—What the country store has done for the men as a means of communication and stimulus, the ladies' aid society or church sewing circle has done for the women. Its opportunities are less frequent, but it provides an outlet for ideas and opinions that without it cannot easily find expression. At the same time it provides active occupation for a good cause, which is more than can be said of the men's forum. When it adds to its exercises a supper to which the other sex is admitted, it performs a yet wider social service.

The Grange.—The grange is an institution that includes both sexes and combines the interests of young people with those of their elders. Its primary purpose was to consolidate the common interests of a farming community and to stimulate economic prosperity, but it has included several social features, and in many localities exists merely for social purposes. It is an institution that is well adapted to become a social and educational centre for the rural community. When the child has advanced from the home to the school and, graduating from school, has entered into the adult life of the community, the grange serves as a training-school for civic service. In the grange-room, in company with his like-minded parents and friends in the community, he learns how to hold his own in debate in parliamentary fashion, he discusses improved agriculture and listens to lectures from masters of the science, he gains literary and historical knowledge, and from time to time he participates in the social diversions that take place under grange auspices. Music enlivens the meetings, and occasionally a feast is spread or an entertainment elaborated. The Farmers' Union is a similar organization, originating in the South in 1902.

Such rural interests as these have come into existence spontaneously and continue to provide social centres of community life because other institutions do not satisfy. The home, the school, and the church are often spoken of as the essential institutions of the American community, but they do not at best perform all the functions of neighborhood life. The boys' gang, the circle of men about the stove at the corner grocery, the women's sewing circle or club, and the grange, each in its own way performs a necessary part of the group activities, and deserves recognition among the institutions that are worth while. It is scarcely necessary to note that they have their evils, but these are not of the nature of the institution. As the gang can be guided to worthy ends, so the energies of the store club and the sewing circle can be turned into channels of usefulness and low talk and scandal-mongering abolished. As for the grange, it is capable of becoming the most valuable social centre of the community, if it maintains the ideals of its existence and co-operates heartily with other social institutions of worth, like the church.

Farmers' Institutes.—Another type of organization exists which can hardly be called institutional, but which performs a useful community service. As illustrations may be mentioned the farmers' club, the farmers' institute, and the Chautauqua movement. These are organizations or movements for stimulating and broadening the interests of farm regions. They bring together the farmers and their families, sometimes from several neighborhoods and for several days, for the consideration of agricultural problems and for entertainment and mutual acquaintance. They are able to attract speakers from the State agricultural college or board, and even from national halls, and they become a valuable clearing-house of ideas and experience. They serve much the same purpose as a church or teachers' convention, and are restricted to a limited number of persons. Farmers' institutes have become a regular part of the State system of agricultural education throughout the country, and a large staff of lecturers and demonstrators exists for local instruction. The particular interests of women and young people are receiving recognition in institutes of their own in connection with the larger gatherings. The expense of such institutes is met by the government. Their success is, of course, dependent on the attendance and intelligent interest of the farm people, who gain greatly in inspiration and knowledge from contact with one another and from the experts to whom they listen. The institutes prove the value of association for the enrichment of individual and family life by means of suggestion, communication, and concerted activity.

READING REFERENCES

Buck: The Granger Movement.

Butterfield: Chapters in Rural Progress, pages 104-120, 136-161.

Carney: Country Life and the Country School, pages 90-107.

Gillette: Rural Sociology, pages 208-213.

Cubberley: Rural Life and Education, pages 117-159.

Recreation | Recreation and Culture |

RECREATION

Recreation and Culture.—Besides the economic function the community has recreative and cultural functions to perform, and these need recognition and improvement. As the child in the home has a right to time and means for play, so the community, especially the young people, may lay claim to an opportunity for recreation; as the child has the right to learn in the home, so the people of the community should have cultural privileges. These demands are the more imperative, because the city has so much of this sort to offer, and the country community cannot hold its young people unless it provides a reasonable amount of attractions. It needs no particular institution to bring this about, but it needs a new spirit to recognize and enjoy the advantages that are possible even in thinly settled localities. Every opportunity for sociability strengthens just so much a natural instinct, increases the sense of social values, and enlarges the sphere of relationships.

In the community, as in the home, children have the first claim to consideration. The recreative impulse is strong in them. When they graduate from the home into the school they find opportunity for the expression of this impulse through their new associations. On the way to and from school and at recess they have opportunity to indulge their impulses and to use their powers of invention. Among the younger children the desire for muscular activity makes running games of all sorts popular; as boys grow older they imitate the primitive impulse to hit and run, so well provided for in games of ball; girls enjoy their recreation in a quieter way as they grow older, and show a tendency to association in pairs. Associations formed in play are not usually lasting ones, but the playground reveals individual temperament and personal qualities that are likely to determine popularity or unpopularity. These play associations develop qualities of leadership, loyalty, honesty, and co-operation that tend to label a child among his mates with a reputation that he carries into later life.

The Gang.—Since play is a natural instinct it is to be expected that children will seek a natural rather than an artificial way of expressing the instinct. Organization at best can only direct activities, giving recognition to the social inclinations of childhood. For example, it is not easy for a school-teacher to organize a boys' society and to direct it in such activities as appeal to him. The boys prefer to choose their own mates and their own chief, and the activities that appeal to them are not the same as those that seem to their elders to be most suitable. Between the ages of ten and sixteen the boy tends to gang life. He may work on the farm all day, but evenings and Sundays, if he is permitted to amuse himself, he joins a gang. Obviously the characteristics of the gang are seen best in the city, but they are not materially different in the country. Hunting and fishing may be enjoyed at odd times of leisure by the boy without companions, but the delights of the swimming-hole can be enjoyed thoroughly only as he has the companionship of other boys, and skating gains in virtue as a sport with the possibility of hockey on the ice. This liking for companionship exhibits itself in the habitual association of boys of a certain district for mutual enjoyment. On every possible opportunity they get together in the woods, pretend they are Indians, hunt, fish, and fight in company, build their own camps and plunder the camps of other gangs, and practise other activities characteristic of the savage age through which they are passing. Gangs exhibit a love of cruelty to those whom they may plague, a fondness for appropriating property which does not belong to them, and if possible provoking chase for the sake of the thrill that comes from the attempt to get away. Group athletics of various sorts are popular. Six out of seven gangs have physical activities as the purpose of their organization. The boys do not necessarily adopt any particular organization or choose a leader; on the contrary, they are a natural group, tacitly acknowledging the leadership of the most masterly and versatile individual, finding their own headquarters and adopting the forms of activity that appeal most to the group, according to the season and the opportunities of the region of country where they belong.

Leadership of Boys.—The gang is but one expression of the group instinct. It is often a nursery of bad habits that sometimes lead to crime and degeneracy, but it is capable of being used for the good of boyhood. The gang develops the virtues of loyalty to the group and loyalty to the group principles. It stimulates self-sacrifice and co-operation, honor and courage. These virtues can be cultivated by the man who aspires to boy leadership and directed into channels of usefulness as the boy passes on toward manhood. But there must be a frank recognition of the place of the gang in boy life, and not only a remembrance of one's own boyhood days, but also an appreciation of them. One of the best ways that has been devised for securing adult leadership without loss of the gang spirit and characteristics is the Boy Scout movement. It transforms the unorganized gang into the organized patrol, and affiliates it with other patrols in a wide organization, adopts the natural activities of boys as a part of its programme, and adds others of absorbing interest. Obedience is added to the boy's other virtues, and social education is acquired rapidly.

Varieties of Boys' Clubs.—The gang is one of the few natural groups of the community, and should be related to other institutions. It should not be hampered by them, but should receive the encouragement and assistance of home, school, and church. The Boy Scout movement has been associated with the churches; other boys' organizations have been connected with the Sunday-schools; the home and the day-school may well provide resources or quarters for the gang, and recognize its activities. But the gang is not the only organization suited to the boys of a community. There are special interests provided for in more artificial groups, such as athletic, debating, agricultural, or natural history clubs. These attract like-minded individuals from all parts of the community, and help to balance the clan spirit developed by the gang. These clubs may centre in school or meeting-house or have quarters of their own. One provision that is needed for the satisfaction of boy life in the rural community is the field or green where two rival gangs may contend legitimately for supremacy in sport, or clubs from different neighborhoods may test their prowess and arouse local pride and enthusiasm. The green needs little or no equipment, but it gains recognition as the boys' own training-field and serves as a safeguard to the health and morals of the youth of the community. The gang and the green are the proper social institutions of boy life in the rural community.

Girls' Clubs.—The instinct of the girl is not the same as that of the boy. She has other interests that require different organization. Her disposition is less active, and she does not so readily form a group organization. She associates with other girls in a set that is less democratic than her brother's gang. It has its rivalries and enmities, but hateful thoughts, angry words, and slighting attitudes take the place of the active warfare of the boys. Girls enjoy clubs that are adapted to their interests. Reading clubs, cooking clubs, sewing clubs, musical organizations, and philanthropic societies are useful forms of neighborhood association, and their activities may be correlated with the work of the home, the school, and the church more easily than those of their brothers.

In the country girls' organizations are very properly based on the interests of the farm, with which they are so closely related. They combine, as their brothers do, on the economic principle, organizing their poultry clubs, preserving clubs, or knitting clubs, but the social purpose is not lost sight of in the particular economic concern. An hour of sociability properly follows an hour of economic discussion or activity. Schoolgirls are very willing to accept the leadership of their teacher in a nature or culture club which will broaden their interests and stimulate their ambitions. One of the organizations that has sprung into existence on the model of the Boy Scout movement is the organization of Camp-Fire Girls. It is designed to meet the demand for companionship in a wholesome, pleasant way, and by its incentives to healthy activity and womanly virtue it helps to build character.

Recreation in the Country.—The recreative instinct is not confined to children. For the adult labor is lightened, worries banished, and carking care is less corroding, if now and then an evening of diversion interrupts the monotony of rural life, or a day off is devoted to a picnic or neighborhood frolic. There is the same interest in the country that there is in the city in methods of entertainment that satisfy primitive instincts. The instinct for human society enters into all of them. Other specific causes produce a fondness for the various forms of diversion indulged in. Among uncultured people especially an evening gathering soon proves dull unless there is something to do. Cards occupy the mind and hands and create a mild excitement that banishes troublesome thoughts and anxieties. Dancing breaks up the stiffness of a party, brings the sexes together, and provides the exhilaration of rhythmic motion. Barn frolics at maple-sugar or harvest time accomplish the same end, only less satisfactorily. Musicales and amateur theatricals provide an exhibition of skill, cultivate the æsthetic nature, gratify the dramatic instinct, and furnish opportunity for mutual acquaintance among the people of the community, who meet all too seldom in social gatherings, and at the same time they furnish wholesome entertainment for the community at small expense. The proceeds are used for local advantage, instead of being carried out of town. The passing show and moving pictures are less desirable. They are often cheap and degrading, though the kinetoscope can be made valuable for education.

The out-of-door gatherings that occur when the countryside is not too busy to plan or enjoy them are a helpful means of cultivating a community spirit. Athletic contests on the boys' own field readily become a community affair, with a speech and refreshments afterward, and the award of a prize or pennant to the victorious individual or team. The old-fashioned picnic to lake or woods or hilltop is one of the best means for forming and strengthening friendships and for giving persons of all ages a good time. Friendly contests of various sorts all come into play to add to the pleasure of the day. Fourth of July, Arbor Day, Old Home Week, and other occasions, give opportunity for recreation and the cultivation of neighborhood interests.

A Community Centre.—Aside from the natural isolation and lack of energy and social interest among country people, the lack of efficient leadership is the most serious handicap to organized sociability. Added to these is the want of a neighborhood centre both convenient and suitable. A community building, tasteful in architecture and equipped for community use, is a great desideratum, but is not often available. There seems to be no good reason why the schoolhouse should not be such a social centre as the community needs, but most school buildings are not adapted to such use. In the absence of any other provision it is the privilege of the rural church to furnish the opportunity for neighborhood gatherings, and there is a growing conviction that this is one of the opportunities of the church to ally itself to general community interests. The church represents, or should represent, the whole community of men, women, young people, and children. It has all their interests at heart. It makes provision for them in Sunday-school, young people's societies, and other groups. It recognizes the social interests in festivals and sociables. It may usefully add to its functions that of raising the standards of community recreation, if no other proper provision for it exists; it is under obligation to find wholesome substitutes for the abuses that exist in the field of amusement which it commonly condemns.

READING REFERENCES

Curtis: Play and Recreation for the Open Country.

Puffer: The Boy and His Gang.

Boy Scout Handbook; Handbook for Scout Masters.

The Book of the Campfire Girls.

Stern: Neighborhood Entertainments.

Cubberley: Rural Life and Education, pages 117-126.

Occupation | Rural Occupations | Differentiation of Occupation

OCCUPATIONS

Rural Occupations.—An important part of the study of the rural community is its social functions. These do not differ greatly in name from the functions of the family, but they have wider scope. The domestic functions are confined almost entirely to the homes. The village usually includes a boarding-house or a country inn for the homeless few, and here and there an almshouse shelters the few derelicts whom the public must support.

Economic activities in the main are associated with the farm home. The common occupation in the country is agriculture. Individuals are born into country homes, learn the common occupation, and of necessity in most cases make it their means of livelihood. Rural people are accustomed to hard labor for long hours. There are seasons when comparative inactivity renders life dull; there are individuals who enjoy pensions or the income of inherited or accumulated funds, and so are not compelled to resort to manual labor, and there are directors of agricultural industry; there are always a shiftless few who are lazy and poor; but these are only exceptions to the general rule of active toil. Not all rural districts are agricultural. Some are frontier settlements where lumbering or mining are the chief interests. Even where agriculture prevails there are varieties such as corn-raising or fruit-growing regions; there are communities that are progressively making use of the latest results of scientific agriculture, and communities that are almost as antique in their methods as the ancient Hebrews. Also, even in homogeneous districts, like those devoted to cotton-growing or tobacco-culture, there are always individuals who choose or inherit an occupation that supplies a special want to the community, such as carpenters, blacksmiths, and masters of other crafts. Occupations indicate an attempt to gear personal energies to the opportunities or requirements of a physical or social environment.

All these occupations have more than economic value; they are fundamental to social prosperity. It is self-evident that the physician and the school-teacher render community service, but it is not so clear that the farmer who keeps his house well painted and his grounds in order, and who is improving his cattle and increasing the yield of his fields and woodland by scientific methods, and who organizes his neighbors for co-operative endeavor, is doing more than an economic service. Yet it is by means of inspiration, information, and co-operation that the community moves forward, and he who supplies these is a social benefactor.

Differentiation of Occupation.—If community life is to continue there must be the producers who farm or mine or manufacture; in rural districts they are farmers, hired laborers, woodcutters, threshers, and herdsmen. In the co-operation of village life there must be the craftsmen and tradesmen who finish and distribute the products that the others have secured, such as the miller, the carpenter, the teamster, and the storekeeper. For comfort and peace in the neighborhood there must be added the physician, the minister, the school-teacher, the justice of the peace, and such public functionaries as postmaster, mail-carrier, stage-driver, constable or sheriff, and other town or county officials. Without specific allotment of lands as on the feudal estate, or distribution of tasks as in a socialistic commonwealth, the community accomplishes a natural division of labor and diversification of industry, supports its own institutions by self-imposed taxes and voluntary contributions, and supplies its quota to the larger State of which it forms a democratic part. In spite of the constant exercise of individual independence and competition, there is at the foundation of every rural community the principle of co-operation and service as the only working formula for human life.

Co-operation.—One great advantage of community life over the home is the increased opportunity for co-operation. In new communities families work together to erect buildings, make roads, support schools, and organize and maintain a church. They aid each other in sickness, accident, and distress. Farmers find it profitable to unite for purposes of production, distribution, communication, transportation, and insurance. It may not seem worth while for a single farmer to buy an expensive piece of agricultural machinery for his own use, but it is well worth while for four or five to club together and buy it. The cost of an irrigation plant is much too high for one man, but a community can afford it when it will add materially to the production of all the farms in a district. In a region interested mainly in dairying a co-operative creamery can be made very profitable; in grain-producing sections co-operative elevator service makes possible the storage of grain until the demand increases values; in fruit-raising regions co-operation in selling has made the difference between success and failure. A co-operative telephone company has been the means of supplying several adjacent communities with easy communication. Co-operative banks are a convenient means of securing capital for agricultural use, and co-operative insurance companies have proved serviceable in carrying mutual risks.

The advantages of such co-operation are by no means confined to economic interests. The best result is the increasing realization of mutual dependence and common concern. Co-operation is an antidote to the evils of isolation and independence. A co-operative telephone company may not pay large dividends, and may eventually sell out to a larger corporation, but it has introduced people to one another, brightened circumscribed lives, and taught the people social understanding and sympathy. But aside from all such artificial forms of co-operation, the very custom of providing such common institutions as the school and the church is a valuable form of social service, entirely apart from the specific results that come from the exercises of the schoolroom and the meeting-house.

Why Co-operation May Fail.—Many co-operative enterprises fail, and this is not strange. There is always the natural conservatism and individualism of the American people to contend with; there is jealousy of the men who have been elected to responsible offices, and there is lack of experience and good judgment by those who undertake to engineer the active organization. Sometimes the method of organization or financing is faulty. Such enterprises work best among foreigners who have a good opinion of them, and know how to conduct them because they have seen them work well in Europe. Every successful attempt at economic co-operation is a distinct gain for rural community betterment, for upon co-operation depends the success of the efforts being put forth for rural improvement generally.

Competition Within the Group.—Co-operation is of greatest value when it includes within it a wholesome amount of individual competition for the sake of general as well as individual gain. Boys' agricultural clubs, organized in the South and West, have raised the standards of corn and tomato production by stimulating a friendly spirit of rivalry among boys, and as a result the fathers of the boys have adopted new and more scientific methods to increase their own production. Agricultural fairs may be made powerful agencies for a similar stimulus. At State and county fairs agricultural colleges and experiment stations find it worth while to exhibit their methods and processes with the results obtained; wide-awake farmers get new ideas, which they try out subsequently at home; young people are encouraged to try for the premiums offered the next year, and steadily the general level of excellence rises throughout the district.

READING REFERENCES

McKeever: Farm Boys and Girls, pages 171-196, 275-305.

Gillette: Rural Sociology, pages 20-31.

"Country Life," Annals of American Academy, pages 58-68.

Kern: Among Country Schools, pages 129-157.

Ford: Co-operation in New England, pages 87-185.

Coulter: Co-operation Among Farmers, pages 3-23.

Herrick: Rural Credits, pages 456-480.