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CHAPTERS IN RURAL PROGRESS
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Agents
THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
NEW YORK
THE CUNNINGHAM, CURTISS & WELCH COMPANY
LOS ANGELES
THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, FUKUOKA, SENDAI
THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY
SHANGHAI
KARL W. HIERSEMANN
LEIPZIG
CHAPTERS IN RURAL PROGRESS
BY
KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD
_President of the Massachusetts Agricultural College_
[Illustration: Publisher's logo]
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
COPYRIGHT 1907 BY
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
All Rights Reserved
Published February 1908
Second Impression June 1909
Third Impression May 1911
Fourth Impression February 1913
Fifth Impression October 1916
Composed and Printed By
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
TO MY FATHER
IRA HOWARD BUTTERFIELD
WHOSE CONSTANT CONCERN FOR RURAL WELFARE
AND LIFE-LONG SERVICE TO RURAL INTERESTS
HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE CHIEF
INCENTIVES TO THE STUDIES
LYING BEHIND THIS BOOK
PREFACE
This book does not offer a complete analysis of the rural problem; but
attempts, in general, to present some of the more significant phases of
that problem, and, in particular, to describe some of the agencies at
work in solving it. Several of the chapters were originally magazine
articles, and, though all have been revised and in some cases entirely
rewritten, they have the limitations of such articles. Other chapters
consist of more formal addresses. Necessarily there will be found some
lack of uniformity in style and in method of presentation, and
occasional duplication of argument or statement.
For permission to use articles, in whole or in part, I have to thank the
editors of the _Chautauquan_, _Arena_, _Forum_, _Review of Reviews_,
_Popular Science Monthly_, _Michigan Alumnus_, _New England Farmer_,
_Cornell Countryman_; also Professor L. R. Taft, superintendent of
Farmers' Institutes in Michigan, and the officers of the American Civic
Association. Two chapters comprise material heretofore unpublished.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Study of Rural Life 3
II. The Problems of Progress 11
THE OUTLOOK
III. The Expansion of Farm Life 45
IV. The New Farmer 53
V. Culture from the Corn-Lot 66
AGENCIES OF PROGRESS
VI. Education for the Farmer 77
VII. Farmers' Institutes 92
VIII. The Hesperia Movement 104
IX. The Rural School and the Community 121
X. The Grange 136
XI. Opportunities for Farm Women 162
XII. The Country Church and Progress 170
XIII. A Summary of Recent Progress 183
FORWARD STEPS
XIV. The Social Side of the Farm Question 199
XV. The Needs of New England Agriculture 204
XVI. An Untilled Field in American Education 216
XVII. Federation for Rural Progress 233
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
THE STUDY OF RURAL LIFE
The American farm problem, particularly its sociological aspect, has not
as yet had the attention that it deserves from students. Much less have
the questions that concern rural social advancement found the popular
mind; in truth, the general city public has not been deeply interested
in the farmer.
But there seem to be recent indications that the sentiment is changing.
The heated discussions in New England about Mr. Hartt's interesting
clinic over a decadent hill-town, the suggestive fast-day proclamation
of Governor Rollins of New Hampshire a few years ago, the marvelous
development of agricultural education, the renewed study of the rural
school, the widespread and growing delight in country life, have all
aroused an interest in and presage a new attention to rural conditions.
This is well. The sociologist can hardly afford to omit the rural
classes from the scope of his study, especially if he desires to
investigate the practical phases of his subject. Moreover, no one with
intelligent notions of affairs should be ignorant of the forces that
control rural life.
In view of this apparent change in the attitude of people toward the
farm problem, it may not be idle to suggest some possible errors that
should be avoided when we are thinking of rural society. The student
will doubtless approach his problem fortified against misconceptions--he
probably has thoughtfully established his view-point. But the average
person in the city is likely to call up the image of his ancestral home
of a generation ago, if he were born in the country, or, if not, to draw
upon his observations made on a summer vacation or on casual business
trips into the interior. Or he takes his picture from _Shore Acres_ and
the _Old Homestead_. In any case it is not improbable that the image may
be faulty and as a consequence his appreciation of present conditions
wholly inadequate. Let us consider some of these possible sources of
misconception.
In the first place it is not fair to compare country life as a whole
with the best city conditions. This is often done. The observer usually
has education, culture, leisure, the experience of travel, more or less
wealth; his acquaintance is mostly with people of like attainments.
When he fails to find a rural environment that corresponds in some
degree to his own and that of his friends, he is quick to conclude that
the country has nothing to offer him, that only the city ministers to
the higher wants of man. He forgets that he is one of a thousand in the
city, and does not represent average city life. He fails to compare the
average country conditions with the average city conditions, manifestly
the only fair basis for comparison. Or he may err still more grievously.
He may set opposite each other the worst country conditions and the
better city conditions. He ought in all justice to balance country slum
with city slum; and certainly so if he insists on trying to find
palaces, great libraries, eloquent preachers, theaters, and rapid
transit in each rural community. City life goes to extremes; country
life, while varied, is more even. In the country there is little of
large wealth, luxury, and ease; little also of extreme poverty, reeking
crime, unutterable filth, moral sewage. Farmers are essentially a middle
class and no comparison is fair that does not keep this fact ever in
mind.
We sometimes hear the expression, "Country life is so barren--that to me
is its most discouraging aspect." Much country life is truly barren;
but much more of it is so only relatively and not essentially. We must
admit that civilization is at least partially veneer; polish does
wonders for the appearance of folks as well as of furniture. But while
the beauty of "heart of oak" is enhanced by its "finish," its utility is
not destroyed by a failure to polish it. Now, much of the so-called
barrenness of country life is the oak minus the polish. We come to
regard polish as essential; it is largely relative. And not only may we
apply the wrong standard to the situation, but our eyes may deceive us.
To the uninitiated a clod of dry earth is the most unpromising of
objects--it is cousin to the stone, and the type of barrenness. But to
the elect it is pregnant with the possibilities of seed-time and
harvest, of a full fruitage, of abundance and content for man and beast.
And there is many a farm home, plain to an extreme, devoid of the
veneer, a home that to the man of the town seems lacking in all the
things that season life, but a home which virtue, intelligence, thrift,
and courage transform into a garden of roses and a type of heaven. I do
not justify neglect of the finer material things of life, nor plead for
drab and homespun as passports to the courts of excellence; but I insist
that the plainness, simple living, absence of luxury, lack of polish
that may be met with in the country, do not necessarily accompany a
condition barren of the essentials of the higher life.
Sometimes rural communities are ridiculed because of the trivial nature
of their gossip, interests, and ambitions. There may be some justice in
the criticism, though the situation is pathetic rather than humorous.
But is the charge wholly just? In comparing country with town we are
comparing two environments; necessarily, therefore, objects of gossip,
interests, and ambitions differ therein. We expect that. It is no
criticism to assert that fact. The test is not that of an existing
difference, but of an essential quality. Is not Ben Bolt's new top buggy
as legitimate a topic for discussion as is Arthur John Smythe's new
automobile? Does not the price of wheat mean as much to the hard-working
grower as to the broker who may never see a grain of it? May not the
grove at Turtle Lake yield as keen enjoyment as do the continental
forests? Is the ambition to own a fine farm more ignoble than the desire
to own shares in a copper mine? It really does not matter so much what
one gossips about or what one's delights are or what the carving of the
rungs on ambition's ladder; the vital question is the effect of these
things on character. Do they stunt or encourage the inner life? It must
be admitted that country people do not always accept their environing
opportunities for enjoying the higher life of mind and heart. But do
they differ in this respect from their cousins of the town?
We must remember, too, that this is a large country, and that a study of
rural conditions in a certain community, township, county, state, or
section may not give us the correct basis upon which to determine the
agricultural status of the country.
Nor must we make the mistake of confusing conservatism and decadence.
That the city will in many particulars always progress more rapidly than
the country is inevitable. But speed is not the ultimate criterion of a
full life. Again must we apply the test whether the gain is relative or
essential. Telephones, free mail delivery, electric car lines, operas,
great libraries, cathedrals--all come to the city first, some of them
solely to the city. The country cannot hope to be other than inherently
conservative as regards such institutions. But may there not be found
such adaptations of or substitutes for these institutions as shall not
only preserve the rural community from decadence, but, indeed, build it
up into strength, beauty, and purity?
Comparative lack of identical resources need not mean poverty of
attainment. Let us agree that relatively the country will lag behind the
town. Is the country continually gaining in those things that are
fundamentally important and that minister to its best life? is the
kernal question.
Perhaps the most common error in studying rural conditions is the
failure to distinguish the vital difference between the urban problem
and the rural problem. _Sociologically the city problem is that of
congestion; the rural problem is that of isolation._ The social
conditions of country and city are wholly different. Institutions that
succeed in alleviating social disorders in the town may or may not
succeed in the country--in any event they must be adapted to country
needs. This applies to organizations, schools, libraries, social
settlements. And the adaptation must be one not only of form but of
spirit. In other words, the farm problem is a peculiar problem,
demanding special study, a new point of view, and sometimes unique
institutions.
Those accustomed to large cities make a pretty broad classification of
"country." A town of five thousand people is to them "country." But it
is not country. The problem of the village and the small town is not the
rural problem, take it the nation over. The smaller the town, the more
nearly it approaches to rural conditions, but its essential problem is
not that of the farm.
And, finally, let no one suppose that philanthropy is the chief medicine
for the social ill-health of the country. The intelligent student who
possesses the true spirit of helpfulness may find in the rural problem
ample scope for both his brain and his heart. But he will make a
fundamental and irreparable error if he starts out with the notion that
pity, charity, and direct gifts will win the day. You may flatter the
American farmer; you cannot patronize him. He demands and needs, not
philanthropy, but simple justice, equal opportunity, and better
facilities for education. He is neither slave nor pauper.
To conclude: There is a farm problem, and it is worth solving. But it
differs from the city problem. And if, as is to be hoped, the recently
renewed interest in this question is to be permanent, we trust that
those who desire to make it a special study, as well as those whose
interest in it is general and widely human, may from the start avoid the
errors that are likely to obscure rural conditions when viewed through
city eyes.
CHAPTER II
THE PROBLEMS OF PROGRESS[1]
It is impossible to acquire a keen and permanent interest in the rural
problem unless one first of all is cognizant of its significance. And
lack of knowledge at this point may in part account for the fact already
alluded to that in America the farm problem has not been adequately
studied. So stupendous has been the development of our manufacturing
industries, so marvelous the growth of our urban population, so pressing
the questions raised by modern city life, that the social and economic
interests of the American farmer have, as a rule, received minor
consideration. We are impressed with the rise of cities like Chicago,
forgetting for the moment that half of the American people still live
under rural conditions. We are perplexed by the labor wars that are
waged about us, for the time unmindful that one-third of the workers of
this country make their living immediately from the soil. We are
astounded, and perhaps alarmed, at the great centralization of capital,
possibly not realizing that the capital invested in agriculture in the
United States nearly equals the combined capital invested in the
manufacturing and railway industries. But if we pause to consider the
scope and nature of the economic and social interests involved, we
cannot avoid the conclusion that the farm problem is worthy of serious
thought from students of our national welfare.
We are aware that agriculture does not hold the same relative rank among
our industries that it did in former years, and that our city population
has increased far more rapidly than has our rural population. We do not
ignore the fact that urban industries are developing more rapidly than
is agriculture, nor deny the seriousness of the actual depletion of
rural population, and even of community decadence, in some portions of
the Union. But these facts merely add to the importance of the farm
question. And it should not be forgotten that there has been a large and
constant growth both of our agricultural wealth and of our rural
population. During the last half-century there was a gain of 500 per
cent. in the value of farm property, while the non-urban population
increased 250 per cent. Agriculture has been one of the chief elements
of America's industrial greatness, it is still our dominant economic
interest, and it will long remain at least a leading industry. The
people of the farm have furnished a sturdy citizenship and have been the
primary source of much of our best leadership in political, business,
and professional life. For an indefinite future, a large proportion of
the American people will continue to live in a rural environment.
WHAT IS THE FARM PROBLEM?
Current agricultural discussion would lead us to think that the farm
problem is largely one of technique. The possibilities of the
agricultural industry, in the light of applied science, emphasize the
need of the farmer for more complete knowledge of soil and plant and
animal, and for increased proficiency in utilizing this knowledge to
secure greater production at less cost. This is a fundamental need. It
lies at the basis of success in farming. But it is not the farm problem.
Business skill must be added, business methods enforced. The farmer must
be not only a more skilful produce-grower, but also a keener
produce-seller. But the moment we enter the realm of the market we step
outside the individualistic aspect of the problem as embodied in the
current doctrine of technical agricultural teaching, and are forced to
consider the social aspect as emphasized, first of all, in the economic
category of price. Here we find many factors--transportation cost,
general market conditions at home and abroad, the status of other
industries, and even legislative activities. The farm problem becomes an
industrial question, not solely one of technical and business skill.
Moreover, the problem is one of a successful industry as a whole, not
merely the personal successes of even a respectable number of individual
farmers. The farming class must progress as a unit.
But have we yet reached the heart of the question? Is the farm problem
one of technique plus business skill, plus these broad economic
considerations? Is it not perfectly possible that agriculture as an
industry may remain in a fairly satisfactory condition, and yet the
farming class fail to maintain its status in the general social order?
Is it not, for instance, quite within the bounds of probability to
imagine a good degree of economic strength in the agricultural industry
existing side by side with either a peasant regime or a
landlord-and-tenant system? Yet would we expect from either system the
same social fruitage that has been harvested from our American yeomanry?
We conclude, then, that _the farm problem consists in maintaining upon
our farms a class of people who have succeeded in procuring for
themselves the highest possible class status, not only in the
industrial, but in the political and the social order--a relative
status, moreover, that is measured by the demands of American ideals._
The farm problem thus connects itself with the whole question of
democratic civilization. This is not mere platitude. For we cannot
properly judge the significance and the relation of the different
industrial activities of our farmers, and especially the value of the
various social agencies for rural betterment, except by the standard of
class status. It is here that we seem to find the only satisfactory
philosophy of rural progress.
We would not for a moment discredit the fundamental importance of
movements that have for their purpose the improved technical skill of
our farmers, better business management of the farm, and wiser study and
control of market conditions. Indeed, we would call attention to the
fact that social institutions are absolutely necessary means of securing
these essential factors of industrial success. In the solution of the
farm problem we must deliberately invoke the influence of quickened
means of communication, of co-operation among farmers, of various means
of education, and possibly even of religious institutions, to stimulate
and direct industrial activity. What needs present emphasis is the fact
that there is a definite, real, social end to be held in view as the
goal of rural endeavor. The highest possible social status for the
farming class is that end.
We may now, as briefly as possible, describe some of the difficulties
that lie in the path of the farmers in their ambition to attain greater
class efficiency and larger class influence, and some of the means at
hand for minimizing the difficulties. A complete discussion of the farm
problem should, of course, include thorough consideration of the
technical, the business, and the economic questions implied by the
struggle for industrial success; for industrial success is prerequisite
to the achievement of the greatest social power of the farming class.
But we shall consider only the social aspects of the problem.
RURAL ISOLATION
Perhaps the one great underlying social difficulty among American
farmers is their comparatively isolated mode of life. The farmer's
family is isolated from other families. A small city of perhaps twenty
thousand population will contain from four hundred to six hundred
families per square mile, whereas a typical agricultural community in a
prosperous agricultural state will hardly average more than ten families
per square mile. The farming class is isolated from other classes.
Farmers, of course, mingle considerably in a business and political way
with the men of their trading town and county seat; but, broadly
speaking, farmers do not associate freely with people living under urban
conditions and possessing other than the rural point of view. It would
be venturesome to suggest very definite generalizations with respect to
the precise influence of these conditions, because, so far as the writer
is aware, the psychology of isolation has not been worked out. But two
or three conclusions seem to be admissible, and for that matter rather
generally accepted.
The well-known conservatism of the farming class is doubtless largely
due to class isolation. Habits, ideas, traditions, and ideals have long
life in the rural community. Changes come slowly. There is a tendency to
tread the well-worn paths. The farmer does not easily keep in touch with
rapid modern development, unless the movements or methods directly
affect him. Physical agencies which improve social conditions, such as
electric lights, telephones, and pavements, come to the city first. The
atmosphere of the country speaks peace and quiet. Nature's routine of
sunshine and storm, of summer and winter, encourages routine and
repetition in the man who works with her.
A complement of this rural conservatism, which at first thought seems a
paradox, but which probably grows out of these same conditions of
isolation, is the intense radicalism of a rural community when once it
breaks away from its moorings. Many farmers are unduly suspicious of
others' motives; yet the same people often succumb to the wiles of the
charlatan, whether medical or political. Farmers are usually
conservative in politics and intensely loyal to party; but the Populist
movement indicates the tendency to extremes when the old allegiance is
left behind. Old methods of farming may be found alongside
ill-considered attempts to raise new crops or to utilize untried
machines.
Other effects of rural isolation are seen in a class provincialism that
is hard to eradicate, and in the development of minds less alert to
seize business advantages and less far-sighted than are developed by the
intense industrial life of the town. There is time to brood over wrongs,
real and imaginary. Personal prejudices often grow to be rank and
coarse-fibered. Neighborhood feuds are not uncommon and are often
virulent. Leadership is made difficult and sometimes impossible. It is
easy to fall into personal habits that may mark off the farmer from
other classes of similar intelligence, and that bar him from his
rightful social place.
It would, however, be distinctly unfair to the farm community if we did
not emphasize some of the advantages that grow out of the rural mode of
life. Farmers have time to think, and the typical American farmer is a
man who has thought much and often deeply. A spirit of sturdy
independence is generated, and freedom of will and of action is
encouraged. Family life is nowhere so educative as in the country. The
whole family co-operates for common ends, and in its individual members
are bred the qualities of industry, patience, and perseverance. The
manual work of the schools is but a makeshift for the old-fashioned
training of the country-grown boy. Country life is an admirable
preparation for the modern industrial and professional career.
Nevertheless, rural isolation is a real evil. Present-day living is so
distinctively social, progress is so dependent upon social agencies,
social development is so rapid, that if the farmer is to keep his status
he must be fully in step with the rest of the army. He must secure the
social view-point. The disadvantages of rural isolation are largely in
the realm of the social relations, its advantages mostly on the
individual and moral side. Farm life makes a strong individual; it is a
serious menace to the achievement of class power.
A cure for isolation sometimes suggested is the gathering of the farmers
into villages. This remedy, however, is of doubtful value. In the first
place, the scheme is not immediately practicable. About three and
one-half billions of dollars are now invested in farm buildings, and it
will require some motive more powerful than that inspired by academic
logic to transfer, even gradually, this investment to village groups.
Moreover, it is possible to dispute the desirability of the remedy. The
farm village at best must be a mere hamlet. It can secure for the farmer
very few of the urban advantages he may want, except that of permitting
closer daily intercourse between families. And it is questionable if the
petty society of such a village can compensate for the freedom and
purity of rural family life now existing. It may even be asserted with
some degree of positiveness that the small village, on the moral and
intellectual sides, is distinctly inferior to the isolated farm home.
At the present time rural isolation in America is being overcome by the
development of better means of communication among farmers who still
live on their farms. So successful are these means of communication
proving that we cannot avoid the conclusion that herein lies the remedy.
Improved wagon roads, the rural free mail delivery, the farm telephone,
trolley lines through country districts, are bringing about a positive
revolution in country living. They are curing the evils of isolation,
without in the slightest degree robbing the farm of its manifest
advantages for family life. The farmers are being welded into a more
compact society. They are being nurtured to greater alertness of mind,
to greater keenness of observation, and the foundations are being laid
for vastly enlarged social activities. The problem now is to extend
these advantages to every rural community--in itself a task of huge
proportions. If this can be done and isolation can be reduced to a
minimum, the solution of all the other rural social problems will become
vastly easier.
FARMERS' ORGANIZATION
Organization is one of the pressing social problems that American
farmers have to face. The importance of the question is intrinsic,
because of the general social necessity for co-operation which
characterizes modern life. Society is becoming consciously
self-directive. The immediate phase of this growing self-direction lies
in the attempts of various social groups to organize their powers for
group advantage. And if, as seems probable, this group activity is to
remain a dominant feature of social progress, even in a fairly coherent
society, it is manifest that there will result more or less of
competition among groups.
The farming class, if at all ambitious for group influence, can hardly
avoid this tendency to organization. Farmers, indeed more than any
other class, need to organize. Their isolation makes thorough
organization especially imperative. And the argument for co-operation
gains force from the fact that relatively the agricultural population is
declining. In the old days farmers ruled because of mere mass. That is
no longer possible. The naive statement that "farmers must organize
because other classes are organizing" is really good social philosophy.
In the group competition just referred to there is a tendency for class
interests to be put above general social welfare. This is a danger to be
avoided in organization, not an argument against it. So the farmers'
organization should be guarded, at this point, by adherence to the
principle that organization must not only develop class power, but must
be so directed as to permit the farmers to lend the full strength of
their class to general social progress.
Organization thus becomes a test of class efficiency, and consequently a
prerequisite for solving the farm problem. Can the farming class secure
and maintain a fairly complete organization? Can it develop efficient
leaders? Can it announce, in sound terms, its proposed group policy? Can
it lend the group influence to genuine social progress? If so, the
organization of farmers becomes a movement of pre-eminent importance.
Organization, moreover, is a powerful educational force. It arouses
discussion of fundamental questions, diffuses knowledge, gives practice
in public affairs, trains individuals in executive work, and, in fine,
stimulates, as nothing else can, a class which is in special need of
social incentive.
Organization is, however, difficult of accomplishment. While it would
take us too far afield to discuss the history of farmers' organizations
in America, we may briefly suggest some of the difficulties involved.
For forty years the question has been a prominent one among the farmers,
and these years have seen the rise and decline of several large
associations. There have been apparently two great factors contributing
to the downfall of these organizations. The first was a misapprehension,
on the part of the farmers, of the feasibility of organizing themselves
as a political phalanx; the second, a sentimental belief in the
possibilities of business co-operation among farmers, more especially in
lines outside their vocation. There is no place for class politics in
America. There are some things legislation cannot cure. There are
serious limitations to co-operative endeavor. It took many hard
experiences for our farmers to learn these truths. But back of all lie
some inherent difficulties, as, for instance, the number of people
involved, their isolation, sectional interests, ingrained habits of
independent action, of individual initiative, of suspicion of others'
motives. There is often lack of perspective, and unwillingness to invest
in a procedure that does not promise immediate returns. The mere fact of
failure has discredited the organization idea. There is lack of
leadership; for the farm industry, while it often produces men of strong
mind, keen perception, resolute will, does not, as a rule, develop
executive capacity for large enterprises.
It is frequently asserted that farmers are the only class that has not
organized. This is not strictly true. The difficulties enumerated are
real difficulties and have seriously retarded farm organization. But if
the progress made is not satisfactory, it is at least encouraging. On
the purely business side, over five thousand co-operative societies
among American farmers have been reported. In co-operative buying of
supplies, co-operative selling of products, and co-operative insurance
the volume of transactions reaches large figures. A host of societies
of a purely educational nature exists among stock-breeders,
fruit-growers, dairymen. It is true that no one general organization of
farmers, embracing a large proportion of the class, has as yet been
perfected. The nearest approach to it is the Grange, which, contrary to
a popular notion, is in a prosperous condition, with a really large
influence upon the social, financial, educational, and legislative
interests of the farming class. It has had a steady growth during the
past ten years, and is a quiet but powerful factor in rural progress.
The Grange is perhaps too conservative in its administrative policy. It
has not at least succeeded in converting to its fold the farmers of the
great Mississippi Valley. But it has workable machinery, it disavows
partisan politics and selfish class interests, and it subordinates
financial benefits, while emphasizing educational and broadly political
advantages. It seems fair to interpret the principles of the Grange as
wholly in line with the premise of this paper, that the farmers need to
preserve their status, politically, industrially, and socially, and that
organization is one of the fundamental methods they must use. The
Grange, therefore, deserves to succeed, and indeed is succeeding.
The field of agricultural organization is an extensive one. But if the
farm problem is to be solved satisfactorily, the American farmers must
first secure reasonably complete organization.
RURAL EDUCATION
It is hardly necessary to assert that the education of that portion of
the American people who live upon the land involves a question of the
greatest significance. The subject naturally divides itself into two
phases, one of which may be designated as rural education proper, the
other as agricultural education. Rural education has to do with the
education of people, more especially of the young, who live under rural
conditions; agricultural education aims to prepare men and women for the
specific vocation of agriculture. The rural school typifies the first;
the agricultural school, the second. Rural education is but a section of
the general school question; agricultural education is a branch of
technical training. These two phases of the education of the farm
population meet at many points, they must work in harmony, and together
they form a distinct educational problem.
The serious difficulties in the rural school question are perhaps
three: first, to secure a modern school, in efficiency somewhat
comparable to the town school, without unduly increasing the school tax;
second, so to enrich the curriculum and so to expand the functions of
the school that the school shall become a vital and coherent part of the
community life, on the one hand translating the rural environment into
terms of character and mental efficiency, and on the other hand serving
perfectly as a stepping-stone to the city schools and to urban careers;
third, to provide adequate high-school facilities in the rural
community.
The centralization of district schools and the transportation of pupils
will probably prove to be more nearly a solution of all these
difficulties than will any other one scheme. The plan permits the
payment of higher wages for teachers and ought to secure better
instruction; it permits the employment of special teachers, as for
nature-study or agriculture; it increases the efficiency of
superintendence; it costs but little, if any, more than the district
system; it leaves the school amid rural surroundings, while introducing
into the schoolroom itself a larger volume, so to speak, of
world-atmosphere; it contains possibilities for community service; it
can easily be expanded into a high school of reputable grade.
There are two dangers, both somewhat grave, likely to arise from an
urgent campaign for centralization. Even if the movement makes as great
progress as could reasonably be expected, for a generation to come a
large share, if not a major portion, of rural pupils will still be
taught in the small, isolated, district school; there is danger that
this district school may be neglected. Moreover, increased school
machinery always invites undue reliance upon machine-like methods.
Centralization permits, but does not guarantee, greater efficiency. A
system like this one must be vitalized by constant and close touch with
the life and needs and aspirations of the rural community itself.
Wherever centralization is not adopted, the consolidation of two or
three schools--a modified form of centralization--may prove helpful.
Where the district school still persists, there are one or two
imperative requirements. Teachers must have considerably higher wages
and longer tenure. There must be more efficient supervision. The state
must assist in supporting the school, although only in part. The small
schools must be correlated with some form of high school. The last
point is of great importance because of the comparative absence in
country communities of opportunity near at hand for _good_ high-school
training.
Agricultural education is distinctively technical, not in the restricted
sense of mere technique, or even of applied science, but in the sense
that it must be frankly vocational. It has to do with the preparation of
men and women for the business of farming and for life in the rural
community.
Agricultural education should begin in the primary school. In this
school the point of view, however, should be broadly pedagogical rather
than immediately vocational. Fortunately, the wise teaching of
nature-study, the training of pupils to know and to love nature, the
constant illustrations from the rural environment, the continual appeal
to personal observation and experience, absolute loyalty to the farm
point of view, are not only sound pedagogy, but form the best possible
background for future vocational study. Whether we call this early work
"nature-study" or call it "agriculture" matters less than that the
fundamental principle be recognized. It must first of all _educate_. The
greatest difficulty in introducing such work into the primary school is
to secure properly equipped teachers.
Perhaps the most stupendous undertaking in agricultural education is the
adequate development of secondary education in agriculture. The
overwhelming majority of young people who secure any agricultural
schooling whatever must get it in institutions that academically are of
secondary grade. This is a huge task. If developed to supply existing
needs, it will call for an enormous expenditure of money and for the
most careful planning. From the teaching view-point it is a difficult
problem. Modern agriculture is based upon the sciences; it will not do,
therefore, to establish schools in the mere art of farming. But these
agricultural high schools must deal with pupils who are comparatively
immature, and who almost invariably have had no preparation in science.
Nor should the courses at these schools be ultra-technical. They are to
prepare men and women for life on the farm--men and women who are to
lead in rural development, and who must get some inkling at least of the
real farm question and its solution. The agricultural school, therefore,
presents a problem of great difficulty.
A perennial question in agricultural education is: What is the function
of the agricultural college? We have not time to trace the history of
these colleges, nor to elaborate the various views relative to their
mission. But let us for a moment discuss their proper function in the
light of the proposition that the preservation of the farmers' status is
the real farm problem; for the college can be justified only as it finds
its place among the social agencies helpful in the solution of the farm
question.
In so far as the agricultural college, through its experiment station or
otherwise, is an organ of research, it should carry its investigations
into the economic and sociological fields, as well as pursue experiments
in soil fertility and animal nutrition.
In the teaching of students, the agricultural college will continue the
important work of training men for agricultural research, agricultural
teaching, and expert supervision of various agricultural enterprises.
But the college should put renewed emphasis upon its ability to send
well-trained men to the farms, there to live their lives, there to find
their careers, and there to lead in the movements for rural progress. A
decade ago it was not easy to find colleges which believed that this
could be done, and some agricultural educators have even disavowed such
a purpose as a proper object of the colleges. But the strongest
agricultural colleges today have pride in just such a purpose. And why
not? We not only need men thus trained as leaders in every rural
community, but, if the farming business cannot be made to offer a career
to a reasonable number of college-trained men, it is a sure sign that
only by the most herculean efforts can the farmers maintain their status
as a class. If agriculture must be turned over wholly to the untrained
and to the half-trained, if it cannot satisfy the ambition of strong,
well-educated men and women, its future, from the social point of view,
is indeed gloomy.
The present-day course of study in the agricultural college does not,
however, fully meet this demand for rural leadership. The farm problem
has been regarded as a technical question, and a technical training has
been offered the student. The agricultural college, therefore, needs
"socializing." Agricultural economics and rural sociology should occupy
a large place in the curriculum. The men who go from the college to the
farm should appreciate the significance of the agricultural question,
and should be trained to organize their forces for genuine rural
progress. The college should, as far as possible, become the leader in
the whole movement for solving the farm problem.
The farm home has not come in for its share of attention in existing
schemes of agricultural education. The kitchen and the dining-room have
as much to gain from science as have the dairy and the orchard. The
inspiration of vocational knowledge must be the possession of her who is
the entrepreneur of the family, the home-maker. The agricultural
colleges through their departments of domestic science--better, of
"home-making"--should inaugurate a comprehensive movement for carrying
to the farm home a larger measure of the advantages which modern science
is showering upon humanity.
The agricultural college must also lead in a more adequate development
of extension teaching. Magnificent work has already been done through
farmers' institutes, reading courses, co-operative experiments,
demonstrations, and correspondence. But the field is so immense, the
number of people involved so enormous, the difficulties of reaching them
so many, that it offers a genuine problem, and one of peculiar
significance, not only because of the generally recognized need of
adult education, but also because of the isolation of the farmers.
It should be said that in no line of rural betterment has so much
progress been made in America as in agricultural education. Merely to
describe the work that is being done through nature-study and
agriculture in the public schools, through agricultural schools, through
our magnificent agricultural colleges, through farmers' institutes, and
especially through the experiment stations and the federal Department of
Agriculture in agricultural research and in the distribution of the best
agricultural information--merely to inventory these movements properly
would take the time available for this discussion. What has been said
relative to agricultural education is less in way of criticism of
existing methods than in way of suggestion as to fundamental needs.
THE ETHICAL AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEM
Wide generalizations as to the exact moral situation in the rural
community are impossible. Conditions have not been adequately studied.
It is probably safe to say that the country environment is extremely
favorable for pure family life, for temperance, and for bodily and
mental health. To picture the country a paradise is, however, mere
silliness. There are in the country, as elsewhere, evidences of
vulgarity in language, of coarseness in thought, of social impurity, of
dishonesty in business. There is room in the country for all the ethical
teaching that can be given.
Nor is it easy to discuss the country church question. Conditions vary
in different parts of the Union, and no careful study has been made of
the problem. As a general proposition, it may be said that there are too
many churches in the country, and that these are illy supported.
Consequently, they have in many cases inferior ministers. Sectarianism
is probably more divisive than in the city, not only because of the
natural conservatism of the people and a natural disinclination to
change their views, but because sectarian quarrels are perhaps more
easily fomented and less easily harmonized than anywhere else. Moreover,
in the city a person can usually find a denomination to his liking. In
the country, even with the present overchurched condition, this is
difficult.
The ideal solution of the country church problem is to have in each
rural community one strong church adequately supported, properly
equipped, ministered to by an able man--a church which leads in
community service. The path to the realization of such an ideal is rough
and thorny. Church federation, however, promises large results in this
direction and should be especially encouraged.
Whatever outward form the solution of the country church question may
take, there seem to be several general principles involved in a
satisfactory attempt to meet the issue. In the first place, the country
church offers a problem by itself, socially considered. Methods
successful in the city may not succeed in the country. The country
church question must then be studied thoroughly and on the ground.
Again, the same principle of financial aid to be utilized in the case of
the schools must be invoked here. The wealth of the whole church must
contribute to the support of the church everywhere. The strong must help
the weak. The city must help the country. But this aid must be given by
co-operation, not by condescension. The demand cannot be met by home
missionary effort nor by church-building contributions; the principle
goes far deeper than that. Some device must be secured which binds
together the whole church, along denominational lines if must be, for a
full development of church work in every community in the land.
Furthermore, there is supreme necessity for adding dignity to the
country parish. Too often at present the rural parish is regarded either
as a convenient laboratory for the clerical novice, or as an asylum for
the decrepit or inefficient. The country parish must be a parish for our
ablest and strongest. The ministry of the most Christlike must be to the
hill-towns of Galilee as well as to Jerusalem.
There is still another truth that the country church cannot afford to
ignore. The rural church question is peculiarly interwoven with the
industrial and social problems of the farm. A declining agriculture
cannot foster a growing church. An active church can render especially
strong service to a farm community, in its influence upon the religious
life, the home life, the educational life, the social life, and even
upon the industrial life. Nowhere else are these various phases of
society's activities so fully members one of another as in the country.
The country church should co-operate with other rural social agencies.
This means that the country pastor should assume a certain leadership in
movements for rural progress. He is splendidly fitted, by the nature of
his work and by his position in the community, to co-operate with
earnest farmers for the social and economic, as well as the moral and
spiritual, upbuilding of the farm community. But he must know the farm
problem. Here is an opportunity for theological seminaries: let them
make rural sociology a required subject. And, better, here is a
magnificent field of labor for the right kind of young men. The country
pastorate may thus prove to be, as it ought to be, a place of honor and
rare privilege. In any event, the country church, to render its proper
service, not alone must minister to the individual soul, but must throw
itself into the struggle for rural betterment, must help solve the farm
problem.
FEDERATION OF FORCES
The suggestion that the country church should ally itself with other
agencies of rural progress may be carried a step farther. Rural social
forces should be federated. The object of such federation is to
emphasize the real nature of the farm problem, to interest many people
in its solution, and to secure the co-operation of the various rural
social agencies, each of which has its sphere, but also its limitations.
The method of federation is to bring together, for conference and for
active work, farmers--especially representatives of farmers'
organizations, agricultural educators, rural school-teachers and
supervisors, country clergymen, country editors; in fact, all who have a
genuine interest in the farm problem. Thus will come clearer views of
the questions at issue, broader plans for reform, greater incentive to
action, and more rapid progress.
CONCLUSION
In this brief analysis of the social problems of American farmers it has
been possible merely to outline those aspects of the subject that seem
to be fundamental. It is hoped that the importance of each problem has
been duly emphasized, that the wisest methods of progress have been
indicated, and that the relation of the various social agencies to the
main question has been clearly brought out. Let us leave the subject by
emphasizing once more the character of the ultimate farm problem. This
problem may be stated more concretely, if not more accurately, than was
done at the opening of the paper, by saying that the ideal of rural
betterment is to preserve upon our farms the typical American farmer.
The American farmer has been essentially a middle-class man. It is this
type we must maintain. Agriculture must be made to yield returns in
wealth, in opportunity, in contentment, in social position, sufficient
to attract and to hold to it a class of intelligent, educated American
citizens. This is an end vital to the preservation of American
democratic ideals. It is a result that will not achieve itself; social
agencies must be invoked for its accomplishment. It demands the
intelligent and earnest co-operation of all who love the soil and who
seek America's permanent welfare.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The material for this chapter is taken from an address entitled
"Social Problems of American Farmers," which was read before the
Congress of Arts and Science, section of The Rural Community, at St.
Louis, September, 1904.
THE OUTLOOK
CHAPTER III
THE EXPANSION OF FARM LIFE
Narrowness is perhaps the charge most often brought against American
farm life. To a certain extent this charge may be just, though the
comparisons that usually lead up to the conclusion do not always
discriminate. It must be remembered that there are degrees of
desirability in farm life, and that at the least there are multitudes of
rural communities where bright flowers still bloom, where the shade is
refreshing, and the waters are sweet. But, granting for the time that in
the main rural life is less pleasant, less rich, less expansive than
city life, we shall urge that this era of restriction is rapidly drawing
to a close. There are forces at work that are molding rural life by new
standards, and the old regime is passing. We shall soon be able to say
of the country that "old things have passed away; all things have become
new."
This statement may seem too optimistic to some who can marshal an array
of facts to prove that bigotry, narrowness, and the whole family of ills
begotten by isolation still thrive in the country. It is true that our
picture is not all of rose tints. But what of that? If it were not true
there would be no farm problem; the country would have to convert the
town. The fact remains that rural life is undergoing a rapid expansion.
Materially, socially, and intellectually, the farmer is broadening. Old
prejudices are fading. The plowman is no longer content to keep his eye
forever on the furrow. The revival has been in slow progress for some
time and has not yet reached its zenith; indeed, the movement is but
well under way. For while the new day came long ago to some rural
communities and they are basking in a noonday sun, yet in far too many
localities the faintest gray of dawn is all that rouses hope.
The fundamental change that is taking place is the gradual adoption of
the new agriculture. "Book-farmin'" is still decried, and many
"perfessers" have a rocky road to travel in their attempts to guide the
masses through the labyrinth of scientific knowledge that has been
constructed during the last decade or two. This difficulty has not been
wholly the farmer's fault--the scientist would often have been more
persuasive had his wings been clipped. But there is a decided "getting
together" nowadays--the farmer and the man of science have at last
found common ground. And while the pendulum of agricultural prosperity
shall always swing to and fro, there are, to change the figure, reasons
for believing that an increasing number of farmers have rooted the tree
of permanent success.
To enumerate some of these reasons: (1) Thousands of farmers are farming
on a scientific basis. They use the results of soil and fertilizer
analysis; they cultivate, not to kill weeds so much as to conserve
moisture; horticulturists spray their trees according to formulas laid
down by experimenters; dairymen use the "Babcock test" for determining
the fat content of milk; stock-feeders utilize the scientists' feeding
rations. (2) The number of specialists among farmers is increasing. This
is a sign of progress surely. More and more farmers are coming to push a
single line of work. (3) New methods are being rapidly adopted. Fifteen
years ago hardly a fruit-grower sprayed for insect and fungus pests;
today it is rare to find one who does not. The co-operative creamery has
not only revolutionized the character of the butter product made by the
factory system, but it has set the pace for thousands of private
dairymen who are now making first-class dairy butter. (4) In general
the whole idea of _intensive_ farming is gaining ground.
This specialization, or intensification, of agriculture makes a new
demand, upon those who pursue it, in the way of mental and business
training. This training is being furnished by a multitude of agencies,
and the younger generation of farmers is taking proper advantage of the
opportunities thus offered. What are some of these regular agencies? (1)
An alert farm press, containing contributions from both successful
farmers and scientific workers. (2) Farmers' institutes, which are
traveling schools of technical instruction for farmers. (3) The
bulletins issued by the government experiment stations located in every
state, and by the federal Department of Agriculture. (4) Special winter
courses (of from two to twelve weeks), offered at nearly all the
agricultural colleges of the country, for instruction in practical
agriculture. (5) Regular college courses in agriculture at these same
colleges. (6) Extension instruction by lectures and correspondence. (7)
A growing book literature of technical agriculture. (8) More encouraging
than all else is the spirit of inquiry that prevails among farmers the
country over--the recognition that there is a basis of science in
agriculture. No stronger pleas for the advancement of agricultural
education can be found than those that have recently been formulated by
farmers themselves.
If this regeneration of farm life were wholly material it would be worth
noting; for it promises a prosperity built on foundations sufficiently
strong to withstand ordinary storms. Yet this is but a chapter of the
story. Not only are our American farmers making a study of their
business, bringing to it the resources of advancing knowledge and good
mental training, and hence deriving from it the strong, alert mental
character that comes to all business men who pursue equally intelligent
methods, but the farmers are by no means neglecting their duty to
broaden along general intellectual lines. Farmers have always been
interested in politics; there is no reason to think that their interest
is declining. The Grange and other organizations keep their attention on
current problems. Traveling libraries, school libraries, and Grange
libraries are giving new opportunities for general reading, and the
farmer's family is not slow to accept the chance. Low prices for
magazines and family papers bring to these periodicals an increasing
list from the rural offices. Rural free mail delivery promises, among
many other results of vast importance, to enlarge the circulation of
daily papers among farmers not less than tenfold.
The really great lesson that farmers are rapidly learning is to work
together. They have been the last class to organize, and jealousy,
distrust, and isolation have made such organizations as they have had
comparatively ineffective. But gradually they are learning to
compromise, to work in harmony, to sink merely personal views, to trust
their own leaders, to keep troth in financially co-operative projects.
There will be no Farmers' Party organized; but the higher politics is
gaining among farmers, and more and more independent voting may be
expected from the rural precincts. Farmers are learning to pool such of
their interests as can be furthered by legislation.
It is also true that the whole aspect of social life in the country is
undergoing a profound evolutionary movement. Farmers are meeting one
another more frequently than they used to. They have more picnics and
holidays. They travel more. They go sight-seeing. They take advantage of
excursions. Their social life is more mobile than formerly. Farmers
have more comforts and luxuries than ever before. They dress better
than they did. More of them ride in carriages than formerly. They buy
neater and better furniture. The newer houses are prettier and more
comfortable than their predecessors. Bicycles and cameras are not
uncommon in the rural home. Rural telephone exchanges are relatively a
new thing, but the near future will see the telephone a part of the
ordinary furniture of the rural household; while electric car lines
promise to be the final link in the chain of advantages that is rapidly
transforming rural life--robbing it of its isolation, giving it balance
and poise, softening its hard outlines, and in general achieving its
thorough regeneration.
This sketch is no fancy tale. The movement described is genuine and
powerful. The busy city world may not note the signs of progress.
Well-minded philanthropists may feel that the rural districts are in
special need of their services. Even to the watchers on the walls there
is much of discouragement in the advancement that _isn't_ being made.
Yet it needs no prophet's eye to see that a vast change for the better
in rural life and conditions is now in progress.
No student of these conditions expects or desires that the evolution
shall be Acadian in its results. It is to be hoped indeed that country
sweets shall not lose their delights; that the farmer himself may find
in his surroundings spiritual and mental ambrosia. But what is wanted,
and what is rapidly coming, is the breaking down of those barriers which
have so long differentiated country from urban life; the extinction of
that social ostracism which has been the farmer's fate; the obliteration
of that line which for many a youth has marked the bounds of
opportunity: in fact, the creation of a rural society whose advantages,
rewards, prerogatives, chances for service, means of culture, and
pleasures are representative of the best and sanest life that the
accumulated wisdom of the ages can prescribe for mankind.
CHAPTER IV
THE NEW FARMER
All farmers may be divided into three classes. There is the "old"
farmer, there is the "new" farmer, and there is the "mossback." The old
farmer represents the ancient regime. The new farmer is the modern
business agriculturist. The mossback is a mediaeval survival. The old
farmer was in his day a new farmer; he was "up with the times," as the
times then were. The new farmer is merely the worthy son of a noble
sire; he is the modern embodiment of the old farmer's progressiveness.
The mossback is the man who tries to use the old methods under the new
conditions; he is not "up" with the present times, but "back" with the
old times. Though he lives and moves in the present, he really has his
being in the past.
The old farmer is the man who conquered the American continent. His axe
struck the crown from the monarchs of the wood, and the fertile farms of
Ohio are the kingdom he created. He broke the sod of the rich prairies,
and the tasseling cornfields of Iowa tell the story of his deeds. He
hitched his plow to the sun, and his westward lengthening furrows fill
the world's granary.
The new farmer has his largest conquests yet to make. But he has put his
faith in the strong arm of science; he has at his hand the commercial
mechanism of a world of business. He believes he will win because he is
in league with the ongoing forces of our civilization.
The mossback cannot win, because he prefers a flintlock to a Mauser. He
has his eyes upon the ground, and uses snails instead of stars for
horses.
The old farmer was a pioneer, and he had all the courage, enterprise,
and resourcefulness of the pioneer. He was virile, above all things
else. He owned and controlled everything in sight. He was a
state-builder. Half a century ago, in the Middle West, the strong men
and the influential families were largely farmers. Even professional men
owned and managed farms, frequently living upon them. The smell of the
soil sweetened musty law books, deodorized the doctor's den, and floated
as incense above the church altars.
The new farmer lives in a day when the nation is not purely an
agricultural nation, but is also a manufacturing and a trading nation.
He belongs no longer to the dominant class, so far as commercial and
social and political influence are concerned. But none of these things
move him. For he realizes that out of this seeming decline of
agriculture grow his best opportunities. He discards pioneer methods
because pioneering is not now an effective art.
The mossback sees perhaps clearly enough these changes, but he does not
understand their meaning, nor does he know how to meet them. He is
dazzled by the romantic halo of the good old times, dumfounded by the
electric energy of the present, discouraged and distracted by the
pressure of forces that crush his hopes and stifle his strength.
Economically, the old farmer was not a business man, but a barterer. The
rule of barter still survives in the country grocery where butter and
eggs are traded for sugar and salt. The old farmer was industrially
self-sufficient. He did not farm on a commercial basis. He raised apples
for eating and for cider, not for market--there was no apple market. He
had very little ready money, he bought and sold few products. He traded.
Even his grain, which afterward became the farmer's great cash crop, was
raised in small quantities and ground at the nearest mill--not for
export, but for a return migration to the family flour-barrel.
The new farmer has always existed--because he is the old farmer growing.
He has kept pace with our industrial evolution. When the regime of
barter passed away, he ceased to barter. When the world's market became
a fact, he raised wheat for the world's market. As agriculture became a
business, he became a business man. As agricultural science began to
contribute to the art of farming, he studied applied science. As
industrial education developed, he founded and patronized institutions
for agricultural education. As alertness and enterprise began to be
indispensable in commercial activity, he grew alert and enterprising.
The mossback is the man who has either misread the signs of the times,
or who has not possessed the speed demanded in the two-minute class. He
is the old farmer gone to seed. He tries to fit the old methods to the
new regime.
But it is not sufficient to picture the new farmer. You must explain
him. What is it that makes the new farmer? Who is he? What are his
tools? In the first place, you cannot explain the new farmer unless you
know the old farmer. You cannot have the new farmer unless you also
have the mossback. The new farmer is a comparative person, as it were.
You have to define him in terms of the mossback. The contrast is not
between the old farmer and the new, for that is merely a question of
relative conditions in different epochs of time. The contrast is between
the new farmer and the mossback, for that is a question of men and of
their relative efficiency as members of the industrial order. Then, of
course, you must observe the individual traits that characterize the new
farmer, such as keenness, business instinct, readiness to adopt new
methods, and, in fact, all the qualities that make a man a success today
in any calling. For the new farmer, in respect to his personal
qualities, is not a sport, a phenomenon. He does not stand out as a
distinct and peculiar specimen. He is a successful American citizen who
grows corn instead of making steel rails.
But you have not yet explained the new farmer. These personal traits do
not explain him. It may be possible to explain an individual and his
success by calling attention to his characteristics, and yet you cannot
completely analyze him and his career unless you understand the
conditions under which he works--the industrial and social environment.
Much less can you explain a class of people by describing their personal
characteristics. You must reach out into the great current of life that
is about them, and discern the direction and power of that current.
Now, the conditions that tend to make the new farmer possible may be
grouped in an old-fashioned way under two heads. In the old scientific
phrases the two forces that make the new farmer are the "struggle for
life" and "environment," or, to use other words, competition and
opportunity.
Competition has pressed severely upon the farmer, competition at home
and competition from other countries. At one time the heart of the
wheat-growing industry of this country was near Rochester, N. Y., in the
Genesee Valley; but the canal and the railway soon made possible the
occupation of the great granary of the west. A multitude of ambitious
young men soon took possession of that granary, and the flour-mills were
moved from Rochester to Minneapolis. This is an old story, but the same
forces are still at work. There has been developed a world-market. The
sheep of the Australian bush have become competitors of the flocks that
feed upon the green Vermont mountains and the Ohio hills. The plains of
Argentina grow wheat for London. Russia, Siberia, and India pour a
constant stream of golden grain into the industrial centers of Western
Europe, and the price of American wheat is fixed in London. These forces
have produced still another kind of competition; namely, specialization
among farmers. Localities particularly adapted to special crops are
becoming centers where skill and intelligence bring the industry to its
height. The truck-farming of the South Atlantic region, the fruit
growing of western Michigan, the butter factories of Wisconsin and
Minnesota, have crowded almost to suffocation the small market-gardener
of the northern town, the man with a dozen peach trees, and the farmer
who keeps two cows and trades the surplus butter for calico. These
things have absolutely forced progress upon the farmer. It is indeed a
"struggle for life." Out of it comes the "survival of the fittest," and
the fittest is the new farmer.
But along with competition has come opportunity. Indeed, out of these
very facts that have made competition so strenuous spring the most
marvelous opportunities for the progressive farmer. Specialization
brings out the best that there is in the locality and the man. It gives
a chance to apply science to farming. Our transportation system permits
the peach growers of Grand Rapids to place their crops at a profit in
the markets of Buffalo and Pittsburg; the rich orchards and vineyards of
Southern California find their chief outlet in the cities of the
manufacturing Northeast--three thousand miles away. During the forty
years, from 1860, the exports of wheat from this country increased from
four million bushels annually to one hundred and forty million bushels;
of corn, from three and one-third million bushels to one hundred and
seventy-five million bushels; of beef products, from twenty million
pounds to three hundred and seventy million pounds; of pork products,
from ninety-eight million pounds to seventeen hundred million pounds.
And not only do the grain and stock farmers find this outlet for their
surplus products, but we are beginning to ship abroad high-grade fruit
and first-class dairy products in considerable quantities. Low rates of
freight, modern methods of refrigeration, express freight trains, fast
freight steamers--the whole machinery of the commercial and financial
world are at the service of the new farmer. Science, also, has found a
world of work in ministering to the needs of agriculture, and in a
hundred different ways the new farmer finds helps that have sprung up
from the broadcast sowing of the hand of science.
But perhaps even more remarkable opportunities come to the new farmer in
those social agencies that tend to remove the isolation of the country;
that assist in educating the farmer broadly; that give farmers as a
class more influence in legislature and congress, and that, in fine,
make rural life more worth the living. The new farmer cannot be
explained until one is somewhat familiar with the character of these
rural social agencies. They have already been enumerated and classified
in a previous chapter; they will be more fully described in subsequent
chapters.
It must not be supposed that every successful farmer is necessarily a
supporter of all of these social agencies. He may be a prosperous farmer
just because he is good at the art of farming, or because he is a keen
business man. But more and more he is coming to see that these things
are opportunities that he cannot afford to disregard. Indeed, some of
these institutions are largely the creation of the new farmer himself.
He is using them as tools to fashion a better rural social structure.
But they also fashion him. They serve to explain him, in great part.
Competition inspires the farmer to his best efforts. The opportunity
offered by these new and growing advantages gives him the implements
wherewith to make his rightful niche in the social and industrial
system.
It would be erroneous to suppose that the new farmer is a _rara avis_.
He is not. The spirit pervading the ranks of farmers is rapidly
changing. We have been in a state of transition in agriculture. But the
farther shore has been reached and the bridge is possible. The army of
rural advancement is being recruited with great rapidity. The advance
guard is more than a body of scouts, it is an effective brigade.
I want also to make a plea for the mossback. He must not be condemned
utterly. Remember that competition among farmers has been intense; that
rural environment breeds conservatism. Remember also that the farmer
cannot change his methods as rapidly as can some other business men.
Remember, too, that there is comparatively small chance for speculation
in agriculture; that large aggregates of capital cannot be collected for
farming, and consequently, that the approved means for securing immense
wealth, great industrial advancement, and huge enterprises are nearly
absent in agriculture. Remember that the voices calling from the city
deplete the country of many good farmers as well as of many poor ones.
Moreover, there are many men on farms who perhaps don't care for
farming, but who for some reason cannot get away. On the farm a man need
not starve; he can make a livelihood. Doubtless this simple fact is
responsible for a multitude of mossbacks. They can live without
strenuous endeavor. Possibly a good many of us are strenuous because we
are pushed into it. So I have a good deal of sympathy for the mossback,
and a mild sort of scorn for some of his critics, who probably could not
do any better than he is doing if they essayed the gentle art of
agriculture. I also have sympathy for the mossback particularly because
he is the man that needs attention. The new farmer takes the initiative.
He patronizes these opportunities that we have been talking about. But
the mossback, because he is discouraged, or because he is ignorant, or
perhaps merely because he is conservative, takes little interest in
these things. About one farmer in ten belongs to some sort of farmers'
association. Thousands of farmers do not take an agricultural paper, and
perhaps millions of them have not read an agricultural book. Right here
comes in another fact. Every "new" farmer when full grown competes with
every mossback. The educated farmer makes it still harder for the
ignorant farmer to progress.
The future of the American farmer is one of the most pregnant social
problems with which we have to deal. There is indeed an issue involved
in the success of the new farmer that is still more fundamental than any
yet mentioned. The old farmer had a social standing that made him
essentially a middle-class man. He was a landholder, he was independent,
he was successful. He was the typical American citizen. The old farmer
was father to the best blood of America. His sons and his sons' sons
have answered to the roll call of our country's warriors, statesmen,
writers, captains of industry.
Can the new farmer maintain the same relative social status? And if he
can, is he to be an aristocrat, a landlord, a captain of industry, and
to bear rule over the mossback? And is the tribe of mossbacks destined
to increase and become a caste of permanent tenants or peasants? Is the
future American farmer to be the typical new farmer of the present, or
are we traveling toward a social condition in which the tillers of the
soil will be underlings? Is there coming a time when the "man with the
hoe" will be the true picture of the American farmer, with a low
standard of living, without ideals, without a chance for progress?
We must eliminate the mossback. It is to be done largely by education
and by co-operation. There must be a campaign for rural progress. There
must be a union of the country school teacher, of the agricultural
college professor, of the rural pastor, of the country editor, with the
farmers themselves, for the production of an increased crop of new
farmers. Anything that makes farm life more worth living, anything that
banishes rural isolation, anything that dignifies the business of
farming and makes it more prosperous, anything that broadens the
farmer's horizon, anything that gives him a greater grasp of the rural
movement, anything that makes him a better citizen, a better business
man, or a better _man_, means the passing of the mossback.
CHAPTER V
CULTURE FROM THE CORN LOT[2]
The question of questions that the college student asks himself is, What
am I going to be? The surface query is, What am I going to _do_? But in
his heart of hearts he ponders the deeper questions: What may I become
in real intellectual and moral worth? How large a man, measured by the
divine standards, will it be possible for me to grow into?
These are the great questions because growth is the great end of life.
That is what we are here for, to grow. To develop all our talents, all
our possibilities, to increase our native powers of body, mind, and
soul--this is life. It is important that we have a vocation. We must do
something, and do it well. But the real end is not in working at a
profession but in developing our abilities. Our symmetrical growth is
the measure of our success as human beings.
As the student looks out over the ocean of life and scans the horizon
for signs of the wise course for him to take, he should decide whether
the particular mode of life that now appeals to him will yield the
greatest possible measure of growth. He must consult his tastes, his
talents, his opportunities, his training. And the test question is, Will
this line of work yield me the growth, the culture, I desire?
But what are the elements that yield culture to an individual? Using
culture in a very broad sense as a synonym for growth, we may say that
the things contributing most to the culture of the average person are
his work, his leisure, and his service to others. We may now try to
answer the question we started with, as it presents itself to many a
student in the agricultural colleges of our country. Will agriculture as
a business, will the farm life and environment, contribute to the growth
which I desire for myself? Can I extract culture from the corn lot?
Let us first see if the work or vocation of farming gives culture. My
answer would be that there is scarcely an occupation to be named that
requires broader knowledge, more accurate observation, or the exercise
of better judgment than does modern farming. The farmer deals with the
application of many sciences. He must be an alert business man. He
requires executive talent of no mean order. The study of his occupation
in its wider phases leads him into direct contact with political
economy, social movements, and problems of government. The questions
confronting him as a farmer relate themselves to the leading realms of
human knowledge and experience. I speak of course of the progressive
farmer, who makes the best use of his opportunities. He can hardly hope
to become immensely wealthy, but he can maintain that modest standard of
living that usually is the lot of our most useful and cultured people
and that ministers as a rule most fully to the ideal family life. The
truly modern farmer cannot help growing.
There is much hard work on the farm. Yet on the whole there is fully as
much leisure as in most other occupations. There is time to read, and
books are today so easily accessible that living in the country is no
bar to the bookshelf. Better than time to read is time to think. The
farmer has always been a man who pondered things in his heart. He has
had a chance to meditate. No culture is sound except it has been bought
by much thinking; all else is veneer. Farm life gives in good measure
this time to think. But it is in nature that the farmer finds or may
find his most fertile field for culture. Here he is at home. Here he
may revel if he will. Here he may find the sources of mind-liberation
and of soul-emancipation. He may be the envy of everyone who dwells in
the city because he lives so near to nature's heart. Bird and flower,
sky and tree, rock and running brook speak to him a various language. He
may read God's classics, listen to the music of divine harmonies, and
roam the picture galleries of the Eternal. So too in his dealings with
his kind, he lives close to men and women who are frank, virile, direct,
clean, independent. The culture coming from such associations is above
price. One learns to pierce all shams, to honor essential manhood, to
keep pure the fountains of sympathy, ambition, and love. Thus on the
farm one may find full opportunity for that second means of culture,
leisure.
Another powerful agency for cultivating the human soul is service.
Indeed, service is the dynamic of life. To be of use is the ambition
that best stimulates real growth. Culture is the end of life, the spirit
of service the motive power. So it is of this I would speak perhaps most
fully, not only because it is a vital means of culture, but because it
is also peculiarly the privilege and duty of the college man and the
college woman. For let it be said that if any college student secures a
diploma of any degree without having been seized upon by a high ambition
to be of some use in the work of helping humanity forward, then have
that person's years of study been in vain, and his teaching also vain.
The college man comes not to be ministered unto but to minister. He has
been poorly taught if he leaves college with no thought but for his
material success. He must have had a vision of service, his lips touched
with a coal from the altar of social usefulness, and his heart
cultivated to respond to the call for any need he can supply, "Here am
I, send me."
I think it may safely be said that there is no field which offers better
chance for leadership to the average college man or woman than does the
farm. Take, for instance, politics. The majority of our states are
agricultural states. The majority of our counties are agricultural
counties. The agricultural vote is the determining factor in a large
proportion of our elections. It follows inevitably that honest, strong
farmers with the talent for leadership and the ability to handle
themselves in competition with other political leaders have a
marvelously fine chance for useful service.
So is it in educational questions. Nowhere may the citizen come into
closer contact with the educational problems of the day than through
service on the rural school board. If he brings to this position trained
intelligence, some acquaintance with educational questions, and a desire
to keep in touch with the advancement of the times, he can do for his
community a service that can hardly be imagined.
Take another field--that of organization for farmers, constituting a
problem of great significance. As yet this class of people is relatively
unorganized, but the movement is growing and the need of well-trained
leadership is vital. I cannot speak too strongly of the chance here
offered for active, intelligent, masterful men and women in being of use
as leaders and officials in the Grange and other farmers' organizations.
So with the church question. One of the reasons for the slow progress of
the country church is the conservatism in the pews as well as in the
pulpit. The ardent member of the Young Men's Christian Association in
college may feel that, in the country, there will be no outlet for his
ambition to be of religious use to his fellow-men. This is a mistake.
The work of the Young Men's Christian Association itself in the country
districts is just beginning, and promises large growth. Wider service in
the church, a community federation or union of different churches, the
work of young people's societies and of the Sunday schools--all these
afford abundant opportunity for the man or the woman qualified and
willing.
There are other lines of usefulness. Although I have stated that on the
farm the opportunities for personal culture are great, it must be
confessed that these opportunities are not fully utilized by the average
farmer's family. Here then is a very wide field, especially for the
farmer's wife. For if she is a cultivated college woman, she can through
the woman's club, the Grange, the school, the nature-study club, the
traveling library, and in scores of ways exercise an influence for good
on the community that may have far greater results than would come from
her efforts if expended in the average city. The farm home too has
latent capacities that are yet to be developed. It ought to be the ideal
home and, in many cases, it is. But there are not enough of such ideal
homes in the country. No college woman with a desire to do her full
service in the world ought for an instant to despise the chance for
service as it exists on the farm.
All of these opportunities so briefly suggested might be enlarged upon
almost indefinitely, but the mere mention of them emphasizes the call
for this service and this leadership. Nowhere are leaders more needed
than in the country. The country has been robbed of many of its
strongest and best. The city and perhaps the nation are gainers: but the
country has suffered. From one point of view, the future of our farming
communities depends upon the quality of leadership that we are to find
there during the next generation.
So we come back to our question, Can the farm be made to yield to the
man or woman, residing upon it and making a living from it, that measure
of growth and all-round development that the ambitious person wishes to
attain? And our answer is, Yes. In its work, its leisure, its field for
service, it may minister to sound culture. If you love the life and work
of the farm, do not hesitate to choose that occupation for fear of
becoming narrow or stunted. You can live there the full, free life. You
can grow to your full stature there. You can get culture from the corn
lot.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Addressed to students in an agricultural college.
THE AGENCIES OF PROGRESS
CHAPTER VI
EDUCATION FOR THE FARMER
The two generations living subsequent to the year 1875 are to be
witnesses of an era in American history that will be known as the age of
industrial education. These years are to be the boundaries of a period
when the general principle that every individual shall be properly
trained for his or her occupation in life is to receive its practical
application. Future generations will doubtless extend marvelously the
limits to which the principle can be pushed in its ministrations to
human endeavor, but we are in the time when the principle is first to
receive general acceptation and is to be regarded as a fundamentally
necessary fact of human progress.
We are already "witnesses of the light." Even within the memory of young
men has it come to pass that the old wine skins of the old educational
institutions have been filled with the new wine of science and of
knowledge and training applied to the industries and businesses of life.
Agriculture has perhaps been slow to feel the current of the new wine
as it flows from the wine press of fast-growing industrial and social
need. But the least hopeful of us can, I am sure, already see signs of a
vast awakening. The farm, as well as the pulpit, the bar, the
schoolroom, the shop, the counting-room, is breathing in the new idea
that knowledge and training can be made of use to every man.
This awakening is due not merely to the desire of agriculturists to be
in fashion, nor to the efforts of agricultural pedagogues, but to a real
need. It is common knowledge that in America we have not farmed, but
have mined the soil. We have "skimmed the cream" of fertility, and
passed on to conquer new areas of virgin soil. This pioneer farming has
required hard work, enterprise, courage, and all the noble traits of
character that have made our American pioneers famous and that have
within a century subdued a wilderness to civilization. But the farmer of
today faces a new situation. The fertile lands are fairly well occupied.
The old lands are depleted. These old lands must be handled skilfully if
they are to produce profitably. They must be used because there is
little else to use, and because they are near the best markets.
Meantime, scientists have been studying the deep things of nature, and
have been learning the laws that govern soil, plant, and animal. Thus we
have the farmer's need met by the theorist's discoveries. The farmer, to
avail himself of these discoveries must know their meaning and be able
to apply the general principle to the specific case. This means
agricultural education.
Then again, the consumption of high-class products increases at least as
rapidly as does our wealth. The demand comes not alone from the rich,
but from the middle classes of our cities. Skilled artisans are large
consumers of choice meats, fruits, and vegetables. To grow these
high-grade products means skill, and skill means training, and training
in the large sense means education.
The need for agricultural education, is, then, a real and vital one. It
is pressed upon us by economic and social conditions. It is in line with
the movement of the age.
In discussing agricultural education, we must not forget that the farmer
is also a citizen and a man. He should be an intelligent citizen, and
should therefore study questions of government. As a man, he should be
the equal of other men of his same social rank. He therefore needs a
good general education. He is more than mere farmer. While as farmer he
must connect his business with its environment and out of his
surroundings gain sound culture; while he should know nature, not only
as its master, but as its friend; he should also be in sympathy with all
that makes modern civilization worth while. And even as mere farmer, he
finds himself face to face with grave social problems. He must not only
produce but he must sell, and his selling powers are governed by
conditions of the market, by transportation facilities and practices,
and are affected by the laws of the land. Hence he must be a student of
these problems and must know the broad phases of agriculture and its
relations to other industries.
No intelligent man doubts the need of agricultural education. Let us,
then, say a word about the kind of education demanded. This question is
settled very largely by the discussion we have just had about the need
of this education. First of all, this education will give a fair mastery
of the principles that govern proper soil management and plant and
animal growth. This is fundamental. The farmer is dealing with natural
laws, and he must know in them their applications. He cannot be blind
to their dominance. They insist on recognition. They are jealous masters
and good servants. Nature serves only the man who obeys her. To obey he
must know. The truth shall make him free. How to secure larger crops of
better products at less cost and still maintain soil fertility, is the
first demand of modern agriculture, and its solution depends in large
measure upon education.
But education does not stop here. The farmer is also a seller as well as
a producer. He is a business man. He is manager of an industry. He is an
investor of capital. So the question will arise, Can he get any help
from education in the handling of the business phases of his farm? He
certainly can. You cannot teach a man business in the sense of supplying
him with good sense, business judgment, ability to handle men, and so
on. But you can study the general conditions that govern the business of
agriculture, and you can report the results of your researches to the
practical farmer; and he, if he is willing, may learn much that will be
helpful to him in deciding the many difficult questions that confront
him as a business man. Farm administration in its largest sense will,
then, be a most important phase of agricultural education.
It is quite possible for the individual farmer to succeed admirably if
he is equipped with a sound training in the principles of production and
in farm management. But there are still larger questions that farmers as
a class must meet if agriculture is to have its full success and if the
farmer himself is to occupy the social position he ought to have.
Agriculture is an industry among industries. Farmers are a class among
classes. As an industry, agriculture has relations to other industries.
It is subject to economic laws. It involves something more than growing
and selling. The nature of the market, railroad rates, effects of the
tariff and of taxation, are questions vital to agriculture. So with the
farmers socially considered. Their opportunities for social life, their
school facilities, their church privileges, their associations and
organizations--all these are important matters. So agricultural
education will not fail to call attention to these larger questions.
The well-educated farmer will, then, be trained in three lines of
thought--first, that which deals with the growth of products; second,
that which deals with the selling of products; and third, that which
deals with agriculture as an industry and farmers as a class of people.
We may next discuss as briefly as possible the methods by which
agricultural education may be advanced. We may not consider all of them,
but rather attend only to some of those agencies that seem of peculiar
interest just at this time.
There is one underlying requisite of successful agricultural education
that is all-important. It is faith in agriculture. Any man to succeed
grandly must have absolute faith in his business. So the farmer must
believe in agriculture. Agriculture cannot attain its highest rank
unless the men engaged in it believe in it most profoundly. They must
believe that a man can make money in farming. They must love the farm
life and surroundings. They must believe that the best days of
agriculture are ahead of us, not behind us. They must believe that men
can find in agriculture a chance to use brains and to develop talents
and to utilize education. Agricultural education rests on this faith.
Give us a state filled with such farmers and we can guarantee a strong
system of agricultural education. But the seeds of education cannot grow
in a soil barren of the richness of sentiment for and confidence in the
farm. Our agricultural colleges have been criticized because they have
graduated so few farmers. But the fault is not all with the colleges.
The farmers also are to blame. They have not had faith enough in the
farm to advise young men to go to college to prepare for farming. They
admit the value of education for the law, for building railroads, but
not for farming. This must be changed, is being changed. The last ten
years have seen a revolution in this respect, and the result is a mighty
increase in agricultural educational interest.
One powerful means of agricultural education is the farmers'
organization or association. All our dairy, horticultural, poultry, and
live-stock associations are great educators. So of an organization like
the Grange, its chief work is education. It brings mind in contact with
mind; it gives chance for discussion and interchange of ideas; it trains
in power of expression; it teaches the virtue of co-operation. Farmers
blunder when they fail to encourage organization. Sometimes, out of
foolish notions of independence, they neglect to unite their forces.
They are utterly blind to their best interests when they do so. They
should encourage organization if for no other reason than for the
splendid educational advantages that flow from it.
However, our chief interest is, perhaps, in those institutions that are
formed purposely and especially for agricultural education and which are
usually supported out of public funds. There are three great fields of
endeavor in which these institutions are working. The first step is to
know--to know the truth. So in agriculture we must know. Know what? Know
how nature works. So the man of science studies the soil and finds out
what plant-food it contains, how the water acts in it, what heat and air
do, and the inter-relation of all these elements. He studies the plant
and its habits and tries to discover how it grows and how it can be
improved for man's use. He studies the animal and endeavors to learn
what are the best foods for it and what laws govern its adaptation to
human food. He studies climate and tries to find out what plants and
animals are most appropriate to different locations. He studies
injurious insects and diseases and devises remedies for them. He
discovers, experiments. So we have research as the first term in
agricultural education. The institutions of research are our experiment
stations and United States Department of Agriculture. Their work may be
likened to the plowing of the field. They strive to know how nature
works, and how man can make use of her laws in the growing of plant and
animal.
The next thing is to teach. The farmer too must know. Knowledge confined
to the scientist has little practical use. It is the farmer who can use
it. Moreover, new teachers must be trained, new experimenters equipped,
and leaders in every direction prepared. So we have agricultural
colleges and schools. If experiment is to be likened to plowing, the
work of the schools may be compared to sowing and cultivating.
Agricultural colleges have been in existence in America almost fifty
years. Their careers have been both inspiring and disappointing. They
have had to train their own teachers, create a body of knowledge, break
down the bars of educational prejudice. This work has taken time. The
results justify the time and effort. For today agricultural education is
becoming organized, the subjects of study are well planned, and
competent men are teaching and experimenting. The disappointment is
twofold. They have not graduated as many farmers as they should have.
This is due not wholly to wrong notions in the colleges. It is, as
suggested before, partly due to the lack of faith in agriculture on the
part of the farmers themselves. But the colleges are in part to blame.
Many of them have not been in close touch with the farmers. They have
often been out of sympathy with the interests of the farmers. They have
too frequently been servile imitators of the traditions of the older
colleges, instead of striking out boldly on a line of original and
helpful work for agriculture. Today, however, we see a rapid change
going on in most of our agricultural colleges. They are seeking to help
solve the farmers' difficulties. They are training young men for farm
life. The farmers are responding to this new interest and are beginning
to have great confidence in the colleges.
It is sometimes said that most farmers who get an agricultural education
cannot be trained in the colleges. Doubtless this is true. Probably a
very small proportion even of educated farmers can or will graduate from
a full course in an agricultural college. Many will do so. There is no
reason why a large proportion of the graduates of our college courses in
agriculture may not go to the farm. I have no sympathy with the idea
that those courses are too elaborate for those young men who want to
farm. It must be recognized, however, that even if our agricultural
colleges shall graduate hundreds and thousands every year who return to
the farm, it still leaves the great majority of farmers untouched in an
educational way unless other means are devised. But there are other
means at hand.
We have first the agricultural school. The typical agricultural high
school gives a course of two or three years, offering work of
high-school grade in mathematics and English, with about half the time
devoted to teaching in agriculture. Many young men want to get an
insight into the principles of modern agriculture, but cannot afford
time or money for college work. This course fits their need. A splendid
school of this design has been in successful operation in Minnesota for
more than a dozen years, and has nearly five hundred students. In
Wisconsin there are two county schools of agriculture for a similar
purpose. Other schools could be named.
The agricultural colleges also offer shorter courses of college grade,
perhaps of two years. These are very practical and useful courses. Not
only that, but nearly all the colleges give special winter courses of
from ten days to fourteen weeks. These are patronized by thousands of
young men. So in many ways are the colleges meeting the need. We all
agree that it is desirable for a young man to take a full college
course, even in agriculture. But it is better to have a half-loaf than
no bread. Yes, better to have a _slice_ than no bread. The colleges
furnish the whole loaf, the half-loaf, and the slice. And young men are
nourished by all.
One reason why agricultural education has not made more rapid progress
is because the children of the country schools have been taught in such
a manner as to lead them to think that there is no chance for brains in
farming. Both their home influence and their school atmosphere have, in
most cases perhaps, been working against their choice of agriculture as
a vocation. It therefore becomes important that these children shall be
so taught that they can see the opportunity in farming. They must,
moreover, be so trained that they will be nature students; for the
farmer above all men must be a nature student. So we see the need of
introducing into our rural schools nature-study for the young pupils and
elementary agriculture for the older ones. This is being successfully
accomplished in many cases, and is arousing the greatest interest and
meeting with gratifying success. We shall within ten years have a new
generation of young men and women ready for college who have had their
eyes opened as never before to the beauties of nature and to the
fascination there is in the farmer's task of using nature for his own
advantage.
But when we have increased the attendance at our agricultural colleges
tenfold; when we have hundreds of agricultural schools teaching
thousands of our youth the fundamentals of agriculture; when each rural
school in our broad land is instilling into the minds of children the
nearness and beauty of nature and is teaching the young eyes to see and
the young ears to hear what God hath wrought in his many works of land
and sea and sky, in soil, and plant, and living animal--even when that
happy day shall dawn will we find multitudes of men and women on our
farms still untouched by agricultural education. These people must be
reached. The mere fact that their school days are forever behind them is
no reason why they shall not receive somewhat of the inspiration and
guidance that flow from the schools. So we have an imperative demand for
the extension of agricultural teaching out from the schools to the farm
community. The school thus not only sheds its light upon those who are
within its gates, but sets out on the beautiful errand of carrying this
same light into every farm home in the land. This work is being done
today by thousands of farmers' institutes, by demonstrations in spraying
and in many other similar lines, by home-study courses and
correspondence courses, by co-operative experiments, by the distribution
of leaflets and bulletins, by lectures at farmers' gatherings, by
traveling schools of dairying. These methods and others like them are
being invoked for the purpose of bringing to the farmers in their homes
and neighborhoods some of the benefits that the colleges and schools
bestow upon their pupils.
We have seen something of the need of agricultural education, of the
kind of education required, and of the means used to secure it. Does not
this discussion at least show the supreme importance of the question?
Will not the farmers rally themselves to and league themselves with the
men who are trying to forward the best interests of the farm? Shall we
not all work together for the betterment both of the farm and of the
farmer?
CHAPTER VII
FARMERS' INSTITUTES
A decade and a half ago, there was a vigorous campaign for the
establishment of university extension throughout the United States.
Generally speaking the campaign was a losing one--with but a few
successes amid general failure. But many years before this agitation,
there was begun a work among farmers, which in form and spirit was
university extension, and which has constantly developed until it is
today one of the most potent among the forces making for rural progress.
This work has been done chiefly by what are now universally known as
farmers' institutes.
The typical farmers' institute is a meeting usually lasting two days,
held for the purpose of discussing subjects that relate to the interests
of farmers, more particularly those of a practical character. As a rule,
the speakers to whom set topics are assigned are composed of two
classes: the first class is made up of experts, either professors or
experimenters in agricultural colleges and similar institutions, or
practical farmers who have made such a study of, and such a conspicuous
success in, some branch of agriculture that they may well be called
experts; the second class comprises farmers living in the locality in
which the institute is held. The experts are expected to understand
general principles or methods, and the local speakers the conditions
peculiar to the neighborhood.
The meeting usually begins in the forenoon and ends with the afternoon
session of the second day--five sessions being held. As a rule, not over
two or three separate topics are treated in any one session, and in a
well-planned institute topics of a like character are grouped together,
so that there may be a fruit session, a dairy session, etc. Each topic
is commonly introduced by a talk or paper of twenty to forty minutes'
length. This is followed by a general discussion in which those in the
audience are invited to ask questions of the speaker relevant to the
topic under consideration, or to express opinions and give experiences
of their own.
This is a rough outline of the average farmers' institute, but of course
there are many variations. There are one-day meetings and there are
three-day meetings, and in recent years the one-day meetings have grown
in favor; in some states local speakers take little part; in some
institutes a question-box is a very prominent feature, in others it is
omitted altogether; in some cases the evening programme is made up of
educational topics, or of home topics, or is even arranged largely for
amusement; in other instances the evening session is omitted. In most
institutes women are recognized through programme topics of special
interest to them.
It is not important to trace the early history of the farmers' institute
movement, and indeed it is not very easy to say precisely when and where
the modern institute originated. Farmers' meetings of various sorts were
held early in the century. As far back as 1853 the secretary of the
Massachusetts Board of Agriculture recommended that farmers' institutes
be made an established means of agricultural education. By 1871 Illinois
and Iowa held meetings called farmers' institutes, itinerant in
character, and designed to call together both experts and farmers, but
neither state kept up the work systematically. Both Vermont and New
Hampshire have held institutes annually since 1871, though they did not
bear that name in the early years. Michigan has a unique record, having
held regularly, since 1876, annual farmers' institutes, "so known and
designated," which always have contained practically the essential
features of the present-day institute. The Michigan legislature passed a
law in 1861 providing for "lectures to others than students of the
Agricultural College," and has made biennial appropriations for
institutes since 1877. Ohio, in 1881, extended the institute idea to
include every county in the state.
More important than the origin of the farmers' institute movement is the
present status. Practically every state and territory in the Union
carries on institutes under some form or other. In somewhat more than
half the states, the authorities of the land-grant colleges have charge
of the work. In the other states, the board of agriculture or the
department of agriculture has control.
In 1905-6 there were held 3,500 institutes, in 45 states and
territories, with a total reported attendance of 1,300,000 people, at a
cost of nearly $350,000. The work is largely supported by the state
treasuries, some of the states showing a most generous spirit. The
annual state appropriations for the work in leading institute states are
as follows: Pennsylvania, $20,500; New York, $20,000; Minnesota,
$18,000; Illinois, $17,150; Ohio, $16,747; Wisconsin, $12,000; Indiana,
$10,000. In these states practically every county has annually from one
to five institutes.
Institutes in no two states are managed in the same way, but the system
has fitted itself to local notions and perhaps to local needs. A rough
division may be made--those states which have some form of central
control and those which do not have. Even among states having a central
management are found all degrees of centralization; Wisconsin and Ohio
may be taken as the extremes. In Wisconsin the director of institutes,
who is an employee of the university, has practically complete charge of
the institutes. He assigns the places where the meetings are to be held,
basing his decision upon the location of former institutes in the
various counties, upon the eagerness which the neighborhoods seem to
manifest toward securing the institute, etc. He arranges the programme
for each meeting, suiting the topics and speakers to local needs,
prepares advertising materials, and sets the dates of the meeting. A
local correspondent looks after a proper hall for meeting, distributes
the advertising posters, and bears a certain responsibility for the
success of the institute. Meetings are arranged in series, and a corps
of two or three lecturers is sent by the director upon a week's tour.
One of these lecturers is called a conductor. He usually presides over
the institute and keeps the discussions in proper channels. Practice
makes him an expert. The state lecturers do most of the talking. Local
speakers do not bear any large share in the programme. Questions are
freely asked, however.
Ohio has an institute society in each county, and this society largely
controls its own institutes. The secretary of the State Board of
Agriculture, who has charge of the system, assigns dates and speakers to
each institute. After that everything is in the hands of the local
society, which chooses the topics to be presented by the state speakers,
advertises the meeting, and the society president acts as presiding
officer. Local speakers usually occupy half the time.
It does not seem as if either of these plans in its entirety were
ideal--the one an extreme of centralized control, the other an extreme
of local management. Yet in practice both plans work well. No states in
the Union have better institutes nor better results from institute work
than Wisconsin and Ohio. Skill, intelligence, and tact count for more
than particular institutions.
New York may be said to follow the Wisconsin plan. Minnesota goes even a
step farther; instead of holding several series of institutes
simultaneously in different parts of the state, attended by different
"crews," the whole corps of state speakers attends every institute. No
set programmes are arranged. Everything depends upon local conditions.
This system is expensive, but under present guidance very effective.
Michigan, Indiana, and Pennsylvania have adopted systems which are a
mean between the plan of centralization and the plan of localization.
Illinois has a plan admirably designed to encourage local interest,
while providing for central management.
Few other states have carried institute work so far as the states
already named, and in some cases there seems to be a prejudice against a
well-centralized and fully-developed system--a feeling that each
locality may be self-sufficing in institute work. But this attitude is
wearing away, for experience serves to demonstrate fully the value of
system. The danger of centralization is bureaucracy; but in institute
work, if the management fails to provide for local needs, and to furnish
acceptable speakers, vigorous protests soon correct the aberration.
It has been stated that in America we have no educational _system_--that
spontaneity is the dominant feature of American education. This is
certainly true of farmers' institutes. So it has transpired that
numerous special features have come in to use in various
states--features of value and interest. It may be worth while to suggest
some of the more characteristic of these features, without attempting an
exact category.
Formerly the only way in which women were recognized at the institutes
was by home and social topics on the programme, though women have always
attended the meetings freely. Some years ago Minnesota and Wisconsin
added women speakers to their list of state speakers, and in the case of
Wisconsin, at least, held a separate session for women, simultaneously
with one or two sessions of the regular institute, with demonstration
lectures in cooking as the chief features. Michigan holds "women's
sections" in connection with institutes, but general topics are taken
up. In Ontario separate women's institutes have been organized. In
Illinois a State Association of Domestic Science has grown out of the
institutes. Thus institute work has broadened to the advantage of farm
women.
At many institutes there are exhibits of farm and domestic products--a
sort of midwinter fair. Oftentimes the merchants of the town in which
the institute is held offer premiums as an inducement to the farmers.
In Wisconsin an educational feature of much value takes the form of
stock-judging--usually at the regular autumn fairs. The judges give
their reasons for their decisions, thus emphasizing the qualities that
go to make up a perfect or desirable animal.
In several states there is held an annual state institute called a
"round-up," "closing institute," or the like. It is intended to be a
largely attended and representative state convention of agriculturists,
for the purpose of discussing topics of general interest to men and
women from the farms. These meetings are frequently very large and
enthusiastic gatherings.
The county institute society is a part of the organization in some
instances very well developed. It gives permanency to the work and
arouses local interest and pride.
The development of men and women into suitable state speakers is an
interesting phase. As a rule the most acceptable speakers are men who
have made a success in some branch of farming, and who also have
cultivated the gift of clear and simple expression. Not a few of these
men become adepts in public speaking and achieve a reputation outside of
their own states. In several states there is held a "normal
institute"--an autumn meeting lasting a week or two weeks, and bringing
together, usually at the state college of agriculture, the men who are
to give the lectures at the institutes of the winter to follow. The
object of the gathering is to bring the lecturers into close contact
with the latest things in agricultural science, and to train them for
more effective work.
A few years ago the United States Department of Agriculture employed an
experienced institute director to give all his time to the study and
promotion of farmers' institutes. This incident is suggestive of the
important place which institutes have secured in the work for better
farming.
The results of a generation of institute work are not easy to summarize.
It is safe to make a broad generalization by asserting that this form
of agricultural education has contributed in a remarkable degree to
better farming. The best methods of farming have been advocated from the
institute platform. Agricultural college professors, and agricultural
experimenters have talked of the relations of science to practical
farming. The farmers have come to depend upon the institute as a means
for gaining up-to-date information.
And if institutes have informed, they have also done what is still
better--they have inspired. They have gone into many a dormant farm
community and awakened the whole neighborhood to a quicker life. They
have started discussions, set men thinking, brought in a breath of fresh
air. They have given to many a farmer an opportunity for
self-development as a ready speaker.
Other educational agencies, such as the agricultural colleges and
experiment stations, have profited by institutes. No one thing has done
more than the institutes to popularize agricultural education, to stir
up interest in the colleges, to make the farmers feel in touch with the
scientists.
Farmers' institutes are a phase of university extension, and it is as a
part of the extension movement that they are bound to increase in value
and importance. Reading-courses and correspondence-courses are growing
factors in this extension movement, but the power of the spoken word is
guarantee that the farmers' institute cannot be superseded in fact. And
it is worth noting again, that while university extension has not been
the success in this country which its friends of a decade ago fondly
prophesied for it, its humbler cousin--agricultural college
extension--has been a conspicuous success, and is acquiring a constantly
increasing power among the educational agencies that are trying to deal
with the farm problem.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HESPERIA MOVEMENT
The gulf between parent and teacher is too common a phenomenon to need
exposition. The existence of the chasm is probably due more to
carelessness, to the pressure of time, or to indolence than to any more
serious delinquencies; yet all will admit the disastrous effects that
flow from the fact that there is not the close intellectual and
spiritual sympathy that there should be between the school and the home.
It needs no argument to demonstrate the value of any movement that has
for its purpose the bridging of the gulf. But it is an omen of
encouragement to find that there are forces at work designed to bring
teacher and school patron into a closer working harmony. A statement of
the history and methods of some of these agencies may therefore well
have a place in a discussion of rural progress. For the movements to be
described are essentially rural-school movements. Of first interest is
an attempt which has been made in the state of Michigan to bridge the
gulf--to create a common standing-ground for both teacher and
parent--and on that basis to carry on an educational campaign that it is
hoped will result in the many desirable conditions which, a priori,
might be expected from such a union. At present the movement is confined
practically to the rural schools. It consists in the organization of a
county Teachers and Patrons' Association, with a membership of teachers
and school patrons, properly officered. Its chief method of work is to
hold one or more meetings a year, usually in the country or in small
villages, and the programme is designed to cover educational questions
in such a way as to be of interest and profit to both teachers and
farmers.
This movement was indigenous to Michigan--its founders worked out the
scheme on their own initiative, and to this day its promoters have never
drawn upon any resources outside the state for suggestion or plan. But
if the friends of rural education elsewhere shall be attracted by this
method of solving one of the vexed phases of their problem, I hope that
they will describe it as "the Hesperia movement." For the movement
originated in Hesperia, was developed there, and its entire success in
Hesperia was the reason for its further adoption. Hesperia deserves any
renown that may chance to come from the widespread organization of
Teachers and Patrons' Associations.
And where is Hesperia? It lies about forty miles north and west of Grand
Rapids--a mere dot of a town, a small country village at least twelve or
fifteen miles from any railroad. It is on the extreme eastern side of
Oceana County, surrounded by fertile farming lands, which have been
populated by a class of people who may be taken as a type of
progressive, successful, intelligent American farmers. Many of them are
of Scotch origin. Partly because of their native energy, partly,
perhaps, because their isolation made it necessary to develop their own
institutions, these people believe in and support good schools, the
Grange, and many progressive movements.
For several years there had existed in Oceana County the usual county
teachers' association. But, because Hesperia was so far from the center
of the county, and because it was not easily accessible, the teachers
who taught schools in the vicinity could rarely secure a meeting of the
association at Hesperia; and in turn they found it difficult to attend
the meetings held in the western part of the county. A few years ago it
chanced that this group of teachers was composed of especially bright,
energetic, and original young men and women. They determined to have an
association of their own. It occurred to someone that it would add
strength to their organization if the farmers were asked to meet with
them. The idea seemed to "take," and the meetings became quite popular.
This was during the winter of 1885-86. Special credit for this early
venture belongs to Mr. E. L. Brooks, still of Hesperia and an
ex-president of the present association, and to Dr. C. N. Sowers, of
Benton Harbor, Mich., who was one of the teachers during the winter
named, and who was elected secretary of the Board of School Examiners in
1887. Mr. Brooks writes:
The programmes were so arranged that the participants in
discussions and in the reading of papers were about equally divided
between teachers and patrons. An active interest was awakened from
the start. For one thing, it furnished a needed social gathering
during the winter for the farmers. The meetings were held on
Saturdays, and the schoolhouse favored was usually well filled. The
meetings were not held at any one schoolhouse, but were made to
circulate among the different schools. These gatherings were so
successful that similar societies were organized in other portions
of the country.
In 1892, Mr. D. E. McClure, who has since (1896-1900) been deputy
superintendent of public instruction of Michigan, was elected
county-school commissioner of Oceana County. Mr. McClure is a man of
great enthusiasm and made a most successful commissioner. He conceived
the idea that this union of teachers and patrons could be made of the
greatest value, in stimulating both teachers and farmers to renewed
interest in the real welfare of the children as well as a means of
securing needed reforms. His first effort was to prepare a list of books
suitable for pupils in all grades of the rural schools. He also prepared
a rural lecture-course, as well as a plan for securing libraries for the
schools. All these propositions were adopted by a union meeting of
teachers and farmers. His next step was to unite the interests of
eastern Oceana County and western Newaygo County (Newaygo lying directly
east of Oceana), and in 1893 there was organized the "Oceana and Newaygo
Counties Joint Grangers and Teachers' Association," the word "Granger"
being inserted because of the activity of the Grange in support of the
movement. Mr. McClure has pardonable pride in this effort of his, and
his own words will best describe the development of the movement:
This association meets Thursday night and continues in session
until Saturday night. Some of the best speakers in America have
addressed the association. Dr. Arnold Tompkins, in speaking before
the association, said it was a wonderful association and the only
one of its character in the United States.
What was my ideal in organizing such associations?
1. To unite the farmers who pay the taxes that support the schools,
the home-makers, the teachers, the pupils, into a co-operative work
for better rural-school education.
2. To give wholesome entertainment in the rural districts, which
from necessity are more or less isolated.
3. To create a taste for good American literature in home and
school, and higher ideals of citizenship.
4. Summed up in all, to make the rural schools character-builders,
to rid the districts of surroundings which destroy character, such
as unkept school yards, foul, nasty outhouses, poor, unfit
teachers. These reforms, you understand, come only through a
healthy educational sentiment which is aroused by a sympathetic
co-operation of farm, home, and school.
What results have I been able to discover growing out of this work?
Ideals grow so slowly that one cannot measure much progress in a
few years. We are slaves to conditions, no matter how hard, and we
suffer them to exist rather than arouse ourselves and shake them
off. The immediate results are better schools, yards,
out-buildings, schoolrooms, teachers, literature for rural people
to read.
Many a father and mother whose lives have been broken upon the
wheel of labor have heard some of America's orators, have read some
of the world's best books, because of this movement, and their
lives have been made happier, more influential, more hopeful.
Thousands of people have been inspired, made better, at the
Hesperia meetings.
In western Michigan the annual gathering at Hesperia is known far and
wide as "the big meeting." The following extract from the Michigan
_Moderator-Topics_ indicates in the editor's breezy way the impression
the meeting for 1906 made upon an observer:
Hesperia scores another success. Riding over the fourteen miles
from the railroad to Hesperia with Governor Warner and D. E.
McClure, we tried to make the latter believe that the crowd would
not be forthcoming on that first night of the fourteenth annual
"big meeting." It was zero weather and mighty breezy. For such a
movement to succeed two years is creditable, to hold out for five
is wonderful, to last ten is marvelous, but to grow bigger and
better for fourteen years is a little short of miraculous. McClure
is recognized as the father of the movement and his faith didn't
waver a hair's breadth. And sure enough there was the
crowd--standing room only, to hear the governor and see the great
cartoonist J. T. McCutcheon of the _Chicago Tribune_. For three
evenings and two days the big hall is crowded with patrons, pupils
and teachers from the towns and country round. During the fourteen
years that these meetings have been held, the country community has
heard some of the world's greatest speakers. The plan has been
adopted by other counties in Michigan and other states both east
and west. Its possibilities are well-nigh unlimited and its power
for good is immeasurable. Everyone connected with it may well feel
proud of the success attending the now famous "Hesperia Movement."
In 1897, Kent County, Michigan (of which Grand Rapids is the county
seat), organized a Teachers and Patrons' Association that is worth a
brief description, although in more recent years its work has been
performed by other agencies. It nevertheless serves as a good example of
a well-organized association designed to unite the school and home
interests of rural communities. It was for several years signally
successful in arousing interest in all parts of the county. Besides, it
made a departure from the Oceana-Newaygo plan which must be considered
advantageous for most counties. The Hesperia meeting is an annual
affair, with big crowds and abundant enthusiasm. The Kent County
association was itinerant. The membership included teachers, school
officers, farmers generally, and even pupils. An attempt was made to
hold monthly meetings during the school year, but for various reasons
only five or six meetings a year were held. The meetings usually
occurred in some Grange hall, the Grange furnishing entertainment for
the guests. There were usually three sessions--Friday evening and
Saturday forenoon and afternoon. The average attendance was nearly five
hundred, about one-tenth being teachers; many teachers as well as
farmers went considerable distances to attend.
The Kent County association did not collect any fees from its members,
the Teachers' Institute fund of the county being sufficient to provide
for the cost of lectures at the association meetings. Permission for
this use of the fund was obtained from the state superintendent of
public instruction. Some counties have a membership fee; at Hesperia,
the fee is 50 cents, and a membership ticket entitles its holder to a
reserved seat at all sessions. The Kent County association also
suggested a reading-course for its members.
The success of the work in Kent County was due primarily to the fact
that the educators and the farmers and their leaders are in especially
close sympathy. And right there is the vital element of success in this
work. The initiative must be taken by the educators, but the plan must
be thoroughly democratic, and teacher and farmer must be equally
recognized in all particulars. The results of the work in Kent County
were thus summarized by the commissioner of schools of the county:
To teachers, the series of meetings is a series of mid-year
institutes. Every argument in favor of institutes applies with all
its force to these associations. To farmers they afford a near-by
lecture course, accessible to all members of the family, and of as
high grade as those maintained in the larger villages. To the
schools, the value is in the general sentiment and interest
awakened. The final vote on any proposed school improvement is
taken at the annual school meeting, and the prevailing sentiment in
the neighborhood has everything to do with this vote. And not only
this, but the general interest of patrons may help and cheer both
teacher and pupils throughout the year. On the other hand,
indifference and neglect may freeze the life out of the most
promising school. There is no estimating the value to the schools
in this respect.
The Kent County association had a very simple constitution. It is
appended here for the benefit of any who may desire to begin this
beneficent work of endeavoring to draw more closely together rural
schools and country homes.
ARTICLE I.--NAME
This association shall be known as "The Kent County Teachers and
Patrons' Association."
ARTICLE II.--MEMBERSHIP
Any person may become a member of this association by assenting to
this constitution and paying the required membership fee.
ARTICLE III.--OBJECTS
The object of this association shall be the promotion of better
educational facilities in all ways and the encouragement of social
and intellectual culture among its members.
ARTICLE IV.--MEETINGS
At least five meetings of the association shall be held each year,
during the months of October, November, January, February, and
March, the dates and places of meetings to be determined and
announced by the executive committee. Special meetings may be
called at the election of the executive committee.
ARTICLE V.--OFFICERS
SECTION 1. The officers of the association shall be a president, a
vice-president, a secretary, a treasurer, and an executive
committee composed of five members to be appointed by the
president.
SEC. 2. The election of officers shall occur at the regular meeting
of the association in the month of October.
SEC. 3. The duties of each officer shall be such as parliamentary
usage assigns, respectively, according to Cushing's Manual.
SEC. 4. It shall be the duty of the executive committee to arrange
a schedule of meetings and to provide suitable lecturers and
instructors for the same on or before the first day of September of
each year. It shall be the further duty of this committee to devise
means to defray the expenses incurred for lecturers and
instructors. All meetings shall be public, and no charge for
admission shall be made, except by order of the executive
committee.
ARTICLE VI.--COURSE OF READING
SECTION 1. The executive committee may also recommend a course of
reading to be pursued by members, and it shall be their duty to
make such other recommendations from time to time as shall have for
their object the more effective carrying out of the purposes of the
association.
Whether the Oceana County plan of a set annual meeting or the Kent
County plan of numerous itinerant meetings is the better one depends
much on the situation. It is not improbable that itinerant meetings,
with an annual "round-up" meeting of the popular type as the great event
of the school year, would be very satisfactory.
Other counties in the state have taken up the Hesperia idea. In some
cases associations similar to the Kent County association have been
developed. More recently the work has frequently been carried on by the
county commissioner of schools directly. "Institutes on wheels" have
become a factor in the campaign for better rural schools. One
commissioner writes:
My aim has been to bring into very close relationship teachers,
patrons, and pupils. This is done, in part, in the following
manner: I engage, for a week's work at a time, some educator of
state or national reputation to ride with me on my visitation of
schools. Through the day, schools are visited, pupils' work
inspected, and in the evening, a rally is held in the locality
visited in that day. A circuit is made during the week, and Friday
evening and the Saturday following a general round-up is held. The
results of this work have been far reaching. Teachers, patrons, and
pupils are brought into close relationship and a higher standard of
education is developed.
The form of organization matters little. The essential idea of the
"Hesperia movement" was to bring together the teacher and the school
patron on a common platform, to a common meeting-place, to discuss
subjects of common interest. This idea must be vitalized in the rural
community before that progress in rural-school matters which we desire
shall become a fact.
It is only fair to say that administrators of rural-school systems in
several states are attempting in one way or another, and have done so
for some years, to bring together teachers and school patrons. In Iowa
there are mothers' clubs organized for the express purpose of promoting
the best interests of the schools. In many of the communities the county
superintendent organizes excursions, and holds school contests which are
largely attended by patrons of the schools.
Ohio has what is known as the "Ohio School Improvement Federation." Its
objects are: (1) to create a wholesome educational sentiment in the
citizenship of the state; (2) to remove the school from partisan
politics; (3) to make teaching a profession, protected and justly
compensated. County associations of the federation are being organized
and the effort is being made to reach the patrons of the schools and to
create the right public sentiment. In many of the teachers' institutes
there is one session devoted entirely to subjects that are of special
interest to the school-board members and to the patrons of the schools.
Educational rallies are held in many of the townships, at which effort
is made to get together all the citizens and have an exhibit of school
work.
In Minnesota, a law was passed recently to the effect that school
officers within a county may attend one educational convention a year
upon call of the county superintendent. They receive therefor, three
dollars for one day's services and five cents mileage each way for
attendance. Already a number of very successful conventions have been
held, wherein all school districts in the counties have been
represented.
The county institutes in Pennsylvania are largely attended by the public
and are designed to reach patrons as well as teachers.
In Kansas, county superintendents have organized school-patrons'
associations and school-board associations, both of which definitely
purpose to bring together the school and the home and the officers of
the school into one body and to co-operate with individuals for the
purpose of bettering the school conditions.
Doubtless other states are carrying on similar methods.
An interesting movement wholly independent of the Hesperia plan has
recently been put into operation under the leadership of Principal Myron
T. Scudder of the State Normal School, New Paltz, N. Y. He has organized
a series of country-school conferences. They grew out of a recognized
need, but were an evolution rather than a definite scheme. The school
commissioner, the teachers, and the Grange people of the community have
joined in making up the conference. An attempt is also made to interest
the pupils. At one conference there was organized an athletic league for
the benefit of the boys of the country school. The practical phases of
nature-study and manual training are treated on the programme, and at
least one session is made a parents' meeting. There is no organization
whatever.
Dr. A. E. Winship, of the _Journal of Education_, Boston, had the
following editorial in the issue of June 21, 1906:
It is now fourteen years since D. E. McClure spoke into being the
Hesperia movement, which is a great union of educational and farmer
forces, in a midwinter Chautauqua, as it were. Twelve miles from
the railroad, in the slight village of Hesperia, a one-street
village, one side of the street being in one county and the other
side in another, for three days and evenings in midwinter each
year, in a ramshackle building, eight hundred people from all parts
of the two counties sit in reserved seats, for which they pay a
good price, and listen to one or two notable speakers and a number
of local functionaries. One-half of the time is devoted to
education and the other to farm interests.
It is a great idea, well worked out, and after fourteen years it
maintains its lustiness, but I confess to disappointment that the
idea has not spread more extensively. It is so useful there, and
the idea is so suggestive, that it should have been well-nigh
universal, and yet despite occasional bluffs at it, I know of no
serious effort to adopt it elsewhere, unless the midwinter meeting
at Shelby, in one of these two counties, can be considered a spread
of the idea. This child of the Hesperia movement, in one of the two
counties, and only twenty miles away, had this year many more in
attendance than have ever been at Hesperia.
This work of uniting more closely the interests, sympathies, and
intelligence of the teachers and patrons of the rural school has had a
test in Michigan of sufficient length to prove that it is a practicable
scheme. No one questions the desirability of the ends it is prepared to
compass, and experience in Michigan shows not only that where the
educators have sufficient enterprise, tact, enthusiasm, and persistence
the necessary organizations can be perfected, but that substantial
results follow. For the sake of better rural schools, then, it is
sincerely to be hoped that the "Hesperia movement" may find expression
in numerous teachers and patrons' associations in at least the great
agricultural states.