in a certain section were owned by a Milwaukee capitalist. He found
that the tenant farmers on these acres were poor and struggling for a
better living, and he could not, among them, finance an adequate church.
He promptly went to Milwaukee and secured five minutes of the time and
attention of the absentee landlord. When he had stated the case and the
reasons why this large owner should give to the country church on his
acres, the man promptly said, "You have stated what I never before
realized and I will give you a contribution of one hundred dollars per
year for that church until you hear from me to the contrary."
In contrast to this there is in Central Illinois a large estate of five
thousand acres. The owner lives in a distant city and his son tills the
land. It is known among the neighbors that the son has orders to oppose
all improvements of churches and of schools, "because there is no money
for us in the church or the school."
It is useless to complain of the position in which a man is. The
minister's duty is to utilize him in his own status and to enable him to
practise the virtues which are open to him. The retired farmer can
become an active and devoted evangelist, preacher or organizer. He
should be made a leader in the intellectual development of the farmer's
problem of the region. He has leisure and intelligence and is often a
devout man. It is the business of the minister to transform this into
religious and social efficiency. The temperance movement in the Middle
West has had generous and devoted support from the retired farmers
living in the towns. The families of these one time farmers are seeking
after culture. The literary and aesthetic aspects of the community can
well be committed to members of these families. Their value for the
community is probably in these directions. Above all it is the business
of the minister to sympathize with the life they are living and to
enable them to live it to the highest advantage.
The energies of the church should be devoted to the tenant farmer. Of
this more will be said in another place. He also must be treated in
sympathy with his social and economic experience and the religious
service rendered to him must be the complete betterment of his life as
he is trying to live it. He is not a sinner because he is a tenant and
what he does as a tenant is therefore not a misdemeanor, but a normal
reaction upon life. The church can help him in purging his life from the
iniquities peculiar to a tenant and a dependent. The noblest motives
must be brought out and the life he is to live should be given its own
ideals.
Above all the period of exploitation must be understood by the teacher
and the preacher to be a preparation, a transition through which country
people are coming to organized and scientific agriculture. Gradually the
influence of science and the leadership of the departments and colleges
of agriculture are being extended in the country. Little by little,
whether through landlord or tenant, farming is becoming a profession
requiring brains, science and trained intelligence. The country church
should promote this process because only through its maturity can the
country church in the average community find its own establishment. The
reconstruction of the churches now going on corresponds to the
exploitation of the land. The duty of the church in the process of
exploitation is to build the community and to make itself the center of
the growing scientific industry on which the country community in the
future will be founded.
The religion of the exploiter moves in the giving of money. Consecration
of his wealth is consecration of his world and of himself. The church
that would save him must teach him to give. His sins are those of greed,
his virtues are those of benevolence. His own type, not the least worthy
among men, should be honored in his religion. No man's conversion ever
makes him depart from his type, but be true to his type. Therefore the
religion for the exploiter of land is a religion of giving, to the poor
at his door, to the ignorant in this land, and to the needy of all
lands.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: The Conservation of Natural Resources in the United States,
by Van Hise.]
[Footnote 8: J. B. Ross--"Agrarian Changes in the Middle West."]
[Footnote 9: Secretary of Agriculture, James Wilson at the United States
Land and Irrigation Exposition, Chicago, Nov. 19, 1910.]
[Footnote 10: The Rural Life Problem in the United States, by Sir Horace
Plunkett.]
[Footnote 11: Dean Chas. F. Curtiss, State College of Iowa.]
IV
THE HUSBANDMAN
The scientific farmer is dependent upon the world economy. He is the
local representative of agriculture, whose organization is national and
even international. He raises cotton in Georgia, but he "makes milk" in
Orange County, New York, because the market and the soil and the climate
and other conditions require of him this crop.
He is dependent upon the college of agriculture for the methods by which
he can survive as a farmer. Tradition, which dominated the agriculture
of a former period, is a disappearing factor in husbandry of the soil.
The changes in market conditions are such as to impoverish the farmer
who learns only from the past. Tradition could teach the farmer how to
raise the raw materials, under the old economy, in which the farmhouse
and community were sufficient unto themselves. But in a time when the
wool of the sheep in Australia goes halfway round the world in its
passage from the back of a sheep to the back of a man, the sheep farmer
becomes dependent upon the scientist. He cannot afford to raise sheep
unless the scientific man assures him that in the production of wool
his land has its highest utility. "The American farm land is passing
into the hands of those who will use it to the highest advantage."[12]
The dependence of the scientific farmer or husbandman upon the world
market and upon the scientists who are studying agriculture enlarges the
circle of his life from the rural household to the rural community. In
the rural community agriculture can be taught; in the household it
cannot. The only teaching of the household is tradition; the teaching of
the community is in terms of science. The country school and the country
church take a greater place as community institutions just so soon as
the farmer passes out of the period of exploitation into that of
scientific husbandry.
The husbandman is the economist in agriculture. He is to the farm what
the husband was to the household in old times. One is tempted to say
also that the husbandman is he who marries the land. American farm land
has suffered dishonor and degradation, but it has known all too little
the affection which could be figuratively expressed in marriage. The
Bible speaks of "marrying the land."--"Thy land shall be called Beulah
for thy land shall be married." Side by side in this country we have the
lands which have been dishonored, degraded, abandoned, dissolute, and
the lands husbanded, fertilized, enriched and made beautiful.
The husbandman or rural economist cares more for qualities than for
quantity. He works not merely for intensive cultivation of the soil, but
also for the preservation of the soil and use of it in its own terms, at
its highest values.
The principle at work is not the increase in the farmer's material gains
or possessions. The husbandry of the soil is not a mere increase in
market values. It is a deeper and more ethical welfare than that which
can be put in the bank. "Agriculture is a religious occupation." When it
sustains a permanent population and extends from generation to
generation the same experiences, agriculture is productive in the
highest degree of moral and religious values. In the words of Director
L. H. Bailey, of Cornell, "The land is holy."
This is especially true at the present time, when the land is limited in
amount. Already the whole nation is dependent upon the farmer in the
degree intimated by the statement of Dean Bailey. "The census of 1900
showed approximately one-third of our people on farms or closely
connected with farms, as against something like nine-tenths, a hundred
years previous. It is doubtful whether we have struck bottom, although
the rural exodus may have gone too far in some regions, and we may not
permanently strike bottom for sometime to come."[13]
The service of the few to the many, therefore, is the present status of
the husbandman. The very fact that one-third of the people must feed
all the people imposes religious and ethical conditions upon the farmer.
The dependence of the greater number for their welfare upon those who
are to till the soil brings that obligation, which the farmer is well
constituted to bear and to which his serious spirit gives response.
This means that with the growing consciousness of the need of scientific
agriculture there will arise, indeed is now arising, a new ethical and
religious feeling among country people. The church which is made up of
scientific farmers is a new type of church.
A notable testimony to the influence of the church in developing
husbandry is by Sir Horace Plunkett,[14] who testifies to the religious
influence that led to the agrarian revolution in Denmark.
"My friends and I have been deeply impressed by the educational
experience of Denmark, where the people, who are as much dependent on
agriculture as are the Irish, have brought it by means of organization
to a more genuine success than it has attained anywhere else in Europe.
Yet an inquirer will at once discover that it is to the 'High School'
founded by Bishop Grundtvig, and not to the agricultural schools, which
are also excellent, that the extraordinary national progress is mainly
due. A friend of mine who was studying the Danish system of state aid to
agriculture, found this to be the opinion of the Danes of all classes,
and was astounded at the achievements of the associations of farmers not
only in the manufacture of butter, but in a far more difficult
undertaking, the manufacture of bacon in large factories equipped with
all the most modern machinery and appliances which science had devised
for the production of the finished article. He at first concluded that
this success in a highly technical industry by bodies of farmers
indicated a very perfect system of technical education. But he soon
found another cause. As one of the leading educators and agriculturists
of the country put it to him: 'It's not technical instruction, it's the
humanities.' I would like to add that it is also, if I may coin a term,
the 'nationalities,' for nothing is more evident to the student of
Danish education or, I might add, of the excellent system of the
Christian Brothers in Ireland, than that one of the secrets of their
success is to be found in their national basis and their foundation upon
the history and literature of the country."
Every observer of these Danish Folk High Schools testifies to their
religious enthusiasm, their patriotism and above all to the songs with
which their lecture hours are begun and ended. A graduate of these
schools living for years in America, the mother of children then
entering college, said, "Those songs helped me over the hardest period
of my life. I can always sing myself happy with them." The spirit which
pervades the schools was influential in Danish agriculture, as
expressed in the title of Grundtvig's best known hymn, "The Country
Church Bells." Under such an influence as this has the agricultural life
of Denmark taken the lead over its urban and manufacturing life.
The modifying influence of husbandry upon the church and its teaching is
illustrated in the following incident. A farmer in Missouri had a good
stand of corn which promised all through the summer to produce an
excellent crop. Abundance of sun and rain favored the farmer's hope that
his returns would be large, but in the fall the crop proved a failure.
The farmer at once cast about for the cause of this disappointment. He
had his soil analyzed by a scientist and discovered that it was
deficient in nitrogen. The next year he devoted to supplying this lack
in the soil and in the year following had an abundant return in corn.
"Now that experience turned me away," said he, "from the country church,
because the teaching of the country church as I had been accustomed to
it was out of harmony with the study of the situation and the conquest
over nature. I had been taught in the country church to surrender under
such conditions to the will of Providence." The country church of the
husbandman must therefore be a church in harmony with the tillage of the
soil by science. Like the farm households about it, the church will
possess a large wealth of tradition, but the church of the scientific
farmer must be open to the teachings of science and must be responsive,
intelligent and alert in the intellectual leadership of the people.
A church of this sort is at West Nottingham, Maryland. The minister Rev.
Samuel Polk, had been discouraged by the inattention of his people to
his message. He had come to feel that this is an unbelieving age and had
surrendered himself to the steadfast performance of his duties, the
preaching of the truth faithfully and the ministry to his people so far
as they would receive it. In addition he had the task of tilling forty
acres of land which belongs to the church. This he was doing faithfully,
but without much intelligent interest.
An address on the country church in an agricultural college sent him
home with new ideas. He saw that his life as a farmer and as a preacher
had to be made one. He determined to preach to farmers and to till his
land as an example of Christian husbandry. He began as a scholar by
studying the scientific use of his land. He found at once that the
farmers about him were forced to study the tillage of their soil,
because it had been exhausted of fertility by methods of farming no
longer profitable. In the first year the preacher raised, by means of a
dust mulch through a dry summer, a crop of one hundred and seventy-five
bushels of potatoes. Meantime his preaching had been enlivened with new
illustrations and he was enabled to enforce, to the amazement of his
hearers, new impressions with old truths. The Scripture teaching which
had become dull and scholastic became live and modern, as he preached
the Old Testament to a people who were recognizing the sacredness of
land. His audiences began to increase. His influence on his people very
shortly passed bounds and reserves. When at the end of the season his
potato crop came in, the farmers gave sign of recognizing his leadership
as a farmer and as a preacher. Within a year this man had taken a place
as a first citizen, which no one else in the community could hold.
Because he was a preacher he could become the leading authority upon
farming and because he must needs be a farmer he found it possible to
preach with greater acceptance.
This pastor gave up the methods of bookish preparation for preaching. He
preached as the Old Testament men did, to the occasion and to the event.
He spoke to the community as being a man himself immersed in the same
life as theirs. On a recent occasion when a woman was very sick in one
of the farm houses and had suffered from the neglect of her neighbors,
his sermon consisted of an appeal to visit the sick. That afternoon the
invalid was called on by thirty-eight people and sent a message before
night, begging the minister to hold the people back.
There are a few ministers throughout the country who are successful
farmers. Many ministers are speculators in farm land. They belong in the
exploiter class. One more instance should be given of the preacher who
promotes agriculture. In a recent discussion the writer was asked, "Do
you then believe that the minister should attend the agricultural
college," and he replied, "No. The agricultural college should be
brought to the country church."
At Bellona, New York, the ministers of two churches, Methodist and
Presbyterian, united with their officers in a farmers' club, to which
others were admitted. This club under the leadership of Rev. T. Maxwell
Morrison, makes the nucleus of its work the study of the agriculture of
the neighborhood and the improvement of it. Lecturers from Cornell
University are brought throughout the year into the country community to
take up in succession the various aspects of farming which may be
improved. The market is studied, by chemical analysis the nature of the
soil is determined, and the possibilities of the community are raised to
their highest value by careful investigation.
This farmers' club has social features as well. Other topics besides
farming are occasionally studied but the business of the club is
economic promotion of the well-being of the community. Incidentally, it
has furnished a social center for the countryside. The churches which
have had to do with it have been enlarged, their membership extended and
even their gifts to foreign missions have been increased in the period
of growth of the farmers' club.
The elements of permanent cultivation of the soil are found in greater
numbers among the Mormons, Scotch Irish Presbyterians, Pennsylvania
Germans, who are the best American agriculturists, than among the more
unstable populations of farmers. Those elements, however, are, simply
speaking, the following.
A certain austerity of life always accompanies successful and permanent
agriculture. By this is meant a fixed relation between production and
consumption.[15] Successful tillers of the soil labor to produce an
abundant harvest. They live at the same time in a meager and sparing
manner. Production is with them raised to its highest power and
consumption is reduced to its lowest. This means austere living. Such
communities are found among the Scotch Irish farmers. Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania, is peopled with them and their tillage of the soil has
continued through two centuries.
A notable illustration is in Illinois. The permanence of the conditions
of country life in this community is indicated by the long pastorate of
the minister who has just retired. Coming to the church at forty-eight
years of age, after other men have ceased from zealous service, he
ministered forty-two years to this parish of farmers, and has recently
retired at the age of ninety, leaving the church in ideal condition.
"The Middle Creek Church is distinctly a country charge, located in the
Southwest corner of Winnebago Township, of the County of Winnebago.
"The church was organized in June, 1855, in a stone schoolhouse. The
present house of worship was erected and dedicated in 1861. Five
ministers served the church as supplies until 1865, when the Rev. J. S.
Braddock, D. D., became the pastor and carried on a splendid work for
forty-two years, when he laid down his pastorate in 1907, at the age of
ninety."
"This community was settled by homesteaders and pioneers in the early
days of the West. Many of them came from Pennsylvania and some of them
were of Scotch descent. The history of the community has been but the
history of the development of a fertile Western Prairie country. It was
settled by strong Presbyterian men, and their descendants are now the
backbone of the community. There has been little change, but steady
growth."
The second element in the community of husbandmen is mutual support.
Professor Gillin of the University of Iowa has described to me the
community of Dunkers whom he has studied,[16] being deeply impressed
with their communal solidarity. Whenever a farm is for sale these
farmers at the meeting-house confer and decide at once upon a buyer
within their own religious fellowship. In the week following the
minister or a church member writes back to Pennsylvania and the
correspondence is pressed, until a family comes out from the older
settlements in the Keystone State to purchase this farm in Iowa and to
extend the colony of his fellow Dunkers. Reference is made elsewhere to
the communal support given to their own members who suffer economic
hardship. The serious tillage of the soil necessarily involves mutual
support and the husbandman's life is in his community.
The third factor in communal husbandry is progress. Everyone testifies
to the leadership of the "best families" in the transformation of the
older modes of the tillage of the soil to the newer. It is impossible
for the scientific agriculturist to make much improvement upon a country
community until the more progressive spirits and the more open minds
have been enlisted. Thereafter the better farming problem is solved.
There can be no modern agriculture in a community in which all are
equal. The communities of husbandmen will be as sharply differenced from
one another, so far as I can see, as men are in the great cities.
Leadership is the essential of progress. Gabriel Tarde has clearly
demonstrated that only those who are at the top of the social scale can
initiate social and economic enterprises. The cultivation of the soil
for generations to come must be highly progressive. To recover what we
have lost and to restore what has been wasted will exhaust the resources
of science and will tax the intelligence of the leaders among
husbandmen.
For this reason the ministers, teachers, and social workers in the
country should be not discouraged, but hopeful, when confronted with
rural landlords and capitalists. The business of the community leader is
to enlist in the common task those persons whose privileges are superior
and inspire them with a progressive spirit. Without their leadership the
community cannot progress. Without their privileges, wealth and superior
education, no progress is possible in the country.
If these pages tell the truth, then agriculture is a mode of life
fertile in religious and ethical values. But it must be husbandry, not
exploitation. Religious farming is a lifelong agriculture, indeed it
involves generations, and its serious, devoted spirit waits for the
reward, which was planted by the diligent father or grandfather, to be
reaped by the son or grandson. Men will not so consecrate themselves to
their children's good without the steadying influence of religion. So
that agriculture and religion are each the cause, and each the effect,
of the other.
If this is true, then the country church should promote the husbandry
of the soil. The agricultural college should be brought into the country
parish, for the church's sake. Indeed the minister would do well if his
scholarship be the learning of the husbandman. No other science has such
religious values. No other books have such immediate relation to the
well-being of the people. The minister is not ashamed to teach Greek,
or Latin,--dead languages. Why should he think it beneath him "to teach
the farmer how to farm," provided he can teach the farmer anything? If
he be a true scholar, the farmer, who is a practical man, needs his
learned co-operation in the most religious of occupations, that the land
may be holy.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 12: Rural Economics, by Prof. Thos. Nixon Carver.]
[Footnote 13: "The Country-Life Movement," by L. H. Bailey.]
[Footnote 14: "Ireland in the New Century," by Sir Horace Plunkett.]
[Footnote 15: Professor Thomas Nixon Carver.]
[Footnote 16: See Chapter V.]
V
EXCEPTIONAL COMMUNITIES
Most of this volume is devoted to the average conditions which prevail
throughout the United States. The attempt is made to deal with those
causes which are generally operative. It is the writer's opinion that
the causes dealt with in other chapters are the prevailing causes of
religious and social experience in the most of the United States. As
soon as the community, after its early settlement, becomes mature, these
causes show the effects here described. But there are exceptions which
should be noted and the cause of their different life made clear. These
exceptions are represented in the Mormons, the Scottish Presbyterians
and the Pennsylvania Germans.
"The best farmers in the country are the Mormons, the Scotch
Presbyterians and Pennsylvania Germans." This sentence expresses a
general observation of Prof. Carver of Harvard, speaking as an
economist. The churches among these three classes of exceptionally
prosperous farmers show great tenacity and are free from the weakness
which otherwise prevails in the country church. There is a group of
causes underlying this exceptional character of the three classes of
farmers.