Produced by Tom Roch, Barbara Kosker and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images produced by Core Historical
Literature in Agriculture (CHLA), Cornell University)
RURAL PROBLEMS OF TODAY
RURAL PROBLEMS OF TODAY
ERNEST R. GROVES
_Author of "Moral Sanitation," "Using the Resources of
the Country Church," etc._
ASSOCIATION PRESS
NEW YORK: 124 EAST 28TH STREET
1918
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF
THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS
TO
GLADYS HOAGLAND
WHOSE UNSELFISH AND INTELLIGENT CARE OF
CATHERINE AND ERNESTINE
HAS JUSTIFIED THE ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE
OF THEIR MOTHER
PREFACE
This book is written for the men and women who love the country and are
interested in its social welfare. Fortunately there are many such, and
each year their number is increasing.
Rural life has as many sides as there are human interests. This book
looks out upon country-life conditions from a viewpoint comparatively
neglected. It attempts to approach rural social life from the
psychological angle. The purpose of the book forces it from the
well-beaten pathways, but this effort to give emphasis to the mental
side of rural problems is not an attempt to discount the other
significant aspects of the rural environment. The field of rural service
is large enough to contain all who desire by serious study to advance at
some point the happiness, prosperity, and wholesomeness that belong by
social right to those who live and work in the country.
The author desires to thank the following for the privilege of using
material previously published: American Sociological Society, _American
Journal of Sociology_, National Conference of Social Work, Association
Press, and _Rural Manhood_.
E. R. G.
Durham, N. H.
April 1, 1918.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
I. THE RURAL WORKER AND THE COUNTRY HOME 1
II. THE FAMILY IN OUR COUNTRY LIFE 15
III. THE RURAL WORKER AND THE COUNTRY SCHOOLS 41
IV. THE COUNTRY CHURCH AND THE RURAL WORKER 53
V. MENTAL HYGIENE IN RURAL DISTRICTS 71
VI. THE SOCIAL VALUE OF RURAL EXPERIENCE 89
VII. RURAL VS. URBAN ENVIRONMENT 103
VIII. THE MIND OF THE FARMER 117
IX. PSYCHIC CAUSES OF RURAL MIGRATION 135
X. RURAL SOCIALIZING AGENCIES 149
XI. THE WORLD-WAR AND RURAL LIFE 169
THE RURAL WORKER AND THE COUNTRY HOME
I
THE RURAL WORKER AND THE COUNTRY HOME
With reference to the care of children, faulty homes may be divided into
two classes. There are homes that give the children too little care and
there are homes that give them too much. The failure of the first type
of home is obvious. Children need a great deal of wise, patient, and
kindly care. Even the lower animals require, when domesticated,
considerable care from their owners, if they are to be successfully
brought from infancy to maturity. Of course children need greater care.
No one doubts this. And yet it is certainly true that there are, even in
these days of widespread intelligence, many homes where the children
obtain too little care and in one way or another are seriously
neglected.
The harmfulness of the homes that give their children too much care is
not so generally realized as is the danger of the careless and selfish
home, although, in a general way, everyone acknowledges that children
may be given too much attention. The difficulty is to determine when a
particular child is being given too much adult supervision and too
little freedom. No one would question the fact that a child can become
an adult only by a decrease of adult control and an increase of personal
responsibility. Nevertheless, in spite of a general belief that a child
needs an opportunity to win self-government, there are parents not a few
who, from love and anxiety, run into the danger of protecting and
controlling their children too much. The father or mother spends too
much time with the children. The children are pampered. Too many
indulgences are permitted them. Children in these over-careful homes are
likely to grow up neurotic, conceited, timid, babyish, daydreaming men
and women, who are of little use in the world and are often a serious
problem for normal people. Probably this second type of a deficient home
is more dangerous than the first, for children without sufficient home
care often discover a substitute for their loss, but the over-protected
children can obtain no antidote for their misfortune.
Everyone knows that attacks are increasingly being made upon the home in
its present form by people who regard it as inefficient or as an
anachronism. It is usually thought, however, that these attacks come
mostly from agitators who set themselves more or less in opposition to
all the institutions established by the present social order. Perhaps
for this reason many do not believe that the family is receiving any
serious criticism and its satisfactory functioning is therefore taken
for granted. Such an easy-going optimism is not justified, for criticism
of the home is coming from science as well as from the agitators. For
example read "The Deforming Influences of the Home," by Dr. Helen W.
Brown, which appeared in the _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_ for April,
1917. She writes in one place as follows:
"Small wonder, then, if we begin to see that many of the mental ills
that afflict men are not due, as has been commonly supposed, to lack of
home training and the deteriorating influence of the world, but to too
much home, to a narrow environment which has often deformed his mind at
the start and given him a bias that can only be overcome through painful
adjustments and bitter experience."
The psychoanalysts and the clinic psychologists are gathering material
all the time that illustrates the bad results of home influences, and
soon the agitator will be using this as proof of the harmfulness of the
home as an institution. Some of us believe that no skepticism can be
more dangerous socially than that relating to the value of the home. The
best protection of the home must come from its moral efficiency and this
cannot be obtained if people are unwilling to face reasonable and
constructive criticism of the present working of the home. It is natural
for the adult looking backward to his childhood to assume too much for
the home, and then to transfer his emotion and his sense of the value of
his home experience to the present family as an institution. With this
enormous prejudice he refuses to see how often the family influence is
morally and socially bad. It would surprise such a person at least to
read an article like Emerson's "The Psychopathology of the Family" which
recently appeared in _The Journal of Abnormal Psychology_. Material
showing the unhappy results of inefficient family influences may be
found in nearly any number of the _Psychoanalytic Review_.
There appear to be three causes of the unwholesomeness of home
influences: lack of competition between homes, insufficient science
regarding the home problems, and the pleasure basis of family
organization.
First: There is no competition between homes. This is a most strikingly
peculiar situation. The home is competed against by other institutions,
such as the saloon, the moving picture, and the like, but as between
homes there is no competition whatever. Home life is a private affair.
Public opinion rules that it remain private. Nothing is sooner or more
seriously resented than interference with or criticism of the home life
of the individual. Professional men, such as doctors, lawyers, and
ministers, and business men compete with one another, and from this
competition comes constant, sane change and progress. But in the home,
there being no competition, methods of home management, however bad, go
on without change. Parents never realize their habitual carelessness in
home life. The scientists are seeking to bring some sort of competition
into home life, but they are under a very heavy handicap. In fact this
handicap is greater now than formerly, for our forefathers made long
visits with each other, sometimes staying for weeks in one home, thus
giving ample opportunity for valuable criticisms and suggestions from
guest to host.
Second: Bringing up children is really a scientific task and requires
scientific information. But to obtain scientific information of
practical value relating to the home is a baffling proposition. Human
instincts and child development have been studied very little. We have
theorized a great deal about such problems, but we have a remarkably
small fund of actual accurate information. Such knowledge as we have
recorded has been mostly obtained by parents, who have, of course, been
prejudiced. In such cases we seldom know the later history of the child
or the character of the home management and the actual contribution that
the home made as compared with other influences. Men who have had to
consider the entire history of an individual, who comes to the mind
specialist for treatment because of some abnormality of mental or moral
character, are gathering a great deal of valuable material regarding
family influences, but much of this is in regard to men and women who in
one way or another have been social failures. We have no material at
present of equal value in regard to the persons who in a popular sense
are "normal individuals." Such valuable information as we already have,
we are not very seriously trying to distribute. Yet, fortunately, a
beginning has been made and the entire problem is receiving an attention
that it has never before had.
Third: People are finding it difficult to accept the responsibilities
that belong to family life. Modern men and women more and more are
basing the home upon pleasure and comfort and personal advantages in a
narrow and thoughtless sense. When the crucial tests of family fitness
come with the children, the parents fail. They have had little specific
training for their greatest obligation and under such circumstances it
is strange only that so often they do not greatly fail. Children are
often unwelcome when they come into the home. Their coming disturbs the
easy-going pleasure regime of the household and as they become somewhat
of a burden to the father and mother, their interests are compromised,
that their parents may continue to have some of the freedom which they
enjoyed before the children came. Imagination cannot prepare for
experience in such a degree as to make it possible for those who marry
to realize the possible responsibilities of their choice. Because of
this they often are found to have undertaken tasks against which in
their heart of hearts they protest. It is natural for them, with such an
internal dissatisfaction, not to commit themselves fully or sufficiently
to the needs of their children.
Of one fact there is no doubt. Modern science is all the time
illustrating that early childhood, the period when the influence of
parents counts most, is the most significant of all the life of the
individual. Diseases and weaknesses of a physical character that
originate in early life bring about physical results that show in later
life. The same fact is true, but not so easily seen, with reference to
mental, moral, and social characteristics. The influence of the parents
upon the thinking of the child is particularly important. A child must
be trained to think rightly early in life. He should be saved from a
fanciful, dreamy life. He should be made to face real conditions, for
only as he tussles with reality is he prepared to enter the
relationships later demanded of mature adults. In all this he is much
influenced by his parents. At times real ability in the child to meet
his tasks with childish heroism is crushed by his parents and his entire
life spoiled.
The county worker, the minister, and the social leader in the country
must in their work consider seriously the needs of the home. The great
war will surely put a new strain upon the family. One result is likely
to be a freer relation between the sexes. Women now in new occupations,
because of the demands for labor due to war conditions, are likely to
remain in considerable numbers. This will influence the home status.
Schools are becoming more and more efficient and are taking over more of
the home functions. Good social service in the country will encourage
the home to use more fully its opportunities, to accept all its possible
functions. It is well not to be in a hurry to take as our work that
which the home fails to accomplish. The bad families, on the other hand,
should be stripped of all functions possible. Such homes cannot be
"eaten up" too soon.
Training should be provided for parents in the country. Some of this
type of social service is already being carried on in the cities. It is
equally needed in the country. Put on work for parents and get them to
come. Bring in men who have practical messages of real value to parents.
Don't seek to get a crowd. Lead country idealism to concrete problems.
For example, attempt to lower the death rate by making information
regarding health more popular. Drive the patent medicines from their
stronghold. Introduce the more thoughtful people to the work of the Life
Extension Institute.
Do not forget the human need of inspiration. People know more now than
they use. Get speakers who can inspire parents to activity. Only keep
the inspiration from being dissipated. Connect with actual problems the
interest awakened by good speakers. Insist upon enriching and
encouraging the home through the contributions of earnest talks upon
home problems. Don't expect cold science to accomplish with country
people what it is unable to do in the city. Inspiration and instruction
are both required.
THE FAMILY IN OUR COUNTRY LIFE
II
THE FAMILY IN OUR COUNTRY LIFE[1]
There is in our modern life nothing more significant than the increasing
social discontent regarding the present status of the home. Criticism of
our family conditions comes both from the enemies and from the friends
of the home. A radical and vigorous school of thought finds in the
family of today a mere social and moral anachronism, to be pushed aside
as quickly as possible. Another group of thinkers, on the other hand,
sees in the changes that are already taking place in the conditions of
family life, a hopeless deterioration. In such a turmoil of social
controversy there is at least unmistakable evidence that the home is
passing through a period of readjustment. This much is clear: changes in
our manner of life have placed a strain upon the family that it cannot
successfully withstand without greater efficiency.
Any effort to determine the value and obligations of the family, whether
urban or rural, requires first of all a clear statement of the
significant places of irritation, where at present the family is meeting
strain that makes readjustment necessary. These may be classified as
difficulties created by changes in:
1. The equipment or environment of the family.
2. The function of the family.
3. The internal adjustment of the family.
Regarding the family equipment, the situation in the city is certainly
radically different from what it was. The usual dwelling place of the
home was, in former times, a house which the family occupied
exclusively. It made home seclusion and family fellowship easy and gave
the family group a sense of responsibility for its place of living. For
an increasing number of people, this type of dwelling place no longer
exists. In its place we have the flat, the hotel, and the apartment
house. The new conditions do not provide the present family with a
favorable equipment. The seclusion of the family is largely removed. The
fellowship within the family circle is greatly decreased because of the
limitations of the place of abode, and the increased attraction of
places of amusement outside, made necessary because of the failure of
the home to give satisfactory recreation. Of course, the sense of
personal responsibility for the place of habitation is almost entirely
destroyed. Such is the equipment furnished the family by modern city
life. In the country, however, the family has had little significant
change in its equipment.
The largest function of the family is its moral training. It is this
service which has made the family the most important element in our past
civilization. Were the family of the future to fail morally, it would be
hard to imagine how its existence could be justified. Without doubt
this moral function of the family has centered about the children. The
conditions of modern urban life, however, tend to make the moral
training of the child by the home increasingly difficult. The city
dwelling does not offer the child a normal opportunity for his play. The
school and other institutions have to take over service formerly
rendered the child in the home. In a large number of cases the urban
home regards the child as merely a burden and therefore in such homes
every effort is made to have no children born. This prevents the home
from attempting the moral service for which it exists. Instead, the
futile attempt is made to build up an enduring, satisfying home life
upon the basis of the mere personal pleasure of husband and wife. In the
country we find the home, for the most part, attempting to carry out its
former function as an educational and moral institution.
The most serious difficulty in our present family appears to be
internal. Economic changes have brought women, to a very great degree,
into industry as wage earners. Women are at present earning a livelihood
in almost every form of occupation. New ethical and political ideas, in
addition to this great economic change in woman's life, have influenced
her status. She no longer has to marry in order to obtain the
necessities of life. She can become a wage earner. If she marries, she
brings into her new state of living the sense of independence that has
come to her from her experiences as a wage earner. In many cases, after
marriage she continues to work away from the home for wages. Marriage,
as it used to be, made no provision for the new status of woman. It
assumed a dependence, a subordination, and a limitation to which in
these days many women refuse to assent. This internal change in the
conditions of home life brings about a host of difficulties that require
satisfactory adjustment if the living together of the husband and wife
is to be a happy one.
In the country the demand for this new adjustment is less serious, for
there, to a greater degree than in the city, there are women who have
not claimed their new status.
The rural home with reference to its equipment, function, and internal
adjustment appears superior to the city home. When this conclusion is
reached, many students of rural problems are content to drop the
discussion of the rural family. Such an attitude of satisfaction
concerning the country home is neither logical nor safe. It may well be
that the country family will meet the strain due to modern changes later
than the urban family, but sooner or later it will have to face the need
of new adjustment. Only time itself can disclose whether the country
home will find serious difficulties in the way of its final adjustment
to the significant changes of modern life. There is certainly little
security in the fact that numerous country families have as yet been
insensible to the matrimonial unrest so characteristic of urban people.
What has come first to the urban centers must, sooner or later, to a
greater or less degree, enter country life. Indeed, it is impossible to
doubt that family discontent is growing in the country.
The important question, however, to the moral and social worker is
whether the country is obtaining all that it should from its superior
family opportunity. Assuming that it is healthier than the city, with
reference to the equipment, function, and adjustment of the family, it
is reasonable to ask, "What are the obstacles that keep the country home
from making its largest moral contribution to society?"
One fault with some country homes stands out on the surface. The wife is
too much a drudge. Her life is too narrow and too hard. This type of
home is passing, no doubt, but it has by no means passed. This kind of
woman may be little influenced by new thought, and may think her
situation as natural for her as it was for her mother. Whatever her
personal attitude, however, from the very nature of things she is unable
to make a significant moral contribution through her family duties.
There will be striking exceptions, of course, but the general rule will
stand--in modern life the woman drudge makes a poor mother. The fact
that she is less likely to rebel against her hard condition than her
urban sister, does not remove the dangers of her situation. And it is
well for the lover of country welfare to remember that even when the
wife accepts with no complaint the hardness of her lot, she often blames
her husband's occupation, farming, for her misfortune, and becomes a
rural pessimist, urging her children neither to farm nor to marry
farmers. Her deep, instinctive protest appears through suggestion in the
cravings of her children for urban life and urban occupation.
The housekeeping problem is for the woman on the farm seldom an easy
one, but, nevertheless, conditions that make of the farmer's wife an
overworked house slave are in these days of labor-saving devices without
excuse. In any case, such a family situation in the country, whatever
its cause, must be regarded as pathological.
Sex has too large a place in the construction of the rural family. One
of the advantages of the country family of which we hear much is the
general tendency toward earlier marriages than in the city. Without
doubt marriages, as a rule, do occur earlier among country people. This
fact is significant in more ways than most writers recognize. A very
thoughtful student of the American family, Mrs. Parsons, has called
attention to the social importance of the fact that after maturity
mental and moral traits are more likely to influence the choice than
merely physical traits. In other words, the earlier marriages are more
likely to be influenced by sex interests--using the term in a narrow
sense--than are the later marriages. This brings no social problem to
the minds of those who see in marriage, for the most part, merely
physical attraction and relations. The movement of human experience
seems, however, on the whole, to be away from such a conception of
marriage. Although the postponement of marriage requires for social
welfare a greater moral self-control, we have every reason to suppose
that we must gain social health by a higher moral idealism rather than
by a return to the earlier marriage of former generations. In that case,
to a considerable degree, the earlier marrying of the country people
discloses that they have not as yet felt the full force of the modern
causes that make for later marriages. Earlier marriages may be indeed
happier, but they are often narrower.
A recent writer tells us that the vices of the country are the vices of
isolation. Sex difficulties arise spontaneously and require no
commercial exploitation when young people live a barren and narrow life
without ideals. This emphasis of sex is expressed not merely in
immorality and illegitimacy, but also in a precocious interest in sex
and in a precocious courtship. Early marriage, therefore, often
represents the reaction from an uninteresting and empty environment and,
however fortunate in itself, certainly does not demonstrate a socially
wholesome situation.
To contrast the divorce situation in the country with that in the city
also fails to give the basis for social optimism that the facts are
often used to prove. Public opinion has more to do with actions than
law, and at present the general attitude toward the granting of divorce
is more conservative in the country than in the city. The reason for
this difference is, in large measure, the fact that once again the
country shows itself less sensitive to the changes that are taking place
with reference to the conditions of marriage. It certainly is not safe
to assume that the unhappy marriages in the country are in proportion
to the number of divorces. It is more likely that unless the urban
attitude changes, in time the country will come to feel toward divorces
much as city people do at present.
It is important to notice that, although legal divorce is frowned upon,
there is often a considerable social indifference to the loose living
together of men and women. Two clergymen at work in a rural community of
about a thousand people recently stated that there were in the community
at least forty unmarried people living together as husband and wife.
Later, I was informed by another resident of the town that the clergymen
had not exaggerated the situation. And yet I doubt not that the
community had a rather low divorce record. It is very interesting how
the moral code of a community may be strict at one point, while lenient
at another. In some rural communities, at least, one may find an
inconsistent public opinion that expresses very rigid hostility to
divorce and little practical opposition to lax sex relations. The low
attitude toward the sex element in marriage and the coarse viewpoint
disclosed by conversation often surprise the country visitor who is not
acquainted with the occasional inconsistency of rural ethics. Judging
the standing of married life by infrequent divorces and rather early
marriage, he is painfully disconcerted to discover that the marriage
ideal is nevertheless mean and lacking in social inspiration.
A third criticism is deserved by the rural family, namely, its failure
to make use of its social opportunity. It is easy to demonstrate the
greater normality of the rural family as compared with the urban family,
with respect to the family conditions that make possible an efficient
home life. It is not always true, however, that these superior family
opportunities are of social value. It is true that children are
generally valued in the rural home. This is, at times, for the supposed
economic help the children are expected to be to the parents, rather
than because of an unselfish regard for the children, as a moral
opportunity. It is true that the home generally counts for more in the
life of the country child than in that of the city child. This by no
means proves that the greater home influence is always a social asset.
The home may penetrate the child's life deeply and yet affect it badly.
If the home means more, the character of the home comes to have a larger
meaning; what the significance of the home influence may be, is
determined by the type of the home. A greater opportunity for family
fellowship is naturally offered by the rural home, but this fellowship
opportunity works both ways. The closer contact of all the members of
the family often results in bringing all of them down to a low level of
culture. The base attitude of one or of both parents toward life may
poison each child's aspiration as he advances into maturity. The
neighborhood relation, which brings several families into close contact,
often permits a vicious child of one family to initiate many children
from various homes into sex experiences in such an unwholesome way that
purity of mind becomes very difficult later on, whether the illicit
intercourse comes to an end or not.
Rural people are too likely to be content with their superior family
conditions. There is real need for an emphasis upon the proper use of
these opportunities. The conscientious urban parent is stimulated to his
best by the rivalry of other attractions that attempt to exploit his
child. The rural parent has no security in the greater natural
advantages of the country home. Everything depends upon the way the
rural home makes use of its opportunity. The rural church, especially,
should take to heart this remarkably significant fact.
No institution in the country has the importance of the family. Good
moral strategy requires, therefore, that effort be made to make the
rural home happy and wholesome. The needs of rural people are indeed
many, but there is no need greater than the fullest development of the
opportunities for moral progress provided by the conditions of family
life in the country. It would seem as if one principle should always be
observed--no effort is wholly good that looks toward a substitution for
family responsibility. It is also true that the family will not again
have the moral monopoly of the child. Necessary as it may be, in certain
cases, to allow the family to farm out its important functions to some
other institution, this condition ought always to be recognized as
unfortunate. The better way of making permanent progress is effort that
encourages the family to make better use of its neglected opportunities.
First of all, the rural home needs to be spiritualized. Of course, there
is equal need of spiritualizing the urban home, but that problem does
not concern us now. Objections are sure to be raised against any rural
program that bases itself upon an attempt to emphasize idealism and a
spiritual interpretation of experiences. There is, however, no other
way. Material progress will neither content nor elevate country life.
Contact with nature is so close and constant that when spiritual insight
is lacking there is bound to be a fatalistic and brutalizing tendency.
Religion that does not enter intimately into everyday life and enrich
the baffling experiences of daily labor with great spiritual
interpretations, gives little of value to country people. The rural home
awakens to its opportunities only when it is invigorated by vital
spiritual inspiration. A materialistic philosophy of life will eat the
heart out of the country and leave it in despair. Country people seldom
have wide choice; they must either penetrate common experience with the
eye of confident idealism, or they must dig the earth, bent down with
the oppressing burden of dissatisfied toil. Whatever the philosophy of
life, it will command the spirit of the home.
Parents also need training if they are to make successful use of the
opportunities placed in their hands. This training needs especially to
give the parents a right point of view respecting sex and
sex-instruction. At present there is a powerful taboo in most country
places regarding any constructive attempt to give helpful sex
information, although, as a matter of practice, conversation often
gravitates toward sex in a most unwholesome fashion. The taboo is fixed
for the most part upon any public recognition of sex, while privately,
interest in matters of sex is taken for granted. We have gossip and
scandal, but little right-minded attention to sexual knowledge. This
condition must change before many families will be fit to win the full
confidence of the children and to influence them toward a high-minded
outlook upon life.
We must appreciate the very valuable efforts that are already being put
forth to make the rural homes more efficient with reference to
sanitation, hygiene, and proper food. This instruction promises to
decrease much human suffering, discontent, and poverty. In some
respects such constructive service is more needed in the country than in
the city. Certainly, good results are already appearing as a result of
the efforts that institutions and people interested in the country have
put forth.
The rural family must be made to realize the consequential character of
childhood experience. The alienist especially has demonstrated the
significant influence of childhood upon adult motives and conduct.
Recent studies of human conduct have greatly magnified the importance of
early experience and have disclosed how often it is the first cause of
morbid thinking and anti-social actions. The conclusion is not to be
doubted--a still greater effort must be made to conserve human character
by a wiser control of the influences of childhood. One may discover for
himself how interested conscientious parents are in detailed
illustrations of childhood influence upon adult life and how impressed
they are with the seriousness of such facts. Rural families must be
taught more generally this impressive contribution of modern science.
A much greater effort must be made in many localities to lift from the
rural family the burden of the feeble-minded. The possible harm that may
be caused by a high-grade feeble-minded boy or girl in the country can
be appreciated only by one who has come in contact with such a problem.
The close contact, free association, and common interests of rural folk,
with the added difficulty of segregating one's child, even when the
menace of a feeble-minded associate is fully recognized, make the
presence of feeble-minded boys and girls in the country a more difficult
and more serious matter than is the case at present in the city. The
school and the state, that is, the state by means of the opportunity
provided by the schools, must take more effective measures to handle
this problem. Until this has been brought about by public education and
agitation, many rural families will be required to encounter serious
moral dangers and problems for which society is itself responsible.
The rural family needs to be taught to be more just and more generous in
regard to other families. The clannish spirit ought to pass, for it is
without excuse in these days. The family interests a generation ago were
altogether too narrowly conceived to make a wholesome social life
possible. Greater cooperation is necessary if rural people are to make
progress, and this cooperation is impossible when families are jealous
and suspicious. This obstacle in the way of wholesome rural culture,
made by selfish and petty family motives, it is useless to ignore.
Unless the obstacle can be pushed aside, other efforts to inspire
country people to a realization of their social opportunities must
surely fail. Family life in the country can be saved from its besetting
sin when rural leadership undertakes this task with the seriousness its
importance justifies.
The rural family must be led to adopt a positive morality. This is
imperative. The age of prohibition as an expression of ideals has
passed. Emphasis must be placed upon what we should do, and must be
removed from a trivial and legalized code of "Don'ts." Here and there in
the country we find a firmly entrenched negative interpretation of moral
obligation. Nothing is so dangerous morally as this. Nothing can so
certainly drive out of the community the broad-minded, fine-spirited
youth. The family must interpret morality with good sense and with a
full regard for the proportions of things. The parents must teach a
better moral standard than they themselves were taught. The home
morality must have the flavor of kindliness and sweet reasonableness.
Morality, to be true to its essence, does not require that it be made
disagreeable. Goodness is beauty expressed in human conduct and,
therefore, deserves freedom to disclose its winsome charm as well as
its stern pre-eminence.
This program for constructive social service in the country is largely
based upon the conservation of the moral and spiritual resources of the
country. The deepest need of the country can be satisfied by no smaller
propaganda. The instruments for such service we already have. The
country school, the country church, neighborhood fellowship, and the
Young Men's Christian Association provide the means for a moral and
spiritual renaissance in the country. There is no easier way to obtain a
healthy rural family life than by a skilful, serious, and large-hearted
use of our moral institutions in concrete, courageous, and modern
instruction, and in persuasive inspiration.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Published as a part of the report of the fifth Country Life
Conference by Association Press under the title, "The Home of The
Countryside."
THE RURAL WORKER AND THE COUNTRY SCHOOLS
III
THE RURAL WORKER AND THE COUNTRY SCHOOLS
Of late the rural schools have been receiving much attention. Educators
and others interested in rural welfare have seriously studied the needs
and opportunities of our country schools and the good results of this
interest are already revealing themselves. It is true, of course, that
much of this contribution to the rapidly increasing literature devoted
to rural educational problems has come from men who live in urban
communities and who for the most part have expert knowledge concerning
the administration of urban schools.
It is easy, without doubt, to give too much emphasis to the peculiar
needs of the rural schools and to forget that urban and rural schools
have much in common. Without forgetting that many of our school
problems are fundamental and present in all schools regardless of the
environment in which they attempt to function, it is reasonable to
regret that a larger part in the discussions relating to rural education
has not been taken by people living in the country and familiar with the
rural life of the present time. It is only just to add, however, that
both urban and rural education suffer because so little influence comes
into school theory and practice from those who stand outside the
profession of teaching. The teacher is not likely to know life so widely
or so accurately as do those men and women who have won success by
meeting actual situations that test practical judgment and sound
self-control. Every one subscribes to the statement that the business of
education is the preparation of pupils for life, every one knows that
the value of such a preparation can be made certain only by being
brought under the acid test of the actual conditions of social life, but
few there are that realize that one of the ever-present problems of
educational efficiency is due to the fact that the thinking that
influences the purposes and methods of teachers mostly originates within
the profession itself. The significance of this would be apparent were
it true that all of one's education for life comes from the schools;
happily, this is not true, and most pupils obtain valuable experiences
from actual contact with problems of life that impress them more deeply
than the preparation which at the same time the school is trying to
give.
The rural worker needs to feel a responsibility for the making of some
contribution to the rural school's social program. He cannot help having
some advantages, in judging the results of school training, over the
teacher who is busy with the process of instruction itself. Without
doubt the rural worker has felt incompetent to enter much into
educational discussion, thinking that such matters are sacred to those
who have pedagogic training, but a moment's thought convinces one that,
since the teacher has more to do with the preparation for life than the
living of life, it is socially unsafe for the teacher to have a complete
monopoly of educational discussion and to obtain no help from those who
test the product of his schools.
The rural school has at present needs that stand out. First, it needs to
be socialized. This is true also of the urban school, but it is not
equally true. Urban schools have to some degree responded to the
pressure of modern life and have assumed in increasing measure a social
function. There has been no such pressure from rural communities. Often
the educational ideals for which country people have enthusiasm are
composed of experiences in a school-spirit less social than that usually
found in the rural school of the present time. This means that the
pressure of public opinion often pushes backward, while the urban school
is being forced forward.
Neither country school nor city school can obtain much success in its
socializing program until it really ministers to the physical needs of
its pupils. Theory to the contrary, the school system still forgets that
the chief business of the child is the making of a body, and that for
the sake of future personal and social welfare the needs of the body
must have right of way. Until this fact of nature is given its full
worth and the mental side of the school work is subordinated, public
education can never be a complete success. So long as the body needs of
the growing child are exploited for the purpose of obtaining mental
results that appear to the adult outside of the teaching profession both
trivial and premature, there can be no hope that the school will
maintain a perfectly wholesome social program. This problem is certainly
as serious in the country school as in the city school. This matter is
no by-product. When the schools fail to conserve human possibilities by
ignoring the regulations imposed by natural law upon the operation of
their educational processes, the schools are socially negligent. They
are faulty in the purpose for which they have been created.
The second difficulty comes from the first. The rural school still needs
a larger program. When it seriously undertakes to assume its function as
the most effective of our social institutions, it will make radical
changes in its program. To affirm this one need not forget or undervalue
the changes already made. Additions have been made to the program. The
spirit of the program has not been radically changed. We still provide
an individualistic preparation--hopelessly inadequate though it
is--rather than the social training which can be the only safe
foundation for social progress. We still overvalue ancient knowledge and
former educational values. We still refuse to admit into our schools
occupations and interests that belong there because they are consistent
with the instincts of the child. The country school has been stupidly
indifferent to the wealth of its resources and has forced upon its
pupils a meager and lifeless program. When a country high school, for
example, attempts to minister to the needs of its students with a
program of study that includes no science of any kind, the people of
that community ought to be told, as recently in one case they were, that
they are enforcing an educational policy that prophesies community
suicide.
The third difficulty of the rural school system is its institutionalism.
No effective organization can be developed without creating in it the
danger of too great institutional concern. Those who are connected with
the schools very easily come to regard its problems from the point of
view of the welfare of the organization rather than that of the best
interests of the children. Of course this mistake is nearly always
unconscious and those who are really influenced by the professional
instinct to protect the immediate interests of the school as an
institution come to believe that they are also doing the best that can
be done for the people. It is, however, the clear teaching of human
history that effort to maintain the welfare of any social organization
is likely to decrease the attention given to its efficiency. The
attitude of institutional self-protection leads to uncritical methods,
easy-going content, and rigid, unprogressive habits of thought. In our
public school system the vital influences are always in conflict with
the constructive endeavor of those who, because of their desire for
professional repose, insist that the institution keep its attention upon
itself and continue as it happens to be. In the country this attitude is
likely to receive less criticism than in the city and for that reason
those who wish progress in the country must assume an unending struggle
against it.
Whatever its faults, the rural school in its influence upon country
youth has only one possible rival--the home. At present the school is
obtaining more and more opportunity to influence young life; the home is
losing more and more of the opportunities it once had. It behooves,
therefore, any one who serves young life in the country, to appreciate
what a power for good or for evil, for progress or for regression, the
schools are. Every effort should be made to understand the schools. With
the teachers sympathetic relationships should be maintained, but without
even a tinge of subserviency. An unbiased judgment of the social value
of the schools, known only to himself, should be constructed by the
rural worker and then every effort should be made to cooperate with the
striving of the school for better results and to supplement with
generous spirit the necessary limitations of public school service.
Indirectly and quietly the rural worker may wisely try to invest as much
as possible of himself in the school's social service by working through
those who control the public education of the community. No rural
worker can expect a greater ally than an efficient, socially-minded
country school.
THE COUNTRY CHURCH AND THE RURAL WORKER
IV
THE COUNTRY CHURCH AND THE RURAL WORKER
The difference between the urban and the rural church may easily be
exaggerated. There are differences, of course, and it is natural that
the rural worker and the student of country life should make too much of
what is characteristic of the church ministering to country people. At
bottom, however, the two types of churches share the same experiences.
Therefore, what may be said in regard to one will prove also to be
largely true of the other. For the purpose of giving emphasis to the
work of the rural church, nevertheless, we are justified in forgetting
for the moment how common to both forms of church life are the
fundamental needs, resources, and possibilities.
Those who carry the burdens of church administration are generous in
listening as they do to the criticism and counsels of those who stand
outside. Indeed, so much has been said and is still being said in regard
to the work of the country church, especially by those who are not
clergymen and not responsible for the directing of church activity, that
one may well hesitate to express another opinion. And yet the tolerance
of those who have in charge the policy of the country church is in
itself significant and invites additional suggestions regarding the
function of the Christian Church in country places. It is significant
because it discloses that the church leaders know that the rural
churches have serious problems. It invites suggestions because it
reveals that the leaders are in some measure perplexed as to what is
required in our day of the country church, and are therefore not hostile
to any contribution that has a constructive purpose.
Institutions tend to be self-satisfied and self-protecting. A religious
institution especially is in danger of becoming content and resentful
of criticism because, by its nature, it deals with matters that seem
beyond the investigation that man prescribes for ordinary things, and
therefore secure from the scrutiny and criticism given to common,
everyday interests. Of course the Church has no right to protect itself
from criticism with respect to its efficiency of service by asking that
it be treated as if it were itself religion.
The fact that the leaders of the rural church are not taking this
attitude is of all things most helpful. It proves that their eyes are
directed outward toward their responsibilities and that the rural
churches are not in danger of the greatest evil that ever befalls a
religious institution--a blind leadership which cannot distinguish
between success and failure and is therefore well content when it ought
to be most dissatisfied.
Whether rural church leadership is willing to consider radical changes
in methods of social and moral service is a question time alone can
answer. The test has not yet been made; whether serious changes should
be considered can at present be only a matter of opinion. At present the
usual attitude seems to be that the rural church needs more skill--new
methods--in the doing of what it has always been doing. There appears as
yet to be little disposition to ask whether modern life requires of the
rural church that it change in large measure its form of service.