the stimuli demanded by the individual for satisfaction or the hope of
satisfaction in life suggests that the school is the most efficient
instrument for rural betterment. The country environment contains
sources of inexhaustible satisfaction for those who have the power to
appreciate them. Farming cannot be monotonous to the trained
agriculturist. It is full of dramatic and stimulating interests. Toil is
colored by investigation and experiment. The by-products of labor are
constant and prized beyond measure by the student and lover of nature.
Even the struggle with opposing forces lends zest to the educated
farmer's work. This does not mean that such a farmer runs a poet's farm,
as did Burns, with its inevitable financial failure, but rather that the
farmer is a skilled workman with an understanding and interpreting mind.
If the farming industry, under proper conditions, could offer no
satisfaction to great human instincts, it would be strange indeed when
one remembers the long period that man has spent in the agricultural
stage of culture. City dwellers in their hunt for stimulation are likely
to face either the breakdown of physical vitality or the blunting of
their sensibilities. Country joys, on the other hand, cost less in the
nervous capital expended to obtain them. The urban worker, in thinking
of his hours of freedom in sharp contrast with the time spent at his
machine, forgets his constant temptation to use most of his surplus
income in the satisfying of an unnatural craving for stimulation created
by the conditions of his environment. This need not be true of the rural
laborer and usually is not.
It is useless to deny the important and wholesome part that the urban
life and the city-minded man play in the great social complex which we
call modern civilization, but he who would advance country welfare may
wisely agitate for country schools fitted to adjust the majority of
country children to their environment, that they may as adults live in
the country successful and contented lives. We need never fear having
too few of the urban-minded or the able exploiters of talent who require
the city as their field of activity. The present tendency makes
necessary the development of country schools able to change the
apparent emptiness of rural environment and the excessive appeal of
urban excitement into a clear recognition on the part of a greater
number of country people of the satisfying joys of rural stimulations.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Gillette, "Constructive Rural Sociology," p. 42.
[7] Parmelee, "The Science of Human Behavior," p. 290.
[8] Royce, "Outlines of Psychology," p. 21.
[9] Ward, "Applied Sociology," pp. 169-98.
[10] Flexner, "Prostitution in Europe," p. 72.
[11] Ellis, "Studies in the Psychology of Sex," VI, 293.
RURAL SOCIALIZING AGENCIES
X
RURAL SOCIALIZING AGENCIES
The individualism of rural thinking has been universally recognized. It
is this attitude of mind that has produced much of the strength of rural
character and much of the weakness of rural society. That the closer
contact of town and country and the rapidly developing urban mind
require more social thinking upon the part of country people few can
doubt. There are some people, however, who fear this socializing
influence of urban thought in the country, because they believe that it
will antagonize rural individualism in such a way as to destroy the
fundamental distinction between rural and urban ethics.
As a matter of fact, however, people in these days obtain their sense of
personal responsibility from their confidence in their social function,
and this confidence is not developed by an excessive individualism. The
farmer, like men in other occupations, needs to make realization of his
social service the corner stone of his moral life. This world war has
made every thinking person realize the unrivaled function that the
farmer performs socially, and it is fortunate for the future of rural
welfare that what has always been true is at last finding adequate
appreciation. It is the farmer himself who has most suffered in the
recent past from not realizing the value of his social contribution. The
widespread thoughtless indifference to his social service has, at least
in the oldest portions of the nation, given him an irritating social
skepticism and driven him into a dissatisfying industrial isolation. We
naturally antagonize what we do not share and the farmer when he has
thought himself little recognized as a social agent has had his doubts
about the justice and sanity of public opinion.
It was doubly unfortunate that this situation developed at a time when
religion was called upon to make heroic changes in order to adapt
itself to the needs of modern life. Formerly religion gave rural
thinking a larger outlook than individual experience by providing an
outstretching theological environment. Rather lately this environment
has ceased to satisfy the needs of rural people. Religion has in the
city become social in a way of which our fathers did not dream, and in
the country it must find its vigor also by introducing the believer to
his social environment in such a way as to emphasize social function, as
much as personal inward obligations formerly were emphasized by
theology.
We need, therefore, for the best interests of the country that the
native sense of personal importance characteristic of rural thinking
should be brought into contact with social need, so that it may function
socially. Out of this movement will issue most happily a great social
optimism in the country and individualism will lose nothing by being
adjusted to modern social needs. The chief agencies that socialize
rural thinking are the church, the school, the press, secret societies
and clubs, and the industry of farming itself.
The effective rural church as a socializing agency has a commanding
position. Even the inefficient church has more social influence than
appears on the surface. In a considerable part of the area of social
inspiration the Church has an absolute monopoly. The rural church,
however, has been until recently too well content with an individual
ethics that modern life has made obsolete. In our day healthy-minded
religion is forcing men and women to see their duties in social forms.
It is becoming clear that one cannot save his own soul in full degree if
attention is concentrated upon personal salvation. The country ministry
is beginning to feel the changing order of things and there is an
increasing attempt to build up a socializing institution in the Church.
Such a radical readjustment is not easily made, nor can we expect it to
be a complete success. Ministers are puzzled how to work out the new
program; they even at times become discouraged as a result of
disappointments. Impatience may be made the cause of defeat in such a
reform. It is much to ask of our generation that it turn about face
morally. Yet the dangerous thing is sure to happen when no effort is
made to influence the Church to assume a moral social function in the
country. We think as a people in social terms and the church that
remains backward in assuming social duties is bound to be repudiated by
the program of vital Christianity. The church that is struggling to
maintain the old-time individualism is driven first to isolation and
later to social hostility and moral stagnation. The rural church will
move on more smoothly if it can obtain better-trained leadership. The
minister is not yet given an adequate social view in some of our
theological seminaries, great as have been the changes in theological
preparation during the last twenty years. It is natural enough that the
more socially minded of our preachers should rapidly drift cityward, for
in the urban centers they can obtain the sympathy and opportunities that
they crave.
Sectarianism narrows the social viewpoint. It is true that it brings one
church into fellowship with outside churches of the same denomination,
but it makes for moral division rather than unity and magnifies
differences rather than similarities in the community life. Sectarianism
is very largely maintained by churches in small places. Where church
competition is severe, and especially when church support is dwindling,
the Church advertises its distinctiveness and enters upon a
life-and-death grapple with its neighbor institutions. Of course this
develops sectarianism and forbids the wide outlook in its teaching that
is required of a successful socializing agency.
There is positive need of church federation if the rural church is to do
its social service properly. The resources of a country community cannot
be scattered if social enterprises are to be successfully carried on.
These undertakings are of necessity expensive in proportion to community
resources, both in equipment and leadership. Therefore, the religious
work must be hampered in its social contribution unless there shall be a
greater concentration of religious resources. This fact appears clearly
with reference to work carried on by the rural church by means of a
community-center or parish house. No form of service promises more for
country welfare, but seldom can it be continued successfully year after
year in a rural town or small village unless there is a concentration of
the religious resources of the community.
Fortunately we have seen of late a vigorous effort to improve the rural
schools and to make them more modern. The endeavor has been made to
bring the schools more intimately into contact with their environment.
This movement naturally tends to increase the effectiveness of the
schools as a socializing agency because the viewpoint that guides the
effort is one that brings into prominence the social relations of the
schools. This progress is hampered here and there by a considerable
inertia for which individualistic thinking is largely responsible. There
are also positive limitations imposed upon the expansion of the school's
social service due to the physical environment. Distance, the scattering
of homes, and the small populations restrict the work of the most
efficient consolidated school at some points where it tries to perform
the largest possible social service.
As a matter of fact, however, the urban school is far less social than
it wishes to be. Under the spell of our own recent educational
experience it is difficult for us, who have to do with educating
institutions, to see the radical changes that modern life demands of the
schools and colleges. We add socializing efforts without removing the
individual viewpoint that has gotten into school studies and
professional habits. The failures of the city schools are less apparent
because the atmosphere of urban life is itself socializing. The walk or
ride to the city school is likely to make some contribution of
socializing character even to the unobservant child. It is still true
that the education outside of the schools, the spontaneous instruction
provided by the children themselves in addition to the publicly
constructed school, impresses itself most upon the childish mind. The
urban school is greatly strengthened in its social function by this
by-product of school attendance. It is aided also by the fact that the
public is more critical respecting its service. In the country we find
the reverse. The by-products of education deepen character, but on the
whole tend toward individualism. The community also is not asking for a
large social contribution from the schools, and this loss of public
pressure toward social effort is in the country very serious.
The consolidated school, modern in equipment and in spirit, adds greatly
to the effectiveness of rural education as a socializing agency. In
spite of limitations inherent in rural environment, the consolidated
school is by instinct social, and its community service is therefore
being enriched by its successful experience. It will increasingly relate
its work to the needs of the community and to the demands of the home
and will add to its socializing function by assuming new lines of
service. Large as is its present contribution, in the near future it
will be much greater. The consolidated school has enabled rural
education to assume new undertakings and this is most fortunate, for the
old type of rural school has about reached the limit of its social
service.
It is safe to assume that neither in the city nor country are we likely
to overestimate the influence of the press. The daily and weekly paper
have a wide circulation among rural people and furnish a source of
penetrating and persistent social influence all the more significant
because the readers are little conscious of what they receive from
their reading. Into the most remote places the paper goes and is
received with avidity. The appeal is to human interest and is based upon
the entire hierarchy of instincts. No agency more successfully
socializes. It affords a mental connection with distant places that is a
good antidote for the physical loneliness in the country, which many
living there experience. It prevents the stagnation that comes from
concentration upon the interests of the day and neighborhood, for it
draws the attention of the reader out into the world of business and
affairs. It keeps country people from a too great class character by
charging the rural mind with the effects of modern civilization and of
necessity brings rural and urban people into a more sympathetic
relation. If it invites some to the city--as it certainly does--it also
makes the country a more satisfying and safer environment for those who
remain. Fortunately the papers are themselves sensitive to modern
thought and therefore attempt propaganda of a constructive social
character. If the appeal to human interests causes these educational
efforts to err respecting scientific accuracy, it is nevertheless true
that in spite of this fault the articles have a beneficent effect in
protecting the country from the excessive conservatism that isolation
tends to bring. The newspaper is the great gregarious meeting place of
the minds of men and therefore it serves to develop mental association
in a most intense manner. The weekly paper also serves a large
constituency in the country and on the whole probably socializes in a
more profound degree than the daily. The weekly permits the rural reader
to associate with the leaders of popular thought and builds up that
enthusiastic conviction which leadership always obtains. The leaders of
the country districts in this manner come into fellowship with the
thinking of urban men of influence. The farm paper is not to be
overlooked in a survey of the influence of the press upon country life.
Its little value as a professional journal because of its unscientific
character is in many instances a great handicap upon the progress of
agriculture, but even when these papers fail in having real worth for
the industry of farming they do extend professional fellowship by
encouraging harmony and enthusiasm. And as a whole the value of these
papers, aside from their socializing influence, is increasing as they
are more and more influenced by scientific investigation.
Secret societies and benevolent orders have a large following among
rural and village people. They are popular because they perform a very
valuable social service. No institution carries on its social function
with greater success, and for this reason it is rather strange that
rural sociology has not studied these organizations more seriously.
Because they afford fellowship, recreation, and comradeship, their
appeal is very great indeed to those who feel the hardships of physical
isolation. These societies do not limit their usefulness to community
welfare in a narrow sense, for they tie their following to similar
organizations in other localities and make possible an exchange of
interests that socializes in a marked degree. It is true that each
serves a limited number of people in the community, but the cleavage is
along natural lines and does not provoke feuds or neighborhood
hostility.
The one great danger that they create in some small places is the fact
that there are so many of them that they capture nearly every evening of
the week and make it difficult for any community-wide enterprise to
obtain a free evening to bring all the people together. It is also true
that some of them fail to take a serious interest in the community
welfare, being content merely to enjoy the fellowship that they make
possible.
This latter criticism cannot be justly made respecting the rural society
strongest in the eastern section of the country--the Patrons of
Husbandry. This society, popularly known as the Grange, affords contact
with outside organizations, but it also takes a very practical and sane
interest in its own community. No movement has done more to conserve the
best of country life; no organization has in the country maintained so
sincere a democracy. Unlike most secret societies, it has made a family
appeal and has interested husband, wife, and children. It has taken a
constructive attitude toward legislation of importance to farmers, and
rural life has certainly become greatly indebted to its efficient
socializing efforts.
The enterprise most successfully socializing country life is the
business of farming itself. The farmer, who once maintained so large a
degree of economic independence, has of necessity become a man of
commerce, as seriously concerned and nearly as consciously interested in
business conditions as the city merchant. This situation is one of the
burdens of farming. The farmer must both produce and sell his crop.
Lack of skill in either undertaking may mean failure.
Economic pressure forces attention. The pain penalty, the product of bad
adjustment to the demands of the occasion, commands respect. The farmer
feels this pressure of economic conditions just as any other man of
business. He is not free to isolate himself and enjoy the economic
security of fifty years ago. Any indifference that he may assume toward
the business world is likely to bring him economic punishment which will
teach him his economic dependence as no argument could. It follows that
the farmer's attention is driven from family and neighborhood affairs
out into the modern world with all its complexities. He thinks in social
terms, because from experience he has learned his social dependence in
matters that concern the pocketbook. With painful evidences of his
economic interrelations in mind, he tends to become tolerant regarding
movements that attempt to socialize his community life. He realizes
that the independence of his fathers has gone not to return and that his
happiness as well as his prosperity depend upon his opportunity to
become well established in social relations.
No experience in the business of farming is so impressive as that of
membership in a cooperative enterprise. Whether the undertaking fails or
succeeds, it certainly teaches the member the meaning of social
interrelations. Often it fails because the mental and moral preparation
for successful working together is lacking. This is not strange, for
rural life in the past has done little to build up a social viewpoint
and the strain placed upon individual purposes in any cooperative effort
is necessarily great. Cooperation is never so easy as it sounds in
theory, but economic conditions are making it necessary in many rural
localities if farming is to continue a profitable industry. Under
pressure the farmers will develop the ability to cooperate. In this they
are like other people, for cooperation seldom comes until circumstances
press hard upon people who hopelessly try to meet individually
conditions that can be successfully coped with only by a cooperative
attack. We therefore must not pass hasty judgment upon the failures in
cooperative efforts among country people. All such experiences have some
part in the better socializing of rural thinking.
Without opposition to those who are placing emphasis upon other lines of
rural advance, as social workers, we must keep ever before rural
leadership the enormous importance that social conditions have for the
prosperity, wholesomeness, sanity, and happiness of rural life. Every
agency that has social value for country life must realize to the
fullest degree possible its socializing functions if it covets for
itself fundamental social service.
THE WORLD WAR AND RURAL LIFE
XI
THE WORLD WAR AND RURAL LIFE
What will be the influence of this world war upon rural life? This
question is constantly before the mind of thoughtful people who are
lovers of country life and interested in rural prosperity. Of course it
is much too soon to answer this question in detail or with certainty. It
is true, nevertheless, that already we can see evidences of the
influence the present war is having upon the conditions of country life.
It is also possible, perhaps, to discover the direction in which other
influences, born of the war, are likely to have significance for rural
welfare. It is certainly most unreasonable for anyone to suppose that
this terrible war of the nations will not greatly influence country
conditions and country people.
One result is not a matter for argument. The great war has forced public
attention upon the problems of food production, and, as a consequence,
the social importance of the work of country people has been finally
revealed, so that even the least thoughtful has some realization of the
indispensable industrial contribution rendered to society by those who
till the soil.
Has this nation ever before had such a serious realization of the social
importance of the agricultural industry? The prosperity of agriculture
has become the nation's concern, because these war days are revealing
how certainly farming is the basic enterprise of industry. And our
experiences are those of the entire civilized world. It is not at all
strange, therefore, that thoughtful students and public administrators
the world over are earnestly studying how to foster the farming
interests, not only during the war but also after it is over.
Before August, 1914, there were few people who realized that, under the
conditions of modern welfare, one question of greatest national
importance is how nearly the nation at conflict can produce the food
necessary for its existence. It is unlikely that the nations will soon
forget this lesson that they have been taught by the ordeals of this
world war. Agricultural dependence is for any nation a very serious
military weakness.
Nations that cannot feed themselves must first of all use their military
power to make it possible to import the needed food. This, of course, is
a military handicap, for it removes military resources from the
strategic points for defence or attack, that lines of communication with
other nations that are furnishing food may be kept open. The more nearly
nations are able to obtain from their own cultivated land sufficient
food stuff, the more effectively they can use their army and navy in
strategic military service.
It does not seem possible that this great lesson can be forgotten by our
generation. Perhaps this is the largest result that the war will yield
within the field of rural interests. National leaders as never before
will consider every possible method by which farming can be made
profitable, satisfying, and socially appreciated. This policy will be
undertaken not merely for the sake of the farmer, but also as a means of
providing national safety.
The war already has disclosed the tendency of national policy to regard
the uses made of farming land as a matter for social concern. In
England, France, and Germany especially we have had, as a result of war
conditions, public control exercised regarding the uses made of private
land. Certain crops have been outlawed. Others have been stimulated and
encouraged by the action of the government. It has proved wise to
establish this control over the uses made of productive land. Of course,
war has furnished the motive and made possible the success of this
practical public control of land resources. Indeed, before the war, no
one could have imagined that England, for example, could have been led
to so great a public control of the uses of productive land as has
already resulted from the war.
Already we find some people advocating that the government continue
after the war to exercise a degree of such control over the uses made of
private lands and it attempt to conserve national safety by stimulating
the production of staple crops. At least for a time it will be difficult
to win converts to the proposition that the public has no interest in
what people who own productive land may do with their property. By
education, if not by legislation, the wiser nations are likely to
attempt consciously to direct production for social welfare. Probably
some nations will not hesitate to subsidize the cultivation of certain
crops in order to keep agriculture in a condition of preparedness for
the trials of war.