The Challenge of the Country: A Study of Country Life Opportunity

by George Walter Fiske

COUNTRY LIFE LEADERSHIP

A. A CHALLENGE TO COLLEGE MEN

I. The Relation of the Colleges to This Problem.

A New Interest and Sense of Responsibility

It has been plain from the start that this book is a book with a purpose. Its object was frankly stated in the preface and the author at least has not forgotten it in a single chapter. These seven preceding chapters have condensed the facts of country life in its strength and weakness and have voiced the modern call for rural leadership. Every call for trained leadership must come ultimately to the college man. Both the need and the worthiness of rural life, its social and religious crisis and its strategic signs of promise, bring the challenge of the country to the man in college.

For two or three years past there have been groups of men in various universities meeting weekly to discuss this problem. In comparing the needs of various fields of service and weighing their own fitness for various tasks, they wished to study the opportunities in rural life for consecrated leadership. These groups are certain to multiply. Alert college men even in city colleges have discovered that we have to-day not only a complicated country problem but a great rural life opportunity; a problem intricate enough to challenge earnest investigation by thoughtful students, and an opportunity for a life mission worthy of strong men.

General College Neglect of the Rural Call

The writer firmly believes that the city has been claiming too large a proportion of college graduates in recent years and that the needs of country life are not receiving due consideration. A large majority of students in most colleges come from the country. Has not the country a right to claim its fair share of these young men and women after they have been trained for a useful life? If only 15% of the students at Princeton come from the country we cannot complain if practically all of them after graduation go to the city; but when nearly all the students at Marietta College (Ohio) come from the country and 65% of them go to the city, we wonder why. Likewise 70% of the students at Stanford University (Calif.) were country bred, but only 25% return to country life after college days. At Williams (Mass.), a city boys’ college, only 24% come from the country and about 15% return; but at Pacific University (Ore.) 95% come from the country (80% from very small communities) yet only 45% resist the city’s call. Bowdoin (Maine) gets but 47% of its students from the city, but returns 70%; The University of Kansas receives but 44% of its students from cities, yet contributes to cities three-fourths of its graduates; while Whitman (Wn.) receives but 40% from the city yet returns 80%. Hillsdale (Mich.), a country college with a fine spirit of service, does better; receiving 95% of its students from small towns and villages, it returns all but 26%. “Practically all” the students at Adelbert College (Ohio) enter city work on graduation, though 30% of them are country bred.

It is entirely natural in institutions like the University of Illinois, Ohio State University and Cornell, where there are strong agricultural colleges, that there should be the keenest interest in the welfare and needs of country life; but is it not time that other institutions faced more frankly the responsibility of training more of their students for country life leadership? Certainly, with the splendid signs of promise in country life to-day and the opportunities for a life mission there, no thoughtful man can refuse to consider it.

The Stake of the City in Rural Welfare

It was quite natural that the rapidly growing city should attract a large proportion of college men preparing for business and professional life and various kinds of religious and social service. Not only have larger opportunities for earning money usually been found there, but the city has certainly needed the men. The call of the city in its dire need of Christian idealism and consecrated leadership has been as urgent and definite a call to service as ever a crusader heard. Dr. Strong’s eloquent appeal to earnest young people in his “Challenge of the City” is by no means extravagant. His facts are facts and his logic is convincing. He is quite right in saying, “We must save the city in order to save the nation. We must Christianize the city or see our civilization paganized.” But even if “in a generation the city will dominate the nation,” where are the men who will then dominate the city? Most of them are now in the country towns and villages getting ready for their task, developing physical, mental and moral power in the pure atmosphere and sunlight of a normal life. To work on the city problem is a great life chance; but to train rural leadership is to help solve the city problem at its source.

Thus, the bigger and more urgent the city problem becomes, the more necessary it will be to solve the rural problem, for the city must continue to draw much of its best blood and its best leadership from the country. Professor M. T. Scudder explains in a sentence why this is a continuing fact: “The fully developed rural mind, the product of its environment, is more original, more versatile, more accurate, more philosophical, more practical, more persevering than the urban mind; it is a larger, freer mind and dominates tremendously. It is because of this type of farm-bred mind that our leaders have largely come from rural life.”[38] City leaders, of course, ought to be trained in the city, and they usually are, even though born and bred in the country.

Rural Progress Waiting for Trained Leadership

Leadership is the ultimate factor in every life problem. No movement can rise above the level of its leadership. In many fields to-day, progress is lagging because of inadequate leadership. This is acutely true in all phases of rural life. Rural progress is halting for the lack of trained leadership. The colleges must be held responsible for furnishing it.

The agricultural colleges are rising magnificently to their opportunity and are striving to keep pace with the demands made upon them for technically-trained rural leaders. But though some of them double their enrolment every three or four years they cannot supply graduates fast enough for the various agricultural professions, quite aside from other kinds of country life leaders.

All schools of higher education must share the task of training and furnishing rural leadership. The broadening of country life, and its rising standards, puts increasing demands upon its untrained leaders which they are unable to meet. Rural institutions can no longer serve their communities effectively under the leadership of men lacking in the very essentials of leadership. Many country communities are demanding now as high-grade personality and training in their leaders as the cities demand, and they refuse to respond to crude or untrained leadership. Well-trained doctors, ministers, teachers, et cetera, have a great chance to-day in the country, because their training finds unique appreciation for its very rarity and efficiency; while every profession is foolishly overcrowded in all cities.

As soon as adequate leadership, well trained and developed, is furnished our country communities, they will develop a rural efficiency which will make the rural problem largely a thing of the past. But until then, progress halts. Leadership is costly. Trained, efficient personality, ready for expert service is rare and beyond price. The colleges are lavishly sending it to the cities. The country deserves its share and patiently presents its claims.

II. Rural Opportunities for Community Builders.

The Call for Country Educators

There is little need of emphasizing to college students the opportunities of the teaching profession. Since 1900 teaching has claimed more graduates than any other life work. Taking 27 representative colleges as typical, more than one-fourth of all college graduates become teachers, the percentage having doubled since 1875. Of the class of 1911 in Oberlin College (both men and women), 60% have been teaching during their first year out; while of the men in the ten classes 1896-1905, 27% are still engaged in teaching, presumably as their permanent work.

Unfortunately the smaller salaries paid rural teachers has made the country school seem unattractive, and when accepted by young collegians by necessity rather than choice, it has been regarded often merely as an apprenticeship for buying experience, a stepping-stone to a city position. Country salaries of course must be increased, and they certainly will be, with the new development of rural life and the steady improvement in schools; especially with increased state aid which is more and more generously given.

With a living wage already possible in centralized schools, and the great personal rewards which far transcend the material benefits, the life of the country teacher is one of true privilege and deep satisfaction. College men should regard it as a genuine calling and discover whether its call is for them. If a man has no real love for country life, let him not blight the country school by his subtle urbanizing influence. Most rural discontent is caused by such as he. But if his heart is open to the sky and the woods and the miracles of the soil; if he loves sincerity in human nature and appreciates the sturdy qualities and vast possibilities for development in country boys and girls, he will revel in the breadth and freedom and boundless outreach of his work.

If he is a man of vision and of power, the country school principal has greater local influence and social standing than he would have in the city. He has the finest chance to make his personality count in the great Country Life Movement, sharing his visions of a richer, redirected rural life not only with his pupils but every citizen and gradually leavening the whole community with a new ambition for progress. The responsibility for training the local leaders of the future devolves upon the teacher. It is he who can best teach a wholesome love for country life and help to stem the townward tide. He can organize around the school the main interests of his boys and girls and develop the impulse for cooperation which in time will displace the old competitive individualism and make social life congenial and satisfying. Through organized play, inter-community athletics, community festivals, old-home week, lyceums or debating clubs in the winter, with occasional neighborhood entertainments utilizing home talent, contests in cooking and various other phases of home economics, in corn-raising and other agricultural interests,—the possibilities are endless for making the school the vital social center of the rural community. It will all take time and energy and ingenuity. It will cost vitality, as all life-sharing does. But though it costs, the sharing of life is the greatest joy, and it is the teacher’s privilege in large measure. It is the measure of his true success as well as his happiness. Investing one’s life in a group of boys will yield far greater results in the country than in the city where their lives are already so full they would little appreciate it.

Professor H. W. Foght says three things are now required of the teacher of a rural school. “(1) he must be strong enough to establish himself as a leader in the community where he lives and labors; (2) he must have a good grasp on the organization and management of the new kind of farm school; and (3) he must show expert ability in dealing with the redirected school curriculum.”[39] In short, if he lives up to his opportunity as a rural leader, he will train his boys and girls distinctly for rural life, giving them not only the rudiments of agricultural training, but an enthusiasm for farming from the scientific side as the most complex of all professions; utilizing the vast resources the country affords for teaching objectively, not merely through hooks, and thus bridge the gap between the school and life.

The Call of the Country Church

The modern college man is not attracted to the ministry of the country churches which are conducted along old lines. If that ministry is to consist merely in preaching once or twice a week to half a hundred people, conducting a mid-week service for one-fifth of that number and doing the marrying and the burying and the parish calling for a fraction of a rural community divided among three struggling churches, then the college man refuses to be interested. Consequently we find most of such churches are manned by untrained men. They usually receive the wages of an unskilled laborer. Trained ministers usually receive a living wage. The college man demands at least a man’s job; a chance to invest his life where his whole personality will count and where his energy and perseverance will be allowed to work out his problems to a successful issue.

Let us grant at the start that churches which have no real field, in a community that is over-churched, need not expect to get our college men for pastors. If they have only a fraction of a field, let them have half a man. Likewise the church which is too selfish to offer the minimum living wage in return for faithful service must not expect a self-respecting, educated minister to serve it and at starvation rates. Even a martyr has no license to starve his wife and children to gain his starry crown. The church which gives no liberty to its pastor, but treats him like a hired man, and dictates his professional policy and perhaps even his pulpit messages, will of course not hold, if it ever should gain, a man of ability and initiative. And, lastly, the church which lacks the modern spirit, is hopelessly behind the times in its dogmatic teaching, rails at modern science as ungodly, and denies the social gospel of Jesus and the prophets, such a church will neither deserve nor desire the services of a college-trained man. His reverence for truth as well as loyalty to his own ideals would forbid his serving them.

Large Tasks Awaiting Real Leadership

While there are some small men with little training serving churches under the above conditions, there are also thousands of other churches striving to do God’s will in the service of men, many of them with earnest, able pastors. These men usually win the respect and confidence of their community and are given great opportunity as community builders when their leadership proves equal to the task. As the new rural civilization has developed, the title Country Minister has become once more a title of honor, just as the term Country Gentleman has again come to its own. In the readjustment of country life to the new agriculture and the new social ideals of cooperation, a new and brighter day has dawned for the country church. It is a day of new prosperity and of widening service.

This means a new opportunity for the right sort of a country minister sufficient to claim the life service of strong men. In fact, the task of readjustment is too difficult for any but strong men. Broken-down ministers, or men who have failed in the city, must not look to the country parsonage to-day as a refuge from toil or a temporary harbor for repairs. The insistent needs of the Kingdom of God in the country to-day demand strong, efficient men, specifically trained for country service and thoroughly acquainted with country folks and their life needs. We must have a permanently loyal country ministry for life, men who plan to devote their lives to rural redemption.

The Modern Type of Country Minister

College men of earnest spirit, who have determined to consecrate their lives to any life mission to which they believe God has called them, must listen to the call of the country church. The very difficulty of the task will challenge their interest and their courage. Would they know exactly the type of leadership the country church to-day requires? Let them study word by word this splendid description by Dr. Butterfield, unequalled in its clear analysis:

“The country church wants men of vision, who see through the incidental, the small and the transient, to the fundamental, the large, the abiding issues that the countryman must face and conquer.

“She wants practical men who seek the mountain top by the obscure and steep paths of daily toil and real living, men who can bring things to pass, secure tangible results.

“She wants original men, who can enter a human field, poorly tilled, much grown to brush, some of it of diminished fertility, and by new methods can again secure a harvest that will gladden the heart of the Great Husbandman.

“She wants aggressive men, who do not hesitate to break with tradition, who fear God more than prejudice, who regard institutions as but a means to an end, who grow frequent crops of new ideas and dare to winnow them with the flails of practical trial.

“She wants trained men who come to their work with knowledge and with power, who have thought long and deeply upon the problems of rural life, who have hammered out a plan for an active campaign for the rural church.

“She wants men with enthusiasm, whose energy can withstand the frosts of sloth, of habit, of pettiness, of envy, of back-biting, and whose spirit is not quenched by the waters of adversity, of unrealized hopes, of tottering schemes.

“She wants persistent men, who will stand by their task amid the mysterious calls from undiscovered lands, the siren voices of ambition and ease, the withering storms of winters of discontent.

“She wants constructive men, who can transmute visions into wood and stone, dreams into live institutions, hopes into fruitage.

“She wants heroic men, men who possess a ‘tart cathartic virtue,’ men who love adventure and difficulty, men who can work alone with God and suffer no sense of loneliness.

“The critical need just now is for a few strong men of large power to get hold of this country church question in a virile way. It is the time for leadership. We need a score of Oberlins to point the way by actually working out the problem on the field. We need a few men to achieve great results in the rural parish, to reestablish the leadership of the church. No organization can do it. No layman can do it. No educational institution can do it. A preacher must do it,—do it in spite of small salary, isolation, conservatism, restricted field, overchurching, or any other devil that shows its face. The call is imperative. Shall we be denied the men?”[40]

Presbyterian Church, Winchester, Ill.

Student Recruits for the Home Ministry

The Student Volunteer Bands in most of our colleges unite in a stimulating comradeship the young men and women who have pledged their lives to foreign missionary service. It is well worth while for our college men who have heard this call of the country church for this specialized service of Christ and humanity to organize local groups of Student Recruits for the Home Ministry, as has been done in various centers on the Pacific coast and at Oberlin College, Grinnell and elsewhere, under various names. At Oberlin this strong body of choice young men, in the college of arts and sciences, meets regularly through the year with a vitally helpful program which stimulates their intelligent interest in and loyalty to the ministry as the greatest of all professions. At the close of the year the members of this Theta Club, as it is called, are tendered a banquet by the students of Oberlin Theological Seminary, with a message from some successful pastor. It is counted one of the most significant events of the college year.

The Call for Christian Physicians

There have been many followers of the Good Physician who have never been ordained except by the grace of God, whose consecrated devotion to the needs of sick humanity has been a genuine ministry. Often the Christian physician is the best friend of the family. Certainly he has countless opportunities to serve more than the bodily needs of men; and no man in the community is rendering more sacrificial service. He is ever at the call of human need, day or night. He heeds the call of the poorest as quickly as the wealthiest, and does from 5% to 30% of his work without remuneration. He is one of the most necessary factors in every community; yet for many rural communities the nearest up-to-date physician is many miles away.

In these days of specialists, “general practice” is relatively less attractive. There is some danger also that the fine idealism which has long characterized this splendid profession may yield to the growing commercialism which to-day threatens all professions like a canker. When surgeons operate for dollars instead of for a cure; and physicians make the art of healing strictly business instead of scientific kindness, it will be a sad day for humanity.

The work of the physician is not properly a business; it should be classed as social service of the highest order. In spite of the higher standards of medical schools recently[41] with an emphasis on a general college preparation, fewer college men are going into medicine. The percentage has steadily decreased since 1850, and in the past twelve years there has been a sharp decline. The proportion at Harvard College has declined one-half in thirty years, though meanwhile Harvard Medical School has become a strictly graduate department.

It is evident that luxury-loving collegians are avoiding the medical profession to-day just as they are dodging the ministry. If they have capital of their own, business offers them a larger income and makes little demand upon their sympathies in personal service. Selfish men avoid the costs of life-sharing which a life in close personal associations compels, as is true of teaching, the ministry and the medical profession. But this is no handicap but greater opportunity, for men of real earnestness.

The Special Need of Country Doctors

The profession is seriously overcrowded in the cities, but people in the rural districts are literally dying for trained physicians. Some medical faculties are advising their graduates not to stay in the city but to settle in country villages where they are most needed, and where quite possibly they would find greatest success. “There are many towns in this state,” writes a medical professor, “with only 500 to 1,000 people, where a young physician could do well and where he is needed.”

Although, according to the best data obtainable, most medical graduates settle in cities,—the proportion at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, being as high as 90%,—there is a rapidly increasing demand for them in the suburban and rural sections in the East because of the strong city-to-country movement. The secretary of the Harvard Medical faculty notes this: “With the advent of automobiles and the desire of people to live in the country, serious problems in medicine are frequently presented to the country practitioners.”

The need of educated physicians in country communities is well stated by Dr. Means of the Ohio Medical School: “The condition of medical practice in many of our country communities is deplorable. I can recall any number of places where there are two, three, four and five physicians and not one of them has had any post-graduate work from date of graduation, and none of them known to attend medical societies. Their professional work is on a par, no better, no worse, than that of their ancestors. I always feel that such communities sorely need an up-to-date physician who has been educated along the lines of modern sanitation and general medicine. The demand for a medical education has grown to such proportions in the last ten years that graduates, after having spent so much time and money, do not care to go into country practice. The five years or more that they spend in city environments while completing their medical education almost unfits them for country life. The result is that our cities are filling up with young physicians who can scarcely make a living. These are men of character and proficiency who would give tone to any country community and supply a public want.”

The Unique Rewards of Country Practice

There are, to be sure, certain serious disadvantages under which the country physician labors, such as distance from hospitals and nurses; but these are overbalanced by the manifest need and greater opportunity. The situation is acute. For earnest college men, willing to invest their lives in rural leadership, this constitutes a real call to a life of service which may be God’s own call to them. No one who has ever read Ian Maclaren’s story of Dr. MacLure, “A Doctor of the Old School,” can fail to appreciate the peculiar devotion of country people to their trusted physician “who for nearly half a century had been their help in sickness, and had beaten back death time after time from their door.”

After the funeral of the good old doctor who had so long sacrificed his comfort for the people of Drumtochty, Lord Kilspindie from Muirtown Castle voiced at the grave this tribute to the faithful physician of country folk: “Friends of Drumtochty, it would not be right that we should part in silence and no man say what is in every heart. We have buried the remains of one that served this Glen with a devotion that has known no reserve, and a kindliness that never failed, for more than forty years. I have seen many brave men in my day, but no man in the trenches of Sebastopol carried himself more knightly than William MacLure. You will never have heard from his lips what I may tell you to-day, that my father secured for him a valuable post in his younger days; but he preferred to work among his own people. I wished to do many things for him when he was old, but he would have nothing for himself. He will never be forgotten while one of us lives, and I pray that all doctors everywhere may share his spirit.” “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

The Rural Call to the Legal Profession

Though the legal profession is greatly overcrowded in the city, trained lawyers are scarce in the country. “My impression is,” says a law school dean, “very few of the country lawyers are professionally trained men, especially in the South and some of our western states.” Another dean estimates the number of trained country lawyers as about one-fourth. The older lawyers in the small places are apt to be the best trained, according to the judgment of Dean Irvine at Cornell Law School; though that rule is often reversed in the cities. “Rarely does a law school graduate settle down in a town of less than 5,000 people,” says the dean at Boston University. The great majority of Columbia law graduates remain in New York City. Eighty to ninety per cent. of Cornell lawyers settle in cities above 10,000 people.

The secretary of the law faculty of the University of Michigan believes “there is a need of one or more trained lawyers in every community of a thousand people. Such a lawyer would, of course, serve the surrounding country as well as the town in which he lives.” Dean Harlan F. Stone of Columbia writes: “I believe that there will be in the future exceptional opportunities for the well-trained lawyer in the smaller communities. He will probably not make as much money as with a large city practice, but if he possesses good general qualifications and integrity it is inevitable that he should be an influential man in his community, and live a useful and, from the broad point of view, successful life. His chances of entering politics or going on the bench in the right way are probably better than in the large cities.”

Here, as in the other professions, the choice seems to be between larger earnings in the city and larger rewards in the country; greater fees, with less relative appreciation, or the finer rewards of gratitude for personal services and neighborly kindness and the broad opportunity for influence and leadership in a place where both are greatly needed. The call to college men with the legal mind and a passion for justice, to practice law in the country, is a true call for Christian consecration. It probably will involve some financial sacrifice, but it will mean a life of great satisfaction. The true man who heeds this call will become the trusted adviser of the widow, the protector of the defenseless and the innocent, the righter of many wrongs, the peacemaker in needless feuds, the incorporator of cooperative business projects which will fraternalize old competitions, the public spirited leader in all new movements for the betterment of rural life; and, if God wills and the people choose, a career in straight politics, which nowhere needs highminded leadership more than in some rural counties where the ballot is a mere chattel and public office a private graft.

Life Opportunities in Agricultural Professions

College men are apt to overlook the fact that, after all, the fundamental professions in the country are those directly connected with agriculture. The scientific agriculturist, who tills the soil as accurately as the engineer constructs a bridge and with possibly higher scientific requirements, will naturally be the prime agent in rural progress. It is good to see the enthusiasm of students in agriculture after they have caught this vision. “I like farming,” writes a student at the State College of Washington, “and believe there is as much room for scientific work in agriculture as any other line of work.” Another writes, “I think there are great opportunities open for agriculture in this Northwest. At first I thought I never would like the farm because I could see nothing but work; but I have become acquainted with some of the possibilities and find there is something besides drudgery.”

The city person of average intelligence who thinks farming is “just farming” would be amazed to discover the breadth and variety of agricultural professions. Besides scientific husbandry in general, there is animal husbandry and the breeding of blooded stock, dairying, farm management, horticulture, agricultural engineering and technology, particularly in irrigation, forestry, veterinary surgery and medicine, fruit-growing, entomology specializing, parasitology, plant pathology, agronomy and cereal breeding, agricultural chemistry, landscape architecture, agricultural editing, agricultural teaching, from elementary grades to university, institute lecturing, weather bureau service, scientific investigating at government experiment stations, and public service in great variety under state and national departments of agriculture. In all of these there is a chance for college men to invest their lives and reap the rewards of real influence.

Some Special Rural Opportunities

In answer to the question “What special opportunities are there in country life to-day which should appeal to college students to invest their lives in the country?” Secretary Mann of the Cornell faculty summarized as follows: “Successful farming; teaching or supervising the teaching of agriculture; scientific investigations at home or in government stations; rural landscape improvement; agricultural experts as county agents or officers; local agricultural experts on individual responsibility; agricultural police duty, including inspectors of all sorts in state and national departments of agriculture; organizing of cooperative societies; agricultural advisers in the employ of railroads, chambers of commerce and the like; representatives of commercial organizations that desire to extend their operations into the open country, as for farm machinery concerns, manufacturers of packages, dairy supply houses, canning industries and the like; social betterment; rural Y. M. C. A. work; supervisors of rural playgrounds; and rural civic improvement.” The list is surely a varied one, broad enough to fit any variety of talent, when a man has a real love for rural life and wishes to find his life usefulness in the country.

A most pertinent suggestion comes from Dean Meyer of the Agricultural Department of the University of Missouri which college students may well consider: “The greatest need of the rural community to-day is cooperation; but no plan of cooperation can ever be successful among farmers in the absence of some one, or a very few men who have all the qualifications of outstanding leadership. There is a real call for our college trained men to go into the country, study local conditions, and then promote a plan of business cooperation. If this is successful he may then expect with equal success to carry on a plan for social cooperation which will lead to a betterment of the home, the church and the school.” Again we are reminded that the ultimate problem is leadership, the costliest thing in the world; but the very commodity of personality which college men ought to have ready for wise investment. It is the call for community builders all along the country-side which forces itself upon the strongest men of brave initiative, of courage, tact and ability. This call, a modern call of new insistence and vast significance, should challenge the college man like a call to battle.

The Call of the County Work Secretary

Among the many calls to a life of service which challenge the college man, one of the most urgent is the call to rural leadership in the Young Men’s Christian Association. It is peculiarly a college man’s task. Possibly one country lawyer in four is professionally trained. The percentage of educated country ministers is smaller still. Country doctors, though usually medical graduates, are very seldom college men. But the rural secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association is usually college trained. With wise foresight, the Association is sending many of its best men into the country field where the need of leadership is so acute. No other branch of Association work has so large a proportion of college trained men except the work with college students themselves; this is the right perspective.

The man who aspires to this interesting and strategic work with the boys and young manhood of the country must be a man of large capacity for leadership and with a broad knowledge of human nature. He must be a keen lover of country life and must understand country people and their great interests. The more he knows of scientific agriculture the better; but he must above all be a man of devout Christian spirit and a thorough knowledge of the Bible; with a fine friendliness for all sorts of people, and a great longing to help the country boy to develop into useful Christian manhood.

In most other lines of rural service a man’s influence is ordinarily limited to the single community in which he lives. The County Work Secretary’s field is an entire county. He is not working merely with a single group of people but with similar groups in a score of townships and usually the finest people in each village, whom he selects for their local Christian influence and their devotion to community welfare. Through these local leaders our Secretary multiplies his own life, as he shares with them his visions and his hopes, as he enlists them for specific tasks and trains them for the service; giving them the benefit of his expert knowledge of country life, of rural sociology and of boy life, of teaching method and the modern interpretation of the Bible.

While his primary task is the discovery and training of local leadership as a Christian community builder, he also makes his office a convenient clearing house of ideas and practical plans for community betterment. As he quietly goes about his work it soon becomes evident that he is a “man who knows”; and his expert knowledge, his cooperation and advice are sought by parents and teachers, churches and Sunday schools, pastors and superintendents, school supervisors, women’s clubs, farmers’ institutes and Granges, and he must be a man of large ability to prove equal to his opportunity. As a trusted neutral among the churches, he of all men has the best chance to overcome church rivalries and bring together jealous churches in a working federation or a real unity. He must be at once a man of prayer and an athletic specialist who can through his local leaders organize wholesome sports among his boys; he must not only have a genius for cooperation and securing the cooperation of others in worth-while tasks, but he must be able to take the single farmer, single-handed, and in a quiet, friendly but masterful way get that farmer to give his growing boy a fair chance.

The call to the rural secretaryship is as genuine a call to a life of ministering love as is the call to the ministry. As a matter of fact, a few of the most successful rural secretaries are ordained ministers and find their theological training and pastoral experience of great value in their work. These secretaries are not using their present position as a stepping-stone to the city field. Few of them would accept any city opportunity, as experience has proved. They have devoted their lives to the work of rural redemption, especially saving the country boy. They have fitted themselves to be experts in rural work, the work they love, and few of them ever care to leave it. This complete consecration accounts largely for their success. Let a man not attempt to share their work unless he can bear their cross. It is a call to heroic service, but it is irksome only to the man who has missed the joy of complete consecration to the country field and to the Man of Galilee.

B. A CHALLENGE TO COLLEGE WOMEN

I. Some Responsibilities Shared with Men

A Necessary Partnership, and its Increasing Burden

Men can never solve the rural problem without the help of women.

In the primitive days of early barbarism, it was woman that domesticated the farm animals,—while men were away, at war and the chase,—and thus made possible agriculture and the arts of rural life. We may well expect educated modern womanhood to contribute its share even in the development of scientific agriculture; but in all the social problems of the new rural civilization the help of women is indispensable.

The rural home, school, church and grange and every other institution for the social, educational and religious welfare of country folks depend very greatly upon the cooperation and leadership of trained women. To a degree this has always been true; but in several aspects this responsibility is destined in the future to fall more heavily than ever upon women.

Responsibility for Rural Education

For various reasons men are rapidly retiring from the ranks of country school teachers. In a single generation the proportion of male teachers in American schools has diminished 50%. In the North Atlantic states 86% of all teachers are women; while even in the western states over 80% are women, against 55% in 1870.

It appears to be quite a safe statement, even judging by incomplete statistics, that there are more women teachers in the United States and Canada than in all the rest of the world combined. Whereas only 15% of the teachers of Germany are women, and 36% in Switzerland, 47% in France and 64% in Italy, the proportion in the United States the same year (1906) is found to be 76.4%.

While from the viewpoint of the needs of adolescent boys there may be reasons to deplore this increase of women teachers, it is certainly accelerating. The educational burdens of the country are falling more and more upon women. College girls should study rural education as a real vocation and realize the vast opportunity for unselfish social service which is involved in it.

The college settlement in the city slum has aroused not merely a romantic interest but the consecration of many earnest college girls. Let more of them feel the same call to altruistic service in the rural school, accepting it with a genuine love for country boys and girls and for country life,—then the problems of rural education will lose much of their seriousness. With increasing centralization of rural schools and ever rising standards, worth-while opportunities in country teaching will rapidly develop. Nor will the need be merely for teachers in the grades and in high school work. Capable women are everywhere needed in educational leadership. Country life specialists are now needed in state and country normal schools, agricultural high schools, and county high schools, as well as the country colleges.

Responsibility for Rural Health and Sanitation

Probably the chief reason for the slow progress of modern sanitation in rural districts is the lack of training of country doctors in the modern aspects of their profession. In the country, sanitation is largely a household matter, and women have most at stake and the greatest influence here. In a few months or years one trained nurse or woman physician could raise the ideals of sanitation and hygiene in the country homes of a large area.

Old-fashioned rural neighborliness and large families have combined in the past to keep trained nurses in the city. The country people have managed to get along without them usually. But both these causes have been diminishing and there is serious need in most country sections for the expert services of trained nurses. The “district nurse association” plan has already gained acceptance in country places and its rapid spread would prevent much hardship. Combined with community ownership of sick-room appliances, this would greatly help to make country life comfortable for people accustomed to city conveniences.

Rural frugality hates to pay a woman nurse a man’s wages! But gradually efficiency will win and the higher life standards prevail, and this will give countless young women splendid opportunities for broad service, with which the petty office positions in the city cannot compare.

Conservative country folks are slow to recognize the professional authority of the woman physician; but the prejudice will soon pass. Certainly a capable woman with a modern medical equipment would not need many months to prove her superiority to the average low-grade country doctor; and she would soon find a great life work. While college men are more and more shirking this great healing profession, let the college women give it large consideration. It offers wonderful scope for serving the deepest needs of humanity as well as their bodily ills; and the college girls who dream of medical missions need not go so far from home as India to realize their visions.

Opportunities for Religious Leadership

The burdens of the country pastorate, like the burden of the ballot, ought not to fall upon the women; but the time seems to have come when there are not enough good intelligent men to maintain either.

It is impossible at present to furnish one-half of the rural churches in the United States with trained men to be their pastors. Canada imports hundreds of clergymen annually from England. Thousands of rural pulpits in the States are vacant. Tens of thousands of rural churches have merely untrained preachers. Very few have resident pastors. Dr. Wilson of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions is authority for the statement that of the 192 country Presbyterian ministers in Missouri, only two of them are living with their people in the open country.

We find the chief reason for country church decay the lack of a trained, resident pastor. Under present conditions it is impossible to meet this need from the supply of college men entering Christian work. To be sure, thousands of these unmanned churches are surplus churches. They have no real field; perhaps never had. And Providence is allowing them to die, for the glory of God! It is far better when they graciously unite with some neighboring church,—but the necessary grace is often lacking.

Very many churches with a real field need ministers and can get only untrained men. Hundreds of such churches write in vain to the seminaries every year, as the writer can testify. There seem to be plenty of untrained ministers, in most states; but it is an open question whether such leadership does more good than harm. Would not a well-trained woman, with a genuine Christian purpose, gifts of real leadership, and a complete college and theological training, be likely to do better service in the pastorate of such a church than an untrained man? It seems strange that we even consider it a subject for debate!

The number of women ministers seems to be increasing in several denominations, though not rapidly yet. Sometimes they are untrained, but when well equipped they render efficient service. Occasionally you find a woman with the true pastor’s spirit gaining surprising success in a difficult country church after a series of men have conspicuously failed. It might be well to try this experiment oftener.

We are now developing in America the second[42] generation of college women. If eugenics teaches us anything, it gives us the right to expect from these college-bred daughters of college-trained mothers an increased efficiency and a new type of leadership. With every decade, a higher type of American womanhood, the peers of the ablest women of history, is being developed in the land. At last we are obliged to remove all our traditional barriers and to offer them unlimited scope for their life usefulness. Every profession is now open to them, wholly on the basis of merit.

Among these opportunities for the right sort of trained woman is the country pastorate. It requires possibly a rare type of womanhood, and probably a small percentage would succeed. But mere prejudice against the woman minister should not deprive the country churches of her sympathetic service if she is a woman of the right sort. Let fitness, training and worth decide, not mere traditions and prejudices. Sometimes a man and his wife, both ordained ministers, can together serve two churches acceptably and successfully. In fact, a case can be cited where in a western state the important work of church supervision is done conjointly by the state superintendent of home missions and his equally capable wife, both being trained, ordained ministers.

It is needless to emphasize the fact that womanly sympathy, intuition and tact are needed in the rural pastorate and that the consecration of the right type of college woman’s finest powers can perhaps find no better field, or receive deeper appreciation, than in the service of the rural churches. The question is sometimes asked, If a college woman wished to study for the ministry, how could she secure her training? Would the theological seminaries admit her as a student? The best answer to this question is the fact that there were 467 women enrolled as theological students in 46 of the 193 theological schools of the United States during the last college year, according to the annual report just issued by the National Bureau of Education. Several are non-sectarian schools; the rest represent twenty different denominations.[43]

Quite likely a large proportion of these young women are studying to be foreign missionaries, teachers of the Bible in college, or deaconesses. Not only in the United States, but also in the Presbyterian and Methodist churches of Canada, hundreds of young women are finding splendid scope for consecrated talents in this deaconess work. As yet, however, this branch of Christian service is wholly confined to cities, not necessarily because of greater need there, but because the city has the necessary means to pay for the work. Ordained or not ordained, the rural churches sadly need the inspiring capable leadership of our college women.

II. Some Unique Opportunities for Rural Social Service

The Opportunity of the Village Librarian

As the country grows older the number of rural public libraries increases. Not only are Carnegie libraries rather frequently seen in the smaller towns, but neat little stone structures, erected by some former resident who loved his old country home, are occasionally found even in small communities. It is one of the finest ways to honor one’s family name and to serve the social needs of one’s early home. No family monument could be more sensible or serviceable.

Usually the rural library is more than a mere reading room with book-storage attachment. It is always a center of social interest, and when built on generous lines becomes a real “neighborhood house.” As such institutions multiply,—and they certain will,—many young women of social gifts, as well as technical library training, will be needed to make the library or neighborhood house a center of social power, the value of which will be limited only by the personal resources of the librarian. Without the nerve strain of teaching, it closely parallels the teacher’s opportunity with the boys and girls, and has a growing chance to stimulate the mental life of men and women. As women’s clubs increase in the country, more farm women are cultivating the reading habit. Every year the bulletins of the agricultural colleges with their “Reading Courses for Farmers’ Wives” are getting more popular.

The Specialist in Household Economics

Perhaps the sorest spot in the rural problem is the lot of the neglected farm wife and mother. Even where agricultural prosperity is indicated by great barns filled with plenty, often a dilapidated little farmhouse near by, devoid of beauty, comfort or conveniences, measures the utter disregard for the housewife’s lot.

Money is freely spent when new machinery is needed on the farm, or another fifty-acre piece is added after a prosperous season; but seldom a thought of the needs of the kitchen. While the men of the family ride the sulky plow and riding harrow of the twentieth century, the women have neither a washing machine nor an indoors pump,—to say nothing of running water, sanitary plumbing or a bathtub![44] Sometimes the drudgery of the farm kitchen is endured by the mother uncomplainingly, or even contentedly; but the daughters recoil from it with growing discontent.

The life conditions of farm women are rapidly improving; but the gospel of better homes and convenient kitchens needs thousands of gentle apostles, equipped with modern methods of household economy, hygiene, cooking and every domestic art and science. It necessitates rare tact, and it is doubtless most effective when least professional, when its benevolence is simply veiled by neighborliness, joined perhaps with the daily routine of the teacher or librarian. But the purpose involved is a splendidly worthy one, to raise the standards of housekeeping in a whole community of homes and bring in a new comfort and efficiency for both men and women. To do this is to enrich and sweeten country life at its source.

Demonstration Centers of Rural Culture

In the cities a very effective social service is done in the settlements as demonstration centers of refinement and Christian living. We need the same quietly effective plan in thousands of rural communities where life is still crude rather than simple and where the finer life-values are too little appreciated.

As the new rural civilization develops and the higher education becomes more diffused, this gentle but powerful leavening of country life is bound to follow. In very many communities it is already in process. It ought to follow as a matter of course that wherever a college-bred woman returns to a country home, or founds a new one, there is developed a real demonstration center of rural culture. The down-drag of environment sometimes proves too strong for weaker natures and higher ideals are gradually forgotten. Sometimes, too, a tactless condescension reveals to sensitive neighbors that fatal sense of superiority which is deadly to all good influence, for rural democracy is passing proud.

But with the right spirit of neighborly helpfulness and an effort to overcome the barrier which is always raised at first by superior advantages, the woman of true unaffected culture has a great chance for fine influence in a rural community.

In such a community not many miles from Buffalo there is such a gentlewoman. She is blessing the whole neighborhood to-day in scores of simple ways. According to her own modest statement, she is just “idling” now, for ill-health interrupted her cherished plans as a successful teacher in a mission school in China.

In keen disappointment but fine cheerfulness she settled in this little village, and soon found ample scope for quiet, happy usefulness. The old house she had bought for a home was remodeled modestly but with rare effectiveness, with verandas, fireplaces, cosy corners and a convenient kitchen. With a distinctly rural note in it all, the house was furnished in inexpensive, elegant simplicity, with a charming effect which became quite the wonder of the community.

Neighborly relations were easily established and the “running in” habit was ere long encouraged. Soon the cheerful living room, so unlike the urbanized parlors of the neighborhood, became a social center for the young folks, and music and good pictures and the joyous life developed undreamed of social resources in the community, hitherto latent but unexpressed. It is a genuine demonstration center of rural culture, but unspoiled by any professional taint. It is just neighborly friendliness, with a well-guarded passion for helpfulness; and it is bringing that true human appreciation which all genuine life-sharing wins. May a thousand other college-bred women see the same vision and earn the same joy.

Womanly Leadership in Church and Club

The college woman who “buries herself” in a rural community has only herself to blame if she finds no opportunity worthy of her talents. There may be no “career” of spectacular success awaiting her, but homespun chances to serve, and be loved for her helpfulness, meet her at every turn.

If she stands off a year or so, in self-pity, bemoaning the meagerness of her environment, she may work for a decade thereafter to regain lost confidence and live down a reputation for snobbishness. But if she shows herself friendly at once; if she leads only when invited, and earns the opportunity by a genuine modesty, ere long her talents, and whatever leadership capacity her college life has given her, will find plenty of exercise.

A single college graduate of the right sort can do wonders in a little country church or grange or club. The rural churches are suffering for trained laymen to make them effective institutions; but the need is sometimes just as acute for the right sort of womanly leadership, trained, tactful, enthusiastic and effective. The same is true of the social clubs and all local institutions which are open to women. With the rising standards in rural life we shall look more and more to such women of culture to bear the burdens of redirecting and vitalizing the work of rural institutions. It is a worthy work and brings its own true rewards if generously and wisely done.

The Rural Association Secretary

Far more is now being done for the country boy than for the country girl in many communities, and a few college women are discovering in this fact a great call to social and religious service.

In a few colleges, through their outside religious work, the girls have become a little acquainted with the life of the younger girls in the surrounding country. Sympathy leads them to try to help broaden the outlook of these younger sisters, and to bring them the religious ideals and the wholesome fun, both of which their lives often lack.

The Young Women’s Christian Association for a few years past has conducted community work in country towns on lines somewhat similar to the county work of the Young Men’s Christian Association. A few young women are working as county secretaries, and they are women with a vision, and a splendid earnestness. The work, however, is still quite new. It needs development and extension into the smaller villages which need it most. Doubtless this will be done as fast as college women of the right sort, with a real consecration to the needs of the country girl, present themselves as volunteers for this service.

College men are finding a splendid chance for life investment today in the rural secretaryship,—as has been described earlier in this chapter. There is no reason why their success with the country boys cannot be duplicated by successful women secretaries with the country girls and women.

It is idle to claim that the average country homes are doing all that needs doing for the country girls, or that the church life and school life are effectively safeguarding them. Moral conditions in too many villages, tardily perceived but often staggering when discovered, belie this false optimism. We must face the fact that country girls need a more wholesome recreational life than most villages afford, and higher ideals of true womanliness than they often gain at home or church or school.

College young women of the right sort, with a winsome personality and some talent for leadership, with social grace and power, with something of athletic skill and a knowledge of organized play, and above all with a wholesome Christian earnestness interpreting religion in practical modern terms, have a great field of service among these country girls with all their social hungers unsatisfied and their latent capacities unawakened. The urgent need of such work in numerous rural counties can hardly be questioned. Its vast possibilities can be discovered only by actual experiment in any community.

In very many ways today the rural problem, so fascinatingly varied and increasingly urgent, challenges the personal interest of the young women of our colleges. They are only beginning to study it. Their eyes have been all too narrowly set on the city and the town. But their rapidly increasing numbers as well as the broadening every year of their outlook upon life gives us reason for the faith that this challenge will not be unheeded. Self-sacrificing womanhood is the salvation of every civilization, urban or rural. It needs only to demonstrate the need; then consecrated womanhood will heed the call. The coming decade should see them by the hundred investing their lives in rural social service and community betterment, that the kingdom of heaven may sooner come.

Nothing could better voice, to the young men and women of America, the heroic appeal of country life leadership and service than Professor Carver’s manly challenge printed on the next page. Though not written exclusively for the country, it fits rural life most admirably.

The Productive Life Fellowship

“It offers to young men days of toil and nights of study. It offers frugal fare and plain clothes. It offers lean bodies, hard muscles, horny hands, or furrowed brows. It offers wholesome recreation to the extent necessary to maintain the highest efficiency. It offers the burdens of bringing up large families and training them in the productive life. It offers the obligation of using all wealth as tools and not as means of self-gratification. It does not offer the insult of a life of ease, or æsthetic enjoyment, or graceful consumption, or emotional ecstasy. It offers, instead, the joy of productive achievement, of participating in the building of the Kingdom of God.

To young women also it offers toil, study, frugal fare, and plain clothes, such as befit those who are honored with a great and difficult task. It offers also the pains, the burdens and responsibilities of motherhood. It offers also the obligation and perpetuating in succeeding generations the principles of the productive life made manifest in themselves. It does not offer the insult of a life of pride and vanity. It offers the joys of achievement, of self-expression, not alone in dead marble and canvas, but also in the plastic lives of children to be shaped and moulded into those ideal forms of mind and heart which their dreams have pictured. In these ways it offers to them also the joys of participating in the building of the Kingdom of God.”[45]

Test Questions on Chapter VIII.

1.—Why are college students discovering a new interest in studying the rural problem?

2.—What proportion of your college enrollment came from country communities, and what percentage of your alumni have invested their lives in the country? Compare this with other colleges mentioned in this chapter.

3.—Show how the vital interests of the city are deeply involved in the problem of rural leadership.

4.—When adequate support is secured, what special opportunities for service do you see in the work of a country teacher?

5.—What elements in the call for trained ministers for country churches appeal to you as most urgent?

6.—Show how the modern minister, equal to his task, has as big an opportunity to-day as ever in the past.

7.—What elements of heroism in the modern ministry make equally high demands on the earnest college man, whether he stays in America or goes to the foreign field?

8.—Why are college graduates avoiding the medical profession to-day more than formerly?

9.—What do you think of the special opportunity and need of trained country physicians?

10.—How do you estimate the chance a trained country lawyer has to-day for Christian influence and service?

11.—Among the various professions connected with modern agriculture, which offers the best opportunity for the investment of a life in worth-while service?

12.—What do you think of the County Work secretaryship as a chance for real rural leadership and community building?

13.—Compare the proportion of women teachers in the United States and in the rest of the world. What does this indicate?

14.—Discuss the opportunities in the country for trained nurses and physicians.

15.—What is the modern opportunity for women in rural religious leadership, and what sort of a woman could succeed as a country pastor?

16.—What do you think of the opening for village librarians and “neighborhood house” workers?

17.—In what details do country homes need expert leadership in household economics and domestic science?

18.—Compare the demonstration centers of rural culture which you have known with the illustration described in this chapter.

19.—What do you think of the work of the County Work secretary of the Young Women’s Christian Association?

20.—What other opportunities for service in rural communities come to college women in country homes?

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APPENDIX

A Classified Bibliography

Suggested collateral readings for further study in connection with the topics treated in each chapter of this book.

I. The Rural Problem

Its Development and Present Urgency

Bailey, L. H., pp. 31-43 in “The Country Life Movement.”

Butterfield, K. L., “The Rural Problem,” chapter 1 in “The Country Church and the Rural Problem.”

Butterfield, K. L., “Problems of Progress,” chapter 2 in “Chapters in Rural Progress.”

Anderson, W. L., “The Rural Partnership with Cities,” chapter 2, in “The Country Town.”

Anderson, W. L., “The Extent of Rural Depletion,” chapter 3, in same.

Anderson, W. L., “Local Degeneracy,” chapter 5, in same.

Roads, Charles, “Rural Christendom,” chapters 3, 4 and 5.

Gillette, J. M., “Conditions and Needs of Country Life,” pp. 3-11 in “Country Life.”[46]

Hartman, E. T., “Village Problems and Characteristics,” pp. 234-243 in same.[46]

Hibbard, B. H., “Farm Tenancy in the United States,” pp. 29-39 in same.[46]

Cance, A. E., “Immigrant Rural Communities,” pp. 69-80 in same.[46]

Plunkett, Sir Horace, “The Rural Life Problem in the United States.” chapters 3-4.

II. Country Life Optimism

Rural Resources and the Country Life Movement

Bailey, L. H., “Why Boys Leave the Farm” and “Why Persons Take to Farming,” pp. 89-136 in “The Training of Farmers.”

Bailey, L. H., “Country and City,” chapter 2 in “The Outlook to Nature.”

Butterfield, K. L., “The Solution of the Rural Problem,” chapter 2 in “The Country Church and the Rural Problem.”

Anderson, W. L., chapters 4, 6, 8, 11 and 12, in “The Country Town.”

Carver, T. N., “Shall Rural People Set Their Own Standards?” pp. 370-4 in “Principles of Rural Economics.”

Roads, Charles, “Present Relations of City and Country” and “A Great Future for Rural Districts,” chapters 2 and 7 in “Rural Christendom.”

Ogden, H., “Vital Statistics of Rural Life,” chapter 1 in “Rural Hygiene.”

Plunkett, Sir H., chapter 7 in “The Rural Life Problem of the United States.”

Roosevelt, T., “Rural Life,” in “The Outlook” for Aug. 27, 1910.

True, A. C., “The U. S. Dept. of Agriculture,” pp. 100-109 in “Country Life.”

Bailey, L. H., “The College of Agriculture and the State,” pp. 219-263 in “The Training of Farmers.”

Powell, E. P., “How to Live in the Country.”

Washington, B. T., “How Denmark Has Taught Itself Prosperity and Happiness,” in “The World’s Work” for June, 1911.

III. The New Rural Civilization

Factors That are Making a New World in the Country

Kern, O. J., “The New Country Life,” chapter 1 in “Among Country Schools.”

Roads, Charles, “A Great Future for Country Districts,” chapter 7, in “Rural Christendom.”

Anderson, W. L., “New Factors,” chapter 13 in “The Country Town.”

Carver, T. N., “The Factors of Agricultural Production,” chapter 3 in “Principles of Rural Economics,” (also important paragraphs in chapter 2).

Langford, W., “What the Motor Vehicle is Doing for the Farmer,” in “Scientific American,” for Jan. 15, 1910.

Van Norman, H. E., “Rural Conveniences,” pp. 163-7 in Mar. 1912 issue of the “Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.”

Dixon, S. G., “The Rural Home,” pp. 168-174 in same.

Parker, Harold, “The Good Roads Movement,” pp. 51-7 in same.

Hamilton, John, “Influence Exerted by Agricultural Fairs,” pp. 200-10 in same.

Bailey, L. H., “Cyclopedia of American Agriculture,” many fine articles in Volume IV on social conditions.

IV. Triumphs of Scientific Agriculture

The Oldest of the Arts Becomes a New Profession

Carver, T. N., “Historical Sketch of Modern Agriculture,” chapter 2 in “Principles of Rural Economics.”

Carver, T. N., “The Factors of Agricultural Production,” chapter 3 in the same.

Butterfield, K. L., “The New Farmer,” chapter 4 in “Chapters in Rural Progress.”

Bailey, L. H., “The Agricultural Shift,” chapter 1 in “The State and the Farmer.”

Davenport, Eugene, “Scientific Farming,” pp. 45-50 in “Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,” March, 1912.

Hays, W. M., “Farm Development,” especially “Irrigation,” chapter 10.

Moorehead, F. G., “Efficiency on the Farm,” in “Technical World,” Aug., 1911.

Plunkett, Sir Horace, chapter 6 in “The Rural Life Problem of the United States.”

V. Rural Opportunities for Social Reconstruction

Country Life Deficiencies, and the New Cooperation

Bailey, L. H., “Community Life in the Open Country,” pp. 97-133 in “The Country Life Movement.”

Bailey, L. H., “Redirecting of Rural Institutions,” pp. 111-135 in “The State and the Farmer.”

Carver, T. N., “Principles of Rural Economics,” chapter 6 on “Problems of Rural Social Life,” and part of chapter 4.

Wilson, W. H., “Rural Decay and Repair” and “Cooperation and Federation,” also “Rural Morality and Recreation,” chapters 1, 4 and 5 in “The Church in the Open Country.”

Butterfield, K. L., “Federation for Rural Progress,” chapter 17 in “Chapters in Rural Progress,” also chapter 10 in same, on “The Grange.”

Eyerly, E. R., “Cooperative Movements Among Farmers,” pp. 58-68, in March 1912 issue of “The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.”

Scudder, M. T., “Rural Recreation a Socializing Factor,” pp. 175-190 in the same.

Johnson, G. E., “Education by Plays and Games,” especially chapters 1 and 2.

Stern, R. B., “Neighborhood Entertainments.”

Bancroft, “Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium.”

Heatherington, C. W., “Play for the Country Boy,” in “Rural Manhood” for May, 1911.

VI. Education for Country Life

How Efficient Rural Citizenship is Developed

Foght, H. W., “The American Rural School,” entire; especially chapter 15 on “Consolidation of Schools.”

Kern, O. J., “The Rights of the Country Child,” chapter 2 in “Among Country Schools.”

Butterfield, K. L., “The Rural School and the Community,” chapter 9 in “Chapters in Rural Progress.”

Zellar, J. W., “Education in the Country for the Country,” in the 1910 Report of the National Education Association.

Bailey, L. H., “The School of the Future,” chapter 3 in “The Outlook to Nature”; also “The Nature Study Idea.”

Bailey, L. H., “The Developing of Applicable Education,” pp. 135-172 in “The State and the Farmer.”

Wilson, W. H., “Schools for Country Life,” chapter 3 in “Church in the Open Country.”

Foght, H. W., “The Library and Rural Communities,” chapter 13, in “The American Rural School.”

Miller, L. K., “Children’s Gardens.”

“Rural Manhood,” rural education number, Sept., 1912.

Gold, G. D., “The Psychology of the Country Boy,” in “Rural Manhood” for April, 1911, and April, 1912.

VII. Rural Christian Forces

The Community-Serving Church and Its Allies

Anderson, W. L., “The Preservation of the Church” and “The Church as a Social Center,” chapters 16 and 17 in “The Country Town.”

Butterfield, K. L., “The Task of the Country Church” and “Difficulties and Suggestions,” chapters 3 and 4 in “The Country Church and the Rural Problem.”

Fiske, G. W., “The Function of the Country Church,” chapter 5 in “The Rural Church and Community Betterment.”

Wilson, W. H., “Church and Community,” chapter 2 in “The Church in the Open Country.”

Wells, G. F., “The Rural Church,” pp. 131-9 in March, 1912, “Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science.”

Wells, G. F., “The Country Church and Social Service,” in Nov. 1910 issue of “The Gospel of the Kingdom.”

Roads, Charles, “Rural Christendom.”

Ashenhurst, J. O., “The Day of the Country Church.”

Beard, A. F., “The Story of John Frederick Oberlin.”

Tipple, E. S., “Some Famous Country Parishes.”

Roberts, A. E. and Israel, Henry, “The Rural Work of the Y. M. C. A.,” pp. 140-8 in March, 1912, “Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science.”

VIII. Country Life Leadership

The Challenge to College Men and Women

Butterfield, K. L., “The Call of the Country Parish,” chapter 5 in “The Country Church and the Rural Problem.”

Foght, H. W., “The Rural School Teacher,” pp. 69-115 in “The American Rural School.”

Educational Review, October issue 1910, on “Ways in Which the Higher Institutions May Serve Rural Communities.”

Roberts, A. E., “Leadership,” pp. 133-143 in “The Country Church and Rural Welfare.”

Bailey, L. H., “Woman’s Contribution to the Country Life Movement,” pp. 85-96 in “The Country Life Movement.”

Butterfield, K. L., “Opportunities for Farm Women,” chapter 11 in “Chapters in Rural Progress.”

Woolley, M. E., “The College Woman as a Home Maker,” article in “The Ladies’ Home Journal,” Oct. 1, 1910.

Bailey, Butterfield, et al., “Report of the Country Life Commission.”

Israel, Henry, “The Basis of Appeal for County Work,” in “Rural Manhood” for January, 1912.

Fiske, G. W., “Religious Teaching in the Country,” in “Rural Manhood” for March, 1911.

Pontius, J. W., “College Men and Rural Evangelism,” in “Rural Manhood” for February, 1912.

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INDEX

Abandoned farms, [6]
Adelbert College, [227]
Agriculture, scientific, [95], [98-109]
government patronage of, [246-8]
triumphs of scientific, [91-113]
teaching of, [163], [241-8], [251]
U. S. Department of, [96-8]
Agricultural colleges, [37], [51], [167-9], [231], [246-8], [251]
professions, opportunities in, [246-8]
societies, [50]
Allies of the country church, [203-220]
Anderson, W. L., [11], [43], [174]
Animals and plants, breeding of, [100-4]
Automobiles in the country, [72-4]
Bailey, L. H., [22], [41], [42], [56]
Bible study in the country, [206]
Birth rate and rural depletion, [127]
Boardman, J. R., [134]
Boston University Law School, [242]
Bowdoin College, [226]
Boys and girls and the farm, [22]
Breeding, achievements in scientific, [100-4]
Burbank, L., [102]
Business cooperation, [122], [139-145]
Butterfield, K. L., [117], [120], [218-9], [237]
California Fruit Growers’ Exchange, [143]
Canada, [10], [101], [102], [157-8], [164], [253], [256]
Carver, T. N., [76], [98], [122], [187], [263]
Cazenovia church, [214]
Challenge to college men, [227-49]
to college women, [249-63]
to faith, [27]
of the difficult, [45-7]
Christian forces, rural, [173-223]
Church in the country, necessity for, [173-4]
opportunity and function of, [173-183]
elements of weakness, [183-5]
factors which determine its efficiency, [185-203]
types of success, [213-19]
must serve its community, [189-91]

Church efficiency, [178]
equipment, [200]
finances, [198-200]
ideals, old and new, [176]
unity and federation, [193-5]
City, the, [xii], [46], [152-4], [230-1]
and country, [4], [18], [25], [46], [63-5]
and its boys, [33], [37]
City life drawbacks, [39]
Cities, growth of, [4]
Clark, F. E., [47]
College graduates in the country:
men, [227-249]
women, [249-264]
Colleges, [xiii]
agricultural, [37], [51], [167-9], [231], [246-8]
relation of to rural problem, [227]
neglect of rural needs, [228]
and rural leadership, [227-264]
Columbia University Law School, [242], [243]
Comenius, [165]
Commission on country life, the, [51-56]
Community building, [248]
festivals, [136]
Communities, classification of, [2]
Conservation, [109]
Consolidation of schools, [157-61]
Cooperation in country communities, [84], [130-148], [218-30], [248], [249]
in rural Denmark, [144-5]
failures in, [121-5], [184]
Cornell University, [227]
agricultural department, [36], [38], [41], [245]
law school, [242]
Country boy, the, [xii], [20], [22-25], [42], [154], [234]
Country Boy’s Creed, [35]
Country life leadership, [223-266]
movement, [18], [48-63], [86-7], [111], [233]
attractiveness, [41], [86]
deficiencies, [117-130]
optimism, [33-59]
Country, privilege of living in, [39]
Country church evolution, stages in, [175]
County work of the Y. M. C. A., [132], [167], [207-11]
County secretary’s opportunity:
men, [249-51]
women, [261-3]
Curriculum for rural high school, [162]

Davenport, C. B., [16]
Deaconess work, [256]
Decadence, rural, [7]
stages of, [13]
Degeneracy, in city and country, [12], [14-17]
Denmark, cooperation in, [144]
Depletion, rural, [7], [11], [17]
District nurse association, [252]
District school system, [155]
Doctors, need of country, [241], [251-3]
Drudgery, emancipation from, [74-82]
Dryden, John, [101]
Dry farming possibilities, [107-8]
Economics, household, [234]
and country church, [187]
Education for country life, [151-170]
rural, [20], [82-3], [151-68], [231-4], [250]
Educators, the call for rural, [232-4]
women, [250]
Efficiency, urban and rural, [91]
Electricity on the farm, [79-81]
Evergreen Sporting Association, [133]
Eyerly, E. K., [142]
Farm development, [92-3]
life, [45-7]
machinery, evolution of, [75-80]
Farmers’ Alliance, [50], [121]
Farmers, conservatism of, [93-4], [118]
needs of, [52]
difficulty of organizing, [120]
political ineffectiveness of, [121]
Farmers’ Institutes, [167]
Farmers’ National Congress, [50]
Farmer’s wife, neglect of the, [257]
Foght, H. W., [156], [160], [234]
Franklin, B., [49]
Fruit growers, cooperation among, [141]
Gardens, rural school, [163-5]
Giddings, [12], [18]
Girls in country, [20], [23], [24], [28], [261]
Government cooperation, [167]
Grange, the, [50], [137-8]
Grinnell College, [237]
Grover, E. O., [35]
Gulick, L. H., [128]

Hartt, R. L., [12]
Harvard Medical School, [239]
Hatch Act, the, [96-7]
Hays, W. M., [100]
Hill, J. J., [109]
Hillsdale College, [227]
Homes, remodeling rural, [259]
Household economics, [257]
Hutchins, H. L., [13]
Illinois, University of, [227]
agricultural department, [37-8]
Immigrants and cooperation, [143]
Indiana school law, [160]
Individualism, rural, [117-120]
Interdenominational commissions, [194-5]
Irrigation, [104-8]
Irvine, Dean, [242]
Irving, W., [43]
Isolation, triumph over, [65-74]
Israel, Henry, [211]
Kansas, University of, [226]
Kern, O. J., [161]
Law faculties quoted, [244-5]
Lawyers, country, [244-6]
Librarian, opportunity of the village, [256]
Libraries, public, [134], [166], [256]
Leadership, city, [xi], [1], [230]
country, [120-1], [227-265], [231]
woman’s, in the country, [249-64]
Literature, rural, [166-7], [264-75]
Machinery, agricultural, [74-81]
power, [79]
Maclaren, Ian, [243]
Manikowski, G., [79-81]
Mann, Horace, [155]
Mann, A. R., [245]
Marietta College, [226]
Marshall county churches, [125]
Masculine church leadership, [201]
Massachusetts Agricultural College, [37], [38], [168]
McElfresh, F., [207]
Means, Dean, [242]
Medical faculties, quoted, [241-4]
rural practice [241-4]

Meyer, Dean, [248]
Michigan University Law School, [242]
Minimum wage for rural ministers, [198]
Ministry, the rural, [196-9]
the call to, [235-40]
the modern type of, [237]
women in the, [253]
Missouri, University of, agri. dept., [37], [199]
Morality and the play spirit, [129]
Mormon irrigation work, [106]
Nam’s Hollow case, [15]
Nature, partnership with, [43]
Neighborhood house, [133], [257]
New England, [8], [9], [17]
New rural civilization, the, [117-145]
Newspapers, [72]
New York State College of Agriculture, [36], [45], [168], [245]
North Carolina Agricultural College, [37]
Nurses, need of, in country, [252]
Oberlin College and Seminary, [230], [237], [254]
Oberlin, J. F., [68], [188], [216-18]
Ohio Medical School, [240]
Ohio State University, [227]
Pacific University, [226]
Pastors, few resident in country, [253]
Patrons of industry, [50]
Pepin County Cooperative Co., [139]
Physicians, call for country, men, [240-4,]
women, [251-3]
Physicians and Surgeons, College of, [240]
Plainfield church, [214-5]
Play, the gospel of, [134], [233]
Playground Association of America, [135]
Plow, evolution of the, [77-9]
Plunkett, Sir H., [26], [144], [152]
Political ineffectiveness of farmers, [121]
Power of machinery on the farm, [79-81]
Princeton University, [226]
Quaintance, H. W., [74]
Railroads, steam and electric, [69]
Reading courses for farmers’ wives, [257]
Recreation and organized play, [128], [233-4]

Religious cooperation, lack of, [123]
plans for, [193-5]
Right Relationship League, [141]
Roads, C., [70]
Roads, country, [13], [68-70]
Roberts, A. E., [211]
Robertson, J. W., [157]
Roosevelt, T., [40], [51-3], [135]
Rural Manhood, [135], [167]
Rural problem, the, [2], [19], [1-32], [51-4]
losses, [5], [7], [8], [11]
gains, [5], [8]
degeneracy, [12], [14-17]
contentment, [35-36], [65]
sincerity and neighborliness, [44]
self-respect, [63-5]
individualism, [117-120]
progress, [54], [63], [86-7], [134], [110-1]
culture centers, [258]
agencies for betterment, [56-8], [84-6]
postal service, [71]
opportunities for social reconstruction, [117-145]
morals and recreation, [125]
Rural progress associations, [133]
Saunders, W., [102]
School, rural problems of the, [156-8]
inferior equipment and support, [154]
building, [156-7], [161-2]
centralization, [157-61]
a social center, [137]
School improvement leagues, [165]
School teachers, men, [231-3], [250]
women, [250]
Scientific agriculture, [91-117]
Scudder, M. T., [136], [230]
Secretary, County Work, [249-59], [263]
Sectarian divisions, [192], [193], [196]
Smythe, W. E., [105]
Social reconstruction, [117-145]
Social consciousness, the new rural, [83]
Social life, lack of, [125-7,]
plans for, [134-7]
Socialization, community, [130-2], [189]
initiative in, [132]
plan for, [133]
South, country life in the, [64], [204]

Stone, H. F., [243]
Strong, Josiah, [13], [17], [229]
Student recruits for the ministry, [237]
Student volunteer bands, [237]
Stanford University, [226]
Sunday-schools, rural, [203-7]
Surveys, community, [202]
Swaney School, the, [161-2]
Teachers in country schools, [152-4], [232-4], [250]
Telephones, rural, [66-8]
Text-books, [152-3]
Theological study for women, [255]
Trolleys, rural, [70]
United Christian forces, [191]
Unsocial streak, rural, [118-9]
Urbanizing of rural life, [20], [152-4]
Washington, George, [49]
Washington State College of Agriculture, [244]
Whitman College, [226]
Williams College, [226]
Wilson, W. H., [14], [128], [163], [198], [202], [253]
Woman’s opportunity in rural leadership, [249-263]
responsibility in rural education, [250]
Women, nurses and physicians, [251]
in the service of the church, [253-5]
college graduates, [254-64]
Young Men’s Christian Associations, [132], [167], [207-211], [248-251]
Young Women’s Christian Associations, [212], [261-3]

---

Footnotes:

[1] This loss however was in the early half of the decade, as the state census shows.

[2] For the year ending March 31, 1910, 103,798 immigrants from the United States settled in western Canada, while only 59,790 came from Great Britain and Ireland. The wealth of the immigrants settling in western Canada during the five years previous to that date was estimated as follows. British, cash, $37,546,000; effects, $18,773,000. From United States, cash, $157,260,000; effects, $110,982,000.—The Toronto Globe, July 27, 1912.

[3] “The Country Town,” p. 76.

[4] Principles of Sociology, Giddings, p. 348.

[5] “The Church in the Open Country,” p. 9.

[6] The Survey, March 2, 1912. “The Nams; the Feeble-minded as Country Dwellers.” Charles B. Davenport. Ph.D.

[7]

New England Towns Losing Population		1890		1910		Total towns (in 1910)
Maine		348		291		523
New Hampshire		152		163		224
Vermont		187		156		229
Massachusetts		154		123		321
Rhode Island		12		8		32
Connecticut		79		48		152
		——		——		——
		932		789		1481

[8] The writer wishes to make it quite clear that he is thinking, in this discussion, merely of the boys and girls who ought to stay on the farm. Unquestionably many of them must and should go to the city. This book pleads merely for a fair share of the farm boys and girls to stay in the country,—those best fitted to maintain country life and rural institutions. Country life must be made so attractive and so worth-while that it will be to the advantage of more of the finest young people to invest their lives there. Every effort should be made to prevent a boy’s going from the farm to the city, provided he is likely to make only a meager success in the city or possibly a failure.

[9] Yet in a class of 115 college men at the Lake Geneva Student conference in June, 1912, a surprising number stated that they had suffered a similar experience as boys at home, though usually at times when the farm work was particularly pressing. One claimed that he had driven a riding cultivator by moonlight at 2 A. M.

[10] Quoted by M. Jules Meline (Premier of France) in “The Return to the Land.”

[11] “The Rural Life Problem of the United States,” p. 47.

[12] By Edwin Osgood Grover, the son of a country minister.

[13] Some allowance should be made for the possibility of students enrolling from a small city who actually live on a suburban farm.

[14] “The Country Town,” p. 185.

[15] “Rural Christendom.” Roads. p. 84.

[16] H. W. Quaintance. in Cyc. of Am. Agric. IV; p. 109.

[17] Publication of the Amer. Econ. Assn. V; pp. 817-821.

[18] The financial results of these improvements in farm machinery will not at all surprise us. It follows as a matter of course that machinery has greatly reduced the cost of production. A leading agricultural engineer at Washington is authority for this comparison. In 1830 a bushel of wheat represented over three hours of labor; while in 1896 only ten minutes; making a saving in the labor cost of producing wheat equal to the difference between 17 3-4 and 33 1-2 cents. In 1850 it required 4 1-2 hours labor to produce a bushel of corn; while in 1894 it was reduced to 41 minutes. Likewise the labor represented in a ton of baled hay has been reduced from 35 1-2 hours in 1860 to 11 1-2 in 1894; reducing the labor cost of a ton of hay from $3 to $1.29.

It has been estimated that the use of agricultural machinery saved in human labor in this country alone, in the year 1899, the vast sum of about seven hundred million dollars, with doubtless a great increase the past decade. No wonder American farmers are spending a hundred million dollars a year for their implements, and for this very reason have outstripped the farmers of the world, not only in the vast amount of production, but also in the increased comforts and satisfactions of farm life.

[19] George Manikowske, Mooreton, N. D.

[20] See Genesis 3:17-19.

[21] Report of the U. S. Sec. of Agric. for 1910. p. 11.

[22] “Brains that Make Billions.” W. M. Hays, in Saturday Evening Post, Aug. 29, 1908.

[23] However, let us not jump to the conclusion that general farming to-day is highly profitable. Inflation of farm values in many sections has resulted in serious over-capitalization. The general farmers making big dividends bought their farms some years ago, or inherited them.

[24] Cyc. of Am. Agri., Vol. IV.

[25] Doubtless this single fact would account for the loss in population in many townships. There are just as many families as ever but a lower birthrate.

[26] “The Church of the Open Country,” p. 79.

[27] Rural Manhood, Vol. I, p. 22.

[28] “Rural Recreation, a Socializing Factor.” Annals of the Am. Acad. of Pol. and Soc. Sci., March, 1912; p. 189.

[29] “Rural Recreation, a Socializing Factor,” p. 190.

[30] Annals of the Am. Acad. of Pol. and Soc. Sci., March, 1912, p. 61.

[31] Of course country children should also be taught much about city life; city children should be taught about country life, and in the main the standard curriculum will be the same. The point to be made here is the exceedingly important one that rural schools must be made to fit the boys and girls for happy and efficient life in rural communities. This is the specific task of the country school.

[32] “The American Rural School,” p. 323.

[33] “The Country Town,” p. 299.

[34] In several of the stronger denominations, and, in general, east of the Allegheny Mountains, the proportion is much higher.

[35] Yet an earnest young college student in an Indiana college asked my advice recently on this significant personal problem. He is anxious to consecrate his life to the ministry of the country church, but his particular sect does not believe it right to pay salaries to their ministers; so he asked advice as to whether he should earn his living by farming or school teaching,—while giving his services as pastor and preacher! Quite possibly in such a church a salary of $1000 might actually handicap a pastor’s influence; but mainly with the conservative older people.

[36] For an authoritative statement of the County Work program and principles written by International Secretaries Roberts and Israel, see “Annals of the Amer. Acad. of Polit. and Soc. Sci.” for March, 1912, pp. 140-8.

[37] “The Country Church and the Rural Problem,” p. 146.

[38] “The Annals of the Am. Acad. of Pol. and Soc. Sci.,” March, 1912, p. 177.

[39] “Country Life,” p. 155.

[40] “The Country Church and the Rural Problem,” p. 131.

[41] Forty-six out of 166 medical colleges have been closed in very recent years and the entrance requirements of many others raised, with a strong tendency to make a college course prerequisite.

[42] Also a few of the third generation. For eighty years Oberlin has offered women, equally with men, its privileges of higher education; and in 1908 conferred the honorary degree of doctor of divinity upon a distinguished woman-minister, an alumna both in arts and theology a half century before.

[43] Disciples, Congregational, Methodist Episcopal, Unitarian, Baptist, Universalist, Free Baptist, Free Methodist, Evangelical Association, Christian Brethren, Methodist Protestant, Christian, Evangelical Lutheran, Seventh Day Baptist, Wesleyan Methodist, Dunkard, United Brethren, Methodist Episcopal South, Presbyterian and African Methodist Episcopal.

[44] Ninety-five and two-tenths per cent. of the 300,000 rural homes in Ohio last year had no bathtub.

[45] From “The Religion Worth Having,” Thomas Nixon Carver, p. 137.

[46] Issue of the “Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,” March, 1912.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

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Other than the corrections noted by hover information, printer’s inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained.

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