The Home Bureau Creed
"To maintain the highest ideals of home life; to count children the most important of crops; to so mother them that their bodies may be sound, their minds clear, their spirits happy, and their characters generous:
"To place service above comfort; to let loyalty to high purposes silence discordant note; to let neighborliness supplant hatreds; to be discouraged never:
"To lose self in generous enthusiasms; to extend to the less fortunate a helping hand; to believe one's community may become the best of communities; and to coöperate with others for the common ends of a more abundant home and community life:
"This is the offer of the Home Bureau to the homemaker of to-day."
Nor should we fail to recognize the part which the boys' and girls' club work has had in the extension movement. Space will not permit any adequate account of its origin and growth, or of its methods and influence. No movement has done more to redirect and give dynamic to the rural school than has the club work; nor has any movement done more to train leadership among the coming generation on the farms. Commencing with corn clubs for the boys, canning clubs were soon organized for the girls, and later pig clubs, potato clubs, calf clubs, sewing clubs, cooking clubs, and clubs are now organized with various projects covering almost all phases of agriculture and home economics. These clubs may be called the Junior Farm Bureau, for in them farm children are receiving a training which will mean much for the future organization of country life. The public confidence in the work is shown by the fact that in 1920, 500 banks in the northern and western states loaned nearly $900,000 to club boys and girls for financing their projects.[50] As a result of the school exhibits of the products of the club work, many a community fair has been started, and as a result of club picnics and play days community picnics or festivals have become an annual event in many places and have brought better feeling and increased pride and loyalty to the community. In 1919, 464,979 boys and girls were enrolled in club work.
Thus the extension movement started by the agricultural colleges and the United States Department of Agriculture has become a national movement of rural people, men, women, and children, whose strength is largely due to the fact that it has been the means of organizing the local communities and of bringing them together in county organizations, which with the aid of state and national funds and supervision, employ trained executives to stimulate and supervise the work of the local groups. It is a unique agency for the education and organization of rural life which is giving the American farmer a new position in the life of the nation.
FOOTNOTES:
[47] This movement can only be sketched in barest outline. It is fully and authoritatively discussed in another volume of this series by Prof. M. C. Burritt, entitled "The County Agent and the Farm Bureau." See also O. B. Martin, "The Demonstration Work." Boston, The Stratford Co.
[48] For a full discussion of this movement, its objectives and accomplishments, see O. M. Kile, "The Farm Bureau Movement," Macmillan, New York, 1921.