Possibly the greatest service of the Grange is its educational and social work. The "lecturer's hour" is a feature of every meeting, and in this hour a program planned by the lecturer is given by members of the grange, or outside speakers are invited to address it on topics of interest. These programs include both discussion of educational topics having to do with all phases of agriculture, home life, and civic affairs, but also music, recitations and other entertaining features. Special social evenings and suppers are held at frequent intervals and the young people often enjoy an informal dance after the regular grange meeting. The local grange, more than any other organization, provides a forum for the discussion of the problems of agriculture and country life, and is thus a powerful agency for the creation of public opinion on any matters of community concern. The management of its business and the participation in the lecturer's programs furnish the best opportunity for the development of leadership and for training in public speaking, so that the local Grange has been the means of discovering and training much of our best rural leadership.
For many years the attention of the Grange seemed to be directed chiefly toward the support of needed national legislation, but recently grange leaders have perceived that, like all such organizations, its permanent strength and influence depend more largely on the degree to which the local grange is a vital force in the life of its members and of its community. In a recent article on "The Future of the Grange," S. J. Lowell, Master of the National Grange, ably voices this point of view:
"The farm people of America are better informed on all the great questions of the day; are pursuing better agricultural methods; are demanding better roads, better schools, better churches; are doing more effective teamwork for forward-looking projects; and in consequence are more valuable men and women and citizens because of the Grange influence of the past and its presence in their life to-day. Remove the Grange from America and there would be taken out of our progress of a half century one of the largest contributing factors.
"It will be setting up a declaration contrary to the belief of some that exerting legislative influence, important as it is, is not the most valuable function of the Grange; that its coöperative activities, however they may have flourished, will not loom largest in the grange program of the future; that not even its efforts for state and national reform will be recorded as its greatest service to its day and generation. Rather we must estimate the Grange value of the future by its quiet, steady, unfaltering efforts, continued year after year, in thousands of local communities—many of them far removed from the busy activities of men—to bring the rural people together, to teach them the fundamentals of coöperation, of efficiency, of teamwork, of practical educational progress, and of the value of a forward-looking rural program, into whose accomplishments all the people of a locality may conscientiously enter.... This view of Grange service to rural America is apparent in the extent to which the community-betterment program has been taken up by subordinate granges in nearly every state. Though a secret organization—a fraternity in fact as well as in name—the Grange is more and more making of itself an overflowing institution, seeking to render actual benefits to its immediate home locality. Hundreds of live Granges this year are carrying out some form of community improvement along a great variety of directions."[70]
He then goes on to give a brief glimpse of the variety of these community enterprises. In Massachusetts the State Grange has for several years had a committee which awards annual prizes for the best community improvement work done by the local granges, and this has stimulated a lively interest in community activities.
Although the Grange is primarily a farmers' organization, yet where the local grange meets in the village, and particularly in the older states, a considerable number of the members are village people, so that the Grange represents the life of the whole community. On the other hand, in many neighborhoods which are at some distance from a village center, the Grange hall may be located in the open country, its membership is composed wholly of farmers, and it is solely a class organization. No studies are available to show the proportion of Granges which meet in villages or in the open country and the effect which this has upon the relation of the Grange to the community, but it may be safely asserted that, as is the case with the church and the school, the Grange tends to meet in village centers as a matter of convenience to the largest number of its members, and that, as indicated by Mr. Lowell, it is coming to recognize its responsibility for the general improvement of the community as a whole.
Other Farmers' Organizations.—Throughout the South and in Kansas and Nebraska the Farmers' Educational and Coöperative Union is the leading farmers' organization, but it is chiefly devoted to coöperative business enterprises and does but little for the education or social life of its members, who are usually all men. The same may be said of the Society of Equity, which is strongest in Wisconsin, Kentucky, and South Dakota. In Michigan, although the Grange is strong, the Gleaners have a considerable membership.
In many states, particularly where the grange is not well established, farmers' clubs have been organized. In some cases local conditions make clubs feasible where it would be difficult to enlist a large enough part of the community to make a grange equally successful. In some cases such clubs are open to farmers only; in others they include the whole family; while in recent years many farm women's clubs have been organized. Whether such clubs should be for the whole family, or for men or women only, is largely a local question depending upon the social usages and homogeneity of the population. In Wisconsin and Minnesota family clubs have been most successful. It is doubtful whether this would be equally true in the South. In the South such local clubs have been the local units of the extension work in agriculture and home economics. Where for any reason it is not possible to include the whole community in a club, several clubs may be organized, each including a congenial membership, as is now the case with women's clubs in cities, and these may then be federated for community purposes.
Lodges.—In most rural villages will be found one or more lodges of fraternal orders, such as the Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Maccabees, etc., with the corresponding orders of women's auxiliaries. The place and influence of lodges in the life of the rural community have been strangely neglected by students of country life, and we have no means of evaluating their place in the rural community. Not infrequently the regular meetings and special parties and banquets held by these orders form a large part of the social life of the village. In other cases the meetings are but poorly attended and the lodge is maintained chiefly for its insurance benefits. In some of the larger villages and towns the larger and more prosperous lodges have game rooms and reading rooms attached to their halls, so that they serve as club rooms for their membership. Usually the membership is more largely composed of village people, but a considerable number of farmers maintain their membership, even though they do not attend regularly, and in exceptional cases the membership is largely composed of farm people. It is obvious that the lodge as a secret order is devoted to the interests of its own membership and usually it has no definite program of work for the benefit of the whole community. Yet it must be recognized that the assistance rendered by the lodge to its members in sickness and to their families when in distress of any kind, is a considerable asset to the welfare of the community and is a powerful influence in promoting that spirit of brotherhood upon which all community life depends. Usually the lodges actively support and participate in any community activities in which they may appropriately take part, such as Memorial Day or Fourth of July celebrations, community Christmas trees and other festival occasions. The churches, or at least the ministers, sometimes feel that the social life of the lodges absorbs so much of the time and interest of their members as to prevent their activity in church work, which attitude has often obtained between the church and Grange, but it is a question whether this is not often due to the failure of the church to provide such activities as will command the loyalty of the people, and, on the other hand, not infrequently the leaders in lodge work are also most active in the churches. To the extent that the lodges seem self-centered and make no direct contribution to community improvement, this is doubtless due to the lack of any means whereby their support may be enlisted in a program of community betterment. The place of the lodge in the community is much like that of a fraternity in a college or university; its primary obligation is to its own membership, but when enlisted in any activity for the common welfare it furnishes one of the best means for developing the community spirit of its members, and its participation is a means of strengthening its own organization.
The Village Band.—A good village band is one of the most effective agencies for promoting community spirit and sociability. The village merchants have also found that it is an economic asset, and in many country towns they contribute liberally for its support. A band concert every Saturday night, or twice a week, never fails to bring a crowd of people to town and it is a common sight to see the streets lined with automobiles of farm people who have come in to enjoy the concert and incidentally to do a little shopping and chat with each other and their village friends. Although it may be called by the name of the village, it is usually a community band, for farm boys who can play an instrument are always welcome and frequently form a considerable part of the membership. The community comes to have a real pride in even a moderately good band, and on holiday celebrations and other festival occasions it is an invaluable asset to community spirit. A crowd will always follow a band, for it exercises a sort of group leadership for which there seems to be no substitute.