Legislatures and the national Congress are taking notice; likewise the railroads; but the middleman remains unterrified, secure in his speculative castle. He may look well to his profits however, for the days of organized agriculture are not far distant. The farmers are getting together for business and are comparing notes with the consumers. The producer finds he is often getting less than half what the consumer pays and the cooperative spirit grows apace. The efficiency of farmers’ organizations for mutual profit has varied greatly in different sections, but they serve a genuine need and have a great future, as class consciousness increases among farmers.
But the new social consciousness in the country is not merely a matter of group loyalty. It has to do with the interests of the whole community. The selfish days of the independent farmer are rapidly passing. The social spirit of mutual interdependence is certainly growing. One of the tests of modern civilization is the capacity for cooperation. Tardily, very tardily, the country has been following the city in this ability to cooperate for common ends and the community welfare, but improvement is very evident.
The problem of community socialization will be treated in Chapter V. We shall find that the need of cooperation runs through every phase of rural life and explains the common weakness of every rural institution. But leaders of country life, both East and West, have caught the social vision and are sharing it with their neighbors. “Together” is the watchword of the new day in the country, and the incentive of cooperative endeavor is the key to the new success in every rural interest and organization.
V. Effect of the New Order on Rural Institutions.
For several decades we have been seriously troubled by the decay of rural institutions. The strain upon them resulting from rural depletion has been very serious. First of all the country schools began to deteriorate and thousands of them doubtless have been closed. With the decay of the village, the village store, that social center and fountain of all wisdom, has lost prestige and most of its trade. The trolley and the mail order houses have made it unnecessary. With the coming of the rural delivery route, even the village post-office has lost all social importance. With the advent of farm machinery and fewer farm hands, many of the jolly social functions of the past, such as husking bees, barn raisings, spelling bees and lyceums, have ceased to be; while the rural churches in all depleted sections have suffered sadly and in hundreds of cases have succumbed.
In some scattered communities, away from the beaten paths, this social decay has resulted in de-socializing the neighborhood. Feuds, grudges, gross immoralities have followed and the people have relapsed into practical heathenism. But in many places social readjustment has come, with a new efficiency in rural institutions. Centralized schools have brought a new largeness of vision in place of the little district knowledge shop. The great advantages of the rural free delivery have certainly outweighed the loss of the social prestige of the post-office, just as the trolley is more valuable than the village store. Many of the old time social functions were worth while, but new institutions like the Grange and the farmers’ clubs, institutes and cooperative organizations are better fitted to the modern age and are contributing largely to the new rural civilization, while the village church and the church in the open country are discovering new opportunities for service, broader community usefulness and a great social mission.
The new rural civilization is bringing a new prosperity into the great business of farming. It is bringing new and permanent satisfactions and comforts into country homes. It has greatly diminished the vexed problem of rural isolation, with its many new ways of communication. It has to a remarkable degree eliminated drudgery, through the use of wonderful machinery. It has popularized education and developed a new social consciousness and new efficiency in rural institutions, amounting often to a total redirection of the community life. But fundamentally the new civilization is naturally religious. It is revealing the strong religious sentiment in country folks, even when they are not associated with churches. It is calling upon the church to gird itself for new tasks and under a new, virile type of leadership undertake real community building with the modern church as the center of activity and source of inspiration and guidance. The church should be, and with adequate leadership is, the local power house of the country life movement.
Rural Progress and the Providence of God
Every man of faith must see in this new rural civilization the purpose of God to redeem the country from the dangers of a rural peasantry and moral decadence. Progress is the will of God. Christ’s vision of a Kingdom of Heaven involved a redeemed world. That Kingdom of Heaven is coming ultimately in the country as well as in the city. Every sign of rural progress indicates it and should be hailed with joy by men of faith. The triumph over isolation and the gradual emancipation from drudgery, the development of good roads, trolleys, telephones, rural mail service, automobiles, and the wonderful evolution of farm machinery are all way-marks in the providence of God indicating the ultimate coming of his Kingdom. The increased intelligence among farming people, the many new agencies for popular education, the new social consciousness and growing spirit of cooperation, the new efficiency of rural institutions, a better school, a community-serving church, a character-building home, as well as a scientifically conducted farm, every one of these makes for better rural morals and better religion, and should delight the heart of every earnest man who “desires a better country, that is a heavenly.”
