It is possible for a national organization movement to come out of the existing agricultural institutions in the United States.
We may picture to ourselves a perfectly coöperating rural society that will have all the means of its salvation within itself. Even if we accept this picture, we cannot say that the structure will rise out of one seed or starting-point, or that one phase of coöperation is of necessity primary and another final. Our theoretical structure will arise from several or many beginnings; it will be a complex of numberless units; whatever range of coöperation is found, by investigation, to be now most needed in any community, must be the one with which we are to set that community going.
17. In the end everything depends on personal gumption and guidance. It is not strange that we have lacked the kind of guidance that brings country people together, because we have not had the kind of education that produces it; and, in fact, this kind of guidance has not been so necessary in the past as it is now. A new motive in education is gradually beginning to shape itself. This must produce a new kind of outlook on country questions, and it will bring out a good many men and women who will be guides in the country as their fellows will be guides in the city. They will be captains because they will perform the common work of farming regions in an uncommon way.
I think we little realize to-day what the effect will be in twenty-five years of the young men and women that the colleges of agriculture in these days are sending into the country districts.
Community interest is of the spirit.
In conclusion, let us remember that everything that develops the common commercial, intellectual, recreative, and spiritual interests of the rural people, ties them together socially. Residing near together is only one of the means of developing a community life, and it is not now the most important one. Persons who reside close together may still be torn asunder by divergent interests and a simple lack of any tie that binds; this is notably true in many country villages.
Community of purpose and spirit is much more important than community of houses. Community pride is a good product; it produces a common mind.