This definition of the business of the church may seem rather heterodox, coming from the head of a Presbyterian department, but the department of which Dr. Wilson is the head has reached its widely recognized effectiveness because it has been actuated by such aggressive common sense as this.
That the volume is dedicated to Anna B. Taft, who has contributed so largely to the success of the movement to reanimate country churches, is indeed pleasant. Dr. Wilson adds to the value of the volume by giving many definite instances of definite achievement in the redirection of country life through the church’s activity.
The book is well named; it does present in an orderly fashion the development of the country community. Dr. Wilson follows Professor Ross of Purdue in his definition of the four types of farmers—the pioneer, the land farmer, the exploiter, and the husbandman. The writer very happily shows that in many communities the evolution has proceeded so irregularly that all the four types of farmers are now living side by side, and that their four sides may be contending for mastery. That the pastor and the church ministering to the farmer of each type are determined by that type is a clearly stated lesson that social workers outside of rural communities might very well take to heart.
Some communities, Dr. Wilson recognizes, are exceptional. He apparently agrees with Prof. T. N. Carver of Harvard that the best farmers in the country are the Mormons, the Scotch Presbyterians, and the Pennsylvania Germans. Each one of these peoples—for they are no less—has come to agricultural prosperity because this agriculture has been built around the church. The organization of the Mormons, for instance, is not only efficient, but it revolves around the church. Dr. Wilson might very well have gone further in this connection and called attention to the fact that the leaders of the Latter Day Saints have made their people happy, here and now, by realizing that all their wants—social, economic, religious, political—were so closely interrelated that they must all be taken care of by collective action.
As a clear and well-proportioned statement, characterized by ample knowledge, careful statement and good temper, the book is valuable.
Warren Dunham Foster.
CONSTRUCTIVE RURAL SOCIOLOGY
By John M. Gillette. introduction by George E. Vincent, president of the University of Minnesota. New York, Sturgis & Walton. 301 pp. Price $1.60; by mail of The Survey $1.75.
There can be no doubt that this work is constructive if we remember that adequate information is the beginning of all sound construction. The book is packed with information on all phases of rural life. Whether it is sociology or not depends upon one’s point of view and one’s bringing up. It may be economics. Among the eighteen chapters there are included such topics as Rural and Urban Increase (IV), Improvement of Agricultural Production (VII), Improving the Business Side of Farming (VIII), and Rural and Social Institutions and Their Improvement (XV and XVI). There are numerous tables and illustrations, including an interesting map of a rural Methodist parish.
One of the most interesting chapters is entitled Social Aspects of Land and Labor in the United States, though in the first paragraph the reader is confronted with the statement that “The nation’s population is ultimately determined by the amount of its arable land.” This is doubtless a casual statement and ought not to be allowed to mar what is otherwise an excellent chapter. Of course it is only the nation’s rural population which is ultimately determined by its arable land. So long as foreign markets hold out, there is no limit to the urban population short of lack of building room. Or one might say that the population of a nation which aims to be self-contained, or physically self-supporting as distinct from commercially self-supporting, is limited by its arable land. The reviewer does not remember to have seen so good a discussion of the problem of agricultural labor as is found in this chapter.