This survey of community-building peoples in America may throw light upon the recommendations of Sir Horace Plunkett for the organization of country life upon an economic basis. The present writer heartily agrees with him that the center of the community must be economic. He says that "Better business must come first" in constructive policies for American country life, but "by failing to combine, American and British farmers persistently disobey an accepted law."
Social division is the impending danger which threatens the future of the American community in the country. For if the analysis of agricultural success in this chapter is correct, then the farmer is exceedingly dependent upon his neighbor, and the permanence of rural populations depends upon the social unity of the farmers in the community. The highest expression of this social unity is in the farmer's religion. Worship thus becomes a symbol of agricultural prosperity. The writers and the orators have then truly spoken who symbolized the beauty of rural life in the church steeple. The farmer himself seems to recognize, in the church spire rising above the roofs of the hamlet, the symbol of prosperous and satisfactory life in the country.
As the tillers of the soil come to the necessity of co-operation in the new order of life in the country, as the old isolation passes away and the modern farmer comes to recognize his necessary dependence upon other farmers in the community, a common place of worship will become necessary to the community. One church will of necessity express the life of the community and the periodic meeting of all the people in one house of worship will be the highest and most essential symbol of the feeling and the thought and the aspirations of that community after true prosperity and permanence.
The purpose of this chapter has been to present the general characteristics of the most exceptional communities in the country. These are Mormon, Scotch Presbyterian and Pennsylvania German. By their very names they indicate religious organization of the community and "birthright membership" associations. They are grouped under the one principle, that in them the religious organization is an expression of their social economy. Their social and economic life is under the domination of their religion.
These farmers are organized in the interest of agriculture. The resultant social life constitutes a most intense organization in which voluntary and conscious combination matures in instinctive union embodied in blood relationship, neighborliness and economic union. These populations show the correspondence between economic and religious austerity. Thrift takes the form of dogmatic repression and finally their organization and their relationship express themselves in organized efforts for the well-being of the community. They deliberately as well as instinctively co-operate.
It is the writer's belief that these exceptional communities exhibit the principles on which American life must be organized, if the farmer is to be a success, if his schools are to progress, his churches to be maintained, and if the country community is to be a good place to live in. None of these populations can be imitated. It would be impossible for a community to take over their modes any more than it could imbibe their motives. The study of them throws light upon the problem of country life in America. Above all things it illustrates the especial union of the country church with the social economy of the farmer and his household. It shows that the life of country people is co-operative, that it is undermined by division and disunion and that in the open country where man is least seen his society is most evident. The dependence of each man upon his neighbor is increased in modern times by the thinning out of the rural population and the increased economic burden laid upon the farmer.
Finally, the exceptional populations present an exceptional victory over economic and natural forces. They abolish poverty within their own bounds. Every one of the communities just described turns the power of its common organization upon the problem of maintaining the lower margin of the community. They who are in danger of falling behind are sustained and carried on. None in these communities is permitted to fall into pauperism. The workingman without capital, whether he be in their meetings or only employed on their farms, is kept from want. The widow with her little house and one cow is insured against the loss of any feature of her small property. This seems to me to be the greatest triumph of these communities. It is the test, I am convinced, of their organizations and of their success. In this they demonstrate one of the greatest possibilities of country life. They show that in the open country it is possible for men to live without the suffering and degradation of poverty.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] History of American Presbyterianism, by R. E. Thompson.
[18] An exception to this statement must be noted, in the Scotch settlements in Canada and Nova Scotia.