READINGS IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO READINGS IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY BY JOHN PHELAN Professor of Rural Sociology and Director of Short Courses at Massachusetts Agri- cultural College jfteto pork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920 AU rights reserved COPYEIGHT, 1920. BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and elcctrotyped. Published September, 1920. PREFACE The rapid introduction during the past ten years of courses in rural sociology in universities, colleges, normal schools and other institutions engaged in the preparation of young men and women for the rural field has prepared the way for a book of readings in this subject that may be used as a text for an introductory course. Much of the material included in this book has been used with college classes in this institution and with classes of teachers in normal schools and in university summer courses. In the selection of the material it has seemed best to draw upon the writings of men and women whose long experience or professional standing entitles them to speak with some degree of authority. I have assumed that an introductory course in rural sociology should endeavor: first, to develop a broad, sympathetic under- standing of the real needs and actual conditions of farm and com- munity life in the United States; second, to lead students to ap- preciate the relationship between life and labor, wealth and wel- fare on the farm, since farming is not only an occupation but also a mode of life ; third, to show as concretely as possible the unity of interest of rural and urban groups based on the fact that the farm supplies the city not only with food but also with a large proportion of its population, thus making necessary a sound rural life as the condition for the development of a permanent industrial democracy; fourth, to interest students in taking an active part in the work of those agencies that make for better conditions on American farms and in American rural comnmni- tion; fifth, to endeavor to prevent students from making that most common of all errors — the undervaluation of the farmer's own judgment of what is best for himself. Grateful acknowledgment is here made to the authors and publishers for their generous contributions and unfailing cour- tesy. Their names appear from page to page. My thanks are v vi PREFACE due to many colleagues and friends for suggestions and criti- cisms concerning the organization or selection of the material, and to President Kenyon L. Butterfield for his interest and encour- agement in its publication. To my wife, Ida Densmore Phelan, I am indebted for assistance in the abridgement of selections. the reading of the proof and the preparation of the index. JOHN PIIELAN. Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Massachusetts, 1920. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 1 Farm Life a Century Ago .... Ethel Stanwood Bolton . 1 Intemperance in Colonial Days . . Percy Wells Bidu-ell . . 13 What Awaits Rural New England . Thomas Nixon Carver . 16 Facts New England Faces . . . Hampden County Im- provement League . 20 Agriculture in New England . . . Kenyan L. Butterfield . 20 Bibliography 25 THE DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTRY LIFE IN THE WEST . . . . 27 The Middle West— The Fiber of the People Edward Alsworth Ross . 27 The Significance of the Frontier in American History Frederick Jackson Turner 29 The Spirit of the Pioneer .... Ray Stannard Baker . . 34 The Passing of the Frontier . . . James Bryce .... 35 The Great Southwest Ray Stannard Baker . . 36 Life in the Corn Belt Thomas Nixon Carver . 38 Bibliography 44 CHAPTER III THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 46 Social Conditions of the Old and the New South Philip Alexander Bruce . 46 Our Carolina Highlanders . E. C. Branson ... 58 The Rural Negro and the South . . Booker T. Washington . 65 Following the Color Line .... Ray Stannard Baker . . 69 Bibliography • 72 CHAPTER IV THE IMMIGRANT IN AGRICULTURE 75 Immigration in Agriculture . . . John Olsen .... 75 CONTENTS PACE Why Immigrants Go to Cities . . Henry Pratt Fairchild . 80 Immigration as a Source of Farm Laborers John Lee Coulter ... 88 Bibliography 93 CHAPTER V PRESENT PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 95 Wanted — A National Policy in Agri- culture Eugene Davenport . . 95 Who Is the. Farmer? A. M. Simons . . .110 The Point of View in Comparisons of City and Country Conditions . . Kenyan L. Butterfield . Ill Soldier Settlements in English-Speak- ing Countries Elwood Mead .... 114 The Farmer in Relation to the Wel- fare of the Whole Country . . . Theodore Roosevelt . . 11(5 Bibliography 117 CHAPTER VI SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS .' 119 A. COOPERATION The Moral Basis of Cooperation . . Thomas Nixon Carver . 119 Farmers' Cooperative Exchanges . Alexander E. Cance . . 120 Social Effects of Cooperation in Eu- rope C. O. Gill 131 B. OWNERSHIP AND TENANCY Tenant Farming John M. Gillette . . . 137 Some -Advantages of Tenancy . . W. O. Iledrick . . . 142 Agrarian Aristocracy and Population Pressure E. C. Hayes .... 145 C. ADULT LABOR The Influence of Machinery on the Economic and Social Conditions of the Agricultural People . . . H. W. Quaint ance . . 147 The Agricultural Element in the Pop- ulation Eugene Merritt . . . 150 A Point of View on the Labor* Prob- lem L. H. Bailey . . . .152 D. CHILD LABOR Rural Child Labor John M. Gillette . . .155 Colorado Beet Workers .... Dr. E. N. Clopper . . 156 CONTENTS ix PAGE Strawberry Pickers of Maryland . . Harry H. Bremer . . 157 Children or Cotton Lewis H. Hine . . . 158 Bibliography • . 160 CHAPTER VII MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS OF RURAL LIFE 162 Characteristics of the Farmer . . . James Bryce .... 162 The Influence of Farm Life on Child- hood Charles W. Elliot . . 164 An Appreciation of Rural People . T. N. Carver .... 165 The Rural Environment and Great Men W. J. Spillman . . . 168 Suggestion and City-Drift . . . Ernest R. Groves . . 172 The Mind of the Farmer .... Ernest R. Groves . . 175 The Need of Ideals in Rural Life . Kenyan L. Butterfield . 181 Bibliography 183 CHAPTER VIII RURAL HEALTH — PHYSICAL AND MENTAL 185 A. RURAL HEALTH — PHYSICAL A Sociologist's Health Program for the Rural Community . . . . L. L. Bernard . . . 185 City is Healthier for Children than the Country Thomas D. Wood . . 193 Rural Sanitation : Definition, Field, Principles, Methods, and Costs . . W. S. Rankin, M.D. . . 197 B. RURAL HEALTH — MENTAL Feeble-mindedness Defined . . . E. J. Emerick . . . 203 Fundamental Facts in Regard to Feeble-mindedness Va. Board of Charities . 204 The Hill Folk Danielson and Davenport 206 The Extent of Feeble-inindedness in Rural and Urban Communities in New Hampshire Report of the Children's Commission . . . 213 Feeble-minded Citizens in Pennsyl- vania Dr. W. E. Key . . .214 Amentia in Rural England . . . A. F. Tredgold . . . 217 Urban and Rural Insanity . . .U.S. Bureau of Census . 218 What is Practicable in the Way of Prevention of Mental Defect . . W. E. Fernald . . .219 Bibliography 223 CHAPTER IX PACE RURAL RECREATION, DRAMA, ART 226 Extract from the Will of Charles Lounsbury 226 The Need of Play in Rural Life . . Henry S. Curtis . . .226 Physical Education in Rural Schools . Lawrence S. Hill . . . 229 What the People Like Warren II. Wilson . . 235 The Farm Playground 11'. 77. Jenkins . . .236 Drama for Rural Communities . . Alfred G. Arvold . . 236 The Miracle Play at Pomfret, Con- necticut Ella M. Boult . . . .241 What the Pageant Can Do for the Town George P. Baker . . . 243 Rural Art Frank A. Wauyh . . 248 Bibliography 253 CHAPTER X COMMUNICATION AND TRANSPORTATION The Future of Good Roads in State and Nation Edwin A. Stevens . . 255 Mitigating Rural Isolation .... John M. Gillette . . . 266 Social Significance of the Agricul- tural Press J. Clyde Marquis . . 275 Social Value of the Telephone . . G. Walter Fiske . . .280 Bibliography 281 CHAPTER XI CORRECTIONAL AGRICULTURE AND RURAL POLICE 283 A. CORRECTIONAL AGRICULTURE The Outdoor Treatment of Crime . . Harris li. Cooley . . .283 Outdoor Work for Prisoners . . . Thomas J. Tynan . . 288 The Prison Farm IF. J. Homer . . . .289 Health on Prison Farms .... W. O. Murray . . . 289 In the Healing Lap of Mother Earth . W. D. Lane . . . .290 Farming as a Cure for the Insane . W. E. Taylor .... 295 Juvenile Delinquency in Rural New York Kate H. Claghorn . . 297 B. RURAL POLICE Rural Police C. E. Henderson . . .303 A Land of Law and Order .... Elmer E. Ferris . . . 306 Pennsylvania State Police .... Theodore Roosevelt . . 308 Canada's Royal North-West Mounted Police 1. 7). C, micron . . . 310 Bibliography 311 CONTENTS xi CHAPTER XII PAGE THE RURAL HOME 313 A. THE HOME Women on the Farms Herbert Quick . . . 313 An Open Letter to Secretary Houston Mary Doane Shelby . . 319 Women in Rural Life Sir Horace Plunkett . 323 The Problem of the Changing Rural Home Georgia L. White . . 324 B. RURAL HOUSING Rural Housing Elmer S. Forbes . . .327 Overcrowding and Defective Housing Harvey Bashore . . . 329 Housing Conditions on Farms in New York State L. H. Bailey . . . .331 Bibliography 334 CHAPTER XIII THE COUNTRY SCHOOL 337 An Epigram T. J. Coates .... 337 The Status of the Rural School . . Ernest Burnham . . . 337 Rehabilitating the Rural School . . L. L. Bernard . . . 340 The County as a Unit of Administra- tion A. C. Monahan . . . 345 The Change from Amateur to Profes- sional Teaching H. W. Foght .... 347 The Rural High School .... George H. Betts and Otis E. Hall 348 The Spread of the School Manse Idea George E. Vincent . . 351 Agriculture and the Curriculum . . Evelyn Dewey . . . 352 The Moonlight Schools of Kentucky . Cora Wilson Stewart . 356 A National Program for Education . Natl. Edn. Assn. . . . 363 The Consolidated School as a Com- munity Center John //. Cook . . . 371 Bibliography 374 CHAPTER XIV OTHER EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES 377 Education Through Farm Demonstra- tion Bradford. Knapp . . . 377 Home Economics Work Under the Smith-Lever Act A. C. True . . . .389 Boys' and Girls' Contest Clubs . . L. II. li,,ili>y . . . .391 The Rural Book Hunger . . . . M. S. Dudgeon . . .394 xii CONTENTS PAGE The Community Fair «7. Sterling Moran . . 402 The Smith-Hughes Act , 407 Bibliography 407 CHAPTER XV THE COUNTRY CHURCH 411 Ten Years in a Country Church . . Matthew B. McNutt . . 411 Land Tenure and the Rural Church . Henry Wallace . . . 421 Rural Economy as a Factor in the Success of the Church . . . . T. N. Carver .... 426 The Church Situation in Ohio . . C. O. Gill .... 431 The Genoa Parish Eev. A. Ph. Kremer . . 435 Rural Work of the Y. M. C. A. . . A. E. Roberts and Henry Israel 437 County Work of the Y. W. C. A. . . Jessie Field .... 440 Ten Years' Progress in County Y. M. C. A. Work in Michigan . . . C. L. Rome .... 441 The Call of the Country Parish . . Kenyan L. Butterfteld . 442 Sectarianism Warren H. Wilson . . 443 Report of Committee on Country Church Function, Policy, and Pro- gram Kenyan L. Butterfield, Miss Jessie Field, Charles O. Gill, Albert E. Roberts, Henry Wallace . . . 444 Bibliography 452 CHAPTER XVI THE VILLAGE 455 The History of Village Improvement in the United States W. II. Manning . . . 455 Social Privileges of Village or Small City C. J. Galpin . . . .464 The Town's Moral Plan .... Ilarlan P. Douglass . . 467 Civic Improvement in Village and Country Frank A. Waugh . . . 471 Bibliography 476 CHAPTER XVII THE SURVEY 478 The Survey Idea in Country Life Work . . L. H. Bailey . . . .478 Five Principles of Surveys . . . Paul U. Kellogg . . . 481 CONTENTS xiii PAGE A Method of Making a Social Survey of a Rural Community . . . . C. J. Galpin .... 484 . The Social Anatomy of an Agricul- tural Community C. J. Galpin .... 490 Bibliography 497 CHAPTER XVIII THE ORGANIZATION OF RURAL INTERESTS 500 A. RURAL ORGANIZATION Rural Organization Kenyan L. Butterfield . 500 B. INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION The International Institute of Agri- culture Official 512 C. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION Work of the Office of Markets and Rural Organization C. J. Brand .... 515 The Place of Government in Agricul- tural Cooperation and Rural Or- ganization 516 The County Farm Bureau . . . . L. R, Simons .... 518 Farmers' Clubs Kenyon L. Butterfield . 536 Farmers' Social Organizations . . A. D. Wilson .... 541 D. VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATION Declaration of Purposes of the Pa- trons of Husbandry Preamble 552 E. POLITICAL ORGANIZATION The National Non-Partisan League 557 P. COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION. How to Organize a Community . . E. L. Morgan .... 567 Definition of a Rural Community . . C. W. Thompson . . . 576 Bibliography 576 CHAPTER XIX LEADERSHIP 581 Leadership or Personal Ascendency . Charles R. Cooley . . 581 Leadership E. C. Hayes .... 583 Rural Leadership L. H. Bailey .... 584 The Secret of Influence .... James Bryce .... 584 Training for Rural Leadership . . John M. Gillette . . . 585 The Sources of Leadership . . . John R. Boardman . . 587 The Development of Rural Leadership G. Walter Fiske . . . 589 xiv CONTENTS PAGE Seaman A. Knapp Pub. U. S. Bur. of Ed. . 601 Henry Wallace Herbert Quick . . .604 Bibliography G09 CHAPTER XX THE FIELD OP RURAL SOCIOLOGY 611 The Sociology of Rural Life . . . A. R. Mann . . . .611 The Scope of Rural Sociology . . John M. Gillette . . . 615 The Teaching of Rural Sociology . . D wight Sanderson . . 620 Definitions of Rural Sociology (i'J'J Bibliography 623 READINGS IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY CHAPTER I COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND FARM LIFE A CENTURY AGO 1 ETHEL STANWOOD BOLTON IN the old days, when methods of work about the house and farm were prized for their hoary antiquity rather than, as now, for their novelty, and all farmers did as their ancestors had done, there was hardly a man in the New England towns who was not engaged in the pleasant occupation of farming. The storekeeper and the miller plowed, harrowed, and cultivated in the intervals of their other work, and the minister himself hung up his gown after the last service on Sunday, and, like the rest of the community, worked his land on Monday morning. A century ago each town owned a farm, the use of which was al- lowed the minister, rent free, as a part of his salary. The struggle in modern times is for the money to buy the necessities of life; then there was less to buy, and each man was dependent on his own exertions to get the necessities them- selves from the soil or from the stock which he could afford to keep. In those days, aside from the work which the miller or the itinerant cobbler performed, each farm was a nearly self-sup- porting entity, both for food and clothing. In modern times the great English artist, printer, and socialist, William Morris, founded a settlement which tried to be independent of the out- side world, growing and making all its own necessities and luxuries. The experiment was no more of a success than Mr. Alcott's similar scheme at Fruitlands, in the town of Harvard. 1 Adapted from a paper read upon several occasions, privately printed. 1 2 RURAL SOCIOLOGY In our great-grandfathers' time, however, this was no experi- ment, curious and interesting, but a fact to be reckoned with from day to day throughout their lives. The village store sold the few luxuries of life — white and brown sugar, salt, West Indian goods, such as molasses and spices, and, most of all, New England rum. Nearly every town boasted a foundry, where articles were made by hand, which would be far beyond the ability of our modern blacksmith. Here were made the plows and scythes, if the foundry was equipped with a trip hammer; shovels and hoes 'for outside work, nails for the carpenter, from the great iron spike to the shingle nail. The tools the carpenter used also came from the hands of the local blacksmith. In many country towns, old garrets will yield great chisels, primitive axes, and wrought iron bit-stocks, all made by hand and testifying to the excellence of workmanship by their age and condition. The household utensils, too, were his work, the fire dogs, toasting racks, hobs, iron. kettles, skillets, and an endless array of less common things; and all this in addition to the shoeing of horses and oxen. From 1799 to 1853, without a break, a good man of a Massachusetts town kept a line-a-day diary, and from that I am going to quote, from the four seasons of the 3rear, to show the dull routine of work in which the lives of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were passed; how it lacked the diversified interests which we consider necessary to our happiness to-day, and yet how little the unrest of modern times enters into any of its spirit. Take these short sketches of the life of James Parker, known as ' ' Captain James, ' ' a young and newly married man in 1806 : " April 1st. I cut Hop-poles at the South End. 2nd. I wrought for Ivory Longley, cart wood. Mr. Edgarton Departed this life. 3d. Fast Day. I and Ruthy (his wife) went to Mr. Harkness (his wife's father). James came home with us. 4th. I and Ruth}' went to the Funeral of Mr. Edgarton. Buryed in Mason order. The day was pleas- ant. A great collection of People. COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 5th. I split staves, mortised posts. Ruthy went to Groton. 6th. I and Ruthy went to meeting 1/2 the day 1/2 went to funeral of Joel Willard's Child that was drowneded. 7th. I made a Curb to the well. Went to town Meet- ing. 8th. I partly made a yoak and it stormed. ' ' Later on, in the summer, his work changed, and was that of a tiller of the soil about his business: "July 28th. I mow'd 1/2 the day, 1/2 plow'd hops. Abner mow'd all day. 29th. I plow'd and how'd hops 1/2 the day. I went and plow'd Abner 's Corn. Abner helpt me 1/2 the day. 30th. I sow'd some turnips, it rain'd. I went to Davids (his brother). 31st. I helpt Father plow with my oxen and Vene helpt Drive. August 1st. I was haying. Abner helpt me 1/2 the day. I carted my N to Capt. Edgarton's. 2nd. I was plowing my stubble, it rain'd and Clowdy. 3. I went to meeting. Esq. Tom (the minister's son) red the Discourse. And so it is a constant reiteration of plowing, mowing, raking, hoeing, all done by hand or with the slow-paced oxen. How many lessons in patience the farmer learned in those days, and what a dignified ease there was about it all! There were no complaints when the hay was all cut and the weather turned bad, but a calm acceptance. In October preparations for the winter were being made. "October 1 I began to draw and hew the timber for my hog- pen. 2nd. I drew and hew'd timber for the same Abner helpt me. 4 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 3rd. I hcw'd timber, Abiier helpt me. I dug some potatoes. 4th. I kiled my Bull. Abner helpt me. 5th. I and Ruthy went to meeting 1/2 went to Mr. Ilarkness's. 6th. I helpt my father 1/2 the day made cider at Capt. Hazen's. 1/2 dug Potatoes at the Pond. 7th. I and Ruthy went to Lancaster. I went to muster." A little later, after frost had set in, more animals were killed — cattle, sheep, and pigs — and frozen. The creatures were hung whole in the attic or in some convenient shed, and represented the winter's supply. Apples were dried or turned into cider, for few were kept in barrels for the winter's use, as we now keep them. Most towns had cider mills in which the neighbors had rights. The mills were usually stone-walled and sometimes were cut into a hillside, like a cellar open in front. Inside was the great press, which was worked by a horse going round and round, harnessed to a great bar overhead. The size of the press is evidence of the universal use of cider. There is one note which is dominant throughout the diary, and that is one of mutual helpfulness. When haying time came, it was not each man for himself, but all the men of a small neigh- borhood worked together, and harvested the hay from each farm until it was all well housed. Even then the harvest was slow in comparison with what our modern machinery will accom- plish. If any were in trouble, help was immediate and prac- tical. If a man were sick and the burden fell on the woman alone, the cattle were tended and the work done by the neighbors. Throughout December Captain Parker sledded wood for him- self and for others with his pair of oxen, and doubtless got some of the ready money which all men like to have. One entry on Christmas Day, less than ten years later, shows how much our forefathers lacked appreciation of the joys of a holiday. Cap- tain James writes: COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 5 "December 25th. I helpt clean the school-house. The school kept 1/2 the day." There was one great industry which brought much money to New England towns for many years; that was hop growing. Disease and competition from more Western States finally put an end to one of the great money-making employments of the New England farm of those days. In the middle of one Massa- chusetts town there can still be seen a field plowed and hilled for the hops that were never planted. Why they were not, no one can tell now, but there the furrows are, in the midst of a great wood, with sixty-year-old pine trees reaching far over your heads, growing in that forsaken field. On many of the farms one can see the old hop kilns in a more or less advanced state of ruin adding their picturesque touch to the landscape. A hundred years ago the vocation of a husbandman or farmer was as truly a trade to be learned as that of cobbler, miller, black- smith, or the rest. So young boys were apprenticed to this trade, as to the others. This custom, also, in large measure, solved the problem of help for the farmers of that day. The low wages paid these apprentices for their services gives some explanation of the reasons for the acquisition of a comfortable living by many farmers. Among the Parker papers in Shirley I found an indenture of about one hundred years ago, which gives a vivid picture of the duties of the apprentice and his master. The father's caution in demanding education "if the said apprentice is capable to learn," shows how meager the learning was in those days among the poorer classes. "This Indenture Witnesseth, that David Atherton of Shirley in the County of Middlesex and Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts, Yeoman, hath put and placed and by these presents doth put and bind out his son David Atherton Junr — and the said David Atherton Junr doth hereby put, place and bind out himself as an Apprentice to James Parker Ksqr of Shirley in the County and Commonwealth afore- said to learn the art or trade of an husbandman ; the said David Alherton Junr after the manner of an Apprentice to dwell with and serve the said James Parker Esqr from the day of the date 6 RURAL SOCIOLOGY hereof untill the eighth of January one thousand, eight hundred and twenty four, at which time the said apprentice if he should be living will be twenty one years of age. During which time or term the said apprentice his said master well and faithfully shall serve, his secrets keep, and his lawful commands every- where at all times readily obey, he shall do no damage to his said master, nor wilfully suffer any to be done by others, and if any to his knowledge be intended, he shall give his master seasonable notice thereof. He shall not waste the goods of his said master, nor lend them unlawfully to any ; at cards, dice or any unlawful game he shall not play, fornication he shall not commit, nor matrimony contract during the said term ; taverns, ale-houses or places of gaming he shall not haunt or frequent; from the service of his said master he shall not absent himself, but in all things and at all times he shall carry himself and be- have as a good and faithful Apprentice ought, during the whole time or term aforesaid — and the said James Parker Esqr on his part doth hereby promise, covenant and agree to teach and in- struct the said apprentice or cause him to be instructed in the art or trade of husbandman by the best way and means he can, and also to teach and instruct the said apprentice or cause him to be taught and instructed to read and write and cypher to the Rule of Three if said apprentice is capable to learn and shall faithfully find and provide for the said apprentice good and sufficient meat, drink, clothing, lodging and other necessaries fit and convenient for such an apprentice during the term afore- said, and at the Expiration thereof shall give unto the said ap- prentice two good suits of wearing apparel, one for Lord's Day and the other for working days and also Eighty Dollars in good curant money of this Commonwealth at the end of said term. In testimony whereof the said parties have hereunto interchange- ably set their hands and seals this sixteenth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty." The food of our forefathers has always had a certain enchant- ment. Who can read of the chicken roasting on the spit before the open fire without wanting a taste; or who can listen to tales of one's grandmother of the great baking of those days without a feeling of longing? In hunting over dry deeds in the Court House in Cambridge, I came across one which interested me very COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 7 much, as it gave an enlightening touch to the question which to all housekeepers is a most vivid one — the food problem. In 1823, Hezekiah Patterson, who lived in the eastern part of Shirley, being old and tired of the responsibility of farming, sold his forty-eight acres of land and his house to Thomas Hazen Clark, in exchange for the support of himself and his wife, Jane, for the rest of their lives. They reserved room enough for their horse and its hay in the barn, and room enough in the house for themselves, and then gave an itemized account of what they called " support" for one year. "6 bushels of rye 6 bushels of indian Corn 1 bbl. white flour 200 Ibs. Shoat pork 100 Ibs. beef. 1/2 quintal of Cod-fish 60 Ibs. of butter 60 Ibs. of cheese 2 Ibs. of SouChong tea 2 Ibs. chocolate 1 Ib. Coffee 5 Ibs. loaf sugar 30 Ibs. of brown sugar 10 gals. New England Rum 1 gal. West Indian Rum 6 gal. Molasses 2 bushels of Salt 1/2 bushel of white beans 15 bushels potatoes 1/2 of all the cider and enough wood for the fire." This yearly menu hardly suggests variety, but it was at least sweet and substantial. While the men worked in the fields and tended the cattle, the women had their many duties, too. Their energies were de- manded for so many things that a housekeeper in those days need be an expert along many linos. Men in those days ate simple things, and simple cooking, like very simple clothes, must 8 RURAL SOCIOLOGY be so much the bolter intrinsically. The food that is simple must be well seasoned or well cooked to tempt, while a compli- cated dish disguises its poor cooking by its high seasoning, as a bedly cut dress may be made to look well by its many furbe- lows. Baking in a brick oven was an art. The oven was filled with wood, lighted and burned out, making the bricks of the right degree of heat. Then the oven must be cleaned. At the farthest end were put the beans, followed by the brown bread, Indian pudding, white bread, pies, and cake. They were al- lowed to stay, and were taken out in the reverse order from that in which I have named them. All other cooking must be done over the coals of a great wood fire, or in a tin kitchen placed on the hearth. We may imagine that the table service in a country farmhouse was not complicated. It was etiquette to eat with the knife, as forks had not come into use. Pewter and old blue iron ware abounded ; copper, also, was much used, and must have added color to the kitchen. After the inner man was satisfied, the wife must still clothe her husband, her- self, and her children. Cloth could, of course, be bought, but as a rule was far too expensive for anything but a farmer's very best. Homespun was the general wear, and to make home- spun the wool had to be taken from their own sheep oftentimes to make their clothes, and all the process after the shearing and washing fell to the woman's share. I believe that there were itinerant tailoresses later on, but of course only the well-to-do could afford such luxuries. The flax, too, had to be spun and woven. Many houses throughout the country still show the old loom room, where the loom stood for generations. Many parts of old looms can still be found, reeds, shuttles, needles, and heddles. Stockings had to be knit and many endless tasks performed to keep the family warm arid dry. Often the man of the family did part of the cobbling of his children's shoes and his own. Candles must be made for light, and candle dipping was a hard and dirty task. It took skill to make them round and even. Later molds came in fashion and made the task easier and less dirty. Soap had to be made for the family use. These were tasks in addition to the ordinary sweeping, cooking, and housework which every house demands. Floors were scrubbed COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 9 with soap and sand until they were white — and they were kept so by the thrifty housekeeper. Nearly every town had a man whose occupation must have been picturesque — the hatter — who made those enormous beaver hats that looked almost like fur, that men wore years ago. It took him a long time to make a hat, and when it was done the owner wore it proportionately long. We New Englanders are all familiar with the costumes of a hundred years ago. The Shakers still wear them when they dress in their uniform. When Mother Ann Lee founded the order, about 1793, the clothes as you see them now were the ordinary clothes in vogue then. They have never changed the style, unless of late years some of them have grown more worldly and have adopted modern dress. And now, after a hundred years of disuse, the stylish cloak of a former century is again in demand. And when all the work was done, they gathered around the great fireplace, in the candle-light. The light, even until kero- sene came to be used, was very poor, and in those days one read with the paper or book in one hand and the candle in the other, so that it might be moved back and forth before the print. The picture that one has is the coziest in the world, but contempor- aries tell us that the reality was often far from the ideal. The great chimneys, with their huge fires, created a draught which brought the outer cold into the room, and fires really warmed but a small area. Yet here, around this kitchen fire, centered all the life of the home, all its comfort and its homeliness. Life was not all a grind to these good people, for they had their social gatherings, and varied ones, too. First and fore- most stood the church with its services, the social center of the town. But when we remember that country towns were nearly isolated from the outer world ; that the only travel was by the slow method of stage-coach or private carriage, and was seldom indulged in ; it seems natural that the people should have turned to the church, where all were welcome — in fact, where all must go, or be labored with by the minister and deacons. So it came to pass that this was the one thing in which all were interested, in which all had a share. When we remember, loo, how large a part religion played in the minds and hearts of our ancestors, 10 RURAL SOCIOLOGY it is inevitable that the church should stand as the most im- portant and the unifying factor of their lives. On Sundays nearly every one went to meeting and stayed all day. No one cooked on Sunday, and all the food for that day was cold. The women were expected to go to church all day, as well as the men, so that the Saturday baking, which tradition still holds many a modern household to regard, was then a mat- ter of urgent need as well as a matter of conscience. The man who had relatives living near the church, or who lived near by, was indeed lucky, because a warm fire at noon might then be his. Otherwise the dinner was carried and eaten in the church in winter, or outside in summer. How many of us would submit to the discomfort of sitting all day in an unheated building, regaling ourselves at noon with cold food, with the thermometer many times in the neighborhood of zero? Yet duty led them and personal comfort did not enter into their consideration. We may hope that the dish of gossip, taken with their dinner, compensated for much which might otherwise have been unbear- able. Perhaps this human companionship softened the denun- ciations and threats of the two sermons. The church, aside from its spiritual teachings, furnished a place in which all the town met once a week. It was more or less political in a broader sense, for there matters of national politics, state politics, and even those of local importance were discussed by the minister. As he was the best educated man, his opinion and its expression very often formed that of the majority of those of the other men in town. In the church, also, were held the town meetings, with their serious and sometimes humorous debates, which furnished a means of growth and expression to others. It was this training which enabled the colonies to withstand the mother country. Men had learned to think in a logical way, and to express their thoughts. They were keen to find the weak places in an argu- ment and to search out sophistries. When England attempted to cheat their sense of justice, she found a community made up of citizens, not of peasants. The town was divided into districts: the center of each was the school. Each district met and decided its own educational problems as best suited it; each engaged its own teachers, and COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 11 disbursed its own share of the school appropriations. Bitter and often sanguinary were the fights over this important ques- tion; many and hard were the debates as to whether it should be a "writing school" or a "reading school," and how they could make their share of the funds hold out. These districts also took care of their own roads, and most men, rather than pay their taxes in cash, "worked out" their taxes on the roads. So far as one can gather from the records the roads were treated a good deal like a plowed field, and must have been exceedingly poor. They were plowed every spring and heaped up into the middle, with the intention of making a watershed. The roads were a constant annoyance at all seasons — mud spring and fall, dust in the summer, and drifting snow in win- ter. Complaint was made in a nearby town that a certain man named Hildreth had put his stone wall so far into the road that the drifting snow made it impassable. The road commissioner warned Hildreth to remove the wall, which he refused to do. So the wall was moved back by those working on the road. Hildreth tore it down in the night and rebuilt it on the former site. The wall was torn down again by the road commissioner, and replaced where it belonged. It was then guarded by men until the town met and voted that Hildreth leave his wall where it should be, and write a letter of apology to the commissioner. All this Hildreth did with a bad grace. A domestic amusement was a house or barn raising. To this about every one in the town went, the men to do the actual raising, the women and girls to prepare and serve the feast which followed. Their hospitality was generally lavish. To one who has never partaken of the delights which can be baked in a brick oven, the tales of those so blessed seem more or less like those of the "Arabian Nights." A halo, formed of the reminiscences of gay good times and the appetite of youth, is put around these pleasures of a bygone day, making them shine with a preternatural light. And at these raisings, besides the baking and the roast meats, was there not cider and Medford rum to make glad the heart of man ? Funerals and weddings were also legitimate social times, the former to afford the luxury of woe, Ihr latter of unalloyed joy. 12 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Then there were the kitchen dances in the winter, and each man took his turn at entertaining, and showed with pride the good thinjrs that his wife could make. The good times, as we look back upon them, seem so simple and wholesome, they were en- tered into with such a spirit of enthusiasm and expectancy, that it makes one wish that one could now have so whole-hearted a good time from so little. It seems almost as if the hard work and drudgery of daily life gave a fine zest to their amusements. Later on the Lyceum came to try the sinews of men in debate, came to prove the literary ability of their wives and daughters. They debated on everything under the sun — huge philosophical subjects jostled trivialities; questions of morals, religion, and politics followed discussions of farming and cattle raising. The records of such a Lyceum lie before me. The members began their work by this debate, "Resolved, that a scolding wife is a greater evil than a smoking house." They decided in the affirm- ative, and then passed to this, "Resolved, that the old man in the story in Webster's spelling book was justified in throwing stones at the boy." They next discussed the morality of giving prizes in the schools. Excitement often waxed high, and per- sonalities were dealt in, but the end of the evening brought calm. It was devoted to the literary efforts of the women of the Lyceum. These consisted of recitations, readings, and original essays. So our fathers on the farm varied their hard work with fun in much smaller quantities than we enjoy to-day. But in those days the actual struggle was less; a man toiled for his daily bread itself with no competitors but the soil, the weather, and his own temperament. Now a man works at his specialty to outdo his competitors, to get his goods to the market quicker and in better condition, to sell that he may buy, not to grow and tend that he may eat and be warm. Through all their life there is a note of contentment, and I think that deep in the heart of most modern farmers that same note could be struck. For after all is said, the actual owner- ship of a large piece of mother earth is a continual source of peace; and the freedom from the oversight and commands of others, to be at no man's beck and call, lends a dignity to the farmer, and enhances his self-respect, until he feels himself and is the equal of any in the land. COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 13 A rhyme on an old English pitcher shows that this feeling has been through many, many years the underlying one of the Anglo- Saxon farmers : Let the mighty and great Roll in splendor and state, I envy them not, I declare it. I eat my own lamb, My own chicken and ham, I shear my own sheep and wear it. I have lawns, I have bowers, I r»ave fruits, I have flowers, The lark is my morning charmer; So you jolly dogs now, Here's God bless the plow — Long life and content to the farmer. INTEMPERANCE IN COLONIAL DAYS * PERCY WELLS BIDWELL "TiiE intemperance of the colonial period," says Charles Francis Adams, "is a thing now difficult to realize; and it seems to have pervaded all classes from the clergy to the pauper." We have already remarked the large consumption of cider in the farmers' families and have commented upon the importance of the retail sale of stronger liquors in the business of the country stores and taverns. Every important occasion in home or church life, every rural festivity was utilized as an opportunity for generous indulgence in intoxicants. Neither the haying-season in early summer, nor the hog-killing season at the end of autumn could be successfully managed without the aid of liberal pota- tions of "black-strap" and "stone- wall." Husking bees, house- raisings, training days, and even christenings, burials and or- 1 Adapted from "Rural Economy in New Kn^land at the Bi-ginniiifr of tin- Nineteenth Century." Publication of the Connecticut Academy of So- cial Science, 1910, pp. 374-77. 14 RURAL SOCIOLOGY dinations were often disgraced by the drunkenness of partici- pants. The craving for stimulants with its disastrous results on the fortunes of individuals and on the general moral tone of the community proceeded partly from the coarse and unvaried diet of the farming population, and probably to a larger extent, from a desire to relieve at least temporarily the dreary monotony of village life. There are always two opposing views current among the older generation concerning the relative virtues of their early days as compared with the conditions which they see about them in their declining years. Some look back to a sort of Golden Age and view all the features of the past through rose-colored spectacles. Others with a more optimistic frame of mind are quite willing to admit that the passage of the years has brought improvement along many lines and do not hesitate to glory in the progress that has been achieved under their eyes during a long life. There are probably elements of truth in both views, but as far as the general features of social life are concerned and their effect in stimulating or in depressing the individual, the latter view seems to be more in accord with the facts as we know them. The Rev. Mr. Storrs, in reviewing a pastorate of fifty years in the town of Braintree, Mass., said: "And when it is remem- bered that fifty years ago, and for many after years, no post office blessed the town, nor public conveyance for letters, papers, or persons, was to be had, even semi-weekly, except through vil- lages two miles distant ; that but for the occasional rumbling of a butcher's cart, or a tradesman's wagon, the fall of the hammer on the lap-stone, or the call of the plowman to his refractory team, our streets had well nigh rivaled the graveyard in silence, it can scarcely surprise one, that our knowledge of the outer world was imperfect, nor that general intelligence and enterprise was held at a discount ; and if powder, kettle drums, and conch- shells, proclaimed the celebration of a wedding; or if wine, and spirits more dangerous than any from the vasty deep, were im- bibed at funerals to quiet the nerves and move the lachrymals of attendants ; or if rowdyism and fisticuffs triumphed over law and order on town meeting, muster and election days, ... it was but the legitimate overflow of combined ignorance and heaven- COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 15 daring recklessness. Those days are passed and shame throws its thick mantle over them. ' ' An isolated community always tends toward social degenera- tion, and the drunkenness, rowdyism, and general coarseness of manners of the inland towns at this time were but premonitions of the more disastrous results which might be expected from economic and social stagnation. At no time in these commun- ities was there a distinct criminal class, of the type now tech- nically known as degenerate ; but petty crimes, stealing, assaults and disturbances were of frequent occurrence. There are many indications that the influence of the church was decadent. Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the ecclesiastical or- ganization had secured, by means of a censorship of the private life of its members so inquisitorial as to seem nowadays intoler- able, fairly submissive adherence to a rigid code of morality. With the decline in the authority of the church in matters of doctrine came also a weakening in its control over the conduct of its adherents. Another cause of laxity in morals, of probably greater im- portance, was the general spirit of lawlessness spreading over the country after the Revolution, which seems especially to have affected the country districts. The soldiers returning from the war found it hard to settle down and get their living honestly in the previous humdrum routine. They brought back with them new and often vicious habits which the rest of the community imitated. Then, in the interval between the overturn of the regularly constituted colonial authorities and the establishment of the national government under the new federal constitution, there was a period of semi-anarchy, when obedience to any sort of law was difficult to enforce. The disrespect for authority in both church and state which arose from these conditions could not fail to have a distinctly bad influence on the moral conditions in inland towns. In the disturbances of those days the inland fanner was generally to be found on the side of rebellion, and active in opposing a reestablishment of law and order. Too much emphasis must not be laid upon the dark features of the community life of these times. Undoubtedly there were many advantages arising from the homogeneous construction of society, from the uniformity of the inhabitants in race, religion 16 RURAL SOCIOLOGY and manners and from the absence of class distinc- tions based on dill'erenecs in wealth. The inland villages were l>y no means entirely lacking the opportunities for helpful and stimulating social intercourse; but it was from the home rather than from the community life that the principal virtues of the agricultural population, of which their descendants have been so justly proud, were chiefly derived. WHAT AWAITS RURAL NEW ENGLAND1 THOMAS NIXOX CARVER MY most salient impression was that agriculture as an inde- pendent industry able in itself to maintain a community does not exist in the hilly parts of New England. Outside of such exceptionally fertile sections as the Connecticut Valley, the farmers engage in such occupations as lumbering and keeping summer-boarders, often carrying on farming merely to supply their own tables with vegetables and their horses and cows with forage. I found few farmers who could secure sufficient revenue even from sales of hay and milk, the most profitable of New Eng- land farm products. These facts, however, do not indicate a decline in agriculture. Farming never was a self-sufficing industry in New England. In the days of so-called prosperity domestic manufactures were carried on in farm-houses. The transfer of manufacturing from the farms to the towns accounts as much for the decline of rural prosperity as anything else — the rise of agriculture in the West, for example. Moreover, the development of farming, dairying, and market gardening near the cities offsets the decline in the remote districts. Now, domestic manufactures can never be revived in New England, though an attempt is being made to revive them at Deerfield, Mass. Summer boarders cannot support the whole country, nor can lumbering. But, why should not northern New England become a great stock-raising country? The land has become so cheap, and the grazing lands of the far West have i Adapted from World's Work, 9; 5748-52, Jan., 1905. COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 17 become relatively so dear, that New England offers advantages to sheep- and cattle-breeders. One acre of New Hampshire hill- side pasture is worth three acres of grazing lands of western Kansas, Colorado or Montana. There is plenty of water, so that one western problem does not exist. Fifty men with whom I talked on my journey agreed that New England is a good cattle country, but no one knew why more cattle are not raised. I be- lieve that the two chief obstacles are : first, the difficulties of pro- viding winter forage, and, second, the small size of the average farm. When a man owns a farm of from fifty to one hundred acres, he must plow some of it if he expects to make a living from it, but plowing these steep and rocky hillsides is ruinous, for the rains wash away more fertility than the crops extract. But no farmers' family can live from the produce of so small a farm if it is used only for pasturing. If the farms ran from 400 to 600 acres each, enough stock could be pastured on each one to sup- port in comfort the average farmer's family. There would still remain, however, the question of winter forage, for these hillsides can not even produce hay to advantage — that is, hay-making ma- chinery can not be used. Profitable stock-raising on a farm of this kind would therefore be limited by the amount of level land, relatively free from stones, upon which hay-making ma- chinery could be used. But there is another possibility. In Europe, wherever stock- breeding has developed on a large scale, cattle are driven from the hills to the valleys in the fall and from the valleys to the hills in the spring. The owners of pasture lands in the hills and mountains buy their stock in the spring, pasture them during the summers, and sell them in the fall to the feeders in the val- leys; or the feeders in the valleys drive their stock in the spring to the hills and mountains for summer pasturage and bring them back in the fall to be wintered on the forage grown on the valley land. The next fifty years may sec the development of a con- siderable industry of this kind in New England. Some experi- ments are already being made. Mr. J. W. Clark, of Wilmot, N. II., was formerly a sheep-rancher in Montana. He recently sold his interests there and rHunied to New Hampshire to start a sheep-ranch, lie has acquired about one thousand acres of the 18 RURAL SOCIOLOGY ordinary rocky, hillside pasture land, which, he holds, is much more productive than the Montana land, and about as cheap. Almost universally, the prosperity of western agriculture and the poverty of New England farming are explained by the dif- ference in the fertility of the soil. Yet this difference is offset in part by the better markets in the East. If a western farmer should try to make a living at ordinary staple farming on so small a farm as the average one in New England, using the prim- itive New England methods, he would have as hard a time as the New England farmer to make a living. On the other hand, if the New Englander would use as much land as the western farmer, and have modern labor-saving machinery, he would probably be able to make as good a living. A young man wish- ing to start out as a farmer would do better to invest in New England land than in western land. A good Iowa farm will cost from $75 to $100 an acre; good New England pasture land from $10 to $25 an acre. New England writers on agriculture have made the mistake of looking to Europe rather than to the West for their models. They have held up as examples to the New England farmers Eu- ropean peasants who cultivate a few acres to a high degree of intensity to yield larger crops per acre. But they forget that these mean small crops per man. Where labor is cheap and land dear, as in the Netherlands or in the valley of the Po, it is eco- nomical to raise crops with much labor and little land. In the United States, where land is cheap and labor dear, the op- posite method is better. And it is to be hoped that conditions will never arise in the United States where labor is so cheap and land correspondingly so dear, as in densely populated Eu- rope. Since the price of labor in New England conforms pretty closely to the price in the West, and general social conditions are much the same, prosperous parts of the West ought to be the New England models rather than Europe. With this idea in view, the managers of New England agricultural colleges have begun to draw on the West for teachers. The nearness of eastern markets, too, is a very appreciable advantage to New England. On the railroads covering the sec- tion, run the milk-trains which enter Boston every morning. The farmers along any of these railroads deliver cans of milk COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 19 at the nearest station every morning, and receive the cans there again in the evening, receiving from twenty to thirty cents for each eight-and-one-half-quart can, though Boston consumers pay a considerable advance on that price. A western farmer who could secure such a price would regard himself as opulent. Again, Boston is one of the best apple markets in the country, but the market is supplied largely from New York and Michigan. Yet New England is an excellent apple country. Every year seedling apple-trees grow without planting and flourish without care. Even where grafting is done, it has been the custom to graft only such trees as come up themselves along old stone walls and other such places. Apple-growing, then, is a New England possibility. In the Connecticut River Valley, where extensive cultivation is possible, the agricultural prospects are very hopeful. I saw many fields of corn which would astonish a Kansas farmer. The census returns show a larger yield of corn per acre in New Eng- land than in a great part of the Corn Belt itself. It is grown, however, in small fields highly fertilized and intensively culti- vated, whereas the western farmer never even hoes his corn, yet he grows the largest crop per man in the world. On the whole there is every reason to believe that the decline in New England agriculture is at an end. With the practical exhaustion of free public land in the far West, the rise in the price of land in the middle West, and the development of cities for their markets, the consequent rise in the price of agricultural products will give a value to New England farms which they have not had for many years. It is to be hoped, however, that the process of "abandoning farms" will continue, if this simply means that several small farms are to be used in one fair-sized farm upon which the farmer can economically use superior draft animals and labor-saving machines; for New England methods of agriculture are fifty years behind the times. 20 HI KAL SOCIOLOGY FACTS XKW KXdLAND KA< ' FROM 1860 to 1910, 828 New England towns lost in population 337,086. From 1860 to 1910, New England's improved farm hnds under cultivation decreased from 12,215,771 to 7,112,698 acrev. ;, of 42 per cent. From 1860 to 1909, New England wage-earners increased from 391,836 to 1,101,290, a gain of 359 per cent. From 1860 to 1900 New England's population increased from 3,11 0,572 to 6,552,681. New England is now producing less than 25 per cent, of her food supplies, the other 75 per cent, and over coming from with- out her borders. AGRICULTURE IN NEW ENGLAND 2 KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD NEW ENGLAND as a whole is distinctively an urban region. While northern New England, comprising Maine, New Hamp- shire, and Vermont, has few large cities, populous southern New England, which includes Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Con- necticut, is dominantly urban. For example, the percentage of rural population in Massachusetts is less than ten. Metropolitan Boston, an urban center of perhaps 1,250,000 people, is the great consuming center of the region, and it is supplemented by a large group of important residence and manufacturing cities of lesser size not far away from this center, as well as scattered all over New England. At least 5,000,000 of the 6.000.000 people in New England are consumers rather than producers of food. New England grows only a fraction of its food supply. Ac- curate figures are not available, but it has' been estimated that probably this region has to purchase at least seventy-five per cent, of its food supply from outside its borders. Furthermore, 1 Adapted from "Real Preparedness at its Vital Point — The Food Sup- ply.'' Published by Hampden County Improvement League. Springfield, Mass. 2 Adapted from Breeder's Gazette, 12: llo-l, December, 1917. Chicago. COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 21 New England never will grow all its food. Wheat does well enough in New England, but it does not pay to grow it. New England's bread will always be dependent upon outside sources for the supply of flour. Unquestionably the supply of New Eng- land-grown meat can be profitably very greatly increased, par- ticularly pork, mutton, and fish. It is quite conceivable that New England will in time supply a very large proportion of these meats from within its own borders. The beef supply can also be increased, but it is doubtful whether any large percentage of the consumptive demand will ever be grown in New England. It seems reasonable to expect that New England may grow a large share of certain other items among its food needs. It is an ideal region for both orchard and small fruits, and the same is true of most vegetables. Apparently it will be possible, at least from the standpoint of production, for New England to take care of itself in these respects. The same is true of poultry and eggs. The most serious difficulty in New England agricul- ture is connected with the supply of market milk ; we can hardly expect New England to supply its own butter and cheese. New England has excellent meadow lands, probably none better in America. Corn does extremely well in the valleys, with good yields of both stalk and ear. There is an abundance of natural grazing on the hills. It would seem as if New England should be an ideal dairying region. Yet the dairy business for twenty years has been, to an increasing degree, precarious. The zone of market milk supply for the Boston area, for example, has been pushed constantly farther away from the city, so that the largest proportion of the supply come.s from a distance of more than seventy-five miles. Some milk is sent to Boston from eastern New York, and before the war a considerable quantity was im- ported from Canada. The low price of milk to producers has not met the increasing cost of such grain as apparently cannot be easily grown in New England, nor the high wages for labor, due to the competi- tion of urban industries for the labor supply. The highly cen- tralized methods of milk distributors in some places, and the completely disorganized condition in others, as well as the pop- ular idea that milk is drink and not a food, have also con- tributed to make the situation extremely difficult for dairymen. 22 RURAL SOCIOLOGY The dairyman himself must have some share in the blame for the situation. There has been very little attempt among the smaller dairymen to improve their herds, or in other ways to reduce production costs for a superior grade of milk. The num- ber of dairy cows is decreasing, dairymen are going out of busi- ness, and at present there is no apparent relief in sight, except that under war conditions the price of milk has gone up rapidly, as it has in other parts of the country. But the emergency sit- uation is too uncertain to warrant predicting anything for the future. This brief survey of the agricultural situation perhaps better than anything else indicates the probable future of New Eng- land agriculture after the war, the one factor most uncertain being the great market milk industry. Some of the hopeful considerations may here be mentioned. There is more to New England agriculture than most people suppose. If a comparison be made between New England agri- culture as a unit and that of, say, an average agricultural state of substantially similar area (about 65,000 square miles), I am confident from some study of statistics that New England would not suffer in comparison, if such factors were considered as the total value of farm property, the total value of farm products, and particularly the value of farm products per acre of improved land. In the latter respect, New England probably holds the record for the country. Moreover, some of the very best farming in America, if not in the world, will be found in New England. The Aroostook po- tato region has justly achieved world-wide fame, not only for quality of product but for average yield and for intelligent methods of production. The Champlain Valley in Vermont is one of the rich dairy regions of the country. When former Dean Henry of Wisconsin wanted a fruit farm for his son fifteen years ago, out of the fullness of his knowledge of agri- cultural conditions, he selected a farm in Connecticut, and the results have justified his choice. The large specialist poultry farms of Rhode Island and Cape Cod are models of their kind. The market gardening area about Boston is one of the most intensive agricultural regions in the country. The tobacco and onion growers of the Connecticut Valley are highly skilled; the COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 23 town of Hatfield has been called the ' ' high-water mark of Amer- ican agriculture." The average yield of onions per acre in the valley is greater than in any other part of the country. The net return for shade-grown tobacco is sometimes as high as $800 or $1,000 per acre. Of course, there are abandoned farms in New England, state- ments to the contrary notwithstanding, and there are also "abandoned farmers." But a very large proportion of the land thus abandoned never could be farmed under modern condi- tions. When the farm home was self-sustaining these lands an- swered very well for a combination of vegetable-growing, cattle and sheep husbandry, and lumbering; but they were never adapted to a, commercial agriculture, and when commercial agri- culture appeared these lands had to be given up for profitable farming. Some of these hill lands can well be used for sheep and goats, some for cattle grazing, some for orcharding, but most of them, let us hope, for intelligent forestry. One thing in favor of New England agriculture is the rainfall, averaging approximately forty-two inches per year, and generally fairly well distributed. The markets are excellent. A good system of highways is rapidly evolving, and the motor truck will undoubt- edly play a large part in the marketing of the future. Some day the trolley companies will awaken to the possibilities of a trolley freight service. Another asset of New England agriculture is the large num- ber of organized agencies working in behalf of agriculture. The Grange is stronger in New England than in any other sim- ilar area in the country, with more granges and more members. Within this area, which is about the size of the average state outside of New England, there are six agricultural colleges, six experiment stations and six boards of agriculture. At present New England is far better organized than any other similar area in the United States with respect to farm bureaus, prac- tically every county in the whole region now having a farm bureau or similar organization. Probably more attention is given to country life matters in New England than in any other part of the United States, with many kinds of effort and agencies for the improvement of the home, the school, the health and play life and the moral and religious life of the country people. 24 RURAL SOCIOLOGY As to the specific question, what about New England agricul- ture after the war? I suppose that what I have thus far said answers the question in the main. We are not to expect rev- olutionary changes at once, although unquestionably great changes will come as the result of the war. The interest of the people of the cities in the quality and cheapness of their food supply has been aroused as never before. Alongside of this new interest has come the more active participation of repre- sentative urban agencies, such as business organizations and women's associations. People have learned their dependence upon the farmer. The participation by thousands of city and village people, old and young, in the garden work has given a new respect for agriculture, and the toil and rights of farmers. People who heretofore supposed that cabbages came from the grocery now know that they come from the ground. People who had never given a thought to the farmer's difficulties now understand some of the uncertainties of the weather as the farmer has to face them. The whole problem of food supply in all its aspects has been given a new unity. The production of food, the transportation and distribution of food, and the wise use of food have all been brought together into one common problem, and the rights and obligations of all the different groups particularly interested in this common problem have also been brought together — pro- ducers, distributors and consumers. The part which each must play is more clear. The dependence of one group upon the other stands out prominently. The need of close cooperation among them all has been emphasized. The power and possibility of the principles of organization, as applied to the food supply problem, have been demonstrated as never before. What has been done in Massachusetts has probably been done with equal thorough- ness in other states. All over the country the food supply prob- lem has been brought to a degree of organization that has often been dreamed of but never before attained. All this has been done by cooperation, not by compulsion. There has never been anything like it in the history of America. All this leads to my last point : The state and the nation are learning that no man liveth COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 25 unto himself. They are learning that under a great call old animosities can be buried and new relationships established. I believe that all these results will be permanent — not com- pletely, but relatively so. I believe that in every one of the results that I have suggested we shall find — after the war closes — a permanent addition to our New England farm life as well as a general gain. Nobody can tell what percentage, so to speak, of each of these gains will carry over, but I am certain that it will be high. It means the writing of an entirely new chapter in New England agriculture. BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, T. F. Old Home Week in New England. New England Magazine, 34 : 673-85, August, 1900. Bailey, Wm. B. Urban and Rural New England. Amer. Statistical Assn., 8 : 345-388, March, 1903. Bidwell, Percy Wells. Rural Economy at the Beginning of the* Nine- teenth Century. Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Science, New Haven, 1916. Bolton, Mrs. Ethel Stanwood. Shirley Uplands and Intervales. Lit- tleneld, Boston, 1914. Bouhvell, George. The Decadence of New England, Forum, 10 : 142- 151, October, 1890. Butterfield, Kenyon L. The Relationship of New England Agriculture to Manufacturing. The National Association of Cotton Manufac- tures. Boston, Mass. April, 1916. Cance, Alexander E. The Decline of the Rural Population in New England. American Statistical Association, 13:96-101, May, 1912. Crawford, Mary C. Social Life in Old New England. Little, Boston, 1914. Drake, Samuel A. A Book of New England Legends and Folk Lore. Little, Boston, 1910. Dwight, Timothy. Travels in New England and New York. New Haven, 1821. KM He, Alice Morse. Customs and Fashions in Old New England. Scribner's, New York, 1894. Kiske, John. The Beginnings of New England. Houghton, Boston, 1889. French, George. New England: What It Is and What It Is To Be. Boston Chamber of Commerce, 1911. limit, Roland L. A New England Hilt Town. Atlantic, 83:561-74; 712-20, April and May, 1S9<). Hartt, Roland L. The Regeneration <>!' Rural Xc\v Kiidaiid. Outlook , March :!. 1900. I Inward, ,1. R. Social Problems of Rural New England. Conference Charities and Corrections, ll(i I'Jl. 1!M1. 26 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Johnson, Clifton. New England and its Neighbors. Macmillan, New York, 1902. Johnson, Clifton. The New England Country. Lee, Boston, 1897. Matthews, Mrs. Lois Kimball. The Expansion of New England, Hough- ton, Boston, 1909. Mayo, A. D. New England's Gift to the Republic, New England Mag- azine, 1 : 221-8, October, 1889. MacGill, C. E. The New England Type, New England Magazine, 40: 667-75, August, 1909. McSweeney, Ed. F. The Food Supply in New England, the situation we are facing and what we can and should do. The New England Federation for Rural Progress, March, 1917. Sanborn, Alvan F. Future of Rural New England. Atlantic, 80 : 74- 83, July, 1897. Sanborn, Alvan F. The Problems of Rural New England. Atlantic, 79 : 577-598, May, 1897. Stone, Mason S. The Restoration of Country Life in New England. Education, 36 : 630-634. No. 10, June, 1916. Vallandigham, E. What Ails New England? Putnam's Monthly, 6: 719-24, September, 1909. Weeden, Wm. B. Economic and Social History of New England 1620-1789 (2 volumes), Houghton, Boston, 1890. Wells, George F. Rural Life. The Status of Rural Vermont. Vt. Agric. Report, pp. 61-91, 1903. Winslow, Helen M. Child-life on a New England Farm, Education, 9 : 466-73, March, 1889. CHAPTER II THE DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTRY LIFE IN THE WEST THE MIDDLE WEST— THE FIBEE OF THE PEOPLE l EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS A HUNDRED years ago the Rev. Timothy Dwight commented complacently on the benefit to Connecticut from the draining away to the frontier — then western New York — of the restless spirits who chafed under the rule of the old families and the Congregational clergy. It never occurred to him that these insurgent spirits were carrying with them to the wilderness a precious energy and initiative. The unprosperous, the shiftless, and the migratory sought the frontier, to be sure ; but the enterprising, too, were attracted by it. The timorous and the cautious stayed and accepted the cramping conditions of an old society ; but those who dared take chances, to "place a bet on themselves," were likely to catch the western fever. Among the sons and grandsons of such risk takers, the venturesome tempers cropped out much oftener than among the sons and grandsons of the stay-at-homes. Hence, the strange fact that it was the roomy West that settled the farther West. On each new frontier have swarmed men from what was itself a frontier only a generation earlier. By the time some impression about the West has sunk deep into the eastern mind, the West has swept onward and falsified it. The Yankee thinks of the Middle West as a land of priva- tion and hardship ; it is, in fact, a scene of comfort and plenty, lie regards it as peopled by a hodge-podge of aliens, whereas the hodge-podge is at his own door. He looks upon New England as the refuge of the primal American spirit, when, in sooth, Iowa and Kansas are more evenly American in tone than any like i Adapted from "Changing America," pp. 145-140 and 137-140. Century Co., 1912. 27 28 RURAL SOCIOLOGY population in the East. The Back Bay may think of the Illinois farmer as raising more corn to feed hogs, which he will sell in order to buy more land on which to raise more corn to feed more hogs with which to buy more land, and so on. But the grandson of the man of whom this was said, sends his daughter to college, taxes himself for a public library, and is patron of the local art-loan exhibit. Nor is the Middle West without its delusions. It imagines it is growing faster than the East, because the drift from the crowd toward the edge of things, and from the wearied land to the virgin soils, has been constant in American history. That the center of population, which has traveled westward at the average rate of fifty miles a decade, should halt or even retreat would be deemed a marvel, like the sun standing still in the vale of Ajalon. Yet that very portent impends. The center, which migrated fifty-eight miles in the seventies, and forty-eight miles in the eighties, shifted only fourteen miles in the nineties. That it then moved on thirty-one miles was due to the rush to the Pacific slope, where one family being at the long arm of the lever, balances half a dozen Slovak families shantied in Pittsburg. The truth is that the East grew faster than the Middle West through the nineties, and in the last ten years it has been gaining nearly twice as rapidly, having added a quarter to its people while the West was adding a seventh. While in the East one county out of four lost in population, more than two coun- ties out of five in the Middle West showed a decrease. One reason is that the Western farmer resents cramping conditions more strongly, and responds sooner to the lure of fresh acres, than the Eastern farmer. The West it is that peoples the newer West, while the enterprising spirits of the older commonwealths seek their chance in the near cities. A lifetime ago the old Yankee stock was faring overland to settle the wilderness. To- day only a sprinkling of the native Americans west of the Great Lakes claim an Eastern state as their birthplace. If in Iowa seventy-one counties out of ninety-nine have gone back in popula- tion during the last decade, and an equal number in Missouri. it is assuredly not from bad times, but from the call of cheap land in Texas or the Canadian Northwest. COUNTRY LIFE IN THE WEST 29 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY * FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER THE Atlantic frontier was compounded of fisherman, fur trader, miner, cattle raiser, and farmer. Excepting the fisher- man, each type of industry was on the march toward the West, impelled by an irresistible attraction. Each passed in succes- sive waves across the continent. Stand at the Cumberland Gap and watch the procession of civilization, marching single file — the buffalo following the trail to the salt springs, the Indian, the fur trader and hunter, the cattle-raiser, the pioneer farmer — and the frontier has passed by. Stand at the South Pass in the Rockies a century later and see the same procession with wider intervals between. The unequal rate of advance compels us to distinguish the frontier into the trader's frontier, the rancher's frontier, or the miner's frontier, and the farmer's frontier. When the mines and the cow pens were still near the fall line, the trader's pack trains were tinkling across the Alleghanies, and the French on the Great Lakes were fortifying their posts, alarmed by the British trader's birch canoe. When the trappers scaled the Rockies the farmer was still near the mouth of the Missouri. And yet, in spite of the opposition of the interests of the trader and the farmer, the Indian trade pioneered the way for civilization. The buffalo trail became the Indian trail, and this became the trader's "trace"; the trails widened into roads, and the roads into turnpikes, and these in turn were transformed into railroads. The same origin can be shown for the railroads of the South, the Far West, and the Dominion of Canada. The trading posts reached by these trails were on the sites of Indian villages which had been placed in positions suggested by nature ; and these trading posts, situated so as to command the water systems of the country, have grown into such cities as Albany, Pitlsburg, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Council Bluffs, and Kan- sas City. i Adapted from American Historical Association Report, pp. 199-227, Boston, 1893. 30 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Generally, in all the Western settlements, three classes, like the waves of the ocean, have rolled one after the other. First comes the pioneer, who depends for the subsistence of his fam- ily chiefly upon the natural growth of vegetation called the "range," and the proceeds of hunting. His implements of agriculture are rude, chiefly of his own make, and his efforts directed mainly to a crop of corn and a "truck patch." The last is a rude garden for growing cabbages, beans, corn for roasting ears, cucumbers and potatoes. A log cabin, and. oc- casionally, a stable and a corn crib, and a field of a dozen acres, the timber girdled or "deadened," and fenced, are enough for his occupancy. It is quite immaterial whether he ever becomes the owner of the soil. He is the occupant for the time being, pays no rent, and feels as independent as the "lord of the manor." With a horse and a cow, and one or two breeders of swine, he strikes into the woods with his family, and becomes the founder of a new country, or perhaps a state. He builds his cabin, gathers round him a few other families of similar tastes and habits, and occupies until the range is some- what subdued, and hunting a little precarious, or. which is more frequently the case, till the neighbors crowd around, roads, bridges and fields annoy him, and he lacks elbow room. The preemption law enables him to dispose of his cabin and corn fields to the next class of emigrants; and, to employ his own figure, he "breaks for high timber," "clears out for the New Purchase" or migrates to Arkansas or Texas, to work the same process over. The next class of emigrants purchase the lands, add field to field, clear out the roads, throw rough bridges over the streams, put up hewn log houses wilh glass windows and brick or stone chimneys, occasionally plant orchards, build mills, school hons.s. court-houses, and exhibit the picture and forms of plain frugal, civilized life. Another wave rolls on. The men of capital and enterprise come. The settler is ready to sell out and take advantage of the rise in property, push farther into the interior, and become himself a man of capital and enterprise in turn. The small village rises to a spacious town or city: substantial edifices of brick, extensive fields, orchards, and gardens, colleges and COUNTRY LIFE IN THE WEST 31 churches are seen. Broadcloth, silks, leghorns, crapes, and all the refinements, luxuries, elegancies, frivolities, and fashions are in vogue. Thus wave after wave is rolling westward; the real El Dorado is still farther on. A portion of the two first classes remain stationary amidst the general movement, improve their habits and condition, and rise in the scale of society. The writer has traveled much amongst the first class, the real pioneers. He has lived for many years in connection with the second grade; and now the third wave is sweeping over large districts of Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Migration has become almost a habit in the West. Hundreds of men can be found, not over fifty years of age, who have settled for the fourth, fifth, or sixth time on a new spot. To sell out and remove only a few hundred miles makes up a portion of the variety of backwoods life and manners. First, we note that the frontier promoted the formation of a composite nationality for the American people. The coast was preponderantly English, but the later tides of continental im- migration flowed across to the free lands. This was the case from the early colonial days. The Scotch-Irish and the Pala- tine Germans, or "Pennsylvania Dutch," furnished the domi- nant element in the stock of the colonial frontier. With these people were also the freed indentured servants, or redemp- tioners, who, at the expiration of their term of service, passed to the frontier. Very generally these redemptioners were of non-English stock. In the crucible of the frontier the immi- grants were Americanized, liberated, and fused into a mixed race, English in neither nationality nor characteristics. The process has gone on from the early days to our own. The ad- vance of the frontier decreased our dependence on England. The coast, particularly of the South, lacked diversified indus- tries, and was dependent on England for the bulk of its sup- plies. In the South there was even a dependence upon the Northern colonies for articles of food. Before long the fron- tier created a demand for merchants. As it retreated from the coast it became less and less possible for England to bring her supplies directly to the consumers' wharfs, and carry away staple crops, and staple crops began to give way to diversified agriculture for a time. 32 RURAL SOCIOLOGY The legislation which most developed the powers of the na- tional government, and played the largest part in its activity, was conditioned on the frontier. The growth of nationalism and the evolution of American political institutions were de- pendent on the advance of the frontier. The pioneer needed the goods of the coast, and so the grand series of internal im- provement and railroad legislation began, with potent nationaliz- ing effects. Over internal improvements occurred great de- bates, in which grave constitutional questions were discussed. Sectional groupings appear in the votes, profoundly significant for the historian. Loose construction increased as the nation marched westward. But the West was not content with brinjr- ing the farm to the factory. Under the lead of Clay — "Harry of the West," — protective tariffs were passed, with the cry of bringing the factory to the farm. The disposition of the public lands was a third important subject of national legislation in- fluenced by the frontier. "No subject," said Henry Clay, "which has presented itself to the present, or perhaps any pre- ceding, Congress, is of greater magnitude than that of the pub- lic lands." When we consider the far-reaching effects of the government's land policy upon political, economic, and social aspects of American life, we are disposed to agree with him. But this legislation was framed under frontier influences, and under the lead of western statesmen like Benton and Jackson. Said Senator Scott, of Indiana, in 1841: "I consider the pre- emption law merely declaratory of the custom of common law of the settlers." But it was not merely in legislative action that the frontier worked against the sectionalism of the coast. The economic and social characteristics of the frontier worked against sectionalism. The men of the frontier had closer resemblances to the middle region than to either of the other sections. Pennsylvania had been the seed plot of frontier emigration, and, although she passed on her settlers along the Great Valley into the west of Virginia and the Carolinas, yet the industrial society of these southern frontiersmen was always more like that of the Middle region than like that of the tidewater portions of the South, which later came to spread the industrial type throughout the South. 33 But the most important effect of the frontier has been in the promotion of democracy here and in Europe. As has been indicated, the frontier is productive of individualism. Com- plex society is precipitated by the wilderness into a kind of primitive organization based on the family. The tendency is anti-social. It produces antipathy to control, and particularly to any direct control. The taxgatherer is viewed as the rep- resentative of oppression. Professor Osgood, in an able article, has pointed out that the frontier conditions prevalent in the colonies are important factors in the explanation of the Ameri- can Revolution, where individual liberty was somewhat confused with the absence of all effective government. The same con- ditions aid in explaining the difficulty of instituting a strong government in the period of the Confederacy. The frontier in- dividualism has from the beginning promoted democracy. So long as free land exists, the opportunity for a competency exists, and economic power secures political power. But the democracy born of free land, strong in selfishness and individual- ism, intolerant of administrative experience and education, and pressing individual liberty beyond its proper bounds, has its dangers as well as its benefits. Individualism in America has allowed a laxity in regard to governmental affairs which has rendered possible the spoils system and all the manifest evils that follow from the lack of a highly developed civic spirit. The most effective efforts of the East to regulate the frontier came through its educational and religious activity, exerted by interstate migration and by organized societies. The New Eng- land preacher and the school-teacher left their marks on the West. The dread of western emancipation from New England's political and economic control was paralleled by her fears lest the West cut loose from her religion. Commenting, in 1850, on reports that settlement was rapidly extending northward in Wisconsin, the editor of the Home Missionary writes: "We scarcely know whether to rejoice or mourn over this extension of our settlements. While we sympathize in whatever tends to increase the physical resources and prosperity of our country, we cannot forget that with all these dispersions into remote and still remoter corners of the land the supply of the means of grace is becoming relatively less and less." Acting in accord- 34 RURAL SOCIOLOGY ance with such ideas, home missions were established and west- ern colleges were erected. Thus an intellectual stream from New England sources fertilized the West. Other sections sent their missionaries; but the real struggle was between sects. The con- test for power and the expansive tendency furnished to the va- rious sects by the existence of a moving frontier must have had important results on the character of religious organizations in the United States. The multiplication of rival churches in the little frontier towns had deep and lasting social effects. The effects of western freedom and newness in producing religious isms is noteworthy. Illustrations of this tendency may be seen in the development of the Millerites, Spiritualists, and Mormons of western New York in its frontier days. To the frontier the American intellect owes its striking char- acteristics. That coarseness and strength combined with acute- ness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic, but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil; and, withal, that buoyancy and exuber- ance which comes with freedom, — these are traits of the fron- tier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier. "We are not easily aware of the deep influence of this individualistic way of thinking upon our present condi- tions. It persists in the midst of a society that has passed away from the conditions that occasioned it. It makes it difficult to secure social regulation of business enterprises that are essen- tially public, it is a stumbling-block in the way of civil-service reform; it permeates our doctrines of education; but with the passing of the free lands a vast extension of the social tendency may be expected in America. THE SPIRIT OP THE PIONEER1 RAY STANNARD BAKER THE peopling of the country makes one of the most interesting and significant stories in the history of the nation. For many i Adapted from "The Great Southwest," Century, 64:9, May, 1902. (Copyright by Century Company, 1902.) COUNTRY LIFE IN THE WEST 35 years it was the unknown land, the land of possibilities and wonders, as well as of danger and death. Therefore it has at- tracted the hardy pioneer, and here, for lack of any other fron- tier on the continent, the pioneer, though with the germ of westward ho ! still lingering in his blood, has been compelled at last to settle down. I shall not soon forget the sorrowful desert-dweller whom I met in what seemed the ends of the earth in Arizona. His nearest neighbor was fifteen miles away, his post-office twenty-five miles, and yet he was bemoaning the fact that the country was becoming crowded. "If there were any more frontier," he said, "I'd go to it." It is hardy blood, that of the pioneer, good stock on which to found the development of a country. For years the West has been the lodestone for those adventurous spirits who love the outdoor and exciting life of the mining prospector, the cow-boy, the hunter — a healthy, rugged lot, virtually all pure Americans. THE PASSING OF THE FRONTIER1 JAMES BRYCE So America, in her swift onward progress, sees, looming on the horizon and now no longer distant, a time of mists and shadows, wherein dangers may lie concealed whose form and magnitude she can scarcely yet conjecture. As she fills up her western re- gions with inhabitants, she sees the time approach when all the best land, even that which the extension of irrigation has made available, will have been occupied, and when the land now un- der cultivation will have been so far exhausted as to yield scan- tier crops even to more expensive culture. Although transpor- tation may also have then become cheaper, the price of food will rise ; farms will be less easily obtained and will need more capi- tal to work them with profit ; the struggle for existence will be- come more severe. And while the outlet which the West now provides for the overflow of the great cities will have become less available, the cities will have grown immensely more populous; i Adapted from "The American Commonwealth, II," New Edition, (1916), p. 913. Macmillan, N. Y. 36 RURAL SOCIOLOGY pauperism, now confined to some six or seven of the greatest, may be more widely spread ; and even if wages do not sink work may be less abundant. In fact the chronic evils and problems of old societies and crowded countries, such as we see them to-day in Europe, will have reappeared on this new soil. THE GREAT SOUTHWEST1 RAY STANNARD BAKER ONE of the first teachings of the arid land is that the individual must subserve his interest to that of the community, and that is a hard matter for many an American to do. In the East a farmer may settle on his quarter-section, build a home, raise what he pleases or let the weeds grow, keep up his fences or let them fall down, and no one says a word in objection; he is the most independent of men. But in the desert, where the struggle for existence is more intense, men must march in lock- step: if one wastes water, allows water to run out on another's field, does not keep up his ditches, does not cooperate with his neighbors in the work of cleaning or repairing ditches, he injures the entire community, and the community must force him sternly into the line of duty. Moreover, he must join with his neighbors in the protection of the water-supply, in case some other community seeks to divert more than its share from the river above; and in many cases of drought and low water he must suffer equally with his neighbors, sharing what little water there is to be had, even though his own orchards are dying. All this serves to build up such a community spirit in the irrigated countries as the Easterner cannot appreciate. There are human bickerings here as everywhere else, but a man soon learns that the community interest is, after all, greater than that of the in- dividual, and upon every important subject he submits his will to that of the community. From this spirit have arisen those peculiar and powerful cooperative associations of farmers, which all but control the marketing of crops in parts of the West. Instead of trusting to avaricious commission men and engaging i Adapted from Century, 64: 369-371, July, 1902. COUNTRY LIFE IN THE WEST 37 in disastrous competition, the orange-growers, the raisin-growers, the bee-keepers, and other classes of farmers, have formed unions and associations which control the whole matter of pack- ing, shipping, and selling the farmers' products. These as- sociations further curtail the rights of the individual, hindering him, for instance, from shipping poor fruit, or poorly packed fruit, lest it injure the reputation of the community in the Eastern markets; and if there are losses, each man must stand his share. So powerful, indeed, are these associations that they can even venture to fight the railroad companies in the matter of freight rates, as they have done more than once in California. Farming in the East is a sort of guerilla warfare, every man for himself; in the arid West, it is a highly organized and disci- plined struggle. It is interesting to speculate as to the effect which these new conditions of life will have on the American character. Irri- gation requires a greater degree of skill than ordinary agricul- ture; it is more a matter of exact science, less of chance. The Easterner sows his crops and depends on the will of Heaven for his rain ; the Westerner goes out to his head-gate and lets in the rain, in just such amounts and at just such times as he pleases. He knows how much water he is entitled to, and its distribution is a simple matter of calculation. But he must be a careful student of his crops; he cannot water his strawberries and his sugar-beets at the same time and in the same amount, for the strawberries are always thirsty, while the beets require only a few waterings in the season. He must also know his own peculiar climate, for fields require much more water in the desert air of Ari/ona than in the moister climate of southern California, and he must have a care that the water leaves no alkali in his soil. In other words, he must be an intelligent, reading, scientific farmer if he would outwit the desert and compete with the energy of his neighbors. Men in the irrigated lands live closer together than in the East, and farms are smaller. Some valleys, indeed, seem like villages, each resident of which lives in the midst of handsome grounds; whole districts in southern Cali- fornia are veritable parks for beauty. This brings neighbors closer together, breaks up the deadly isolation of the Middle Stales farmers, enables a community to have better schools, 38 RURAL SOCIOLOGY churches, and places of amusement, tempts the mercurial young man to stay on the farm. LIFE IN THE CORN BELT » T. N. CARVER THE average Western farmer is as well informed upon the questions of the day as the average business or professional man of our Eastern cities, though he lacks acquaintance with many things which some regard as essential to culture. He takes a deep interest in politics, and he is better informed about what goes on in our legislative halls than any other class. The corn belt is probably the most prosperous agricultural region of any considerable size in the world, but success requires great industry and a degree of knowledge that comes only from experience. In the East, especially in New England, where farming is not prosperous and the cities furnish better oppor- tunities for men of capacity, it happens that the best men are drawn from the country to the city, leaving, as a rule, only the less competent to people the country districts. That is why there has been so much discussion during the last year or two over the degeneracy of the farming regions. But in the corn belt the conditions are quite reversed ; the best opportunties are furnished by the farms, and one of the most striking facts that one observes on a tour of this kind is the manifest superiority of the average farmer, physically, intellectually, and morally, to the average dweller in the towns of that region. With the exception of the retired farmers, who make up a fair proportion of the population of the country towns and small cities of the West, the bulk of the population seems to be made up of people who are not fit to make good farmers. Even some of the so-called retired farmers have retired, not because they have accumulated a competence, but because they were unable to make farming pay or because they have found work too hard. They have moved to town, where their wives keep boarders while they loaf around the stores. For this i Adapted from World's Work, 7: 4232-9, Dec., 1903. COUNTRY LIFE IN THE WEST 39 reason there is a sharp distinction made between "tired" and "retired" fanners. The hotels and livery stables also are generally kept by this class of tired farmers. It seems that every line of business carried on in the towns and small cities in the corn belt is largely in the hands of in- ferior men, though of course there are numerous brilliant ex- ceptions. Almost every town or city will have one or two news- papers, which claim to be the organs of the leading political parties, but which really seem to be published for the purpose of apologizing for their own existence. The manual labor which is done about such towns is almost invariably done by men who are not fit for farm hands. Some are so profane and obscene in their language that a decent farmer would not have them around, but they will work as section hands on the railroad for less wages than farm hands get, and loaf about the depot and the streets at night, play Sunday baseball, and have other similar enjoyments not open to the farm hand. Even a good deal of the mercantile business is carried on by men who do not show a degree of intelligence at all comparable to that of the average farmer. One hears a great deal of shockingly bad grammar in the corn country, but correct speech is really a matter of conventionality, and a farmer's success does not depend upon his observance of conventionalities. On the other hand, there are certain things which he must know, and which no amount of suavity or grace or good form will enable him to dispense with. He is dealing with nature rather than with men, and nature can not be de- luded by a pleasant front nor a smooth tongue. One must not be hasty in forming conclusions as to the farmer's intelligence on the basis of his clothes, his knowledge of the forms of polite society, nor even his use of grammar. Though the average family is somewhat larger than that of the well-to-do urbanite, there is a manifest decline even in the country districts. Families of four or five children among the native Americans are quite common, but one almost never finds such patriarchal families of ten and twelve children as were common in the daj's of our grandfathers. The most conspicuous case of this kind that I saw was a family of eight children be- longing to an Iowa farmer. The mother, who is still slightly on 40 RURAL SOCIOLOGY the sunny side of forty, was a daughter of a well-to-do farmer and had excellent " schooling " for the time and place. She was a country schoolma'am at the age of eighteen, and also gave music lessons to a few children in the community. She spent one year at a small Western college, but was married at the age of twenty-two to a young farmer who was living on a rented farm and whose only capital consisted of a team and farming im- plements. She has raised or is raising her eight children ; they have bought a farm of 160 acres, which is now paid for; they have a comfortable house; and they are just beginning to feel in easy circumstances. The long, hard struggle through which they have gone has in no way embittered their dispositions. They are active in church work; the mother teaches a class in Sunday-school ; and the eldest daughter, seventeen years of age, is the organist. The children were unusually bright and healthy, and the mother insists that some way must be found to send them all through college, and I have little doubt that they will succeed. The husband is a hard working man of kindly disposition, but considerably her inferior in mental and social endowments, of which fact, however, both seemed utterly oblivious. One form of social diversion common throughout the corn belt is what is known as the "basket-meeting." A basket-meeting is nothing more nor less than a regular church service turned into a picnic. Some grove near the country church is selected, and on Saturday afternoon the men gather and erect an outdoor pulpit, with a sufficient number of benches for the congregation, and on the following Sunday, at the regular hour, the church service is held here instead of in the church. After the service the members of the congregation, having come supplied with baskets of provisions, spread them upon the benches and partake of a bountiful dinner. But such a minor festivity pales into insignificance in com- parison with such annual events as the Fourth of July, Old Settlers' Day, and the County Fair, though the latter has sadly degenerated since it fell into the hands of city sports, who make it simply an occasion for horse-racing, accompanied by all the devices for separating a fool from his money which usually sur- round a circus. COUNTRY LIFE IN THE WEST 41 The farmer in the corn belt has his labor problem, too, though I have never heard any one predicting the doom of the corn belt on that ground. The fact is that while the existence of the labor problem is recognized, it is of such minor significance as to be almost negligible. Fortunately for Western agriculture and American society in general, there is no proletariat of agricul- tural laborers. There are practically no farm laborers of the European type — that is, men who expect always to work for wages as farm hands. The typical farm hand is a young un- married man, usually the son of a farmer living in the neighbor- hood— though frequently a foreign immigrant — who "works out" for a few years merely to get money enough to begin farm- ing on his own responsibility on a rented farm. The scarcity of farm labor, however, in no way interferes with the success of corn-growing. In the first place, the corn-grower works with his own hands, and so do the other members of his family. Hiding plows and cultivators, disk harrows and corn harvesters, as well as twine binders and hay stackers, so reduce the amount of muscular strength needed that a boy of ten years of age will frequently render almost as much service as a grown man. Another factor which contributes to the solution of the labor problem is the distribution of the work of the farm over the year. On a typical corn farm there is no season which is pre- eminently the busy season, unless the corn-plowing has fallen be- hind because of wet weather. Though farmers with whom I talked universally agreed that corn was by far their most profit- able crop, there were very few farms where corn was grown exclusively. With a given labor force, only a certain amount of corn can be cultivated, anyway, and it requires no more labor force to grow a certain amount of other crops in addition. Wheat and oats are sown before corn-planting time, and are harvested after the corn has been "laid by" — that is, after the plowing is finished. The hay harvest also comes in this interval, and the threshing is usually done before the corn-husking be- gins. Moreover, the stubble fields can usually be plowed in the interval between the harvesting of the small grain (wheat and oats) and the husking of the corn. Thus the farmer in the corn 42 RURAL SOCIOLOGY belt has practically eliminated the labor problem, so that even the limited supply of farm hands is no serious handicap upon the corn-growing industry. As to the problem of domestic service, there is practically none. Hired girls are almost non-existent. Every farmer's wife ex- pects to do her own work, and if in time of sickness or of special stress of work she can induce some girl from the neighborhood to come in and help her, she considers herself fortunate. Like other parts of the West, the corn belt was settled by people from a great variety of sources, and has not been without its share of tough communities; but the land was too valuable, and there was too high a premiun on thrift and industry for such communities long to remain. Everywhere in the corn belt, and indeed wherever farming is prosperous, one meets with the interesting phenomenon of the retired farmer. In general, he is a man considerably past mid- dle age, who has by hard work' and careful management become the owner of a fair-sized farm, with perhaps a moderate bank account besides, and who has either sold or rented his farm and moved to town to spend his declining years in rest. From the number of such cases one might almost conclude that the average farmer's idea of paradise was a country town where he could live comfortably, supplying his daily needs without denying himself rest or sleep, and where he would be free from the wear and tear of continually guessing at the weather, caring for his live-stock, battling with weeds and the thousand-and-one other relentless enemies of the farmer. But when he reaches this paradise, unless he has retired on account of old age, he is almost invariably disappointed, if not demoralized. The life soon grows monotonous. Having always been accustomed to an active out- door life, he becomes restive and discontented. Sometimes he takes up some other line of business — goes into a store, starts a hotel or a livery stable, or goes into the real estate business ; and again he sometimes degenerates into an ordinary town loafer. He frequently makes a poor urbanite, for his ideas of living were developed under rural conditions. He is somewhat slow to ap- preciate the value of good sewage, generally opposes levying taxes for street improvements, and is almost invariably disliked by the merchants because of his parsimonious way of buying COUNTRY LIFE IN THE WEST 43 goods. The habits of his early life stay with him and dominate all his business transactions. The effect of town life upon the retired farmer is, however, by no means to be compared with its demoralizing effect upon his minor children, especially his boys, if he happens to have any. As a traveler moves westward, if he keeps his eyes, or rather his ears, open, he becomes more and more impressed at the roughness and even profanity of the language which he hears in public places. This impression, however, is due partly to the fact that the ordinary traveler only sees and hears what goes on about the railway stations, hotel corridors, and similar places, and the class of people who infest such places are by no means representative. When he gets away from beaten lines of travel, out into the rural districts, this impression is by no means so vivid. Nevertheless, it remains, and it is undoubtedly true that there is more rough language in the West than in the East. At the same time, if he takes the trouble to attend country churches and to form some idea of the popular interest in religious matters, he is impressed with the piety of the people. It will usually take him some time to reconcile these two apparently contra- dictory impressions, but the explanation is that as one moves westward through the agricultural districts he meets fewer and fewer of that class which is so numerous in cities and also in the rural districts of the East, who are neither pious nor wicked — simply indifferent. In other words, it seems that throughout the West, especially beyond the Missouri River, every man is either pious or profane, and the prevailing type of piety is of the Methodistic sort, just as the prevailing type of impiety is of the turbulent, swearing sort. Politically, the West is rapidly settling down to more fixed habits of thought, though it had its period of unrest. In the early seventies, and again in the early nineties, the Western farmer became the spoiled child of American politics. He has been flattered and cajoled by demagogues until he came to think himself the most important factor in our social system. This position he has now been deprived of by the wage-worker, who is to-day laying the flattering unction to his soul that he is the most important personage in the universe. To be sure, neither the Grange nor the Farmers' Alliance in their wildest days ap- 44 RURAL SOCIOLOGY preached in arrogance the labor organizations of the present; nor did they ever, either directly or indirectly, countenance violence or lawlessness of any kind. This is probably due to the fact that the farmers, as a class, are vastly more intelligent and law-abiding than the rank and file of the wage-workers, though they are more numerous and politically more powerful. The corn belt is the most considerable area in the world where agriculture is uniformly prosperous. This prosperity is, more- over, healthful and natural, and not artificial, like the sugar- beet industry, for example, which has never in any country shown its ability to stand alone unaided by government favors, nor, like much of our manufacturing prosperity, based upon government protection. The people engaged in the corn-growing industry are an independent, progressive class, drawing their sustenance from the soil, and not from other people. BIBLIOGRAPHY Baker, Ray Stannard. Destiny and the Western Railroad. Century, 75 : 892-94, April, 1908. The Vitality of Mormonisra, a Study of an Irrigated Valley in Utah and Idaho. Century, 68: 165-177, June, 1904. The Great Northwest.* Century, 66:85-97; 643-55, May and Sep- tember, 1903. The Great Southwest. Century, 64:5-15; 213-25; 361-73; 635-45; May, June, July, August, 1902. Bryce, James. The American Commonwealth, Macmillan, N. Y., 1889. Bentley, Arthur F. The Condition of the Western Farmer as illus- trated by the economic history of a Nebraska township. Johns Hopkins University Studies, Series 7-8, The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1893. Canfield, Dorothy. The Westerner. Scribner, 49 : 158-165, Feb., 1911. Cannon, Frank J. and O'Higgins, Harvey J. Under the Prophet in Utah, Clark, Boston, 1911. Cannon, Frank J. and Knapp, George L. Brigham Young and his Mormon Empire, Revell, Chicago, 1913. Coman, Katherine. Economic Bejrinninifs of the Far West. Mac- millan, N. Y., 1912. Fite, E. D. Social and Industrial Conditions in the North during the Civil War. Macmillan, N. Y., 1910. Garland, Hamlin. A Son of the Middle Border. Macmillan, N. Y., 1917. Gleed, Chas. S. True Significance of Western Unrest. Forum, 16: 251-260, Sept., 1893. Harger, C. M. The West at Home — in the Country. Outlook, 86: 32-36, May 4, 1907. COUNTRY LIFE IN THE WEST 45 Hartt, Rollin L. Middle Westerners and that Sort of People. Cen- tury, N. Y., December, 1010. Hinsdale, B. A. Old Northwest. Silver, N. Y., new ed. Ilovvells, William C. Recollections of Life in Ohio, 1813-1840. Stew- art & Kidd Co., Cincinnati, 1907. Lummis, Charles F. Pueblo Indian Folk- Stories. Century, N. Y., 1916. Norris, Frank. The Pit. Doubleday, Garden City, 1903. Page, Walter H. The Land and the People. World's Work, 10 : 6459- 65, July, 1905. Paxson, Frederick Logan. The Cow Country. Amer. Hist. Assoc. Review, 22 : 65-82, October, 1916. The Pacific Railroads and the Disappearance of the Frontier in America. Amer. Hist. Assoc. Rept,, 1907, 1 : 105-122. The Last American Frontier, Macmillan, N. Y., 1910. Phillips, Ulrich B. Documentary History of American Industrial So- ciety, Vols. I and II. (Plantation and Frontier.) Clark, Cleve- land, 1910. Pinchot, Gifford. The New Hope for the West. Century, 68 : 309-13, June, 1904. Robinson, Edward V. Early Economic Conditions and the Develop- ment of Agriculture in Minnesota. Univ. of Minnesota, (Studies in the Social Sciences, No. 3), St. Paul. Roosevelt, Theodore. Winning of the West. R. of Rev., N. Y., 1904. Ross, J. B. Agrarian Revolution in the Middle West. N. Amer. Rev., 190 : 376-91, July-December, 1909. Ross, Edward A. The Middle West. Century, 83 : 609-15 ; 686-92 ; 874-80; Feb., Mar., Apr., 1912; 84: 142-8, May, 1912. Showerman, Grant. A Country Chronicle. Century, N. Y., 1916. Small, A. W. and Vincent, G. E. The Rural Group, An Introduction to the Study of Society. Pp. 112-127, American, N. Y., 1894. Turner, Frederick Jackson. Rise of the New West. Harper, N. Y., 1906. Significance of the Frontier in American History. Univ. of Chi- cago, 1899. (Nat. Herbart Soc., 5th Yearbook.) Contribution of the West to American Democracy. Atlantic Monthly, 91 : 83-96, Jan., 1903. Colonization of the West, 1820-1830. Amer. Hist. Rev., 11 : 303-27, Jan., 1906. Thwaites, R. G. Early Western Travels. Clark, Cleveland, 1904-7. Cyrus H. McCormick and Reaper. Wis. Hist. Soc., Madison, 1909. Stories of the Badger State. American, N. Y., 1900. Van Dyke, John Charles. The Desert. C. Scribner's Sons, N. Y., 1901. White, Stewart Edward. Riverman. Grosset, N. Y., n. d. Blazed Trail. Grosset, N. Y., 1913. Westerners. Doubleday, Garden City, N. Y., n. d. Winsor, Justin. Westward Movement. Houghlon, Boston. CHAPTER III THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE OLD AND THE NEW SOUTH 1 PHILIP ALEXANDER BRUCE , BROADLY speaking, no institutions of the South were so pro- foundly affected by the failure of secession as the social. It is true that it was a great economic revolution to pass from slave labor to free labor, but the ground is still chiefly tilled by the hand of the Negro. The large plantation has been cut up into numerous estates, but the same staples continue to be cultivated. There has been a radical alteration in political conditions, but, on the whole, the representatives of the Southern States in their local legislatures and in the national Congress are drawn from the same general class as they were in times of slavery. The eco- nomic and political life of the South has been transformed, but transformed to a degree that falls short of the change that has taken place in its social life; here the change has been complete so far as the rural districts, in which the overwhelming mass of the Southern people reside, are involved. The French Revolu- tion, with its drastic laws touching the ownership of land, did not sweep away the aristocracy of France one-half as thoroughly as the abolition of slavery swept away the old rural aristocracy of the South. The social condition of this part of the Union is now the reverse of what it was before the War of the Secession ; then all that was best in the social life of the people was to be found in the country ; now all that is best is to be found in the city. The close of the great war marked the end of a society that had safely passed through all the vicissitudes of several hundred i Adapted from "The Rise of the New South," pp. 421-435, Barrie, Phila- delphia, 1 !)d."). 46 THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 47 years. The peculiar social life of the Southern States, as a body, in consequence of its being coincident with the very existence of these States, had permeated with its spirit the genius of the Southern people from generation to generation, until it had become the most powerful of all the influences in molding their character and destiny. This social life rested primarily on the system of large plantations. In the early part of the history of the older Southern communities — Virginia and Maryland, for instance — when the plantation system, as it existed before the war, was founded, this system derived its strength, not from slavery, but from indentured white service, — which, however, was not unlike slavery in spirit and influence, — 'but as time went on, its principal support became the institution of slavery itself. As the number of Negroes increased, which they did very rapidly after the beginning of the seventeenth century both by natural addition and importation, the individual plantation grew larger and larger in order to create room for the employment of super- abundant labor. Not even the opening up of new territory could carry off the surplus slaves. The tendency toward the engross- ment of the soil in a few hands was just as remarkable in Vir- ginia, the oldest of the Southern States, as it was in Texas and Mississippi among the youngest, and it was just as strong in 1861, when the war began, as it was two hundred years earlier. What did this engrossment of land through so many genera- tions mean from a social point of view? It meant that from 1624, when the plantation system became firmly established in Colonial Virginia, down to 1861, when it prevailed in the most extreme form from one end of the South to the other, there existed a class in every Southern community, whose social pre- eminence rested as distinctly upon vast landed possessions as the like preeminence of the English aristocracy. The South illustrated anew a fact that had been strikingly illustrated in the history of England : namely that there is something in the ownership of the soil, confined to a comparatively small number, that gives peculiar social distinction to the class possessing it. The social prestige of great landed property was rendered the more impressive in the Southern States by the large retinues of slaves; there was, for that reason, a more baronial importance about such an estate than about the like estate of the English 48 RURAL SOCIOLOGY nobleman of the same day, whose dependents and retainers were at liberty, if they chose, to translVr their services to another employer. The slave belonged to the master absolutely; the tie could only be severed by the latter 's will. The complete sub- serviency of the relation gave a certain barbaric aspect to the condition of the great Southern landed proprietor, but the social life which centered in him was on that account not the less truly distinguished. In possession of a great estate in a comparatively thinly settled country, stocked up with hundreds of slaves, who were in the habit of looking to him for everything in life, the Southern landowner, under the old system, was, naturally enough, remarkable for a proud and aristocratic spirit. This was the general tone which men of his class gave to the highest social life of the South. There were, of course, no legally de- termined and fixed ranks in that life, but the line of separation was as clearly defined, and as firmly drawn as if the hereditary principle of caste had a -distinct recognition, as in France under the ancient monarchy. The opportunities for accumulating large estates by the exercise of great talent for heaping up money were very few. The city shop and the country store of the South were narrow fields of operation for this purpose. The highest rank in society was not receiving unceasing additions in great numbers from the lower, in consequence of success in gathering together fortunes, as has always been the case at the North, where trade has ever been an unfailing means of building up new families. There were, it is true, many accessions in the Southern States, but it required a full generation at least to envelop the intruder in the odor of social sanctity, unless he had secured an exceptional connection by marriage. Pride of ancestry was one of the most powerful of all social influences in the South, and the ability to prove a long and distinguished descent one of the most valued of possessions. Unlike the society of England, that of the South possessed no common center resembling London to direct general taste and govern fashion. The social life of every large plantation community was re- stricted to the bounds of the community: it was the social life of neighborhoods, which might have a radius of as much as twenty THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 49 miles ; in this circuit everywhere in the older States of the South was to be found a social life reflecting a high degree of culture, refinement, and intelligence. The direct effect of the plantation life was to foster all the influences giving strength and per- manence to the family. The love of home was increased, not only by long personal association with the spot, but also by tra- ditions running back many generations into the past. Around it gathered the memories of a family life as old, in many cases, as the first settlement of the country. The house in which the planter resided had been erected perhaps a hundred or more years before, and was hallowed by innumerable events in the family history. The ties of family were strengthened, not only by long trans- mitted influences of this character, but also by the fact that, under that system, sons, as a rule, settled on lands which had been given them by their fathers in the neighborhood of the paternal estates. In time, there sprang up a community united by the bonds of closest kinship ; and a§ the years passed, and brothers and sisters had children of their own, these bonds were knit more closely together still by the intermarriage of cousins. A whole countryside was frequently descended from the same ancestors, and the most skillful genealogist often found it im- possible to follow the ramifications of the common strain. It needed but the law of primogeniture to make the state of Southern society precisely similar in spirit to the society of England in the previous century. That society was even more given to hospitality than English society in the country. There was practically an unlimited supply of servants ; the abundance of provisions of all kinds was inexhaustible; and there was no effort at display imposing ex- pense and inconvenience. The seclusion of the planter's life threw around the visitor an unusual degree of interest ; hospi- tality, at first a pleasure, took on very shortly a sacred character —it became a duty which it was always delightful to perform. The guest, as often a stranger as a kinsman, was rarely absent from the plantation residence. Below the highest class of planters there was practically only one great class among the whites, a class which the gencml changes following the war have brought into the greatest promi- 50 RURAL SOCIOLOGY nence, but which, under the system prevailing before 1860, occupied a position of small social importance. The class made up of the small landowners always formed the body of the white population. Its members, as a rule, owned from fifty to two hundred acres of land, which they worked themselves, with the assistance, at the most, of a few slaves. When the first patents were sued out, it was deemed all-im- portant to take up the most fertile soil as, in the absence of arti- ficial manures, the best fitted for the culture of cotton or tobacco, and such as was least likely to be exhausted by prolonged tillage. The lands preferred were those situated on the rivers and larger streams which furnished an alluvial deposit. The constant aim of the wealthy planter was to engross as extensive an area of these lands as he could acquire ; broad reaches of upland were patented or purchased as a means of obtaining wood for fuel and timber for building, and as affording a wide range for the browsing of cattle. The mass of the white population, the true yeomanry of the country, were confined to the ridges and narrow low grounds of the small streams, the soil of which was inferior in productive capacity as compared with the grounds lying around the large streams held by the wealthy planters. The class of small landowners represented, in many instances, a high degree of thrift, but in some cases an extreme degree of poverty, according to the character of the different holdings. Many of the small estates were cultivated with great care and enabled the owners to live in comfort and abundance. The tables were set forth with a considerable variety of food; there was a slave to furnish the household service ; the residence though plain was substantially built and sufficiently spacious: to it were attached small gardens for both flowers and vegetables; also an orchard of fruit trees enclosed as a pen for the hogs ; and there were several milch cows, and a horse and vehicle for conveying the family to church. During the week, the owner with his sons and a Negro or two hoed and plowed in his tobacco and corn fields. When the end of the year came, he had perhaps several hundred dollars in his chest. If ambitious of improving his con- ditions, he expended his savings in the purchase of more land, by which he was enabled to plant cotton or tobacco over a larger area of ground. The increase from one couple of slaves made a con- THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 51 siderable addition to his small fortune. Even when he had no occasion himself for the labor of the young Negroes as soon as they were strong enough to work, he could hire them at a profit ; many small landowners derived a good income from this letting of slaves who had been trained by them for some mechanical trade. The landowner whose entire holding consisted of soil on the ridge was by no means so well off as the members of his own class who owned land on the small streams. The expression "po' white," so freely used by the slaves as a term of opprobrium, was applied especially to these inhabitants of the highlands. The narrowness of their fortunes was disclosed in many ways — in the sallowness of their complexions, resulting chiefly from in- sufficient and unwholesome food — in the raggedness of the cloth- ing— in the bareness and discomfort of their cabins, which were mere hovels with the most slovenly surroundings — and in the thinness and weakness of the few cattle they possessed. No- where could there be found a population more wretched in some respects than this section of the Southern whites, the in- habitants of the ridge and pine barrens, men and women who had no interest in the institution of slavery and whose condition of extreme poverty was partly due to the system of large planta- tions. The abundance of Negroes diminished the calls for the labor of white men, which might have been furnished by this class, and the engrossment of land into great states shut them off from the most productive soil. The poor white man of energy and intelligence could look forward to but one career which gave him a certain opportunity to improve his condition. He could not hope to get anything but a bare livelihood out of his impoverished acres; the slave me- chanics stood in the way of his securing work in any local handi- craft, and there were no manufacturing towns where he could obtain a position in a factory; but throughout the South there was a constant need of faithful and resolute overseers. From the point of view of the indigent class of whites, the overseerships were most desirable, not only as indicating a social advance in life, but as offering a very sure prospect of accumulating a com- petency. This was the beginning of many considerable fortunes in lands and slaves. 52 RURAL SOCIOLOGY The relations of the small landowners with their neighbor, the large planter, were marked by a spirit of kindness, goodwill and esteem. They looked to him as their natural leader. The line of social difference was never crossed, but there was no barrier to the display of the warmest regard in their personal association with him. The society which they formed among themselves was noted for its homely respectability, but was not remarkable for any features of general interest. The simplicity distinguishing the social life of the leading planters took, in the case of that of the lower, the form of extreme plainness. The existence led by this section of the people was one of unusual seclusion ; in- deed, their only places for general meeting were the churchyard, the courthouse, and the store, while the furthest point to which they traveled was the town in which they found a market for the sale of their cotton or tobacco. Their entire withdrawal from the world produced a marked primitiveness of character which was transmitted from generation to generation. There were two influences to maintain great pride of spirit in persons of this social rank even when they had to endure extreme poverty. First, they followed the independent life of the plan- tation; it is true that their estates were small, but they were absolute masters of their own property. Secondly, the presence of the slave, a standing object of social degradation, inspired the plainest white man with a sense of his superiority of race, a con- viction tending to strengthen his self-esteem as an individual. These influences gave a prouder tone to the whole social life of the common people of the South than would otherwise have distinguished it. On the other hand, the absence of educational advantages had a considerable effect in sinking this social life below the point which has been reached by the same grade of population elsewhere. Illiteracy, as we have already pointed out, was very prevalent ; it was one of the unfortunate results of the old plantation system that it curtailed* all educational facili- ties, by its tendency to reduce the number of inhabitants occupy- ing a given area of country. Taken as a whole, the common people of the Southern States, during the existence of slavery, were an unusually intelligent, conservative, and sturdy population. The rank and file of the armies of the Confederacy in the War of Secession were chiefly THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 53 drawn from this class, and surely the world never saw a body of soldiers more distinguished for the qualities that win the respect and admiration of mankind. The higher planting class of the South staked everything on the issue of the war — their lives, their fortunes, the framework of their social life, their political supremacy, their all. When the more violent influences which the destruction caused by the conflict set in motion had practically finished their work, and this was done in a very few years after the close of the contest, the society in the rural districts of the South was like a vast field of grain over which a reaper had passed, cutting off the heads of the tallest stalks only, while it left practically untouched those of less height. The great planters were, with hardly an exception, ruined in the end, even though they succeeded for a short time in holding on to their estates. But as a body, the small planters, who had few slaves and who were cultivators of their own ground, remained upon as good a footing as they occupied before the War of the Secession began ; indeed, the general position of the lower whites of the South to-day is, from an economic point of view, far more advantageous than it was previous to 1860. This is due to several causes. First, in the breaking up of the large estates, which, as we have seen, were for the most part made up of the most fertile and most eligibly situated lands in the country, the small proprietors, who, before the war, had been confined to the ridges and creek bottoms, were able to purchase ground of the finest quality, because offered for sale in small tracts, without competition on the part of the former great and wealthy proprietors. This class, of old, always overbid the would-be buyers of small means. Many of the richest acres to be found in the Southern States are now owned by such men, who, had slavery been prolonged, would have spent their whole lives in cultivating a poor soil with very small returns. Secondly, the complete alteration in the economic system of the Southern States has directed the attention of their most enterprising business men to manufactures of all kinds, but especially to the manufacture of cotton. The development of this branch of industry, which, before the war, was carried on in a very limited way, has given employment to many thousands of operatives, drawn entirely from among those persons of the rural 54 RURAL SOCIOLOGY population who earned a livelihood by cultivating the ground in small tracts with their own hands. Had slavery not been abolished and the large plantation system destroyed, the manu- facturing interests would doubtless have continued to languish ; and the opportunities now open in this rapidly expanding de- partment of industry would perhaps never have arisen to improve the condition of the poorer classes of the Southern whites. Thirdly, during the existence of slavery, it was to the interest of the large landed proprietors, who controlled the industrial affairs of every rural community, to train their own Negroes in the different handicrafts; there were blacksmiths, carpenters, wheelwrights, masons, bricklayers, shoemakers, and saddlers con- nected with all the most extensive plantations, and, with hardly an exception, they were the slaves of the owners. The only white mechanics to be found in those parts of the South where the black population was very numerous were residents of the scattered villages and towns. The Negro under the new system shows in the country a marked distaste for every branch of me- chanics, and the handicrafts there have in consequence steadily gravitated to white tradesmen. Thus the poorer class of white persons have a means of earning a livelihood and even a com- petence, of which they were practically deprived before the abolition of slavery; employment in this department of activity is now afforded to tens of thousands of men of their race where, during the existence of the large plantation, employment was afforded to hundreds only, because in reality almost the entire work in his line was done by slaves. These are three most important ways in which the old class of small landed proprietors have benefited by the change in the economic system of the Southern States. With increased op- portunity for improving their pecuniary standing, it has followed that their general social condition is better than it used to be, but in no social particular as yet has the new order in the Southern rural districts become a satisfactory substitute for that old order which gave the South its social charm under slave in- stitutions. The characteristics of the ruling class of small land- owners in the country to-day — which before the war was the class occupying an entirely subordinate social rank — are essentially what they have always been. The prosperity of this class has THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 55 not been sufficient as yet to allow them to make any real advance in social attractiveness; the life which they lead still removes them from the general currents of the world; they are still the primitive people, as in former times, with social qualities com- manding respect, but with none to produce a society so notable as that which passed away. Education is more general, on account of the establishment of free schools; some social ad- vantages are enjoyed, which, under the old system, were beyond the reach of all except the rich, but in its principal features, the social condition of the rural population remains as it was when subordinated to that of the higher planting class during the existence of slavery. How entirely this latter class has vanished and how wholly the country is given over to the former lower rank in society is nowhere more conspicuous than in the rural churches. Owing to the increase of the white population, these churches are more fully attended than they ever were, but the families belonging to the old rural gentry are no longer to be seen there. A general social equality prevails among the whites in all the rural districts. In the agricultural regions, outside of the towns, there are, as yet, no means of accumulating sufficient fortune to give superiority to new families possessing talent for getting money; the old rural gentry has not been succeeded, even in a comparatively remote degree, by a new gentry which rests its claims to social distinction upon large estates acquired in recent years. In the rural district, all the tendencies are toward a further consolidation of the existing social equality among the whites, because the subdivision of the land means a further progress toward the reduction of the wrhole number of white in- habitants to the condition of the men who work the soil with their own hands. There are no substantial social distinctions among manual laborers of the same race. The small farmer and the small planter who are making up to an increasing extent every year the entire body of the rural white inhabitants may hold themselves a little above their white assistants who are without property, but there is no real difference in their social level. "We see in the South to-day a vast rural white population, which, as a whole, stands upon the same footing, a footing of great respect- ability, but entirely devoid of those charms which made the 56 RURAL SOCIOLOGY social life of the rural gentry, during the existence of slavery, one of the most attractive in the world. What has become of the descendants of this rural gentry ? As a body they are no longer to be found in the country. While many have emigrated to other parts of the Union, the far greater number have settled in the towns of the South. All the in- fluences of the old system, as we have seen, tended directly to the discouragement of the growth of cities ; all the currents ran toward a dispersion of the population over an ever widening extent of space. It is now precisely the reverse. The drift to- ward the subdivision of land signifies a drift toward the con- centration of population. The inability of the petty landholders to produce on their own estates the artificial supplies they re- quire, has increased the importance of the local distributing and manufacturing centers, both great and small; the towns have become steadily larger each year, partly in consequence of the rising rural demand for manufactured supplies; while the villages have grown because they have drawn to themselves a greater number of tradesmen working in different departments. The comparative unprofitableness of agriculture under the present system, unless the land is cultivated by the owner with his own hands, thus cutting the expenses down to the smallest point, prompted the descendants of the old higher planting class to re- move to the Southern cities as offering a better opportunity for the improvement of their fortunes. In addition, they expected to find there the best social advantages which the new order afforded. If we go to some Southern county, which, in times of slavery was the seat of an intelligent, refined, and cultivated gentry, we shall discover that the only society there possessing any distinc- tion is centered in the courthouse town; and this society is generally made up of families of professional men whose names are amongst the most ancient and honorable in the history of their State. The gentry of the South, from having been asso- ciated only with life in the country, have become how thoroughly identified with life in the city. The energy and ability that have built up so many Southern towns in so short a time, have been drawn, in largest measure, from a class that, before the War of Secession, visited the city only in winter and looked upon the THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 57 country as offering all that was highest and most interesting in life to people of birth and culture. In the course of the last quarter of a century many fortunes have been made by repre- sentatives of the old rural gentry who have emigrated to the towns, but there has been no disposition in these representatives to return to the life of their ancestors; some have purchased rural estates, but it has been for pleasure and recreation during the summer, and not for occupation throughout the year. The social life of the South now rests upon the same general foundation as the social life of the North, and as time passes the character of the one will be wholly indistinguishable from the character of the other. The country districts will be occupied exclusively by a great body of small farmers, planters, and their assistants in the field. The whole extent of the soil will become, in less than a century, so subdivided that two or three hundred acres will form the average estate. The owners of the land, by the vast increase in the rural population which will follow this subdivision, will enjoy to a far greater degree than they do at the present time all the advantages springing from a teeming community — a more frequent and more diversified social inter- course, more varied and refined amusements, a larger number of public schools, and a more thoroughly organized and more effi- cient system of public education. The towns and cities of the South, on the other hand, will become, as they have done in the North, the centers of the greatest accumulations of wealth and the seats of the highest culture and refinement. Here, as in the Northern towns and cities, society will be controlled, to an ever increasing degree, by families whose rise to social prominence has been brought about by the extraordinary talents of the men at their head for building up great fortunes. The influence of mere ancestry going back many generations, perhaps several hundred years, will grow loss socially powerful in the Southern centers of population, where the ability to accumulate money already gives the highest personal consideration, just as it does in the like Northern communities to-day. The material spirit will govern the forces in Southern urban society precisely as it has always done in urban society of the North. Indeed, time will only show more clearly that the defeat of the South in the War of Secession meant the complete social unification of the United 58 RURAL SOCIOLOGY States as the inevitable result of the economic unification that followed almost immediately upon the destruction of the institu- tion of slavery. OUR CAROLINA HIGHLANDERS 1 E. C. BRANSON WHAT I shall say or try to say concerns the seventeen High- land counties of North Carolina, and the 243,000 people who dwell in this land-locked area. This is the region and these are the people I best know in our Southern mountain country. I as- sume to speak for no others. First of all I want to claim for the whole of North Carolina an identity with our mountain people. They are our very own kith, kin, and kind. They are not a peculiar people — in illiteracy, poverty, degree of isolation, fiery individualism, or organizable qualities. They differ in no essential particular from the demo- cratic mass in North Carolina in mood, humor, temper, and atti- tudes. Their economic and social problems are not regional; they are state-wide. There are no differences in kind, and few in degree, between the civilization of our hill country and that of the State as a whole. Its virtues and its deficiencies are ours, and I claim them as our own. Our civilization in North Carolina is primarily rural. Both the strength and the weakness of our democracy lie in this fact. We are saturated with a sense of equality. We stand unabashed in ki-ngly presences. We revel in assured freedom. We have a fierce passion for self-government. We have always held high the spirit of revolt against centralized power, and we have been quick to wrest from tyranny its crown and scepter. All of which is magnificent. But we are learning that untaught and unrestrained individualism needs to develop into the wisdom and power of safe self-government. The civic and social mind sup- plants the personal and individual view of life all too slowly everywhere. i Adapted from "Extension Bureau Circular, No. 2," University of Xorth Carolina. THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 59 Our dwellers in the open country number 1,700,000, and they average only thirty-nine to the square mile. The ills attendant upon sparsity of population in rural regions are social isolation and insulation, raucous individualism, illit- eracy, suspicion, social aloofness, lack of organization and co- operative enterprise; but our mountain people suffer from these deficiencies not a whit more than the people in definite areas of the tide-water country and in the State at large. Everywhere in thinly settled country regions we find people here and there who are suspicious, secretive, apathetic, and un- approachable ; who live in the eighteenth century and preserve the language, manners, and customs of a past long dead else- where, who prefer their primitive, ancient ways, who are ghet- toed in the midst of present-day civilization, to borrow a phrase from President Frost. They are the crab-like souls described by Victor Hugo in "Les Miserables," who before advancing light steadily retreat into the fringe of darkness. People like these abound in Clinton and Franklin counties (New York) where an eighth of the native white voters are illiterate, in Aroostook County (Maine) where nearly a fifth of the native white voters cannot read their ballots or write their names; in AVindham County (Connecticut), where an eighth of the white males of voting age are illiterate. Windham, by the way, lies midway between the academic effulgence of Yale on the one hand and of Harvard on the other. You can find within the sound of college bells anywhere what we found the other day in a field survey that took us into every home in a mid-state county in North Carolina — a family of whites all illiterate, half the children dead in infancy, and never a doctor in the house in the whole history of the family. All the ages of race history and every level of civilization can be found in any county or community, even in our crowded centers of wealth and culture. We need not hunt for eighteenth century survivals in mountain coves alone. We shall not make headway in well-meant work in the moun- tains unless we can bring to it what Giddings calls a conscious- ness of kind. We need to be less aware of picturesque, amusing, or distressing differences, and more keenly conscious of the kin- ship of the mountain people with their kind elsewhere and 60 RURAL SOCIOLOGY everywhere. Otherwise we shall bring to noble effort in the mountains a certain disabling attitude that is fatal to success. And so over against the types we find in the pages of Crad- dock, Fox, Kephart, and the rest, let us set the mountain people as they are related to the civilization of which they are a part. I therefore urge upon your attention the fact that they are not more poverty-stricken, nor more lawless and violent, nor more unorganizable than the democratic mass in rural North Carolina. 1. In the first place and quite contrary to popular notions, our mountains are not a region of wide-spread poverty. In per capita rural wealth Alleghany is the richest county in North Carolina. Among our 100 counties, five highland counties rank 1st, 5th, 6th, 13th, and 14th in the order named, in the per capita farm wealth of country populations; and two more are just below the state average in this particular. The people of these counties are not poor, as country wealth is reckoned in North Carolina. They dwell in a land of vegetables and fruits, grain crops, hay and forage, flocks and herds. It is a land of overflowing abundance. It is not easy for such people to feel that they are fit subjects for missionary school enterprises. As a matter of fact, they need our money far less than they need appreciative understanding and homebred leadership. Their wealth is greater than their willingness to convert it into social advantages. They need to be shown how to realize the possi- bilities of their own soils and souls. Mountain civilization, like every other, will rise to higher levels when the people them- selves tug at their own boot-straps ; and there is no other way. Approaching the poverty of our mountain people from an- other angle, let us consider indoor pauperism in 11 mountain counties that maintain county homes or poor houses. The 1910 Census discloses an average rate for the United States of 190 almshouse paupers per 100,000 inhabitants. In North Carolina the rate was 96 ; in these 11 highland counties it was only 79. Six of the mountain counties make a far better showing than the State at large. But we may make still another and better approach to the subject of poverty in our mountains by examining the outside pauper rates; better, because outside help is less repugnant to the feelings than residence in the poor house. In 1914 the state THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 61 rate for outside pauperism was 234 per 100,000 inhabitants. In 12 highland counties the average rate was 205. Seven of the counties have rates far smaller than the state average, ranging from 35 in Mitchell to 184 in Cherokee; three are just below the state average ; and only two are near the bottom. It ought to be clear that poverty in the mountains of North Carolina is actually and relatively less than elsewhere in the State. Here both indoor and outside paupers in 12 counties in 1914 numbered only 559 in a population of 209,000 souls. 2. In the second place, illiteracy among native whites in our mountains is not more distressing than white illiteracy else- where in the State. The average rate for the mountain region is 15.1 per cent., due to excessive white illiteracy rates in eight counties. More than one-seventh or 15.1 per cent, of all the white people ten years old and older in 17 mountain counties are illiterate. It is appalling; but the fact that nearly one- eighth of all the white people of these ages the whole State over are illiterate is also appalling. But nearly one-fifth or 18.5 per cent, of all our people, both races counted, are illiterate; and this fact is still more appalling. There is comfort, however, in the further fact that with a single exception North Carolina led the Union in inroads upon illiteracy during the last census pe- riod, and we are running Kentucky a close second in Moon- light Schools. Our mountain people are not peculiar, even in their illiteracy. Sparsely settled rural people are everywhere apt to be fiercely in- dividualistic, incapable of concerted effort, and unduly illiterate ; both behind and beyond mountain walls, in New York State, Maine, Connecticut, and North Carolina alike. The problems of developing democracy in our highlands, I repeat, are state-wide, not merely regional. They concern a sparsely settled rural pop- ulation, socially insulated, fiercely individualistic, unduly illit- erate, unorganized, and non-social, both in the mountains and in the State at large. 3. For instance, the bad eminence held by North Carolina in homicide rates among the 24 states of the registration area is due to the slow socialization of a population that is still nearly four- fifths rural. In 1913, we led the registration states with an url>;m rate of 274 homicides per million inhabitants, and a rural 62 RURAL SOCIOLOGY rate of 173, against a general rate of 72 in the registration area. I may say in passing that Virginia, Kentucky, and North Car- olina are the only southern states in the registration area, and that 24 states are all told still on the outside. Town rates are higher than country rates in twenty-one states, largely because the steady cityward drift of country people in- troduces into the organized life of American towns an element that is slow to learn the lessons of social adjustment. On the other hand, the high spirited retreat into inaccessible coves be- fore advancing civilization. They climb into the high levels of the Great Smokies in Haywood, Swain, and Graham, where they settle personal difficulties in the highland style of primitive times. These counties lead the mountain region in homicide rates. These are the people, by the way, among whom Kephart dwelt and who colored his impressions of our entire mountain civilization. But just as might be expected, three of our low- land counties have just as fearful records. No, our Highlanders are not peculiar even in their fierce and fiery individualism. Human life is just as safe west of the Kidge as east of it. 4. Kephart urges that the mountain people cannot pull to- gether, except as kinsmen or partisans. " Speak to them of com- munity interests, try to show them the advantages of coopera- tion," says he, "and you might just as well be proffering advice to the North Star. They will not work together zealously even to improve their neighborhood roads." But these are the faults of sparsely settled rural populations in the mountains and on the plains alike. Nothing could be worse, for instance, than the country roads of southern Illinois in the bad winter seasons. Failure to organize and cooperate is the cardinal weakness of country people everywhere. True, there were no improved country roads in four counties west of the Ridge on January 1, 1915 ; but also, four neighbor- ing counties in the Albemarle country fall into the same category. Thirty-one of our counties in 1914 had ten per cent, or less of their public road mileage improved. Seven of these were west and twenty-four were east of the Blue Ridge. Five mountain counties are among the forty counties that made the best show- ing in the State in improved public road mileage in 1914. Avery, a mountain county with no improved roads in the last THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 63 report, is now spending $150,000 in road construction. Our mountain counties are falling into line about as rapidly as other sections of the State. And North Carolina is doing well in high- way building. In 1914 she stood ahead of twenty-nine states in per cent, of surfaced roads, and outranked thirty-two in the expenditure of road funds locally raised. 5. As a last word in my attempt to show that our mountain conditions and problems are state-wide conditions and prob- lems, let us consider the investment made by our Highlanders in their schools and children; say, their per capita investment in country school property in the census year. In 1910 it was only $1.86 per rural inhabitant. But then, it was only $2.08 the whole State over. Seven mountain counties were well above the state average with per capita investments ranging from $2.56 in Swain, one of the three poorest counties in the State, to $4.56 in Transylvania. Our mountain counties are moving forward in rural school property about as rapidly as the rest of the State. Between 1900 and 1914 the value of such property in seventeen highland counties rose from $408,000 to $637,000, an increase of 56 per cent., against an increase of 45 per cent, in the State at large. Ashe and Yancey more than doubled their investments in rural school property during these four years. In Cherokee the in- vestment was more than trebled. And it is proper to add that under the superb leadership of Hon. J. Y. Joyner, the State School Superintendent, our State as a whole has made mar- velous gains during the last ten years in the education of all our people. As a matter of fact, these gains make a story of un- paralleled achievement. The mountain people I know are democratic by nature, high spirited, self-reliant, and proudly independent. They scorn charities, and scent patronage afar. They are not a weakling people. They are sturdy and strong in character, keenly respon- sive to fair treatment, kind hearted and loyal to friends, quick to lend help in distress; and salted unto salvation by a keen sense of humor. They are not a submerged race. They are not down and out, after a hand to hand struggle with advancing civilization. They are not victims of social Dial-adjustment. They are, as yet, the 64 RURAL SOCIOLOGY unadjusted. They are not decadents like the country people in the densely populated industrial areas of the North and East. They are a coming, not a vanishing race. Their thews and sinews are strong, their brains are nimble and capable, and at bottom they are sane and sound, healthsome and wholesome, in wind and limb, body and soul. They are a hopeful element in developing democracy in North Carolina. There is immense lifting power in the people of our hill country. They need, to be sure, to be organized for economic, civic, and social efficiency ; but this need is state-wide, not merely regional. The Highlanders have long been a segregated, unmixed ethnic group — a homogeneous mass without organic unity. Miss Emma Miles, herself a mountaineer, says in "The Spirit of the Mountains," "There is no such thing as a community of moun- taineers. Our people are almost incapable of concerted action. We are a people yet asleep, a race without consciousness of its own existence." All of which means that here is a social mass that lacks social solidarity. It lacks the unity in variety and the variety in unity that social development demands in any group of people. A fundamental need in the mountains is an influx of new people with new ideas and enterprises. The homogeneity of our Highlanders has long been a liability, not an asset. Appalachia needs the mingling of race types. The English Midlands offer an illustration in point. Here is where the Cymric, Pictish, and Irish tribes of Celts struggled for long centuries with the Anglo- Saxons, Danes, and Scandinavians. Here they finally coalesced, and here is the seed-bed of national supremacy in intellect. Here is the England of Shakespeare, Macaulay, Ruskin, and George Eliot, Hogarth, Turner and Burne-Jones, Watt, Hamil- ton, and Farraday. But a new era is at hand in our hill country. Industrialism is rapidly invading and occupying this region. The timber, min- eral, and water power treasures of the mountains have at last challenged the attention of organized big business. The blare of steam whistles, the boom of dynamite, the whir of machinery, the miracle of electric lights and telephones, the bustle of busi- ness in growing cities announce an economic revolution in our mountain country. Industrial enterprises will introduce the THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 65 needed elements of population. They demand railway connec- tions with the outside world. Automobiles in increasing num- bers demand improved public highways. This economic revolu- tion will mean better schools, stronger newspapers, another type of religious consciousness, and a more liberal social life. The industrial transformation of Appalachia has begun, and the next generation of Highlanders will be well in the middle of this new era. We ought to keep clearly in mind a concern of primary im- portance to the mountain people. The question, says President Frost, is whether the mountain people can be enlightened and guided so that they can have a part in the development of their own country, or whether they must give place to aliens and melt away like the Indians of an earlier day. That is to say, both the church and the school problems are fundamentally economic and social. The highest values, of course, are spiritual. As invading industrialism turns into gold the natural resources of these mountains, will it enhance the value of their largest asset — the men and women of the hill country ? THE RURAL NEGRO AND THE SOUTH 1 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON OF the nine million Negroes, or nearly that number, in the South, about seven million are in the rural districts. They are on the farm, the plantation, and in the small town. -They in- clude 80 per cent, of the whole Negro population in the South, the great bulk of the Negro population in America, in fact. Of this seven million it is safe to say that 2,200,000 persons are actually working, either as hired hands, tenant farmers, crop- pers, or renters and independent owners, upon the land. This number includes women arid children, for, on the farm and the plantation, the unit of labor is not the individual but the fam- ily, and in the South to-day Negro women still do a large part of the work in the fields. i Adapted from "Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections," Memphis, Term., May, 1!)14, pp. 121-127. 66 RURAL SOCIOLOGY People who live in the cotton growing States know that a very large part of the business of those states is based on the Negro and the mule. In the South, when a planter wants to borrow money, he finds his credit at the bank is usually determined by the number of reliable Negro tenants he can control ; business is based on labor. In other words, the value of the land and of all that goes with it and depends upon it, is determined very largely, more largely, perhaps, than is true of any other part of the country, by the character and quantity of the labor supply. The two million and more Negroes who are employed in agri- culture in the Southern States have in their hands, either as renters or as owners, 40 per cent, of the tillable land. Some- thing like 100,000,000 of the 150,000,000 acres of improved land is cultivated by Negro labor, and of every eleven bales of cotton produced in the South, seven are raised by Negroes. The Negro is here and he is likely to remain. First, because after something like three hundred years he has adapted him- self to the country and the people ; because experience has taught him that, on the whole, the vast majority of the Negroes are more at home and better off in the agricultural regions of the South than they are likely to be in any other part of the world; and finally because the Southern white man does not want him to go away. You may say what you please about segregation of the races, but when there is work to be done about the plantation, when it comes time to plant and pick the cotton, the white man does not want the Negro so far away that he cannot reach him by the sound of his voice. At the present time Negroes in the rural districts represent, in some respects, the best portion of the Negro race. They are for the most part a vigorous, wholesome, simple-minded people. They are, as yet, almost untouched by the vices of city life, and still maintain, on the whole, their confidence in the good will of the white people by whom they are surrounded. These seven million people represent, therefore, tremendous possibilities for good and for evil to themselves, and the com- munity in which they live. From an economic view alone, this large actual and potential labor force represents a vast store of undeveloped wealth, a gold mine of productive energy, in fact. THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 67 i Imported to this country at an enormous cost in suffering and in money; trained and disciplined during two hundred and fifty years of slavery, and now waiting to be developed, under the in- fluences of free institutions, the Negro is one of the great nat- ural resources of this southern community. This being so, the prosperity of the South is very largely bound up with the latent possibilities of the Negro. Just in proportion as he becomes an efficient farmer and a dependable laborer, just to that extent will the whole country move forward and prosperity be multi- plied. If Negro labor is to become more efficient, every effort should be made to encourage rather than to discourage the Negro in his ambition to go forward, to buy land and plant himself perma- nently on the soil. In the long run the planter will not suffer from the existence in his neighborhood of Negro fanners who offer an example of thrift and industry to their neighbors. For example, Macon County, in which I live, was the only one of the Black Belt counties of Alabama which showed an increase of Negro population in the decade from 1900 to 1910. The rea- son was that a special effort had been made in that county to improve the public schools and this brought into the county a large number of progressive farmers who were anxious to own homes in the neighborhood of a good school. G. W. McLeod, who owns "a large tract of land in Macon County, Alabama, is a good example of the white planter who treats his tenants well. Mr. McLeod believes in having a good school in the community, so he gave an acre of ground upon which the school house was built and $100 in addition to help put up the $700 school house. He deeded the land to a set of colored trustees. Mr. McLeod also offers annual prizes for the best kept stock, best kept houses, best cared for children, best attendance at Sunday school and church. The man or woman guilty of taking intoxicating liquors or engaging in family quar- rels is not eligible to prizes and must go at the end of the year. Mr. McLeod by this method of dealing with his tenants has little if any trouble in finding profitable tenants for his lands. Not only does he find that this policy pays in cash, but he has the satisfaction of seeing around him people who are prosperous 68 RURAL SOCIOLOGY and contented, who are every year making progress, who are growing in intelligence, ambition and the knowledge of all those things which make life worth living. From direct investigation I find that many valuable colored laborers leave the farm for the reason that they seldom see or handle cash. The Negro laborer likes to put his hands on real money as often as possible. In the city, while he is not so well off in the long run, as I have said, he is usually paid off in cash every Saturday night. In the country he seldom gets cash oftener than once a month, or once a year. Not a few of the best colored laborers leave the farms because of the poor houses furnished by the owners. The condition of some of the one- room cabins is miserable almost beyond description. In the towns and cities, while he may have a harder time in other re- spects, the colored man can usually find a reasonably comfortable house with two or three rooms. No matter how ignorant a colored man may be himself, he al- most always wants his children to have education. A very large number of colored laborers leave the farm because they can not get an education for their children. In a large section of the farming district of the South, Negro schools run only from. two to five months in the year. In many cases children have to walk miles to reach these schools. The school houses are, in most cases, wretched little hovels' with no light or warmth or comfort of any kind. The teacher receives perhaps not more than $18 or $25 a month, and as every school superintendent knows, poor pay means a poor teacher. In saying this, I do not overlook the fact that conditions are changing for the better in all parts of the South. White people are manifesting more interest each year in the training of col- ored people, and what is equally important, colored people are beginning to learn to use their education in sensible ways; they are learning that it is no disgrace for an educated person to work on the farm. They are learning that education which does not somehow touch life is not education at all. More and more we are all learning that the school is not simply a place where boys and girls learn to read and cipher ; but a place where they learn to live. We are all learning that education which does not somehow or other improve the farm and the home, which THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 69 does not make a return to the community in some form or other, has no justification for its existence. The possibilities of the Negro farmer are indicated by the progress that he has made in fifty years. In 1863 there were in all the United States only a few farms owned by Negroes. They now (1910) operate in the South 890,140 farms which are 217,800 more than there were in this section in 1863. Negro farm laborers and Negro farmers in the South now cultivate approximately 100,000,000 acres of land, of which 42,- 500,000 acres are under the control of Negro farmers. The in- crease of Negro farm owners in the past fifty years compares favorably with the increase of white farm owners. The Negroes of this country now own 20,000,000 acres or 31,000 square miles of land. If all the land the"y own were placed in one body, its area would be greater than that of the state of South Carolina. The Negro has made his greatest progress in agriculture dur- ing the past ten years. From 1900 to 1910 the total value of farm property owned by the colored farmers of the South in- creased from $177,404,688 to $492,898,218, or 177 per cent. In view of all this it seems to me that it is the part of wisdom to take hold of this problem in a broad, statesmanlike way. In- stead of striving to keep the Negro down, we should devote the time and money and effort that is now used for the purpose of punishing the Negro for crimes, — committed in many instances because he has been neglected and allowed to grow up in ig- norance without ambition and without hope — and use it for the purpose of making the Negro a better and more useful citizen. FOLLOWING THE COLOR LINE 1 RAY STANNARD BAKER GENERALLY speaking, the sharpest race prejudice in the South is exhibited by the poorer class of white people, whether far- mers, artisans or unskilled workers, who come into active com- petition with the Negroes, or from politicians who are seeking i Adapted from "Following the Color Line," American Muini-lne, 04: 381-303, July, 1007. 70 RURAL SOCIOLOGY the votes of this class of people. It is this element which has driven the Negroes out of more than one community in the South and it commonly forms the lynching mobs. A similar an- tagonism of the working classes exists in the North wherever the Negro has appeared in large numbers. On the other hand, the larger land owners and employers of the South, and all professional and business men who hire servants, while they dislike and fear the Negro as a race (though often loving and protecting individual Negroes), want the black man to work for them. More than that, they must have him : for he has a practical monopoly on labor in the South. White men of the employing class will do almost anything to keep the Negro on the land and his wife in the kitchen — so long as they are obedient and unambitious workers. But I had not been very long in the black belt before I began to see that the large planters — the big employers of labor — often pursued very different methods in dealing with the Negro. In the feudal Middle Ages there were good and bad barons; so in the South to-day there are "good" and "bad" landlords (for lack of better designation) and every gradation between them. The good landlord, generally speaking, is the one who knows by inheritance how a feudal system should be operated. In other words, he is the old slave-owner or his descendant, who not only feels the ancient responsibility of slavery times, but believes that the good treatment of tenants, as a policy, will produce better results than harshness and force. The bad landlord represents the degeneration of the feudal system: he is in farming to make all he can out of it this year and next, without reference to human life. Conditions in the black belt are in one respect much as they were in slavery times, or as they would be under any feudal system: if the master or lord is agood," the Negro prospers; if he is harsh, grasping, unkind, the Negro suffers bitterly. It gets back finally to the white man. In assuming supreme rights in the South, political and industrial, the white man also as- sumes tremendous duties and responsibilities : he cannot have the one without the other; and he takes to himself the pain and suf- fering which goes with power and responsibility. Of course, scarcity of labor and high wages have given the THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 71 really ambitious and industrious Negro his opportunity, and many thousands of them are becoming more and more inde- pendent of the favor or the ill-will of the whites. And therein lies a profound danger, not only to the Negro, but to the South. Gradually losing the support and advice of the best type of white man, the independent Negro finds himself in competition \vith the poorer types of white man, whose jealousy he must meet. He takes the penalties of being really free. Escaping the exac- tions of a feudal life, he finds he must meet the sharper diffi- culties of a free industrial system. And being without the po- litical rights of his poor white competitor and wholly without social recognition, discredited by the bestial crimes of the lower class of his own race, he has, indeed, a hard struggle before him. In many neighborhoods he is peculiarly at the mercy of this lower class white electorate, and the self-seeking politicians whose stock in trade consists in playing upon the passions of race-hatred. When the Negro tenant takes up land or hires out to the landlord, he ordinarily signs a contract, or if he cannot sign (about half the Negro tenants of the black belt are wholly illiterate) he makes his mark. He often has no way of know- ing certainly what is in the contract, though the arrangement is usually clearly understood, and he must depend on the landlord to keep both the rent and the supply-store accounts. In other words, he is wholly at the planter's mercy — a temptation as dan- gerous for the landlord as the possibilities which it presents are for the tenant. It is so easy to make large profits by charging immense interest percentages or outrageous prices for supplies to tenants who are too ignorant or too weak to protect them- selves, that the stories of the oppressive landlord in the South are scarcely surprising. It is easy, when the tenant brings in his cotton in the fall not only to underweigh it, but to credit it at the lowest prices of the week; and this dealing of the strong with the weak is not Southern, it is human. Such a system has encouraged dishonesty, and wastefulness ; it has made many land- lords cruel and greedy, it has increased the helplessness, hope- lessness and shiftlessness of the Negro. In many cases it has meant downright degeneration, not only to the Negro, but to the white man. These are strong words, but no one can travel 72 RURAL SOCIOLOGY in the black belt without seeing enough to convince him of the terrible consequences growing out of these relationships. I made inquiries as to why the Negroes wanted to leave the farms and go to cities. The answer I got from all sorts of sources was, first, the lack of schooling in the country ; and, second, the lack of protection. And I heard also many stories of ill-treatment of various sorts, the distrust of the tenant of the landlord in keeping his accounts — all of which, dimly recognized, tends to make many Negroes escape the country, if they can. Indeed, it is growing harder and harder on the great plantations, especially where the management is by overseers, to keep a sufficient labor supply. In some places the white landlords have begun to break up their plantations, selling small farms to ambitious Negroes — a signifi- cant sign, indeed, of the passing of the feudal system. Comment- ing on this tendency, the Thomaston Post says : "This is, in part, a solution of the So-called Negro problem, for those of the race who have property interests at stake cannot afford to antagonize their white neighbors or transgress the laws. The ownership of land tends to make them better citi- zens in every way, more thoughtful of the rights of others, and more ambitious for their own advancement. The tendency to- wards cutting up the large plantations is beginning to show itself, and when all of them are so divided, there will be no agricultural labor problem, except, perhaps, in the gathering of an especially large crop.'' BIBLIOGRAPHY THE SOUTH Branson, E. C. Farm Life Conditions in the South. Chapel Hill, N. C. The Church as a Country Life Defense. Branson, E. C. Rural Life in the South. Am. Statistical Ass'n., Pub. 13 : 71-75, March, 1912. Brooks, Robert P. The Agrarian Revolution in Georgia, 1865-1912. Univ. Wis., Madison, Hist. Series, Vol. 3, No. 3. Bruce, P. A. Economic History of Virginia, in the Seventeenth Cen- tury. Macmillan, N. Y., 1896. Bruce, P. A. The Rise of the New South. Barrie, Philadelphia. The Hist, of North America, V. 17, 1905. Bogart, E. L. The Economic History of the United States. Long- mans, N. Y., 1907. Cable, George W. Old Creole Days. Scribner, N. Y., 1907. Cable, George W. The Creoles of Louisiana. Seribner, N. Y., 1884. THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 73 Coulter, John Lee. The Rural South. Am. Statistical Ass'n., 13 : 45- 58, March, 1912. DuBois, W. E. The Rural South. Am. Statistical Ass'n., 13:80-4, March, 1912. Dunning, W. A. Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction. Mac- millan, N. Y., 1898. Dyer, G. W. Southern Problems that Challenge our Thought. South- ern Sociological Congress Proceedings, pp. 25-37, Nashville, Tenn., 1912. Frissell, H. B. Southern Agriculture and the Negro Farmer. Am. Statistical Ass'n., 13 : 05-70, March, 1912. Glasson, Wm. H. Rural Conditions in the South. Am. Statistical Ass'n., 13: 76-79, March, 1912. Gray, Lewis. Southern Agriculture, Plantation System and the Negro ^Problem. Annals, 40 : 90-99, March, 1912. Hale, Louise Closser. We Discover the Old Dominion. Dodd, N. Y., 1916. Haney, Lewis H., and Wehrwein, George S. A Social and Economic Survey of Southern Travis County. Univ. of Texas Bui., 65, Aus- tin, 1916. MacClintock, S. S. The Kentucky Mountains and Their Feuds. Amer. Jour, of Soc., 7 : 171-187. September, 1901. Page, Walter H. Journey Through the Southern States. World's Work, 14 : 9003-9028, June, 1907. Kephart, Horace. Our Southern Highlanders. Macmillan, N. Y., 1913. Olmstead, Frederick L. The Cotton Kingdom. Mason, N. Y., 1862. Olmstead, Frederick L. Journey in the Seaboard Slave States. Put- nam, N. Y., 1904. Page, Thomas Nelson. Red Rock. 'Scribner, N. Y., 1898. Southern Agriculture, its Conditions and Needs. Pop. Sci. Mo., 64: 245-261, January, 1904. Southern Soc. Congress. Proceedings. Nashville, Tenn. Stone, A. H. Studies in the American Race Problem. Doubleday, Garden City, 1908. Vincent, George E. A Retarded Frontier. Amer. Journal Sociology, 4 : 1-20, July, 1898. Waldo, Frank. Among the Southern Appalachians. New England Mag., 14:231-247, n. s., May, 1901. THE NEGRO Baker, Ray Stannard. Following the Color Line. Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, 1908. Commons, John R. Races and Immigrants in America. The Macmil- lan Company, N. Y., 1908. DuBois, W. E. B.. The Souls of Black Folk. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1907. Douglass, H. Paul. Christian Reconstruction in the South. The Pil- grim Press, Boston, 1909. Dunbar, Paul Laurence. Lyrics of Lowly Life. Dodd, Mead & Co., N. Y., 1896. 74 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Hart, Albert Bushnell. The Southern South. Appleton, N. Y., 1910. Haynes, George Edmund. The Negro at Work in New York City, a Study in Economic Progress. Columbia Univ. Studies in II i Economics, and Public Law, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Whole No. 124), N. Y., 1012. Horwill, Herbert W. Negro Exodus. Contemporary Review, 114: 299-305, Sept., 1918. Miller, Kelly. The Negro's Part in Racial Cooperation in the Com- munity. Conf. Social Work, 1918, pp. 481-85. Negro Education. U. S. Bur. of Ed. Bui., 1916, Nos. 38 and 39, Vols. I and II. Negro Migration in 1916-17. Bui. U. S. Dept, of Labor, Div. of Negro Economics, Gov't. Printing Of., Washington, 1919. Negro Rural School and its Relation to the Community. The Extension Department, Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Tuskeiree, Ala., 1915. Wolfe, Albert B. The Negro Problem in the United States. In Read- ings in Social Problems, Book V. Grim & Co., Boston, 1916. CHAPTER IV THE IMMIGRANT IN AGRICULTURE IMMIGRATION IN AGRICULTURE * JOHN OLSEN AT the beginning of the nineteenth century the United States found itself in possession of vast undeveloped resources, which were tremendously increased by successful purchases and an- nexations in the course of the century. To secure the rapid de- velopment of these resources the government not only threw them open to unrestricted development by private enterprise but even encouraged such development by public assistance. As a result of such a policy public lands of apparently unlimited extent and enormous fertility were offered to any one at a nominal expense. Later the land acts were multiplied so that any individual could obtain 480 acres of virgin territory. Fur- thermore this policy of encouraging private enterprise led to the extension of the means of communication so that these not only accompanied but in many cases preceded the growth of the settlement. Thus access to the splendid public demesne was assured. The temptation to enter premises so promising could not be suppressed by the unfavorable attitude at first assumed by for- eign governments. Consequently a steady stream of immigrants commenced flowing into this country. Even though separated by political boundaries the English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish still felt that the states were peculiarly their own. Soon the wanderlust of the Germans, the Danes, the Swedes, and the Nor- wegians led the^n to the same destination. There were also some Swiss and Dutch and a few from southern and eastern Europe in this first wave which we shall designate the Old Immigration. i Adapted from a paper prepared by a graduate student in the Editor's Class in the University of Minnesota, summer 1917. 75 76 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Of the motives which actuated this immigration, the religious and political, which had been very important, were rapidly diminishing in influence. In general, hard times in their own country due to crop failures and fluctuations in industry pre- ceded the great waves of emigrants. This statement applies prin- cipally to Ireland and Scandinavia although there were serious crop failures in Germany, for example the one in Baden in 1825. The famines in Ireland, however, surpassed all. The first one occurred in 1826. Far more serious was the one due to potato rot in 1846-7. As a result emigration and death reduced the population 50 per cent. At the same time the general prosperity, which, with the ex- ception of brief periods designated as panics, continued unin- terruptedly throughout the century in this country, presented an attractive antithesis. The liberality of our land laws invited any foreigner to become a partaker of our prosperity since the}' afforded him the opportunity either of securing a farm of his own or of employment at good wages. The tariff, the invention of new machinery, and the rapid development of new industries were auxiliary forces tending at least temporarily to the better- ment of the conditions of the laborers. The increasing facili- ties of communication enabled the foreigner to compare the op- portunities of the New "World with those of the Old. Advertis- ing campaigns by the states and especially by private enterprises, such as steamship companies, railways, and other American in- dustrial organizations, which previous to the passage of the Anti-Contract Immigration Law were absolutely unrestricted, tended to create a favorable impression. Most influential of all were letters from countrymen already in America. Of course there were also a number of other auxiliary causes. Such were the improved facilities of reaching our country, the financial assistance which foreigners settled here could render in enabling relatives to come, and the dread caused by wars and epidemics in the densely populated communities of Europe. Back of all these, however, lay the prime psychological instinct which has been back of all Teutonic migrations in historical times, the desire for adventure — the Teutonic wanderlust. Of these immigrants a relatively, large percentage engaged in agriculture. Of the total number of males of foreign origin THE IMMIGRANT 77 about 30 per cent, belong to the English-speaking races. They are distributed fairly equitably throughout the North Central, Eastern, and Western states although their main strength is in the first group. This distribution is also true of the Germans. They are the most important people belonging to this group, including 775,175 males or 28 per cent, out of a total of 2,- 105,766. In direct contrast are the Scandinavians, of whom a far greater percentage, 44 per cent, of the Danes and 50 per cent, of the Norwegians, are engaged in agriculture. Although found throughout all of the above-mentioned sections, by far the greatest percentage of those engaged in agriculture are found in the North Central states. This concentration is most marked in the case of the Norwegians, of whom 97 per cent, of those in agriculture are found in that section and Washington, Their total number is only 140,000. Nevertheless by further concen- tration in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Illinois, and Iowa within the North Central section they trans- form those states into a veritable Norway in America. The Danes, on the other hand, scatter so that it is difficult to point out a single large and well-defined Danish settlement, while the Swedes may be termed the compromisers, neither scattering as much as the Danes nor concentrating as much as the Nor- wegians. These settlers were further reinforced by a few Ice- landers. The natives assumed a by no means favorable attitude towards those who were entering into competition with them; but the newcomers were on a quest for homes which nothing except absolute prohibition could prevent. In this search the similarity of conditions in the various sections of America to those of their former habitats was their principal guide. Thus the Germans selected the timber lands of the Northwest; the Norwegians the rough and hilly lands; the Irish the well-wa- tered meadows. This conception that agriculture in America must necessarily resemble their own in Europe was not always fortunate. Since agricultural conditions in Irrhmd were wretched, it deterred a large number of the Irish from going on the land. As a result only 354 out of every 10,000 Irish own farm homes while 611 of the Germans, 717 of the Scan- dinavians, and 721 of the British do. The immigrants were, of course, influenced by other considerations also. Some had 78 RURAL SOCIOLOGY friends or relatives in certain localities. Industrious land agents were always portraying the splendid advantages of the sections in which they were interested. The building of the railways facilitated immigration both by providing better markets and also by familiarizing laborers with the conditions in the unset- tled sections. Sometimes events which ought to be condemned had fortunate results. During the canal mania Illinois became virtually bankrupt. As a result it paid its Irish laborers with so-called canal scrip. The only thing for which this was ac- ceptable was land. Consequent ly a number of the Irish invested in land and became permanent settlers. The presence of the Negro in the South caused the foreigners to avoid that section. It is only in recent years that the in- creasing demand for labor in order that the South may develop its resources has met with any distinct response. Of those that are testing the possible opportunities there the Swedes, Germans, and Irish are foremost. The exhaustion of the public demesne forces the immigrants into such new channels. Thus the neg- lected and abandoned lands of the Middle Atlantic and New Eng- land states are now being put into cultivation. Among those who utilize this opportunity the Irish, Swedes, Finns, Norwe- gians, Dutch, Germans and Poles are the leaders. The success of these settlers has depended largely on the type of settlement formed. The joint stock company proved a failure in promoting settling. Money-making and colonization would not go together. Communistic enterprises also proved ephem- eral. More promising were the religious, philanthropic, and national enterprises, especially when they were provided with ample funds. In the case of the Irish, the Catholic church tried to promote colonization. A priest was the first sent so as to secure effective religious services. The Germans tried to direct their emigrants to definite sections so that they might be Ger- manized. In case the expectation that the United States would break up had been realized those settlements would then have become independent states. The chief of these attempts cen- tered in Wisconsin and Texas. All of these attempts failed, principally on account of mismanagement. Nor was it advis- able in the earliest period for an immigrant to start out alone. Great suffering frequently resulted. The best plan was for the THE IMMIGRANT 79 settlers to settle in groups, but each one independent of all the others. Germans and Scandinavians often did this following the instructions either of friends already settled in that locality or of an agent sent in advance to ascertain conditions there. These settlers came from the agricultural sections of Europe. Consequently their success depended on their ability to adapt themselves to American methods. That such success has been attained will be questioned by no one who has compared the rude conditions of the pioneer with those of to-day. Since the great majority settled in the North Central States, they engaged in general farming. In this type of farming the Scandinavians and Germans are leaders. The Danes are noted for their suc- cess in butter-making and dairying. The Scandinavians are more likely to waste the fertility of the land than the Germans, who maintain it through the rotation of crops and the applica- tion of fertilizers. Wisconsin is the example of German success just as Utah is of English. The fortunate choice of land con- tributed to German success while the Welsh succeeded in spite of an unfortunate choice. The success of the immigrant is by no means confined to general farming. The Germans raise grapes in California and carry on truck-raising and dairying in Georgia. Together with the Irish they raise rice and other southern prod- ucts in Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama. The Scandinavians raise grapes in Alabama and truck and fruits in New Jersey. The German-Russians are especially successful in the beet sugar sections of Nebraska and the Swiss in the cheese industry in Wisconsin. Those whom we ought to praise the most are the Dutch who undertake the reclamation of our lowlands. The best proof of the superiority of the foreign to the native farmer is that the latter is yielding. The Germans and Irish are se- curing control of the farm lands of New Jersey, the Scandinav- ians are replacing the natives in Vermont, the Germans are re- placing them in New York, and the Poles in Massachusetts. The desirability of the immigrant does not, however, depend principally on his ability to accumulate wealth. If such ac- cumulation is accompanied by a lowering of the American standard of living, he is undesirable. Among our foreign set- tlers we find the food simple, the clothes cheap and coarse. These features seem inevitable in a frontier community. If, 80 RURAL SOCIOLOGY however, they are retained after the community passes the frontier stage, the settlers are undesirable. As soon, however, as the immigrants from northwestern Europe passed that stage, they commenced imitating American customs. During the pioneer days any make-shift for a house had to be satisfactory. Now substantial houses are found almost everywhere. The early settlers had to work excessively hard to attain success. With the increase of prosperity they have ceased to do this. A very influential reason that the Germans, Scandinavians, and certain minor groups of foreigners outdistanced the natives was that among the former the women and children did a great deal of outdoor labor. The generation born in this country do not put the women and children in the fields. Thus in general the earlier immigrants are conforming to American standards. Foreigners on the farms are easily assimilated. The main factor against assimilation is religion. This statement does not, of course, apply to the English-speaking peoples who belong in general to the same church as the natives. Other nationalities couple their language very closely with their forms of worship. They therefore try to maintain schools in their own language. Such attempts fail because of the preference on the part of the young for the English schools and also because a large number of the older people realize the paramount importance of Eng- lish. Attempts were made by the conservatives to introduce their languages into the public schools. With the exception of Ohio and Pennsylvania where the Germans succeeded in intro- ducing German such efforts have been failures everywhere. In the schools these peoples rank high. In fact the literacy of the Scandinavian immigrant has been higher than that of the North- erners as a whole. Their inclination is indicated by the large number of Germans and Scandinavians who engage in educa- tional work. To obtain public land they had to become nat- uralized. Later the questions of local government naturally aroused interest in politics. The English on account of their previous acquaintance with our political customs excelled. The others, however, were also used to fairly democratic institutions so that they were not at such a great disadvantage. But they have been rather indifferent in this respect except where they have composed practically the entire population and therefore THE IMMIGRANT 81 have been forced to participate. The Germans, as a matter of fact, looked on politics as a burdensome duty. Many thought abstinence from American politics creditable on account of the questionable character of the methods employed. The one ex- ception is the Norwegian. He is a natural politician. He in- sists on his right to be recognized, and where due recognition is not voluntarily given he organizes to secure it. The most cred- itable feature of the engagement in politics of any of these for- eigners is that they have generally worked for cleaner politics. Although with the exception of the Irish they are generally Re- publicans, they are by no means bound to the party. Exercis- ing their right of independent thinking they make their vote depend on the issues. The final criterion of the desirability of the immigrant is his character. The earlier immigrants were noted for their indus- try, economy, and frugality. Upon their arrival in this country they frequently developed an initiative and self-reliance which had previously been entirely unsuspected. Even the Irish, al- though those of them who sought the cities have been denounced severely, have proven very desirable on the farm. Further- more ethnically nearly all of the earlier immigrants belonged to the same Teutonic stock as the natives. The wearing off of the clannishness of the foreigner and the appreciation by the Amer- ican of his sterling qualities was followed by rapid assimila- tion. During the greater part of the nineteenth century inadequate transportation facilities prevented a considerable number of im- migrants from southern and eastern Europe from entering the United States. Towards the close of the century, these facilities were improved so as to equal those from northwestern Europe. As a result, a vast number of immigrants from the former sec- tions began to arrive. Simultaneously immigration from north- western Europe decreased both because of the severe strain of the competition with the newer immigration and also because the settling of the United States and the industrial improve- ments of northwestern Europe had eliminated the advantages of the former. The turning point in immigration was about 1890. Since that time the bulk of the immigrants have been Jews, Italians, Portuguese, Poles, Bohemians, and Slovaks. 82 RURAL SOCIOLOGY With the exception of the Jew all of these are laboring under the most undesirable economic circumstances at home. Out- of-date industrial organization together with Ilio dense popula- tion makes the United States seem the Isle of Bliss. The Jew, on the other hand, although able through his innate shrewdness to attain an independent economic status, is prevented from doing so by the racial and religious prejudices of the people. This is especially true of Russia and Rumania, from which we obtain the mass of our Jewish immigrants. That such emigra- tion is not due to economic hardships is perfectly clear in the case of the latter country, from which practically only Jews emi- grate while the Rumanians remain at home. That the Teutonic Americans would not look with as much pleasure upon the Slavs, Latins, and Jews as they did upon the entrance of the earlier immigrants who were of their own race can be explained as being due to unconscious race prejudice. It can not be said" that the recent immigrant is very inferior morally. It is true that petty thefts occur frequently in Italian settlements and that the number of lawsuits in Polish settle- ments is extraordinarily large. The latter fact is largely due to the preference on the part of the Poles to settle personal differ- ence involving trifling amounts in court rather than out of court as Americans do. None of the excessive criminal tend- encies which exist among these peoples in the cities extend to the rural communities. In these communities the Italians and Slavs utilize all their time and in the case of farm owners and tenants every available inch of land. They are very frugal. The opposition they meet from business men may be largely due to their hesitation to spend. That they do not devote the land around their houses to trees and flowers, which is often explained as indicating a lack of the appreciation of beauty, may probably be just as much due to this characteristic whether we call it frugality or parsimony. The Jew, on the other hand, meets a much heartier welcome from the business world on account of his inclination to spend. He is not as industrious as the Slavs or Italians. Even in the rural communities his trading propensity often causes him to devote a part of his time to it. The decrease in the number of immigrants that engage in agri- culture may not be entirely due to the change in the type of im- THE IMMIGRANT 83 migrants but also to economic changes in the United States in connection with the exhaustion of the public demesne and the more intense industrial development. In fact this change had already commenced in the case of the earlier immigrants. For example a lower percentage of the Scandinavians engaged in agriculture after 1880 than before. To a large extent it is due to the foreigners' ignorance of the opportunities in agriculture, the uncertainty of the returns, and the isolated condition of American farm life. The friends and relatives of the recent immigrant are in the cities and thither he goes. With the ex- ception of a few in Wisconsin we find the Italian farmers in New England, Middle Atlantic and Southern states, the Slavs are found in New England, Pennsylvania, and the East North Central and the West South Central states; the Jews in New England, New York, and New Jersey; and the Portuguese in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Most of these peoples have been in America too short a time to enable us to make definite conclusions as to their ability to conform to our customs. The third generation seems almost Americanized. Upon their entrance here they retain their typi- cal food and clothes. Soon they find Old World styles and cus- toms inconvenient and commence imitating the Americans. They seem content, however, with the cheapest and coarsest food and care little about its preparation. In selecting clothes they often retain their predilection for gaudy colors. Of course, the custom depends on the people. In general the Latins represent the lowest type, the Slavs the middle, and the Jews the highest. The Portuguese are considerably lower than the Italians. The Bohemians stand foremost among the Slavs, showing a distinct, preference for good living and good clothes whenever they are financially able to afford them. The same general tendencies are observed in the case of houses. The Portuguese, Italians, and a number of the Slavic peoples manage in shacks with gardens right up to the walls. The Bohemians and Jews are eager for more substantial dwellings. Many of these peoples care for cleanliness and neatness neither outside or nor within their houses. Nevertheless the Portuguese on Martha's Vineyard, who are considered one of the lowest races in social standards, have well-kept gardens and even some flowers around their houses. 84 lU'KAL SOCIOLOGY One reason for the ill-prepared food and Ihe lack of tidines> is undoubtedly thai the women and eliildivn must \vork so much in the fields. The entire family spends all the available lime oul- doors. Their poverty compels this, consequently these condi- tions are bound to continue until these peoples have accumulated a surplus sufficient to afford them some leisure. Another result of this hard work is the neglect of education, a tendency furthered by an inclination to under-estimate its value. In their own countries the educational faeililies are very de- ficient, thus accounting for the high percentage of illiteracy among them. Since religion and education -are very closely asso- ciated among them they prefer sending their children 1o the Catholic parochial schools in which a minimum emphasis is placed on English education. Furthermore they are not accus- tomed to democratic institutions. Therefore it is not surprising that they take little interest in politics. No free public lands act as a spur. Gradually but very slowly they are commencing to take interest in local affairs. Participation in these will un- doubtedly broaden their conception until they extend their at- tention to state and national affairs. Here again lies a danger. Hitherto they have generally acted as a group, -following certain leaders. If these leaders should happen to be unscrupulous, the result would be detrimental. The exception is again the Jew. lie realized the value of education, and succeeds well in educa- tional lines. In politics he acts independently although gov- erned by a strong race-consciousness. On account of their poverty and the absence of free public lands, a large number of these immigrants become tenants and laborers. Practically all the Portuguese labor in the cranberry bogs where they have become almost indispensable. The Slavic laborer is very subservient while the Italian is inclined to shirk if he is not closely supervised. Their type of agriculture differs from that of the earlier immigrant with respect to the average acreage. A large number have five acres or less while very few have eighty which may be considered the minimum holding of the earlier immigrant. On account of the smaller holdings there are also fewer general farmers. The agricultural conditions of their own countries would lead us to expect small scale farming. The products raised depend, of course, on the section in which THE IMMIGRANT 85 they are located. They raise tobacco, cotton, truck, and fruit. The Italian especially may be called the truck and fruit-grower. Their bank accounts are small because they invest their surplus in additional land. Consequently the steady growth in their acreage is an accurate index to their prosperity. §>uch pros- perity is, however, due to lower standards of living rather than to improved methods of farming. They still prefer hand-labor to machinery. They make only slight use of fertilizers. Again the Jew is the exception. He is a farm owner and does not hesi- tate to invest in machinery and fertilizers. In fact he tends to go to the other extreme. His outlays are often unwise. More- over, he likes to undertake side occupations. As a result it fre- quently happens that he does not prosper on the farm. This condition is the more surprising because he has had more out- side assistance than any of the others. The best managed effort for that purpose has been the one financed by the Baron de Ilirsch fund. In fact the Jew would probably never have at- tempted agriculture to any 'considerable extent if it had not been for these efforts. The result has been a few colonies of rather impractical farmers. Colonization efforts in the case of the other immigrants have frequently been mismanaged and have failed unless each one has been given sole possession of his property. Such settlements differ considerably from the group settlements of the earlier immigrants in that each one is far more dependent on the others socially. Recently the impression £as been growing that too many un- desirable immigrants are being admitted. To remedy this de- fect a literacy test has been provided. The protection which such restrictive legislation will afford American capital and labor will undoubtedly be temporary. Far more important is the question whether we can assimilate the hordes whicli are entering. As indicated above, the number entering has in- rivasrd so rapidly in the last few years that the result is doubt- ful. Nevertheless a literacy test does not seem the proper method of securing the result desired. It excludes individuals who have not had an opportunity rather than those who lack ability. What is needed is a publicity bureau to inform the immigrants of the best opportunities in this country. If any one is admitted without the necessary means to betake himself to the 86 RURAL SOCIOLOGY proper locality it is our moral duty to aid him. This publicity and distribution bureau would find no lack of opportunities for the immigrant s. The density of the population of the Southern States to-day is very low compared with that of the Northern: Alabama 35 X«-\v York 152 Arkansas 24 Illinois 86 Louisiana 30 Ohio 102 Texas 11 Pennsylvania 140 Florida 9 Massachusetts 349 The wonderful resources of those States are almost untouched. The foreigners are very welcome there. It would be unfair to the South to deprive her of these immigrants who would de- velop her agricultural resources merely because the North is more fully developed. In the West there are still 485,000,000 acres of idle land. The East has its abandoned farms. If the results of a policy of internal distribution of the immigrant should prove unsatisfactory then it would be time to pass laws restricting immigration. In the meantime we should not forget America's great debt to the immigrant. H. P. FAIRCHILD IT is apparent that our foreign-born residents tend irresistibly to congregate in the most densely settled portions of the country, and in the most densely populated states. But this is not all. They also tend to congregate in the largest cities, and in the most congested sections of those cities. In 1890, 61.4 per cent, of the foreign-born population of the United States were livinir in cities of at least 2500 population. In 1900 the percentage had increased to 66.3, while 38.8 per cent, of the entire foreign- born population were huddled into the few great cities having a population of over 100,000. In the same year only 36.1 per cent of the native-born population were living in cities of over 2500. This tendency appears to be increasing in strength, and i Adapted from "Immigration," pp. 229-231. Macmillan, New York, 1913. THE IMMIGRANT 87 is more marked among the members of the new immigration than among the older immigrants. Thus in 1910 the percentage of foreign-born living in cities of the specified size had risen to 72.2. The reasons for this tendency of the foreign-born to congregate in the most densely settled districts may be briefly summarized as follows. (1) They land, almost without exception, in cities, and it is often the easiest thing for them to stay there. It takes some capital, knowledge, and enterprise to carry the immigrant any distance from the port of arrival, unless he has a definite connection in some other place. Yet it is claimed that, land them where you would, about the same number of immigrants would find their way to New York within a few weeks. (2) Economic opportunities are much more abundant and varied in the cities than in the country. (3) Such occupations as are obtainable in the city require much less capital than the char- acteristic country occupations. With a few dollars, an im- migrant in the city can set himself up in some independent busi- ness, depending on turning over his capital rapidly to make a living. There are so many people in the city, that if one can manage to serve the most trivial want satisfactorily, he can get along. But any independent business in the country requires a larger outlay of capital than the average immigrant can hope for. The only country occupation open to him is common farm labor, and there are other reasons which make him ill adapted for this. (4) In the cities, the newly arrived immigrant can keep in close touch with others of his own race and tongue. In the compact colony of his fellow-countrymen, he. may be sure of companionship, encouragement, and assistance when needed. It is the most natural thing in the world for an immigrant to want to settle where there are numbers of others of his immediate kind. (5) Knowledge of the English language is much less essential in the city than in the country. The presence of others who can speak the same tongue makes it possible for an immigrant to make a living without knowing a word of Ihe language of his adopted country, as many of them do for year after year. In the rural districts, however, it is impossible for a newly arrived immigrant to get along at all without a knowledge of the English language, either in independent, business, or as an em- ployee, unless he settles in a farm colony of people of his own 88 RURAL SOCIOLOGY race, of which there are, of course, many to be found. (6) Not only is there more chance of friendly relief from fellow-country- men, in case of necessity, in the cities, but public relief agencies and private benevolences are much more available there than in the country. (7) The excitement and novelty of American city life is very attractive to many immigrants — just as it is to natives. Trolley cars, skyscrapers, and moving picture shows are wonderfully alluring features. In fact, in addition to the considerations which are peculiar to himself, the immigrant has all the general incentives to seek the city, which operate upon the general population, and which have produced so decided a change in the distribution of population within the last few decades. IMMIGRATION AS A SOURCE OF FARM LABORERS1 JOHN LEE COULTER AGRICULTURE has so long been looked upon as the dumping- ground of all surplus labor in case of city industries, of all poverty-stricken persons in case of famines, and all revolutionary individuals in case of disruption in European countries, that it is hard to realize that we have reached the state where farming in practically all of its branches requires a very hijrh order of intelligence and the capacity to grasp and use a great variety of scientific facts. We may, therefore, say that, although it is true that we need farm labor very much, as a relief for current im- migration agricultural distribution is not promising. There are two great classes of immigrants that can find room in various branches of the agricultural industry. The first class is composed of those from overcrowded agricultural communities in their home countries. On account of the high state of de- velopment of their industry they can teach us much which we have failed to take advantage of and which would result in the uplift of many of the sub-industries in agriculture in this country. These should be urged to bring with them their home industries and introduce new phases of agriculture into this country. The United States has been spending millions of i Adapted from Annals 33: 373-379, Jan.-June, 1909. THE IMMIGRANT 89 dollars in introducing new plants, animals, and methods of farm- ing from other • countries. At the same time little groups of foreigners, such as the Swiss of Wisconsin or later the Italians in some Southern districts, formerly thought of as the least desirable immigrants, have settled in our midst and put into practice their home training, which has resulted in the establish- ing of great industries, such as the Swiss cheese industry. The class of immigrants most desired is, therefore, those who will add most to the industry they enter. But it is not necessary that the immigrants should introduce some new sub-industry or be in advance of us in their methods in order to make them eligible to enter the agricultural industries. We may say as a general proposition that farmers from nearly any agricultural community in Europe would be acceptable in some of the agri- cultural industries of this country. If reasonable pre- cautions are taken the immigrants referred to, even though they bring no new industry, will not become public charges, but will add to the general prosperity of the country. The class objected to, the refuse from other industries, not only adds nothing new but is apt either to lower the standard of the agri- cultural industry or to become a public charge. But it is not enough to encourage one class of immigrants and discourage or prohibit others. The immigrants must not only come from rural districts in their mother-country; if they are to succeed, they must be properly located here. Probably the most important single condition is that immigrants should be directed toward and urged to locate where their physical en- vironment will correspond as nearly as may be to that of their mother-country. By that I mean that not only should the climate be nearly the same, but the precipitation, the soils, and the topography should approach that of their former home, if possible. Failure to satisfy these preliminary requirements has resulted in almost complete failure or a long period of suffering, while attention to these factors has produced unpredicted suc- cesses. The next consideration of singular importance is that the social environment should be acceptable. If the agricultural operations are not close to a city where others of Ihc same nationality are employed in other industries, it is desirable — 90 RURAL SOCIOLOGY almost necessary — that a considerable number be allowed, even induced, if need be, to settle in a community. At first, they will live as in a world apart, but they give off ideas and take on others and at the end of a generation or two a few intermarriages will have broken down the hard-and-fast wall between settlements. Common markets, interchange of labor supply, contests between settlements, political and other conflicts, and back of it all the common-school system, soon result in an amalgamated, assimi- lated race. The next consideration which should be held in mind in de- termining upon the distribution of immigrants among the dif- ferent branches of the agricultural industry is the economic status of the people to be distributed and their plans or am- bitions for the future. Thus, some are independent laborers, others ready to become tenants, and still others to be landowners. Some plan to be employees as long as they stay; some of these would plan to save a snug fortune in a few years and return to the mother-country, others to earn and use the returns from year to year. Some plan to step up to the position of tenant and employer, others are ready to enter that state at once. Some are ready to become landowners and independent farmers by pur- chase of land in settled districts, others with less capital would go to the frontier with poorer markets and grow up with the country, enduring hardships but accumulating wealth. There is room for all of these classes of people in nearly all parts of the country. The extended successes accompanied by individual failures of the English-speaking peoples who early entered the agricultural industry of this country need not be expanded upon here. Neither will any detailed treatment of the extensive settlement by Germans in the North Central States during the last half-cen- tury be made. We may place the general influx of Scandinavians into Minnesota and the Dakotas in the same class and pass by all of these — which means the great bulk of immigrants of agri- cultural peoples — with the statement that they represent success and with the assumption that students of economics know of these classes and know of their successes. It is because we are too apt to stop at this point and say that other nationalities as a rule have little or nothing to offer that this paper is presented. The THE IMMIGRANT 91 writer would emphasize the fact that we have room for farmers from many lands, assuming that we act intelligently in our choice and properly distribute those who come. The large Swiss settlement in Green County, Wisconsin, illustrates success in the introduction of a new sub-industry of great importance. Having struggled for years trying to farm in the American way, these immigrants finally turned to the great industry of their home country. They had settled in a physical enviroment which was very much like what they had left abroad. Now several hundred cheese factories are prosper- ing and millions of pounds of cheese are annually placed upon our markets. Most of it is the famous Swiss cheese. It should also be noted that nearly all of those engaged in making this cheese and in buying and selling it are Swiss or of Swiss origin. The writer feels that this colony is a great success, is the kind of thing this country wants, is the basis of prosperity in our agriculture, and must not be condemned because of the fact that broad Swiss is sometimes spoken or because the thousands of members of the district are not assimilated during the first generation. The writer has found individuals and small groups of settlers from this colony and from "the old country" moving far up into the Northwest carrying with them the information and ambition to start other colonies as prosperous as the old one. The acquisition of such an industry is as valuable to this country as the introduction of a new plant that may have required the expenditure of a hundred thousand dollars. Turning from this prosperous Swiss district, we may direct our attention to a Bohemian center in northwestern Minnesota. The Swiss had sent explorers ahead to find a desirable location before coming to this country and settling down. The Bohemians were in no greater financial straits in their home country than the Swiss had been, but they were brought in and located by great transportation companies. The soil where the Bohemians were ''dumped" is very good; but the country needs an expensive drainage system. The poor immigrants are not in a position to establish it. The result is that for some fifteen years we have had before our eyes a Bohemian colony number- ing hundreds of people, unnble to establish a prosperous com- munity because of unfavorable natural conditions. These people 92 RURAL SOCIOLOGY will succeed in time, despite obstacles, but some common-sense assistance would hasten the day of their prosperity. In other parts of the United States large set 1 lenient s of Bohemians of no higher standard are prosperous and happy. As an illustration of the status that should obtain the writer would refer to some of the very prosperous communities of Poles and Icelanders in North Dakota and elsewhere. No class of citizens, whether immigrants or descended from immigrants half a dozen steps removed, could ask for greater material prog- ress, better buildings — homes, churches, schools, and town build- ings— than the Polish settlements around Warsaw, Poland, Minto, and Ardock in Walsh County, North Dakota. The writer's knowledge of this and other communities of like char- acter leads him to say that to encourage such settlements is to foster prosperity and frugality as well as to place the stamp of approval upon a home-loving, land-loving class of farmers. If we pass on to settlements of Russians we may say nearly the same as above. With a love for land and home which is almost beyond our understanding, these people are too often frugal to a fault. They come with a low standard of living and during the first generation the standard does not rise much. But the change soon comes. The children, or at least the grandchildren, become thoroughly American unless the immigrants have been located in an environment where success is impossible. In this connection we might refer to such concrete cases as the settle- ments in central and western North Dakota, or the large pros- perous colony in Ellis County, Kansas, or the newer settlements in the Southwest. Nor need we stop with the Swiss, Bohemians, Polanders, Ice- landers, and Russians. If we turn our attention to the Italians coming into the South we find them filling the various places demanding attention. There is a large demand for white labor, and the mass of Italians who do not intend to make this their life-home more and more fill a long-felt need. With the great numbers of Mexicans coming across the line for part of a season this demand may gradually be better and better satisfied. There is also a large demand for tenants, and this cry is being answered by Italians. These newcomers are not only fitting into the cotton-growing industry in competition with the colored people, THE IMMIGRANT 93 but are proving their efficiency in vegetable and fruit farming. Of late years such settlements as that of Italians at Tontitown, Arkansas, in the Ozark Mountains, show also that Italians can bring their home industry with them and succeed here. They not only settle down as dignified farmers, but actually teach our farmers many things. Vegetables, apples, plums, grapes, and other fruits are successfully grown. If the colony located at Sunnyside, Arkansas, at an earlier date was a failure at first, it is no sign that Italians cannot succeed in agriculture. Immi- grants, largely from other industries, placed in competition with Negroes in production of a crop that they knew absolutely nothing about, under foremen accustomed to drive slaves, in a swamp country — hot and sickly to newcomers — attacked by malarial fever and losing a large number of the first settlers, it is not to be wondered at that failure was threatened. But suc- cess has come even in that case, where failure at first stared all in the face. With colonies like the Brandsville Swiss settlement in Mis- souri, with the Italians and Russians coming even into old New England, with Mexicans pushing up into the Southwest, and with other nationalities gradually finding their own, we may indeed turn our attention toward the agricultural industry as a much-neglected field. The cry of "back to the land" will not go unheeded by immigrants who have come from farms in their mother-country if any reasonable amount of effort is put forth to "assist them to find themselves." Reference might also, be made to the Jewish farm problems of the Middle Atlantic States, problems which have importance as far West as Wisconsin; and to the Japanese and Chinese agri- cultural labor problems of the far West and Southwest. There are possibilities here which few people have yet appreciated. The question of demand for seasonal agricultural labor and the pos- sibilities of continual labor by passing from one industry to another in neighboring districts or following the same industry from one part of the country to another are left untouched. BIBLIOGRAPHY Balch, Emily G. The Peasant Background of Our Slavic Fellow Citi- /ciis. Survey 24 : (5(57-77. August, 1010. 94 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Cance, Alexander E. Recent Immigrants in Agriculture. Senate Document, 033, Gl Cong. 3rd Session, Vol. II, 1011. Cance, Alexander E. Immigrant Rural Communities, Annals 40 : 69- 80. March, 1012. Commr. Gen. of Immigration. Annual Report, year ending June 30, 1919. Supt. of Documents, Washington, D. C. Coulter, John Lee. The Influence of Immigration on Agricultural De- velopment, Annals, 33 : 373-379, March, 1000. Connor, Ralph. The Foreigner. Doran, New York, 1909. Elkinton, Joseph. The Doukhobors. Charities, 13 : 252-6, 1904. Flom, George T. History of Norwegian Immigration to the United States from the Earliest Beginning Down to the Year 1848. Torch Press, Cedar Rapids, la., 1000. Hall, Prescott F. Immigration and Its Effect Upon the United States. Holt, N. Y., 100C. Hoverstad, T. A. The Norwegian Farmers in the United States. Hans Jervell Publishing Co., Fargo, N. D., 1915. Jenks, Jeremiah W., and Lauck, W. Jett. The Immigration Problem. Funk & Wagnalls, N. Y., 1917. Joseph, Samuel. Jewish Immigration to the United States. Columbia Univ. studies. Longmans, N. Y., 1914. Mashek, Nan. The Immigrant and the Farm. World To-day, 20: 206-9, Feb., 1911. Mathews, John L. Tontitown. Everybody's, 20 : 3-13, Jan., 1909. Morse, W. N. Earning a Valley. Outlook, 96 : 80-86, Sept. 10, 1910. Morse, W. N. Black Dirt People. Outlook, 93 : 940-57, December, 1909. Robinson, Leonard G. The Agricultural Activities of the Jews in America. American Jewish Committee, N. Y., 1912. Ross, E. A. The Germans in America. Century, 88 : 98-104, May, 1914. Ross, E. A. The Scandinavians in America. Century, 88 : 291-8, June, 1914. Shaler, Nathaniel S. European Peasants as Immigrants. Atlantic, 7:646-655, May, 1893. Steiner, E. A. On the Trail of the Immigrant, Revell, N. Y., 1906. Steiner, Lajos. Our Recent Immigrants as Farmers. Review of Re- views, 29:342-345, March, 1914. Thomas, Wm. I., and Znaniecki, Florian. The Polish Peasant in Eu- rope and America, Vols. I-III, University of Chicago Press, 1918. Vols. IV and V, to appear. Titus, E. K. Pole in Land of Puritan. New England Mag., 29 : 162- 6, October, 1903. CHAPTER V PRESENT PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE WANTED: A NATIONAL POLICY IN AGRICULTURE1 EUGENE DAVENPORT THE purpose of this paper is to invite attention to the very great need at the present time of a more definite policy regarding agriculture ; a policy that shall be national in its scope, universal in its interests, and comprehensive in its procedures. The term national policy is not intended to mean a policy of the Federal Government as over against the States, nor in- deed a governmental policy of any kind as distinct from the con- victions and the ideals of the people from which and from whom our democratic government proceeds. What is meant is rather such consensus of intelligent opinion and such a deliberate judgment about agriculture as shall repre- sent the constructive purpose of the American people whether farmers, laborers, or business men, and whether operating in their private or their governmental capacities. What is meant is such a common recognition of certain facts and principles to be established by investigation and conference as shall amount at any given time to a national policy about farms and farmers and farming as over against the policy which assumes a struggle of each separate interest to maintain its place in a constantly shift- ing balance of power in which all are frankly antagonistic and each prospers or suffers in proportion to the force it is able to exert and the advantage it is able to secure. This policy is not called a program because programs are made to carry out fixed and predetermined purposes, while the thing in the mind of the speaker is rather a status and a procedure i Adapted from "Proceedings of 32nd Annual Convention of the Assn. of Am. Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations," pp. 52-68. 96 RURAL SOCIOLOGY under shifting conditions, with the intent always to promote the prosperity of the farmer, not as a favored class but as a typical and component part of society, producing the food of the people and in potential control of the land policies of the commonwealth. My general thesis is this: That considerations of fairness and of public safety both demand a higher regard for the affairs and interests of the open country and for the welfare of the farmer and his family; that in a real democracy the farmer must stand higher than hitherto in public esteem, not because of demands he may make upon society but by reason of his worth and his service ; and that he should count for more in the management of public affairs not administratively, in which he has little skill, but in matters requiring counsel, in which he is comparatively wise and relatively unprejudiced. .Agriculture, whether considered as a profession or as a mode of life, has never figured adequately in world affairs, being re- garded by publicists mainly as the source of cheap food for cheap labor and of raw materials good for commerce and for manufacture, both convenient for holding the balance of trade upon the right side of the ledger. The farmer himself has been generally considered as an unskilled laborer, a humble producer rather than a typical citizen. Outside the technical journals, the public press is almost as silent about farmers and agriculture — except for an occasional poor joke, the annual crop statistics, or the market report — as if our farming were done upon Mars. The columns are full of the struggles between labor and capital, of society notes and of busi- ness schemes, but in general a murder trial with a mystery, or the love letters in a triangular divorce suit are good for more space than the greatest livestock exposition in the world. Our magazines and the public mind are full of modern scientific achievements and of art, but how much does the world know or care about the farmer and his phenomenal success in animal and plant improvement or the pictures he paints every year upon the landscape? Clearly our public press is animated almost exclusively by urban interests even in cities that owe their very commercial existence and financial support to the agricultural activity of the immediate environs. To be sure, the statistician and the speculator know something about farming but not about PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 97 the farmer, for their interest is limited to the mass results in the form of millions of bushels and does not extend to the matter of their production, the welfare of the producer, or the effect upon the land. Everybody agrees that this is to be a different world after the war, but no thoughtful man can fail to be struck with the char- acter of the economic and social questions that begin to loom large in connection with reconstruction : trade routes, the new merchant marine, raw materials, improved facilities for extending credit, cooperative business, public ownership of public utilities, government oversight of private enterprises, excess profits, in- heritance taxes, prohibition, woman suffrage, the perennial problems of the relations between capital and labor, the mini- mum wage, the maximum day, and time and a half for overtime. Not an item, not a suggestion, of anything agricultural either as a business or as a mode of life, if we may except the occasional mention of the word "land" and certain plans for providing homesteads for the returning soldiers, which is an army, not an agricultural, proposition. For the most part our considerable list of reconstruction problems may be reduced to the two great questions that mainly concern the public mind to-day; namely, foreign and domestic trade, and the perennial contest between capital and labor. We forget the citizen because we have learned to think politically and socially mainly in terms of commerce based upon manu- facture, under conditions requiring vast combinations of capital, concentration of population, and division of labor — the very con- ditions that inspire not only greed of gain and social unrest, but international war. Yet our interest lies here rather than with the peaceful pursuits of the open country. It may well be said that if there is a dearth of live problems in the public mind regarding agriculture, it is the fault of the farmers themselves inasmuch as each interest is assumed to be responsible for promoting its own affairs. Granted, but even so the conclusion is irresistible that people generally do not regard agricultural problems as of public concern, while my chief con- tention is that the public even more than the farmer is interested in the discovery and the proper solution of every problem con- nected with the public domain, with the production of food, and 98 RURAL SOCIOLOGY with the character and condition of that portion of our popula- tion that shall live upon the land. I say that the public is more interested than the farmer in these matters because "The Farmer" is actually a collection of individuals who can for the most part extricate themselves from any intolerable situation that may develop: while the country as a whole cannot extricate itself from the consequences of bad agricultural policies thai easily develop when matters of funda- mental character intimately connected with food production, home-building, and land ownership are left to shift for them- selves. But we are not without a start in the right direction. More than half a century ago we began to think nationally about agriculture. The impulse had its origin in our consular service and in the primitive collecting instinct whereby seeds and roots of promising foreign plants were sent to Am'erica for trial. Out of this grew the Department of Agriculture, representing the official determination of America to do whatever could be done administratively to promote agricultural welfare at home and marketing facilities abroad. Again, in the darkest days of our Civil War the United States established the most unique educational system which the world has ever known ; hence this association and the colleges it repre- sents. Aiming at increased production though it does, and national in scope though it is, yet after all, the basis of the system is the education and the initiative of the individual, for it is founded upon instruction of collegiate grade and based upon scientific investigation of the highest order. We could not have a better foundation for the edifice that shall one day stand as emblematical of our national aims and purposes in agriculture than is the education system represented by this Association of American Agricultural Colleges, and there could be no better corner-stone for the structure than the work of the experiment stations connected therewith. But this is only a beginning of a national policy for agri- culture; there yet exists a wide gulf between what these public agencies are doing or can do and what the individual is accom- plishing or able to accomplish under anything like present or prospective conditions. If agriculture is to figure as it must PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 99 figure in a successful democracy, then this gulf must somehow be bridged. It must never be forgotten in this connection that in a suc- cessful democracy occuping territory of continental proportions, approximately one-third of all the people will live upon the land. Moreover, it is this third and not the mass representing organized industry or the fraction representing "business," through which the line of descent will mainly run. Who these people are, therefore, that live upon the land, which third of our population they represent, and what they are thinking about day by day and year by year as the generations come and go, may easily make all the difference between success and failure in the experiment of democratic government, to which all the world now stands committed and in which experiment the United States occupies a position of associated leadership as conspicuous as it was inevitable. Specifically, then, what is it that agriculture needs and does not have but that is essential to the highest success and the greatest safety both of the farming people and of the nation as a whole ? What are some of the things that must be provided from the national end after the individual, by his education, his in- dustry, and his thrift, has done all that may fairly be expected of him, and the State he lives in has done what it can? If agriculture were solely #n individual enterprise we should simply consult the farmer about his needs and desires. But agriculture is more than farming and the public must be party to any policies affecting the production of its food, the manage- ment of its lands, or the social and political welfare of its people. The question, therefore, what does agriculture need? must be divided and considered both from the point of view of the farmer and from that of the public in its largest capacity— that is to say, the nation, present and prospective. First of all, then, what more does the farmer need? If this question should be put to the observer from the parlor car or to the publicist, he would likely say that the farmer needs to work to a better purpose and to be more careful of his equipment; that he doubtless needs more capital as he certainly needs to organize his affairs according to modern business methods, and to know better than he does what things cost him. 100 RURAL SOCIOLOGY But if the same question be asked the farmer, he will have a different answer. He will say that the farmer needs many things which he is powerless to provide but without which the business is becoming less and less desirable from a relative point of view, therefore declining. He will probably say first of all that he wants better ed- ucational opportunities for his children, for as matters stand now they must leave the parental roof at a tender age or else he must uproot his home, abandon his business, and go to town if his children are not to fall behind those of the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker — to be more specific, of the carpenter, the plumber, and the day laborer. But we have the Smith-Hughes bill which in itself is evidence that the public has not only recognized but acknowledged the conditions and begun to correct them — in a wise way too, for in a democracy the people must take the lead or at least carry a part of the burden of all progress. This plan which we have begun is a logical extension of the land-grant idea into the domain of secondary education. We are evidently headed in the right direction at^ this point, but our progress will be insufficient until we succeed in providing for the children of the farm as wholesome, as adequate, and as cultural if not as varied, educational opportunities as are pro- vided in the most favored cities. There are obstacles to be over- come of course, chief of which are the low tax-paying ability of the open country as compared with the congested city, and the high per capita cost of education. But if we are to remain a democracy and be safe, this burden must in some way be assumed by the public and not remain a permanent handicap upon the profession of farming. If it is not so assumed as a national policy and as a part of a national plan, even to the extent of heavily subsidizing rural education, it is inevitable that we shall ultimately have a peasant population on the- farms, and colleges such as ours will have no students of collegiate grade except from among land-holding city residents. It requires no prophet to foresee that when such a time comes democratic institutions will begin to crumble at their foundations. Next to the lack of educational opportunities for his children comparable with those of the city, the farmer will insist that the PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 101 income from his business is inadequate to enable him to main- tain the same scale of living as that provided through other occupations requiring equal or even less preparation, industry, or investment. Pushed for proof, he will reason substantially as follows : All studies in cost accounting show a labor income from farming which in the vast majority of cases is ridiculously small, failing oftener than not to require more than three figures for its ex- pression and recognized by the public 'as a joke. We are not now considering the exceptional man, or what might be done, but we are to study deliberately what the great mass of farmers, our hardest working people, are accomplishing or indeed can accomplish in earning power through the production of staple foods under conditions that have prevailed and that are likely to obtain at the close of the war and afterwards. The farmer will confess that he has long been criticized for tight-fistedness in refusing to pay "decent wages" and that he has thereby lost the bulk of his best labor, even his own sons. He will point out that a Federal milk commission very recently after six weeks' deliberation refused to allow a price that would net him thirty cents an hour for the labor involved in milk pro- duction, even though the same milk was delivered by drivers getting a hundred or more dollars a month with no risks and no expenses. He will point out how severely he has been criticized in the press and from the platform for failure to provide bathrooms in his home and modern conveniences for his wife, whom he loves as other men love their wives ; but he will also point out that the policy which refused him thirty cents an hour for his own labor, permits the plumber in a country town to charge eighty cents (by the latest information, to be exact, eighty-one and one- quarter) with fifty cents for a boy helper, who for the most part does little work, and the like of whom would not be "worth liis salt" upon the farm. This farmer will be able to show also that if he should attempt to pay the minimum wage of Mr. Ford or of the labor unions with an eight-hour day and time and a half for overtime now nvogni/rd by the Federal Government, he would either speedily liis farm or else the cost of food would run to a level un- 102 RURAL SOCIOLOGY approached by the present war prices. Specifically, this would mean that milk would have retailed in Chicago last winter at some seventeen cents a quart instead of twelve, as allowed by a Federal commission, or the thirteen that would have satisfied the farmers, and that present prices of meat and butter would ex- pand some twenty or twenty-five per cent. If he reads the daily papers, as he probably does, this farmer will also point out that under Federal management of the rail- ways, his local station agent (not a telegrapher) has just been granted a minimum wage of ninety-five dollars a month on the basis of an eight-hour day, pro-rata addition for two days over- time and time and a half for further excess. Any good farm laborer can do this work; how, therefore, shall the farmer com- pete at less than thirty cents an hour and with what arguments shall he preserve the independence and initiative of his own son over against a government job, protected by the civil service, backed by a powerful union, and guaranteeing with no invest- ment and no risk a minimum wage far in excess of what the father has ever made upon the farm, with an eight-hour day and time and a half for overtime, spent wholly under shelter and mostly in an armchair ? The situation is illustrated by my own experience within a fortnight wherein a farm laborer protested against his wage of seventy-seven dollars per month upon the ground that his son of seventeen was making one hundred and sixty-five dollars a month in the railroad yards a mile away. There are vast wheat growing regions in this country under- lain by coal deposits. Here fanning and mining come together. Here the farmer's income from wheat growing and the miner's wage may be directly compared. "When this is done, it will be found that the farmer is unable with the most modern machinery and methods to cultivate with his own hands land enough to produce a labor income equal to that of the soft coal miner, working and living in the same neighborhood, trading at the same stores, attending the same churches, and sending his children to the same schools. Here we have a class of artisans largely of alien birth and not yet citizens, but protected in their earning capacity by a power- ful organization whose existence and demands are now recognized PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 103 as a part of our national policy. No preparation is required for their business, nothing is invested, no taxes paid, and no risks assumed except perhaps a slightly, a very slightly, increased hazard of life offset to a considerable degree by easier hours and healthier conditions of work. But the citizen farmer who lives in the same community with the miner, whose children grow up with his own, and who is a manager in a small way, competing in the labor market, must in- vest in land and buildings, tools and livestock. He must pay taxes and insurance and repairs and veterinary fees. He must work often sixteen hours, seldom less than ten, and he must be on duty day and night, ready always to care for his independent plant — all this, and yet in order to receive a labor income equal to that of the soft coftl miner, whether citizen or alien, with no preparation, with nothing invested but a pick and shovel, and with no risk involved, the farmer must not only work himself as no professional laborer ever works, but he must also work his children without pay. The ultimate consequence of this condition needs no exposition here. By as much as this country could not permanently remain half free and half slave, no more can our democracy endure with- out a national policy and plan that will equalize to some degree at least the income from the land and investment in the most perishable of all equipment on the one hand and the rewards of unskilled labor upon the other. But if the profits of farming are so meager, how can we have so many "rich farmers" here and there as to make the term proverbial ? The situation to which this question refers will bear analysis. There are many rich farmers, as riches go among common people, but it will be found upon investigation that they belong to one of four classes, mostly unique or temporary : First. Exceptional men on large farms or else engaged in some branch of specialized farming which by its nature is limited in its application. Second. Men who have inherited their farms and to whom these farms therefore represent a capital investment that cost them nothing. Third. Men who have deliberately raised large families in order to have at hand an abundance of unpaid labor, brutalizing 104 RURAL SOCIOLOGY womanhood from no higher motives than actuated thousands in raising soldiers for the Kaiser. Fourth. Men who have obtained their lands in an early day at a nominal rate, often as low as fifty cents an acre, and who have worked the land "for all that's in it," mining out fertility as the operator mines out coal. Here is where most of the rich fanners will be found — a crop that can be produced once and only once in any country. Whoever knows the conditions that actually obtain in respect to home-building will understand the deep-seated unrest that is becoming wide-spread in this country because of the increasing difficulty in securing ownership to land. To the public generally this is a sealed chapter in the notes of an unwritten history, but to those of us who can remember when there was no "Great West," when Cincinnati was called Porkoplis, and when steers were fed from the open ranges across the prairies to the central market, this is no mystery. We understand perfectly well what the mass of Americans do not know, that until about the opening of the present century, men, women and children worked will- ingly and often cruelly without money and without price for the sake of developing out of nature's raw material "a home of their own." That opportunity has now gone and witli it the impulse to labor for something better than money. Hereafter the farmer, like other people, will have to reckon his income in terms of cash. The wave of land hunger now going up over this country is but the premonition of what is coming if it is to remain as diffi- cult as now for country-minded young families to obtain, within a reasonable period, homes of their own. Here within our midst almost unnoticed and for the most part unknown is growing up a situation of vastly more import to public welfare than are all the questions of merchant marine, trade routes, raw materials, and preferential tariffs combined. The facts are that as matters are going now, land is slipping awa}- from the typical farmer, and his children will soon be disappearing from our colleges. But why be so solicitous about a class of people who cannot or will not take care of themselves ? That is exactly the point. We have now reached a time in world development when we recognize the fact that many very good things cannot take care PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 105 of themselves but must be cared for, even fought for, and that the policy of laissez faire is often fatal to peaceful progress. If the farmer is not satisfied and thinks he can better himself then let him change his profession. Exactly, and that is what he is doing in an alarming proportion of instances, but what about the rest of us, and wherewithal shall we be fed? If farm- ing were a profession engaging but a few thousand people, we might afford to let it alone, but it is our largest industry, engag- ing millions of some kind of citizens. It is a matter of public concern, therefore, both ways, that they be prosperous and gradually evolving with the rest of the world. It is because the farmer as such cannot take care of himself; because we are drifting rapidly away from conditions that pro- mote a stable democracy and toward agrarian revolution, that a national policy about agriculture must be one of the major and not the minor considerations in readjusting the affairs of this disturbed country, which is now, in common with the rest of the world, in a highly fluid condition and ready for the hand of the molder. Whatever is true of farmers as individuals or of farming as a profession, the chief concern about agriculture after all, and the considerations that demand a national policy and plan, fall well within the domain of public welfare. The country as a whole, even more than the average farmer, is concerned about the housing, the sanitary surroundings, and the health of that third of our population which lives upon the farm under what ought to be and what can well be ideal physical and moral conditions for raising the citizens of a democracy. Yet no man will admit that even in this great, new, rich country, with its high percentage of literacy, are these conditions any- where near ideal. Again, the country as a whole is more interested than the average man is likely to be in the kind and amount of education which is to be combined with the wholesome industry that naturally attends upon life in the country, and in so far as either of these considerations is hampered from lack of funds or ideals, the public is bound to supply both, for the class of people is too numerous, its power for good or evil too great, to justify neglect. 106 RURAL SOCIOLOGY The home-building instinct is not only the greatest known incentive to work but it is also the safety clutch for democratic institutions. We have enjoyed a half century of unexampled prosperity, largely because it has been based upon cheap food — food so cheap as not to repay the labor bestowed upon it, to say nothing of capital, of which there was little, or the extraction of fertility, of which there was much. There is nothing that will get so much work out of a man and his family as the desire to own the home that shelters them, and we have capitalized this instinct to the limit, together with an almost total disregard of virgin fertility. This latter component of cheap food is gone; it behooves us now to make the most of the former even though it may somewhat increase the price of food. Under existing conditions farmers will do one of two things : require financial returns comparable with those of other people, or settle back upon the primitive self-sufficing system, producing not a supply but a simple surplus over their own needs. In either case more expensive food is inevitable — in the one instance from an increased initial cost of production and in the other from a reduced supply. From the standpoint, therefore, both of the amount and the price of food it is in every way to the advantage of the public to stimulate the home-building as against the money-making motive among farmers. That way too lies safety for our de- mocracy. To this end it must be made easier for the young people of each and every generation to acquire the ownership of land with such betterments and such opportunities for living and rearing families as may produce ideal Americans. As the land must change operators every generation, it must not be too diffi- cult also to change ownership. And we must go on further in our national plan than to make it easy to acquire ownership in land. "We must care for this land as a national asset and as a perpetual obligation, in the in- terest of future Americans. Ownership means at best but tem- porary control, and whoever carries in his pocket a deed to a portion of the national domain is in reality a tenant at will, and the conditions of his tenantry should be such decent regard to the fertility of the land he occupies as shall insure increasing, not decreasing, productivity. In no other way can the lives and the PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 107 fortunes, in no other way can the domestic peace of the millions of coming Americans be guaranteed. This too must go into the policy. After all, who is The Farmer? And where is the land which he wants? The attempt to answer these questions brings us very near to the crux of the situation. Not far from half the acreage of our better lands is owned by one group and operated by another. Who then is The Farmer? When two families are attempting to live off the same farm, one of them in idleness, or when eleven families are living off ten farms, with whose in- terests do those of the public lie ? In one county of Illinois, twenty per cent, of the farm lands are said to be owned by men who have never seen their properties because they live with other interests on the Atlantic seaboard, collecting rent through agents as they clip coupons from stock certificates. It is said that the estate of Lord Scully is just now raising the rents of some hundreds of thousands of acres of our best prairie land to ten dollars an acre, or about two thousand per cent, annually of the original cost. Investments and betterments? Not a dollar! For the agent is instructed that if the renter wants a house or a pig pen, let him build it. No investments ex- cept in additional land. Here is a mare's nest for hatching trouble, and the tenants are already reported as organizing for resistance. Nobody cares how large is the farm that one man operates — economic limitations will control, and the larger the better so far as the public is concerned. But when a man deliberately acquires not one farm but ten farms, not with the intention of occupying any of them or of producing anything, then the public will one day have something to say about the matter. It dare not do otherwise. We shall always have renters, but shall renting and landlordism become typical in the country as it is now in the cities ? If so, in that direction lies trouble. Specifically the public wants to know and it will one day in- quire whether capital is invested in land from a desire to operate it or merely from a wish to live without labor and at the same time by speculation to grow rich upon the rise of real estate. In no other form are investments of moderate amounts of capital 108 RURAL SOCIOLOGY so influential for weal or woe, not only to men and families, but to the public at large, as are investments in land. For this reason, therefore, in one way or another, investments in land will one day be limited as to amount and prescribed as to condi- tions. In no other way can private ownership be preserved from the general wreck of Bolshevism certain to follow a bad land policy. We all know what has been done in Russia and what is being done in Hungary. We know that England has been forced to control land ownership by limiting the conditions of inheritance, by progressive taxation, and by applying the principle of excess profits. Even so, one of the points insisted upon now by the British Labor Party is the nationalization of land. Among the achievements necessary to insure the proper de- velopment of American agriculture whether from a private or a public point of view, the following at least are of sufficient significance to be considered as fundamental in a national policy. First. Subsidization of country schools to an extent that will insure to every child born upon the farm the opportunity of a good high school education admitting to college, with choice of differentiation along agricultural, mechanical, commercial, scien- tific, or literary lines — and this without leaving the father's roof or breaking up the home and the business. Second. Public recognition of the fact that the farmer is neither a capitalist nor a laborer, as the terms are understood in the commercial world, but a managing operator of a small busi- ness of which the home and the family are integral parts, and therefore entitled to stand in the public esteem as a typical demo- crat, not as a "rube," or even as an eminently useful laborer that should be contented with his lot. Third. Recognition of the fact that the American farmer, as a typical citizen representing our largest and most fundamental industry, and as .our greatest home-builder, is entitled to an in- come comparable with his labor, his investment, and his managerial skill. Fourth. The assurance of this income, not by arbitrary price fixing in defiance of the economic law of supply and demand, not by force, but by conference between producer, distributor, and consumer. PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 109 Fifth. Requirement by law of minimum housing conditions upon rented farms, such conditions to be maintained under a system of adequate inspection. Sixth. The obligation not only to maintain but to increase the fertility of land, this obligation to be equally binding upon landlord and tenant and enforced by public license. Seventh. Recognition of the fact that as between the owner and the operator of the land, the sympathy and support of the public should be with the operator. Eighth. Recognition of the fact that as between the owner- operator, the tenant, and the speculator, the sympathy and sup- port of the public should be with the owner-operator as the typical farmer. Ninth. The elimination from the public mind of the idea that tenantry is to be regarded in America as typical land occupancy or as the ideal road to ownership, theories for nationalization and mutualization of land to the contrary not- withstanding. Tenth. The appropriation of public funds for financing young men in prospective ownership as soon as they shall have fully established a reputation for thrift and shall have ac- cumulated say ten per cent, of the purchase price of productive lands. Eleventh. The establishment of interest rates on funds loaned upon land for home-building purposes that shall be based upon those of the most favorable bond issues, not upon current banking rates for short term loans — rates that cannot be generally realized in farming and that ought not to be realized in the business of producing the staple foods. Twelfth. Discouragement of speculation in land, by means of graduated taxation and if necessary by prohibiting the ac- cumulation of large numbers of farms or other acquisition of land with no intention of occupancy; in other words, the absolute dis- sociation of real estate speculation from farming and from the production of the food of the people. If we are to retain the principle and practice of private ownership, we must not abuse the privilege. Thirteenth. Recognition of agriculture in all its phases as a matter of deep public concern, whether regarded as the ma- 110 RURAL SOCIOLOGY chinery for the production of the food of the people, or as the means of providing ideal conditions for the rearing of children. Fourteenth. Finally, the determination to maintain upon the land the same class of people as are those who constitute the pre- vailing type among the mass of American citizens. Granted that these or some similar principles are not only right but desirable, how may we best set about their realization in the form of a working National Policy ? Upon this point there is interesting material for reflection in the methods by which we have arrived at other convictions that may fairly be called national. Second only to the need of a new national policy regarding any important matter is the method by which in a democracy such new policy may be elevated from the plane of discussion into the realm of conviction and finally established as a per- manent part of our national habit of thought. In this connection it is both interesting and profitable to note with some care the various and diverse processes by which our own particular and characteristic national policies have not only come into being but have developed sufficient strength to determine and to domi- nate the everyday life of the people. For example, our fundamental doctrine that all men are equal in respect to their right of life and the pursuit of happiness, was declared and formally adopted in a document published to the world. WHO IS THE FARMER1 A. M. SIMONS IF we are to select any particular section or type, which shall it be? Shall it be the New England Yankee wresting from his stumpy and rocky soil a niggard subsistence and swapping prod- ucts with his neighbors? If so, when we seek him in his native states we shall find him displaced by French Canadians, Italians and Irish immigrants. If we follow up his children we shall hardly recognize them in the tillers of the broad prairies of the i Adapted from "The American Farmer," p. 15, Kerr, Chicago. (Copy- right holder A. M. Simons.) PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 111 "West with a mind and hospitality as wide and as fertile as the teeming soil beneath their feet. Or is the American farmer best typified by the early pioneer, — that strange combination of hunter, fisher, lumberman, farmer, trapper and scout, now well- nigh extinct, but to whom we owe Lincoln, the best and most typical American citizen? Or shall we find him in the South, amid the cotton, rice and sugar plantations? And if here, is he white or black — a member of ante-bellum aristocracy or "poor white trash"? If purity of American blood is to be the test, the latter will demand first consideration, for in few places is the foreign strain less present than among the moonshining, feud- fighting mountaineers of Kentucky and the Carolinas. Is he cow- boy, rancher or sheep farmer on the Western plains? Or is the typical American farmer the resident of the great arid irrigated belt, a dependent upon a great water company, raising almost fabulous crops and receiving a beggarly return? Or is he the Slav, or Italian, or Dutch truck farmer of the city suburb, work- ing beneath glass and aided by steam and electricity? Or shall we find him upon the dairy and stock farms of Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin? Or is he a fruit farmer, and if so is he in tropic or temperate climes? Is it all of these, or none, or part of each, or a composite picture of the whole that makes up the American farmer ? THE POINT OF VIEW IN COMPARISONS OF CITY AND COUNTRY CONDITIONS1 KENYON L. BUTTERPIELD IN view of this apparent change in the attitude of people toward the farm problem, it may not be idle to suggest some possible errors that should be avoided when we are thinking of rural society. The student will doubtless approach his prob- lem fortified against some misconceptions — he probably has thoughtfully established his view point. But the average per- son in the city is likely to call up the image of his ancestral home i Adapted from "Chapters in Rural Progress," pp. 4-5. ( Copyright by University Chicago Press, 1907.) 112 RURAL SOCIOLOGY of a generation ago, if he were born in the country, or, if not, to draw upon his observation made upon some summer vacation or on casual business trips into the interior. Or he takes his picture from ' ' Shore Acres ' ' and the ' ' Old Homestead. ' ' In any case it is not improbable that the image may be faulty and as a consequence his appreciation of present conditions wholly inade- quate. Let us consider some of these possible sources of mis- conception. In the first place it is not fair to compare the country life as a whole with the best citjr conditions. This is often done. The observer usually has education, culture, leisure, the experience of travel, more or less wealth: his acquaintance is mostly with people of like attainments. When he fails to find a rural en- vironment that corresponds in some degree to his own and that of his friends, he is quick to conclude that the country has noth- ing to offer him, that only the city ministers to the higher wants of man. He forgets that he is one of a thousand in the city, and does not represent average city life. He fails to compare the average country conditions with the average city conditions, manifestly the only fair basis for comparison. Or he may err still more grievously. He may set opposite each other the worst country conditions and the better city conditions. He ought in all justice to balance country slum with the city slum ; and cer- tainly so if he insists on trying to find palaces, great libraries, eloquent preachers, theaters, and rapid transit in rural com- munities. City life goes to extremes ; country life, while varied, is more even. In the country there is little of large wealth, luxury, and ease; little also of extreme poverty, reeking crime, unutterable filth, moral sewage. Farmers are essentially a mid- dle class and no comparison is fair that does not keep this fact ever in mind. We sometimes hear the expression, "Country life is so barren; that to me is its most discouraging aspect." Much country life is barren ; but much more of it is only relatively and not essen- tially so. We must admit that civilization is at least partially veneer; polish does wonders for the appearance of folks as well as of furniture. But while the beauty of "heart of oak" is enhanced by its "finish," its utility is not destroyed by a failure PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 113 to polish it. Now, much of the so-called barrenness of country life is the oak minus the polish. We come to regard polish as essential; it is only relative. And not only may we apply the wrong standard to our situation, but our eyes may deceive us. To the uninitiated a clod of dry earth is the most unpromising of objects — it is cousin to the stone and the type of barrenness. But to the elect it is pregnant with the possibilities of seed-time and harvest, of a full fruitage, of abundance and content for man and beast. And there is many a farm home, plain to the extreme, devoid of the veneer, a home that to the man of the town seems lacking in all the things that season life, but a home which virtue, intelligence, thrift, and courage transform into a garden of roses and a type of heaven. I do not justify neglect of the finer material things of life, nor plead for drab and homespun as passports to the courts of excellence; but I insist that plainness, simple living, absence of luxury, lack of polish that may be met with in the country, do not necessarily accom- pany a condition barren of the essentials of the higher life. Sometimes rural communities are ridiculed because of the trivial nature of their gossip, interests and ambitions. There may be some justice in the criticism, though the situation is pathetic rather than humorous. But is the charge wholly just? In comparing country with town we are comparing two environ- ments; necessarily, therefore, objects of gossip, interests, and ambitions differ therein. We expect that. It is no criticism to assert that fact. The test is not that of an existing difference, but of an essential quality. Is not Ben Bolt's new top buggy as legitimate a topic for discussion as is John Arthur Smythe's new automobile? Does not the price of wheat mean as much to the hard-working grower as to the banker who may never see a grain of it? May not the grove at Turtle Lake yield as keen enjoyment as do the continental forests? Is the ambition to own a fine farm more ignoble than the desire to own shares in a copper mine? It really does not matter so much what one gossips about or what one's delights are or what the carvings on the rungs of ambition's ladder; the vital question is the effect of these things on character. Do they stunt or encourage the inner life? It must be admitted that country people do not al- 114 RURAL SOCIOLOGY ways accept their environing opportunities for enjoying the higher life of mind and heart. But do they differ in this respect from their cousins of the town ? SOLDIER SETTLEMENTS IN ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES * ELWOOD MEAD ALL English-speaking countries except the United States have passed special soldier settlement legislation and made appropria- tions therefor. "Where good free land exists he is usually given assistance in the individual purchase of private land, or such private land is purchased by the State in blocks. In countries like England, New Zealand, Victoria, and New South Wales it is largely a question of resuming land. When land-settlement boards do not already exist they have had to be created, except in the case of Ontario and some of the other Canadian Provinces, which are using their minister of lands, their agricultural, and forestry departments for this purpose. Handling applications and placing soldiers is largely decen- tralized and in the hands of voluntary local committees. The English and Canadian method of settlement is to estab- lish central farms on which to try out crops, to employ and train settlers, stock them with animals and implements for the use of the settlers, and about these farms to lay out farm blocks of varying dimensions. The Australian plan is to follow the policy of closer settlement already laid down and so successfully prosecuted. Explicit data concerning total appropriations are not avail- able. The usual method is to start the work with a small appro- priation and to add to it as required. In the case of Canadian Provinces and the Dominion, funds come from an appropriation for general development, probably derived from taxation; in England it is a disbursement from the treasury; in New Zea- land and Australia the funds are derived wholly from the sale of bonds in the London market. i Adapted from Bulletin. Department of the Interior, U. S. Reclamation Service (1919). PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 115 In the two countries where a Federal Government exists, namely, Canada and Australia, tentative steps have been taken toward working out a cooperative plan the general nature of which is for the general Government to supply the land and to supervise its division, and maybe control. A general board has been appointed in each case and on which each of the states or provinces is represented. Undoubtedly When the period of de- mobilization approaches this plan in the case of Canada and Aus- tralia will be carried out in great detail. Aid to the soldier takes a variety of forms. There are, first, the allowances which are given a soldier for himself and family in the probationary period of working and beginning of expe- rience; under this head might be mentioned transportation which all of the countries offer the soldiers when they are travel- ing to training stations or to the land ; second, either the giving of land or the pricing it to the soldier at the cost of purchase and subdivision; third, the supplying of advice, guidance and instructions by all countries; fourth, the supply of grading, farm tools and sometimes farm animals free or at cost (under this head may be mentioned the supply of seeds and fertilizers) ; fifth, credit advances for the taking up of mortgages and incum- brances, for clearing, leveling, and ditching of lands, for erec- tion of fences, buildings, barns and houses, for the building of homes; sixth, assistance in the organization of cooperative buy- ing and selling associations and the giving of whatever aid the State Governments ought to give in this direction. In every instance the payments for the purchase of the land or for the reimbursement to the State for advances are stretched over a long period of time. The period of payment varies from 20 years, as in the case of Ontario, to 36 V^ years, which is the case in the Australian States. Advances for stock and develop- ments are repayable in from 10 to 25 years. The interest charged is seldom more than ^ cent more than the interest paid on public securities. In Canada freehold rights prevail In England the perpetual lease predominates. In New Zealand both the lease and the freehold are given. In Australia some of the States, such as New South Wales, South Australia, and Queensland, do not give a freehold title. The occupier pays a rent of about l1/^ per 116 RURAL SOCIOLOGY cent, of the capital value of the land and receives a perpetual lease which is inheritable and, under certain restrictions, trans- ferable. The other States offer a freehold title or a lease. The governments of all these countries are not inclined to part with their grazing lands or lands that are suitable for further sub- divisions. They are usually leased for short or long terms. In nearly all cases, while the soldier is not legally required to maintain a residence, he can not lease his land or transfer it within a stated period and he can not meet his payments on the advances received unless he is giving his whole attention to his land. Residence, therefore, is practically assured. The selection of soldiers and the advice they receive is largely in the hands of local committees in the case of Canada, England, and Australia. Such local committees are usually expected to give their advice in the selection of lands to be purchased by the State. Some training of the soldier in agriculture, and some practi- cal farm experience is always expected. Such training and ex- perience are obtainable from three sources: Employment on farms, from agricultural colleges, or from farms associated with the colony enterprise. The legislative acts in all countries are practically complete. The organization for the administration of the acts is largely completed. Some private lands have been purchased and public lands set aside by all the English-speaking countries. It is not possible at this time to give a table of the amount of land so acquired. THE FARMER IN RELATION TO THE WELFARE OF THE WHOLE COUNTRY * THEODORE ROOSEVELT THERE is but one person whose welfare is as vital to the wel- fare of the whole county as is that of the wage-worker who does manual labor ; and that is the tiller of the soil — the farmer. If there is one lesson taught by history it is that the permanent i From "The Man Who Works With His Hands," U. S. D. A., Office of Secretary, Circ. 24. 1912. PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 117 greatness of any State must ultimately depend more upon the character of its country population than upon anything else. No growth of cities, no growth of wealth, can make up for a loss in either the number or the character of the farming popula- tion. In the United States more than in almost any other coun- try we should realize this and should prize our country popula- tion. When this Nation began its independent existence it was as a Nation of farmers. The towns were small and were for the most part mere sea- coast trading and fishing ports. The chief industry of the country was agriculture, and the ordinary citizen was in some way connected with it. In every great crisis of the past a peculiar dependence has had to be placed upon the farm- ing population ; and this dependence has hitherto been justified. But it can not be justified in the future if agriculture is per- mitted to sink in the scale as compared with other employments. We can not afford to lose that preeminently typical American, the farmer who owns his own farm. BIBLIOGRAPHY Antrim, Ernest I. Fifty Million Strong. Pioneer Press, Van Wert, 0., 1916. Anderson, W. L. The Country Town. Baker, N. Y., 1906. Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 40, March, 1912. Bailey, L. H. The Country Life Movement. Macmillan, N. Y., 1911. Cyclopedia of American Agric., Vol. IV. Farm and Communitv, Macmillan, N. Y., 1909. The State and the Farmer, Macmillan, N. Y., 1908. Bookwalter, J. W. Rural vs. Urban, Knickerbocker, N. Y., 1910. Buck, S. J. The Granger Movement. Harvard Univ. Press, Cam- bridge, 1913. Butterfleld, K. L. Chapters in Rural Progress. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1907. Farmer and the New Day, Macmillan, N. Y., 1919. Carver, T. N. Principles of Rural Economics, Ginn, Boston, 1911. Carver, T. N. Selected Readings in Rural Economics. Ginn, Boston, 1916. Country Life Commission (Report). Sturgis, N. Y., 1909. Davenport, E. Education for Efficiency. Heath, Boston, 1909. Douglass, Harlan Paul. The Little Town. Macmillan, N. Y., 1919. Fiske, G. W. The Challenge of the Country. Association Press, N. Y., 1912. Gillette, John M. Constructive Rural Sociology. Sturgis, N. Y., 1912. Groves, Ernest R. Rural Problems of To-day. Association Press, N. Y., 1918. 118 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Hart, J. K. Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communi- ties. Macmillan, N. Y., 1013. Herrick, M. T. Rural Credits, Land and Cooperative. Appleton, N. Y., 19M. Howe, Fred. The Land and the Soldier. Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1919. Morman, J. B. Rural Credits. Macmillan, N. Y., 1915. Nourse, E. G. Agricultural Economies. The Univ. Chicago Press, 1916. Plunkett, Sir Horace. The Rural Life Problem of the United States. Macmillan, N. Y., 1910. Proceedings of the First National Country Life Conference. Balti- more, 1919. Pub. by Secy. Natl. Country Life Association, Ith- aca, N. Y. Proceedings of the Natl. Conference of Social Work, Pittsburgh, 1917, 315 Plymouth Court, Chicago, 111. Roberston, J. W. -Conservation of Life in Rural Districts. Assoc. Press, N. Y., 1911. Ross, E. A. Folk Depletion as a Cause of Rural Decline. Pub. Am. Sociological Society 11 : 21-30, 1916. Sociology of Rural Life. American Sociological Society, Vol. XI, 1916. Taylor, H. C. Agricultural Economics. Macmillan, N. Y., 1912. Vincent, Geo. E. Countryside and Nation. Pub. Am. Sociological • Society, 11 : 1-11, 1916. Vogt, Paul L. Introduction to Rural Sociology. Appleton, N. Y., 1917. Weld, L. D. H. Marketing of Farm Products. Macmillan, N. Y., 1916. Wilson, W. H. Evolution of the Country Community. Pilgrim, Bos- ton, 1912. Country versus City. Pub. Am. Sociological Soc., 11 : 12-20, 1916. CHAPTER VI SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS A. COOPERATION THE MORAL BASIS OF COOPERATION l THOMAS N. CARVER So far as I know, everybody agrees that cooperation would be a good thing. Nevertheless, there is little cooperation as yet. If we all agree that it is a good thing, why do we not cooperate? This is a question which has puzzled many of us. I believe I have one or two suggestions which go pretty nearly to the root of the matter. The causes of this lack of cooperation are funda- mentally moral, and we must attack the problem at this point before we can make much progress. All problems hang in clus- ters. You can't separate from our moral problems the eco- nomic problems that all hang on the same stem. I believe if you will look about your own neighborhood you will find that if you have a neighbor who is very careful about his own rights and your obligations, he is not an easy neighbor to work with. These two things mean the same. His rights are your obliga- tions, his obligations are your rights. They are different names for the same thing, different sides for the same shield. Suppose you are the same way. You two will never get along together and work together in this world. A whole community made up of people of this kind will never cooperate. On the other hand, if your neighbor is very careful of his obligations and your rights, he is easy to get along with. And if you are very care- ful of your obligations and his rights, you are also easy to get along with. You two can work together peaceably and amicably. A whole neighborhood made up of people of that kind can work together and cooperate. Here is some work for the moral and religious agencies. i Adapted from "Proceedings of National Farmers' Congress," p. 101. 119 120 RURAL SOCIOLOGY There is a story of an aged savage who, after having lived in civilized communities most of his life, returned in his old age to his native tribe, saying that he had tried civilization for forty years and it wasn't worth the trouble. Much of the philosophy of civilization is summed up in that remark. Civilization con- sists largely in making trouble. Genius, in the individual, has been said to consist in the capacity for taking pains in one's work. It is this capacity which marks the superior race as well as the superior individual. They who find the taking of pains too burdensome to be borne, will naturally decide that civiliza- tion is not worth the trouble. They who do not find it so very burdensome to take pains, will naturally decide that civilization is worth the trouble, and will therefore become civilized. This principle applies to every stage of civilization and prog- ress. The greatest advancement is made by those who are cap- able of taking the greatest pains. It applies especially to agri- cultural progress. It is more trouble to select than not to select seed, and to select it in the field than in the bin. It is more trouble to test cows than to not test them, to keep accounts than not to keep them, to diversify or rotate crops than not to diver- sify or rotate, to mix fertilizers intelligently than to buy them already mixed, to cooperate with one's pig-headed neighbors, especially if he himself is a little pig-headed, than to go to it alone. It is also more profitable. In all these and a multitude of other cases it is found that it pays to take trouble. Suppose we can secure a higher development of these two moral qualities: first, the deep sense of loyalty and obligation to the neighborhood; and second, the willingness and capacity for taking trouble. Then I believe the cooperative movement among farmers would make rapid headway. FARMERS' COOPERATIVE EXCHANGES1 ALEXANDER E. CANCE WITHIN the past few years very much has been said and writ- ten about the unprofitableness of agriculture, and on the other i Adapted from Bulletin of the Extension Service, Massachusetts Agricul- tural College, Amherst, 1914. SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 121 hand much complaint has been made of the high cost of living and the desperate straits of the consumer. Many causes have been advanced to account for this state of affairs, but probably none more frequently than the somewhat vague accusation that the middlemen take all the profits. It is asserted that the farmer must take what he is offered for his products and pay what he is asked for his supplies and equip- ment— that he fixes the price neither of what he sells nor what he buys. In a general way and considering farmers individ- ually, this is undoubtedly true. When it is said that this is due to the machinations of predatory middlemen the statement needs some qualifications. In the main, the system of middlemen has arisen and developed with the growth of farming for the market. As soon as farmers began to give up producing solely for themselves and to raise crops to sell, the question of means of disposal of crops became very important. One of the first middlemen was the local buyer, often the storekeeper, who took the farmer's produce, sold him dry goods, groceries and supplies, and in his turn passed the corn and eggs, feathers and honey, on to the user or manufacturer. But division of occupations and industries resulting in the growth of cities and the concentration of population on the one hand and the call for more raw materials of agriculture on the other, gradually separated the countryman from the urban dweller geographically, commercially and socially. Commer- cially the division meant that the farmer must devote himself to growing crops and producing raw materials of food and clothing, that the manufacturer and artisan give themselves up to their vocations; hence of necessity there grew up a lot of marketmen, transporters, storage men, purveyors and the like, who made a business of getting goods from the farmer to the consumer and from the manufacturer to the farmer. This body of men holds a strategic position which has been strengthened by combination, capital investments, natural and trade monopolies, and a beneficent Congress. It is not difficult to understand that they are powerful because they have by organization and superior bargaining ability come to dominate ll'L' RURAL SOCIOLOGY almost the entire trade in raw materials and manufactured products. It is only natural that the middlemen should endeavor to in- crease their gains by buying cheap and selling dear, that they should specialize and multiply as the wants of consumers grow and the sources of supplies become more and more distant. The widening gap between the farmer and the users of the farmer's product makes a place for a large number of go-betweens. Aside from the fact that these men are specialists in their various activities, that they furnish the money to store and distribute the products of producers, to find markets and facili- tate trade, they have* in many instances taken over all the mar- keting activities of the farmer. They often purchase apples upon the tree, pick them, grade them, pack them and ship them, severing all connection between the farmer and his product be- fore his fruit is harvested. Differing somewhat in degree, the same may in many instances be said of tobacco, live stock, poul- try, eggs, potatoes, grain, etc. The farmer buys his fertilizer and feed prepared, mixed, bagged, labeled, delivered by the re- tail dealer into his wagon and paid 'for by the dealer, who gives the farmer credit. The farmer is a producer of goods, nothing more. Possibly that is sufficient, but if so, he should be an in- telligent producer, purchasing shrewdly and selling his produce at a rea'sonable margin of profit. Now it is very evident that farm methods are improving; the farmer is a better producer than he was years ago. But it is also evident that much of the advantage he has gained through education, applied science, government aid, better equipment and more intelligent practice, has been altogether lost because he has not been able to dispose of his crop or to buy his supplies and equipments advantageously. In some agricultural industries in the United States and al- most everywhere in Europe, farmers have secured great financial advantages and acquired a keen sense of business by combining their interests, by buying and selling together. In some coun- tries the results of cooperative business methods are marvelous. Denmark has become rich and world-famous, and little Ireland, for years known as the very poorest agricultural country in Eu- rope, has made remarkable progress, simply because the farmers SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 123 of these countries have learned to sell their products in a business- like way and buy their agricultural requirements together. They give their attention to production but they also see to it that their products are sold intelligently and wisely by their own paid agents. The farmer cannot very well learn all there is to know about any market but a hundred farmers can hire a marketing expert to handle their products and can afford to pay him a good salary out of increased returns that otherwise would go to a host of middlemen. The market of to-day demands two or three very simple things of the producer. One of the first and simplest is that the quality of the product be dependable. The market desires such products as are of known quality, whether this quality be first, second or third. One great reason why farmers do not receive the highest price for their crops is that they have not learned to ship to the market uniform grades or qualities. When, for example, a barrel of apples is packed it is likely to contain apples of the first grade, second grade and culls; perhaps a large part of the barrel cannot be used at all. The second barrel may be just like the first or it may be something very different. In the second place, the market demands a neat and uniform package. Every marketman in the country complains of the fact that farmers have little real business sense in the matter of putting up their products in packages. One finds potatoes com- ing into the market some in barrels, some in boxes, some in bags, some in other packages of every description and degree of de- crepitude. A uniform, neat and tasty package suited to the commodity which it contains is a great factor in increasing the price of the product. In the third place, the market wants products shipped reg- ularly in quantities sufficient to supply the demand. It is no little matter to the marketman that he can get all the potatoes he wants one week and cannot get any the next. What he de- sires is, perhaps, a carload of potatoes every other day for six months and a carload every three days for the other six months. At any rate, it is essential that he receive his shipments regularly from the shipper. These simple essentials — dependable goods, packed uniformly and neatly, well graded, shipped regularly in sufficient quantities 124 RURAL SOCIOLOGY to meet the demand, can hardly bo supplied by the small indi- vidual farmer : and because they tfannot be supplied in that way, the marketman and consumer naturally go to the jobber to get their goods. The jobber pays the farmer as small a price as he can and charges the consumer as high a price as he can for his costly services of packing, grading and distributing the prod- uct uniformly. European farmers in England, Ireland, Denmark and other countries found themselves confronted with the same marketing conditions which the farmers of the United States have found. They struggled with it just as the farmers of the United States are struggling, but unlike the majority of the farmers of the United States, they struggled to some effect. The farmers of the Old World are small farmers. Not many of them produce more than a mere handful of products of any one sort. Some of them found themselves with no home market and were obliged to ship their products across the seas into foreign countries. Some of them found an organized opposition to the sale of their goods in other countries. Nevertheless, the -European farmers in the countries mentioned found the way out by organizing themselves into small cooperative selling associations. By pool- ing their products they were able to facilitate their marketing because, in the first place, they were able to pack uniformly, supply the market sufficiently and regularly, and because of the supply which they controlled, they were able to meet success- fully organized opposition to their interests. No other poultry in the world is packed as well as Danish poultry ; no other eggs are graded as well as Danish eggs ; there is no bacon that commands a higher price than Danish bacon. This is true chiefly because Danish poultry, Danish eggs, and Danish bacon are skillfully packed, uniformly graded and shipped regularly under the guarantee of the shipper. It is known the world over that this cooperation has been the salva- tion of Danish agriculture, that the farmer of Denmark is to-day the most important man in his country and is important chiefly because he has known how to organize. It is said that the number of cooperative organizations in Denmark is four times the number of farmers; that is to say, on the average, each far- mer in Denmark belongs to four cooperative organizations. SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 125 In Ireland and England cooperative buying and selling have not yet reached the perfection they have in Denmark. Never- theless, the Irish farmer has for some years been selling his bacon, eggs and poultry on the markets of the world very suc- cessfully because he has been shipping them through his local cooperative societies. The United States has lagged somewhat behind in the matter of cooperative endeavor among farmers; nevertheless, there are some examples of very successful cooperation even in our own country. Perhaps nowhere in the world is there a stronger sell- ing organization than the California Fruit Growers' Exchange. The Exchange has passed through various vicissitudes and has met successfully the most serious opposition from railroads, com- mission men and other opposing interests. It is now so strongly entrenched in handling the citrus fruit of the Far West that it is a mere truism to say that without it citrus fruit growing on the Pacific Coast would be an utter failure. The Hood River and other northwestern apple-shipping asso- ciations have been almost as successful in marketing apples as the citrus fruit men have in handling their California oranges. The Hood River apple growers have a world-wide reputation for neat and uniform packages of thoroughly dependable apples which are absolutely guaranteed to the consumer. These apples are packed by authorized inspectors and shipped by experts. They are sold on the markets of the world by agents of the fruit growers' association and all the returns for the apples go to the grower after deducting the charges of transportation and the services of agents employed by the association itself. Moreover, the truck growers of the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf region have made use of associated selling for some years. The example of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Produce Exchange is most worthy of imitation. Beginning a few years ago with a number of disgruntled farmers who had been shipping their per- ishable products individually to the markets of Philadelphia and other cities, it has grown to be one of the strongest marketing associations in the United States, doing millions of dollars worth of business and putting upon the market products guaranteed by the Exchange in which the commission men and retailers have the utmost confidence. 126 RURAL SOCIOLOGY These cooperative associations, in fact, are becoming more and more numerous wherever specialized products, usually of a per- ishable nature, must be put upon a market at some distance. Wherever they have been established successfully they have suc- ceeded in bringing to the producer a higher price for his product, a cheaper charge for transportation, a more dependable and a wider market, and consequently an increased prosperity. On the other hand, the consumer has been able to get a product of standard and dependable grade at a price not exceeding very greatly, if at all, the price which he paid for a poorly graded product unreliable in quality. Nowhere is it more true that "In union there is strength" than in the shipment of perishable products to commission men. The united farmers have been able to protect themselves in a way the isolated individual farmer could never hope to do, against commission men, transportation agencies, and other al- lied interests. The fact that they were arble to choose between twenty or thirty different markets during the season gave them an added advantage in selling their products. Cooperation among farmers in New England has never been very enthusiastically received although it must be said that several very successful farmers' cooperative societies, both for purchase and for sale of products, have been formed in our east- ern states. Some of the alleged reasons for the lack of enthus- iasm on the part of our New England farmers are first, the in- dividualism of the farmer, his desire to do his own marketing and to make his own bargains, and perhaps his dislike of inter- fering in his neighbor's business or to permit his neighbor to interfere in what he considers private matters. As a matter of fact, the old independent farmer about whom so much has been said has practically gone out of existence. The farmer of to-day depends upon his market quite as much as the grocer does. His products are frequently prepared for market, shipped to mar- ket, handled by marketmen in precisely the same way as are the products of the manufacturer. Consequently the farmer is interested in the amount his neighbor sells and in the quantity the consumer in his marketing town purchases. He is interested in railroads, transportation, banking, and all means of exchange, and the markets of the world measurably affect him. SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 127 In the second place, it is said that the farmer has not sufficient business ability to conduct a cooperative organization. While this is true in a number of instances, it should not be true of the farmers of New England who are said to be as shrewd bargainers as any farmers in the world. The farmers of New England are intelligent and should be as enterprising and as capable of han- dling the cooperative associations as the farmers of Ireland, the farmers of Denmark or the farmers of Texas. Another legitimate reason for the failure of cooperative or- ganizations among farmers has been the fact that most organiza- tions of farmers have had so many purposes that the real object of the association has become obscured. This has been one diffi- culty in the formation of business cooperative associations by the Grange. Again, too, a good many of these cooperative so- cieties have failed because the members of them have had no common interest ; a cooperative organization is a very simple thing but each should be composed of men who are bound to- gether by some common interest. A large number of purposes or objects is likely to defeat the whole end and aim of a business enterprise. One of the first essentials to successful cooperation is suffi- cient material in a given community with which to do a coopera- tive business. On the other hand, for purposes of cooperation, it is alto- gether best that the cooperating area be rather small. It is much easier for a number of farmers in a small community to organize for purposes of purchase or sale than it is for the far- mers scattered over a county or two counties to organize. Con- sequently intending cooperators might well consider the growing of one or two special crops by all the members of the cooperative association. The third great essential to cooperation is loyalty. There is no use considering a cooperative society unless the members are loyal to the association even to the point of suffering some loss for the sake of keeping the association alive and prosperous. This loyalty is one of the most noticeable features of cooperative societies abroad and of successful cooperative societies in the United States. The members uphold their societies against all charges, furnish the required raw material even when the coop- 128 RURAL SOCIOLOGY erative society pays them less than they could receive outside, and sometimes even when cooperative selling is not always a< successful as individual selling. The fourth essential is singleness of purpose. Tt is true that a great many of the cooperative societies in the United States both buy and sell but it is also true that most of these successful so- cieties are organized either for buying or for selling only. A cooperative society should be organized to sell apples, or to buy feeds, fertilizers or other agricultural requirements, or to store cabbages or onions, and if these same farmers desire to cooper- ate with others for some other purpose they should form a sec- ond association. The fifth essential is incorporation. Nearly every success- ful cooperative society in the United States and many abroad are incorporated under state laws. The incorporation of a so- ciety is a simple matter but very many fine results accompany it. In the first place, the management is a board of directors definitely provided for in the articles of incorporation. In the second place, an incorporated society cannot go out of business during the limit of time fixed by the articles of incorporation, whereas, a society organized otherwise may stop business at any time, frequently with disastrous results. In the third place, the members of an incorporated society are liable for the debts of the society only in proportion to the number of shares which they have taken ; and finally, the incorporated society is subject to the inspection of the state and all its business must be con- ducted on approved business lines. The sixth essential is paid, efficient management. A great many of our cooperative societies have gone to the wall because the management was inferior or because the management was in too many hands. The best societies in the United States, in fact almost the only societies that are successful, are those that have a single manager. Moreover, if this manager does any business at all and is at all capable he should be paid and well paid. Managers of some of the larger cooperative societies are paid remarkably good salaries. For example, the manager of one of the vegetable exchanges is receiving $10,000 a year. The seventh essential is absolute publicity regarding the af- fairs of the society; this includes a full and complete oversight SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 129 of the books, papers, and policies of the exchange by its mem- bers and, in addition, a careful supervision of the accounts at stated intervals. Another essential to successful cooperation is that the business be done as far as possible on a cash basis. Extension of credit has been a rock on which a good many otherwise successful or- ganizations have been wrecked beyond repair. The temptation to extend credit to members or to outside interests is very great, and though sometimes a credit business may be carried on very successfully, in general it is decidedly safer to make all business cash business. A corollary to this is that sufficient cash should be provided to carry on the work of the exchange effectively. Finally, every cooperative association should be organized on strictly cooperative principles. A number of cooperative so- cieties, both in this country and abroad, are merely joint stock companies, and some of them are operating more or less suc- cessfully. Nevertheless, there are some principles which are es- sential to the true spirit of cooperative endeavor and which, in the long run, give better financial and social results than others. THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF COOPERATION The essential difference between a cooperative society and a joint stock company is this: A joint stock company is a com- bination of capital or shares. Capital is invested in the busi- ness and all the profits are supposed to accrue from the use of capital, consequently all profits are returned as dividends to the shareholders. It makes no difference whether the dividend be 2 per cent, or 20 per cent, or 200 per cent., it is distributed among the men who hold the shares. Again, the men who hold the capital stock in a joint stock company are the men who do the voting. They do not vote as men, they vote as shares ; the man who has ten shares has ten votes; he who has but two shares has two votes; the thought being that the more shares a man has the more powerful he should be in determining the policy of the company. Now the principle of a cooperative society is fundamentally different. A cooperative society recognizes the need of capital but it also recognizes the fact that a reputable concern may ob- tain capital anywhere at the ruling rate of interest. The ruling 130 RURAL SOCIOLOGY rate of interest is now between 5 and 6 per cent. Why should a man who invests only his money in any business receive more than the 5 or 6 per cent, that is recognized as legitimate pay- ment for capital, the rate that a bank will charge? So in a strictly cooperative society it is agreed that capital shall be paid merely the ruling rate of interest, say 6 per cent., and that all further profits shall be returned to the men who have supplied the business of the cooperative society, on the basis of the amount of business they have furnished. That is to say, in the coopera- tive creamery, the profits will be distributed among the mem- bers who have furnished milk to the creamery, in proportion to the amount of milk they have furnished. The man who has purchased shares will draw 6 per cent, on his capital invest- ment, but the men who have been responsible for the success of the exchange will receive whatever profits there are in accord- ance with the amount of business they have done. In the next place, the cooperative society is democratic ; it is a union not of shares, but a union of individuals. Instead of allowing each share to have a vote, each man is given one vote. The principle is this : It is believed that each member, no mat- ter what his contribution to the capital of the association, has as much right to vote concerning its policies as any other share- holder; just as a citizen, no matter how many children he has or whether he has any children at all, has a right to vote for school officers. In a democracy every man has a vote ; so it is in a cooperative society. One man, one vote. Further than this, the cooperative society recognizes that there should be a limitation on the amount of capital stock any man may control. Surely, in a cooperative society the capital should be contributed by members approximately according to the amount of business which each man expects to do with the society. If a cooperative soc-iety is established with 200 shares, it is quite legitimate to say that no member shall hold more than one-tenth of the total number or twenty shares. This keeps the shares well distributed and makes for democracy. Another point of importance is the transfer of shares. It is ordinarily unwise to have men investing money in a cooperative concern in which they are not interested. A cooperative so- ciety, in the first place, should be formed of men who are inter- SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 131 ested in a particular line of cooperation. Consequently, when any member drops out and wishes to dispose of his shares, he should not be permitted to sell them to any person he pleases for, in that case, he might sell them to some person opposed to the interests of the cooperative society. Hence, the proviso that a member may not make a transfer of his shares that is not first approved by the board of directors. These are the fundamentals upon which a cooperative society should be founded. If placed on this foundation, and the mem- bers remain loyal, success is reasonably assured. SOCIAL EFFECTS OF COOPERATION IN EUROPE * CHARLES O. GILL THE expansion and magnitude of the cooperative movement are no more impressive than are its social effects. In mention- ing these it is not intended to give the impression that in every community where there is a cooperative society all the good results are observable which are commonly attributed to co- operation. Doubtless large numbers of cooperators think chiefly of the reduced cost of their purchases, of the higher prices they have received for their products, or of other material benefits. But it is none the less true that in this economic movement the application to business of certain ethical principles of a high character has produced a variety of other good results which also are well worth consideration. The good results of cooperation among the poor farmers in Europe are incalculably great. It has emancipated them from the usurer. In many places small farmers had never known freedom from oppressive creditors until the founding of rural co- operative institutions. By these they have been released from tliis bondage. Whole communities of people have been ernanci- palcd. By capitalizing the common honesty of the poor, cooper- ation has secured for the small farmer at the lowest rates of interest, money to be used by him for productive purposes while i Adapted from Report of Commissions, pp. 127-143. Federal Council of the Chun-lies of Christ in America. Missionary Education Movement of the U. S. and Canada, N. Y., 1916. 132 RURAL SOCIOLOGY the time fixed for payment is well suited to his convenience and to the needs of his occupation. Agricultural cooperation in dis- tribution has enabled the farmer to work for his own support instead of for the .support of a large number of superfluous dis- tributors who constituted an enormous burden resting upon his shoulders. Before the introduction of the cooperative system the small farmer in all business operations had been discriminated against. He had been forced to buy inferior goods at high prices and to sell his products at prices unreasonably low. Probably the farmer's business was the only one where products were sold at wholesale while its requirements were purchased at retail prices. But cooperation has changed all this. It has enabled the small farmer to place himself on a level with the large farmer in producing articles of good quality as well as in the matter of prices received for them. It has enabled the smallest holders to obtain at moderate prices goods of guaranteed quality. Thus while it promotes efficiency on the farm, cooperation secures freedom in the market and so contributes to the highest life in the home. Agricultural cooperative societies engage in many benevolent enterprises for their members. The Raiffeisen banks in Ger- many, for example, support infant and continuation schools. They furnish the ordinary schools with maps, musical instru- ments and other equipment. They make grants to village libraries, organize circles for reading and acting and establish evening clubs and clubs for juvenile members. They conduct village institutes, build meeting halls and establish children's savings banks, telephone services and arbitration courts. They appoint local cattle shows and hold regular meetings at which instructive lectures on cooperation and agriculture and other topics are delivered. They form gymnastic societies and bath- ing establishments, cattle and poultry breeding societies, singing societies, local nursing centers, infant aid associations and anti- consumption leagues, -and engage in other good works of great variety. Not only does the increased prosperity of cooperators secure for them better education through the ordinary channels but the special facilities provided by the society, the training in doing cooperative business, together with mutual association SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 133 under these favorable conditions, ^the close contact and associa- tion with the larger world which cooperation always assures, all result in intellectual development and help to increase the in- telligence and add to the fund of general information of the co- operators. It has been observed both in country and in city that coopera- tion has a most marked effect on the promotion of thrift. The cooperative society provides the farmer with the means of pur- suing productive enterprises and consequently he engages in them. He gets out of debt and as a rule begins to save. In the urban movement it is often the case that the hard drinking la- borer who is head of a wretched family is induced to trade with the cooperative society and finds in a few months that he has money to his credit drawing interest. It is likely that he has never had in his possession money enough to supply his family with food for a week in advance. But his accumulated savings give him hope and he is encouraged to save further. Many a man of this sort, whose original investment had been only a dollar and twenty-five cents, eventually has acquired as much as five hundred dollars. The condition of his family of course becomes greatly improved. When a man begins to save, his money, instead of going into the dram shop, is invested in the cooperative institution. In the country as well as in the city the wastefulness and the evil effects of alcoholic intemperance become recognized and the influence of the cooperative society is thrown against it. In Dungloe, Ireland, the cooperative store is the only one in the village which does not sell spirituous liquors, though it is doing a larger business than any other drug store. In another place where the people wished to form a cooperative society and run a store for household goods the Irish Agricultural Organization Society refused assistance because the people who desired to co- operate thought it necessary to sell whiskey in order to hold their business in competition with the other stores, all of which engaged in the liquor traffic. In Austrlfcsand Hungary the priests are the more active in the promotion of the cooperative movement because the members spend their evenings in the co- operative society rooms instead of in the public houses. In Bel- gium the influence of the cooperative societies is strongly used 134 RURAL SOCIOLOGY in favor of abstinence from strong drinks. In nearly all the cafes and restaurants connected with the cooperative institutions spirits are not sold while customers are encouraged to drink light beer or non-alcoholic beverages. Thus the cooperative movement has become one of the strongest movements in the old world both in city and in country for the promotion of tem- perance. One of the most marked effects of the movement is the pro- motion of business integrity. This is a matter of common ob- servation and experience and is well known throughout the co- operative world. For example where there is a small rural cooperative credit society, a person ordinarily cannot borrow from it unless he has acquired a reputation for reliability. As a consequence a loan comes as a certificate of character, while a refusal of one may well be a cause of serious reflection on the part of the would-be borrower. As a result, people learn to care more for their character and reputation in their dealings with one another. It becomes manifest to all that honesty is an essential quality for business efficiency. In agricultural cooperation high prices are secured only be- cause the good quality of the produce is guaranteed by the so- ciety. Any member who fails to conform to the standard will be fined or excluded from its privileges. The consumer and the careful producer therefore are protected from loss resulting from the misrepresentation of the careless or dishonest producer. By making the producer more careful, much waste and injustice is avoided, while it is continually being demonstrated that a high standard of business morality in the individual is an as- set both for himself and for his community. The promotion of honesty by the cooperative movement comes also more directly through the atmosphere it creates. Coopera- tive business promotes what is called the cooperative spirit. It is a consciousness of brotherhood. Under its influence one does not wish to injure one's neighbor. Cheating and sharp practice are so out of place and altogether discordant with the cooperative spirit as to insure their infrequency. The independence, courage and self-respect, induced by free- dom from debt, material prosperity, thrift, and temperance are also increased by reason of membership in a firmly knitted self- SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 135 help association of responsibility and power. In one community visited it was remarked to the investigator that you can tell a cooperator by his independent bearing1. In more than one locality attention was called to the fact that on the part of the bankers and business men in their dealings with the small farmers and the poor people, there has been a marked disap- pearance of condescension and the air of favor and patronage. In parts of Ireland visited the respectful treatment on the part of others is keenly appreciated by the cooperators, while the system has caused a greater fellowship and better mutual understanding between the classes. There is a social and industrial leveling up which is satisfactory to all concerned. All this points to the powerful influence of cooperation in the promotion of democracy. The cooperative movement was essen- tially democratic in origin. Both the original founders and the prime movers were mainly from the class most directly benefited. That the democratic principle is the basis of success in agri- cultural cooperation is proved by the fact that attempts of farmers to combine on other principles almost invariably have failed, while in cities no other industrial system has been attended with social results which are so satisfactory. True cooperation which alone can hope for enduring prosperity is founded on the principle of pure democracy. The educational effect of the cooperative system is such as to give the wage earners a keen interest in public affairs and to cause them to realize their own power and responsibility in them. That the cooperators use this power intelligently may be seen in the large number of their representatives in the public bodies and the creditable manner in which they acquit themselves. It is confidently asserted that 70 per cent, of the cooperators are on the side of political progress. Cooperation is becoming one of the strongest aids to efficiency in political democracy. It is the hope of most leaders in the cooperative movement that it will do much to make war less frequent. The cooperative alliances of different countries will undoubtedly increase their trade with one another. Already reference has been made to an international alliance of cooperators. The members of a great international business organization will understand the folly of going to war with one another. Among cooperators there is a 136 RURAL SOCIOLOGY minimum of mutual suspicion. \Vi1h them the recognition of brotherhood and community of interest is a habit of mind. Add to this their increased intelligence, larger information, broader outlook, and increased political efficency, and we must recognize that the bonds which hold the people of the earth together in peace will be strengthened as the cooperative movement advances throughout the world. The experience of the cooperative movement indicates that the application of right ethics to business results well, not only to business itself but to the character of those engaged in it and to all parts of the social fabric. It was observed by members of the American Commission that in nearly all the European countries from Italy to Ireland "the great body of cooperators, especially among the leaders, think of agricultural cooperation as a sort of social reform and in some cases almost as a religion." The admirable moral and social results are recognized nearly everywhere. Not only has it taught illiterate men to read, made "dissipated men sober, careless men thrift}7, and dishonest men square" but it has made friends out of neighbors who had always been enemies, while estrangements among men through religious antipathies and the inheritance of ancient feuds have yielded to its influence and have disappeared. It is natural that sound principles of economic justice and the spirit of brotherhood should create enthusiasm in those who are engaged in the movement. In the cooperative enterprises there- fore laborers are more contented, enjoy their work better and labor and live with more zest. Large numbers of capable executives are engaged in the movement at great personal sacri- fice to themselves of time and money. Many men, because of the same spirit, are living in great frugality though rendering invalu- able service. Frequently organizers of cooperative societies in whole hearted devotion live on the lowest possible salaries, suffer- ing hardships and prolonged absence from congenial homes. The Agricultural Organization Society in Ireland impressed the in- vestigator as a Christian institution quite as really as did the churches in that country. The movement in the vicinity of Dungloe, Ireland, has an atmosphere like that of a Christian mis- sionary enterprise in its pioneer stage of development. In two SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 137 other places in Donegal, Ireland, two meetings attended were like religious services. The cooperative movement in the vi- cinity of the Temple Crone Society is regarded by the people as divinely inaugurated, inspired, directed and sustained. It could scarcely be expected that a movement with such bene- ficial results could have been inaugurated and successfully furthered apart from close association with the Christian churches. In many of the cooperative enterprises it was found that the clergymen have played an important part. B. OWNERSHIP AND TENANCY TENANT FARMING1 JOHN M. GILLETTE THERE is a tendency somewhat pronounced toward the opera- tion of farms by tenants rather than by the owners. The owners ceased operation to the extent of almost ten per cent., in the twenty years between 1880 and 1900, and tenantry was sub- stituted. The results appear to ensue chiefly from three causes. First, the investment in farm lands by city residents — generally in proximity to their municipality, and second, from the retire- ment of well-to-do farmers into the neighboring city or village. Third, a larger period is required to save money with which to buy a farm than was previously the case. As a consequence, each successive generation of fanners must remain longer in the tenant class. The tendencies in the United States are not decisively toward extended consolidation and enlarged holdings. In the regions where the enlargement is most noteworthy, it is apparently due to the operation of causes other than the advantage in production which arises from large holdings. Quick and large rises in land values, as in Iowa and Illinois, have induced multitudes of * Adapted from "Constructive Kural Sociology," pp. 130-137, liy permis- sion, copyright 1013, lOHi, by Stur^is X \Y;iltoii Company, N. V. Copy- right now held liy Tin- Macmillan Company. 138 RURAL SOCIOLOGY owners to sell out and go to newer regions in the United States and Canada where several times the amount they owned can be purchased for what they received. In the Southeastern States it is the outcome of the dependency of agriculture on an ignorant, colored, labor population. Further, it is likely that when the possibility of procuring cheap land in the United States and Canada has passed farmers in the improved agricultural regions will cease to sell to neigh- boring farmers. When this point is reached, and when, also, estates begin to be divided among the descendants of present farmers, we may expect to see the cessation of the consolidation tendency and the development of small and intensive farming. Farms are almost always leased in Great Britain. In France 77.6 per cent., and in Germany 83.6 per cent, of the farmers own all or a part of their farms, while in the United States 35.3 per cent, are tenants. There are two opposing views as to the effects of tenant farm- ing and small proprietorship. 1. Young and Mill held that small proprietors form the basis of individual prosperity, independence, and well being. Young, who traveled through Europe in 1787-8, and who believed in large agriculture, testified that while there was much poor farm- ing on small properties, "yet the industry of the possessors was so conspicuous and meritorious that no commendation would be too great for it. It was sufficient to prove that property in land is, of all others, the most active instigator to severe and incessant labor." He thinks the way to get mountains farmed to the very top is to let them out as property to small owners. Mill reviewed the facts and literature of the continental method of small holdings as opposed to the English practice of large estates in his attempt to get England to see the mistake and loss incident to its practice. He believed the evidence proved that peasant properties conduced to the moral and social welfare of the laboring class by increasing their industry to what a Swiss statistical writer described as "almost superhuman industry"; that territorial arrangement is "an instrument of popular edu- cation." "The mental faculties will be most developed where they are most exercised; and what gives more exercise to them than the having multitudes of interests, none of which can be SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 139 neglected, and which can be provided for only by varied efforts of will and intelligence?" Small proprietorship is "propitious to the moral virtues of prudence, temperance, and self-control. ' ' Laborers are liable to spend their entire wage. ' ' The tendency of peasant proprietors, and of those who hope to become proprietors, is to the contrary extreme ; to take even too much ' thought for the morrow ' " ; to be penurious. Even among the pleasure-loving French people of the agricultural sort "the spirit of thrift is diffused through the rural population in a manner most gratifying as a whole, and which in individual instances errs rather on the side of excess than defect." Mr. Mill further holds that small holdings would not interfere with the desirable and much needed purpose on the part of the workers to exercise prudence and restraint in the increase of population. Some writers had held that peasant proprietors would be likely to multiply up to the limits of food production and thus force a minute subdivision of land. Mr. Mill believes that without education and habituation into the exercise of pru- dence the land proprietors, like other workers, would increase in number up to the food limits. But that if indoctrinated — like their urban brothers — they would exercise due restraint. Furthermore, he marshals facts from Switzerland, Norway, Prussia, and other continental countries to demonstrate that peasant proprietorship not only did not evoke over-population but rather checked it. Concluding his chapters on peasant proprietors he says : "As a result of this inquiry into the direct operation and in- direct influences of peasant properties, I conceive it to be established that there is no necessary connection between this form of landed property and an imperfect state of the arts of production ; that it is favorable in quite as many respects as it is unfavorable, to the most effective use of the powers of the soil ; that no other existing state of agricultural economy has so bene- ficial an effect on the industry, the intelligence, the frugality, and prudence of the population, nor tends on the whole so much to discourage an improvident increase of their numbers; and that no existing state, therefore, is on the whole so favorable, both 1o their rural and their physical welfare. Compared with the 140 RURAL SOCIOLOGY English system of cultivation by hired labor, it must be regarded as eminently beneficial to the laboring class. French history strikingly confirms these conclusions. Three times during the course of ages the peasantry have been purchasers of land ; and these times immediately preceded the three principal eras of French agricultural prosperity." 2. The other view is that effective farming in the future can only be done by a system of large properties and tenant renters whose rights are protected by legal provision. It is held that the capital which needs to be invested in machinery and equip- ment in order to make farming competitively profitable and pos- sible cannot be provided by small owners. They will be forced to sell to capitalistic owners who can make the large investments needed. Moreover, the fall in prices places a shock on the land- lords and farmers which is not felt by other callings in the same manner. Small proprietors have nothing to shield them from the shock and must give way to men of larger resources. It would seem that recent events and the spirit of present times is in favor of the position held by Mill. The progress that is being made in agricultural development in Europe and Great Britain is most conspicuous just where the larger estates are being broken up, parceled out, and vested in numerous small proprietors. This is notably the case in Ireland and in Den- mark and in both countries farming and dairying have made prodigious progress, and in both the consequences have been of the best for the character and intelligence of the citizenship. New interest in life, renewed industry, progressive and coopera- tive undertakings, enriched social and moral life, have been the results. Of much importance to rural sociology is the effect on rural social life of absentee landlordism and of tenant farming. The economic effects of absentee landlordism with its attendant abuses has had historic examples. Perhaps the most notable recent one has been that of Ireland. The profits of the large estates were spent abroad, draining Ireland of its productive capital; the best land of large estates was turned into pasture land ; and when tenants made improvements on farms to enlarge the production the rents were systematically raised to absorb the reward of initiative and industry. Consequently a premium SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 141 was placed on neglect, shiftlessness, drunkenness, and social squalor, and agricultural Ireland was emigrant as to its best and most vigorous element, decadent economically and socially, and rapidly increasing in pauperism and insanity. The various Land Purchase Acts passed by Parliament revolutionized Irish society, for it was mostly agricultural and rural. Small estates could be purchased on one hundred year payments. Buildings and sanitation were fostered. Agriculture and education were promoted. Cooperative undertakings took root. As a con- sequence the inhabitants are becoming thrifty, industrious, in- terested in their own community affairs, temperate, and a larger life is full of promise. In America social degeneration due to tenancy has been noted. Absentee landlordism visits on the given region heavy economic injuries. The tenant who keeps up the buildings, grounds, fences, and fertility of a farm as he would were he owner is rare indeed. No doubt juster laws and more progress in scientific agriculture would form a basis for the correction of some of these matters. Now the tenant sees no profit in the upkeep of the farm. He believes he obtains the greatest advantage in getting the largest returns with the least effort. Could just returns for his efforts be secured the results would be better. But the economic phase is less important than the social. The community interests are at stake, and are put in jeopardy wherever a neighborhood is given up to renters dominantly. This fact has been observed frequently. Strong spoke of it in his "New Era" many years ago. It has received passing atten- tion now and then since that time. Near Syracuse, New York, (1894), life in certain tenant communities seemed pathetic. Church, school,' and home indicated systematic neglect. In north central Kansas (1895) renters exercised neither interest nor influence in community matters. Observations in Mont- gomery County, Illinois, (1901-1903), resulted in the belief that schools and churches were declining under tenant conditions. Resident owners recognized and deplored the fact. Observers in North Dakota report similar conditions wherever renting pre- dominates. As an accompaniment of the neglect of church ;nid school the moral and cultural tone of the neighborhood sink low. Coopera- 142 RURAL SOCIOLOGY tive ethical activities of country districts usually reside with the church. The larger cultural and social outlook associate them- selves with church and school and are products of their life. Immorality, vulgarity, low ethical ideals, insufficiency of infor- mational and esthetic agencies and outlets result from irrespon- sibility and transiency. SOME ADVANTAGES OF TENANCY 1 W. O. HEDRICK THE public has become interested only recently in the size of businesses generally, but since 1890 our census bureau has col- lected statistics relative to the size of farms. Speaking generally, the public cares not at all whether factories and stores and rail- roads are rented or are owned by their operators, but it has given much attention to the ownership and rental tenures of land since 1880. The curious fact is revealed by the last census enumeration (1910) that it is the very large farm which has been notable during the past ten years. The farms of from 500 to 999 acres have had second place in growth of numbers, have exceeded all others in absorbing total farm area, have exceeded all others in enlarging improved acreage per farm, have shown the biggest in- crease in value of total farm property of any class, were second greatest in increased building valuation, have had greatest in- crease in machinery valuation and third greatest in livestock in- crease. The relatively small number of these farms, however, robs this record of much significance in characterizing American farm sizes. With regard to landlordism and tenantry, the same motive which is relied upon by society to secure effective farm handling, that is, "self interest," is the very one which stimulates tenants to rent farms. The farm business requires a combination of several factors — notably land, labor, and equipment — for its best success. The extremely high price of all these elements renders it sometimes necessary that two enterprisers should combine their i Adapted from Publications American Sociological Society, Vol. 11: 94-96, Dec., 1916. SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 143 factors, one furnishing land, the other labor and equipment, and we have, therefore, the landlord and tenant relation. Farm- management studies show almost invariably that tenant farmers make good labor incomes, and no little care should be taken in disturbing a system not adverse to public policy which with all its faults is distinctly profitable to the farmer. Country-life improvement may indeed be hindered in its cooperative aspect by the presence of the shifting tenant, but an even more fundamental -wrong may be done by striking at the productivity of agriculture itself in the attempt to eliminate this sort of farmer. Commonly it is assumed that tenancy is a step- ping-stone to ultimate land ownership. The young farmer or the needy farmer may come to own a farm through a preliminary period spent as a tenant farmer, or he may attain full ownership through the mortgage-indebtedness route. Comparing only the more superficial features of these two methods of reaching the same end and we have the following results. Through having the stimulus to industry which comes from ownership and through directing his business at will, the mortgagor is ad- vantaged, but he is limited in his farm operations through having invested his capital in land. On the other hand, the tenant leaves to the landlord the burden of carrying all the unproductive farm parts, such as buildings, fences, lanes, wood lot, etc. He is further advantaged through putting all his capital into livestock and equipment, thus being enabled to operate to the maximum of profitableness. He gains nothing, however, by the apprecia- tion in value of land. The suppression of tenancy restricts the young farmer or the impecunious farmer to alternatives which may prove hurtful from the business standpoint. The going in debt for a full-sized farm, as we have seen, is likely to leave the farmer short-handed in l he means for the operation of this farm. Another alternative is the little farm — one which he is able to pay for and yet have some means left over — but every study of the little farm has con- vinced the student of the utter unprofitableness of this style of farming. Farm machinery is standardized in size to the needs of the full-sized farm; a profitable number of labor hours for man or team can be found only upon the full-sized farm. Insufficient variations of enterprises and too high costs in overhead expenses 144 RURAL SOCIOLOGY are only a few of the many reasons given for the unprofitableness of the small farm. The sharing of the expenses of carrying on a farm business between two parties, one furnishing the land factor and the other the labor and equipment, has afforded a successful farm business in the past and still has merits for the future. We find nothing to justify the belief that the landlord's share is to grow larger to the disadvantage of the tenant through the income-absorbing power of land. Landlords will doubtless always secure the re- turns which are possible to them through owning advantageous differentials in land. The differentials tend to become accen- tuated with the increase in price of fa.rm products, but the means have not yet been shown whereby the landlord may wrest away from the renter any share to which this renter is properly entitled. Tenancy, it may be said in conclusion, has stood the test of experience. We do not mean by this every tenancy system. — absentee landlordism, or rack renting, for example — but good systems have survived. The greatest system of farming in the world measured by the test of endurance is a tenant system. English farming, where all but 4 or 5 per cent, are tenants, has given us our leading types of livestock, our best farm practices, such as marling, drainage and rotations and the measure in acres of our customary farm. On the other hand, among the farm- owning peasants of Continental Europe (other than the ex- tremely recent notion of cooperation) scarcely a single fruitful farm notion has developed. Few farm animals or practices have been originated. Women customarily do the farm work and the peasant himself is frequently unable to speak the language of the country in which he lives. The test of a system of agriculture is the character of its professional representatives, and without doubt the British farmer, though a tenant, ranks high among farmers everywhere. The constantly enlarging growth in numbers of population in this country makes ever- increasing demands upon the output from the farms. This in- evitably leads to intensive cultivation with all its expensiveness in land, equipment, and labor. It seems almost unthinkable under these circumstances that a normal tenancy system should . not develop here as in England. SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 145 AGRARIAN ARISTOCRACY AND POPULATION PRESSURE * E. C. HAYES THE agricultural sections of America have in general by no means reached that balance between population and resources which tends ultimately to establish itself. They are in a period of transition. The coming changes will offer opportunity for great improvements, but they will bring with them one great danger, namely, that of too rigid social stratification. At first sight such stratification seems inevitable. Omitting qualifications, this tendency may be thus stated : when land be- comes worth hundreds of dollars per acre, as it already has in certain sections, the landless youth can seldom, if ever, succeed in buying a farm, and if he remains in the country must be a tenant or a hired laborer. On the other hand, those who own land will be in a position to buy more. Thus ownership of land may be expected to concentrate and the number of landless dwellers in the country to increase. This tendency will be strongest where land is most productive and most valuable, and therefore hardest for the landless to purchase, and at the same time requiring the employment of a large number of hands to tend its heavy crops. The application of scientific methods to agriculture which will be necessary to make the best lands pay for their cost requires capital, and this will put an additional obstacle in the way of the landless youth and add to the tendency created by the high cost of land to develop a small body of wealthy agrarian aristocrats with a large body of tenants or paid farm hands. There are, however, three counteracting tendencies. First, the more intensive the agriculture, the smaller the number of acres which the landless youth must buy in order to become inde- pendent mid to support a family. The increased price of good land and the demand for fine fruits, vegetables and meats may be expected to force a more intensive cultivation, which makes fewer acres suffice for the maintenance of a household. So long i Adapted from "Introduction to the Study of Sociology," Appleton, N. V., pp. 47-50. 146 RURAL SOCIOLOGY as wasteful, extensive modes of cultivation prevail, the growth of cities clamoring for food and raw materials powerfully tends to increase both "the cost of living" and the monopoly of land. It is true that intensive agriculture by increasing the pro- ductivity of the land tends to increase its price. But in in- tensive agriculture the part played by labor is greater and the proportional part played by land is less, so that the land values do not increase as rapidly as does the product, and there is a gain in position to those who contribute the labor required for production. Whether the rural population is made up of independent farmers or of tenants and hired laborers, increase in the number of those who dwell in the country and maintain a high standard of living there, is dependent upon the increase of manufacturing cities, either of the same nation or abroad, to absorb their prod- uct of food and raw materials. Thus the high rate of urban increase is favorable to intensive agriculture, and to the increase of rural population in numbers and prosperity. A second and more important qualification of the tendency to form an agrarian aristocracy and proletariat is found in the absence of laws of primogeniture and the wish of parents, as testators, to divide their holdings among their children. A third counteracting tendency is in the fact that in the long run farming land is worth more to the man who cultivates it than to any one else, because it gives him a steady job, inde- pendent of the will of any employer. The price of farming land contains at least three elements: first, a sum which if invested at interest would yield annually an amount equal to the rental of the land ; second, a price paid for the expected unearned in- crement ; third, a sum paid by the purchaser for the opportunity of independent self-employment. In time the second element will dwindle, for there will no longer be so great an expectation of unearned increment ; indeed, that expectation might largely be extinguished by taxation, as the next paragraph will show. Then, unless land be valued as a basis of social prestige, or for some other extraneous consideration, the third element will tend to become the decisive factor in its ownership, for it will raise the price of land above the capitalized value of its rental, and only he who values it as an opportunity for independent self- SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 147 employment can afford to pay this third element in the price of land. An artificial barrier to the concentration of land in large holdings would be the heavy taxing of unearned increments. The motive for land purchases by the wealthy who do not farm is largely the hope of enjoying the unearned increment which is resulting from population increase, improvements in transporta- tion and general progress. Deeds might be required to state the true price paid, and the proof of fraud in the statement might invalidate the deed. The purchasers would then have two strong motives for having the price correctly recorded, first, in order to get a valid title, and second, because whenever in the future the purchaser became a seller it would be advantageous to him to have had the full price recorded, since it would be the only amount which he could receive untaxed. On the other hand, he would not overstate the price lest he invalidate the title, and the seller would not allow it to be overstated, if there had been an increment since the previous transfer, because the seller is taxed on that increment. If the actual price at successive sales were recorded the unearned increment could readily be taxed. To cheapen land by taxing the unearned increment, and rendering it unattractive to speculators, would tend to make it more valuable to the man who would labor on it than to any one else, and so to distribute it among independent farmers in holdings no larger than they could properly cultivate. C. ADULT LABOR THE INFLUENCE OF MACHINERY ON THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE AGRI- CULTURAL PEOPLE 1 H. W. QUAINTANCE THE social conditions resulting from the use of machinery are even more difficult to trace than are the economic. Yet, even i Adapted from Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, Vol. IV: 110-113. (Cppyright, 1900, by The Macmillan Company.) 148 i;n:Ai. SOCIOLOGY here, some measure of the truth may be indicated with approxi- mate certainty. Whatever the social conditions of a people may be at any given time, they are largely the product of wealth and intelligence. That the farmers of the Unii'-d Siat>-< have ad- vanced in material welfare has already been shown, and this ad- vance has been, and is. a prerequisite to intellectual growth and social attainment. For, "as long as every man is engaged in collecting the materials necessary for his own subsistence, there will be neither leisure nor taste for the higher pursuits." That the use of machine power stimulates mental growth and activity, even in the operator himself, is too clear to require demonstration, for the men who work most with machines are among those properly classed as the most intelligent. It has been noted that, principally as a result of the intro- duction of farm machinery, the agricultural population of the United States decreased from 47.6 per cent, of the total popula- tion in 1879, to 35.7 per cent, in 1900. The urban population classes have increased, of course, by the same amount. Among those who have continued on the farms, socialization has become a struggle for place against greater and constantly increasing odds ; and this, too, in spite of the fact that not only the general level but also that of the lower classes is much higher than before. If we look to the proprietor, or independent class of farm workers, we shall find a great difference between the farmers of the period just before the introduction of machinery and the farmer of to-day. The life of the farmer was charac- terized by isolation. Cooperation was largely limited to house- raisings and husking-bees, -and these were so infrequent as to be real social events. Self-sufficiency is no longer the ideal. The farmer has be- come a specialist, devoting himself to particular branches of farm work, as stock-raising: dairying; potato-, corn-, or wheat- culture ; or to the raising of fruits, vegetables, cotton, or tobacco, having in mind to secure the other things for which he has need by means of exchange. The farmhouse is no longer isolated. Good roads, the free delivery of mails, the telephone and the electric car lines bring the farmhouse into the very suburbs of the city. The home is supplied with conveniences undreamed of by SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 149 farmers of fifty years ago. The farmer and his wife are no longer to be set aside as "from the country." They are people of consequence, and their voices are heard in institutes, in clubs, federation meetings, and at the polls — the man everywhere and the woman also in some states. What they say is listened to with respect due to one who knows whereof he speaks. The farmers are coming forward also as members of the state legislature and as governors of states ; and many of those who lead in the national affairs are proud to claim some farmstead as the place of their early training. They are practical politicians, and if less crafty, are less unscrupulous than their associates from the cities. But there is another phase of farm life the social import of which must not be overlooked. Along with the increasing wealth, home comforts and influence of the proprietor class, there has been an increase also in the material welfare and general intelligence of farm laborers. But where machine power is used, the laborers have not advanced as rapidly as have the proprietors. During the twenty-year period, from 1880 to 1900, the farm- laborer class, in all the states, increased 35 per cent. The farm- proprietor class increased 34.2 per cent. Taking the country as a whole, these classes were evidently keeping a fairly equal pace. But, turning to the seven leading cereal-producing states, — those especially using complex and expensive machinery, — we find the population was distributed as follows: 1900 1880 Proprietors 1,073,011 836,969 Agricultural laborers 631,740 363,233 The farm-proprietor class here increased 28 per cent., but the farm-laborer class increased 74 per cent. In 1880, the laborer class constituted only 30.3 per cent, of the total pupulation engaged in agriculture in these seven states; but, in 1900, this class constituted 37.1 per cent, of the population. The difference, (5.8 per cent., represents a loss of 115,984 persons from the farm- proprietor class and an addition of that number to the farm- laborer class. The reasons for unequal growth of these two classes of the agricultural population is not deeply hidden. It is the greater advantage that the possessor of a machine has over another who 150 RURAL SOCIOLOGY has only his hands. The farm laborers of to-day, like the work- men in the factories, are being more and more separated from the proprietors whom they serve. These classes undi-i-stand each other less and tend more and more to become as lords and proletariat. The larger farms, moreover, are passing out of the hands of resident owners and, like factories, are being run by managers whose primary duly is to return profits. The more intelligent of the farm laborers, those who must be. depended upon to operate the machines, fare very well; but the ignorant and the unskilled are probably as ill-conditioned now as before the introduction of machinery. The decadence, or disintegration of the agricultural popula- tion due to the use of machinery, is evident even in the pro- prietor class itself. The group (of states) showing the highest percentage of decrease (from farm ownership to tenancy) is composed of those states in which large farms and costly ma- chinery are plainly the characteristic feature. It contains, in fact, the seven leading cereal-producing states of the country. The rate of decline from ownership to tenancy is nearly four times as rapid in the states where much machinery is used as in the states where comparatively little machinery is used. THE AGRICULTURAL ELEMENT IX THE POPULATION 1 EUGENE MERRITT IN practically all countries where the number dependent upon agriculture is known, they form -a decreasing proportion of the total population. Wherever a comparison of the male agri- cultural workers with the total males gainfully employed is available, the agricultural workers form a decreasing proportion of the total. Thus is released to engage in other occupations a corresponding percentage of the total workers. Apparently the principal reasons for this decreasing percentage are that the agricultural element in the population is becoming more efficient and that in the readjustment or changes in the methods of pro- i Adapted from Publications of the American Statistical Association, March, 1916, pp. 50-65. SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 151 ducing and distributing agricultural products, the agricultural people now perform a smaller part of the complete operations than was the case formerly. For example, cheese was manu- factured in the home; now it is a factory product. There is a smaller proportion of meat slaughtered and cured on the farm than formerly. Farmers perform a smaller part of the hauling of farm produce to market because the railroads more thoroughly cover the country. Many persons, in calling attention to the decreasing propor- tion of the population living in rural districts, feel that this is a national calamity. Indeed if it should happen that an increas- ing proportion of our people were found on farms it would be a sure sign that our agricultural people were losing their efficiency and should be cause for alarm. If conditions in the United States were similar to those in China there would be between 70 and 75 per cent, of the population engaged in agriculture or dependent on it for their subsistence, whereas in the United States in 1910, only 35 per cent, were so engaged. In other words, the agricultural element in the population of the United States is twice as efficient as the agricultural element in the population of China, to say nothing of the difference in the standards of living of the population of China and that of the United States. The evidence of the fact that the agricultural element in the population of the United States is becoming more efficient is abundant. The per capita crop production based on total population increased 30 per cent, between 1856 and 1915, while the percentage that the males engaged in agriculture formed of those engaged in all occupations decreased from 50 to 35 per cent, in the last 30 years. In other words, we are producing more crops per capita and use a smaller percentage of our total population for the purpose. Thus it is evident that the reason for the decreasing per- centage of all peoples found in rural districts and the migration of young men and women from our farms, is that as the agri- cultural element in the population becomes more efficient, a smaller percentage of them is needed on farms and they have to seek employment in the non-agricultural industries. The higher death rate, age for age, in urban districts depletes 152 RURAL SOCIOLOGY the ranks of the workers so that the rural peoples are called upon not only to furnish raw material to feed and clothe the nations, but to fill up the ranks of the city workers and to contribute to the supply of labor demanded by our growing industries. A POINT OF VIEW ON THE LABOR PROBLEM 1 L. H. BAILEY IT is a general complaint in the United States that there is scarcity of good labor. I have found the same complaint in parts of Europe, and Europeans lay much of the blame of it on America because their working classes migrate so much to this country; and they seem to think we must now be well supplied with labor. Labor scarcity is felt in the cities and trades, in country districts, in mines, and on the sea. It seems to be serious in regions in which there is much unemployed population. It is a real problem in the Southern States. While farmers seem now to complain most of the labor short- age, the difficulty is not peculiarly rural. Good farmers feel it least ; they have mastered this problem along with other problems. As a matter of fact, it is doubtful whether there is a real labor shortage as measured by previous periods ; but it is very difficult to secure good labor on the previous terms and conditions. The supposed short labor supply is not a temporary condition. It is one of the results of the readjustment and movement of society. A few of the immediate causes may be stated, to illus- trate the nature of the situation. 1. In a large way, the labor problem is the result of the passing out of the people from slavery and serfdom — the rise of the work- ing classes out of subjugation. Peoples tend always to rise out of the laboring-man phase. We would not have it otherwise if we desire social democracy. 2. It is due in part to the great amount and variety of con- structive work that is now being done in the world, with the con- sequent urgent call for human hands. The engineering and i Adapted from "The Country Life Movement in the United States," pp. 134-148. Macmillan, 1911. SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 153 building trades have extended enormously. We are doing kinds of work that we had not dreamed of a half-hundred years ago. 3. In some places the labor difficulty is due to the working-men being drawn off to other places, through the perfecting of in- dustrial organization. The organization of labor means com- panionship and social attraction. Labor was formerly solitary; it is now becoming gregarious. 4. In general, men and women go where things are "doing." Things have not been doing on the farms. There has been a gradual passing out from backward or stationary occupations into the moving occupations. Labor has felt this movement along with the rest. It has been natural and inevitable that farms should have lost their labor. Cities and great indus- trialism could not develop without them ; and they have made the stronger bid. 5. In farming regions, the outward movement of labor has been specially facilitated by lack of organization there, by the introduction of farm machinery, by the moving up of tenants into the class of renters and owners, by lack of continuous em- ployment, by relatively low pay, by absence of congenial asso- ciation as compared with the town. Much of the hired farm labor is the sons of farmers and of others, who "work out" only until they can purchase a farm. Some of it is derived from the class of owners who drift downward to tenants, to laboring men, and sometimes to shifters. We are now securing more or less foreign-born labor on the farms. Much of this is merely seasonal ; and when it is not seasonal, the immigrant desires to become a farm owner himself. If the labor is seasonal, the man may return to his native home or to the city, and in either case he is likely to be lost to the open country. There is really no "solution" for the labor difficulty. The problem is inherent in the economic and social situation. It may be relieved here and there by the introduction of immigrants or by transportation of laborers at certain times from the city; but the only real relief lies in the general working out of the whole economic situation. The situation will gradually correct itself; but the readjustment will come much moiv quickly if we understand the conditions. As new interest arises in the open country and as additional 154 RURAL SOCIOLOGY values accrue, persons will remain in the country or will return to it ; and the labor will remain or return with the rest. As the open country fills up, we probably shall develop a farm artisan class, comprised of persons who will be skilled workmen in certain lines of farming as other persons are skilled workmen in manu- factures and the trades. These persons will have class pride. We now have practically no farm artisans, but solitary and more or less migratory workingmen who possess no high-class manual skill. Farm labor must be able to earn as much as other labor of equal grade, and it must develop as much skill as other labor, if it is to hold its own. This means, of course, that the farming scheme may need to be reorganized. Specifically, the farm must provide more continuous employ- ment if it is to hold good labor. The farmer replies that he does not have employment for the whole year; to which the answer is that the business should be so reorganized as to make it a twelve months' enterprise. The introduction of crafts and local manufactures will aid to some extent, but it cannot take care of the situation. In some way the farm laborer must be reached educationally, either by winter schools, night schools, or other means. Every farm should itself be a school to train more than one laborer. The larger part of the farm labor must be country born. With the reorganization of country life and its increased earning power, we ought to see an increase in the size of country families. The real country workingmen must constitute a group quite by themselves. They cannot be organized on the basis on which some other folk are organized. There can be no rigid short -hour system on a farm. The farm laborer cannot drop his reins or leave his pitchfork in the air when the whistle blows. He must remain until his piece of work is completed ; this is the natural responsibility of a farm laborer, and it is in meeting this re- sponsibility that he is able to rise to the upper grade and to develop his usefulness as a citizen. It is a large question whether we are to have a distinct work- ing-class in the country as distinguished from the land-owning farmer. The old order is one of perfect democracy, in which the laboring-man is a part of the farmer's family. It is not to be expected that this condition can continue in its old form, but the SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 155 probability is that there will always be a different relation be- tween workingman and employer in the country from that which obtains in the city. The relation will be more direct and per- sonal. The employer will always feel his sense of obligation and responsibility to the man whom he employs and to the man's family. Persons do not starve to death in the open country. Some persons think that the farming of the future is still to be performed on the family-plan, by which all members of the family perform the labor, and whatever incidental help is employed will become for the time a part of the family. This will probably continue to be the rule. But we must face the fact, however, that a necessary result of the organization of country life and the specialization of its industries, that is now so much urged, will be the production of a laboring class by itself. D. CHILD LABOR EURAL CHILD LABOR1 JOHN M. GILLETTE IT has been the customary assumption that the child labor evil is confined to our cities and manufacturing villages. Un- doubtedly the more vigorous and unwarrantable conditions rel- ative to youthful workers do entrench themselves in those places. Another familiar assumption is that the child labor performed on the farm is entirely wholesome and is therefore to be encouraged. But it is largely the product of those who are ignorant of farm life, or of those who have seen agriculture at a distance or in certain favored regions. It can hardly be questioned that much of the work which farm children do is a distinct advantage to them. Work which is suited to the growing boy and girl is conducive to a better de- velopment of body and mind. The chores about the house and barn and the lighter forms of labor which may be engaged in outside of school hours are distinctly favorable to the oslab- i Adapted from Child Labor Unlit-tin, No. I, p. l.~>4. National Child Labor Committcv, \c\v Yoik. 156 RURAL SOCIOLOGY lishment of a disciplined ability to carry on useful activities, which is deadly lacking in urban children. It is one of the recognized defects of city life that there is nothing at which to set the boys and girls outside of school hours and in vacation periods. Idleness and idle habits, bad associations, and irregular wayward tendencies are often directly traceable to this void in the city boy life. It is not the adjusted, timely work of children in the country which is the question. There is far more labor of au excessive nature placed on children, particularly boys, who live on farms than we would suspect. DR. E. N. CLOPPER WE have been undertaking some isolated investigations of child labor in agriculture because it is a subject about which we know very little although the 1910 census reports that almost 72 per cent, of all the children between ten and fifteen years of age engaged in gainful occupations in the United States are in agri- cultural pursuits and that 18 per cent, of them or 260,000 are farm laborers working for other than their own parents. In a recent study of the employment of children in the cultiva- tion of sugar beets in Colorado we found an interesting situation. There are about 5,000 children between six and fifteen working in the beet fields, practically all of them with their own parents. These children of course are under the compulsory education law of Colorado which requires them to attend school nine months, but as the local system is organized on the district plan the local truant officer does not always enforce the law because he would be required to prosecute his own immediate friends and neigh- bors. The remedy seems to lie in a large unit of organization that would remove enforcement outside the immediate locality. We found that the best working children were kept out of school about three months in the fall and lost about three and a half times as many days of school as the non-beet workers. This makes it impossible for the teachers to do the same work with i Adapted from Child Labor Bulletin. May, 1916. P. 39. National Child Labor Committee, New York. SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 157 them as the other children and hence the beet-workers were found to be very much retarded. STRAWBERRY PICKERS OP MARYLAND 1 HARRY H. BREMER TWENTY-EIGHT farms were visited in a brief investigation last spring. On none of these was provision for family privacy made. In one or two cases only one family was found occupying a single house but this was not from any desire of the farmer to meet the lowest possible standard of decency, but simply be- cause only about half of the usual number of pickers had been taken out, owing to the poor crops. On one farm the farmer pointed with pride to his pickers' shanty and claimed it was the best on all the farms. He boasted that in its construction he had paid especial care to ventilation and the general well-being of the pickers. What I saw was a two story building I would have taken for a barn, with four windows and two doors on the first floor, and two windows and one door on the second. The building contained but a single large room on each floor, and showed absolutely no provision for comfort or privacy. In Ihis he housed his pickers, men, women, and children, without regard to age, sex, or relationship. And as a sort of explanation of such meager provision, he went on to expatiate on the low standard of morals and the promiscuous living he thought characterized the lives of the people when in the city. "In the city," said he, "they live like cattle. Go into any house in Bond Street and you will find them crowded in worse than they are here." The other farmers, I found, held the same mistaken idea. This is a base libel on these people. Preceding the investigation of the farms nearly four hundred families were visited in their homos. In not one instance was more than one family living together and most families had three or four rooms. For the most part these homes were clean and showed care. i Adapted from C'liild Labor Bulletin, No. 4. P. 71. National Child Labor Committee, New York. 158 RURAL SOCIOLOGY CHILDREN OR COTTON 1 LEWIS H. H1NE No wonder a school superintendent told me : "Cotton is a curse to the Texas children." I was then just beginning a detailed investigation of conditions on Texas farms. For two months I went from farm to farm through forty counties from the "Pan- handle" to the Gulf, where I saw Mellie and Millie and Edith and Ruby and other tiny bits of humanity picking cotton in every field. We have long assailed (and justly) the cotton industry as the Herod of the mills. The sunshine in the cotton fields has blinded our eyes to the fact that the cotton picker suffers quite as much as the mill-hand from monotony, overwork and the hopelessness of his life. It is high time for us to face the truth and add to our indictment of King Cotton, a new charge — the Herod of the fields. Why ? What is it that is actually happening to these children ? Come out with me at "sun-up" and see them trooping into the fields with their parents and neighbors. At first the morning will be fresh, and nature full of beauty. You will see kiddies four or five years old picking as though it were a game of imita- tion and considering it great fun, and you will think (perhaps) that it is a wholesome task, a manifestation of a kind Providence. But watch them picking through all the length of a hot summer day, and the mere sight of their monotonous repetition of a simple task will tire you out long before they stop. Their working day follows the sun and not until sundown do they leave the fields for the night. Then turn to the "older" children of six or seven, who are considered steady workers, and responsible for a share of the output, and you will realize that for them even in the beauty of the early morning the fun has quite lost its savor. Here and there a strong voice is raised in protest. Such a one was Clarence Ousley, who addressed the Southern Commer- cial Congress. He said : ' ' We all are exercised about the hours of labor, the wages and the living conditions, of the women and children who work in the i Adapted from the Survey, Vol. 31, pp. 589-592. 1913-14. SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 159 mills, stores and offices, but we take little or no thought of the hours of labor, the wages and the living conditions of the women and children who furnish the raw material of the looms. It is for the comfort and happiness of these primarily, for the greater prosperity of the South secondarily, and finally for the social and political blessings to come to the republic through a thriving yeomanry, through the strength and virtue of a contented and cultured rural population, that I beg your patience." It is quite possible that the Texas farmer is not so indifferent to the exploitation of his children as he appears to be, for he is literally "up against it," and he may be applying the common anodyne of accepting and even justifying that which appears to him to be inevitable. It is obviously easier for outside observers to tell him that child labor is only making matters worse and that there is no way out until he abolishes it, that it is for him to appreciate and act upon such a long plan. More than half of the farmers in Texas are transient renters, moving on every two or three years in a hopeless search for better things. They are weighed down with debt ; mortgages are high and climbing higher; illiteracy and dependence upon the one crop keep them treading a vicious circle. The cotton picker's bag hanging about the neck of every child, bending his head with its weight and tripping him as he walks, is a symbol of the life his father leads and the life to which the child himself will come. He may be just on the verge of better things when the boll-weevil will blight his entire crop and reduce him again to hopeless ruin. Years, decades, of such experiences have broken many a spirit. They have lost the little interest they had in education and the younger generation has been growing up in ignorance. Therefore it is that I place first and foremost in any program of change the restriction of child labor. Children must be left free to go to school. The school year must be lengthened and attendance required through the entire term. This is obviously and immediately necessary. 100 RURAL SOCIOLOGY BIBLIOGRAPHY COOPERATION Austin, C. B. and Wehrwein, G. S. Cooperation in Agriculture, Mar- keting and Rural Credit, Bulletin b'O, Extension Sen-ice, Univer- sity of Texas, Austin, 1914. Buck, S. J. The Granger Movement. Harvard Uuiversity Press, Cambridge, 1913. Cance, Alexander. The Farmer's Cooperative Exchange. Mass. Ag. Col. Extension Bui., 1914. Coulter, John Lee. Cooperation Among Farmers. Sturgis, N. Y., 1914. Fay, C. R. Cooperation at Home and Abroad. King, London, 1908. Filley, H. C. Cooperation. Bulletin 31. June, 1915, Agricultural Experiment Station, Lincoln, Nebraska. Ford, James. Cooperation in New England. Survey Associates, Inc., N. Y., 1913. Hibbard, B. H. Agricultural Cooperation. Bulletin 238. Jan., 1917, Agricultural Experiment Station, Madison, Wisconsin. Jefferson, Lorian P. The Community Market. Massachusetts Agri- cultural College Extension Service Bui. No. 21, Amherst, April, 1918. Poe, Clarence. How Farmers Cooperate and Double Profits. Orange Judd, N. Y., 1915. Powell, G. Harold. Cooperation in Agriculture. Macmillan, N. Y., 1913. Report of U. S. Am. Comm. to Study Cooperation in Europe. Senate Doc. 214, 63rd Cong., 1st Session, Washington, 1913. Part I. Sinclair, John F. Cooperation and Marketing. Report Wisconsin State Board of Public Affairs, Madison, 1912. Tousley, E. M. Cooperation Among Farmers — Ethical Principles In- volved. Minneapolis, Minn., 1910. Wolff, Henry M. Cooperation in Agriculture. King, London, 1912. MARKETING Holmes, Geo. H. Systems of Marketing Farm Products and Demand for Such Products at Trade Centers, U. S. D. A. Report No. 98, 1913. Huebner, Grover G. Agricultural Commerce. Appleton, N. Y., 1915. Miller, Cyrus C. ; Mitchel, John Purroy, and McAneny, Geo., Report of the Mayor's Market Commission of New York City, Dec., 1913. Weld, L. D. H. The Marketing of Farm Products. Macmillan, N. Y., 1916. TENANCY Ely, R-. T. .and Galpin, C. J. Tenancy in an Ideal System of Land Ownership. Arn. Econ. Assn. Proc., pp. 180-212, March, 1919. Ely, R. T. Private Colonization of Land. Am. Econ. Rev., Sept. 1918. SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 161 Haney, Lewis. Studies in the Land Problem in Texas. Bui. Univ. of Texas, No. 39, 1915. Hibbard, B. H. Farm Tenancy in the U. S. Int. Rev. of Agri. Eco- nomics, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 90-99, April, 1917. Found also in Annals 40 : 29-39, March, 1912. Kent, Wm. Land Tenure and Public Policy. Am. Econ. Assn. Proc., pp. 213-225, March, 1919. Found also in Yale Review, pp. 564— 579, April, 1919. Mead, Elwood. The Tenant Farmer and Land Monopoly. Conf. of Social Work, pp. 378-332, 1918. Nourse, E. G. Agricultural Economics. Chapter XII, Univ. of Chi- cago Press, 1916. Putnam, G. E. Tenancy and Land Reform. Univ. of Kansas Bui., Vol. 17, No. 18, pp. 73-91, Dec. 1, 1916. Spilhnan, W. J. and Goldenweiser, E. A. Farm Tenantry in the U. S. Yearbook, U. S. D. A., pp. 321^16, 1916. Stewart, C. L. Tenant Farming in the U. S. with Special Reference to Illinois. Univ. of 111. Studies in Soc. Sci., Vol. 5, No. 3, Sept., 1916. Taylor, H. C. Landlordship and Tenancy. In Cyclo. of Ag., Bailey, Vol. IV: 174. Vogt, Paul L. The Land Problem and Rural Welfare. Proc. Am. Econ. Soc., pp. 91-134, March, 1917. Wallace, Henry. Land Tenure and ., the Rural Church. In Church and Country Life, Vogt, Paul L.' pp. 232-242. LABOR Barber, M. A. On the Recollections of a Hired Man. In Readings in Rural Economics, Carver, T. N., pp. 547-557. Ginn, N. Y., 1916. Coulter, John Lee. Agricultural Laborers in the U. S. Annals 40 : 40-44, March, 1912. Country Life Commission Report, pp. 28, 39, 43. Sturgis, Walton Co., N. Y. Nourse, E. G. Some Problems of Agricultural Labor. In his Agri- cultural Economic, Chap. XVI. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1916. Powers, G. L. A»-i icu!lnr;il Labor. Cyclo. of Am. Agri., IV: 198. Wilcox, E. V. The Farm Labor Problem. Am. Econ. Assn. Proc., pp. 158-170, March, 1918. CHILD LABOR Child Labor on English Farms. School and Society, May 5, 1917, p. 525. Child Labor Bulletins. National Child Labor Com., 105 East 22nd Street, New York. Monahan, A. C. Rural Child Labor Problem. Reprint, Child Labor Bull., Vol. VI, No. 1, May, 1917. National Child Labor Com., 105 East 22nd Street, New York. CHAPTER VII MENTAL AXI) MORAL ASPECTS OF RURAL LIFE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FARMER1 JAMES BRYCE I BEGIN with the farmers because they are, if not numerically the largest class, at least the class whose importance is most widely felt. As a rule they are the owners of their land; and as a rule the farms are small, running from forty or fifty up to three hundred acres. In a few places, especially in the "West, great land owners let farms to tenants, and in some parts of the South one finds large estates cultivated by small tenants, often Negroes. But far more frequently the owner tills the land and the tiller owns it. The proportion of hired laborers to farmers is therefore very much smaller than in England, partly because farms are usually of a size permitting the farmer and his family to do much of the work themselves, partly because machinery is much more extensively used, especially in the level regions of the West. The laborers, or as they are called "tb* hired men," do not, taking the country as a whole, form a social stratum distinct from the farmers, and there is so little distinction in education or rank between them that one may practically treat employer and employed as belonging to the same class. The farmer is a keener and more enterprising man than in Europe, with more of that commercial character which one ob- serves in Americans, far less anchored to a particular spot, and of course subject to no such influences of territorial magnates as prevail in England, Germany, or Italy. He is so far a business man as sometimes to speculate in grain or bacon. Yet he is not free from the usual defects of agriculturists; he is obstinate, tenacious of his habits, not readily accessible to argument. His i Adapted from "The American Commonwealth," volume II, pp. 293-4. Revised edition. Macmillan, X. Y. 162 MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 163 way of life is plain and simple and he prides himself on its simplicity, holding the class he belongs to is the mainstay of the country, and regarding city folks and lawyers with a mixture of suspicion and jealousy, because he deems them inferior to himself in virtue as they are superior in adroitness, and likely to out- wit him. Sparing rather than stingy in his outlays, and living mainly on the produce of his own fields, he has so little ready money that small sums appear large to him; and he fails to see why everybody can not thrive and be happy on $1,500 a year; he thinks that figure a sufficient salary for a county or district official, and regulates his notion of payment for all other officials, judges included, by the same standard. To belong to a party and support it by his vote seems to him part of a citizen's duty, but his interests in national politics are secondary to those he feels in agriculturist's questions, particularly in the great war against monopolies and capitalists, which the power and in some cases the tyranny of the railroad companies has provoked in the West. Naturally a grumbler, as are his brethren everywhere, and often unable to follow the causes which depress the price of his produce, he is the more easily persuaded that his grievances are due to the combinations of designing speculators. The agri- cultural newspaper to which he subscribes is of course written up to his prejudices, and its adulation of the farming class con- firms his belief that he who makes the wealth of the country is tricked out of his proper share in its prosperity. Thus he now and then makes desperate attempts to right him- self by legislation, lending too ready an ear to politicians who promise him redress by measures possibly unjust and usually un- wise. In his impatience with the regular parties, he is apt to vote for those who call themselves a People's party or Farmer's party, and who dangle before him the hope of getting "cheap money," of reducing the expenses of legal proceedings, and of compelling the railroads to carry his produce at unremunerative rates. However, after all is said and done, he is an honest, kindly sort of man, hospitable, religious, patriotic, the man whose hard work has made the West what it is. It is chiefly in the West that one must look for the well-marked type I have tried to draw, yet not always in the newer West; for, in regions like northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Dakota, the fanning popula- I 164 RURAL SOCIOLOGY tion is mainly foreign, — Scandinavian and German, — while the native Americans occupy themselves with trading and railroad management. However, the Scandinavians and Germans ac- quire in a few years many of the characteristics of the native farmer, and follow the political lead given by the latter. In the early days of the Republic, the agriculturists were, especially in the middle and newer parts of the Southern States, the backbone of the Democratic party, sturdy supporters of Jefferson, and afterwards of Jackson. When the opposition of North and South began to develop itself and population grew up beyond the Ohio, the pioneers from New England who settled in that country gave their allegiance to the Whig party; and in the famous "log- cabin and hard cider" campaign, which carried the election of General Harrison as President, that worthy taken as a type of- hardy backwoodsman made the Western farmer for the first time a noble and poetical figure to the popular imagination. Nowadays he is less romantic, yet still one of the best elements in the country. He stood by the Union during the war, and gave his life freely for it. For many years afterward his vote carried the Western and especially the Northwestern states for the Re- publican party, which is still to him the party which saved the Union and protects the Negro. THE INFLUENCE OF FARM LIFE ON CHILDHOOD 1 CHARLES W. ELLIOT CHILDREN brought up in the country get a deal of invaluable training from their rural surroundings. They roam the fields and wade in the waters, observe plant and animal life, use and take care of domestic animals, and help their fathers and mothers in the work of the house and the farm, and thereb%r get invaluable training — first, in observation, secondly, in attention to the task in hand, and thirdly, in good judgment which prevents waste of strength and distinguishes between the essential or immediately necessary in productive labor and the unessential and deferable. i Adapted from Report of the Board of Education, Connecticut, 1903, p. 290. MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 165 A roaming child brought up on a farm, learns from nature what it is almost impossible to impart to a city child. In city schools we have been for twenty years past laboriously trying to provide substitutes for this natural training in country life. The recent natural history study from specimens used indoors, the manual training given in carpentry, forging, filing and turning, the garden plots and roof gardens, the vacation schools, and the excursions to parks and museums, are all sincere efforts to replace for urban children the lost training of eye and hand which country life supplied. It is impossible to exaggerate the im- portance of these substitutes ; but after all, these substitutes are inferior to the spontaneous, unenforced results of living in con- tact with nature, and of taking part with mother and father in the productive labors of a farm, a market garden, a hennery, or a dairy. What children acquire in the spontaneous, intense, self- directed use of their faculties is always more valuable than the results of a less eager though more prolonged attention to en- forced tasks. AN APPRECIATION OF RURAL PEOPLE * T. N. CARVER NOTHING can give us a clearer idea of the failure of urban people to appreciate rural people than the names which are sometimes applied to the latter. Saying nothing of such recent slang as "hayseed," "rube," "clod hopper," etc., we have such ancient words as heathen, pagan, boor and villain, all of which meant originally the same as these modern epithets. Even the modern word peasant has come to have, in the ears of the typical urbanite, a somewhat opprobrious sound. The reason is not difficult to find. One characteristic difference between rural and urban industry is that in the former, men get their living out of the soil and in the latter, the dominant element gets its living out of other men. They who coax their living out of the soil must become expert in the knowledge of the soil and the things pertaining to i Adapted from Rural Manhood, March, IfllO, pp. 7-10. 166 RURAL SOCIOLOGY it, such as crops, implements, and live stock. But they who coax their living out of other men must of necessity become expert in the knowledge of men and the things which please them, such as fair speech, manners and dress. It is as much a part of their business to become expert in these things as it is of the farmer to become expert in his work of subjugating nature and directing its forces. The dominant element in a city is always one which makes its living by talking (or writing and picture making, which amount to the same thing). This is the element which makes the sentiment of the city, coins its slang and determines its tastes. Since such element has so little in common with those whose work consists in manipulating things rather than men, who are therefore less adroit in the amenities of social life, and less expert in the complexities of drawing room etiquette, it finds itself unable to appreciate them. That is the reason why urban people have always found occasion to reproach rural people with their lack of urbanity. But to the discriminating mind there are abundant grounds for an appreciation of those who make their living by tilling the soil. In consequence of the antiquity and universality of the agricultural industry there has developed a body of rural lore and rural technique the like of which is found nowhere else. Our attention is sometimes attracted by the peculiar wisdom of the sailor people; but that of the farmer people is vasthr greater though less peculiar and therefore considered less interesting. But because so much of it is learned outside of the schools by the actual process of doing rural work — father and son working together generation after generation — ft does not commonly go under the name of learning. The marvelous technique of rural work is acquired in such a commonplace way that we usually re- gard it as a matter of course and do not realize that it is a real technique. But there are probably no tools or implements known to any craft or profession which are more perfect in their adaptation, with more fine points known only to the initiated, upon which excellence in form and structure depends, than some of the common implements of modern husbandry. The common plow is an example. The shaping of the mold board in such a way to give the maximum efficiency with the minimum of re- MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 167 sistance is a result of generations of experience and adjustment. Another significant characteristic of the agricultural industry is that it is still, and shows no sign of ceasing to be, an industry of small units. A small unit in the agricultural industry means merely a small number of persons employed on each unit and not a small acreage. This characteristic of agriculture is of great importance because it signifies that a very large proportion of those engaged in it are self-employed and only a small propor- tion, as compared with other industries, are employed. This fact of self-employment means, among other things, self direction, initiative, independence, and responsibility for the success of the business. This requires qualities never demanded of the wage earning or salaried employee. The demand for these qualities is still further heightened by another significant characteristic of the agricultural industry, viz, its seasonal character. The farmer's work not only changes from season to season, but from day to day, and even from hour to hour. Besides there are multitudinous, unexpected and un- foreseeable changes made necessary by the instability of the natural forces with which he has to contend, such as changes of the weather, etc. All this means that the farmer must reorganize the work of the farm frequently, sometimes at an hour's notice. He never knows what it is to carry on a single operation the year round as is often possible in the mechanical trades. He must always be on the alert and ready to decide what is to be done next. They to whom this everlasting deciding what to do next is a painful process must leave the farm and go where that question is decided for them by a boss or manager. Again it is a fact which educators still have to lament that no substitute has yet been found for the schooling which the boy gets on the farm as a matter of course. Here is where the boy on the farm has a priceless advantage over his city cousin. He can watch his father at work, and, as soon as he is old enough, may help. There is no schooling equal to this; but it is seldom open to the city boy in these days. The intimate association of parents and children in the work of the farm and the farm household gives a common interest to the rural family which is not always maintained under urban con- ditions. The rural family is a stable institution as compared 168 RURAL SOCIOLOGY with the city fa.nily. This is shown by the larger divorce rate in the cities, and the lower rale of multiplication. This dif- ference in the stability of the rural and urban families explains why it is that city populations have to be continually replenished from the country districts. It has been said that the greatest social distinction is that be- tween those who live in town and those who live in the country. Were it not true that city people are themselves country people, not more than three generations removed, there would be some truth in this statement. The differences between country life and city life are so wide as to produce inevitable divergences of great width in their ideals, their manners and their outlook upon life were it not that nature has a way of exterminating city people when they get too far away from the rural point of view. If we may assume that nature knows what she is about it is safe to conclude that the rural point of view is the correct one. It therefore behooves us to ponder seriously what seems to be the maturer preference before we affect to despise the homely virtues of rural people. THE KURAL ENVIRONMENT AND GREAT MEN * WILLIAM J. SPILLMAN DR. WOODS has shown that at the time when the average man noted in "Who's Who" was a boy, about 16 per cent, of our population lived in the cities. He further showed that about 30 per cent, of the individuals in "Who's Who" were brought up in the city. He accounts for this excess of city men amongst men of note by the fact that the city attracts talent, the percentage of ability in the city, therefore being greater than in the country. He would, therefore, explain the excess of city men mainly as the result of heredity. He may be correct in this position. I am inclined at present, however, to believe that while this excess may be partly due to the fact that talent is attracted to the city and that, therefore, the city child has a better chance of inheri'- ing talent, part of it is due to that fact that cities in general hav • i Adapted from Science, 30: 405-7, Sept. 24, 1000. MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 169 better school facilities than the country. Most of the men in "Who's Who" are those who had good educational advantages. I suspect, therefore, that if an adequate study were made we should find that in this case environment has had something to do with the fact that 30 per cent, of the men in "Who's Who" are from the city. But for the sake of argument let us accept Dr. Woods 's point of view. It would then follow that 30 per cent, of our leading men should be accredited to the city if their leadership is due entirely to heredity. Now for the facts in the case. It is recognized that the following statistics are meager and that conclusions can only be drawn from them tentatively, but the fact that the figures are consistent with each other confirms their correctness. The following table gives statistics for the three classes of men who may be, perhaps, placed highest amongst the list of our leading men : Per Cent. Class of Men City Country and from Village Country Presidents 2 23 92.0 Governors 4 41 91.2 Cabinet Officers 9 47 83.9 Totals 15 111 88.2 The figures for presidents include all the .presidents this country has had. Of course in the early days a smaller pro- portion of our population lived in the cities. But this criticism can not be applied to the list of governors. Figures from this class of men relate to the present governors of the states. Tt is seen that 91.2 per cent, of this class of men are from the country or village. The figures for cabinet officers include members of cabinets between 1869 and 1903. The averse of these three classes of men shows 88.2 per cent, of them from the country. Now, if we accept Dr. Woods 's view that the cities furnish a larger proportion of our leading men for the reason that talent is attracted to the city, the proportion of these men coining from the country should he considerably less than the proportion of our population in the country, but the facts show that the proportion of these men from the country is actually 170 RURAL SOCIOLOGY greater than the proportion of country population. This seems to me to argue strongly for farm life as an educational force. I have received replies from forty-seven railway presidents in this country. Of these 55.4 per cent, are credited to the village and country. When we remember that preferment in this industry is greatly influenced by hereditary wealth it seems to me that the fact that so large a percentage of these men are country bred is somewhat significant. Statistics for members of the house of representatives are of less value for our present purpose than most of the other statistics given here, for the reason that nativity is a distinct force in politics, and that many representative districts are wholly city while others are wholly country districts. Sixty-four per cent, of the present members of the house of representatives are from the country. Figures for members of the senate are of more value in this respect, since senators represent states. Yet the fact that most of our senators are very wealthy men would seem to justify the inference that the city has more than its share of this class of men, yet 70.6 per cent, of the eighty-five members of the present senate for whom data could be obtained are from the country. Taking all six of these classes of men, the average per cent, from the country is 69.4. It will be noted that the higher we go in the scale of leadership in those classes which are least influenced by ex- traneous considerations, the higher is the per cent, of country- bred men. I believe these figures substantiate the claim made in my original article, namely, that country life has a distinct educational value. But what is it in country life that gives this advantage? President Lucius Tuttle, of the Boston and Maine Railroad, in answering my circular letter answers this question. He says: Among other things, the farm boy learns methods of economy and, in- cidentally, the value of money. He is a part of the business machinery of the fartn and is brought into close contact with all its affairs. He learns methods of trade and how to buy and sell, as well as possible, with- out incurring losses, and, later on when he leaves the farm and goes into a general business, the education he has acquired during his farm life be- comes a fundamental and valuable part of his after business life. As a general rule, the city boy has no connection with his father's busi- ness and knows nothing about it. His father may be eminently successful but the boy has nothing to do with making his success and is very seldom MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 171 allowed to be cognizant of the methods of business his father uses. Under modern conditions, school life gives the boy very little business knowledge and, at the end of his school education, when he enters business, he is obliged to begin at the bottom of the ladder without knowledge of many things that the farm boy has learned in connection with his daily home life. To my mind this is the fundamental reason why boys brought up on the farm appear to make better successes in their after business life than do city boys who have not had the advantages of a similar business train- ing in their earlier days. President White, of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Po- tomac Railroad Company, in discussing the effect of life on the farm, says : It is preeminently, in my judgment, an experience which develops in- dependence and self-reliance and, therefore, I think, the spirit of achieve- ment, more than any other I know of. Another railroad president remarks: I believe that farm life lays a good and broad foundation for a healthy, vigorous manhood in both mind and body. Another noted railway man, who never spent a day on the farm, says : I am inclined to think boys brought up on the farm have better con- stitutions and are less liable to temptations. President L. W. Hill, of the Great Northern Railway, says : My present home is on a farm and my principal reason for making my home there, rather than at some of the lakes or in the city, is that I have three boys of my own I am trying to give a fair start in life. I believe there is no end of arguments that living on the farm gives the best chance for a growing boy. While my making the farm my home sometimes works an inconvenience to me, I realize that the benefits to my children are well worth the inconvenience to me of getting in and out between my office and the farm. I have always contended that the value of farm rearing lies in the fact that on the farm there is a chance to place responsibility on the growing boy. I firmly believe that it is possible to work out a system of education that will give our schools all the ad- vantages of the farm life. This is being done, to a certain exlciit, in the cities, and I believe that this fact has something to do with the increasing number of strong men who come from the city. 172 RURAL SOCIOLOGY But I must admit that the actual dala on this subject are very meager. SUGGESTION AND CITY-DRIFT 1 ERNEST R. GROVES THE- present movement of population toward urban centers, so strongly expressed in Europe and America at the present time, deserves study in the light of the modern teaching of psychology concerning the meaning of childhood experiences as determining adult conduct. It is everywhere admitted that this urban at- traction of rural population is socially significant, and that its causes are many. It is even feared by many that it represents an unwholesome and dangerous tendency in modern life, and that it should be investigated for the purpose of discovering a reason- able check upon this drift to the cities. Xo study of the mental causes behind this urban enticement can fail to discover the importance of the suggestions received by country children during their preparation for life. (See "*The Mind of the Farmer"— Ed.) Rural education, of course, provides many opportunities for penetrating suggestions, and any one who knows the schools of the country will affirm that their suggestions are not always friendly to rural interests. The character of some studies makes it difficult for the teacher not to emphasize urban conditions. In the endeavor for the dramatic and the ideal, the teacher is likely to draw upon urban life. It is fair to state that a beginning has been made in the effort 1o utilize the counlry life possibilities in teaching material. But one usually finds in the ordinary text book an unconscious ten- dency to emphasize the urban point of view and to accept it as the social standard. Many of the striking experiences' of modern life necessarily culminate amid urban conditions even when caused largely by rural influences. The urban center is the pas- sion spot, and affords more opportunity for the dramatic. The same fact is tme of ideals. The teacher is often tempted to use urban illustrations in her effort to establish ideals of con- i Adapted from Rural Manhood, 7: 17-.V2, April. 1010. MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 173 duct. The spectacular character of moral struggle and ethical effort in the city makes urban life a source from which to draw interesting moral appeal. This bias in teaching is magnified not infrequently by the attitude of the teacher toward rural life, consciously or unconsciously. The suggestion of the urban minded teacher and the urban inspired school system are bound to provide effective suggestions that will later provide a basis for rural discontent. The early experience on the farm may leave a suggestion of unreasonable toil. Romantic youth can not rest content with a vision of endless, lengthened hours of work and merely a living. Other opportunities provide a living also, with less toil. Parents have at times been responsible for this conception of farming, because they have insisted upon having their sons and daughters work unreasonably during vacation and after school. The parent, who looks backward upon a generation more given to long toil than this, and uses his own earlier experience as a standard, may the more easily commit this mistake and teach his children to hate the farm and rural life. The boy on the farm finds at times that his holiday and vaca- tion are encroached upon by needed labor. Weather and harvest conditions rob him of the pleasures that his village chum enjoys. Some definite plan for an outing, or some greatly desired day of sport has to be given up that the crop may not be injured. Doubtless parents allow these disappointments to happen with little reason, and looking at the matter from an adult point of view, do not regard the boy's feelings as of serious significance; and yet, in the light of modern psychology, we know that such experiences may build up a very significant hostility to the rural environment that appears to be the cause of the agonizing disap- pointments. The cumulative effects of a few bitter experiences of this nature may be sufficient to turn the boy away from the country in his heart of hearts for all time. In such cases the first opportunity to leave the country for the town will be ac- cepted gladly, as a way of escape from a life emotionally in- tolerable. The student of rural life is templed to look too much to the country and too little to the city for the e;iuse of rural migration. It is not easy to value properly the con-taut and impressive sug- 174 HVliAL SOCIOLOGY gestions of urban opportunity furnished by the city. It is im- portant to recognize that the prosperity of the city requires that it exploit itself in ways that bring people to the city to live, as well as to trade. Better business is obtained by methods of ad- vertising that naturally lead to more people. Modern advertising is in itself a supreme illustration of effective suggestion, and its development has been for the most part in the hands of urban interests. Such advertising has forced rural people to contrast their manner of life with urban conditions and often with the result of discontent. They are drawn to the city on special occasions by a luring city publicity manipulated with scientific skill by experts, and often return to their country homes dissatisfied because of false notions regard- ing the pleasures of the city. Of course this is more largely true of 3'oung people as they are more open to suggestion. Spectacular success is largely dependent upon urban con- ditions of life, and such success obtains public attention. Even in the country the successes talked about are likely to be those made possible by city life. These are given space in the maga- zines and daily papers edited and published in cities, and so they naturally occupy the minds of rural readers of such periodicals. The young man who feels the attraction of such enterprise, who wishes to have a part in big things, even if an insignificant part, who craves knowing big business at first hand, receives a suggestion that invites him cityward. When a community is itself represented by some former resident in some spectacular success, it is certain that many young men will question their future on the farm in that locality. Thus the human product of a rural community robs it of its personality resources — and the career of the man of fame may continue to act as a tradition long after his death, and still add to the rural migration. It is not altogether clear what effect visitors in the summer from cities have upon rural people with reference to city drift. Although a matter of accident, perhaps, dependent upon the character of the city people, and only important in a limited area of the country, summer visitors, nevertheless, must provide sug- gestions that occasionally operate powerfully upon some young people in the countrj- in encouraging their going to the city. Certain facts in some of our New England country towns where MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 175 visitors from the city return summer after summer, appear to. indicate that this condition does encourage young people in going to the city to live. THE MIND OF THE FARMER1 ERNEST R. GROVES THE difficulty is to find the typical farmer's mind that in the South, in the East, and in the West will be accepted as standard. In our science there is perhaps at present no place where general- ization needs to move with greater caution than in the statement of the farmer's psychic characteristics. It is human to crave simplicity, and we are never free from the danger of forcing con- crete facts into general statements that do violence to the op- posing obstacles. The mind of the farmer is as varied as the members of the agricultural class are significantly different. And how great are these differences! The wheat farmer of Washington State who receives for his year's crop $106,000 has little understanding of the life outlook of the New Englander who cultivates his small, rocky hillside farm. The difference is not that one does on a small scale what the other does in an immense way. He who knows both men will hardly question that the difference in quantity leads also to differences in quality, and in no respect are the two men more certainly distinguishable than in their mental characteristics. It appears useless, therefore, to attempt to procure for dis- section a typical rural mind. In this country at present there is no mind that can be fairly said to represent a group so lacking in substantial unity as the farming class, and any attempt to con- struct such a mind is bound to fail. This is less true when the class is separated into sections, for the differences between farmers is in no small measure geographical. Indeed, is it not a happy fact that the American farmer is not merely a farmer? Although it complicates a rural problem such as ours, it is fortunate that the individual farmer shares the larger social mind i Adapted from Publications of the American Sociological Society, Vol. XI, 47-53. 176 RURAL SOCIOLOGY to such a degree as to diminish tin- intellectual influences born of his occupation. The method of procedure that gives largest promise of sub- stantial fact is to attempt to uncover some of the fundamental influences that operate upon the psychic life of the farmers of America and to notice, in so far as opportunity permits, what social elements modify the complete working of these influences. One influence that shows itself in the thinking of farmers of fundamental character is, of course, the occupation of farming itself. In primitive life we not only see the importance of agricultural work for social life but we discover also some of the mental elements involved that make this form of industry socially significant. From the first it called for an investment of self- control, a patience, that nature might be coaxed to yield from her resources a reasonable harvest. We therefore find in primi- tive agriculture a hazardous undertaking which, nevertheless, lacked any large amount of dramatic appeal. It is by no means otherwise to-day. The farmer has to be efficient in a peculiar kind of self-control. He needs to invest labor and foresight in an enterprise that affords to the usual person little -opportunity for quick returns, a sense of personal achievement, or the satisfaction of the desire for competitive facc- to-face association with other men which is offered in the city. Men who cultivate on a very large scale and men who enjoy un- usual social insight as to the significance of their occupation are exceptions to the general run of farmers. In these days of ac- cessible transportation we have a rapid and highly successful selection which largely eliminates from the farming class the type that does not naturally possess the power to be satisfied with the slowly acquired property, impersonal success, and non-dra- matic activities of farming. This process which eliminates the more restless and commercially ambitious from the country has, of course, been at work for generations. This has tended, there- fore, to a uniformity of mental characteristics, but it has by no means succeeded in producing a homogeneous rural mind. The movement has been somewhat modified by the return of people to the country from the city and by the influence on the country mind of the more restless and adventurous rural people who, for one reason or another, have not migrated. In the far MENTAL AXD MORAL ASPECTS 177 West especially attention has been given to the rural hostility to, or at least misunderstanding of, city movements which attempt ambitious social advances. It is safe to assume that this attitude of rural people is widespread and is noticeable far West merely because of a greater frankness. The easterner hides his attitude because he has become conscious that it opens him to criticism. This attitude of rural hostility is rooted in the fundamental differences between the thinking of country and of city people, due largely to the process of social selection. This mental dif- ference gives constant opportunity for social friction. If the in- dividuals who live most happily in the city and in the country are contrasted, there is reason to suppose that the mental opposition expresses nervous differences. In one we have the more rapid, more changeable, and more consuming thinker, while the thought of the other is slower, more persistent, and less wasteful of nervous energy. The work of the average farmer brings him into limited asso- ciation with his fellows as compared with the city worker. This fact also operates upon him mentally. He has less sense of social variations and less realization of the need of group solidarity. This results in his having less social passion than his city brother, except when he is caught in a periodic outburst of economic dis- content expressed in radical agitation, and also in his having a more feeble class-consciousness and a weaker basis for coopera- tion. This last limitation is one from which the farmer seriously suffers. The farmer's lack of contact with antagonistic groups because his work keeps him away from the centers where social discontent boils with passion and because it prevents his appreciating class difference! makes him a conservative element in our national life, but one always big with the danger of a blind servitude to tradi- tions and archaic social judgments. The thinking of the fanner may he either substantial from his sense of personal sufficiency or backward from his lack of cdntact. The decision regarding his attitude is made by the influences that enter his life, in addition to those born of his occupation. At this point, however, it would be serious to forget that some of the larger farming enterprises are carried on so differently that the manager and owner are more like the factory operator than 178 RURAL SOCIOLOGY the usual farmer. To them the problem is labor-saving ma- chinery, efficient management, labor cost, marketing facilities, and competition. They are not especially influenced by the fact that they happen to handle land products rather than manu- factured articles. Much has been made of the farmer's hand-to-hand grapple with a capricious and at times frustrating Nature. This em- phasis is deserved, for the farmer is out upon the frontier of human control of natural forces. Even modern science, great as is its service, cannot protect him from the unexpected and the disappointing. Insects and weather sport with his purposes and give his efforts the atmosphere of chance. It is not at all strange, therefore, that the farmer feels drawn to fatalistic interpretations of experience which he carries over to lines of thought other than those connected with his business. A second important influence that has helped to make the mind of the farmer has been isolation. In times past, without doubt, this has been powerful in its effect upon the mind of the farmer. It is less so now because, as every one knows, the farmer is protected from isolation by modern inventions. It is necessary to recall, however, that isolation is in relation to one's needs and that we too often neglect the fact that the very relief that has removed from country people the mare apparent isolation of physical distance has often intensified the craving for closer and more frequent contact with persons than the countrjr usually permits. "Whether isolation as a psychic experience has de- creased for many in the country is a matter of doubt. Certainly most minds need the stimulus of human association for both happiness and healthiness, and even yet the minds of farmers disclose the narrowness, suspiciousness, and discontent of place that isolation brings. It makes a difference in social attitude whether the telephone, automobile, and parcel post draw the people nearer together in a common community life or whether they bring the people under the magic of the city's quantitative life and in this way cause rural discontent. The isolation from the great business centers which has kept farmers from having a personally wide experience with modern business explains in part the suspicious attitude rural people often take into their commercial relations. This has been ex- MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 179 pressed in a way one can hardly forget by Tolstoy in his "Resur- rection ' ' when his hero, from moral sympathy with land reform, undertakes to give to his tenants land under conditions much to their advantage and, much to his surprise, finds them hostile to the plan. They had been too often tricked in the past and felt too little acquainted with business methods to have any con- fidence in the new plan which claimed to have benevolent motives. It is only fair to admit that the farmer differs from others of his social rank only in degree and that his experiences in the past appear to him to justify his skeptical attitude. He has at times suffered exploitation ; what he does not realize is that this has been made possible by his lack of knowledge of the ways of modern business and by his failure to organize. The farmer is beginning to appreciate the significance of marketing. Un- fortunately, he too often carries his suspiciousness, which has resulted from business experiences, into many lines of action and thinking, and thus robs himself of enthusiasm and social con- fidence. A third important element in the making of the farmer's mind may be broadly designated as suggestion. The farmer is like other men in that his mental outlook is largely colored by the suggestions that enter his life. It is this fact, perhaps, that explains why the farmer's mind does not express more clearly vocational character, for no other source of persistent suggestions has upon most men the in- fluence of the newspaper, and each day, almost everywhere, the daily paper comes to the farmer with its appealing suggestions. Of course the paper represents the urban point of view rather than the rural, but in the deepest sense it may be said to look at life from the human outlook, the way the average man sees things. The newspaper, therefore, feeds the farmer's mind with suggestions and ideas that counteract the influences that specially emphasize the rural environment. It keeps him in contact with thinking and events that are world-wide, and unconsciously permeates his motives, at times giving him urban cravings that keep him from utilizing to the full his social resources in the country. Any attempt to understand rural life that minimizes the common human fellowship which the newspaper offers the farmer is certain to lead to unfortunate misinterpretation. 180 KU;AL SOCIOLOGY Mentally the farmer is far from being isolated in his experiences, for he no longer is confined to the world of local ideas as he once was. This constant daily stimulation from the world of busin-^. sports, and public affairs at times awakens his appetite for urban life and makes him restless or encourages his removal to the city or makes him demand as much as possible of the quantitative pleasures and recreations of city life. In a greater degree, how- ever, the paper contents his mental need for contact with life in a more universal way than his particular community allows. The automobile and other modern inventions also serve the farmer, as does the newspaper, by providing mental suggestions from an extended environment. A very important source of suggestion, as abnormal psychology so clearly demonstrates, at present, is the impressions of child- hood. Rural life tends on the whole to intensify the significant events of rural life because of the limited amount of exciting ex- periences received as compared with city life. Parental influence is more important because it suffers less competition. This fact of the meaning of early suggestions appears, without doubt, in various ways and forbids the scientist's assuming that rural thinking is made uniform by universal and unvaried suggestions. The discontent of rural parents with reference to their environ- ment or occupation, due either to their natural urban tendencies or to their failure of success, has some influence in sending rural people to the city. Accidental or incidental suggestion often re- peated is especially penetrating in childhood, and no one who knows rural people can fail to notice parents who are prone to such suggestions expressing rural discontent. In the same way suspiciousness or jealousy with reference to particular neighbors or associates leads, when it is often expressed before children, to general suspiciousness or trivial sensitiveness. The emotional obstacles to the get-together spirit — obstacles which vex the rural worker — in no small degree have their origin in suggestions given in childhood. The country is concerned with another source of suggestion which has more to do with the efficiency of the rural mind than its content, and that is the matter of sex. Students of rural life apparently give this element less attention than it deserves. As Professor Ross has pointed out in South of Panama, for example, MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 181 the precocious development of sex tends to enfeeble the intellect and to prevent the largest kind of mental capacit}'. It is unsafe at present to generalize regarding the differences between country and city life in matters of sex, but it is certainly true when rural life is empty of commanding interests and when it is coarsened by low traditions and the presence of defective persons that there is a precocious emphasis of sex. This is expressed both by early marrying and by loose sex relations. It is doubtful whether the commercializing of sex attraction in the city has equal mental significance, for certainly science clearly shows that it is the pre- cocious expression of sex that has largest psychic dangers. In so far as the environment of a rural community tends to bring to early expression the sexual life, we have every reason to suppose that at this point at least the influence of the community is such as to lead to a comparative mental arrest or a limiting of mental ability, for which the country later suffers socially. Each student of rural life must, from experience and observation, evaluate for himself the significance of this sex precociousness. When sex interests become epidemic and the general tendency is toward precocious sex maturity, the country community is pro- ducing for itself men and women of inferior resources as com- pared with their natural possibilities. Even the supposed social wholesomeness of earlier marrying in the country must be scrutinized with the value of sex sublimation during the forma- tive years clearly in mind. THE NEED OP IDEALS IN RURAL LIFE l KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD ONE grave danger to permanent rural progress is the low level of ideals, determined by community standards. It is not that the average ideals arc lower than in the city. I think they are higher. But they come perilously close to a dead level in im- mense areas of country. There is an absence of that high idealism that acts as yeast upon the whole mass, which often pre- i From "The Country Church iind the Rural Problem," pp. 75-78. (Copyright 1011. tin- I'lim-raity of Chicago Press.) 182 RURAL SOCIOLOGY vails in cities. It is harder 1o rise above the conventions in the country, simply because there are few strata of popular habit. In the city there are many; the individual can pass from one to another. Things are reduced to simpler terms in the country. This has its advantages, but it tends to blight buddiuir ideals or to drive them out for development elsewhere — usually in the city. As a consequence the rural community is in constant danger of stagnation — of settling down into the easy chairs of satisfac- tion. Rural life needs constant stimulus of imported ideas — a stimulus of suggestion apart from its daily routine. Moreover, rural ideals sometimes lack breadth and variety. Life in the country easily becomes monotonous, humdrum. It needs broadening, as well as elevating. It needs variety, gaiety. But these changes can find their proper stimulus only in motives that are high and worthy. Hence an appeal must be made for the cultivation of ideals of personal development and neighbor- hood advancement. When ideals do come into country life, they are apt to be not indigenous, but urban notions transplanted bodily. Urban ideals may often be grafted onto some strong rural stock. Transplan- tation is dangerous. Some one must be at work in the country neighborhoods breeding a new species of aspirations out of the common hardy varieties that have proved their worth. Lack of ideals is in a sense responsible for the drift away from the farm. Some people leave the country because they can not realize their ideals in the existing rural atmosphere. Others go because they have no thought of the possibilities of country life. In a former chapter attention was called to the fact that rural life is more full of poetry than any other. But rural romance is often stifled in the atmosphere of drudgery and isolation. This high sentiment is of the soul and can come only as the soul ex- pands. It is not merely an enjoyment of trees, crops, and ani- mals. It is in part a sense of exaltation born of contact with God at work. It has in it an element of triumph because great powers are being harnessed for man's bidding. It has in it somewhat of the air of freedom, because of dealing with forces free and wild except as they are held in leash l»y an unseen .Ma- ter driver. 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Butterfield, K. L. Culture from the Corn-Lot. In his Chapters in Rural Progress, pp. 66-77, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1908. Coulter, John B. Marriage and Divorce in North Dakota. Amer. Jour, of Sociology, 12: 398-417. Country the Na,giral Birthplace of Talent. Harper's Monthly; 106 : 649-53, March, 1903. Davies, George E. Social Environment and Eugenics. In his Social Environment, pp. 82-131, McClurg, Chicago, 1917. deCrevecoeur, J. H. St. John. Letters from an American Fanner. Duffield, N. Y., 1904. Emerson, Ralph W. Society and Solitude. In his Complete Works, 7:9-20, (Riverside Edition), Houghton, N. Y., 1898. Fairchild, George T. Personal Attainments. In his Rural Wealth and Welfare, pp. 45-48, Macmillan, N. Y., 1900. Gold, Guy D. The Psychology of the Country Boy. Rural Manhood 2 : 107-109, April, 1911. Groves, Ernest R. The Mind of the Farmer. In his Rural Problems of To-day, Chap. 8, pp. 117-33, Assn. Press, N. Y., 1918. Holmes, Roy Hinman. The Passing of the Farmer. Atlantic 110:517-23, October, 1912. Lewis, 0. F. The Tramp Problem, Annals, 40 : 217-227, March, 1912. Lighten, William R. Letters of an Old Farmer to His Son. Doran, N. Y., 1914. Plunkett, Sir Horace. The Human Factor in Rural Life. Outlook, 94:354-9, Feb., 1910. Ripley, W. Z. Ethnic Stratification and Urban Selection. In his Races of Europe, Chapter 20, Appleton, N. Y. Found also in Carver's Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 676-696, Ginn, Boston, 1906. Ross, Edward A. Folk Depletion as a Cause of Rural Decline. Amer. Sociological Society Publications, 11 : 21-30, December, 1916. 184 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Sanderson, Dwight. The Fanner and Child Welfare. Conf. of Social Work, 1919, pp. 26-33. Smith, Asa D. Soil and Mind Culture. 4th Annual Report of the New Il.-mipshire Board of Agriculture, pp. 257-205, Concord, 1874. Vogt, Paul L. Rural Morality. In his Introduction to Rural So- ciology, pp. 1203-220. Applet on, N. Y., 1917. Wallace, Henry . Description of an Ideal Rural Civilization. Men and Religion Messages — Rural Church, pp. 14-27, Vol. VI, Association Press, New York, 1012. Wallace, Henry. Letters to the Farm Boy. Macmillnn, N. Y., 1902. Waters, H. J. The Means at Hand for the Development of an Ideal and Rural Civilization. Men and Religion Messages — Rural Church, pp. 27-47, Vol. VI, Association Press, N. Y., 1912. Where the Great are Born, World's Work, IS: 11045, June, 1000. Woods, Frederick A. Birthplaces of Leading Americans and the Question of Heredity. Science, N. S. 30: 17-21, July 2, 1909; also 205-9, August 13, 1909. City Boys vs. Country Boys. Science, N. S. 29 : 577-9, April 9, 1009. The Share of Vermont in the Production of Distinguished Men. Amer. Statistical Assn. Publications, pp. 7G1-3. Boston, Septem- ber, 1011. Woodward, M. Influence of the Summer Resident upon Country Life. Countryside Magazine, 22 : 320, May, 1916. CHAPTER VIII RURAL HEALTH— PHYSICAL AND MENTAL A. RURAL HEALTH— PHYSICAL A SOCIOLOGIST'S HEALTH PROGRAM FOR THE RURAL COMMUNITY1 L. L. BERNARD NOT the only dangers to human beings come from physical violence, although in these times of war and international unrest we are too prone to forget or neglect the subtler evils. The menaces to morals and to health have much more disastrous effects, not alone because they claim more victims by actual count, even in war time, than does physical violence, but -also because they are so much more secretive in their methods, and of all enemies their approach is the most unseen. As Professor Carver says, "When people realize clearly that babies can be killed with fly-infected food as well as with an ax, they ought to be as willing to work as hard to exterminate the fly as they would to exterminate a gang of murderers who went about killing babies with axes." But the problem of getting people to realize the dangers of germ diseases and moral pitfalls is a very difficult one. Merely the relatively uneducated eye can perceive the dangers of physical violence, but it requires a mind educated in at least the rudiments of the theory of germ diseases and sanita- tion to apprehend the dangers to both young and old from flies, mosquitoes, tubercle, and intestinal bacilli. The one is capable of dramatic presentation, while the other is for most people in- formation of a highly prosaic character. Likewise, warfare against the one appeals readily and vividly to the imagination and can be waged more or less directly, while i Adapted from "The N«-\v Chivalry— Health." i>|>. :54!)-358. (Southern Sociological Congress, May, 1915.) 185 186 RURAL SOCIOLOGY war against bad health or bad morals requires much more thought and constancy of purpose for its planning than most people are willing to give. For these reasons it may be worth while to set fortli here a few suggestions for a program which may be of some value both for acquainting the people of the rural community with the hidden menace to their health and for enabling them to overcome these dangers by eradicating their causes. Good health is one of the primary conditions of a strong and progressive civil- ization. Where it is lacking most of the other human ills flourish also. Where it is present there is energy and will for the most difficult tasks of society. The country is behind the city in both the matter of informa- tion regarding sanitary conditions and in the application of the methods of sanitation. This is true in spite of the fact that the country has some decided hygienic and sanitary advantages in the way of an abundance of sunlight and fresh air and, for a large portion of the year, of fresh food in greater quantities than the city can afford. There is also an abundance cf physical exercise in the country, but unfortunately of such a one-sided character that it does not develop the body harmoniously, but tends in many cases to strain and to impair certain tissues and organs. These are largely natural advantages. For the most part the disadvantages of the country in a sanitary way are the result of man's own negligence rather than inherent in the nature of the country itself. In the country as yet there is almost every- where less sanitary inspection, and there is consequently less sanitary control over such matters as the drainage of mosquito- breeding swamps, the disposal and destruction of noxious refuse and dead animals, the inspection of the water supply and the milk supply, and less control of diseased and poisonous animals, such as the dog infected with rabies and dangerous snakes. This lack of sanitary inspection and control is not alone due to ignorance, but is also in large part traceable to the economic costs of carrying out such programs of sanitation, and perhaps equally as often to the lack of proper social and economic ma- chinery or organization for getting it done. The country is also less well supplied with many of the san- itary and health aids which are coming to be relative!}* so plenti- ful in the cities, such as good physicians within reasonable calling RURAL HEALTH— PHYSICAL 187 distance, the district or visiting nurse, hospitals and dispensaries. The country also is too frequently lacking in such other hygienic and health aids as public and private bathing facilities, regular and well regulated exercise and recreation, protection from sud- den changes in temperature and inclement weather. But on the -other hand the country does not suffer so extensively from the health-destroying vices which are so common in the cities, especially excessive alcoholism, drug addiction, and the venereal diseases. Most of the leading diseases, in fact, are recorded in census returns as being more prevalent in the cities than in the country districts. There are certain notable exceptions to this general rule. The rural communities exceed in malaria, in- fluenza, dysentery, peritonitis, and the diseases of the nervous and circulatory systems, and possibly also in pellagra and hook- worm. Some health authorities have also attributed much of the cities' excess rate of typhoid to rural vacations and an infected milk supply, though the responsibility probably rests more properly upon the cities' infected water supply. The cities' excessive rate in certain of the largely prevalent diseases, such as measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, croup, scarlet fever, and pneumonia, is due primarily to the high contagiousness of these affections which operates to advantage in crowded communities. The country 's excess in the diseases earlier enumerated above, on the other hand, is not traceable to the contagiousness of the diseases, but to the inferior sanitation which exists there, and in some cases to physical and nervous overstrain. Thus the comparative statistics of rural and urban health indicate clearly to us the difficulties in each case. In the country the difficulty is clearly lack of sanitation and physical and mental hygiene. What then is our program for removing these abnor- mal conditions? There are a great many things that can and should be done. It will suffice here perhaps to suggest and out- line a few of the more important of these. Perhaps the primary condition for the establishment of better health in the rural community is the provision of a competent health officer and sanitary inspector, one who not only under- stands the dangers and difficulties of rural sanitary conditions, but who also has the legal powers and 1lie courage to enforce the changes which are necessary. A number of states already make 188 RURAL SOCIOLOGY provision for a county health officer, but usually he has insuffi- cient powers with which to enforce reforms or he is paid for too small a portion of his timo, or his appointment is of too political a character, to secure the efficiency which so important a function as his requires. The fact remains that, rural health inspection is far behind that which is carried on in the cities, and sanitary enforcement is much more nearly adequate in the cities than in the country districts. In order to secure the greatest efficiency in this work its administrative direction should center in the State Board of Health, which should have adequate powers of control over it. A closely related need for the protection of rural health is the collection and publication of vital statistics, including statis- tics of disease as well as of births and deaths. This function may be performed by or under the direction of the rural health officer or by a separate agency. In either case the statistics entire should be made immediately available to all civic and private agencies interested in the health of the rural community. Sta- tistics of health and of births and deaths have the same value for the rural community as for the urban ; they point out the weak spots in the community's health and thus indicate where work needs to be done. By the aid of such statistics polluted water supplies, soils polluted with hookworm larva-, breeding places for flies and mosquitoes, the need of instruction in dietetics and other matters of household science and management can be indicated. It is therefore absolutely essential to proper health administration in the rural community that accurate and ade- quate vital statistics be collected and published. It must not be forgotten, of course, that no community, urban or rural, can be given proper sanitary and hygienic conditions unless there are proper lawrs prescribing minimum sanitary con- ditions and giving adequate powers to the officer or officers having the protection of health in charge. Therefore most, if not all, of our states will have to legislate anew for the control of rural sanitation. The large essentials of the health code should be uniform over the state, as uniform in fact as are the health needs, while the problems of a purely local nature may conceivably be left to the administrative discretion of the county courts or boards of commissioners. But whatever body may enact the health laws RURAL HEALTH— PHYSICAL 189 they should be reasonably uniform, and adequate and thorough administrative enforcement should be provided for. But where adequate laws and administrative machinery for rural sanitary protection do not exist — and such apparently is everywhere the case at the present time — much may still be accomplished through community cooperation, provided only there is leadership and the dwellers in the community are made to see clearly the connection between sanitary measures and improved health. The health of most of the rural communities of the South could be vastly im- proved without any considerable visible economic outlay merely through voluntary cooperative drainage of swamps or wet places, oiling, covering, or filling unused wells, the disposal of all wastes, and the formation of rural improvement societies or clubs for the purpose of observing properties for the detection and reporting of improperly cared for manure piles, the accumulation of rain water in bottles and barrels and other receptacles about the house, and other nuisances, and for the creation of an effective public opinion regarding these evils. Here the problem is primarily one of education and effective leadership rather than of laws, or cooperative labor rather than of a budget raised through taxation. Valuable as such cooperative enterprise must always be for the protection of rural health, with or without laws and administra- tion, it can never completely take the place of the latter, nor will it work with anything like the uniformity which the other pro- vides. No rural health program can claim even approximate adequacy which does not provide for the district or visiting nurse. The visiting nurse has been an indispensable factor in the health im- provement of the cities and is coming to be recognized as one of the first objectives in rural health campaigns. "Where the rural district nurse has been employed results have amply justified the expenditure required. Whether the nurse operates over the whole county or a smaller division must necessarily depend pri- marily upon the density of the population and the value of property for taxation, though at least one visiting nurse to the township, or consolidated school district where such exists, should be Ihe ultimate goal. In those Stales where township divisions do not exist, commissioner districts or other similar divisions may well serve as geographic units for her services. The function 190 RURAL SOCIOLOGY of the visiting nurse is normally pretty much the same in rural and in urban communities. She should be available for advice and help wherever there is illness and her services should be as much educational and preventive as curative or ministrative. Her spare time might well be spent in instructing mothers' clubs and similar organizations, in social center or institute and other extension talks, in inspecting school children, and in giving occasional instructive talks to them regarding the care of their health and that of the community. No other person perhaps can be of equal help to a community in health protection, for no other comes so intimately into the lives of the people. It is probably desirable that a small fee, of 25 or 50 cents, should be charged for each visit she makes, but this fee should always be re- mitted upon the request of the person benefiting from the services. In no case should her salary depend in whole or in part upon the fees collected, but it should be met out of the regular funds of the county treasury, and the laws of the State should be so modified as to permit of this, where such modification is necessary. Hers is as important a function as that of any other public servant in the county. Transportation is one of the most difficult problems to be met in this connection, but it is by no means insurmountable. Another urgent health need for the rural community is that every dweller in the country should have easy access to a hospital when there is need for such. Most of our larger cities are more or less adequately supplied with hospitals and in most of these there is always a limited number of beds which are available even to the very poor. Only the wealthier country people can now afford to make use of the city hospitals. There is great need of county or district hospitals in sufficient number and with facili- ties adequate for the care of those who cannot receive proper attention at home. In most cases the oversight of the visiting nurse will insure sufficient expert sanitary care for the person who is ill in his own home, but in a certain number of cases either the gravity of the disease, the lack of home facilities, or some other consideration makes it highly desirable, if not im- perative, that hospital treatment be available. Hospitals are, of course, expensive and rarely pay for themselves, much less would they be able to do so if operated on the scale and for the purposes here suggested. But hospitals are not so expensive as * RURAL HEALTH— PHYSICAL 191 disease unchecked or improperly cared for, and this is a fact which should be more generally appreciated. In connection with the hospitals there should be provided dispensaries from which medicines may be distributed to the poor, who would not other- wise procure them, at cost or even in some cases free. Ultimately we may also hope for public physicians, though such does not seem to be immediately realizable. If the other health agencies here described are effective, there should be less need for the physician, and perhaps the fact that his services come high may in some degree help to reenforce the value of the counsels of the visiting nurse. Already I have mentioned medical inspection of schools as one of the distinctive health needs of the rural community. Its value is now too generally recognized to require argument by way of reenforcement. To supplement it, however, there should be provided a carefully planned and well executed educational pro- gram for the improvement of rural health. Of primary im- portance in this program is the instruction of school children in the essential facts of sanitation and personal hygiene. In many of the better rural schools much has already been accom- plished in this direction. There are now some good text books on the subject which teach in a practical and intelligible way the most necessary facts regarding health. Perhaps the weakest spot in the scheme is the teacher who usually has studied ancient languages or some equally esoteric subject to the neglect of such practical matters as hygiene. As a consequence she has not the experience and background to give her teaching the requisite reality. It is here therefore that occasional lectures by the visit- ing nurse can be most effective. There is a very pressing need that we revise the course of study in the rural as well as in the urban schools until they inform us about the lives of our own times and people rather than about the lives and languages of peoples who lived a long while ago and whom we shall never see. It is indeed a poor culture which does not teach one how to live well in his own day and world. The teaching of health and hygiene in the schools will reach the young people, whom after all it is most important to reach. P.nl \vc must not neglect the older people of the community, for their attitudes of encouragement or discouragement will affect 192 RURAL SOCIOLOGY profoundly the value of the lessons to the young, as well as h;M en or delay the actual application of our program 1o their li\vv Therefore we need an abundance of plain, practical extension teaching on this subject. Most of our slate universities are making some efforts in this direction and the State Boards of Health are frequently doing good work and can do more still. There is no good reason why health extension teaching should not be made available wherever it proves valuable. It can be carried on through local clubs, farmers' institutes, the social center where one has been developed, the rural lecture course, and even the rural church. All of the leading facts about health and sanitation can be easily and clearly presented in public lectures and through bulletins, and people will be interested in them when so offered. Of a more general educational nature, but distinctly valuable in its way, is the rural health survey. Two diseases from which the rural population suffers more than the urban are nervous and circulatory derangements. Clearly then more than sanitation alone, perhaps more even than health teaching, must be provided for the rural community. There is too much isolation, life is too monotonous, there is too much introspection, too much brooding over problems and dif- ficulties by the rural dweller and too little self -forget fulness in the presence of others. For this difficulty we must prescribe a better social life, intercourse which gives to the thought new objects of attention and makes life seem less of a struggle and so little a pleasure. Farm women especially are lacking in such contacts. The best remedy here is the social center which cooperates with the home. If contacts are to be broadened, as they should be, care must be taken that they be made restful rather than competitive and destructive of energy. Another in- direct menace to health comes from the excessive severity and duration of labor on the farm at certain times of the year. It ma}- not be possible to abolish seasonal labor altogether, nor to find machines to do all of the excessively difficult tasks, but a better system of farm management, more cooperation in farm labor, and a better understanding of the dangers of physical and nervous overstrain should do much to remove some of the worse evils in this connection. The various methods of improving rural health here suggested RURAL HEALTH— PHYSICAL 193 will not come of themselves. If we wish to see them realized, we shall have to work for them at least as strenuously as we strive for the other good things of life. CITY IS HEALTHIER FOR CHILDREN THAN THE COUNTRY1 THOMAS D. WOOD MORE than half of the 20,000,000 school children in the United States are attending rural schools. Country children attending the rural schools are less healthy and are handicapped by more physical defects than are the children of the cities (including all the children of the slums). And this is true, in general, of all parts of the United States. My conclusions are based upon all the available official sta- tistics of school children gathered from all parts of the country. As many as 50 or more sources of information were used, and the results compared and collated. These statistics lack uni- formity. They contain, doubtless, many errors, but there are probably as many errors in the statistics of the city school chil- dren as in those of children in the rural schools. The com- parative result, therefore, is accurate. In every health item the country child is more defective than the city child. This is a most surprising reversal of popular opinion. More than twice as many country children suffer from malnutrition as do city children; the former are also more anemic, have more lung trouble, and include more mental de- fectives than do the latter. In an impartial effort to ascertain the causes of present-day country life, so far as health and welfare are concerned, this fact must not be overlooked: Artificial selection, during the last half century especially, has drawn much of the best human stock from the country to the cities. Before that time the tide in the movement of population apparently carried more good human material to the rural regions than away from them. Another reason for the physical inferiority of country school i Adapted from Philadelphia Public Ledger, April 2, 1910. 194 RURAL SOCIOLOGY children and of country people in general is that the science and art of human living, of conserving and improving human health and general human welfare, have advanced much more rapidly in the cities than in the country districts. The problems of safety and comfort as affected by congestion of population and many other conditions of urban life have thrust themselves upon human attention and have received much consideration. The art of human care has progressed much more slowly in the country. The father in the city spends, on the average, a larger percentage of his income for the welfare of his children than does the father on the farm. The farmer, relatively, raises everything else more carefully and, as a rule, more successfully, than his children. Still another condition which helps to explain this astonishing inferiority of the country child is the environment. The country home and the country school are, on the average, less sanitary and healthful than the city home and the city school. It has been assumed that because the country child has all the features of the countrj-, he is, of course, surrounded by for- tunate and wholesome conditions. But the possession of all outdoors is far from enough. The farmer's home is, as a rule, insanitary in many respects. It is often terribly unventilated, and the dwellers in the house are fed many hours of the day with bad air. Country water and food are less wholesome than water and food in the city. The standards of living on the American farm, when tested by the accepted principles of sanitation and hygiene, are alarmingly defective. The rural school, from the standpoint of health and general fitness for its important use, is the worst type of building in the whole country, including not only all types of buildings used for human buildings, but also those used for livestock and all do- mestic animals. Rural schools are, on the average, less adequate for their use than prisons, asylums, almshouses, stables, dairy barns, pig pens, chicken houses, dog kennels are for their uses. In the city the best ideas are more readily brought into contact with all of the people. For many in our cities, deprived through poverty of the material necessities of life — intellectual and social as well as physical — a bounteous philanthropy frequently sup- RURAL HEALTH— PHYSICAL 195 plies the lack. In the country, on the other hand, the farmers must be persuaded to use their own resources to provide ade- quately for the welfare of their families, and, most of all, for their children. To carry this proposal for child betterment directly to the country household would be inadvisable and ineffective; would often arouse resentment. In this phase of human education the direct approach to the home is much less feasible in the country than in the city. The school is, however, the agency endowed by every circumstance for the accomplishment of this great special task of a higher civilization. After careful consideration of this serious problem of the relatively deficient health of the children in rural schools, the Health Committee of the National Council of Education, in cooperation with the corresponding Health Committee of the American Medical Association, strongly recommend the follow- ing measures as a practical program for the solution of the dif- ficulty : First — Health examination and supervision of all rural school children. Second — The service of the school or district nurse to provide the practical health service and follow-up work, which (it has been so clearly demonstrated in our cities) can be best accom- plished by the school nurse. The work of the nurse is even more vitally important in rural than in city schools. Fourth — Warm school lunches for all children in rural as well as in city schools. The indirect educational benefits of the school lunches upon the children and the homes are even more important than the immediate health improvement of the children them- selves. Fifth — Correction of physical defects which are interfering with the health, the general development and progress of rural children. For this remedial and constructive health service, practical rural equivalents of medical clinics, dental clinics and community health centers of the cities are urgent!}' needed in all parts of the United States. The county unit organization and administration for health as well as other rural interests has already proved successful and promises the best results. Every 196 RURAL SOCIOLOGY county should have one full time health officer, one or more school and district nurses, and one or more community health centers to provide rational, self-supporting health and medical service for all the people. Sixth — Cooperation of physicians, medical organizations, health hoards, and all other available organizations in the rural health program. Seventh — Effective health instruction for the rural schools which shall aim decisively at the following results : (a) Establishment of health habits and inculcation of lasting ideas and standards of wise and efficient living in pupils. (b) Extension of health conduct and care to the school, to the homes, and to the entire community. Eighth — Better trained and better paid teachers for rural schools, who shall be adequate to the health problems as well as to the other phases of the work of rural education. Ninth — Sanitary and attractive school buildings, which are essential to the health of pupils and teachers. Tenth — Generous provision of space and facilities for whole- some play and recreation. Eleventh — Special classes and schools for the physically and mentally deficient, in which children may receive the care and instruction requisite for their exceptional needs. Better health is to a striking extent a purchasable commodity and benefit. Vast sums of money are expended from public and private funds for the amelioration of human suffering and dis- ability in the attempt to salvage the wreckage resulting from un- favorable earlier conditions, which with foresight and at very moderate cost might in large measure have been prevented. Our schools are spending millions in educating, or trying to educate, the children who are kept back by ill-health, when the expenditure of thousands in a judicious health program would produce an extraordinary saving in economy and efficienc3r. A dollar saved in a wise, constructive effort to conserve a child's health and general welfare will be more fruitful to the child and for the general good than a thousand times that sum delayed for twenty years. The principle of thrift in education finds its first and most vital application in the conservation and improve- ment of the health of the children. RURAL HEALTH— PHYSICAL 197 HEALTH WORK IN CITY AND RURAL SCHOOLS OF THE CMTKl) STATES ACTIVITY. FOR CITY CHILDREN Medical inspection laws Mandatory for cities in 23 States only in 12 States Mandatory laws Permissive laws Apply to all cities Enforced in most cities Medical inspection practiced In over 400 cities Dental inspection by dentists In 69 cities Dental clinics In 50 cities Clinics for eye, nose, throat and other de- fects In cities Nurses Open air classes 750 in 135 citiea In cities only Athletics and recrea- Virtually all cities and tion; organi/ed with large towns appropriate facilities and equipment \Y arm lunches in In over 90 cities in 21 schools States FOR COUNTRY CHILDREN Mandatory for rural schools in 7 States In 7 States In 6 of the 13 States having such laws In 13 States, in parts of 130 counties Permitted in 2 States, but not yet provided In one rural county ( St. John's County, Fla.) None In 12-20 rural districts Little provision rural schools In a few scattered schools in 9 States RURAL SANITATION: DEFINITION, FIELD, PRIN- CIPLES, METHODS, AND COSTS1 W. S. RANKIN, M. D. THE word sanitation refers to civic life; the term rural sanita- tion refers to rural civic life; the constituted and the common i Adapted from American Journal of rnUic Health, Vol. VI, pp. 554- f).-,H, June, 1916. 198 RURAL SOCIOLOGY organ through which rural civic life finds expression is the county government; therefore, we may define rural sanitation as the administration of sanitary measures by or through the county government. Rural sanitation finds its parallel in urban sanita- tion, and county sanitation its parallel in municipal sanitation. The field of rural sanitation includes more than 99 per cent, of the area and more than half of the population of the United States. Rural sanitation should be initiated by the state, but executed through the rural civic machinery, the county government. The state should initiate, because the state is the only existing force that can initiate rural or county health work. The county gov- ernment must carry on the rural sanitation initiated by the state for two reasons: First, should the states undertake to execute, as well as initiate, rural sanitary measures, all of the states, with a few exceptions, would soon realize that their undertaking was far beyond their means ; second, no one, or no agency should do for oth rs what they can do for themselves, as such practice leads toward dependence and indifference and away from independence and appreciation. The people are able, when properly shown, to care for themselves, and it is better for them to do this than to have it done for them. The independence of the county as a governmental unit de- mands a plan of rural health work that will permit the more progressive counties to go forward, liberating such counties from the possible retarding influence of the backward counties — in short, a plan that permits of leadership and healthy rivalry among counties. The multiplicity of rural governments is a greater rural sani- tary asset, affording a corresponding multiplicity of opportunity. There are 2,953 county governments in the United States, an average of 66 to the state. The county governments of the average state hold over a thousand meetings a year; at practi- cally all of these meetings the state's representatives are welcome and can get a hearing. If the state health officer has a reasonable proposition, with good argument behind it and not too big a budget in front of it, he can influence the county to take one, two, or three steps toward a cleaner civic life. Every meeting of the county government is a challenge to the state department RURAL HEALTH— PHYSICAL 199 of health to show the county its sanitary needs and how to meet them. Rural sanitation must be developed on a smaller budget than the budget for urban sanitation. The country is poor. What the exact difference between the urban and rural per capita wealth is in the United States, no one knows, but we do know that rural per capita wealth is much less than the urban per capita wealth. The influence of epidemicity is weaker in rural than in urban life, and rural quarantine measures need not be as rigid as urban quarantine measures. Rural sanitation will be influenced by the individualism of the country. The ruralite (a term more expressive than orthodox) is individualistic; the urbanite is communistic. The errors of individualism are best treated by education ; the errors of communism are best treated by legislation ; therefore, sanitary education is relatively more important in rural sanitation than in urban sanitation, while the reverse is true for sanitary legis- lation. There are two general methods by which a county may have sanitary measures carried out: First, the county may do its own work; second, the county may have its work done by some outside agency. The whole-time county health officer is usually regarded as the best solution by the first method, while the unit or contract system of county health work furnishes, probably, the best solution by the second method. The unit system of county health work assumes, first, the divisibility of county health problems into fairly independent units of health work; second, that a county may get better work for less money by paying the State Board of Health just what it costs to complete a certain piece of work than by attempting to do the work itself. Several illustrations will make the practica- bility of the unit system clear and perhaps better appreciated. Illustration No. 1.— The North Carolina State Board of Health proposed to and contracted with ten counties for a county ap- propriation of $500 to administer free typhoid immunization to those citizens of the ten counties who wished to be immunized. In the first set of five counties we gave complete treatment to 26,5137 people; when we completed the work in the next five 200 RURAL SOCIOLOGY counties, 50,000 people in Ilie ton counties will have been vacci- nated against typhoid fever. This is about one-eighth of the population of the counties treated. In several counties about one-third of the population has been treated. Illustration No. 2. — Our principal fall and winter work in rural sanitation will be executing contracts for the following unit of school work: For a county appropriation of $10 for each school in the county the State Board of Health agrees to arrange through the county school authorities and with the teachers a program of consecutive health days for each school as follows: Two weeks before health day the principal of the school receives from the State Board of Health a batch of hand bills announcing a date and program for health day. The hand bills also carry an invitation to the patrons of the school to attend the exercises. The teacher distributes these notices through the children to the school community. The representative of the State Board of Health arrives at the school at ten A. M. on health day. He makes a fifteen minute talk to the children and visitors on the importance of a knowledge of the laws of health. He then makes a medical inspection of the pupils and gives eacli defective child a card to its parents, notifying the parents of the nature of the defect and urging the parents to see the inspector after the evening exercises. The inspector mails a report of the inspection to the State Board of Health, which, through a system of follow-up letters, keeps in touch with the parents of the de- fective children until they are treated. The inspector then questions the children after the manner of the old-time spelling match on a health catechism, which has been supplied to the school in sufficient number at least one month prior to health day. The health day exercises then adjourn until 8 p. M., at which time the exercises are resumed. The evening exercises consist of from three to four short illustrated lectures by the inspector on the more important subjects of sanitation, inter- spersed with the reading of selected compositions by the school children. The last item on the program will be the awarding of prizes, the first for the best knowledge of the catechism and the second for the best composition. The inspector will grade, score-card manner, each school on the excellence of its showing, on health day. When this county unit is completed, a county RURAL HEALTH— PHYSICAL 201 prize will be awarded to that school giving the best cooperation in the work; a county prize will be awarded for the best com- position, and another prize for the best knowledge of the health catechism. The inspector can handle one rural school a day. It will take two or three days to handle some of the larger vil- lage and town schools. In the first county to adopt this unit there are fifty-seven schools which will require a program of practically three months. The inspector will have very hard work for five days in the week, like all school workers, but like them will have Saturday and Sunday to rest. This unit of health work couples medical inspection of school children with the sanitary instructions of the entire community, young and old alike — the young through the catechism, compositions, and lectures, and the old through the lectures, but most of all through the help the children will demand of their parents in learning the catechism, and in preparing the compositions. This plan of contract county health work greatly increases the appropriation of the State Board of Health; an appropria- tion from a county is. just as useful in doing health work as an appropriation from the state. This plan has great adaptability, and I might say extensibility in proportion to the ingenuity of the operator; under it a unit of infant hygiene work may be de- veloped; under it a unit of anti-malaria work may be carried out; under it a unit of anti-pellagra work may be executed; under it many other more or less independent county health problems may be successfully attempted. Comparative Value of Methods. — The whole-time county health officer idea proposes a means — an officer; the unit or contract system of county health work proposes an end — the execution of the plans and specifications for a definite piece of work. The whole-time county health officer idea, if carried out by the county authorities, is subject to local politics; if adminis- tered under state supervision it is in conflict with the principle of local self-government. The unit system of county health work is not subject to local politics and does not conflict with the principles of local self-government. The whole-time county health officer plan costs the county from $3,000 to $4,000 a year, and is available to only a compara- tively few counties; the unit system of work costs the county 202 RURAL SOCIOLOGY from $500 to $2,000 a year, and is available to nearly all counties. There are certain counties that should employ whole-time health officers, but the contract or unit system of county health work is better adapted to a variety of county conditions, and will be, in all probability, far more effective than the whole- time county health officer plan in reducing the state's death- rate. The unit system of county health work is" important as a stepping stone to the whole-time county health officer. In leading up to the whole-time county health officer, the unit sys- tem standardizes county health work, so that, when a whole- time county health officer is employed, an effective plan of county health work will have been established. The unit system of work or proposed contract submitted by the average state to the county should not call for an appropria- tion of more than $1,000; $500 is better. The smaller the cost of the unit, the greater is the probability of securing the funds with which to start county health work. After one appropria- tion is obtained the responsibility is then largely with the state for making such use of it as to pave the way for easier and more liberal funds. The game of sanitation, like the game of life, to use the other fellow's grammar, "is not in holding a good hand but in playing a bad hand good." Even the novice can get results with plenty of money. The intelligent health officer never loses sight of relative values, and the real fun of the game is in getting big results with little budgets. We shall be able to handle the county contagious disease problem for the average county for $300 to $400 per year. We will carry out the school unit for from $500 to $600 a year for the average county or for fifteen cents per pupil. We will have vaccinated 50,000 people in ten counties by September 11, for a cost to the counties of about ten cents for each person immunized. RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL 203 B. RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS DEFINED * E. J. EMERICK FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS is due to an arrested or imperfect cere- bral development. By most authorities, a person who is three or more years retarded is considered feeble-minded ; for instance, a child of twelve years, whose mental development is that of a child of nine, would be feeble-minded. The feeble-minded have been divided into three classes: (1) the idiot, (2) the imbecile, and (3) the moron. (1) The idiot has a mentality of less than three years. He cannot protect himself from common dangers. (2) The imbecile has a mentality of from three to seven years. He can protect himself from common dangers, but cannot be made self-sustaining. (3) The moron has a mentality of from seven to twelve years. He is "capable of earning his living under favorable circum- stances, but is incapable. ... (a) of competing on equal terms with his normal fellows, or (b) of managing himself and his affairs with ordinary prudence." No one needs to be told how to recognize the idiot or imbe- cile. Their inability to care for themselves, their physical stig- mata, and obvious mental limitations make them easily dis- tinguished. For this reason, they do not constitute a serious problem ; they are recognized for what they are, and disposed of accordingly. The moron, on the other hand, may present no physical evi- dence of deficiency; may be able to perform quite difficult tasks; may read and write ; and may talk fluently, sometimes even with a certain superficial cleverness. This is the class that makes for us our social problems. Here are the individuals who are put down as dull, ignorant or shift- less, or unwilling to exercise their judgment, common sense and will-power. Their resemblance to the normal makes it difficult i Adapted from "The- Problem of the Feeble-minded," Publication No 5, March, 1915. Ohio Board of Administration, Columbus. 204 RURAL SOCIOLOGY for many to believe that they cannot be trained to do as normal people do. Bad environment, lack of opportunity, ignorance, and what not, are given as causes for their failure to function normally. But those who have had these brighter defectives in institutions for the feeble-minded, and have watched them from childhood, under most careful training and instruction, know that they never develop beyond a certain stage : and know that there is in these morons a lack as definite as in any other form of feeble-mindedness ; a lack which makes it impossible for them to become thoroughly responsible. At large, the moron may become an alcoholic, prostitute, sex offender, thief, or graver criminal ; he is almost sure to be on the very edge of the poverty line, if not an actual pauper. Dr. Goddard tells us "Every feeble-minded person is a potential criminal," and this is particularly true of the moron — the high- grade defective, who passes for normal, yet who lacks in whole or part the sense of values and the will-power so necessary to the law-abiding citizen. He has been misunderstood; he has been credited with a degree of responsibility he does not and cannot possess ; he has been sent to correctional institutions time after time only to come out unimproved ; and he has been left free to perpetuate his irresponsibility, because we have not realized : (1) That the moron is not a normal person mentally. (2) That he can never be made normal, and (3) That feeble-minded invariably produce feeble-minded un- less combined with normal stock. FUNDAMENTAL FACTS IN REGARD TO FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS * SEVERAL important facts regarding mental defectives have been clearly established: 1. Feeble-mindedness is incurable. 2. The feeble-minded reproduce twice as rapidly as normal stock. i Adapted from "Fifth Annual Report Virginia State Board of Chari- ties,'' pp. 11, 12, Richmond. RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL 205 3. Feeble-mindedness is hereditary. There has never been found a normal child both of whose parents are feeble-minded. 4. From 25 to 50 per cent, of our law-breakers are feeble- minded. They are dominated by an inherited tendency to crime. The percentage of commitments for major crimes, such as mur- der, arson and rape, is apparently twice as great among mental defectives as among normal people. 5. From feeble-mindedness springs, by inheritance, insanity, epilepsy and all forms of neurotic degeneracy. 6. A very large percentage of prostitutes are feeble-minded. In 1911 the Department of Research of the New Jersey Training School for Feeble-minded tested fifty-six delinquent girls, "all of whom had probably committed the worse offense a young girl can." Fifty-two were found to be mental defectives. A test recently made of one hundred, girls taken at random from the New York Reformatory for Women at Bedford, by the Bureau of Social Hygiene, established by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., showed that all were apparently feeble-minded. Their average physical age was twenty years, nine arid seven-tenths months; their average mental age, ten and five-tenths years. As shown elsewhere in this report, a test of inmates of our reformatory for delinquent white girls revealed the fact that thirty out of thirty-five were mental defectives. Out of 300 women examined by the Massachusetts Vice Commission only six were found to have ordinary intelligence. In view of these facts it is apparent that our great problems of crime, insanity and the social evil are inseparably intertwined with the problem of feeble-mindedness. Whatever progress we may make in the treatment of criminals there can be no great reduction of crime so long as we ignore the fact of criminal inheritance, and whatever we may do toward the segregation of the insane, or toward the suppression of the social evil, we shall contribute little toward the actual solution of these prob- lems so long as we make no attempt to stem the appalling tide of feeble-minded offspring that is increasingly pouring forth from our large and ever-growing class of mental defectives. So far as modern investigation enables us to see, the most pressing social need of our time is the segregation of the feeble-minded. 206 RURAL SOCIOLOGY THE HILL FOLK1 FLORENCE H. DANIELSON AND CHARLES B. DAVENPORT THE following report is the result of an investigation of two family trees in a small Massachusetts town. It aims to show how much crime, misery and expense may result from the union of two defective individuals — how a large number of the present court frequenters, paupers and town nuisances are connected by a significant network of relationship. It includes a discus- sion of the undesirable traits in the light of the Mendelian analysis. It presents some observations concerning the relation of heredity and environment, based on their effects upon the children. While it is not an exhaustive study of all the ramifi- cations of even these two families and their consorts, it may be sufficient to throw some light on the vexed question of the pre- vention of feeble-minded, degenerate individuals, as a humane and economical state policy. The town in question lies in a fertile river valley among the New England hills. It is on the direct railway line between two prosperous cities. East and west of it are more hilly, less productive towns. Its present population is about 2,000. Most of the people are industrious, intelligent farmers. A lime kiln and a marble quarry are the only industries of im- portance. In summer the population is nearly doubled by city boarders. Into one corner of this attractive town there came, about 1800, a shiftless basket maker. He was possibly of French origin, but migrated more directly from the western hill region. About the same time an Englishman, also from the western hills, bought a small farm in the least fertile part of the town. The progeny of these two men, old Neil Rasp,2 and the Eng- lishman, Nuke, have sifted through the town and beyond it. 1 Adapted from Excerpts from Report on a Rural Community of Heredi- tary Defectives. Eugenics Record Office — Memoir Xo. 1, Cold Spring Har- bor, X. Y. 2 The few names which are used in the description of this community are fictitious. The local setting and the families and all the other details actually exist, but for obvious reasons imaginary names are in every case substituted for the real ones. RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL 207 Everywhere they have made desolate, alcoholic homes which have furnished State wards for over fifty years, and have re- quired town aid for a longer time. Enough of the families still live in the original neighborhood so that, although they occupy tenant houses of respectable farmers, for they own no land now, the district of the "Hill" is spoken of slurringly. Where the children have scattered to neighboring towns, they do not remain long enough to secure a residence and are conse- quently referred back to the original town when they require outside aid. As the younger generations have grown up, they have, almost without exception, married into American families of the same low mental grade, so that the "Hill" people are linked by their consorts to a similar degenerate family a hun- dred miles away. The attitude of the townspeople is that of exasperated neigh- bors. They have lived beside these troublesome paupers for so long that they are too disgusted with them, and too accustomed to the situation, to realize the necessity for aggressive work upon it. A few of them realize that hard cider is a large factor in the cause of their neighbors' poverty, but more of them, appar- ently ignoring the fact, keep it on tap free or sell it. This poor class of people are left largely to themselves until they need town aid, or some member becomes so drunk that he disturbs the peace, or some girl becomes pregnant and has to be taken to an institution. About once every eight or ten years, a state agent is informed of the conditions, and four or five children are removed from the families. Then the father and mother find that their financial problems are relieved for the time and settle down to raise another family. A few of the men and some of the women have soldier's or widow's pensions and state aid, but most of them work, when they do work, as wood choppers or farm laborers. Most of their wages go for hard cider or, if handed to the wives, are spent in other equally foolish ways. They move frequently from one shanty or tumbled down house to another. So long as food and a small amount of clothing are furnished by some means, they live in bovine contentment. From the biological standpoint, it is interesting to note that mental defect manifests itself in one branch of the pedigree by 208 RURAL SOCIOLOGY one trait and in another branch by quite a different one. Thus, in one line alcoholism is universal among the men ; their male cousins in another line are fairly temperate, plodding workers, but the women are immoral. Another branch shows all the men to be criminal along sexual lines, while a cousin who married into a more industrious family has descendants who are a little more respectable. These people have not been subjected to the social influences of a city or even of a large town, so that the traits which they show have been less modified by a powerful social environment than those of urban dwellers. The conclusion of this brief survey, then, must be that the second and third generations from a union of mentally defective individuals show an accumulation and multiplication of bad traits, even though a few normal persons also appear from such unions. It is also evident that certain traits tend to follow certain lines of descent, so that after one generation, related families may each have a different characteristic trait. Feeble- mindedness is due to the absence, now of one set of traits, now of quite a different set. Only when both parents lack one or more of the same traits do the children all lack the traits. So, if the traits lacking in both parents are socially important the children all lack socially important traits, i.e., are feeble-minded. If, on the other hand, the two parents lack different socially significant traits, so that each parent brings into the combination the traits that the other lacks, all of the children may be with- out serious lack and all pass for "normal." However, inasmuch as many of the traits of such "normals" are derived from one side of the house only (are simplex), that may, on mating per- sons of like origin with themselves, produce obviously defective offspring. The large majority of the matings which are represented in this report are of defectives with defectives. A few of those who have drifted into a different part of the country have mar- ried persons of a higher degree of intelligence, but the most of such wanderers have, even in a new location, found mates who wrere about their equal in intelligence and ambition. In a rural district which supports such a class of semi-paupers as has been described the social advantages which come to them are meager and narrow. After a long day's work on the farm RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL 209 or in the kitchen, the farm laborer and kitchen girl find their recreation in an evening of gossip, for they know every one in the neighborhood. They may live near enough to their homes to go there at night. If such is the case, one dirty kitchen may hold half a dozen men and the women of the house. They smoke and drink cider and pass rude jests together and in the end sometimes fight. Away from home, they are ostracized by the other social classes. They occasionally have a dance which will bring together many of the same class from neighboring towns. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that early marriages are the rule. After the legal age is passed, school work is dropped and, for a girl, the servant's life often begins, unless she is married at once. At any rate she anticipates mar- riage and works with that as a goal, not to escape work, but to gain a certain independence and that end of all effort, "to be married." Nor is it surprising that cousin marriages are fre- quent. In fact, even where no known relationship exists be- tween the contracting parties, it is probable that they are from the same strains. The early marriage is usually followed by a large family of children. Some die in infancy in nearly every home, but most of them survive a trying babyhood and develop fairly robust physical constitutions. They are born into the same narrow circle that their parents were, and unless some powerful factor changes the routine, they are apt to follow the same path until past middle age. For, except Avhere tuberculosis lias ravaged, disease has spared these people. So it is that the meager social life, the customs of their parents, th,> natural ostra- cism of the higher classes, and the individual's preference for a congenial mate induce endogamy, or in-marriage, among the mentally deficient. It has been maintained that the dispersion of such communi- ties of feeble-minded persons would stimulate out-marriage and that this would increase the chance of marriage with different and perhaps better blood and thus diminish the frequency of ap- pearance of defects in the next generation. The instances of two daughters who married comparatively normal men supports this view. Their progeny are, as a whole, a better cla-^s of citi- zens than the progeny of their sisters who mated with feeble- 210 RURAL SOCIOLOGY minded men. Nevertheless, the 50 per cent, of the offspring who were feeble-minded or criminal, even in these cases, consti- tute a menace which should be considered. Another case was from a criminal, alcoholic family and possessed both of these traits. He migrated to another state and married a woman who had more intelligence than either of the normal husbands (before mentioned). Only one of their children shows the crim- inal tendencies of the father, though the two youngest are neu- rotic, and backward in school. After the mother found out the real character of her husband and his family, she left him. While such repression of defective traits in the progeny by mar- riage into normal strains is beneficial to the community, it in- volves a great sacrifice on the part of the normal consort. How- ever, the consort is only one ; the progeny many. The more fre- quent result of the migration of a feeble-minded individual is his marriage into another defective strain in a different part of the countrj'. The change in locality usually means that two different kinds of feeble-mindedness are united instead of two similar types. Looking at the relation of the Hill families to society on the financial side, we see the three chief ways in which they have been an expense to the public are through town relief, court and prison charges, and their maintenance as the State wards. The town of about 2,000 inhabitants in which the original an- cestors settled has had to bear most the burden of the petty bills for relief. The poor records of this one town have been used to get an estimate of the cost of these families to the town, and these records run back only to war time. From 1863-64 to the present time, some families of the Hill have had partial or entire public support. In the first decade 9.3 per cent, of the town's bill for paupers was paid for the Hill families. In the second decade, 29.1 per cent of the total bill was paid for the same families or their descendants. During the thirty years covered by these de- cades, the total aid given to paupers increased 69.4 per cent., but that given to the Hill families increased 430 per cent. It is probable that more than 9.3 per cent, of the $15,964 expended from 1879-89 went to these people, for in some instances the names of those aided were not recorded. Besides the usual bills for rent, provisions, fuel, and medical attendance, the last decade RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL 211 contains the item of partial support of three children in the State School for Feeble-minded. The births, minus the deaths, during this same period caused an increase of about 59 per cent, in the number of individuals connected with the Hill families. This means, then, that for 59 per cent, increase in numbers, their expense to the public has increased 430 per cent. Turning to the court and prison records for the last thirty years, we find that at least sixteen persons from the Hill fam- ilies have been sentenced to prison for serious crimes during that time. A majority of these crimes were against sex, and the sentences varied from ten years to two months, or were inde- terminate. The cost of these sixteen persons to the county and State through the courts and institutions has been at least $10,- 763.43. The arrests for drunkenness and disorder have not been included. They are very frequent and the cases are usually disposed of by a fine or thirty days' imprisonment. About a third of the business of the district court comes from these families. The third large item of expense which falls upon the public, through the State treasury, is the maintenance of the wards which have been taken from their homes. Of the thirty-five, twenty-one are still under the control of the State as institutional cases or because they are under twenty- one years. The expenses of commitment, board, clothing, school tuition and officers' salaries is difficult to compute, but as ac- curately as can be estimated, these children, during the last twenty-three years, have cost the State $45,888.57. This means that for nine families about $2,000 each year has been expended to maintain children whose parents were unfit to care for them. The financial burden, then, which the Hill people entail is constantly increasing, and that far beyond the proportion of their increase in numbers. This burden rests especially upon the town in which they live. The 400 per cent, increase in the finacial aid which they have required in the last decade pre- sents this fact in a startling manner. The large percentage of the crimes which were against sex indicate that the influence which such persons exert in a community is of far more im- portance than the 10,700 odd dollars spent in punishing the criminals after the influence has been established. The money 212 RURAL SOCIOLOGY expended on the State wards is well spent when- even half of them an- trained for useful citizenship, but the imposition upon society of an equal number of undesirable citizens calls for a policy of prevention which will work hand in hand with the present one of partial alleviation. Most of the previous discussion has been in regard to the first four generations, — those individuals who are old enough 1o have their traits fully developed and their habits firmly established. There is, however, a comparatively large number of children between the ages of six and sixteen years who are growing up to form the- fifth generation of the Hill people. A brief study of the school record of seventy-five of these children may give one an idea of the prospect for the next generation. The school record of seven of them is not known. The others have been divided into two classes, those who are up to grade and those who are below the grade they should be in. Brief descriptions of the mental traits which they have exhibited in school serve as an index of the characteristics which are develop- ing. Glancing down the list of thirty-eight children who are below grade, two causes for their backwardness stand out most prominently. Either they are unable to fix their attention upon one thing long enough to grasp it, or else they require so much more time to comprehend ideas upon which they have concen- trated, that they progress only half as fast as the average child. They are frequently irregular in attendance so that they even lose the stimulus of regular systematic work. All of these chil- dren attend rural schools where no special provision is made for the backward child. Because the schools are so small, this class of children not only constitute a drain upon the teacher's time and resources, but retard the progress of the entire class in which they are studying. Occasionally they develop mischievous qualities, but usually they are quiet, stupid laggards. They will leave school as soon as the law will allow and go to form the lower strata in the industrial world as they have in the aca- demic. Five of these thirty-eight have one parent who is ap- proximately normal. Thirty children from similar families have kept up to their grade. Most of them do as well as children of ordinary parent- age, though only eleven of them have one or both parents who RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL 213 are not feeble-minded. A few of them are the slow ones in their classes. This brief survey, then, indicates that before adolescence half of the children from the Hill families show evidences of their mental handicap. The detrimental influence which such chil- dren may exert upon the rural schools which they attend is an important matter for consideration. How many of the other half, who have held their own with children of average par- entage, up to adolescence, will be able to keep up to the same standard from sixteen to twenty-five is an open question. Its solution depends largely upon the comparative weight of heredi- tary and environmental influences during that period. THE EXTENT OF FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS IN RURAL AND URBAN COMMUNITIES IN NEW HAMPSHIRE l ONE of the most significant studies that can be made in the survey of these counties is the geographic distribution of the feeble-minded and the proportion of the entire state population that falls within this defective class. Since there has been a report from every town in the State, either by questionnaire or personal canvass, this proportion may be considered fairly cor- rect even though many cases have not been reported. One of the most significant revelations of this table is the range of feeble-mindedness gradually ascending from the small- est percentage, in the most populous county of the State, to the largest percentages, in the two most remote and thinly populated counties. It speaks volumes for the need of improving rural conditions, of bringing the people in the remote farm and hill districts into closer touch with the currents of healthy, active life in the great centers. It shows that a campaign should begin at once, — this very month, — for the improvement of rural living conditions, and especially for the improvement of the rural schools, so that the children now growing up may receive the education that is their birthright. Let us have compulsory super- vision of schools all over the State, as well as compulsory school attendance. i Adapted from Report of the Children's Commission, Concord, N. H. 214 RURAL SOCIOLOGY The feeble-minded population of the State does not appear to be a shifting one. Of the 8.9 per cent, of cases born in New Hampshire, but outside the town of present residence, the ma- jority were born within the county as well, often in an adjacent town, and the majority of those born in the United States, but outside of New Hampshire, were born in one of the other New England states. FEEBLE-MINDED CITIZENS IN PENNSYLVANIA 1 DR. WILHELMINE E. KEY DR. KEY'S report is based upon a four months' intensive study of a rural community in northeastern Pennsylvania, containing about 700 square miles and a population of 16,000. The purpose of the study was to determine the number of men- tally defective persons in this community, and their cost to the people of Pennsylvania, as well as to discover possible remedies for a condition that experts agree becomes rapidly worse wher- ever left unchecked. Dr. Key found in this district 508 persons, ranging in age from six years upward, who were feeble-minded — that is, who were either clearly mentally defective, or who, being members of the family of such a defective, have been so affected by their associa- tions and environment as to be indistinguishable from mental defectives in their conduct and social and family relations. In other words, more than three defectives not in institutions were found for every 100 of the population of this Pennsylvania community. This enumeration did not include a considerable number of shiftless, indolent, inefficient persons, who had no clear mental or physical defect, but who, in a stricter classification, might be classed with the defectives, so far as their effect upon the community is concerned. Nor did it include children under six, unless they were obviously and unmistakably defective. A careful house-to-house study, oft-repeated, verified and am- plified by examination of official records and family histories and by consultation with well-informed neighbors and social workers, developed several striking conclusions: i Adapted from Report of The Public Charities Association of Pennsyl- vania, pp. 8-9; 36-46; 61-62. Publication Xo. 16. Phila., 1015. RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL 215 (1) Certain centers of mental and moral degeneracy and defect were found, which corresponded closely with the distribution of certain well-known mentally tainted family stocks. In two little settlements, for instance, on the edge of the area studied, it was found that 57.7 per cent, and 26.6 per cent, of the population were mentally defective, in the sense above indicated. Examina- tion revealed the fact that these settlements were the original seats of two families that were notably defective. By inbreeding and inter-breeding, the original small groups, after several gen- erations had brought forth hundreds of their own kind, and other hundreds who were on the borderline of inefficiency and mental defectiveness. Not only by drawing together representatives of their own and other bad strains, but by attracting weak members of better and normal families, these settlements became centers of con- stantly widening and contaminating influence, the more aggres- sive members going out to found other centers of contamination. (2) From figures supplied by the officers of the county most directly concerned, Dr. Key shows that the actual financial cost to the county, for caring for and protecting against these defec- tive groups during the last twenty-five years, has been at least $265,000, of which $125,000 was actually spent for maintenance of representatives of these families in the county home for vary- ing periods ; $30,000 for care of orphans ; $75,000 for settlement of criminal cases outside of court ; $15,000 for settlement of crim- inal cases in court, and $20,000 for outdoor or home relief. This takes no account of the cost of their private depredations, nor of private charity,, nor free medical attendance, nor neces- sary extra police service, nor drink bill, etc. In this connection Dr. Key says: "Could this sum have been applied to the segregation of its feeble-minded women, it would have sufficed to rid the county of the whole of its younger generation of undesirables. We must bear in mind, however, that at present the State has no insiiiu- tion for the care of such women . . . The training-schools for the feeble-minded are overcrowded and have long waiting lists . . . Our short-sighted policy . . . has not even the merit of being inexpensive. It costs a great deal of money and then serves only to aggravate the evils which it is designed to cure. . . . The 216 RURAL SOCIOLOGY county has done the best it could with the moans at hand. Surely it is high time that the State inaugurate a more intelli- gent and far-reaching policy which shall forever rid these sections of their unequal and undeserved burden." (3) There is a very distinct tendency for mental defect to run in certain families, indicating the strong hereditary influence, which can only be checked by steps to prevent marriage and continued propagation of the kind. (4) Comparisons between groups of forty-five defective women, and forty-five normal women in the same area, showed that the average birth-rate for defectives was seven children to each mother, while that of the normal women was two and nine- tenths children for each mother. This excess of defective births was not offset by higher mortality rate among defectives, the actual survivals of children of defective mothers being twice as great as in normal families. While it is recognized that this narrow inquiry, covering so few cases, is not to be accepted as conclusive, it seems clear that in this particular area, the tendency to multiplication is consider- ably greater among defectives than among normals, thus intensi- fying and emphasizing the problem of caring for and preventing the unlimited propagation of mentally tainted children. (5) Centers of defectiveness have flourished where remedial agencies have been most active for relief of external conditions. The lightening of the struggle for existence which this relief brings only makes it easier for the defective to live on, procreate and multiply his kind. The root of the evil lies not primarily in external conditions, but in the failure to separate and restrain inherently defective individuals from propagation. An interesting sidelight on the situation is contained in Dr. Key's study of the rural school, in relation to the defective. This disclosed 160 pupils whose inability to advance could be laid primarily to hereditary defect. The detailed histories of fifty such children are given in the report. An instance is cited, where, of forty children in a certain school, ten were defective, or retarded in their revelopment from two to four years. The ef- fect of these children upon the normal children, and the waste effort expended by and for the defectives is one of the sound arguments for wider State supervision and care of defectives. RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL 217 In conclusion, Dr. Key remarks : "No sensible person to-day questions the State's authority to cleanse a polluted water supply or take any measures deemed necessary to stop the spread of disease. . . . Why should it not exercise the same jurisdiction with regard to these plague spots, the sources of moral contagion ? ' ' She strongly urges the need of locating the worst centers of degeneracy and defect; registration of notoriously bad strains; marriage laws to restrain marriage into these strains; establish- ment of adequate institutions immediately, for the custodial care of those whose continued multiplication cannot be prevented by these means. AMENTIA IN RURAL ENGLAND x A. W. TREDGOLD SHOWING THE TOTAT. NTMBKR of AMEXTS, AND IDIOTS, IMBECILES, AND FEEBLE-MINDED, RESPECTIVELY, PER 1,000 POPULATION, IN CERTAIN DISTRICTS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, ACCORDING TO THE INVESTIGATION OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION, 1904. Feeble-minded en -<-> 05 T) 9 C 9 a c O "B 9 ^ *T3 & "a 2 , h- 1 i— i 3 0 1 r Manchester .... 0.05 0.32 1.20 2.10 3.74 Birmingham . . . 0.09 0.27 1.70 1.60 3.76 Hull 0.02 0.20 0 ">.! 0 ~>S 1.35 Urban Glasgow 0.07 0.23 0.32 1.00 1.68 Dublin 0.19 0..17 1.20 2.10 1.11 Belfast 0.13 0.70 0.07 2.45 'Stoke-on-Trent.. 0.21 0.45 2.10 1.10 3.96 Industrial ~i Durham 0.02 o.:!i 0.56 0.56 1.48 [Cork 0.07 0.3"2 0.16 0.54 1.10 Mixed Industrial ("Nottinghamshire 0.30 0.66 1.50 1.20 3.81 and Agricultural "^Carmarthnisli in- 0.59 0.65 0.61 1.20 3.05 'Somersetshire . . 0.18 1.00 2.10 1.10 4. .14 Wiltshire 0.36 0.69 2.20 0.90 4.2;1 Agricultural Lincolnshire . . . 0.44 O.'.tS 1.10 1.70 4.68 ( 'aniarvonshire. 0.24 0.58 2.10 0.94 3.96 ( lalwav o. 1 :» 1.00 1.00 2.20 4.49 Adapted from "Menial Deficiency," p. VI, Wood. N. V., 1908. 218 KTRAL SOCIOLOGY URBAN AND RURAL INSANITY » IN general the statistics indicate that there is relatively more insanity in cities than in country districts and in large cities than in small cities, although, to some extent the difference may be accounted for by difference between city and country as re- gards the tendency to place cases of insanity under institutional care. The figures may also be affected in some degree by the accident of the location of the hospitals for the insane. Studies made in New York State show that the proportion of admissions from a county in which a hospital is located is always greater than from other counties and that the proportion decreases with the distance from the hospital. The influence of this factor upon the comparison between city and country, however, would not everywhere be uniform. Whether it tended to increase the ratio of admissions from country districts or that from city dis- tricts would depend entirely upon the location of the hospitals. Probably it does not go very far toward explaining the higher ratio of admissions from the urban population. The ratio of admission to hospitals for the insane is higher for urban than for rural communities for both males and fe- males, and the difference is about as marked for one sex as for the other. It follows that the difference between the sexes with regard to this ratio is about as marked in urban communities as it is in rural, the one statement being a corollary of the other. One difficulty, however, about all comparisons of this kind as applied to the United States as a whole is that the urban popula- tion and the rural are very differently distributed over the ter- ritory of the United Slates. Xew England and the Middle At- lantic divisions together include 45 per cent, of the total urban population of the United States, as compared with only 13.5 per cent, of the rural population. If to these two divisions is added the East North Central the combined area includes 67.6 per cent., or about two-thirds, of the urban population, but only 31 per cent., or less than one-third, of the rural population. The three southern divisions, on the other hand, contain a much smaller i Adapted from "Insane and Feeble-minded in Institutions, 1910." Dept. of Commerce, U. S. Bur. of Census, pp. 49-.")l. Published 1914. RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL 219 proportion of the urban population than of the rural — 15.5 per cent, of the one as compared with 46.1 per cent, of the other. The characteristics of the rural population of the United States, therefore, are affected to a large degree by conditions peculiar to the South, while those of the urban population largely reflect conditions in the North and East; and, in general, any com- parison between urban and rural population is to a considerable extent a comparison between the North, and East on the one hand and the South and West on the other. WHAT IS PRACTICABLE IN THE WAY OF PREVENTION OF MENTAL DEFECT 1 WALTER E. FERNALD DURING the last decade four factors have materially changed the professional and popular conception of the problem of the feeble-minded. 1. The widespread use of mental tests has greatly simplified the preliminary recognition of ordinary cases of mental defect and done much to popularize the knowledge of the extent and importance of feeble-mindedness. 2. The intensive studies of the family histories of large num- bers of the feeble-minded by Goddard, Davenport and Tred- gold have demonstrated what had hitherto only been suspected, that the great majority of these persons are feeble-minded be- cause they come from family stocks which transmit feeble-mind- edness from generation to generation in accordance with the laws of heredity. Many of the members of these families are not defective themselves, but these normal members of tainted families are liable to have a certain number of defectives among their own descendants. The number of persons who are feeble- minded as a result of injury, disease or other environmental con- ditions without hereditary predisposition is much smaller than had been suspected, and these accidental cases do not transmit their defect to their progeny. i Read before the National Conference of Charities and Correction, Balti- more, 1915, being the report of the Conference Committee on State Care of the Insane, Feeble-minded and Epileptic. Reprinted from the Pro- ceedings of the Conference. 220 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 3. The cumulative evidence furnished by surveys, community studies, and intensive group inquiries has now definitely proved that feeble-mindedness is an important factor as a cause of juvenile vice and delinquency, adult crime, sex immorality, the spread of venereal disease, prostitution, illegitimacy, vagrancy, pauperism, and other forms of social evil and social disease. 4. Our estimates of the extent and the prevalence of feeble- mindedness have been greatly increased by the application of mental tests, the public school classes for defectives, the inter- pretation of the above mentioned anti-social expressions of feeble-mindedness, and the intensive community studies. It is becoming evident that some central governmental author- ity should be made responsible for the supervision, assistance and control of the feeble-minded at large in the community who are not properly cared for by their friends. This proposal is not so revolutionary as it seems, for a large proportion of feeble- minded people at some time in their lives now come under the jurisdiction of public authorities or private societies as de- pendents or as irresponsible law-breakers. Many feeble-minded persons eventually become permanent public charges. Many run the gauntlet of the police, the courts, the penal institutions, the almshouses, the tramp shelters, the lying-in hospitals, and often many private societies and agencies, perhaps, eventually to turn up in the institutions for the feeble-minded. At any given time, it is a matter of chance as to what state or local or private organization or institution is being perplexed by the problems they present. They are shifted from one organization or institution to another as soon as possible. At present there is no bureau or officer with the knowledge and the authority to advise and compel proper care and protection for this numer- ous and dangerous class. This state supervision of the feeble-minded might be done successfully by some existing organization like a properly con- stituted state board of health, or state board of charities, or by a special board or official ; but the responsible official should be a physician trained in psychiatry, with especial knowledge of all phases of mental deficiency and its many social expressions. The local administration of this plan could be carried out by the use of existing local health boards, or other especially quali- RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL 221 fied local officials or, perhaps better, by the utilization of properly qualified volunteer social workers, or existing local private or- ganizations and societies, already dealing with dependents or delinquents. This systematic supervision and control, could eas- ily be made to cover an entire State, and would obviate the present needless, costly and futile reduplication of effort. The most immediately practical method of prevention is that of intelligent segregation. The average family is entirely free from mental defect. It is possible that a real eugenic survey of a given locality might show that 90 per cent, of the feeble- mindedness in that locality was contributed by 5 per cent, of the families in that community. The proposed governmental supervision of the feeble-minded, with its sequence of registra- tion, extra-institutional visitation, accumulation of personal and family histories, cooperation with private organizations, public school classes for defectives, and mental clinics, would soon indi- cate the individuals most likely to breed other defectives. The families with strong potentiality of defect would be recognized and located. We know that if both parents are hereditarily feeble-minded, all the children will be defective, and that if one parent is feeble-minded, on an average half of the children will be defective. Families and settlements of the Kallikak, Nam or Hill-folk class, the so-called hovel type, can be broken up and terminated by segregation of the members of the child-bearing age. Every feeble-minded girl or woman of the hereditary type, especially of the moron class, not adequately protected, should be segregated during the reproductive period. Otherwise she is almost certain to bear defective children, who, in turn, breed other defectives. The male defectives are probably less likely to become parents, but many male morons also should be segre- gated. This segregation carried out thoroughly for even one generation would largely reduce the number of the feeble- minded. The cost of segregation will be large, but not so large as the present cost of caring for these same persons, to say nothing of lln-ir progeny in future generations. These people are seldom Self-supporting and most of them are eventually supported by the public in some way. From the economic standpoint, alone, no other investment could be so profitable. The present genera- 222 RURAL SOCIOLOGY tion is the trustee for the inherent quality as well as for the material welfare of future generations. In a few years the ex- pense of institutions and farm colonies for the feeble-minded will be counterbalanced by the reduction in the population of almshouses, prisons and other expensive institutions. When the feeble-minded are recognized in childhood and trained properly, many of them are capable of being supported at low cost under institution supervision. The State will never be called upon to place all the feeble- minded in institutions. Many cases will never need segregation — small children of both sexes, cases properly cared for at home with or without supervision, many adult males and adult fe- males past the child-bearing period. Eugenic study will recog- nize the non-hereditary cases who cannot transmit their defect, and who do not need segregation for this reason. The one great obstacle to effective prevention of feeble-mindedness is the lack of definite, precise knowledge. This knowledge can only be sup- plied by long-continued scientific research along many lines of inquiry. We do not even know the exact number of the feeble- minded. This fact will be supplied by the future community surveys and other extensive and intensive studies. And, after all, the meaning of this report is that in the long run education in the broadest sense will be the most effective method in a rational movement for the diminution of feeble- mindedness. One of the principal advantages of the proposed plan for state registration and supervision of the feeble-minded is the opportunity it gives for the general education of the people of the State upon this subject. The public generally should be persistently informed as to its extent, causes and results by means of suitable literature, popular lectures, and other means. This field offers a great and useful opportunity to mental hygiene so- cieties and other similar organizations for disseminating knowl- edge on this subject, for, under present conditions, it will be many years before local communities have an equal realization of the nature of the problem, or are prepared to deal with it. The principles of heredity as they are unfolded, and especially of morbid heredity, should be taught in the colleges, the normal schools, and, indeed, in the high schools. The adolescent has a right to be informed upon a subject which is of supreme im- RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL 223 portance to himself, to his family and to his descendants. The great majority of these young people will later marry and become parents. The dangers of marriage with persons of diseased stock should be presented plainly. The most important point is that feeble-mindedness is highly hereditary, and that each feeble- minded person is a potential source of an endless progeny of defect. No feeble-minded person should be allowed to marry or to become a parent. Even the normal members of a definitely tainted family may transmit defect to their own children, especially if they mate with one with similar hereditary tendencies. If the hereditary tendency is marked and persistent, the normal members of the family should not marry. Certain families should become ex- tinct. Parenthood is not for all. Persons of good heredity run a risk of entailing defect upon their descendants when they marry into a family with this hereditary taint. Intelligent peo- ple are usually willing to forego a proposed marriage if the possi- bilities of defective heredity in that mating are fully under- stood. The immediate sacrifice is less painful than the future devoted to the hopeless care of feeble-minded children. The class of people who are not amenable to reason in respect to this question must be dealt with through the general educational in- fluences which have been outlined in this report. When the natural leaders of thought in the community — the teachers, physicians, lawyers and clergymen — are fully informed on this subject they will help to create the strong public senti- ment which will demand the passage of necessary laws, and will secure sufficient appropriations to eventually ensure the intelli- gent protection and control of the feeble-minded persons in that community. BIBLIOGRAPHY HEALTH— PHYSICAL Allen, W. H. Civics and Health, Ginn, N. Y., 1 <><)<>. Annual Report American Red Cross Town and Country Nursing Service, Washington, !!)!(>. Bashore, H. D. Overcrowding and Defective Housing in the Rural Districts, Wiley, N. Y., 1015. Brewer, I. W. Rural Hygiene. Lippinoott, Phila., 1000. Clement, F. F. District Nurses in Rural Work. Conference Charities 224 RURAL SOCIOLOGY and Corrections, 1914, pp. 279-88. 315 Plymouth Court, Chicago, 111. Cruinbine, S. J. Sumner County Sanitary and Social Survey, Bui. 4, 1915, Kansas State Board of Health, Topeka, Kansas. Dyer, W. A. New Kind of County Hospital. World's Work, 30 : 605-9, September, 1915. Flannigan, R. K. Sanitary Survey of the Schools of Orange County, Virginia. Bui. 590, U. S. Bureau of Educ., 1914. Foster, I. A., and Fulmer, Harriet. White County, Illinois, Health Survey, State Board of Health, Springfield, Illinois. Gerhard, Wm. P. The Sanitation, Water Supply and Sewage Disposal of Country Homes, Van Nostrand, N. Y., 1909. Gillette, John M. Constructive Rural Sociology, pp. 147-167. Sturgis, N. Y., 1915. Gulick, Luther H. and Ayers, Leonard P. Medical Inspection of Schools. Survey Associates, N. Y., 1914, (Russell Sage Founda- tion Pub.). Harris, H. F. Health on the Farm. Sturgis, N. Y., 1911. Health in the Open Country, Report of the Commission on Country Life, pp. 100-103, Sturgis, N. Y., 1911. Howard, C. 0. How Insects Affect Health in Rural Districts. U. S. Farmers' Bulletin, 155. Hurty, John N. A Rural Sanitary Survey of Five Counties in In- diana, State Board of Health, Indiana, Indianapolis, 1914. Liimsden, L. L. Rural Sanitation : A Report made on special studies made in 15 counties in 1914, 15, and 16. Public Health Bui. No. 94, Oct., 1918. Monahan, A. C. Rural School Sanitation. In Education Hygiene, 355-380 by L. W. Rapeer, Scribner, N. Y., 1915. Medical inspection of 469,000 school children in Pennsylvania. Health Bui. No. 71, State Dept. of Health, Harrisburg, Pa., 1915. Minimum Health Requirements for Rural Schools. Report of the Joint Comm. on Health Problems in Education of the National Council of the National Educ. Assn. and of the Council of Health and Public Instruction of the Amer. Med. Assn. Prepared by Thomas D. Wood. Ogden, Henry W. Rural Hygiene. Macniillan, N. Y., 1911. Ruediger, G. F. Program of Public Health for Towns, Villages, and Rural Communities; with discussion. Amer. Jour. Public Health 7:235-47, March, 1917. Concord, N. H. Rural School Hygiene, Medical Inspection, etc. Surveys made by U. S. Public Health Service in Virginia, Florida, West Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Tennessee. Public Health Reports, Bulletins: No. 23, Vol. 29; No. 6, Vol. 29; No. 37, Vol. 29; No. 102, Vol. 30. Rural School Nurses. (1) Report of Kent Co. (Mich.) Nurse. (2) The Story of a Red Cross Visiting Nurse on her Round of Visits, etc. American Red Cross Town and Country Nursing Service, Washington, D. C. Stiles, C. W. The Rural Health Movement. Annals, 37:367-70, March, 1911. Terman, L. M. Hygiene of the School Child. Houghton, Boston, 1913. RURAL HEALTH— MENTAL 225 Vogt, Paul L. Introduction to Rural Sociology, pp. 150-169, Apple- ton, N. Y., 1917. Van Duzor, Charlotte E. County Nursing. Town and Country Nurs- ing Service, May 15, 1917. Waters, Yssabella. Visiting Nursing in the U. S. Charities Publica- tion Committee, N. Y., 1909. HEALTH— MENTAL Baldwin, B. F. Psychology of Mental Deficiency. Popular Science Monthly, 76 : 82-94, July, 1911. Burnham, Wm. H. Success and Failure as Conditions of Mental Health. Pub. No. 37, Mass. Soc. for Mental Hygiene, Boston, 1919. Burr, R. H. A Statistical Study of Patients Admitted at the Conn. Hospital for Insane from the years 1868 to 1901. Amer. Statis- tical Assn, 8 : 305-343, June, 1903. Clark, T.; Collins, G. L., and Treadway, W. L. Rural School Sanita- tion. U. S. Public Health Bulletin, 77, 1910. Danielson, Florence and Davenport, Charles B. The Hill Folk. Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, N. Y., Eugenics Record Office, 1912. Dencly, Mary. Feeble-minded. Economic Review, 13 : 257-279, July, 1903. Dugdale, Robert L. The Jukes, A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity. Putman, N. Y., 1910. Estabrook, A. H. and Davenport, C. B. The Nam Family. Eugenic Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y., 1912. Estabrook, A. H. The Jukes in 1915. Carnegie Institution, Wash- ington, D. C., 1916. Gillin, John L. Some Aspects of Feeble-Mindedness in Wisconsin. U. of Wis. Extension Div. Bui., Serial No. 940, Gen. Ser. No. 727, June, 1918. Goddard, H. H. The Kallikak Family. Macmillan, N. Y., 1912. Johnson, Alexander. Concerning a Form of Degeneracy. Amer. Jour, of Sociology, 4:326-334; 463-473; November, 1898; January, 1899. Key, W. E. Feebleminded Citizens in Pennsylvania. Publication No. 16, Public Charities Assn. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1915. Kite, Elizabeth S. The Binet-Simon Measuring Scale for Intelligence. Bulletin No. 1, Committee on Provision for Feeble-minded, Pliila. Lundberg, Emma O. A Social Study of Mental Defectives in New Castle Co., Del. U. S. Dept. of Labor, Children's Bureau, Pub. No. 24, Washington, D. C., 1917. Mental Defectives in Indiana. A Survey of Ten Counties. Second Re- port of the Indiana Committee on Mental Defectives, Indianapolis, Ind., 1919. Surveys in Mental Deviation in Prisons, Public Schools and Orphanages in California. Cal. State Bd. of Charities and Corrections, Sacra- mento, 1918. Tmlfjohl, A. F. Menial Deficiency. Wood, N. Y., 1908. Winship, A. E. Jukes-Edwards, A Study in Education and Heredity. Myers, Harrisburg, Pa., 1900. CHAPTER IX RURAL RECREATION, DRAMA, ART EXTRACT FROM THE WILL OF CHARLES LOUNSBURY "ITEM : I devise to boys jointly all the useful fields and com- mons where ball may be played; all pleasant waters where one may swim ; all snow-clad hills where one may coast ; and all streams and ponds where one may fish, or where, when prim winter comes, one may skate; to have and to hold the same for the period of their boyhood. "Item: To young men jointly I devise and bequeath all boisterous, inspiring sports of rivalry, and I give to them the disdain of weakness and undaunted confidence in their own strength, though they be rude; I give them the power to make lasting friendships, and of possessing companions, and to them exclusively I give all merry songs and brave choruses, to sing with lusty voices." THE NEED OF PLAY IN RURAL LIFE » HENRY S. CURTIS IN the early days there was plenty of hunting and fishing, and there was an occasional scalping party, conducted by the Indians, which gave variety to life and prevented it from being dull. Such conditions brought out the manhood in boys and awoke the heroic in girls. There was not the time or energy or often the opportunity for vice. Men and women living under such conditions did not see the need of play. Life itself was a des- perate game of engrossing interest. The farmer has been too i Adapted from Introduction, "Play and Recreation," pp. 13-16, Ginn, Boston, 1914. 226 RURAL RECREATION 227 busy improving his farm to take thought of social conditions or to notice the change. In his haste to be rich, he has forgotten to live. He has not learned to love nature or his work. He and his wife are working too long hours themselves, and working their sons and daughters too long. Following a plow or a drag over a cultivated field is not as interesting as felling the trees in the forest and burning the clearing. Much farm machinery has been introduced and the work and hardships have become less. Perhaps the farm is not less interesting to the adult far- mer who is trained to handle machinery and to understand the problems with which he has to deal, but country life is vastly less interesting to children and young people, because its danger and romance are gone. The nature appeal of great forests, and wild animals and a wild life is gone. The adventure and romance and exploration are gone. The opportunities of taking up new land and becoming a proprietor have largely gone. The cooperation and sociability of the pioneer have been replaced Jjy the independence that has come with safety and labor-saving devices. The rural school is no more a social center. The re- sults of these conditions are upon us. Forty-three per cent, of American farms are now held by tenants. It is very difficult if not impossible to get either a hired girl or a hired man in most sections. The more capable members of the population are drifting toward the city, and there is a vague but general unrest and dissatisfaction among the younger generation, which is the outward expression of this hunger for a larger life. The country must take seriously this problem of readjust- ment. It must provide some substitute for the adventure and romance and sociability that have disappeared. It must break the isolation and spirit of self-sufficiency of the modern farm that has replaced the interdependence and sociability of the pioneer. It must restore to the country school at least as much of social value as it had in the old days of spelling matches and debates. It must appropriate for itself the message of the modern gospel of play. This should not come to the country as something wholly new, but rather as a restoration and a read- justment. It is essentially an effort to give back to life those fundamental social values of which changing conditions have deprived it. 228 RURAL SOCIOLOGY Rural life has become over-serious and over-sordid. It must perceive that life and love and happiness, not wealth, are the objects of living. There must be injected into it the spirit of play. The isolation of the farm home must be broken by estab- lishing some place where farm people will frequently meet to- gether, and the colder and freer months must be more largely utilized for education, recreation, and the public good. The hours of work must be reduced, and the half holiday must -be brought in. The country must discover again in its daily life the adventure and romance and beauty that have passed. All too often in these years of earnest struggle for success, the children have been only a by-product of the farm. The farmer has loved and cared for them, but the rearing and training of a worthy family has not been one of his objects in life. He has cared for his corn and potatoes, but his children have "just growed." Play' he has often confounded either with idleness or exercise, deeming it only a useless waste of energy, better devoted to pulling weeds or washing dishes. Yet play- fulness is almost synonymous with childhood; it is the deepest expression of the child soul, and nature's instrument for fash- ioning him to the human plan. Play is needed by the country child no less than by the city child ; but, with decreasing families and enlarging farms, it is becoming increasingly difficult. The equipment that is necessary must be introduced into the home and the yard. Play must be organized at the country school, as it is coming to be at the city school. The social center, the Boy Scouts, and the Camp Fire Girls must bring back the adventure and romance that the country has lost. The rural school must train the child to perceive and love the beauty of the open coun- try, to hear the thousand voices in which Nature speaks to her true worshipers. RURAL RECREATION 229 PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN RURAL SCHOOLS 1 LAURENCE S. HILL PHYSICAL education in rural schools is a problem that has not yet been satisfactorily solved. It is a problem that presents sev- eral angles. We must determine the needs not alone of the boys and girls of the rural schools but also the needs of the rural com- munities in a physical, moral and social way. We must deter- mine what physical education should include and how to in- augurate and organize its various phases. There has been rather consistent opposition to physical edu- cation in the rural communities. Judging from the testimony of several district superintendents and many teachers of rural schools and from our own experience in New York State, we must conclude that opposition to this so-called ' ' fad ' ' has its be- ginning in several facts. First, it involves the expenditure of money. This has been our experience in the solution of most problems as well as in the accomplishment of most aims. The problem is indeed difficult of solution when communities come to value money more highly than they do activities that make for greater social, moral and physical efficiency. It is easy to meas- ure the value of tangible things, but difficult to estimate the growth in education, refinement and culture on the part of the child. This is the reason why people generally are willing to spend money in those things the results of which are apparent at once and measurable in dollars and cents, but hesitate and often refuse to give to their own community those things which are necessary for the fullest development of the boys and girls. Another reason for opposition to physical education in the rural schools is that the people of these communities do not realize the value of this phase of education. They do not ap- preciate the need for a well-organized health program. They haven't the right conception of what it is, what it includes and what it should accomplish. The feeling is general that they are getting all the physical education they need in their daily labors. They point with complacency to the fact that they have all the i Adapted from :\nirrir