= —= Sra eee we aie aoe 2 , re p eho See & = — a = x Sa NR - NTS AT A A I a EE OT Se _ ~ $< _————— ee EEO le eee AE EOE LL NTE - Se aE TS A foes SS —= Saad ~ , eee —s eae” = ——~e- a asc ay sl as —— pane. — S "4 a appt - a Boe Pe — . ee = a ga Se — Fe a a _ Sa. AS — et — = = ——— aoe | _ ane PO ne - e—— 7, _ (a pee rns H ——— Sear: al * et ee - amr = t ws eee Finan ta ; ‘' we — —~ = x ; 3 ae — ms eee =. = i ~ — Senn ne a aes eS a Se ne ene saci eueneestannioconeracectads RF re ren oe on a epetnsabennhenaanel SS EES ARENT TEA SEEN SNE TNS ERENT EIS. CNL TE TT TT eeeneneem aS EES SES Sere a ET ; S ee = ES are ee Sa STE TT I : seinen ee caeanomas I ee ee sa ee nan nen ems SOI AO IO eee a a Sa nn aN a a iS a a nd rr ac A NE ADOT A ATA AALS — Se a oe ae tocar Sass —— NS a i a LE amen nnn | eens SES So ————eoeoeoeoeaeassaaeaeaaeaeaaaaaaaa ea ~ capvesoaienabeated — cians ig - ew - conenetentnied etancnsstsnas natant toca ——— : “t, H aiomaie ~— mee = —_F_HTHTCFTC_ECECECETEEHCTCECECO SE ~ — —— = ———— a er | a — - a pinnate natal Naaroracoene* ——_EFTCTOCOCOCOCOOOO — — ——— nee ~ > et = re as - as i et a I eee = eee ontenennst na a ES i seme — —_ arenes a cconacammeaiipas re a | a HET anaes So en - _ eepentneiem: a EE ee | neem <= es apeiea eet Re ee | — ae seitiatrensceneioan SST TS ——_E_HCEHEHFETETHETETE—O Ee —— ee i Se ~~ SSE STS | oo ernst me a ic H ~ —— pao womans —EF_ _ECHCECEOEeEOOOOOl OO —E—=E EE - pre ere Ne a —-_~_--—-——_—== ll. ee} eee —————— ne ~!~’ jppo”~-_-_-2-—F ES = —— as peanodaanaseincanenes _—_CFTCOCOCOe”_NEH_-2-— — — C—O = ——— mores rene teense cit OOOO SE Se on mee ner Seeacemnrenonenaniewatsial a I A ne fe en een | ~~ toe eae a — een LE — NS weie~ Ae menacne ~~ pacientes eacanen ieianeae RE se | ~ ciaocaneanaecnasaeiaeeaat ee aaa near 3 we oa = —--’"T}N TAOHOn.~.--.-2---——-———_—__—_—_——_——————e EE = peoneleenonanenartnneeaeae Vie Eee — oa IE EE A eT A a —— ant men SE TL IM $$$ eee re eeeneaee ST a ET ee om a oe oo er AS — : EE I eae) ee A PITT A A I A OL OA peepee — eee esas PT a eS —— RN ee TY EEN, ee EL A TS ae ee eae! sieibubiientnatbteiedatatl ee aD IE SE ae rome - eS lS a a eS ee = Be ned ne en SS ESTE TNS —~ 2 eee Fan) ere PPI ag af on il eS a a a | ay | a -* a re ead anahaat satis nisasanasrn shesalsarasteatiaaaene-ssaaesanene Sais EE ee ree RE aie oe A TE AINA ae ee — a ~ EE ET TE ET SS ST, eee — - ITE pt Sees — OF FET Se AT tN on Oe eS SSS eee Scene ae eT ea Nat aeeanmaend ; ———$— ee SSS eee eee ae eaheninnnanne ease aS ——_”_CWep_PtEOOCOCOEOEOElol=leeeae eee es eo _ pal atiocieemnaetohtinaatiaat — ee SS LR ANTE Sea a ETT eT eon See APTA OES TS or ra NE en a So a a TE A eT I ETN Ae AO NEI SOI OI TET eahaghhel asihnAdananicoa PN ET ea — Un eee ee f ots aay aa a TIE Te TRS Ae PE ATES IO a re i a tn ~ Ol ee - ——— A EE cen es ne Pe a eter meee en RATE Te ATG nr LD: LE ee EE ae sinclar Alec abinenaal insta tit piemeepuninciatnatnniatmsitngs pennant AOD wigrasemeaaeeennail ————— aS —- canniarastbiesinntnata dhebtlinaanstilas ena ee eee, <> Ae 79, ———— = SS SSS see nen nee ee a ensaanebeicalnlyahacatedaeiamahetionab iia ieanray cesta in maaan a ~~ I A EA OP OT Saseenenestey eee gheee eee eee aa eR Fs creer ae a RS NCR an eee Te dammaa ~~ eo BE - I Te eee ne ae A TRY EM SY SET a — $2 SAT TTT soraaisaenoneanndaanpepadeeiatiadess Ree eer Ma ee —-— Co PAY ETT TE SESS canteen : saeeeee pane OI aE TE SL LTTE eS oe ENE Ie ernie ect en aie en a ST tern Sn na nn aE metas EC LL SN, ae aD ~ — at fh a ee a nc Beef TOT IEE CT TP AO SPT EI LE CO A EE I OT TC : ee EEE PE OT Eee ser ee Te BE NR LE a ROE AGE TET I ne Smee OE SE SSS ENE FO TE SE TD OP ances se ie a CT A LO OT LL LOL LL DLL LL LLL LLL ALLL LALO AL ELL ALL NE EE OE LE EL PS — ee Sse So eS TT EEE aT TT ROT aD SSS = AI ET OOOO SSS eee ee 00 een - a nena ee Tea LESSEN | el A CL CC LO LLL ALL LALLA LLL LALA, LO Se PTE TE IT Te Te ——L ET Daaebanie sochatbtstnatinall manetheiendindtte ae Rw ee aT S a ere i i A ALLL LLL LLL LLE LLL EAL ALL LLL AA ste brian aii - - oe ee ee THEE PE ESA CN SE Se aa aaa ave nippuannpcnanenahcideetaphaet aaa eo SL ETI CTE Ceres ee a NR a LEE IF A AE ARO EY CR EE TN ITE AE ~ = a Ro ee oe a SR OS inch tte OE ALE OD AD AL AE a at ee eee — - ee ner ere ase ~ SSS — —oO—OOOOOllOOOOOS SS eee eae eee ——e a =e PT PT LN TSE: =~ nano Sree ene aieaienreiaassanatntisiathon $e OE eS nn 8 Eee eee ee ame a ee renee ae onrenrer a ae PONT TENE EEE IE BE TT TN ETE on cmenanll SS a a A ae Pt oA Pe A EET IT ET a OO OPTI IEE RET aa ee ee ne A a a nr RR NR RN EP EOL TCO IT LT TL SL ce aa aaa eae: eS ; cee eee een ne ee ee e eee eee eae eeeeeceeee eee een nee pena alte eA A ee ae a PEE SS AE eT TTS ST TNE STN a a a ae aS ——?— SSS SS elle ee ee eo eee — Sanaa ee oO a SS SS OEE PRI PET BT ETI cea ECE SE TS LT NATTA os A a aac a a Se ST SN — ne LR OCI SET TPT CETTE EP LEN SET CLE ER pee ee ee Nr OT Ce RN oe eS TE TE OE Ooo a EE IER TT ELE NLT Ie a ET ae een ame = en ‘ Se ee Tea a _ #_aADP4!oar~..>.0V._".0.0.0W.._-.0—02—-—-———0052—— ee eee — — eae nn A PT TOO _—- — in ieironneasasiencinteaie —— vr ~ OleOle ee Ee ee PE I —EHT_ECOTOTOEO OTTO NS A TIT ar =$_FT CTF 22————0—000 5 ——————————————— — — a a SSI ——_ Tenner a : ~ a aoe een nnaeeperinamanee LIE, ae aR ea —— a eee EN a TE A TCL LT OT IE a aaa ae verses aaa ser = it — = OOO eee - e553 = ae aa —~ one —— ee Se eee eee me ee a EE Pe LENTIL IE a : 3 = ~~ ESE ee eee See AE A RE eae TN TE TSS penabinaaecen eapaliing ee ae SS i= RAE OEE Patt RRS PE RA NET A OD STOR TE SS POLE PE AE ATRIA DN er: a ee Ba a (1926— Han ab DOOKIE Seay geen resources th ay, Dats, eo ak Lay ta ee y ¥ ‘4 seid * a i) mi on ee) A aol ey 2 me he Laan HANDBOOK OF RURAL SOCIAL RESOURCES THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS —_—_—— THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED TORONTO THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, FUKUOKA, SENDAI THE COMMERCIAL PRESS, LIMITED SHANGHAI ‘HANDBOOK OF RURAL SOCIAL RESOURCES. EDITED BY di HENRYOUSRAEL AND urd BEN SOON WY es LAN DAES UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS Cuicaco, ILLINors CoPyRIGHT 1926 By Tue UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO All Rights Reserved Published June, 1926 Printed in the United States of America by J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK CONTENTS PARTI UN TRODUCTION (iar i EO COT ak Oey ee be 1X CHAPTER LGN yp RURATES POPULATION ULE Ounce idiot I C. E. Lively. . Increase and Decrease of Rural Population—Sex Proportions—Age Distribution—Race and Na- tionality—Occupation. II Farmers’ STANDARDS OF LIVING.......... 13 E. L. Kirkpatrick. Composition of Households and Families Studied —Classifications of Goods Used—Value of Family Living Furnished by the Farm—Family Living Purchased—Total Value of Family Living—How the Total Value of Family Living is Distributed —Comparisons of the Distribution of Goods Used by Farm Families and Industrial Families— Variations in the Distribution of Values of the Principal Groups of Goods with Increase in the Total Value of All Goods—The Distribution of the Value of Goods Used as an Index of Standard of Living. ~ III THe DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL ART........ 26 Anna Mansfield Clark. Drama—Religious Drama—Art Extension in Illi- nois—The Landscape Background—Music. DVSMUSURATI EDUCATION: 4 vis ths static y ate fake al tice eis 37 Ernest Burnham. The Public Schools—Higher Institutions—Goy- ernment Agencies— Voluntary Organizations — Research and Publicity. Vv v1 CHAPTER V VI VII VIII IX CONTENTS RURAT SOCKAUAWOR RA ee Pee ee Leroy A. Ramsdell. What Is Social Work?—The Availability of Social Work to Rural Communities—Emerging Problems. THE RuraL WorK OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HN Wh UM as DaMts ie vat atet net ats E. V. O'Hara. Early Developments—Rural Catholic Education —Policies—The Program of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. ‘THE SITUATION AMONG PROTESTANT RURAL CHURCH BS) ui ete tae prs be saret eas ae erg Ralph 8. Adams. Statistics of Rural Churches—The Work of Church Organizations. ORGANIZED RURAL RECREATION........... Lee F. Hanmer. The Formation of Recreational Organizations— The Training of Play Leaders—The Baseball Situation—Typical Projects. FARM WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS.......... Grace E. Frysinger. Early Organizations of Farm Women—Present Day Conditions and Organizations—Trends in Administration—Changes in Form of Organiza- tion—Trends in Function. NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL LEGISLATION, 192) ie A GI ee Ue oan Ursa Abe ete Robert Samuel Fletcher. Tariff Acts of 1921 and 1922—Agricultural Credit—The Capper-Volstead Act, 1922—The Packers and Stockyards Act, 192i1—The Grain Futures Act, 1922—The Cotton Standards Act, 1923—-The Butter Standard Act, 1923—The Filled Milk Bill, 1923—Establishment of the Bureau of 60 66 75 85 94 CoNTENTS vil PAGE Dairying, 1924—The Federal Highways Act, 1921—Freight Rate Investigations, 1925—The Purnell Act, 1925. CHAPTER XI THE CoOpERATIVE MARKETING MOVEMENT 107 Benson Y. Landis. The Extent of Codperative Marketing—Types of Codperative Organizations—Accomplishments and Limitations—The Social Aspects of Codéperative Marketing. XII Farm Crepit AND FARM TJAXATION....... 119 Norman J. Wall. The Demand for More Capital and the Agencies Supplying it—Taxation Problems. XIII AcGricuLtturRAL PropucTION, PRICES AND TH COME AOL roe sieht ndeate Wal ole tie 126 DWH? Bean. Agricultural Production Since 1919—The Price Readjustment—The Purchasing Power of the Farmer’s Dollar and of His Products—Income from Agricultural Production—The Rates of Re- turn on All Capital and Management Employed in Agriculture—Reward for Operators’ Capital and Management—Reward for the Farmer’s Effort. XIV Some AGRICULTURAL PoLicizs oF Euro- PEANPAUIN ATION S yet anh he lie te ledel ster otal tia ti ay 143 Asher Hobson. The Battle of Wheat in Italy—The English Situation—The Russian Program—Land Reform in the Balkans—American Interest. PART II I THe ProcrAms oF NATIONAL AGENCIES EN- GAGED IN RuRAL SociAL WorkK....... 153 American Country Life Association and the Na- tional Council of Agencies Engaged in Rural Viil INDEX CoNTENTS Social Work—Activities of the Association—The National Council of Social Agencies—Officials of the National Council—American Child Health Association—American Farm Bureau Federation —American Home Economics Association—Ameri- can Library Association—American National Red Cross—Board of Home Missions and Church Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Department of Rural Work—Board of National Missions, Presbyterian Church of the U. S. A,, Town and Country Department—Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America—Girl Scouts—Home Missions Council—National Board of the Young Women’s Christian Association; Ru- ral Communities Department—National Child Labor Committee—National Catholic Welfare Conference—National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Association; Country Life De- partment—National Council of the Young Men’s Christian Association; County Work Department —National Education Association; Rural Educa- tion Department—National Grange—National Or- ganization for Public Health Nursing—Playground and Recreation Association of America—Russell Sage Foundation; Recreation Department—U. S. Bureau of Education; Rural Education Division —U. S. Department of Agriculture; Division of Farm Population and Rural Life—U. S. Depart- ment of Agriculture; Extension Service—U. S. Department of Labor; Children’s Bureau—uw. S. Public Health Service. e PAGE 197 INTRODUCTION This handbook is designed as a reference work for a variety of rural workers. It comprises data about many rural interests and is published as a source of concise information for teachers of rural social science, teachers and administrators of public schools, extension workers, social workers, ministers, church administrators, etc. Part I consists of interpretations of developments in rural life within roughly the past five years by specialists who have made a special study of the particular interest which they discuss. Responsibility for interpretation is in each case that of the person presenting the material. Part II comprises statements of the programs and present services of the national agencies who are members of the Na- tional Council of Agencies Engaged In Rural Social Work. It is a revision of a compilation of information published about these agencies in 1920, and which is now out of print. The purpose of the work is to bring together data that has hitherto been widely scattered, to sum up the recent achieve- ments and developments in rural life. It is proposed to revise it in from three to five years, if the reception to this volume indicates that it is serviceable and is sufficiently used. A final word should be said to indicate that this volume is the product of codperation on the part of many individuals and agencies. A group of students of special topics generously gave of their time without compensation in preparing the statements which appear in Part II. Twenty-six agencies supplied infor- mation for Part II. ‘The American Country Life Association and the Department of Research and Education of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America collaborated in planning the project and in assembling and editing the ix x INTRODUCTION material. The University of Chicago Press, as publishers, and J. J. Little & Ives Company, as printers, rendered assistance which helped to make the appearance of this book possible. On the whole, this volume is at least a modest demonstration of successful codperative work between a number of agencies and individuals. Henry Israkx, Benson Y. Lanois. HANDBOOK OF RURAL SOCIAL RESOURCES I THE RURAL POPULATION C. E. Livety Professor of Rural Sociology, Ohio State University In the United States the term “rural” is commonly used to designate that group of some fifty million people who live in the open country or in places of less than 2,500 population. This rural element which once constituted the whole population has been shrinking with each census until in 1920 it comprised only 48.6 per cent of the total population. The change has been chiefly due to the rapid growth of cities, but it has also been due in part to a change in the definition of what constitutes rural population, since it was not until 1910 that the Census Bureau adopted 2,500 as the upper limit of the rural group. Used in this sense the term rural population does not designate a natural grouping but represents an arbitrary classification of somewhat dissimilar elements. It includes a group of incor- porated villages of less than 2,500 population, which remains in rather constant proportion to the general population, com- prising 8.5 per cent of the total in 1920. This group shows such distinctive characteristics as to make it seem advisable to treat villages as a separate element in the rural population.’ The remainder of the rural population, comprising 40.1 per cent of the total population, is divided between unincorporated fei a so concludes in his A Census Analysis of American Villages, pp. I t Hanppook oF RuRAL SociaL REsouRCES villages and open country. ‘The exact size of the first of these groups is unknown. It has been estimated in Ohio to be 5.2 per cent of the total population, and probably does not vary greatly through the several states. ‘This leaves the second, or open coun- try group, comprising about thirty per cent of the total popula- tion, by far the largest single element in the rural population. This open country population is often designated as farm population, but statistically the two terms are not synonymous. Farm population ? includes all persons who live on farms and all farm laborers living outside incorporated places. Now it is by no means true that all persons who live on farms are engaged in farming. Neither is it true that all the people who live in the open country are on farms. Further, it is probable that the number of those not living on farms is increasing and that it will continue to grow with suburban development. Then again, we have a certain percentage of the farm popula- tion living on farms within the limits of incorporated cities and villages. So it is that in 1920 the farm population comprised 29.9 per cent of the total population and, excluding the quarter of a million of these who lived within urban limits, there must have been a group of five per cent or more of the rural population living in the open country but not on farms. INCREASE AND DECREASE OF RURAL POPULATION There has been no trend more characteristic of recent times than the rapid and widespread growth of cities. ‘The claim that a heavy draft has been put upon the rural population for this growth has been the subject of much investigation and discussion. Gillette * has showed the comparative rates of in- crease of urban and rural populations by decades since 1800. For these thirteen decades the average rate of urban increase has been 59 per cent while the average rate of rural increase has been 24.5 per cent or only 41.5 per cent as rapid as urban growth. The rate of rural increase has progressively declined 2The Fourteenth Census, 1920, made a separate report on farm popula- tion for the first time. See Vol. V, ch. XIV. 8J. M. Gillette, Rural Sociology, New York, Macmillan Co., 1923, p. 83. THE RuraL PoPpuLATION 3 from 35 per cent during the decade 1800-1810 to 5.4 per cent during the decade 1910-20. As may be supposed, the relative decline of rural population has not been uniform throughout the country but is marked by differential rates of increase and decrease. ‘Thus, while forty-four states lost rural population as relative to the urban population between 1910-1920, only fifteen states lost rural population in the absolute sense. ‘That is, the percentage which the rural population is of the total population of the state de- clined in forty-four states. But in only fifteen states were there actually fewer persons living in the rural districts in 1920 than in 1910. ‘The states of this latter group, which numbered only seven for the period 1900-1910, and of which New York, Ohio, Illinois and Iowa are typical, are for the most part located in the northeastern and north central sections, where urban industry and advanced agricultural methods have been most highly developed. ‘The percentage loss in rural population in these states ranged from a minimum 0.9 per cent in Ohio to a maximum of 15.3 per cent in Nevada. During the same period, 1910-20, the urban population of these states grew at a mini- mum rate of 10.7 per cent in Vermont and at a maximum rate of 66.2 per cent in Michigan. Viewing these rural population losses from the standpoint of smaller local areas, we find that everywhere some counties or townships are increasing and others are decreasing in population, though the increases may come at such a slow rate as to show a relative loss when compared with the urban population of the same areas. Gillette states that “during the last census decade, about 70 per cent of the 3,000 counties, and probably 50 per cent or more of the scores of thousands of townships had fewer rural inhabitants in 1920 than in 1910.” * In Ohio during the same period, out of a total of 1,317 rural townships, 315 town- ships (23.9 per cent) showed an increase in open country popu- lation; 998 townships (75.8 per cent) showed a decrease and 4 townships (0.3 per cent) remained stationary.° kg of the American Sociological sheet Vol. XIX, p. 136. a Oe “Increases and Decreases in the Open Country Population of Ohio, 1910- is20, ” Journal of Farm Economics, 1, VI, pp. 248-53. 4 HanpBook oF RuRAL SociAL REsouRCES Considering the same question of differential increase and decrease, not from the standpoint of geography but from the standpoint of type of place, we find that here also the general rate hides wide variations. ‘Thus while the rural United States grew 5.4 per cent during the decade 1910-1920, the incor- porated villages therein included increased 9.7 per cent and the remainder of the rural population increased only 1.9 per cent. We have no measure of the comparative rates of increase of the populations of the unincorporated villages and open country for the nation as a whole. Computations have been made for Ohio, and here we find that for the same period the rural population decreased 0.9 per cent, the incorporated villages increased 4.6 per cent, the unincorporated villages increased 11.6 per cent and the open country decreased 5.2 per cent.° It appears to be true that the villages as a class; with the exception of those in New England,’ are losing population only relatively; and although large numbers of villages are declining, the regions of greatest absolute loss are to be found in the open country. Any adequate explanation of the decline of rural population involves consideration of two general propositions or problems: (1) the differential rates of natural increase of rural and urban populations, and (2) migration to and from the rural and urban sections. Let us consider them in order. ; It is difficult to secure accurate comparisons of the natural in- crease of urban and rural populations because of the present state of the vital statistics, particularly those of the rural population. The natural increase of a population is measured by the surplus of births over deaths. To be sure, we possess crude rates of births and deaths among the rural population for the registration areas, but so long as we are unable to secure from our census significant age and sex analyses comparable to those available for cities, and so long as our vital statistics include all communities under 10,000 as “rural,” much of the effort at comparative anal- yses of urban and rural vital statistics will be rendered useless. * Ibid. ™Cf. J. M. Gillette, Rural Sociology, New York: Macmillan Co., 1923, pp. 465, 467. THE RuraL PorpuLaTion 5 For such comparative studies adjusted and specific rates only are significant, Investigators are fairly well agreed, however, upon certain conclusions about birth and death rates: (1) That the birth rate is everywhere on the decline, and that it began to fall first in the cities, but is now falling almost as rapidly among the rural population, though the rural rate still remains considerably higher than the urban rate. (2) That the death rate has also generally declined, and that the urban rate has declined more rapidly than the rural rate, but that the rural rate still remains decidedly the lower. (3) That as a result of this comparative condition of the birth and death rates the rural sections have a greater surplus of births over deaths each year, z.¢, a greater natural increase than the urban sections.® The relatively large proportion of children in the rural popu- lation is a matter of common knowledge. In centers of 2,500 population and over, in 1920, 19 per cent of the population was under ten years of age. In the farm population 25.7 per cent was under ten years of age. ‘This means that in a typical city of 10,000 people there would be 670 fewer children under ten years of age than in a similar sized group of farm population.® Thompson *° finds that in 1920 there were 391 children under five for every 1,000 women aged fifteen to forty-four in the urban population, and 580 in the rural population, thus indicat- ing a 48.3 per cent excess of children under five among rural women of child-bearing age as compared with urban women of the same age. These differences are subject, of course, to great variation for different localities. For Maine the corresponding figures are 378 and 505; for West Virginia, 400 and 716. A number of reasons have been assigned for this higher rate of child production in rural districts. ‘The more significant of these appear to be that (1) farming is a domestic occupation and is much dominated by home ideals and attitudes, which in- * cf, E. B. Reuter, Population Problems, pp. 152-3 247-8; J. M. Gillette, Rural Sociology, pp. 84-88; W. S. Thompson, “Rural Demography,” Pubh- cations of the American Sociological Society, Vol. XIX, pp. 152-5. . Galpin, ‘Can the Farm Family Afford Modern Institutions?” Peaiedine of the American Country Life Association, 1923, p. 49. 20 Op. cit., p. 157. an Gillette, p. ctt., p. 86; Thompson, Op. cit., p. 159. 6 Hanppook oF RuRAL SoctaL REsOURCES variably include children. (2) In the country there is compara- tively little social competition in consuming goods which tends to reduce the number of children per family. (3)A larger propor- tion of rural people marry, and they marry younger than is the case in cities. (4) It costs less to rear children in the country, partly because a child’s labor on the farm makes him an eco- nomic asset after an age of eight or ten is attained. It may be remarked that all of these conditions are subject to change and that with the possible exception of the first the progressive urbani- zation of the country is reducing the effectiveness of these and other factors to maintain the high birth rate of an earlier day. From the time cities were established their death rates appear to have been higher than the death rates for the rural sections. Early cities could maintain their numbers only through migration from the outlying areas, but the development of sanitary science has enabled modern cities rapidly to lower their death rates and greatly to reduce the hazard due to unsafe water, milk and gen- eral lack of sanitation. In the meantime the rural death rate has also declined, but much less rapidly than the urban rate which is now in some areas lower than the rural rate, if only crude rates be considered. However, urban populations are weighted in the vigorous age groups of 15 to 45 while rural populations have an undue proportion of persons in the age groups above 60, two facts which make the death rates appear more nearly equal than they really are. It is true that the coun- try has been less affected by sanitary science, that first class medical and hospital facilities are not within easy reach of coun- try people, that the common physical defects are as numerous there as anywhere else and less frequently cared for, that poverty, ignorance and filth play their accustomed roles.1? But in spite of these facts country people continue to live longer than city people. Indeed, recent data** point to the conclusion that, ranked on the basis of the survival rate of the population, rural states come first, semi-industrialized states second, highly urban- ized states third and cities last. Apparently there can be but 2Cf. Geo. E. Vincent, Annual Report of the Rockefeller Foundation, 1924, pp. 33-4. 18 Thompson, Op. cit., p. 153. Tue Rurat PoPpuLATION 7 little doubt that there are survival values inherent in country life which are not dependent upon organized public health work. There can also be but little doubt, when urban experience is con- sidered, that equal application of public health measures would still further reduce mortality rates in the rural districts. It is clear from this comparison of the rural and urban birth and death rates that natural population increase in the rural districts is much greater than in the urban districts. For the period 1910-20 it has been calculated to be 7.6 persons per thou- sand for the urban and 15.2 persons per thousand for the rural, or approximately twice as great for the rural districts as for the urban districts. Clearly, if the country retained all of its natural increase it would not only soon outdistance the city in size and rate of growth, but the country would soon become seri- ously overcrowded from the standpoint of the demands of agri- cultural industry. The greater portion of this natural increase does not remain in the country, however. From 1910 to 1920 the rural districts increased by only 1,599,871 persons while their natural increase plus three-quarters of a million immigra- tion is estimated to have been 7,850,000 persons. ‘Thus we have a quantitative estimate of the cityward migration during the decade. It amounted to about 6,150,000 persons and consti- tuted 45.2 per cent of the total urban increase for the period.*® The comparative rates of increase and decrease for villages and open country indicate that the larger part of this migration came from the farms. Much discussion has centered about the causes of this huge population movement away from the country districts. While there is an endless variety of such causes, expressed by the migrant on a particularistic and by the statistician on a generalistic level, it will be helpful to bear in mind that the fundamental causes are economic in nature. The natural increase of rural popula- tion, the improved standard of living in the country, made pos- sible through a commercialized agriculture, and the increased XIX a Mota ica, Publications of the American Sociological Society, Vol. 'p. 2. a ita. oe 141-2, 189, 8 Hanppook oF RuraAt SoctaL RESOURCES production efficiency of farm methods *® have all contributed to create a surplus rural population which moves elsewhere in search of real or fancied opportunity. (I say “fancied” opportunity because undoubtedly many rural people, ignorant of the dis- advantages of urban life, fail to recognize the advantages of their rural status and effect a change which they later regret but are unable to undo.) It is thus the younger people, and particularly women, seeking educational and vocational oppor- tunity as well as a more stimulating life, drift into the towns and cities and fail to return, leaving a dearth of young people generally, and of women in particular, in the country districts from whence they came. But in addition to these fundamental economic causes there are numerous incidental causes, mainly psychological, of popula- tion movement away from the country. I refer to such factors as insufficient social activity in the country, conveniences of liv- ing in the city, and the like. ‘These, combined with the very common opinion, frequently instilled by parents, that country life is a hard and inferior type of life, determine an attitude favorable to migration cityward as soon as the opportunity pre- sents itself, Among those who do not join this great migration, at least two classes may be distinguished: (1) those who are less socially minded than those who leave, or who have greater personal inertia, and consequently are less disturbed by the relative isola- tion and simplicity of country life, and (2) those who are dis- satisfied and desirous of leaving but to whom the opportunity has not yet presented itself. From the standpoint of rural or- ganization it should be recognized that either group is com- paratively dificult to work with and that each presents a some- what different set of problems. In areas where loss of numbers has been severe and rapid one may encounter numerous problems of social readjustment involving depleted economic resources, declining institutions and organizations, anemic social life, and mental attitudes of dissatisfaction and helplessness, %°Young calculates that the efficiency of farm labor has increased 82 percent in grain production during the 50 years following 1870. See Cor- nell Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 426, p. 7. Tue Rurat PoPpuLATIoNn 9 Much investigation of rural population movement is needed. Interest in the movement to cities has tended to obscure other movements which are numerous and significant. Inter-state and inter-regional movements, though declining, are still important. Others which should receive attention are inter-community move- ments and movements within the same community. ‘There is also need of following the rural dweller to the city to determine what happens to him there. We have said much about those who succeed, but no comprehensive study has been made of the social levels found by rural migrants to the cities, or of the cultural conflicts and maladjustments which inevitably result from a mingling of the urban and rural mores,*? SEX PROPORTIONS In the total population the sexes are about equal in numbers, there being 104 males per 100 females in 1920. Various geo- graphic regions and population classes differ markedly from this general average, however. Villages stand at one extreme with 94.5 males per 100 females, cities approximate more nearly the national average with 100.4, while the farm population stands at the other extreme with 109.1 males per 100 females. Vil- lages vary from 88 males per 100 females in the Middle Atlantic group of states to 105.2 in the Mountain and Pacific groups,*® and the farm population varies from 103.6 in the South Atlantic to 126.6 in the Pacific group. Specific local areas vary much more. In the farm population of Wake County, North Caro- lina, there are 102.8 males and in King County, Washington, 132.9 males per 100 females.’® In general the surplus of males in the rural population is greatest in the frontier states, and in sections where there is a high percentage of foreign born population, or farm laborer population. Combinations of these factors produce great sur- pluses. ‘Thus, among the farm laborer population, which is 1 The Survey Graphic for March, 1925, represents a journalistic attempt ee up reise the rural negro in New York City. Op. cit., p. 163. 19 C. a ek and Veda B. Larson, Farm Population of Selected Counties, pp. 10 HANpBooK oF RurRAL SoctAL RESOURCES largely foreign born, in certain counties in Wisconsin, North Dakota and Washington there are two to three or more males to every female. The sexes are nearest equal among farm owners, though there is a surplus of males even in this group, and among the rural negro population. It is clear that in the move- ment away from the farm the woman is more concerned than the man. It appears that she leaves the tenant or laborer family more often than the owner family, and the reverse ratio of the sexes in villages suggests that she tarries there longer than the male, or more often drifts back to the village when urban life becomes impossible. AGE DISTRIBUTION Differences in the age distribution of rural and urban popu- lations have already been remarked. ‘The statistics of rural age grouping are too inadequate to permit detailed comparisons. It is clear, however, that there are marked age differences. In general the rural population shows a higher percentage of chil- dren and old people and a lower percentage of adults between the ages of 20 and 45. Cities possess almost a ten per cent ex- cess in this last group. PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF URBAN AND RuRAL POPULATION (1920 Census) AGE RURAL URBAN All Mawes ca ew eunie ss 100.0 100.0 Linder sit ose Oa ee 12.3 = Bey Se OT baat eda ak ool waited + 123 9.3 LOv1 Sy Ce wore: ew elais Mele s 11.6 8.6 TSH Sy Piven eth ote ates 9.7 8.2 204A iss cunieitalaaiis ote os wien 33.8 42.7 ADS TANG OVERS tone de cerita re 20.2 21.3 The age distribution by class and geographic area varies con- siderably. The northern and northeastern sections possess the smallest percentages of children and the largest percentages of old people while the reverse is true of the southern states. Com- parable figures for the farm and village groups are not avail- able. Such as we have show a higher percentage of persons SE THE RuraL PoPuLATION 11 under 21 and a lower percentage of old people in the farm population than in the rural population at large. Individual counties show extremes indicating that the farm population is subject to age variations so great as to warrant classifying the distribution as abnormal. Available figures *° indicate that the population of villages presents an age distribution more nearly like that of the cities than of the farms. One fact sets villages off sharply from cities, however. ‘That fact is their large percentage of elderly people. Apparently villages have from six to seven per cent more persons 45 years of age and over than either farm or city populations. | RACE AND NATIONALITY The rural population is more homogeneous than the urban when race and nationality are considered. Only 6.5 per cent of the rural population is foreign-born; 79.5 per cent are native white. Of the total foreign-born population only 24.6 per cent are in rural territory. Of these by far the greater portion are peoples from northern and western Europe, commonly called the older immigrant group, and they are located chiefly in the north central and northwestern states. ‘There are many other groups, such as the Mexicans of the southwest and the Asiatics of the Pacific states, but in numbers they are relatively few. The Negro forms about 13 per cent of the rural population and is a decreasing element. ‘The negro birth rate is higher than the white, but the high death rate makes the rate of natural increase less than that of the white population. The Negro movement away from the soil appears to be relatively as great. ‘The Negro migration northward has been great in recent years, and while it is chiefly toward the cities, many of this race locate in the rural districts of the north, particularly in the villages. OCCUPATION Of the fifty-one million comprising the rural population more than thirty-one million (61 per cent of the rural population) are 20 Fry, Op. cit., pp. 164-5. 12 Hanppook oF Rurau SociaL REsoURCES classed as farm population. ‘This means, merely, that they live on farms, or are farm laborers living in unincorporated terri- tory. ‘There is probably an increasing number of persons living on farms who are not engaged in farming. This is particularly true in the neighborhood of industrial centers. We have no complete occupational analysis of the remaining twenty million of the rural population (39 per cent) who live outside incorporated places but do not live on farms. We do know that nearly nine million of them live in incorporated vil- lages, and a recent study ** shows that of these, 29.9 per cent are engaged in agriculture (the percentage would no doubt be greater had the census been taken during the summer rather than during the winter months), 32.9 per cent are engaged in manu- facture, 10.8 per cent in trade, 8.6 per cent in transportation, 5.1 per cent in clerical work, 5.7 per cent in public and pro- fessional service, 3.7 per cent in domestic and personal service and 3.3 per cent in mineral extraction. A complete occupational analysis of the rural population yet remains to be made. Until it is done we lack one of our best means of understanding rural society. 21 Fry, Op. cit., p. 164. II FARMERS’ STANDARDS OF LIVING E. L. KIRKPATRICK Associate Economic Analyst, United States Dept. of Agriculture The repeated use of the term “standard of living” by those who are proposing solutions of the problems of agriculture calls for a careful consideration of the economic goods which con- tribute to the farm family’s living. ‘The expression itself arises several pertinent questions. In the first place, what are the basic factors or elements of farm family living? Next, at what costs are these elements provided? Finally, what is the dis- tribution of the cost among the different groups of elements constituting a family living. The figures here presented as a means of throwing some light on these questions represent averages of the estimates obtained by the survey method from 2,883 farm families of selected localities of nine states.1| ‘The quantities, in so far as possible, and the prices of all goods and services consumed yearly by the farm family constituted the basis of all the estimates obtained. Where quantities of various goods could not be given, estimated values of or expenditures for these goods were taken instead. The estimates obtained by the field workers were usually given by the homemaker, although sometimes with help from the oper- ator or from an adult son or daughter. ‘Typical farm homes within the locality chosen for study were visited, that is, selec- 1The Massachusetts Agricultural College, the Connecticut Agricultural College, the New York State College of Agriculture, the Ohio Wesleyan University, the Iowa State College, the Kansas State Agricultural College, the University of Missouri, the University of Kentucky, the Alabama Poly- technic Institute and the Alabama Woman’s College codperated in the field work for this study. The schedule used for collecting the data_was pre- pared jointly by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and the Bureau of Home Economics, United States Department of Agriculture. 13 14 Hanpspook oF RurAuL SociAL REsouRCES tion of homes of any one size or any one level of living was avoided. Each home included in the study had an adult male acting as the farm operator and an adult female acting as the home-maker. The number of sons and daughters in the homes visited ranged from 0 to 6 or more, of different ages. Selected localities in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Alabama consti- tute the units of study from which the results were obtained. Practically all field work was done between July 1, 1923, and September 30, 1924. Estimates in each instance were for goods and services used during the year just preceding the visit of the field worker. Since price levels changed very little be- tween July 1, 1923, and September 30, 1924, data from the separate localities studied were tabulated as being typical for the year ending December 31, 1923. COMPOSITION OF HOUSEHOLDS AND FAMILIES The term “household” means all the persons sheltered in one dwelling who eat, usually, at a common table. A family in- cludes parents and the sons and daughters who are at home or who while away at college are supported from the family purse. Thus, the household may include in addition to the family, relatives, hired help, boarders and others. Relatives and others are taken into account in all costs when supported from a com- mon income. When not supported from a common income, they are excluded under all except food and rental costs. Hired help and boarders are included under food and rental costs, only. Though smaller than size of household, size of family is ac- cepted as a satisfactory basis for direct comparisons of family living. Variations in the average size of household follow rather closely variations in the average size of family for the several localities studied. From a social and from an economic view- point, size of family seems to be equally preferable as a basis for comparison. a FARMERS STANDARDS OF LIVING 15 CLASSIFICATION OF GOODS USED The values of goods and services used are tabulated by groups classified on the basis of their logical relation to the standard of living. The object of the classification used is twofold: (1) To enable the reader to make direct comparisons of the values of goods for specific purposes and, (2) to afford a more satisfactory index to the standard of living than is afforded by the total value of all goods. ‘The main groups are food, cloth- ing, rent, furnishings, operation, maintenance of health, advance- ment, personal, insurance (life and health), and unclassified. Food includes meats, dairy products, honey, flour, meal, vege- tables and fruit furnished by the farm valued at prices half way between what they would have brought had they been sold and what they would have cost had they been purchased on the local market. Under this head are also included groceries and other food products purchased. Clothing includes all articles of wearing apparel actually pur- chased for all members of the farm family during the year studied. Clothing values are arrived at by adding for each member of the family the costs as given by the homemaker of the separate articles of clothing which had been purchased, ex- cept in a few cases where estimates of total costs of clothing for the different persons in the family were taken. The few used garments received as gifts in several families are valued at what they were considered worth in comparison with new garments of similar kinds. Use of the farm house for the year is charged at ten per cent of the value of the house, in so far as this value could be determined by the field agent. This rental value is intended to cover taxes, insurance and repairs on the house and to pay six per cent interest on the investment. Furniture and furnishings include musical instruments, fur- niture, pictures, floor covering, bedding, linens, tableware, uten- sils and equipment for sewing, cleaning, laundry and canning purchased during the year. Depreciation on furnishings in the home is not taken into account. 16 Hanpsook oF RurRAL SoctAL RESOURCES Operation goods include fuel—furnished by the farm or pur- chased—soap, cleansers, and matches purchased, hired help in the household, charges for laundry sent out, and telephone serv- ice. They also include depreciation and gasoline, oil, repairs, license, insurance and other accessories for the automobile where these are chargeable to household and family use. Depreciation on the automobile is charged according to the number of years the car had been used. The proportion of the total operation cost of the automobile for household use was estimated when the data were obtained. Goods used for the maintenance of health cover doctor’s, nurse’s and dentist’s services, hospital bills and medicine of all kinds purchased during the year. Advancement goods include board and lodging at high school or college, school and college text books, supplies and tuition, reading matter in the home, organization and club dues, sports, vacation trips, church support and benevolences. Personal goods cover barber’s fees, toilet articles, gifts, candy and tobacco. Insurance goods include premiums paid on life, endowment, health or accident policies during the year. Unclassified goods include burials, cemetery lots and other goods, the purpose of which is not specified. The classification outlined above has been evolved from the many factors or elements reported as the economic goods of family living. The value of goods furnished by the farm and the value of goods provided by direct purchase represent an addi- tional cross-classification. VALUE OF FAMILY LIVING FURNISHED BY THE FARM The average value of all family living furnished by the farm for the 2,883 families ranges from $428 in Schoharie county, New York, to $833 in selected localities of Missouri (Table 1). The average value for all families is $634. This average in- cludes foods, $395, use of the farm house (10 per cent of the arbitrary value of the house) $187, and fuel $52. Food consti- tutes the highest percentage of the value of all goods furnished, the proportion being 62.4 for food, 29.5 for use of the house Farmers’ STANDARDS OF LiIvING 17 and 8.1 for fuel (Table 2). Alabama presents the highest average value of foods furnished, a higher proportion than that of any other state. Schoharie county, New York, shows the low- est average value of foods furnished, $224, or 52.4 per cent of the value of all goods furnished. TABLE | The average value per family of goods furnished by the farm and purchased, and the proportions which the values furnished and purchased bear to total goods used, for the year ending December 31, 1923. Two thousand eight hundred and eighty-three farm families of selected localities of the United States. Owners (2,014), tenants (808) and hired men (61). “4 Total value] Furnished by Size of of all goods the farm Purchased No. of ar States fami- Famj House- Per- lies |Family | “hold | Amount Amt.|Percent] Amt.| cent $ of total $ of Pers’ns|Pers’ns total a ee a a a SS ey Massachusetts 81 3.8 4.6 1,948.1 704.3 36.1 1,243.8] 63.9 Connecticut .}| 110] 4.3 4.7 1,492.6 533.5 35.8 959.1] 64.2 New York ...] 498 3.6 4.1 1,077.6 428.0 39.7 649.6] 60.3 Ohiowniys, 383 4.1 4.3 1,540.8 639.8 41.5 901.0} 58.5 TOWai tess 472 4.4 4.5 1,669.2 692.8 41.5 976.4] 58.5 Kansas .....| 406 4.4 4.7 1,492.0 604.9 40.5 887.1} 59.5 Missouri ....| 178 4.0 4.4 1,896.8 832.7 43.9 | 1,064.1) 56.1 Kentucky ...| 370 4.2 4.6 1,488.3 650.1 43.7 838.2] 56.3 Alabama ....}| 385 4.7 Sl yes hard 757.4 48.2 814.3] 51.8 All States... .|2,883 4.2 4.6 1,503.9 633.7 42.1 870.2) 57.9 A part of the variation in the values and the distribution of values of the different groups of goods furnished may be due to different climatic conditions, different types of farming and different prices, especially of foods and fuel. Severe winters call for more fuel in Massachusetts than in Alabama. ‘The amount of wood available from the farm varies in the different states. Similarly, housing demands vary with the severity of the cli- mate and with the prevailing housing standards of the farming communities. The type of farming influences the value of foods, and consequently the proportion that the value of these foods bears to the total value of all goods furnished. Finally, higher prices enhance the value of food or fuel in certain states, Size of family has some significance in this connection. This 18 HanpBook oF RurRaAt SociaL RESOURCES factor, as well as food-using and fuel-using habits of farm * families, calls for further analysis. Amounts of food and fuel wasted, as well as the adequacy of the amounts used, need to be determined. Out of such analyses may come definite plans for securing an increased proportion of food and fuel from the farm. FAMILY LIVING PURCHASED The value of family goods furnished by the farm constitutes from one-third to one-half of the total value of the family living, the average being 42.1 per cent for all families here reported. ‘Thus, approximately 58.0 per cent of the farm fam- ily living is provided by direct purchase. ‘The proportion that the value of all goods purchased bears to the total value of all goods used varies from 51.8 per cent in Alabama to 64.2 per cent in Connecticut. ‘The average value of all goods purchased, $870 for all families (Table 1), ranges from $650 for Schoharie county, New York, to $1,244 for selected localities of Massachusetts. For all families the average value of foods purchased amounts to 25.7 per cent of all goods purchased; clothing 25.3 per cent; furniture, 4.7 per cent; operation goods, 18.1 per cent; health maintenance goods, 6.8 per cent; advancement goods and serv- ices, 10.9 per cent; personal goods, 4.1 per cent; insurance pre- miums, 4.1 per cent, and unclassified goods, 0.3 per cent. Some of the more noteworthy points brought out in studying clothing are: that the costs for wives and daughters are higher than for husbands and sons, with the exception of daughters and sons in the age groups of 6-11 and 1-5 years, and that the cost of clothing increases rapidly for both sons and daughters from the age of 6-11 to the age of about 24, after which it declines noticeably. The value of furnishings and furniture purchased, averaging $41, ranges from $27 in Connecticut to $64 in Missouri. The value of operation goods and services purchased, which averages $158, ranges from $78 in New York to $206 in Ken- tucky. Included under operation goods purchased by all fami- FARMERS STANDARDS OF LIVING 19 lies (Table 5) are fuel, $41.50, hired help in the household, $11; household supplies, $10.20; laundry done outside the home, $4.30; use of the automobile (including depreciation) for household purposes, $74.10; feed and maintenance cost of horse and buggy for household use, $5; carfare and bus fare, $1.10; telephone charge for household use, $5.80; postage, ex- press and freight, $2.10; insurance on furnishings, $1.10, and ice for household use, $1.60. The cost for the maintenance of health which averages $59, varies from $37 in New York to $85 in Iowa. The value of advancement goods, which averages $94, ranges from $58 in New York to $170 in Massachusetts. Advance- ment goods include formal education averaging $30.90 per fam- ily; reading matter, $11.00; organization dues, $3.50; church and Sunday school, including missions, $25.60;'Red Cross and other welfare, $.80; and recreation, including special trips, $22.60. The value of personal goods averaging $36, varies from $12 in New York to $65 in Missouri. Under personal goods are gifts to members of the family and to others, $13.30; jewelry, $1.20; barber’s fees and toilet articles, $8.40; candy, gum, sodas, etc., $3.90, and tobacco, pipes, etc., $9.20. The premiums paid on life and health insurance policies, averaging $35.30, range from $17 in New York to $58 in Iowa. The value of goods not readily classified, which averages $2.50, ranges from $.10 in Missouri to $6.50 in Kentucky. With goods and services purchased as well as goods furnished, variations may be due in part to climatic conditions and to geo- graphic locations. The amounts of food and fuel purchased depend upon the amounts available from the farms. Local prices have some effect, size of family, habits of living, available income, and sources of goods and services call for further anal- yses with regard to the amounts, varieties and values of the principal kinds of goods purchased in relation to the amounts, varieties and values of the goods available from the farm. 20 Hanpsook oF Rurau SocitaAL REsouRCES TOTAL VALUE OF FAMILY LIVING The total value of family living is made up of the values of goods furnished and purchased. ‘This value ranges from $1,078 in Schoharie county, New York, to $1,948 in selected localities of Massachusetts, with an average value of $1,504 for all fami- lies of all states. The average values of family living for the other states studied are $1,488, $1,492, $1,493, $1,541, $1,572, $1,669, $1,897 (for Kentucky, Kansas, Connecticut, Ohio, Ala- bama, Iowa and Missouri in the order named). ‘The causes of variation in the average value of family living have been named in connection with goods furnished by the farm and purchased. HOW THE TOTAL VALUE OF FAMILY LIVING IS DISTRIBUTED A distribution of the total value of family living among the principal groups of items is shown in Table 5. ‘The proportion that the value of food bears to the value of all goods used, 41.2 per cent, ranges from 37.0 per cent in Ohio to 48.8 per cent in Alabama. ‘The proportion that clothing costs bear to the total value of all goods, 14.7 per cent, varies from 12.6 in Massachusetts to 16.1 in Alabama. ‘The proportion that the rental value of the house bears to the value of all goods, 12.4 per cent, ranges from 7.5 per cent in Alabama to 16.6 per cent in Ohio. The percentage of the total value of all goods de- voted to furniture and furnishings, averaging 2.7, varies from 1.8 per cent in Connecticut to 3.4 per cent in New York. The percentage expended on operation goods averaging 13.9, varies from 10.7 per cent in Alabama to 17.4 per cent in New York. The percentage used for the maintenance of health, averaging 3.9, varies from 2.8 per cent in Alabama to 5.1 per cent in Iowa. ‘The percentage devoted to advancement goods, averaging 6.3, varies from 4.9 per cent in Ohio to 8.7 per cent in Massa- chusetts. ‘The amount used for personal goods, averaging 2.4 per cent, ranges from 1.1 per cent in New York to 3.4 per cent in Missouri and the portion used for insurance premiums, 2.3 per cent, varies from 1.6 per cent in New York to 3.5 per cent in lowa. FARMERS STANDARDS OF LIVING 21 TaBieE II The average value per family for the principal groups of goods furnished by the farm and purchased and the distribution of the average value among the principal groups of goods for the year ending December 31, 1923. Two thousand, eight hundred and eighty-three farm families of selected localities of the United States. Owners, 2,014; tenants, 808; and hired men, 61 Furnished Proportion by farm Purchased Total of total $ Petar sR CLD rete vic’ 633.7 870.2 1,503.9 | Percent Food, including groceries ..... a9535 223.9 619.2 MOTOCH im annie te Pie lakes omar te or le Cy a 220.3 220.3 Rent (10% value of house)... 187.0 = 187.0 Furnishings and equipment ... aah ain EXPenses ......60.. oe eee eer er eee eee eee ee | bd = \o bo _ — es ee eee ON RNID SS ae eo HONE HOHOHWHON Household supplies ...... . Laundry outside ........ Automobile, inc. deprec... Horse and buggy .......: MALEATE Heid Welelel uhelacal wi akuletans ML GLEDN ONE W Giacs\ne cles sieleys. 6 Postage, exp. & freight... Insur. on fur. & equip.... CONN oe uicketola ote et beatae’ po ee rhe BO op “NY IAG VATICEINENt) Wile ste lelsielsratets ros Formal education ....... . Reading matter ......... . Organization dues ....... . Church, S.S. and Missions . Red Cross & other welfare Recreation | Ra iaisi aclele eeatee S m= OD bo reece =e ADANSL rho LO to t ° is | _ Mwy op Ww RO U1 WH COP HUET OWEILY sels oi sie etelslelle ne. Ore tee c. Toilet articles, etc. ..... d. Candy, gum, sodas ...... e. Tobacco, pipes, etc. ..... Insurance (life and health)... Unclassified ..... ieee ate: aeike Bet bie et lets w = ea 28 o =] rt) =) re) ia) °o Fh i” 19) = co a SESUGuSRBUR RG RASR SUBSE esha e wn o2lllllgllllilestti li ttittel ines =A bob Comparison of the Distribution of Goods Used by Farm Fami- lies and Industrial Families—The proportions that the values of the principal groups of goods bear to the total value of all goods used may be compared with similar proportions for approximately 12,000 industrial families studied by the United States Depart- ment of Labor about 1918.1 In the industrial families, 38.2 per cent of the $1,434 worth of goods used, went for food, in 1 “Cost of Living in the United States,’’ Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U. S. Department of Labor, August, 1919, p. 119. Abs Hanpspook oF RurAt SociaL REsouRCES comparison with 41.2 per cent of the total value of all goods for farm families. Similarly the proportion of the total going for fuel and light, 5.3 per cent, is lower than that for the farm families, 6.2 per cent. On the other hand the proportions for clothing, rent, and furnishings are higher for the industrial families, the proportions being 16.6 per cent, 13.4 per cent and 5.1 per cent, as compared with 14.7 per cent, 12.4 per cent and 2.7 per cent for the farm families. The proportion for all other purposes is higher for the farm families, 22.8 per cent in comparison with 21.3 per cent. The industrial families are larger, 4.9 persons per household, in comparison with 4.6 persons per household for the farm families. The higher percentages of the total value of all living for food for the farm families may mean that the farm families wasted more food and probably consumed more food since a greater abundance of food from the farm usually means less careful and more liberal use of those foods. ‘The same assump- tion applies to fuel. The lower percentage of the total for clothing among farm families is due in part to the higher percentages for food and fuel. In addition, farm families by nature of their occupation, their more limited social contacts or their greater inaccessibility to clothing stores may actually consume less clothing. ‘The lower percentage for rent by the farm families is due to the higher percentages for food and fuel and to the lower valuations of farm houses owing to location and to the tendency of the farmer to undervalue the use of his house for actual living purposes. Similarly, the percentage for furnishings may be low because food and fuel are high and because a lesser amount is purchased by farm families. It is probable that the more frequent mov- ing or shifting of industrial families means wear, breakage and disposal of furnishings to the extent that replacement costs are enhanced as compared with those for farm families. Variation in the Distribution of Values of the Principal Groups of Goods with Increase in the Total Value of all Goods——The figures presented above deal with the distribution for the aver- age level of living only. It is of interest to note how the farm FarRMERS STANDARDS OF LIVING 23 families vary their distribution of expenditures as the size of their total expenditures changes. The results previously referred to of a general study of the standard of living among approximately 12,000 working men’s families of 92 localities throughout the United States,” show that as the total expenditure for family living increases a larger proportion goes for purposes other than food, rent, fuel and light. On the other hand the proportion of the total expendi- ture going for the so-called necessities falls quite noticeably. Results of a similar study of the cost of living among 11,000 working men’s families of the principal industrial centers of 33 states, about 1902,* show the same trend except that the propor- tion for rent remains almost constant. In the earlier study made by Engel among working men’s families of Belgium and re- viewed by Chapin the proportion spent for clothing * remained about the same, as did the proportions for rent and fuel and light. From an analysis of the of the 2,883 farm family records it is noted that as the total value of all goods used increases: (2) The percentage going for food decreases, although the percentage of the total value of food furnished by the farm remains constant. (2) The percentage for clothing increases markedly although although somewhat irregularly. ‘This corresponds to the 20th century industrial families but differs widely from the 19th century European families. (c) The percentage for rent remains constant or increases very slightly. ‘This is similar to the European families and to United States industrial families studied about 1902. It is different from the United States industrial families, studied about 1918, for which rent showed a considerable decrease. (d) The percentage for all other goods [than rent, food and clothing] increases. ‘This is in accordance with all other fami- lies studied. For the more important groups of these goods: 2 “Cost of Living in the United States,’ Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U. S. Department of Labor, August, L919 Th: 119, § “Cost of Living and Retail Prices of Food,” 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1903. * Chapin, Robert C., The Standard of Living Among Working Men’s Fam- thes in New York City, 1909, 24 Hanppook oF Rurau SocraL REsouRcES (1) The percentage for operation goods, including fuel and lighting, remains about the same or decreases slightly. (2) The percentage for goods for personal uses remains about the same. ’ (3) The percentage for furnishings, maintenance of health and life, and health insurance increase. (4) The percentage for advancement goods and services in- creases markedly and quite regularly. (e) The percentage of goods furnished by the farm decreases markedly and fairly regularly. The foregoing data are presented primarily as a means of stressing the basic factors or elements of family living and the costs, along with the distribution of these costs, at which the basic elements are provided. ‘They are not considered as an adequate basis for comparing farm family living with the living of other groups with regard to comfort and attractiveness of the house and grounds, opportunities for improvement and participation in community activities. The results here given are suggestive of further analyses in an attempt to get at the facts in regard to values and uses of the many elements of the farm family’s living. Eventually, from these facts a plan may be worked out whereby farm families may enjoy a standard of living commensurate with that of families of other trades and professions, ‘This may mean a plea for greater returns from farming. It will surely mean a better understanding by various members of the farm family of the comparative values of the economic goods used and knowl- edge of: when, how much and for what purposes to spend. It should mean an inclination to profit by mistakes already made in spending and a decision to save something, if only a little, systematically. It must mean the giving of as much attention to the spending of the dollar already earned, in order that this dollar may provide the utmost satisfaction, as is now given to the mere making of another dollar without consideration of the manner of its spending. The Distribution of the Value of Goods Used as an Index of Standard of Living.—The distribution of the value of all goods used among the principal groups of goods offers a fairly satis- FARMERS STANDARDS OF LIVING 25 factory method of determining how well families actually live. The most worth-while values in life grow out of the use of non- material goods, known as cultural, that is, educational, recrea- tional, and so on, provided of course, that the needs for food, clothing, shelter, and other material goods have been met. The proportion which the value of each of the several groups of goods bears to the total value of all goods is one of the best available measures of the standard of living. ‘The results of a general study of the cost of living among approximately 12,000 working men’s families of 92 localities throughout the United States about 1918,° show that as the total value of all goods used increases, a larger proportion of this total value is for pur- poses other than food, rent, fuel and light. Conversely, as the total value rises the proportion going for the so-called necessi- ties falls quite noticeably. Results of an earlier study of the cost of living among 11,000 working men’s families of the principal industrial centers of 33 states, about 1902,° show the same trend, except that the proportion for rent remains almost constant as the total value of all goods rises. Since there is a tendency for the proportion which the values of the non-material goods bear to the total value of all goods used to rise as the total value increases, the distribution of values among the various groups is considered quite as indicative, if not more so, of the standard of living, as is the total value of all goods used. The distribution of goods which is less affected than the total value of goods by varying prices, is preferable to the total value of goods as a means of comparing the standards of living among families of different periods, different localities and different trades or occupations. * “Cost of Living in the United States,” Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor, August, 1919, p. 119. * “Cost of Living and Retail Prices of Food,” Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1903. III THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL ART ANNA MANSFIELD CLARK National Board of the Y. W. C. A. “Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie: Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not.” James Russell Lowell Rural art movements in the United States have begun to find expression. Here and there a great leader has opened the door of beauty and appreciation, and hundreds of people have dis- covered within themselves the emotional experiences of color and line, music and rhythm which are the great gifts of God to those who live in the open spaces. That these experiences of beauty have not been released largely in creative art—such as music, drama, poetry, painting, craft work, architecture and landscape gardening—is one of the tragedies of American rural civilization. ‘The pioneer was too busy subduing the wilderness and the farm people of to-day struggle under such a burden of manual labor that their experi- ence in connection with the objects of nature is one of fatigue rather than appreciation. Our educational system has neglected the stimulation of the appreciations and the skills of art, and the channeling of the emotions, and since we have not been trained to express ourselves in creative beauty our emotions run riot in strange ways. Gutzon Borglum has said: “The task of the artist is to reach down into the lives of people and lift up their souls where they can see them.” ‘The soul of rural America is be- 26 THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL ART 27 ginning to lift itself slowly but surely above material struggle into a world where imagination and an appreciation of beauty transform and add a glory to life. DRAMA Perhaps the most notable art movement in rural America during the last twenty years has been the development of a folk drama. “It was in 1906 that Frederick H. Koch made a ‘barnstorming tour’ of the treeless levels of North Dakota from the University at Grand Forks. The University players played The Rivals and followed that with other old favorites clearing the ground for a people’s drama. ‘The dramatic in- terest that followed developed two types—the pageant, a dis- tinctly communal form, enlisting all the people, and the folk play an intimate portrayal of the life and character of the people of the plains.” 2 Dr. Koch was called to the Chair of Dramatic Literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C., in 1918, but North Dakota has continued to attract the attention of those interested in rural drama. Alfred G. Arvold has for 16 years been building the Little Country Theater so that it is now the “Heart of that Prairie State.” Every resource is there from a most notable reference library to costumes, plays, programs and suggestions for all types of entertainment in all types of places. Not only have the best plays of all ages been given by country people in North Dakota but they themselves have written and produced their own drama with artistic finish and a genuineness of expression that signifies that it is not play- acting but life itself that they are portraying. Drama in North Dakota is truly “not a luxury for the classes but an instrument for the enlightenment, self-expression and enjoyment of the masses,”” # When Dr. Koch transferred his interests to North Carolina he organized the Carolina Playmakers, who are becoming a 1 Carolina Folk Plays, First Series and Second Series. 2 Alfred G. Arvold, The Little Country Theatre. 28 HanpBook oF RuRAL SocitaL RESOURCES great influence in the field of American art, for they are build- ing a drama on the folklore, legends and traditions and lives of North Carolina people. Although they are plays of a single state they have a wider significance. ‘We know that if we speak for the human nature in our own neighborhood we shall be expressing for all. ‘The locality if it be truly in- terpreted is the only universal. It has been so in all lasting literature, and in every locality all over America, as in North Carolina, there is the need and the striving for a fresh expres- sion of our common folk life.” * In these folk plays are por- trayed the legends of the coast country, its buried treasure, the quaint life of its fisher folk and the pirates of the coast. In them also is the isolation of the mountains, the comedy, tragedy, and superstition of the past and present. The historical inci- dents of the state, both legendary and authentic, are rich in dramatic values. These plays are written in the university course in dramatic composition and produced by the playmakers on a home-made stage. ‘They are then played in the locality where the story originated. “It is an interesting experience to participate with the audience in such a performance. If the log cabin used in a play of fisher people contains logs larger than the trees in the section, if the rocks in the fire place could not have existed in that locality, if there is a flaw in the dialect, the author and producer will be sure to hear about it.’ * The influence of the Carolina Playmakers has now be- come state wide and with helpful suggestions from the uni- versity, creative dramatic art is being developed throughout the state by many groups of people. The Cornell dramatic club was organized in 1907 to pre- sent contemporary European drama seldom seen on the American stage. In 1919 some European and American plays were given at the State Fair and met with such overwhelming success that interest in rural drama has been greatly stimulated in New York state, and the Little Country Theater has become an important feature of the county fairs, There were thirteen ® The Carolina Folk Plays. * [bid. THe DEVELOPMENT OF RuRAL ART 29 little country theaters at various fairs last year and plans were made for five more this year. The usual procedure is to erect a tent with a stage at one end, simple scenery is made or cur- tains are used as a background, and groups from various parts of the county put on plays that have been tried out in their own communities. In most cases the home bureau takes the respon- sibility for the project in codperation with the fair association but the plays are presented by any organization in the county that wishes to do so. These plays are judged on the quality of production and first, second and third prizes are awarded, but cash prizes are not usually given. Instead each group pro- ducing a play is allowed a small sum to cover the cost of production.°® The Department of Rural Sociology of Cornell in codperation with the New York Grange, the Federation of County Farm Bureau Associations, the State Home Bureau Federation and the Grange, League and Farm-Bureau Federation is conducting a contest with prizes for the best plays presenting sympathetically some phase of rural life. These plays will be published by the university which now has various plays and pageants and helpful bulletins on the little country theater and play production. The School of Agriculture of the University of Minnesota, University Farm, St. Paul, Minn., lays great stress on dramatics, giving its students systematic training in the production of plays. One form of summer project for which a student re- ceives scholastic credit is the direction of a play in his home community. Minnesota is standing for the best in rural drama and pageantry and under Miss Katherine Kester’s able leadership is doing much for dramatic production.® . The State College of Agriculture at Athens, Georgia, through artistically produced plays and pageants is emphasizing better farm life and pride in the history and agricultural development of Georgia. Thousands of people flock to see the pageants ®A. M. Drummond, The Country Theatre, Cornell Reading Course, Les- son 153, ¢ “Play and the Farmer,” Drama, May-November, 1924. 30 Hanpspook oF RurRAL SocrAL REsoURCES which are given in the beautiful open air amphitheater of the college during the summer session, at the farmers’ conference and on other special occasions. ‘This movement is under the leadership of Miss Laura E. Blackshear. ‘The pageants and plays will be published in bulletin form. The University of New Hampshire, Durham, N. H., is be- ginning a drama movement with the express purpose of sub- stituting for the old idea of farm people as inferior folk the modern idea of farm people and farm homes. Henry Bailey Stevens’ two plays City Rubes and All Alone in the Country have been used widely both in New Hampshire and other states. These are the forerunners of artistic work as yet unpublished which depicts the struggle of New Hampshire folk with the forces of nature. RELIGIOUS DRAMA Religious drama has received great impetus from the appoint- ment in some denominations of persons in charge of drama and pageantry. ‘The Federal Council of Churches working with these experts has produced for the last two years two volumes of religious drama which have been selected with great care from hundreds of manuscripts. ‘“‘These plays have been selected with regard to religious message, dramatic technique, literary quality and educational merit. With these standards in mind the types of plays selected have been: First, biblical dramas and episodes; second, fellowship plays and pageants, centering around Christian community building both at home and abroad, and third, extra-biblical plays of the individual, spiritual life.’ * ‘The value of this emphasis for the country community both through the denominations and this centralizing effort to make religious drama artistic and therefore more educational cannot be overestimated. In 1924 and 1925 a School of Religious Drama was held at Auburn, N. Y., and courses on drama and pageantry have also been given at the institutes of the Epworth League and Sunday school conferences. ™ Religious Dramas, 1924. THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL ART 31 ART EXTENSION IN ILLINOIS 7 The purpose of the Art Extension Committee is “‘to assist in making art a more potent elevating force in the lives of the people of the state of Illinois. It aims to help the people to discover beauty in nature and to enjoy it, to recognize beauty in art and to appreciate it, and to stimulate the production of beautiful things.” In the development of this comprehensive purpose the Art Extension Committee has gradually come into existence. The communities of the state desiring to codperate in such a move- ment are represented on this committee. ‘The usual procedure is the formation of a local committee of from three or four to a dozen or fifteen men and women representing the impor- tant institutions and organizations. ‘The chairman of this local committee represents that community on the state-wide Art Extension Committee. Such a local committee does not take the place of or in any way displace the organizations represented. It is, instead, a kind of a clearing house between these associa- tions, providing a common ground for the promotion of things most essential in the common life. One of the most interesting and helpful projects of this Art Extension Committee has been an annual tour of some part of Illinois. ‘The trips have been so arranged that the most beautiful parts of the state may in time become more familiar to the people. THE LANDSCAPE BACKGROUND FOR AMERICAN RURAL LIFE ?° One of the most important conditions and characteristics of rural life everywhere is its landscape background. ‘The impor- tance of this landscape is only beginning to be recognized and here and there faint efforts are being made to conserve, im- prove, and utilize it. Properly utilized it will add enormously to the cultural and spiritual resources of the people who live in the country, and indeed also to city dwellers who only visit ae E. Hieronymus, “Art Extension in Illinois,’ Rural America, May, 1 . 10 Contributed by Professor Frank A. Waugh, Amherst, Mass. 32 HanpBook oF Rurau SocitaAL REsouRCcES the country. It is of the utmost importance, therefore, to consider the human value of this background, learn how men and women come in contact with it and what the results of that contact are as shown in their lives. There is not room in this article to touch upon all these fundamental questions, but assum- ing their importance, we may proceed to some discussion of what is going on in the rural world which may lead in this direction. A considerable number of colleges and universities are now teaching landscape architecture, which has been thus far the primary basis for country planning. ‘Though other forces are involved it would appear that landscape architecture will long have preéminence in this particular field. The American Society of Landscape Architects is an active organization of professional men engaged in landscape archi- tecture. These men are interested in the development of public parks, recreation grounds, in the conservation of native land- scape, and in city and country planning. Their influence may always be counted upon, therefore, in the right direction.™* Recently there has been organized a large ** national com- mittee dealing primarily with outdoor recreation. ‘This com- mittee is making a special effort toward the conservation and utilization of resources in national forests, national parks, state forests, state parks, etc. The women’s clubs are now doing a great deal for the cultural advancement of our population. Most of these clubs have committees or sections dealing with conservation, public recrea- tion or similar matters.) ‘The women’s clubs, therefore, offer admirable centers from which this work can be carried on. The granges offer similar opportunities. They are closely in touch with the rural population, their outlook is definitely cultural, and they are able to do much in the defense of all rural resources and also in the development of a wider apprecia- tion of these resources. Avchussia) 18: Drewmane Sec oeuat Mactan fran Senora Mr. Arthur Ringland is secretary of the National Confe " door Recreation, Washington, D. C. rence on Out Tue DEVELOPMENT OF RuRAL ART 33 The public schools have given some study to conservation as a national policy. At the proper time and under suitable leadership they can give more attention to this subject, and the work of the schools can be extended to include especially a wider appreciation of the landscape background. There is a vast unorganized enthusiasm for the out-of-doors and for what it means in our civilization. These unorganized forces can still be brought together wherever proper nuclei are found, and as soon as they have suitable direction may be ex- pected to give great assistance. In several different states definite extension work has been undertaken by the agricultural colleges in the field of country planning. For the most part these aim at the improvement of country school grounds, farmyards and country roads. In the state of Iowa, for example, a very active commission has been developing a fine series of state parks. ‘The state park movement is also active and successful in a number of other states, especially Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York. These are merely illustrations of the kind of activity which may lead toward a better understanding and wider use of the landscape background. These activities need to be widely multiplied, better organized and better directed; and it is further desirable that new leadership should find new ways of attack- ing this very great problem. MUSIC During the summer of 1924, $557,838 was paid by seven hundred “fairs” for music programs. ‘The amount ranged from fifty dollars paid to a local band to $40,000, which was the cost to one fair association of engaging celebrated bands and noted singers and providing contests and prizes, The New York and California state fairs have held band contests and offered large cash prizes. California reports that the largest entry list is always with amateur classes which consist of boys’ bands, The Eastern States Exposition at Springfield, Massachusetts, has for 34 Hanppook oF Rurat SocitaL RESOURCES three seasons held a junior music festival and contest which has encouraged greater musical achievement, and because of this encouragement many junior music organizations have received wider community support."* The value of the music memory contest lies more in the intensive work done by the children in familiarizing themselves with good music and preparing themselves for the competition than in the competition itself. ‘There is no reason why rural districts should not keep pace with the very rapid spread of this movement in urban centers.“* Memory contests have been promoted recently in 17 counties, and state-wide movements including the rural areas have been promoted in six states. The educational work of the Victor Talking Machine Com- pany under the direction of Mrs. Frances E. Clark at Camden, New Jersey, is a real force in developing musical appreciation. The Company has musical directors who illustrate their talks with records and are available without remuneration for large rural gatherings. Help may also be obtained from Mrs. Clark on musical subjects. Her department has made a special feature of music for rural schools. The Eisteddfod Movement in Southern California is an at- tempt to adapt a splendid Welsh institution to America. The movement began in Ventura County through the community service organization in 1924 and consisted of a week of music, drama and art competitions, with the codperation of every com- munity in the county. This met with such success that an Eisteddfod comprising the entire southern California district has been organized. ‘The contests embrace all departments of music including elementary and high school music groups, church choirs and choruses, community orchestras, community drama, and in some districts contests in the various branches of art. | At the mid-winter crop show held at the Northwest School of Agriculture, Crookston, Minnesota, it has been the custom 18 Music at the Fairs, National Bureau for the Advancement of Music, 45 West 45th Street, New York. 14 Organization of County and State Music Memory Contests, National Bureau for the Advancement of Music, 45 West 45th Street, New York. THE DEVELOPMENT OF RuRAL ART 35 to bring in groups of singers from different communities. At the Michigan State College of Agriculture, East Lansing, Michigan, each year when the farmers’ day program is given a town and country church choir singing contest is held. The contest is held in the forenoon of farmers’ day and in the afternoon at the general program the winning choirs sing. For years Mrs. Rose Morgan has been carrying on a veritable crusade for songs in homes. She speaks for songs that live and have an art value and a heart value, that carry tradition and beauty and have ‘“‘age-long standards of loyalty, purity and truth. . . . If we are to become a music-loving nation,” Mrs. Morgan says, “we must have American music. It must smack of our soil. It must embody the character and express the tendency and trend of American life. It must bear the marks of our weal and woe. It must show in strongly marked rhythms the effect of our developed and developing national energy. It must be the faithful interpreter of the true America.” *° National Music Week is promoted through a large national committee on which rural interests are represented by members from the American Country Life Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the national Grange. State Farm Bureau Federations, superintendents of instruction, extension directors and Granges are making these weeks a success. It is a drive by the friends of music for a wider appreciation and its strength comes from the universal yet sometimes unconscious human need for music. Participation ranges all the way from an elaborate concert to the simple home gathering around the radio or phonograph. In the helpful suggestions sent out by the National Music Week Committee, New York, are resources for any and all communities. The National Bureau for the Advancement of Music is under the direction of Mr. C. M. Tremaine, 45 West 45th Street, New York City. It is a clearing house for the best in music. Here any person who has the desire to advance music in home, church, school or community may obtain information. ‘The 2% Rose Morgan, Songs That Live, Cornell Reading Courses No. 10, Ithaca, New York. 36 Hanpspook oF Rurau SocrAL REsouRCES specific things on which the Bureau has placed its suggestive emphasis and stimulating resource are the music memory con- tests, music weeks, Christmas Eve caroling, and the publication of bulletins showing the advancement of special musical move- ments throughout the nation. The state universities of the West and Middle West, par- ticularly, are doing considerable work in developing musical activities and musical interest in the smaller communities, and this work is done frequently through their extension depart- ments. Thus, for instance, the University of Wisconsin at Madison has prepared a well organized course in music apprecia- tion to be given over the radio. The Extension Department of the University of California arranges courses of concerts and lectures which may be secured at low rates by the local com- munities. The Universities of North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, the State Teachers College at Emporia, Kansas, the Agricultural College of Michigan, and many others, organize contests in musical performance, including bands, orchestras, glee clubs, etc. The Playground and Recreation Association of America has published a number of bulletins for the aid of those interested in developing music in the rural communities. Among these are bulletins relating to the community orchestra, American folk songs (like the Stephen Foster melodies), Christmas caroling, Easter caroling, and also the comprehensive Community Music Handbook. Most of the bulletins are sold for 10 cents per copy. IV RURAL EDUCATION ERNEST BURNHAM Department of Rural Education, Western State Normal School, Michigan Rural education is concerned with 12,000,000 children in the United States, of whom 9,000,000 are in farm homes and 3,000,000 are living in villages and hamlets. (These are the latest estimates of the Federal Bureau of Education.) In addi- tion the adult population, which is caring for these rural children, is being educated. Therefore the problem under dis- cussion has to do with a total of approximately 50,000,000 people. ‘Tendencies in present efforts at the solution of this vast and complex problem may be seen to advantage within the limits set for this article by dividing the whole field into five major parts: (1) the public schools, (2) institutions of higher learning, (3) governmental agencies, (4) voluntary or- ganizations, (5) research and publicity. THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS Public school service in the United States is based upon the fundamental American principle of equality of opportunity for all citizens—child and adult, rich and poor, accessible and isolated—at the earliest date possible under the conditioning circumstances. In many localities and in some whole states it is obvious that rural education is still relatively weak. The serious consideration here is found in the undeveloped poten- tialities of thousands of children and young people which results in shrinking the material, intellectual, and spiritual resources 37 38 HanppBook oF RurRaAt SociaL RESOURCES of the nation in an unmeasured but doubtless a very great degree. The present tendency here is toward definiteness of infor- mation and specific objectives. Oratory and general promotion still have services to render but statesmanship and professional achievement are in the saddle in North Carolina, California, Maryland and some other states. ‘These pace-making states are bringing the dawn of a new day which shall give to rural children a square deal in education. In school support two tendencies are clearly apparent, one of which looks to increasing school revenues from new and old state resources; and the other seeks better methods in the distri- bution of state funds. ‘The objectives here are to equalize taxation and school opportunity, without interfering with the maximum of local effort and initiative which is or can be made to become operative. Need is more and more coming to be the common divisor in use of public money for education. New methods of distribution are gaining legal footing through progressive legislation and court decisions. ‘The following are new features: state assumption of part or all the costs of pro- fessional supervision and attendance enforcement in counties; special aid to high schools; definition of minimum limits by which to designate poor districts eligible for additional state aid; and appropriation of an equalization fund designed to aid in paying teachers’ salaries in districts which, having levied the constitutional limit of local school tax, cannot maintain school for the minimum school year. The constitutionality of an important appropriation act was upheld by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma on September 9, 1924. Higher academic and professional standards are beginning to guard the threshold of teaching against the competition of the unfit. The large annual influx of immature and unprepared beginners has been and still is the greatest obstacle to the deri- vation of a real profession of teaching. ‘Two pronounced tendencies are matters of record here: (1) minimum qualifica- tions for teachers’ certificates have been considerably increased; and (2) facilities for training rural teachers in state and local RuraL EDUCATION 39 normal schools have multiplied, and graduation from high school has become a minimum requirement for admission to teacher- training courses in most of the states. A few of the most advanced states now require two years’ work of college grade from all beginning teachers, and other states have been able to establish a beginning requirement of one year of specified preparatory work of college grade. Still other states have fixed the standard for beginning teachers at high school training, including some professional subjects; and in a few states teachers who have not furnished secondary school work are still being certificated. ‘There is a general tendency toward certification by way of institutional graduation rather than by local and state examinations. One hundred twenty-two state normal schools and teachers’ colleges now offer 257 courses in rural education. Considering professional dignity, preparation, and salaries, the faculty mem- bers giving these courses are approaching equality with those in the traditional departments of these schools. ‘The controlling ideas here are: (1) all the child citizens of the state are equally entitled to become the educational beneficiaries of the state; and (2) the collection of a state-wide tax for the benefit of all and allowing it to be absorbed in use to the very greatly disproportionate advantage of children in towns and cities, as illustrated in the history of state normal schools, is a demon- stration of administrative weakness not to be permanently endured. Twenty-three states provide teacher-training of secondary grade or in connection with secondary schools, In five states high school graduation is required for entrance to the course. Four states, however, are definitely discontinuing this work; several others have expressed a desire to do so at the earliest possible date. This training has been the greatest single agency for raising the standards of teacher preparation for rural schools, and it continues to serve with economy in states where a minimum of one year of training is yet to be achieved. A direct result of the growing public appreciation of the value and necessity of teacher-preparation may soon appear in the 40 Hanppook oF RurRAL SocitaAL RESOURCES requirement of an equal minimum preparation for all begin- ning teachers, and when this minimum requirement exceeds the service capacity of local training schools, these schools will _have completed their work. In-service preparation of teachers is provided by dating re- quired standards ahead to safeguard and retain in the work teachers who are inadequately prepared. A liberal time limit allows them to attend summer sessions for continued training. Many institutions provide correspondence and class extension courses to meet the necessities of teachers in service. The es- tablishment and enforcement of better standards call for careful administrative leadership, and in all cases where judiciously directed this work has resulted in a gradual increase in salaries voluntarily paid by boards of education. The movement to employ expert supervisors gives promise of the greatest increase in efficiency of teachers already in service. Maryland, Alabama, California and several other states afford good examples of this prophetic tendency. In 1924 the twenty-three counties in Maryland employed thirty- nine supervisors and helping teachers, which lowered the num- ber of teachers per supervisor to an average of fifty and approached somewhat the goal of forty, the standard fixed in the law. This work is compulsory and is financed by the state. In Alabama provision is made for supervision on a voluntary basis financed by the counties themselves. Approximately half the counties employ instructional supervisors. Apparently further progress in Alabama awaits the securing of more adequate financial resources. California provides state appropriation for the payment of rural supervisors in a manner similar to that in vogue for the distribution of state money for teachers’ salaries. In this state fifty-five of the fifty-eight counties now employ rural supervisors. It is estimated by the Federal Bureau of Education that there are now about 1,200 rural supervisors in the United States. The county unit form of organization in rural education appears to be the best for instituting modern professional service in the rural schools. It is now established with varying RuraL EpucaTION 41 degrees of centralization in twenty-two states. This is the result to date of a movement to provide a unit of control large enough to afford increasing powers and duties to a county board of education and a county superintendent, in order that a com- plete educational organization for rural elementary and sec- ondary schools, with professional management, supervision and teaching staff, may be established. Experience indicates that consolidation of the small rural schools is not in and of itself a panacea for the ills of rural education. The truth is best stated thus: The virtues of consolidation are potential. It is a means to an end. The large item of expense for transportation of pupils must be justified by greatly improved educational service. ‘This can be done only gradually, as the movement matures under the most intelligent guidance by state and county superintendents and boards of education. In 1924, the latest year for which an estimate is available, there were 14,000 consolidated schools in the United States, employing about 150,000 teachers, and enrolling approximately 2,750,000 children. The consolida- tion movement has been retarded in the years just passed by the financial situation in the country generally, by cautions learned from experience, and by the time required to overcome certain feelings which were aroused by unwise propaganda. The tendency is to study the attitude of the people, the best type of district for consolidation (partly a local question), the safe-guarding of the unconsolidated districts remaining, and means of securing local, county, and state funds adequately to finance an efficient consolidated school. There is a greatly increased interest in rural secondary schools, resulting partly from the movement for consolidation and largely from the rapid advance of the necessity for such educa- tion to meet the complexity of present-day life and work. An excellent statement of commonly accepted objectives of rural high schools is made by Dr. Emery N. Ferris in Bulletin No. 10, 1925, Federal Bureau of Education, p. 71, as follows: 1. Promotion of normal physical development. 2. Guidance toward a worthy life work.and selection of high-school work 42 Hanppook oF RurRAu SociAL RESOURCES in harmony with choice made. 3. Vocational training for those not going beyond the high school. 4. The development in each pupil of a sense of responsibility as a member of society and of a democracy. 5. Training in intelligent participation in promoting the welfare of society (service). 6. Training in desirable forms of avocational and recreational pursuits. 7. The development of some permanent interests, appreciations, habits, and desires for continued growth. 8. The development of a rational attitude toward life’s problems. 9. Training, in so far as the age of secondary pupils makes desirable, to meet intel- ligently the responsibilities of home life and parenthood. 10. Training in relation to all the work of the school in moral- ethical habits, attitudes, and ideals. 11. Preparation of those pupils who desire to enter higher institutions of learning. HIGHER INSTITUTIONS The provision made for the specific preparation of rural teachers in 120 state normal schools and teachers’ colleges has already been mentioned. Departments of education in many state universities are offering courses in rural education and are directing research work in this field. ‘This is an opportunity for definite service by these great institutions in which, in many cases, farmers have made a vast investment of their hard earned money. Returns to the farm communities have come in the education of the sons and daughters sent to the univer-" sities, in improved professional services, in stimulation of local schools, and in the development of a more able local leadership. There is a tendency at present in many universities to make their services to the rural population more specific and more penetrating. Present tendencies in state colleges of agriculture and applied science, which represent the greatest codperative national and state educational effort, are indicative of an even greater future for these institutions. In spite of the difficulty rising from the sectional character of agriculture and the consequent diversity of policy, certain trends lend themselves to fairly definite state- RuraL EpucaTIon 43 ment. ‘There is a wide-spread liberalizing of the courses of study, with the conscious purpose that graduates of these col- leges shall have opportunity to acquire both general culture and agricultural training. Researches in economic and social fields are being localized for specific information and sum- marized in order to discover the major facts governing the direction and control of social progress. Three other tendencies are being defined. First, the tend- ency to make or help make definite programs of agricultural development. The subject of the last meeting of the Land Grant College Association was “The Relation of the Colleges to a National Policy in the Fields of Agriculture, Industries, and Home Making.” ‘The tendency is not only toward national, but also toward state, county, and even community programs. Related to this is the increasing interest on the part of admin- istrators in the problems of course of study and particularly of methods of teaching, and methods of training college teachers. Secondly, there is evidence of increasing discussion and action in agricultural education circles about the rural com- munity. More and more, programs and policies are being worked out in terms of the rural community. In this connec- tion much thought and discussion are being given to the relations between the town and the country, with the purpose of merging town and country interests on a community basis. Thirdly, a tendency not yet very apparent but evidently getting under way is that of broadening the conception of extension work. Agriculture and home economics are already covered, and industrial extension is also developing quite rapidly. In the near future the land grant colleges are likely to ex- emplify a broad view of all aspects of the problem of systematic education after school days are over. An indirect form of extension by the state colleges is wield- ing a wonderful influence in rural education. These colleges bear the brunt of the preparation of teachers for the vocational courses in agriculture and home economics in high schools, conducted under the Smith-Hughes Law. Last year there were 18,927 of these teachers in preparation, 11,093 of whom were 44 Hanppook oF RurAu SociaAL RESOURCES men and 7,834 were women. ‘This work was financed by $6,150,240 of federal, state, and local funds during the year ending in 1925, and instruction was given to a total of 659,370 pupils, of whom 361,139 were men and 298,231 were women. Pupils in trade and industrial courses numbered 9,128. There were reported last year 115,737 pupils in state aided voca- tional schools in addition to schools receiving federal aid. These schools were organized, administered, and taught under the same standards as the federally aided schools. It is the policy in some states to use federal funds for new work only, and state and local funds for schools and classes that have be- come well established. The extent of non-vocational instruction in agriculture and home economics is only indefinitely known. This work is being done in thousands of small schools in both junior and senior high school grades. In one state for which data for this work is in hand there were in 1924, 47 “Rural Agricultural Schools” approved by the State Department of Education. ‘These schools employed 388 teachers and enrolled 10,732 pupils in all grades, of whom 5,779 were transported at an average cost per pupil per year of $29.81. In this same state in 1924 there were 1,596 boys’ and girls’ clubs with a total enrollment of 15,826 members. In one county this work reached one out of every four farm boys and girls between ten and twenty years of age. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES Federal aid for research and instruction in agricultural, domes- tic and industrial subjects gives the national government a means of direct codperation with states in public school and college programs of work. ‘There is also through the exten- sion work provided in accordance with the Smith-Lever Law a mutual approach by the nation and the states to the problems of out-of-school, continuing education. The development of this work makes the entire state the campus of the colleges of agriculture and applied sciences. ‘This expansion is thought to be one of the chief reasons for the decrease of 14 per cent RuraL EpUCATION 45 in the enrollments in short courses given at the colleges in recent years. ‘There has also been a decrease of 3 per cent in the number of resident courses in agriculture in these colleges, though their total enrollment has increased 112 per cent in the past ten years. "These facts also reflect the economic de- pression which agriculture has experienced. In 1923 the num- ber of counties having extension agents was 2,097, the per- sonnel employed totaled over 3,600 and the amount expended for this work was almost $19,000,000. The United States Department of the Interior published recently an illustrated poster under the titlke—“‘A Federal Uni- versity for the People.” In this “university” ten departments were mentioned: (1) Education, (2) Engineering, (3) Geology, (4) Botany, (5) Zoology, (6) Chemistry, (7) Anthropology, (8) Geography, (9) Psychology, and (10) Research. This is offered as an illustration which suggests the elaborate efforts ‘ of both national and state governments for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among American citizens. VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS International, national, state, and local voluntary organiza- tions such as follow are really educational agencies whose cumulative results are tremendous: The World Agriculture Society, The American Country Life Association, The National and State Granges, The National and State Farm Bureau Fed- erations, National and State Education Associations, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, The National and local Chambers of Commerce, The American Sociological Society, National and State Bankers Associations, as well as thousands of county, and more local, literary and codperative organizations. Taken together these afford the services of a great national forum in which, among other prob- lems, the questions of rural welfare and progress challenge constructive thinking by the best minds of the nation. In the program of the 1925 meeting of the American Sociological Society there was a well attended rural section 46 Hanppook oF RuRAL SociAL REsouRCES which presented three programs containing the following sub- jects: “The Teaching of Rural Sociology,” ‘Extension Work in Rural Sociology,” ‘The Basis of Procedure in Rural Social Work,” “Research in Rural Social Control,” and “A Research Program in Rural Sociology.” ‘These topics indicate the present tendencies in the study of rural society. ‘The rapidity with which research and instruction in this phase of rural education is advancing is shown by a directory of persons giving courses in rural sociology and rural life in the United States issued by the U. S. Department of Agriculture under date of October 1, 1925. This directory carried the names of 556 teachers. The daily educational nourishment of routine rural life should eventually be enriched by incorporating in it the prac- tical results, in so far as there are such results, from the in- creasing volume of researches into the intimate facts of daily rural living, with their more or less matured constructive sug- gestions. ‘The original Country Life Commission reported a strong conviction that the forces that make for rural betterment must themselves be rural. A rural leadership which remains rural in associations, appreciations and participating friendships, in spite of the widespread tendency among rural leaders to withdraw to a comfortable distance from actual rural conditions and needs, is the paramount demand in rural social education. Real rural leaders must have no inferiority complex and must be immune to what Dr. T. N. Carver calls “the assumption of urban superiority.” RESEARCH AND PUBLICITY Research and publicity are the chief means of keeping educa- tional effort both dynamic and sane. One of the most gratify- ing present tendencies in rural education is to invoke both of these agencies. The National Society for the Study of Education has under consideration now the project of a year book for publication possibly in 1928 in which several impor- tant problems of rural education may be presented after a most thoroughgoing analysis, research, and synthesis by the most competent men and women who are available for such work. RuraL EpucATION 47 The Agricultural Bureau of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States has recently published a thorough study of the services of the land grant colleges through the enrollment of students in their courses in agriculture. In graduate schools of education doctors’ dissertations are constantly being written upon problems in rural education. Among the subjects studied are: attendance, supervision, types of organization, financial re- sources, methods of distribution of public aid, pupil capacity and achievement, preparation of teachers, vocational education, and courses of study. The research idea is also bearing fruit in a wide range of county studies and even more local studies touching the whole range of needs. State researches of excel- lent quality have recently been completed in New York and Texas. Publicity has in recent years taken the form of professional, semi-professional, and information books, magazines, journals, and other forms of weekly and monthly publications. The Journal of Rural Education, the official monthly of the De- partment of Rural Education of the National Education Asso- ciation, now in its fifth year, and Rural America, the monthly organ of the American Country Life Association, now in its third year, are the best illustrations of the newer types of publicity in rural education. MA = RURAL SOCIAL WORK Leroy A. RAMSDELL The New York School of Social Work Social work, in one form or another, and by other names, has been known to dwellers in the open country and in small towns and villages for a long time. ‘The idea of communal responsibility for the unfortunate members of the community is nearly as old, in most parts of our country, as our civiliza- tion itself. It may well be doubted whether there ever was an American community in which there was not one person with enough of the feeling of human brotherhood to be con- cerned to help or to save the sick, the bereaved, the poor or the wicked. From such ideas and feelings as these, professional social work has developed; and from similar ideas and feelings, crystallized into customary modes of behavior, it develops in any particular community. I. WHAT IS SOCIAL WORK?! Social work is a modern name for modern, more or less scientific methods of achieving the purposes of these time- honored ideas and feelings—the care, and where possible the rehabilitation, of the unfortunate or incompetent members of society. The field to which these methods are applicable in- cludes, in rural America, the work of the town or county overseer of the poor, the charitable work of the churches, much of the various other social activities which country churches are beginning to develop; that part of the work of the county judge which has to do with such things as the commitment of 48 Rurau SocraL Worx 49 people to state institutions, the appointment of guardians for orphaned children and incompetent adults, etc.; and the private efforts of citizens acting individually and in groups for the purpose of caring for the sick, the poor, the aged and infirm, and other unfortunates who are considered worthy of help. It includes also some things which are not so often done by anybody in our rural communities, such as guiding the way- ward boy or girl who has not yet done anything wrong but who may do so unless helped by somebody to find a better way of life; improving the environment which the community pro- vides for growing boys and girls; and protecting children from negligent or abusive parents. “Ihe Committee on Rural Social Work of the American Country Life Association has suggested the following list of social problems as roughly defining the appropriate field of activity of a county social work agency: (a) Broken or incapable families requiring aid. (b) Abused, neglected, dependent, delinquent, and otherwise handicapped children, requiring care or protection by others than their parents. (c) Care of the aged dependent. (d) Care of feeble-minded and mentally diseased persons. (e) Prevention of juvenile delinquency and crime. (f) School attendance and child labor. (g) Housing conditions. (h) Community organization for any social welfare movement.’ In short, social work is “the art of helping people out of trouble,” * and of helping people to keep out of trouble. Although much activity in the field of social work is found, and has always been found, in the rural communities of the United States, social work as a scientific method of dealing with the various kinds of trouble which people get into has developed almost exclusively in the larger cities. How much of this method or technique rural people can profitably make use of in their own communities is a question which ought to be faced frankly and answered honestly. Out of the experience of the larger cities, experts or specialists in various types of 1 Report of Committee on Rural Social Work, in Proceedings of the Seventh National Country Life Conference, p. 171. 2Cf. The Art of Helping People Out of Trouble, by Karl De Schweinetz. 50 Hanpspook oF RurRAu SoctaL RESOURCES social work have been developed. ‘These specialists are gradu- ally producing a literature of social work and a body of scientific methods for dealing with these problems. They have organized more than a score of schools for training social workers. ‘These experts with their schools, their literature, and their scientific methods, constitute a constantly growing professional resource which rural people ought to be able to use to advantage.® II, THE AVAILABILITY OF SOCIAL WORK TO RURAL COMMUNITIES Within the last twenty or thirty years, considerable progress has been made in establishing channels through which the re- sources of social work may be placed at the service of rural communities. Before 1910 some of the leaders in social work began to realize that there was need for their service outside the large urban centers. In 1908, for instance, the State Charities Aid Association of New York, instituted its far- sighted policy of organizing county agencies which employ trained social workers for the care of dependent children. Isolated experiments on a county-wide basis had been made by the same agency as early as 1901. The general movement was greatly stimulated during the war period by the discovery of unexpectedly high percentages of mental and physical de- ficiencies among rural draftees, and by the tremendous expan- sion of various organizations like the Red Cross. Although it was impossible after the war enthusiasm subsided for the social agencies to hold all the territory they had occupied, the net result was to establish social work in many rural districts where it had not before been available, and to arouse social agencies to a permanent interest in the social problems of rural com- munities. Occupation of the Rural Territory by National Agencies. In another part of this volume will be found a list of the national * For a brief outline of the present status and activity of social work the reader is referred to The Profession of Social Work, a pamphlet published by the American Association of Social Work; and for a more complete description of the field and methods, to the following books: What Is Social Work? L, A. Halbert; Education and Training for Social Work, James H. Tufts; and Social Work, Edward T. Devine. RurRaAL SocraL Work 51 agencies engaged in rural social work, and a description of the services which each of these agencies is prepared to render. Some of these agencies, it will readily be seen, are not doing social work as it has been defined in this article. Others, al- though doing social work within this definition, have not established local units or placed social workers in local rural districts. Probably a list of the county secretaries or executives of the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A., the Red Cross, the National Tuberculosis Assn., and the Boy Scouts would repre- sent a large part of the social workers established in local rural districts by national agencies. There are 124 full time county Y. M. C. A. secretaries working in rural districts. The Y. W. C. A. has 39 county or district secretaries in rural territory. The Red Cross has approximately 400 secretaries in predominantly rural counties. The Boy Scouts have approximately 225 county or district ex- ecutives. ‘There are about 90 secretaries employed by county committees of the state tuberculosis associations. On the basis of these figures, the total number of county secretaries main- tained by national social agencies may be roughly estimated at 1500. Unfortunately, the above estimate cannot be taken to mean that the resources of social work are fully available to the rural communities in half of the 3000 counties of the United States, for there are many counties in which more than one of these agencies has a secretary. It would almost certainly be safe to assume that duplications would reduce the total number of counties served to not more than a thousand. Nor is this the only discount that must be made. Dr. H. Paul Douglass, in a study of the services of five national agencies to country boys and girls, has presented evidence showing that even within the territory covered the rural population is only partially served. ‘The service tends to center in the villages and towns and does not reach the greater part of the open country popula- tion. ‘The writer’s own observations in several counties indi- 4H. Paul Douglass, How Shall Country Youth Be Served? New York: George H. Doran Company, 1925. 52 Hanpsook oF RuRAL SoctaAL REsoURCES cate that this tendency is not peculiar to agencies serving boys and girls. Finally, allowance must be made for the fact that many of these county secretaries are not adequately equipped to represent the social work profession. ‘The success of the national agencies in securing support from the public has been due, in part at least, to the comparative simplicity and definite- ness of their programs. As a natural consequence, ability to administer the particular program of the agency has been an indispensable qualification for local and field agents, while training in social work, though desirable, has not been deemed equally important. ‘The efforts of national agencies to extend the resources of social work to the rural field have provided rural society with many specialists trained to administer certain programs, but the broad knowledge and skill required to deal with the social problems of the rural community have been provided only incidentally and much less extensively. State and Local Agencies. It would be a very difficult task to determine how much has been achieved in the development of rural social work by purely local agencies. Here and there, one would probably find many enterprises of the general char- acter of the Monmouth County League for Social Service, in New Jersey, which has been described in a publication of the Children’s Bureau.” Such purely local experiments are valuable as demonstrations of what local groups can do under favorable circumstances, but it is not apparent that their contribution to the extension of social work into rural territory has, so far, been large in the aggregate. On the whole, such local effort as has been manifest in this field has been largely stimulated and directed by state and national agencies. Any consideration of the efforts of state agencies, must take some notice of the great diversity of approach to the problem in different states. In some states, for example, there has been little effort to encourage the employment locally of trained social workers. This has been especially true, perhaps, in New England where there are more difficulties than elsewhere 5 County idenenaticys for Child Care and Protection, Children’s Bureau Bulletin No, 107. Rurau SoctaL Work 53 in organizing the county as an administrative unit for social work. In some of these states, Massachusetts and Connecticut especially, a great deal of excellent rural social work is being done by centralized state organizations. But the feeling is growing, in Connecticut at any rate, that the needs of the rural communities of the state cannot be adequately met on this basis. On the other hand, in those states where definite effort has been made to encourage local organization in the admin- istration of social work, two very different methods of attack will be found which may be designated the legislative approach and the educational approach. North Carolina, Missouri, and Minnesota may be cited as outstanding examples of the first type—states in which comprehensive laws have been passed setting up county boards of public welfare or child welfare, some of which employ trained social workers, ‘The educational approach is well illustrated by New York, California, Lowa, Florida, and Georgia, although these are by no means the only states in which effort of this kind is being exerted. In these states the method is to bring leaders in the various counties to understand their local social problems and to appreciate the need for expert service. By this method one county after another is brought to the point of supporting one or more trained social workers, sometimes under public, sometimes under private auspices, and also under a combination of both.® Considerable variety is found, too, in the character of the agencies which in the different states are leading the move- ment for the development of rural social work. In North Carolina, Missouri, and Minnesota the law places the primary responsibility upon state boards. In New York the movement has been led by the State Charities Aid Association, in Iowa by social workers on the staff of the extension division of the state university, in Florida by a few energetic leaders including a Red Cross field secretary, in Georgia by the State Council of Social Agencies and the State Department of Public Welfare, ®For a full description of the organization for county social work in Minnesota, North Carolina, California, New Jersey, and New York, see Children’s Bureau Bulletin No. 107, Country Organization for Child Care and Protection, 54 Hanppook oF Rurat SoctAL RESOURCES and so on. In several states the state conference of social work has played an important role in the movement. The net result of all these efforts in terms of trained social workers employed in rural counties is hard to estimate. ‘Thirty- five counties in New York, 25 counties in Florida, and 14 counties in Iowa, it is reported to the writer, have employed one or more trained social workers. On the basis of such inadequate sources of information as personal contacts with indi- vidual social workers from various states and membership lists of the National Conference of Social Work, the number of county social workers now serving in rural territory as a result of the efforts of purely state agencies may be estimated at 500, with considerable confidence that any accurate study which may be made in the near future will establish the number well within this limit. Summary of Part II, Combining the estimates of the two preceding sections gives an estimate of 2,000 county social workers of one kind or another for the rural territory—roughly, 1,200 case workers, 500 recreation and group workers, and 300 specialists of other kinds. ‘These two thousand workers are assumed, in the premise, to have sufficient training or ex- perience to have been approved for appointment by some national or state agency. Many of them, however, are extremely specialized in their equipment, and many more have only a minimum of training or experience. On the whole it seems safe to say that probably not more than a quarter of them are adequately equipped to deal in a broadly constructive and scientific way with the social problems of the communities which they serve. III EMERGING PROBLEMS The Problem of Duplication. It has already been suggested that the available supply of rural social workers working under the auspices of national agencies is not uniformly distributed over the occupied rural territory. In some counties representa- tives of several of the national agencies will be found, and, on the other hand, there may be some counties in which there are Rurat Socia, Worx 55 no national agencies represented at all. The same condition is true in only slightly less degree of the service of state agencies. The problem is serious from several points of view. In the first place, as long as the resources of the agencies are inadequate to completely occupy the rural territory, the multiplication of agencies in one county means deprivation of other counties. Secondly, the multiplication of agencies in one county means competition for financial support and for the time and energy of local leaders in that county, and these resources are limited in most rural counties. In the third place, this method of pro- motion results in a fragmentary treatment of the social problems of rural communities. No local agency is established whose function is to study the social problems of the county as a whole and to work out a long time program of improvement adapted to that particular local situation. The problem will not be easy to solve. For one thing definite programs, especially when they can be epitomized in a symbol or charged with an emotional appeal, evoke a more ready re- sponse from the layman than general discussions of social problems. Also, some of the national agencies, and state agencies, too, have already been established long enough in some sections so that definite bonds have been established in certain local groups which will not be easily broken. Nevertheless, some solution must be found, if not for the territory already occupied, then at least for purposes of extension. A most hopeful indication is the recognition of the impor- tance of the problem which is being manifested by the agencies themselves. Within the last five years, four national councils of social agencies have been organized for the purpose of solving just such problems as this. A study of the interrelation- ships of national agencies made by the National Information Bureau in 1922 for a Conference of National Social Agencies, has done much to stimulate the general movement toward codrdination.’ From the rural viewpoint, the most important TReport of a Study of the Interrelation of the Work of National Social Agencies, in Fourteen American Communities, Porter R. Lee, Walter W. Pettit and Jane M. Hoey, The National Information Bureau, New York, 1922. 56 Hanppook oF Rurat SociAL REsouRCES of all these projects is the National Council of Agencies En- gaged in Rural Social Work. It is regrettable that funds have not been forthcoming to establish this Council as a functioning group with a full time staff as the other national councils have been established. In spite of this handicap, however, the Council has already done much to bring about a unification of ideas and plans among the rural departments of the agencies represented. Various scattering experiments in combining the programs of two or more national agencies in a single county organization may be found. Most of these combinations, doubtless, are the result of local demand, but in one case, at least—the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A.—the national officers are experimenting definitely with a policy of this sort. The social workers’ group at the Columbus Conference of the American Country Life Association in 1924 made a strong appeal for more efforts along this line. Within the last eight years state councils of social agencies have been organized in several states. Not all of them have functioned successfully, however, and one has recently dis- banded. ‘The chief difficulty of state councils seems to be that of finding adequate sources of financial support. Only the Georgia council has employed a secretary. It would seem to be worth while for some agency interested in rural social work to make a careful study of the problems of state councils of social agencies to determine what can be done to facilitate their development on a functioning basis. County councils of social agencies have appeared here and there, but the outstanding achievements in this field are not, strictly speaking, councils of social agencies. The county fed- erations for social work in Florida, for instance, act not only as councils of the agencies participating but also as adminis- trative agencies employing and directing the social work staff for the county.* The same thing is true of the County Social 8 Cf. Lucy Chamberlain Ryan, ‘Behind the Boom in Florida,” in Survey Graphic, Feb. 1, 1926. Rurat SocraL Work 57 Service Leagues in Iowa.2 The county conferences organized by the State Conference of Social Work in Wisconsin, on the other hand, seem to be much more inclusive in interest and personnel than would be expected in a council of social agencies, and the same may be said of the county councils organized by the Codperative Education Association of Virginia. The Problem of Support. Support includes more than the giving of money. It includes service on boards of directors and committees and volunteer work. It includes also, in a sense, using the services of an agency, joining its activities or coming to it for help. The problem of support for social work in rural districts is only partially produced by the inadequacy of economic resources. For the rest it consists in a difference of opinion between social workers and rural people as to what kind of expert service, and how much of it, is needed in any particular local district. “We don’t need a social worker; we haven’t any poor in this county,” is a statement that is made over and over again by rural people—even in counties which are spending thousands of dollars a year in various forms of poor relief. Scarcely less prevalent is the opinion that the local community can deal with its social problems quite effectively enough in its own way. A general attitude of fatalism toward social problems—a feeling that they must be left to work themselves out—often con- tributes, along with these two definite opinions, to an antagonis- tic reaction on the part of rural people to the overtures of social work. On the other hand, social workers often hold rural institutions and rural ways in contempt. ‘They are con- cerned over the dangers of a too careless giving of relief and undiscriminating neighborly help. ‘They see the failures of rural agencies, and become enthusiastic for a radical change which will substitute approved social work methods for the rural ways of dealing with these problems. The problem of support is in no small degree a problem of reconciling these two points of view. ® Cf. The Iowa Plan for Organization of a Cea tie Social Service League, University of Iowa Extension Bulletin, No. 100. 58 Hanpspook oF RurRaAt SocitaAL REsoURCES The present status of this problem is that the social agencies have become established, for the most part, only in those places where support has been most readily forthcoming, resulting in the duplication of agencies in some counties and the neglect of other counties, and in the concentration upon villages and towns and the neglect of open country areas within counties which have already been noted. There seems to be little doubt that some combination of rural and urban territory must be made for purposes of supporting social work. Dr. Jesse Steiner has suggested *° that such a combination seems to be the only way of securing adequate financial support, but he insists that the enterprise must be so organized that genuine participation by rural groups is secured. ‘This last stipulation is precisely what social agencies have been least successful in accomplishing. As a way out of this difficulty, it has been suggested by some that rural social work should be developed under the auspices of and as a by-product of the economic organizations of farmers. Two of the farmers’ codperative marketing associations—the Burley tobacco association in Kentucky and the tobacco associa- tion in Virginia and North Carolina—have actually employed social workers. Judging by the study made by Landis,** how- ever, the outlook is not hopeful for an extensive development of rural social work by this method. From the viewpoint of the social agencies, it fails to reach the root of the problem, which is the development in rural people of a different set of attitudes toward social work. Among the experiments and efforts which seem most promis- ing in this connection are the district and county conferences which are being developed in several states, the community scoring movement which has been given special attention in West Virginia and Wisconsin, the “‘institute courses” for various county officials and volunteers which are being organized by several state conferences of social work, and the efforts of social work leaders to draw rural leaders into discussions of rural 10 Jesse L. Steiner, Bases of Procedure in Rural Social Work, paper read at a meeting of the American Sociological Society, December, 1925. 4B. Y, Landis, Social Aspects of Farmers’ Codperative Marketing, Chi- ¢eago: University of Chicago Press, 1925. Rura. Soca Work 59 social problems at state and national conferences. But more important, perhaps, than any of these is the slow, persistent educational effort which is being exerted by certain agencies. The county organization work of the State Charities Aid Asso- ciation in New York because of its early beginnings and comparatively long history of progress is possibly an outstanding example of this type of effort, but this agency is by no means alone in this field. More recently a number of state depart- ments of public welfare have taken a hopeful step in adding to their staffs county organizers whose function seems to be con- ceived in terms of gradually developing the present charitable and correctional work of the counties in their respective states into something better. Anything which promotes a better under- standing between social workers and rural people is a step toward the solution of the problem of support. Summary of Part III, Rural social work is a battlefield of ideas and sentiments. Social work leaders themselves hold widely different theories as to the objectives which should be set up and as to the best methods of reaching the objectives. Social workers are divided into legions each following its own banner, and conflicts between these groups, if not the rule, are at least very common. Social agencies, for the most part, do not think of establishing rural social work except at the level of urban standards. ‘They are imbued with the expert’s in- tolerance. Rural people, on the other hand, are almost deter- mined to have nothing to do with these new fangled city notions. Social work, along with most of the other expert services, is being drawn into the rising urban-rural conflict, instead of being, as it should, the adjusting agency which integrates the conflict. Rural social work is chaotic and the order which is to come out of it is, as yet, scarcely discernible. Wat THE RURAL WORK OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH E. V. O’HARA Director, Rural Life Bureau, National Catholic Welfare Conference Owing to the comparatively small number of Catholic clergy in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth cen- tury, the general policy of the bishops and priests was to encourage Catholics to remain in the larger centers where their spiritual needs could be more readily cared for. ‘This policy, of course, was not, generally, consciously formulated nor always successful. ‘The Catholic pioneer immigrants made their way westward and settled either far from their co-religionists, or took up land in close proximity to each other. In the former case they were generally lost to the Church; in the latter, a priest was soon supplied and a nucleus of parish life formed. EARLY DEVELOPMENTS In the second half of the century, groups of Catholic immi- grants from Europe, made their way into the Ohio and Missis- sippi valleys accompanied by clergy from their native countries. In certain cases bishops, secular clergy and religious orders established farm colonies, Such, to mention a single instance, was the Irish settlement in Minnesota promoted by Archbishop Ireland of St. Paul. Dioceses were soon established in the more important centers of the country and it naturally became the duty of the bishops to provide priests for the remote groups of faithful. With the increase of population, these ecclesiastical divisions were multi- 60 Tue RuraL Work oF THE CaTHOLIC CHURCH 61 plied until now there are in the United States about 110 arch- dioceses and dioceses with an archbishop or bishop at the head of each. The diocese is the effective administrative organiza- tion of the Church, and the bishop its administrative head. Each diocese is divided into parishes in charge of a pastor appointed by the bishop. From this explanation it will be seen that the local administration of rural activities is entirely in the hands of the local pastor and his superior, the bishop, and that no local work is undertaken by the Rural Life Bureau in the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. The rapid growth of the Church in the large cities has naturally demanded the immediate attention of the bishops. This is to be expected with the administrative problems which arose from the establishment of schools, hospitals and charitable institutions to serve the city population. But the solicitude of the bishops extended to the remotest parishes of their dioceses and certain general lines of rural policy emerged. Such a general policy was involved in the appointment of rural pastors. Most generally, newly ordained priests were sent to city parishes as assistants for a shorter or longer period. They were then promoted to a pastorate in a rural parish where, after a period of years of successful administration, they might be transferred to the charge of a city parish. Promotions were thus cityward. Naturally, the demand for hospitals was first felt in the larger centers, and religious communities responded to the demand by establishing city hospitals. Under the direc- tion of the bishops, religious communities were encouraged to establish hospitals in smaller centers and today a large number of hospitals under Catholic auspices in smaller towns and cities serve considerable rural population. Likewise, the larger parishes naturally lead the way in estab- lishing parish schools, but the rural parishes as soon as they had sufficient numbers, followed the example. ‘The extent to which parish schools were established differs in different sec- tions, but where country parishes are backward in establishing parish schools, it will be generally found that city parishes in 62 Hanppook oF RurRAL SoctAL RESOURCES the same sections are likewise backward. ‘The parish school became a social agency of the first importance, integrating re- ligion with education, and both with the social life and vocational preparation of the young folks. RURAL CATHOLIC EDUCATION The extent of rural activity in the different ecclesiastical provinces (or groups of dioceses) in the United States, may be seen from the sub-joined table compiled from the Official Catholic Directory which shows the percentage of parish school children in the various provinces who are attending the rural parish schools. RuRAL CATHOLIC SCHOOL ATTENDANCE PERCENTAGE OF CHILDREN PROVINCE IN RURAL SCHOOLS Balnmore seas itg ae cae 8.1 Boston Worse tees iecee ewes: 2.6 Chicawo Muy ares ale weet is 7.8 Cincinnat | i. Zee leak ees 1133 Diabuauenccs, . asieicterae wate cen 46.6 Milwaukee! (ues sinceccaeeme ts 23-1 Ney (Orleans: Goa! epee eas 30.4 NeW a VOrk at wIdt ies belek ode oi | Oregon’ Cityiuicsw je dcenies ete 13.4 Philadelphia ie tains wet non art a By, SELES Fay a Lee oe a8 25.5 StisPal todd eeadenuta karte. 35.7 San Francisca ss boss a icin ee 4.6 Panta Teck Vera wb a Eales 17.7 Most of the Catholic churches serving rural populations are located in villages or small towns, although there are certain sections where one may find numerous parish plants consisting of church, school and rectory, situated in the open country. The general tendency, however, has been toward building the Church in the trading center of the community. POLICIES In general, it may be said that the policy of the Catholic Church has been toward long pastorates. It is common for a THe RuraL WorkK OF THE CaTHOLIC CHURCH 63 priest to remain more than a quarter of a century as pastor of the same parish. The effect of this stability of tenure has been to enable him to enter into the lives of his people to a re- markable extent. The Catholic rural parish has commonly entered into the recreational life of its young people. Ball games after services on Sunday have been common traditions during the summer in many sections. The parish societies have exercised a supervision over the dances and other forms of social amusement of the young folks, There has, however, been another side to the effect of the Catholic school on the rural population. Very many small rural parishes were unable to establish parish schools, with the result that the strong Catholic schools in the cities, became a magnet to attract Catholic families to the city. Thus, the cityward tendency of the rural population often became accentuated by the city parish schools. THE PROGRAM OF THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC WELFARE CONFERENCE The rural program of the Catholic Church in America is outlined by the Rural Life Bureau in the Social Action Depart- ment of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. Right Reverend Peter J. Muldoon, D.D., Bishop of Rockford, Illinois, is chairman of the Social Action Department, and Reverend Edwin V. O’Hara, Eugene, Oregon, is Director of the Rural Life Bureau. The primary object of the Bureau is to be of service to rural parishes and other organizations which deal with the rural problem. Since the development of the rural parish is conditioned by whatever affects rural life, the Bureau is con- cerned with the entire range of rural problems and undertakes to show how the parish and similar organizations may take part in the solution of these problems. 1. Economic. ‘The program includes the promotion of a Christian view of land tenure, of wide diffusion .of land own- ership and of easy access to the land by bona fide operators 64 HanpsBook oF Rurat SociaAL REsouRCEs and assistance to the codperative movement, with safeguards against its becoming merely capitalistic, which is the case when codperation leads farmers to produce only for the market and not primarily for the family. The program has in view the development of the self-sufficient community eliminating the economic waste of unnecessary transportation. Other interests are the promotion of business administration among farmers, and the use of the facilities provided by the agriculture colleges. 2. The Farm Home—rThe program recognizes the farm as the native habitat of the family, the place where economic forces work for the unity of the family; where the children are an economic asset; and where the children receive an apprentice- ship in an important profession. It urges the avoidance of un- suitable work for women and children; the extension of home conveniences by proper home architecture, the introduction of light, power and water in the rural home, and the electrification of the rural community. 3. Health—The Church has always maintained an interest in hospital service, and in the medical and nursing professions. The rural program calls for the extension of these services to the rural country communities, codperation with all the forces which can supply the services to the rural communities, and the establishment of health clinics in connection with rural schools and religious vacation schools. 4. Social—The program recognizes the value of the co- operative movement in binding communities and neighborhoods together, enabling them to promote their social life more easily. It aims at unifying the social life of the community through the parish school and the parish hall, reinforcing the social bond with the religious bond. It suggests the employment of dra- matics and the promotion and supervision of the social life of the young people by the Church, rather than an attempt to sup- press the social life, or to ignore it. 5. Culture and Education—Rural culture is necessary to make country life permanently satisfying—financial success is not sufficient. The integration of education and religion is a fundamental necessity, since a high grade rural clergy cannot Tue RuraL Work oF THE CaTHOLIC CHURCH 65 be maintained if the clergy is cut off from access to the educa- tional life of the rural community. Religion, with its teaching, its worship, and its aesthetic appeal, provides the most important element of culture. The rural secondary school should interpret the rural life to its pupils, and not be patterned after the city school. 6. Religion and Worship—The rural life program recog- nizes that a parish school is by far the most effective agency for promoting religion. Where, owing to fewness of members, a parish school is impracticable, the Rural Life Bureau advocates the multiplication of religious vacation schools and of religious correspondence education. Both of these means are now em- ployed by a growing number of rural parishes. The two general agencies for the promotion of the Catholic rural life program are the monthly publication, Catholic Rural Life, which circulates among the rural pastors and their people, and the Catholic Rural Life Conference which holds a national convention annually. The office of the Catholic Rural Life Bureau is at 1062 Charnelton St., Eugene, Oregon. vel THE SITUATION AMONG PROTESTANT RURAL CHURCHES RALPH S. ADAMS The Commission on Social Service and Rural Work, Reformed Church in the United States If rural church statistics only should be reviewed in this paper the situation would appear somewhat disheartening, because the statistical measurements which are usually applied to churches would show our country churches to be in a rather bad way. On the other hand, if consideration is given to the recent re- awakening in the country. church throughout America, a more encouraging situation is presented. Although the scope of this topic is very extensive and the space for developing it somewhat limited, yet in fairness to the coun- try church an attempt will be made to set forth the rural church situation in the two aspects above indicated. STATISTICS OF RURAL CHURCHES Some statistics of town and country churches, drawn from The Town and Country Church in the United States by Morse and Brunner (Doran, 1923), are as follows: (a) ‘There are approximately 101,477 rural churches in the United States (towns with population under 5,000 considered rural). Ninety-four per cent of the rural churches were in open country and villages with less than 2,500 population. One- seventh of rural communities were without any church. Forty- two per cent of rural communities were without a resident pastor. Many other rural communities were overchurched. Denomi- 66 Tue SrruaTion AMonc ProTEsTANT RURAL CHURCHES 67 national mission boards were supporting many competitive rural churches. (5) Growth and Decline of Rural Churches—Of 5,552 representative rural churches throughout the United States, two- fifths were not growing; two-thirds with less than 50 members were not growing. Of one denomination: eighty-five per cent of churches served by pastor with more than 4 churches were not growing; forty-eight per cent of churches with absentee pastor were not growing. (c) Membership. Sixteen per cent of the rural population were members of Protestant churches; sixty-three members were in the average enrolment; forty-six members were the average enrolment in the open country; twenty-eight per cent of the listed members were reported inactive. (2) Rural Pastors—Thirty per cent of rural churches had resident pastors, not sharing services with any other church; fifty per cent of these were engaged in another occupation; sixteen per cent of the open-country churches had a resident pastor; thirteen per cent of all churches were without a pastor; 34,181 additional rural pastors were needed to give each rural commu- nity a resident pastor; $1,400 was the average salary of the rural pastor, this figure including $250, estimated as the annual rental value of a parsonage. Fifty-five per cent of the pastors were provided with a parsonage. (e) Sunday Schools—Twenty-five per cent of rural churches had no Sunday School. ‘The average Sunday School member- ship was 86. ‘The average Sunday School membership in open country was 64. From these figures it will be seen that rural communities are generally overchurched, although 12 per cent of the commu- nities are without any Protestant church; that competition is aggravated and continued by mission grants; that nearly half the communities are without a resident spiritual adviser; that nearly half the rural churches are losing in membership or just holding their own; that the small church is threatened with ex- tinction; that the church served by a non-resident pastor is on the decline; that the average membership is very small (84 per 68 Hanpspook oF RurRau SociaL REsoURCES cent of the rural population is not connected with the church) ; that rural pastors are overworked and underpaid; and that many churches are giving practically no religious instruction to their children. But a more encouraging aspect will appear when we consider the situation from the viewpoint of the recent awakening in the country church and the movements now in operation to change these conditions. THE WORK OF CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS Ever since Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission made its re- port the rural church movement has developed from different sources and in varying ways. No attempt will be made to fol- low this movement chronologically since the different phases of activity had begun in small ways before we had any specific con- sciousness of their national significance. ‘This fact makes it im- possible to report the movement chronologically, although spe- cific dates might be assigned to certain developments. (2) Rural Church Departments—The Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. was the first denomination to see the need of a separate department to care for the peculiar requirements of its country churches. It organized a department about 1909 and called to its leadership that great pioneer, Dr. Warren H. Wil- son. ‘The labors of Dr. Wilson and his co-workers soon con- vinced other denominations that they too should have special representation for their rural constituencies. ‘The denomina- tions with organized rural church departments and paid execu- tives now giving full-time service are—The Methodist Episco- pal Church; Methodist Episcopal Church, South; Presbyterian in U. S. A.; Congregational Churches; Protestant Episcopal Church; Reformed Church in the U. S.; and the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. Other denominations have part-time work- ers whose major interests cover a broader field than the strictly rural. -It is likely that some of these will ultimately give more specific attention to the church needs of the countryside, and Tue SrruaTion AMONG PRoTEsTANT RuRAL CHURCHES 69 most of them are now codperating in the interdenominational field. (L) Interdenominational and Non-Denominational Agencies. —Undoubtedly one of the most important interdenominational efforts for those interested in country church work was the Interchurch World Movement. By means of its nation-wide church surveys it secured statistical data regarding the rural church on the most extensive scale ever attempted. Upon the collapse of this movement there was danger of losing the value of this work, but finally a non-denominational agency (privately financed)—The Institute of Social and Religious Research— was organized to conserve the results, with Dr. E. deS. Brunner in charge of rural surveys. ‘This organization has interpreted and edited the survey data of the Interchurch World Movement and has initiated other important studies. Other agencies with which the rural church secretaries are codperating are The Home Missions Council, The Council.of Women for Home Missions, The American Country Life Association, The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, and The International Associa- tion of Agricultural Missions ‘The Councils of Churches in Ohio, Connecticut and Massachusetts have rendered great assist- ance in developing rural church programs. ‘The Massachusetts Council employed a full-time rural secretary in 1925 and the Ohio Council has made contributions by following up the Inter- church Survey and organizing county councils of churches. The Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. have also organized rural departments with full-time executives. ‘They have extended their services into rural America by means of county and district organization. For the most part these groups try to develop a codperative program which has proved very helpful to our rural boys and girls at a time when they have “outgrown” the Sunday school and have no other organization to champion their cause. (c) Codperative Training.—Realizing the need of preparing pastors for the rural ministry, several denominations have organ- ized summer training schools for rural pastors. ‘This movement finally developed into a codperative endeavor, when the state colleges and universities in different sections of the country 70 Hanpgpook oF RuRAL SoctaL RESOURCES established interdenominational schools together with codperat- ing denominations. ‘The rural secretaries are busy for many weeks during the summer teaching rural-church and community organization methods at these schools. ‘The rural church depart- ments have made scholarships available to a number of their rural pastors in order that they may take advantage of this special training. But we need trained lay workers in our rural churches as well. Upon the recommendation of the rural church secretaries, the Missionary Education Movement is now preparing a study course on the rural church to be used in its mission study course in 1926. In this way it is hoped that lay-workers can be enlisted in larger numbers to carry forward the program of the church in the country. (2) Government Agencies—The public agencies—tax sup- ported institutions—have begun to recognize the place of the church in rural life and are trying to link their services with those of the church in order that all of life may be spiritualized. Country school teachers are urged by their superintendents to become interested in the community as a whole, in all its prob- lems, and in the other institutions that are serving the local people. Agricultural colleges are preparing vocational teachers of agriculture and domestic science for rural high schools and for codperation with the religious forces of the community. The departments of agricultural extension of our state colleges and universities are now frequently taking the stand that the spiritual values of farm life are the most important, and the local repre- sentatives of the farm bureau and the home bureau are eager to work with, in and through the churches in order better to serve their constituencies. ‘The Bureau of Agricultural Eco- nomics of the United States Department of Agriculture is now preparing a bulletin for release in 1926 which will set forth the many ways in which rural pastors and their churches can codperate with the extension forces, Health and educational agencies are being requested to do the same. ‘The Extension Department of the West Virginia Agricultural College has a very complete and effective program of community codperation which Tue SiTuATION AMoNG PROTESTANT RURAL CHURCHES fii it is promoting in hundreds of communities throughout the state; the whole program centers in the church as the one in- stitution to establish spiritual goals and values in all community endeavor. ‘This plan has been in operation long enough to prove the soundness of the policy, as any study of its results will show. Other extension departments are much interested in -the plan. (e) Federation and Consolidation of Local Churches——This movement has been very rapid in recent years, especially since the war. Over-churched communities realized that their continued competition would not bring adequate religious service to the community, and they also appreciated the fact that the practical application of Christ’s principles in every-day living is more important than shades of difference in doctrinal beliefs. There- fore local church people united into one congregation with one pastor giving his whole time to the spiritual needs of that com- munity, and with an equipment extensive enough to house the entire church program. In some cases this church was organized as the federated type, in which each person still maintained his membership in his original denomination but united with all others for local work. Others were of the denominational type when competing churches withdrew by agreement from the field. Some of these denominational community churches en- roll those of other denominations on an affiliated membership list. Other very successful and well organized churches are independent of any denomination. All these types are organized for the same purpose, however, of bringing an adequate church unit to a much overchurched community. ‘There are probably a thousand of these community churches in rural communities throughout the United States and the number seems to have been increasing. Some of our home mission boards are now with- drawing aid from overchurched fields and are encouraging their people to codperate in the establishment of some form of com~- munity church. This is a hopeful movement and promises to counteract much of the present overchurching in rural areas. (f) The Larger Parish Plan.—This movement had its begin- ning in the Congregational Churches through the efforts of Dr. Malcolm Dana, the director of their rural church work. Several 72 HanpBook oF RurRaL SoctAL RESOURCES “larger parishes” have been organized in this denomination and other denominations have begun to use the plan. A few inter- denominational larger parishes recently organized are also operat- ing with apparent success. The principle of the larger parish is that a pastor is called to a definite geographical area rather than to a church, and he with his staff of workers is responsible for the spiritual welfare of the total population of that area. Instead of having many small churches of different denominations served by several underpaid and overworked pastors, the area is united under one religious program whether denominational or interdenominational. Church membership is held in the central organization located generally at the most convenient community center. A fully equipped plant for worship, reli- gious education, social and recreational functions, is usually lo- cated at this center for use by the whole area. However, preach- ing points are maintained at convenient places throughout the parish, either in small church buildings located there, or in the school buildings, where services are held weekly and midweek activities are carried on for the immediate neighborhood. The pastor in charge need not be proficient along many lines as is expected of the average pastor to-day, for he will have his expert assistants in religious education, social and recreational activities, and finance. ‘These assistants may or may not be ordained ministers, and in some cases the positions are filled by young women. All members of the staff preach at various points each Sunday. Every one is assigned definite responsibility for a specific part of the religio-social program for the entire area, and through constant consultation and discussion the staff devel- ops the spiritual life of the area in a well-balanced progression. This plant offers, in addition to many other advantages, that of enlisting lay-workers for full-time Christian life service. (g) Community Effort of Churches—Many rural churches have established themselves as community centers, guiding the social as well as the spiritual life of the community, and empha- sizing in the minds and hearts of their constituencies the spiritual values of all human endeavor. These churches are codperating in a very definite way with the schools, the Grange, the Farm THe SiruatTion AMonGc ProTEsTANT RuRAL CHURCHES 73 Bureau, the lodges, the farmers’ codperatives. In some commu- nities it has resulted in a central community program with all responsibilities definitely assigned to the different organizations found there. A community calendar of all events by all organi- zations is another practical feature. In several communities the pastor took the lead in providing a social hall for the area. In others the church organization erected a social hall or fitted the basement of the church building for such functions and made it available to the whole community. One pastor largely through his own efforts secured electricity for his community. Another conducted a farm products’ show for the purpose of encouraging better agricultural methods. Others became leaders of boys’ and girls’ clubs. ‘Through the efforts of still others, community groves were made available for all time to their people. Many have opened the doors of their church to baby clinics and health clinics of all kinds. ‘These are but a few examples. The list could be duplicated with cases of joint endeavor where two or more churches are located in a community. ‘To these might be added examples of joint visitation of all the people in the com- munity by the codperating pastors, community schools of religious training, daily vacation Bible schools, week-day religious instruc- tion, union Sunday schools ‘and union services. ‘These are in- deed evidences of a new spirit and a new vision developing within our rural communities which form a splendid beginning for larger endeavor. (4) Methods of the Rural Church Departments—Finally, a brief statement concerning the methods generally employed by the rural church departments may prove enlightening. In addi- tion to the methods discussed above, the rural secretaries are attempting to analyze the local conditions of individual fields through visitation, conference and survey; to inspire rural vision and endeavor through addresses, illustrated lectures, inspirational and educational articles, rural church papers and bulletins, sug- gested programs for community work, etc. ‘Through the em- ployment of seminary students for survey and supply work, an _ effort is made to prepare future ministers for the rural churches 74 HanpBook oF RurRAL SoctAL REsoURCES and to inspire them with the opportunities for service which are to be found in the country. The task of the rural secretary, therefore, is largely to analyze, instruct, inspire, advise, demonstrate. Vill ORGANIZED RURAL RECREATION Lee F. HANMER Director, Department of Recreation, Russell Sage Foundation The chief reason for considering “rural recreation” as distinct from recreation in municipalities is not that country people are essentially different from city people, but that the task of getting suitable facilities for recreation in the country and providing for their administration presents problems that must be met in a different way. For instance, the per capita cost of trained play leadership on a municipal playground used by hundreds of chil- dren every day is quite different from that for a playground in the open country or a small village where but few children are to be accommodated and where capacity use happens only on occasions that are weeks and even months apart. Also the rural problem is a special one because organized play is fairly new in the country and only recently has it been considered necessary to make special provision for it. THE FORMATION OF RECREATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS With the increase of codperation in the industrial life of the country there has developed a greater sense of community respon- sibility for social and recreational interests. Formerly, recrea- tion in the country was decidedly an informal spontaneous, inci- dental matter. Except for picnics and “parties” it was very much of an individual or small group affair. Even the schools had little or no playground space—never any play equipment— and the children were admonished not to “play along the way” going to or from school. In fact, play was quite generally 75 76 Hanpgpook oF RurRaAL SociaL RESOURCES looked upon as a waste of time, or at best a youthful folly that must be tolerated. This is in sharp contrast with what the rural districts are experiencing to-day in the form of community play festivals, large equipped school playgrounds, school buildings constructed and furnished to accommodate recreational uses, com- munity houses, athletic fields, reservations for camping, and organizations with trained recreational leaders. ‘The promotion of organizations for boys and girls such as Boy Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, Girl Scouts, Woodcraft League, Boy Rangers, Four H Clubs, etc., is directing respectful attention to play for young people and emphasizing the need of space and equipment set aside and dedicated to this use. ‘The time-honored recreation activities have not changed as to their fundamentals, but have been extended and adapted to various programs and situations. THE TRAINING OF PLAY LEADERS The most significant thing in recent progress in rural recrea- tion is organization and provision for training play leaders. The training schools for teachers are including in their courses in- struction in play leadership and administration. ‘These teachers must also know how to select and train volunteer leaders, because much of the leadership for the small scattered groups must be given by volunteers. ‘The farm and home bureau agents also need this training, since their club organization for boys and girls, the various demonstration centers, and the bureau meetings and picnics have or well may have a strong recreational content. Community singing has come to have a useful and enjoyable place on the program of these meetings. The church with its community house is the center of much of the recreational life of the country as well as of the city. In this connection dramatics have an important part. Amateur plays, pageants and tableaux seem to be increasingly popular with both the young and the old, and some highly creditable productions are resulting. It is possible that the increased use of motion pictures in rural communities is partly responsible for this growing interest in dramatics. Electric lighting, which is ORGANIZED RuRAL RECREATION 77 rapidly coming into practical use in the country, is a helpful agent in extending the use of motion pictures and in facilitating the staging of amateur plays. A recent issue of a rural weekly paper contained notice of seven amateur plays that were being given in the churches, schoolhouses and halls of that vicinity. THE BASEBALL SITUATION Baseball as an amateur sport, particularly in the country dis- tricts where its early development took place, is in danger of becoming predominantly professional and to function chiefly as a spectacle for the crowds instead of as a delightful form of recrea- tion in which many may participate. Inter-community rivalry stimulated artificially by betting has resulted in local teams made up partly of hired players and all sharing to some extent in gate receipts or collections. This results quickly and naturally in a strictly commercial amusement. Boys as well as men at once be- come spectators instead of participants. ‘The National Amateur Athletic Federation in an effort to save baseball as a fine, whole- some game for boys and men and to help in rescuing it as an amateur sport, has made a country-wide survey and drafted some conclusions and suggestions. “These may properly be summarized here as bearing upon the present situation in rural recreation: This survey shows that in many cities and towns the game is going forward in leaps and bounds due to the inauguration of amateur leagues. It also shows conclusively that baseball has been losing ground in the great majority of the smaller cities and towns due to the fact that they have been trying to conduct it on a semi-professional basis and have been failing miserably in their efforts. ‘The survey further shows that not only have the efforts to conduct the game on a semi-professional basis met with financial failure, but that the towns are not providing facili- ties for large numbers of boys to play amateur ball. Briefly, the survey brought out that: (1) Baseball as a game for the amusement of the spectators in the professional leagues is most successful. 78 Hanppook oF RuRAL SoctaL REsouRCES (2) Baseball is tourishing in communities where it is being promoted on a purely amateur basis. (3) Baseball is suffering or actually “dying out” in commu- nities that are trying to conduct it on a semi-professional basis. (4) Baseball has been given a “black eye” in many commu- nities due to “irregular” management of semi-professional “town” teams. (5) Many communities are not providing any place for their boys to play the game. The National Amateur Athletic Federation believes that: (1) Baseball is a game which every boy should play because of the physical and mental benefits derived therefrom. (2) The boys should have an opportunity to play the game under auspices which tend toward the development of high ideals and good citizenship. (3) Communities are making a serious mistake when they attempt to “import” or “hire” players to represent them. (4) The home town boys should not expect payment for playing baseball any more than they do for golf and tennis, providing an attempt is not made to “employ” outside players. (5) Every town, every church, every Sunday school, every fraternal order, every industrial plant, and every neighborhood should have at least one amateur baseball team. (6) Every community should provide ample baseball grounds for its boys and young men. (7) The responsible citizens in every community should see that the men selected to administer their baseball are those who will exert a wholesome influence over the players. ‘They should be the type of men who hold high ethical standards of sportsman- ship and who can be depended upon not to stoop to petty prac- tices for the sake of “winning.” (8) The life of baseball in the smaller cities and towns, and its survival as our great “national game” is dependent upon its being conducted on a purely amateur basis, ORGANIZED RuRAL RECREATION 79 TYPICAL PROJECTS Automobiles are, of course, exerting a marked influence on free-time activities in the country, and the extension of good roads is an important contributing factor. Country people are able to get quickly and comfortably to and from centers of amusement, and week-end and holiday trips to parks, camp sites and bathing beaches are brought within easy range of practically everyone. State and county park commissions are making won- derful progress in providing these facilities which serve both country and city dwellers. Regional planning, which is coming to include county and township planning, is stimulating and guiding public effort in making provision for its recreational needs. Westchester County, New York, is a notable instance of marked progress in this direction. As evidence of recent progress in rural recreation it might be well to mention a few typical developments in various parts of the United States. Marion Center, Pa., and the surrounding farming district united to purchase and thus “to preserve forever for the free use of the people” a picnic grove with stream and swimming hole that had been used informally by the public for some time but which was in danger of being sold to a lumber company. ‘I'wenty-eight hundred dollars was raised by contribu- tions to purchase the fourteen acres desired. About eight hun- dred people contributed, fully one-half of whom were farmers. Labor and materials were contributed for cleaning up, grading, draining, and for constructing necessary buildings and conveni- ences. A board of seven trustees, four of whom were farmers, were elected by the contributors. The ownership rests with the association which was formed for this purpose. A rural school ground at Stanton, N. J., was equipped with homemade apparatus as the result of interest stimulated by a summer resident. The parent-teacher association codperated by means of an entertainment, the entire cash outlay was only $40.24. The district superintendent of schools became inter- ested, and the country papers printed a descriptive article with pictures of the playground in use. As a result of the aroused 80 Hanppook oF RurRAL SocrAL RESOURCES interest, a small appropriation was made to each rural school in the county to stimulate similar action. Ulster County, New York, has an annual field day and play festival that came into being through the interest of the prin- cipal of the state normal school at New Paltz. The district schools throughout the county receive early in the year the list of events and practice them in preparation for the competitions at the field day. It is a play day for adults as well as children, and is one of the events of the year looked forward to with keen interest. Near Canandaigua, New York, there was an old one-room schoolhouse erected in 1819. The land allotted for the school was exactly the same size as the building. ‘The outhouses were built on highway land. Someone started an agitation for a better rural school plant. A farmer donated an acre of land and the taxpayers voted a levy of $2,000. The State College of Agri- culture contributed plans for building and grounds. Local inter- est and pride were so stimulated by the new project that an endowment fund was raised by popular subscription to provide a permanent income for the care and improvement of the grounds. Pleasing architecture, well located play apparatus, and artistic planting have produced a country school plant that is yielding a substantial return in service and satisfaction. A recent government bulletin on the social aspects of recrea- tion places in rural planning contains the following suggestive description of a farmers’ community park: “Near Niagara, North Dakota, is a farmers’ park, in the open country, financed, operated, owned, maintained, and used by farmers. Why should country people, in a business partner- ship with nature itself, have to go to town to enjoy the pleasures of a park? Why should farm families have to go to someone’s private grove or lake front for a picnic? Why should farm boys and girls have to go to the town athletic field or playground, in which they have no sense of ownership, for baseball, basket ball, or athletic games and sports? ‘These were questions that the farming people about Niagara and Shawnee in North Dakota asked themselves. They already ORGANIZED RuRAL RECREATION 81 had a progressive agricultural club, One of the good things about such a club is that the public discussions bring out many valuable ideas, not only about raising wheat, hogs, and potatoes, but also about how to live a good kind of life while raising them. There was little of precedent to guide them, so it was necessary to solve such questions as: “1, Where should the park be? ‘There was a natural growth of timber along the head of Turtle River which in old days had been the natural gathering place of the countryside, but which private interests had later acquired. This grove was decided upon. “2. How should the original purchase be financed? Eleven acres would suit their plans, and each acre would cost $200, so $2,200 was the sum needed. ‘They solved this problem by organizing a stock company, incorporated under state laws, the Bachelor’s Grove Community Park Association, with shares at $25 each. When the shares were all sold it was found that 95 per cent of them were owned by farmers, with nearly every family in the region the possessor of at least one share. ‘The remaining 5 per cent were held by people of the surrounding villages of 200 to 300 population. “3. Of what should the improvements consist? Here was pleasure of planning. The first year saw the grounds cleaned of underbrush and surrounded by a fence. The next year a kitchen, a refreshment parlor, and a pavilion 80 by 92 feet were completed. Succeeding improvements included a baseball park, ice house, engine house, check room, lavatories, cement walks and improved roads, three wells with pumps, tables and picnic benches, and an electric-lighting system for buildings, grounds, and the approaches. The cost of the improvements alone amounted to $16,000, although there was considerable voluntary managerial labor. “4, How should the improvements be financed and the plant maintained? Experience determined the answer to these ques- tions. ‘The income is derived from receipts from athletic games, dances, the lunch and confectionary stands, and the merry-go- round, and other concessions. When an association secures the 82 Hanppook oF RuRAL SocraL RESOURCES use of the ground for a picnic, profits are divided on a percent- age basis. A caretaker receives $80 per month for four sum- mer months. At each public entertainment three people are hired at each stand at $3 each per day or night. For dances the orchestra is paid $50 and five ticket takers $1.50 each per night. Electric lighting for all the buildings costs about $15 per night. There is no charge to enter the grounds, open to everyone at all times, but the buildings are locked when not in use and during the summer are in charge of a caretaker, who makes kitchen privileges available to picnickers. “5. How should the park be used? It was decided that no set program should be arranged, but that the use of the park should be left to the wishes of the community. The follow- ing events held, among others, indicate the influence that the park has had on the social life of these country people: (4) Open- ing day, with 5,000 in attendance. (4) Picnics. During the summer months there is an average of one picnic a week, held by such organizations as the country farm bureau, the agricultural club, various lodges, the aid societies of the different churches, the American Legion, or the park board, and by groups from neighboring towns. On nearly every Sunday there are family picnics on the grounds. (c) Athletic games and contests be- tween neighboring teams. (d) Supervised dancing in charge of some of the older people. (¢) A summar Chautauqua course. (f) General meetings by such organizations as high-school socie- ties, boys’ and girls’ clubs, and the church societies, for which no charge for the use of the grounds is made. “Times have been hard for the farmers the last two years, and the park during that time has not yielded large profits; but, if imitation be the sincerest flattery, they may be well pieased, for the old settlers’ association of the adjoining county, Nelson, secured the Bachelor Grove plans and blue prints and created a similar park; and this can be done easily by any ordinary rural community.” Two counties in Minnesota and two in North Dakota have united in forming a park association and have purchased and developed a forty-acre wooded tract on the Minnesota side of ORGANIZED RURAL RECREATION 83 the Red River as a country recreation center. By means of “working bees” the people of these four counties have cleared up the underbrush, built roads, laid out an athletic field with bleacher seats for 600, erected a pavilion with kitchen, installed electric lights and running water, and fenced the grounds. The report concludes, ““When completed, this park with its beautiful trees, ferns, vines, winding drives, and its half-mile of river front, was dedicated to the memory of the local boys who lost their lives in the World War.” In Lincoln County, Washington, twelve miles from any rail- road, a farmers’ association has purchased and developed a 160- acre tract on which is a grove of natural timber. A half-mile racing track with grandstand, an athletic field, a band stand, a dance pavilion, a restaurant, and camping facilities are included in the equipment. Tents for agricultural exhibits have recently been added. Several similar projects have been undertaken in other parts of the state. One of the most interesting projects in the direction of rural recreation has taken place in West Virginia, where the state by gift and purchase has acquired 35 acres of the old Stonewall Jackson farm on the west fork of the Monongahela River and placed it at the disposal of the State School of Agriculture as a camp for the 4-H clubs. ‘Thirty-five counties have provided county training camps for these boys’ and girls’ clubs, and the state camp is the climax of the plan. The 4-H club program includes a wide range of activities that make for the best of head, heart, hand and health. ‘They are given a practical appli- cation to everyday life. Recreation has an important place among the activities. Notable progress is being made by several states in the devel- opment of a system of state parks. The natural scenic beauties of forest, mountain, lake and stream are thus being preserved, and camping and picnic facilities for country and city people are thus made available. State parks within an easy day’s drive of each other is the ideal set by some of the states. These outing facilities will tend to relieve farmers from petty annoyances occasioned by automobile tourists camping on their property, 84 Hanpspook oF RurRAuL SociAL RESOURCES and at the same time will provide for rural dwellers interesting objectives for holiday, week-end, and vacation trips. For the districts immediately surrounding these state parks, they serve as comfortable picnic grounds and centers for public meetings and celebrations. Country and city folks are thus brought to- gether in a way that should make for better understanding and codperation in a wide range of mutual interests. A bulletin on “Field Days” issued in 1925 by the Depart- ment of Education of the State of Alabama contains a wealth of practical information for those arranging school play festivals, especially in the country, and clearly indicates the trend of progress in rural recreation. IX FARM WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS Grace E. FRYSINGER United States Department of Agriculture EARLY ORGANIZATIONS OF FARM WOMEN Although formal organizations of farm women have developed at a comparatively recent date, discussions among farm women probably existed as early as farm women had any opportunity to get together. As early as May, 1857, a group of farm women in Maryland formed a “Mutual Improvement Association.” ‘This organization has been continuous from that date to the present, having recently held its 823rd meeting. ‘The object of the as- sociation was “to offer for the benefit of the association such information as we may have obtained, by experience or other- wise, in any way calculated to elevate the minds, increase the happiness, lighten the labor, or add to the comfort of one another, our families or neighbors.” Another well known and long con- tinued organization of rural women stated its object as “a means of getting farm women together into groups for daytime meet- ings in their communities to study and work on farm homemak- ing problems; also to consider means of closer social contact with neighboring farm women.” ‘The form of these early organiza- tions and their meetings were patterned rather closely after that of all orthodox organizations preceding them. A constitution and by-laws were formed and formally adopted. ‘The usual four officers, or their equivalent, were elected and regular meet- ings were scheduled one or two afternoons a month. The obvious leader was chosen as president, and frequently was re- elected year after year. The regular meeting was usually quite 85 86 Hanppook oF RurRAL SociaAL REsouRCES formal in its procedure with regard to roll call, reports, old and new business, etc. A formal paper was read by some one of the group. Usually this responsibility fell upon each of the club members in alphabetical order. The serious part of the program of these early organizations was followed by a social hour. Food was a dominant feature and conversation was varied. It is probable that as much satis- faction was gained during these informal chats as during the more formal paper of the earlier hours—certain it is that strength and courage were gained during this time as hearts were unbur- dened and experiences exchanged. ‘This hour undoubtedly was hallowed in the soul of every early farm club woman, and helped her to live through the busy and often lonely days until the group met again. PRESENT DAY CONDITIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS What of the present day organizations of farm women? First of all, let us look at the farm woman of to-day and at her environment, that we may better understand the many definite changes which have already come about and appreciate the trends so clearly indicated. ‘The farm woman of to-day lives in a world vastly different from that of her mother and infinitely different from that of her grandmother. During the lifetime of the present day farm woman, mechanical and scientific devel- opments have revolutionized the entire world, the farm no less than the factory. During this same period, the movie, radio, automobile, aeroplane, and countless mechanical devices have been invented, and those powerful servants of man, steam and electricity, have been harnessed to the major appliances helpful in home and farm. Good roads, rural free delivery, telephones, and increased service of press and railroads have served to an- nihilate distance, and mechanical power has removed much of the drudgery of the earlier day of farm housekeeping. ‘The farm woman of to-day lives in an age of factory production, and many of the productive activities have been removed from the home. In addition, great world movements, together with the © Farm WoMEN’s ORGANIZATIONS 87 stimulus of the war, have changed public opinion as to the place of women, so that the activities of the farm woman are limited only by her vision, her interests, and her capabilities. The complexity of life to-day and the realization by farm women of their responsibilities to their children as mothers, to their husbands as partners and companions and to their commu- nity for a part in the social, civic, political, educational and spiritual well being of the whole community has materially affected the whole scheme of organizations of farm women. It has affected the type of program, and the whole plan of pro- cedure in the older organizations, and has set up new and demo- cratic standards for the organizations. The content of the program of the various older organiza- tions of farm women indicates the change referred to. The women are still interested in matters of food, clothing and shelter, pictures, books, music, poetry, and art; but they study these topics from a new angle. Good roads, telephone, automo- biles, and radios have dispelled the specter of loneliness and isolation. ‘The farm woman of to-day, like her urban sister, is apt to be beset by too many demands upon her time. Thus she demands that meetings to-day shall make a definite and practical contribution to her every day life. ‘That contribution may concern itself with standards of life, with ways of expend- ing her time, energy and income in the direction of those stand- ards, or it may reach into the civic and political world of her newer responsibilities outside the four walls of her home, but it must challenge her and render to her a practical service of some kind whether that be enlarged knowledge of some basic social or spiritual problem, or improved practices in the training of her children or methods of housekeeping. Matters of civic interest are considered, and ways and means are devised to realize standards of civic efficiency. The respon- sibilities of women as voters are given deep study and, either directly or through the League of Women Voters, candidates for office are asked to express their views for the benefit of these rural women. In many of the present day farm women’s organi- zations, codperative marketing finds important consideration. 88 HanppBook oF Rurat SociaL RESOURCES Farm women always have done the major part of the farm book- keeping, of the purchasing, and some of the selling for the farm, but in the earlier years they shrank from consideration of economic or legislative matters, as entirely outside the scope of “womanly”’ activities. To-day thousands of farm women are purchasing marketing supplies and selling their home industry products codperatively, and they are attending to the business end of these activities, Significant of the changes in the type of programs and in the broader considerations accorded to any given topic in the farm women’s organizations of to-day are the following programs of a given organization for the years 1915 and 1925. 1915 January—Farmhouse Heating. February—Farmhouse Plumbing. March—Farmhouse Architecture. April—The Women and the Garden. May—The Farmhouse Yard. June—Composition of Vegetables, Grains, Meats and Fruits. July—How to Combine Foods. August—What Our Club Can Do to Improve Our Community. September—School Children’s Food. October—Our Duty to Our Schools. November—Infectious Diseases and Our Quarantine Laws. December—FPersonal Hygiene. 1925 January—Present vs. Former Standards of Conduct and Thought: 1. In General. 2. In Our Community. February—Manners: Personal, Family, School, Neighborhood and Community. How Good Breeding Is Instilled. March—Fundamentals of Character. Is Present Lawlessness Due in Any Degree to Carelessness about Religious Training? What Is Religion? Our Rural Churches. April—Helps for Training Children to Be Good Citizens. May—Physical and Mental Handicaps. Heredity. Mind and Body Health Clinic Results in Modern Schools. June—Vocational Guidance as Conducted in Our Best School Systems. Making the Most of Ability and Safeguarding Weaknesses. July—Planning for Our Children’s Future. Good Health Birth- right, Financing Education, etc. ‘Thrift Training. Value of Our Boys’ and Girls’ Club Work. August—Good Kinds of Recreation for Young and Adults. Farm WoMeEn’s ORGANIZATIONS 89 September—Plans for Codperating with Teachers for Best Results the Coming Year. October—Some Christmas Book Suggestions. November—My Idea of Being in Good Shape for Winter.. December—An Afternoon with Jesus. Not only have the titles of topics for meetings changed during this past decennium, but so fast have events occurred that the content of a 1925 paper will disclose world wide knowledge of economic and social facts, and a recognition of community responsibilities by the women’s organizations, and by individual women, which would not have been dreamed of a decade ago. TRENDS IN ADMINISTRATION In addition to this change in program of the meetings the administrative procedure of present day organizations of rural women is also indicative of new trends. ‘There is far less for- mality to-day, and yet the entire business meeting is carried on with the most approved methods of parliamentary procedure, which every member studies, understands and practices. i @ Sg? ee = _ PL tnt wea) sgt. Goin We