bulletins, hold institutes, send out lecturers, and in various other ways promote programs of health and sanitation, conservation of child life, and better rural education. The United States Department of Agriculture, through its States Relation Service, has a dynamic relationship to rural progress; it not only does what the other governmental agencies do, but it supplements its educational program with actual financial assistance in the employment of social servants, who are partially under the control of state and county administration. The Office of Rural Life Studies, which was established two years ago, investigates the social aspects of farm life and publishes bulletins. It constitutes the first attempt on the part of the federal government to consider the human factor in agriculture as a legitimate cause for federal expenditure. The county agricultural agents (farm advisers or farm demonstrators) of whom there are now two thousand employed, are a permanent part of the educational machinery in practically all of the three thousand counties of the United States. The primary function of these agents is to instruct the farmer in better methods of agricultural science. Most of the agents have received their training in agricultural colleges where little or no attention has been given to the human or the social aspects of country life. They are specialists in farm management and agricultural science. Not much is to be expected from them in the way of directly promoting a social program. Their indirect influence upon the social life of farmers, however, is powerful and widespread. The home demonstration agents, whose function it is to work with the farm woman in the same relationship as the agricultural agents work with the farmer, are not so numerous. There are now but eight hundred of them in the service. They are, however, more definitely related to the social life of the countryside. The farm woman is the crux of the modern rural problem. It is she who first scents the new wants and desires for the "outside" civilization; it is she who is first discontented with the narrowing and restricting social life of the open country. And it is she who has the most deep-seated aspirations for increasing the welfare of her children. The home demonstration agent deals with the factor of greatest discontent in farm life, and because of this fact her program has been increasingly a social program. This is not the place to detail the list of improvements for which she is responsible, such as home conveniences, elimination of drudgery in home tasks, millinery, dressmaking, rural mothers' clubs, etc. It is sufficient to add that the home demonstration agent is one of the most potent of the social forces in modern rural life.. The States Relation Service also administers a system of education in agriculture and homemaking for country children, usually called boys' and girls' club work. State leaders and county leaders are employed with co-operative financial assistance from the United States Department of Agriculture. In many respects this is the most hopeful and the most distinctly social piece of work which the department sponsors. In these clubs the boys and girls practice self-government; they have an economic basis for their organization, but the club meetings are a mixture of scientific study, general education, recreation, and sociable life. Out of these clubs is destined to come an enlightened and trained social leadership for thousands of rural communities. State governments have dealt with the human aspects of country life almost exclusively in two directions: health and education. The public health nurse, employed on the county basis, is rapidly becoming a standardized factor under state supervision. Consolidation of rural schools is likewise coming to be a matter of state policy. There are a few deviations from this statement. The state of North Carolina, for example, has a State Department of Public Welfare, under whose supervision social workers are placed in each county of the state. Missouri has recently passed a similar law. North Carolina has also a State Bureau of Community Service related to the Department of Education; its function is to promote recreation and entertainment in country districts. With only a few exceptions, the units of county government have entered the field of rural social work under the impetus and through the stimulus of either state or national agencies. The counties assist state and federal government in supporting the county agricultural agents and the home demonstration agents. In most states the funds for rural-health nurses are appropriated by the county, but the initial stimulus came from elsewhere. Private social agencies are of most vital concern to this audience. Until the very recent past, these agencies were concerned with their tasks in the cities. Many of them did not, apparently, know that there was a rural social problem; many others thought of the country as a hopeless field for their endeavors. Their workers were city-trained, and their administrative officials were city-minded in their outlook. There was a more or less serious incompatibility between these great urban social agencies and the rural mind. They did not understand the farmer, and they possessed no philosophy, no technique, and, it is to be feared, very little courage in attacking a problem so difficult. A typical case is that of the Young Men's Christian Association. A small group of workers in this organization saw over twenty years ago the needs of the boys and young men of the country districts. They organized what is known as County Young Men's Christian Associations. So detached from the psychology of the country was the administrative portion of this great organization that these county associations were not permitted representation on the floor of the international convention until last year, and this, in spite of the fact that over three hundred counties had been organized and supplied with trained secretaries. This is all the more difficult to understand when it is appreciated that the bulk of young men and boys of the United States still live in the country, notwithstanding the disproportionate figures for the total population; and it is with these boys and young men that the Young Men's Christian Association, as a special agency, is fitted to work. There is even now a strong undercurrent in the association movement to make these county units mere appendages of city associations. This is, perhaps, the place to pay tribute to the pioneers of the Young Men's Christian Association who have laid the foundations of the rural program. Most of them were country-bred boys of the Middle West, reared on farms and educated in the small denominational colleges. By dint of courage, faith, and hard work they hammered out a few fundamental principles of rural social work which are still the touchstones of all who follow. The American Red Cross entered the rural field in earnest following the Great War. The personnel had expanded to such extent and with such variety that there appeared to be a distinct "call" for an expanded peace-time program. A Rural Service Bureau was established at the national headquarters, and each division was manned with workers intended primarily for the rural field. Rural community studies were conducted in various sections of the country, and in some cases actual programs, including family case work, community organization, and recreation, were put into action. The present status of the rural wosk of the Red Cross seems to be somewhat uncertain. There are unmistakable indications that the program has now sifted down, and that the future will reveal a more specialized form of activity related more definitely to the original function of the Red Cross. In the meantime the rather hurried efforts of Red Cross workers have made a contribution to the organization of rural social forces. In no particular has this effect been more pronounced than in the emphasis which the Red Cross has placed upon coordination of social agencies. Wherever its influence has been strong there has resulted a movement toward co-ordination and co-operation. In addition, the Red Cross workers who have penetrated to the rural field have blazed certain trails of technique which are destined to be of great value to all rural social workers. I have in my possession a number of files of letters and reports of rural Red Cross workers, from North Dakota to Georgia, which portray an insight into the actual rural social needs which, in themselves, constitute a chapter in rural progress. Public health nursing, home hygiene and care of the sick, first aid, home service, Junior Red Cross-these are terms with deep social service import, and they are now known in many of the remotest rural districts of the land. The Young Women's Christian Association, through its Town and Country Department, has approached the rural field with a scientific purpose which promises to build for it a sound philosophy and technique. It organizes on the county basis and promotes a program of recreation, education, social life, and character-training for the girls and women of the countryside. Trained workers are placed in counties as secretaries, and these workers are given a degree of freedom from stereotyped programs and overhead control which should be an example to many other agencies. The National Child Labor Committee has conducted three child labor studies whose bearings are specifically rural. These studies are revelations of the place of the country child in our rural economy. They reveal sources of social infection related to delinquency, illiteracy, school attendance, and the numerous other relationships of the welfare of children—the dynamic factors in our social structure and process. These studies have specific objectives in legislation; the legal status of the country child has been clarified and brought to the attention of the people of the states in which these studies have been made. It becomes increasingly manifest that the great bulk of the future work of this agency is to be in the rural field. Community Service, Incorporated, deals with the leisure-time programs of communities. It has no specifically designated rural department, but its services have extended to the rural field. Its personnel includes individuals who are definitely committed to the development of a technique of rural recreation. Thus far, its main contribution has been along the line of interested assistance to other agencies through its specialists and its publications. The Playground and Recreation Association of America, so closely related to Community Service, Incorporated, in personnel and administration, has always taken an active interest in the promotion of rural recreation. The Boy Scouts of America deal with the recreational, educational, physical, and social life of younger boys. Rural villages and open-country communities, with limited numbers of boys of similar age-groups, have adopted the Boy Scout program largely through the leadership of teachers and ministers. The number of troops which may be classified as rural has increased materially during the past three to five years. The administrative function of this agency takes cognizance of the social needs of country boys and makes specific provisions for meeting such needs through its leaders and its publications. The Girl Scouts (incorporated) functions in a similar manner as that described above in relation to the Boy Scouts; its field is confined to the younger girls. Its leaders are planning definitely to discover and put into practice a rural program. Numerous health agencies must be mentioned, although space will not permit elaboration. The National Organization for Public Health Nursing, the Child Health Organization of America, and the National Child Health Council are all agencies or combinations of agencies whose future programs point directly to the rural field. The recent publication of the National Health Council contains the programs of work, administrative and promotion organization, and headquarters' personnel of ten leading health agencies of the United States. It constitutes one of the most hopeful pictures of the organization of social forces in the modern history of institutionalism. The Rural Education Department of the National Education Association has grown to be one of the most formidable and constructive forces in modern rural life. Its personnel is made up of rural school teachers, supervisors, county superintendents, and college and university leaders in rural education. Although its annual conferences are devoted largely to the technical problems involved in rural education, its programs usually include some topics of discussion which are definitely related to the school and education as social forces. Its membership is one of power and great influence. Many of the programs of other agencies await the cultivation of public sentiment which hinges upon the viewpoint and the philosophy of these rural education enthusiasts. The American Library Association is now promoting a rural library movement which promises to be the lever for bringing the social literature of the world to the farmer's door. The National Catholic Welfare Council is represented on the National Council of Rural Social Agencies and is promoting a program of community houses, health, and recreation for its rural constituency. The Russell Sage Foundation, through its departments of recreation and its community centers, is assuming certain definite attitudes toward rural problems. The American Home Economics Association is a conference body which gives attention to the development of the technique of education in homemaking. Topics dealing with nutrition, food production, food distribution, and home management as related to the country home form an important part of the discussions of this organization. Its membership embraces the leaders in the home-economics field. The National University Extension Association is also a conference body; it deals with the technique of extension education and obviously has a definite relationship to the rural field, in which so large a bulk of extension education programs functions. There remains to be discussed one of the oldest and most fundamental social forces in American country life-the country church. It too has been neglected along with the other pioneer institutions of the open country which did such noble service in their time. There are today marked evidences of a rural church renaissance. All of the prominent denominations have special rural church departments, or are giving attention to the rural church through home mission departments. The great achievements of our race are due to the awakened spirit of the so-called common man. In our industrial centers, the Protestant churches have well-nigh sacrificed their opportunity to have a part in this spiritual awakening. There is still time for the country church to orient its program to similar conditions which are rapidly developing in rural districts. What the churches do within the next two generations will, in large measure, determine what is to happen with religious institutionalism in the future unfolding of our national destiny. There are some causes for misgiving. Many church leaders are promoting programs of social service for rural churches, which services will in themselves defeat the fundamental function of religion. The church is subject to the laws of the division of labor to the same degree as is true of all other institutions. It will not increase its spiritual strength by merely rendering social services. And, if the Christian church attempts to defeat this law which indicates that institutions grow by the loss of function rather than by the increase of function, it will devitalize the social effectiveness of the Christian religion. This is not the time nor the place to suggest the real function of the rural church. It may be sufficient to add, as a warning, that churches that make vested interests of social services will some day find themselves so busy guarding their vested interests that their spiritual dynamics will have been lost. The wise church leaders who are earnestly interested in producing a united program of rural social progress will suggest that the churches of the future shall make the very highest and best use of all of the specialized social agencies, organizations, and institutions. The foregoing agencies may be divided into three groups: first, those which deal with the investigative phases of country life; second, those which deal with the educative or publicity phases of the country-life movement; third, those which have actual programs of social service operating in rural areas. Out of the experiences of the past few years, in which the social aspects of rural life have come into national prominence, and in which the social agencies have definitely entered the rural field, the following principles and deductions may be drawn: First, there is an increasing tendency among country people to be suspicious of the numerous social agencies which have suddenly come to regard the farmer and his family as objects of reform. Second, there appears to be a growing tendency in several sections of the country to begin programs of rural social work under governmental auspices. Third, the national social agencies which have entered the rural field within the past few years are coming to recognize the necessity for a new technique, a new philosophy, and a specially trained personnel for the rural field. Fourth, the national agencies engaged in rural social work have come to a sincere realization of the urgency of uniting in the promotion of a unified program of rural social progress. In conclusion, something needs to be said regarding the farmer and the farmer mind as a distinct social force. Most of the forces thus far discussed have originated outside of the farmer's mind. This is not in itself harmful. The rural problem is serious enough to demand the best thought of the best minds of both city and country. But the final force wherewith a people saves itself is within, and not without. There are numerous misconceptions regarding the mind of the farmer. It is generally assumed that he is conservative, unscientific, wasteful, materialistic, individualistic, inarticulate, and, all in all, a non-progressive sort of individual, for whom there is little hope so far as his own personality is concerned. If there were time, I should not hesitate to attempt to disprove all of these current and fallacious notions about the farmer. He uses science more than most artisans and producers. He produces more food per man than any farmer in the world. He has been denied an adequate voice in the legislative and executive departments of government, but his |