Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/624

 608 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

teaching, and are forced to consider the social aspect as empha- sized, first of all, in the economic category of price. Here we find many factors transportation cost, general market condi- tions at home and abroad, the status of other industries, and even legislative activities. The farm problem becomes an industrial question, not merely one of technical and business skill. More- over, the problem is one of a successful industry as a whole, not merely the personal successes of even a respectable number of individual farmers. The farming class must progress as a unit.

But have we yet reached the heart of the question? Is the farm problem one of technique, plus business skill, plus these broad economic considerations? Is it not perfectly possible that agriculture as an industry may remain in a fairly satisfactory condition, and yet the farming class fail to maintain its status in the general social order? Is it not, for instance, quite within the bounds of probability to imagine a good degree of economic strength in the agricultural industry existing side by side with either a peasant regime or a landlord-and-tenant system? Yet would we expect from either system the same social fruitage that has been harvested from our American yeomanry?

We conclude, then, that the farm problem consists in main- taining upon our farms a class of people who have succeeded in procuring for themselves the highest possible class status, not only in the industrial, but in the political and the social order a relative status, moreover, that is measured by the demands of American ideals. The farm problem thus connects itself with the whole question of democratic civilization. This is not mere plati- tude. For we cannot properly judge the significance and the relation of the different industrial activities of our farmers, and especially the value of the various social agencies for rural better- ment, except by the standard of class status. It is here that we seem to find the only satisfactory philosophy of rural progress.

We would not for a moment discredit the fundamental impor- tance of movements that have for their purpose the improved technical skill of our farmers, better business management of the farm, and wiser study and control of market conditions. Indeed, we would call attention to the fact that social institutions are