Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/263

Rh, etc.—Questions like the relation of transportation, of industrial concentration, and of taxation, to agriculture.—Business cooperation among farmers.—Exchange facilities in rural districts.—Tenant farming.—Large vs. small farming.—Machinery and agriculture.—History of the farming industry.

Considering now themes that are more purely sociological, we may name rural education, including first, the rural schools proper and second, agricultural education especially. Under the latter head could be discussed nature-study teaching in rural schools, agricultural schools and colleges, experiment station work, agricultural fairs, farmers' institutes.—Rural religious institutions.—Farmers' organizations: the Grange, farmers' clubs, farmers' alliances.—Rural communication; wagon roads, trolley lines, telephones, rural mail delivery.—Degeneracy, pauperism, intemperance, crime, in rural life.—Social life in the country.—Arts and crafts in rural communities.—Rural social psychology.—Social history of agriculture.

These lists are purely suggestive and by no means complete. There are also subjects that have a political bearing, such as local government in the country, and primary reform in rural communities, which perhaps ought not to be omitted. So too, various phases of home life and of art might be touched upon. The subjects suggested and others like them could be conveniently grouped into from two to a dozen courses, as circumstances might require.

What classes of people may be expected to welcome and profit by instruction of this character? (1) The farmers themselves. Assuming that our agricultural colleges are designed, among other functions, to train men and women to become influential farmers, no argument is necessary to show how studies in rural social science may help qualify these students for genuine leadership of their class of toilers. On the other hand, it may be remarked that no subjects will better lend themselves to college extension work than those named above. Lectures and lecture courses for granges, farmers' clubs, farmers' institutes, etc., on such themes would arouse the greatest interest. Correspondence and home study courses along these lines would be fully as popular as those treating of soils and crops. (2) Agricultural educators. The soil physicist or the agricultural chemist will not be a less valuable specialist in his own line, and he certainly will be a more useful member of the faculty of an agricultural college, if he has an appreciative knowledge of the farmer's social and economic status. This is even more true of men called to administer agricultural education in any of its phases. (3) Rural school administrators and the more progressive rural teachers. The country school can never become truly a social and intellectual center of the community until the rural educators understand the social environment of the farmer. (4) Country clergymen. The vision of a social service church in the country will remain but a