Unifying rural community interests

Introduction

This conference has come to be almost a necessity. Four years ago we brought together representatives of various interstate agencies — something like one hundred people — to exchange ideas. It was the first meeting of its kind and we have since noted with great satisfaction the continuous welding together of feeling and vital interest. That distrust, suspicion and even antagonism which was so evident in the first meeting will not appear today. Of that I am certain, for we believe in each other and we understand that nobody here has any axe to grind. It is a great joy to those of us who are giving our lives to work in the country that the individualistic spirit is disappearing and the country people and institutions are rapidly feeling that they must get together if the country is ever to come to its own.

A new note has also been struck with regard to the relationship of the country to the city. We are now coming to appreciate and practice a gospel of interdependence.

We are coming to realize that the city cannot exist without the country, nor the country without the city; that there is a working relationship, and we are keenly anxious to find out what that relationship ought to be. We are hoping that as a direct result of this meeting we shall learn wherein the institutions that are represented here may all work together for a better and more adequate country life.

It was interesting to note in the people who composed the country life commission which visited Europe this summer — one hundred of them, roundly speaking — that each felt that he had the panacea for all ills of country life. We paid the price of democracy to coordinate those ideas, and it was a great joy and satisfaction to see that chaotic mind of the crowd molded into a mind of working unity, to see one hundred people going out with scattered ideas and coming back to be not only advocates, but apostles of a great underlying idea and motive. This Conference is planned with such an end in view.

Now in these days of efficiency we want to know where and how the Rural Depart-

COMMUNITY INTERESTS S

ment of the Young Men's Christian Association can work to advantage with the church, the home and the school — those institutions which are established and are fundamental and eternal. If we are doing some things we ought not to do, it is because we have not had the friendly counsel and advice of other agencies to such a degree as to show us the error of our ways. We are hoping today to face some things very squarely. Four years ago we could not do it. We said very little about the Young Men's Christian Association at that time. Some of us believe that the Rural Young Men's Christian Association is built not alone on quantitative lines, but on qualitative lines — a permeating and coordinating agency helping the church, the home and the school in doing each its specific work. One of the objects of the conference is to discover the views of representatives of other agencies for rural betterment. We hope that Doctor Carver will tell us something of the methods of the Department of Agriculture. It seems to me, if I read the signs of the times aright, that there is a growing conviction in the minds of our economic and political leaders that along with economic prosperity in the country there must be a corresponding increase or consciousness of social, moral and spiritual prosperity. And we shall have the privilege today of listening to some of these leaders.

Albert E. Roberts.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction. Albert E. Roberts, Secretary of the County Work Department of the International Committee 3

I

II

The Point of Emphasis in the New Rural School Idea. A. C. Monahan, Deputy Commissioner of the United States Bureau of Education 18

III The United States Rural Organization Service. Thomas N. Carver, Ph. D., United States Department of Agriculture .... 43

IV

The Country Church and the Young Men's Christian Association. Prof. G. Walter Fiske, Junior Dean of Oberlin Theological Seminary 55

V PAGE

The Place of the Young Men's Christian Association in the New Rural Awakening. Kenyon L. Butterfield, President of Massachusetts Agricultural College . . . . 71

THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICUL- TURE AND COUNTRY LIFE

Dr. Thomas N. Carver United States Department of Agriculture

I wish to say something about the enlarged conception of the function of the Department of Agriculture which has been growing in the last few years, and particularly perhaps in the last few months. The movement itself dates back several years. Take the idea of teaching by demonstration in agriculture. A revolution has taken place not so very unlike that which took place in our college laboratories a generation or so ago. There was a time when laboratory experiments were conducted by the professor while the students looked on ; probably they learned something by that method. That, however, has been displaced by another method in which the students perform the experiments while the professor looks on, or at least gives direction.

Now the idea of farm demonstration and of agricultural experimentation has gone through a similar development. A demonstration farm or an experiment station — I wish to qualify here very closely — I do not mean to discuss the investigational side of the experiment station. That, of course, is its chief function, but there has been mixed with the experiment station idea a certain amount of demonstration for the education of the surrounding country where men come in and see what is going on. They learn something that way, but they do not learn as much by that method as they do when the farmer himself is made to carry on the experiment under the direction and supervision of the expert.

The change from the method where the expert performs the experiment while the student or farmer looks on, to the method where the farmer himself carries on the experiment or demonstration under the direction and supervision of an agricultural expert, is a most important change. This work has so enlarged and has so taken hold of the people, especially in the Southern States, that I do not hesitate to say that it is the most beneficent work for rural Improvement now going on anywhere. There is no organization here or abroad, so far as I have studied them, that compares with it in efficiency in getting actual results.

In the second place the idea that the business of farming consists merely in growing crops has undergone some change recently. That is, the business side of farming is growing in importance. Of course in one sense all farming is business — but technically we restrict the word "business" to buying and selling. The buying and selling side, which is a very important part of the farmer's work, has not been greatly emphasized in the past, but is coming to be so at the present time by the Department of Agriculture and many other agencies. Of course, no organization, no department ever does a thing alone. It is in the air. Movements are started anywhere, all inspired by the same general idea. One can say at least that the Department of Agriculture is awake to this movement and is taking measures to participate in it and contribute to its development.

In the third place, the change does not end with the business side of agriculture. It is even conceived to be the proper function of a National Department of Agriculture to consider the question of better living. Now these are not water-tight compartments. One is dependent upon the other. You cannot have better business beyond a certain point without some improvement in living conditions. For example: We used to persuade ourselves that all that was necessary to keep the young men on the farm was to make farming profitable and increase the farmer's income ; but we discover that just the opposite of that is true. That is to say, farmers are leaving the farm most rapidly where farming is most prosperous. This is borne out absolutely by statistical evidence. Wherever in this country farming is very prosperous and farm land has risen in price, there you find the largest percentage of retired farmers living in the towns. I know of no earthly power that can preserve a country from ruin and decay if absentee landlordism prevails.

Now the reason these men retire and go to the town is because they can afford to. If they could not afford to live in the town they would stay on the farm; but if the land becomes valuable enough through good farming and good marketing conditions to enable a man to live on the rent of his land, he will go to the town and live on that rent unless the living conditions in the country are such as to hold him. -The problem of country life is not solved when you have made the farmer prosperous. The next thing, the important thing, is to make country life so attractive that farmers will stay on the farms even though they can afford to live in the town. Until that problem is solved the country life problem Is not solved at all. It Is even conceived to be a proper function of the Department of Agriculture to contribute its share to the solution of that problem of country living.

Discussion

Dr. J. H. Dillard.

It. seems to me that a key note for the fundamental proposition In all Improvement of country life is the question of the tenant. I believe that more young men leave the country, leave the farm, and go to the cities because of the fact that they cannot readily secure land of their own than for any other reason whatsoever, and our country is not showing any improvement In that respect. If we could find some way by which there could be a better distribution of the land In the open country we would be going Into the heart of the whole matter of country Improvement. In the South I see the evils more particularly. I see a tremendous growth In land values. I heard a conservative estimate made not long ago that the farm lands had at least trebled In the last ten years. Now we need money badly for better school houses and for better salaries for teachers and for better roads, and yet we cannot get our assessors to Increase the assessments. Efforts have been made In some places to show that if there were an Increase of assessments to even one-third of the value of the land we would have more money for these good purposes. If all who are trying to Improve country life could unite In a campaign for fairer assessments of land values we would solve the problem of getting more money for our country improvements, and at the same time induce those who are holding land out of use to part with the land to those who would use It. There can be no prosperous country life until the people who till the soil hold the soil.

Dr. Warren H. Wilson.

I was unconvinced, from what Professor Carver said, that an income was needed and

COMMUNITY INTERESTS IS

had been lacking, but he went on immediately to say that we find the farmer with a high value for his land, as if the two were identical. Now in the church we find just what Dr. Dillard has said, a retarded willingness of the farmer to contribute to social improvements. My own study leads me to believe that the farmer has not the income that Dr.

Carver implies he has I look for Dr.

Carver's work in the Department of Agriculture to contribute to our churches, schools. Young Men's Christian Association and others in the country a better understanding of the farmers' income situation and a great addition so far as the Government can bring it about, an addition that will be independent of increased land values. I think the present increased land value diminishes the farmers' income.

Dr. Carver.

I grant that Dr. Wilson's point is very well taken. When I spoke of the farmer my idea did shift from one man to the other. I was thinking of the original farmer whom we knew twenty or thirty years ago who is now retired. He retired largely because his income from his farm operations was large.

Rent is high. That is, a piece of land from which you can make a large income will sell or will rent for a high price. In the next stage comes the condition which Dr. Wilson has mentioned. The owner has moved to the town, the farmer is now a tenant. His income is not so very large. It is not as much perhaps as he thinks it is, or as some people might be led to infer from his remarks, for the man who can afford to rent a high-priced piece of land is generally the man who can handle that land successfully and make a fairly good income. But under the absentee landlord systerh the land owner loses his interest in the locality and does not want his taxes put up. The tenant does not expect to stay there very long. He has no interest in building up the community. He may have a temporary one, but not the same interest that a resident farm owner would have. There you have the situation which Dr. Wilson had in mind. The owner of high-priced land is living in the town and, therefore, is unwilling to contribute to the church and the school in the country. The tenant has no permanent interest in the community, therefore is unwilling to contribute. In the best farming districts of this country in many cases you will find the poorest schools and churches.

Dr. Dillard.

Take, for example, the sugar plantations of Louisiana. There are few schools of any account in the parishes where these plantations are situated. There are eleven parishes in Louisiana, where the greatest plantations are located, in which the illiteracy of the white males over twenty-one is 42 per cent.

Dr. Carver.

You cannot take up one problem without a dozen others sticking to it. This question of tenancy is very acute and is one of the fundamental questions. At the same time, suppose we could put some beneficent scheme into effect to enable all these farm tenants to become owners — whereby after fifteen or twenty years of good work and good business they might own this high-priced land. Still, if the town furnishes them what they want, and the country does not, they will move to town and leave that land to new tenants and the same thing would have to be gone over again.

THE POINT -OF EMPHASIS IN THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL IDEA

A. C. MONAHAN

Deputy Commissioner United States Bureau

of Education

The point of emphasis in the new rural school idea is a better rural school, a rural school which will provide for the country children the opportunity for the good education that our best city schools provide for city children. We know the situation — especially you who have been in country work. The rural school is very much behind in the educational procession. Country children have not the opportunities for schooling that city children have. The country school, in buildings, equipment, sanitary arrangement, and in management and supervision and practically everything else that goes toward making a good school, is far behind the average city school. This is more generally true in the West and South, but scattered about in the eastern section of the country we have some of the very poorest rural schools in the United States. This week I visited some rural schools in New England and found one or two that are nearly as poor as any school I have ever seen elsewhere. The point of emphasis then is equal educational opportunities for the country child and the city child.

The condition of our rural schools is reflected by two facts brought out in the last census. The rate of illiteracy among the rural population in the United States is greater than among the urban population; in fact, it is twice as great. The rural illiteracy is I O.I per cent, the urban, 5.1 per cent. The rural rate of illiteracy is greater than the urban rate in more than two-thirds of the states. The states where the urban illiteracy is greater are the states in which the immigrants are settling, 75 per cent of whom, according to the census, are settling in cities. The greatest percentage of illiteracy is among this class, but in spite of that and in spite of the fact that they are seeking the cities, the rural illiteracy for the country as a whole is twice as great as the urban. The other fact in regard to the rural illiteracy, due in large measure to the fact that we have poor rural schools, is that among the nativeborn children in the United States, the rate of illiteracy among those born of native parents is more than three times as great as among those born of foreign parents. The figures are these: the rate of illiteracy among native children born of native parents is 3.7 per cent, and among native children born of foreign parents is i.i per cent. This is due, in part at least, to the fact that a large proportion of the children born of foreign parents are in cities, and in the cities good school facilities are provided and they can get an education. These are two of the serious indications that our rural schools are backward compared with the rest of our educational system. We must judge the efficiency of a school by the amount of illiteracy which it leaves about it.

The Bureau of Education is in sympathy with the rural work the Young Men's Christian Association is doing in the country because we appreciate that good rural schools cannot come without an agitation for better educational facilities, and that the movement for better educational facilities is but a part of the greater movement for better rural conditions of every sort. Economic conditions, social conditions, and educational conditions improve together, as a rule, or do not improve at all. There are many instances in the country where you may find good rural schools in communities that are not prosperous, even where the schools are depending largely on local funds for support, and there are a few instances where you may find good schools where the standard of morals is low. They are the exceptions, not the rule. Investigation proves that better schools come with improved economic and social conditions, and, therefore, in working for better schools we must work for general rural improvement.

The place where the Young Men's Christian Association can help in the better rural school idea is in helping to build up the sentiment for education. There is needed among all people the creation of deep conviction of the value of education. It Is lacking in large measure. Every investigation that has been made with which I am familiar brings out the fact that school children leave school for lack of interest more than for all other reasons put together. An investigation in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, made recently among a thousand girls between the ages of fourteen and sixteen and employed in mercantile and manufacturing establishments, brought out the fact that 55 per cent of these girls came from homes of intelligence and of comfort, and they left school without economic pressure. The investigators conclude that more than 60 per cent of the boys and girls of all ages employed in the city left school without being forced to do so because they had to help support the family. Other investigators in other cities arrive at the same conclusion. In certain states compulsory education has been opposed because it has been thought that the wages of the children were necessary to help support the family. Investigation shows, however, that children do not leave because of economic pressure as often as because of lack of interest in school work. It is really a lack of appreciation of the value of education; and the great work to be done first in rural United States is to build up where it does not exist a sentiment for education which will keep the children in school in spite of poverty and other things that may work against them in getting an education. It Is in this that the Young Men's Christian Association can help.

Certain things are essential. We cannot have good country schools unless we have a proper organization for the administration of rural school affairs. In more than half of the states of the Union we still have the old district organization, in which one school and the territory it serves is a school unit, with trustees who hire the teachers, manage the school, and have complete charge of the work. Under that form of organization progress is necessarily very slow. We have in other states the township organization; in other states the county organization. It seems to most persons who have been studying the matter in a broad way that before any great progress can take place, the schools of the country must be organized on a county basis. The township unit is satisfactory in New England, for in New England there are no independent city or town or village districts. For the rest of the country it seems as though the county organization is the most satisfactory. Eleven states are organized on that basis now, and we have been helping in the Bureau of Education other states who are proposing to adopt the county unit. During the past year, in five states bills were presented before the legislatures, proposing the county system. In four out of the five states the measure failed. It failed in the state of Ohio on account of an investigation being conducted by a state commission appointed to study school conditions. It was thought wise to pass no educational legislation until the work of the commission was finished. In the other states the bill failed for lack of information. One senator who opposed the bill in a certain state has since said he would not have opposed the measure if he had known what was being proposed. He suggests that the legislatures, the teachers, and the public must be given more information with regard to what the county organization means. The united action of all rural workers is needed to carry out this campaign of information.

The second thing that is necessary for good rural schools is supervision. The great mass of rural teachers in the United States are working without any supervision. They are untrained in the beginning and are therefore in particular need of supervision. In most states outside of New England, county superintendents are employed. In very few instances, however, are any assistants employed. It is a physical impossibility for the county superintendent alone to supervise the schools of the average county in any efficient way. Few rural people appreciate the need of supervising officers. All cities employ professional school superintendents and city people have come to realize the necessity for their employment. Country people must be educated to the necessity of employing expert supervisors and in this campaign of education all rural workers can help.

Again, there is the question of teachers. Trained teachers are needed in country schools as well as in city schools. The wonderful development of the city school systems in the United States has in a certain way retarded the development of the country schools, because the cities have drawn from the country the trained and the best natural teachers. The great majority of teachers in the country who intend to make teaching their life work look forward toward city positions. Provisions must be made for training more teachers and for giving special training for country work. Very few rural people, even rural school trustees, appreciate that teaching is a profession and requires training. In this all forces can join to create the sentiment necessary to provide facilities for training teachers. In the last year in the United States there were over 550,000 teachers in public school work. From normal schools and from departments of education in high schools, universities and colleges, about 27,000 persons were graduated from teachers' training courses. The average length of service of a school teacher is approximately five years, so there is onefifth of 550,000, or 110,000 new teachers required each year, and for those vacancies there are 27,000 graduates. The movement for special courses for training rural teachers has been on the increase, but not much real work has been done. The normal schools throughout the country are offering courses in rural education for rural teachers but are not succeeding in getting many teachers in the rural courses; the city schools are taking all their graduates. Other institutions for training teachers for our rural schools have got to be found for the immediate need. New York is doing it through teacher-training courses in connection with ninety-four high schools. Minnesota and Michigan are doing the same. Eleven other states have professional courses in preparation for teaching as a part of the regular work in high schools. As soon as a deeper appreciation is created of the need of professional training, other states will establish institutions to prepare rural teachers.

Discussion Dr. E. H. Sneath.

I would like to ask Mr. Monahan if facilities are provided for the proper training of these rural teachers. Do economic reasons interfere with getting efficient teachers? In other words, do low salaries prevent securing well-trained teachers for the schools?

Mr. Monahan.

To a certain extent of course. In Wisconsin there is an attendance of about 1,500 students In county training schools. In the thirteen states where training courses for rural teachers are maintained in high schools or in connection with high schools, there are nearly 9,000 students in the teacher-training courses. New York State has more than 5,000 graduates of the teacher-training courses maintained in connection with ninety-four high schools now teaching in the rural schools of the state. So that these institutions seem to have a large enrollment in spite of the fact that the salaries paid rural teachers are low.

Dr. Sneath.

What do you call a low salary?

Mr. Monahan.

Teachers in one-room rural schools are working for from $20 to $80 per month for the school year, which in some cases is as short as four months each, and in others as long as nine months. I do not know of any who are getting less than $20 a month. The average salary for such teachers, as far as the Bureau of Education was able to obtain data in 19 10, was approximately $44 per month, or $317 per year. This is about $12 per month, or $126 per year less than is paid the average teacher, both urban and rural, in the United States.

Mr. John R. Howard.

I would like to ask Mr. Monahan if the training course as developed in Wisconsin is to his mind the best type of teacher-training course so far developed?

Mr. Monahan.

I cannot say that the Wisconsin County Training School is absolutely the very best type for training rural teachers. Rural teachers are being trained in the United States in teacher-training courses in high schools or in connection with high schools, in these county training schools of Wisconsin and in a few others in other parts of the country, and in special courses in normal schools. The Wisconsin institutions, I think, as a whole are doing better work than is being done in the states that have teacher-training courses in connection with high schools, because the whole spirit and atmosphere of these institutions is training for rural school work. The Wisconsin State Inspector of Rural Schools has made, during the past year, a very close study of the work of the graduates of the county-training schools as public school teachers. He finds their work to be much superior as a whole to that of other teachers in the state who are high school graduates, but without professional training. You understand that in Wisconsin a boy or a girl may enter these training schools and take the two years course which they give, without having had any high school education. It Is hardly fair to compare the graduates of the Wisconsin schools with the graduates of the New York teacher-training courses held In connection with high schools. The majority of the students in the New York courses have completed at least three years of high school work, and very many of them four years, before taking the professional courses. Some of the State Normal schools are offering special courses in rural education and are doing excellent work In training rural teachers. The school at Athens, Georgia, through an organization known as the "Georgia Club," has succeeded In Interesting Its students in the study of the State of Georgia and has awakened In them a wonderful interest In country work. These boys and girls are going out into the country and are making the best kind of country teachers. They see the school In its proper relation to the community and appreciate the things that the school should do better than the great majority of teachers.

Mr. C. F. Hosmer.

Mr. Monahan suggests county organization for all but the New England states.

What shall we do in New England? Why is the township unit a success in New England and not in other states?

Mr. Monahan.

The township unit is successful in New England for several reasons that would not apply elsewhere. First, the country is more densely populated, at least in all but the northern part; second, cities and towns are not independent school districts but are parts of the townships within which they are located. In all other states of the Union, except Delaware, Maryland, Florida and Louisiana, cities and towns are independent school districts. The township is too small and contains too few people, therefore, to make an efficient unit. Again, in New England the town or township is as a rule the unit of taxation, while in most of the other states the county is the unit. In the twelve states now organized on the county basis, the plan seems to be working out very well indeed. The plan now in operation in all New England, for the sparsely settled portions, is satisfactory under New England conditions. This is the plan of forming union