AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 259 



i'acturing, etc. — Questions like the relation of transportation, of indus- 

 trial concentration, and of taxation, to agriculture. — Business coopera- 

 tion 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 sec- 

 ond, 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 ' insti- 

 tutes. — Eural religious institutions. — Farmers' organizations: the 

 Grange, farmers' clubs, farmers' alliances. — Eural 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. — Eural 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 govern- 

 ment 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 them- 

 selves 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) Eural 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 under- 

 stand the social environment of the farmer. (4) Country clergjrmen. 

 The vision of a social service church in the country will remain but a 



