FAEMEES" INSTITUTES. 825 



SOCIAL SIDE OP^ FARM LIFE. 



MRS. CARROLL BRIDGES, ROCKPORT, IND. 



[Read before the Spencer County Farmers' Institutes.] 



In any discussion of the rights, the privileges and the pleasures of 

 the people whose homes are in the country, probably no subject should 

 have greater prominence than their attitude toward the social life of the 

 community. 



When we have asked the reasons wiiy the farmer's family grows 

 discontented and finally leaves the farm, the very first to be given and 

 emphasized is the declaration that the social life is so barren and the 

 opportunity for social pleasures so limited that farm life becomes unen- 

 durable. No doubt there is much truth in the statement and no doubt 

 it is much easier for a certain class to move to town where they find 

 their entertainment "ready made" than to exert themselves to be neigh- 

 borly. 



Let us notice the existing conditions which prevent social activity 

 on the farm. 



First, the isolation of the farm life if not controlled and guided 

 fosters a sort of spix-it of intolerance which will prevent a deep social 

 life. If we are not in touch with our neighbor we do not care about his 

 progress. We are not intei'ested in his plans. A difference of opinion in 

 religion or politics widens the gulf and it seems that in such cases small 

 differences of opinion, in some unaccountable way, have gi'eater power to 

 keep people apart than have large mutual interests to bring them together, 

 but in the country the mutual interests must be great. In this day of 

 good roads, the telephone, rural mail delivery and later the electric rail- 

 way, we are not isolated but are brought closer together and the neigh- 

 borhood is afforded opportunities for an enlarged social life. 



That farmers have mutual interests is shown by the unbounded suc- 

 cess of these institutes. "Friction of minds sharpens intellect" and the 

 exchange of plans and ideas, discussion of theories and pi*actical demon- 

 strations have promoted the general welfare and has also done much to 

 brush aside the antagonism and petty jealousy between town and country. 

 It has been said that societj- is no comfort to one not sociable, so if we 

 are so absorbed in crop rotation and market reports as to forget that we 

 have neighbors we lose much of life's pleasures. 



Mrs. Meredith says: "Social activity, social pleasures the world over, 

 when of the higher order are under the patronage of women," so it is the 

 women of the farm home who must take the initiative in planning and 

 carrying out social affairs and to whom we must look for a social awaken- 

 ing of the neighborhood. As homemakers the women of the country do 



