106 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



club work, and Michigan during the past half dozen years has made the 

 greatest progress in Grange work of any state in the Union, Probably 

 fifty thousand rural people are enrolled in these two organizations in 

 Michigan. The farmers' organization in spite of its success, however, 

 is still a neglected factor in our agricultural development. I believe 

 it must be much more fully used than it has ever been if we are to get 

 our best rural progress. The farmers' organization enables the farmers 

 to get things for themselves, to secure benefits in many lines that they 

 could not secure in any other way. It gives them, also, an education in 

 the ways of the world, in co-operating, in broadened views, in wider ac- 

 quaintance, that no agricultural college, nor rural school, nor farmers' 

 institute, nor experiment station, nor agricultural paper, nor country 

 church, nor any other power can possibly give. 



The rural school is a subject that is being talked about today by 

 farmers perhaps more than any other one subject, and this interest in the 

 rural school question is of itself an acknowledgment of the need of im- 

 provement. I cannot stop to discuss, even briefly, any special phase of 

 this question, except to assert with a good deal of emphasis that this 

 agitation for better rural schools has come none too soon. I do not by 

 this assertion class myself with those who can see no good thing coming 

 out of "the little red schoolhouse." But during the past twenty years 

 the school has come to mean quite a different thing in our American 

 civilization than it has ever meant before; we are just beginning to 

 appreciate the need and value of education in training for the whole work 

 of life. Therefore merely to ''keep up with the procession" means that 

 the rural school must go forward rapidly. 



Agricultural education has also made remarkable progress within 

 the past ten years. The experiment stations are now on an established 

 basis and the farmers are generally friendly to them. The Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture is already a stupendous afifair, and its work is ap- 

 parently just begun. Our agricultural colleges have entered upon an 

 era of prosperity; extension work in the form of institutes, correspond- 

 ence classes, home study courses, and so forth, is gradually getting into 

 shape as a distinct phase of the agricultural educational movement. 



When we turn to the country church we have to confess, I think, that 

 there has not been as much progress as there ought to have been, and 

 that the country church as a whole is not meeting completely the demands 

 that are placed upon it by the rural problem. I note, however, that in 

 certain parts of our country, especially in New England, there are signs 

 of an awakening upon this subject. In several cases the country pastors 

 are taking leadership in the farm community and making of their 

 churches centers not only of religious life, strictly so called, but on their 

 church altars they have lighted the fires of a general intellectual and 

 social advancement for the farmer. 



Now I have described very hastily the status of the farm problem and 

 outlined almost superficially those chief social agencies that are making 

 for rural progress. I have been thus brief because I assume on your 

 part an appreciation of the situation as I have outlined it. The real 

 purpose of this paper is to urge a more general and broader study of the 

 farm problem, and to inspire, if possible, to more complete co-operation 

 among the agencies "which are deemed indispensable, if our American 

 agriculture is to keep pace with our advancing American civilization. 

 In this connection I want to make some practical suggestions. 



