SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN FARMERS 749 



order? Is it not, for instance, quite within the bounds of probability 

 to imagine a good degree of economic strength in the agricultural 

 industry existing side by side with either a peasant regime or a 

 landlord-and-tenant system? Yet would we expect from either 

 system the same social fruitage that has been harvested from our 

 American yeomanry? 



We conclude, then, that the farm problem consists in maintaining 

 upon our farms a class of people who have succeeded in procuring 

 for themselves the highest possible class status, not only in the 

 industrial, but in the political and the social order a relative 

 status, moreover, that is measured by the demands of American 

 ideals. The farm problem thus connects itself with the whole ques- 

 tion of democratic civilization. This is not mere platitude. For 

 we cannot properly judge the significance and the relation of the 

 different industrial activities of our farmers, and especially the 

 value of the various social agencies for rural betterment, except by 

 the standard of class status. It is here that we seem to find the only 

 satisfactory philosophy of rural progress. 



We would not for a moment discredit the fundamental importance 

 of movements that have for their purpose the improved technical 

 skill of our farmers, better business management of the farm, and 

 wiser study and control of market conditions. Indeed, w r e would 

 call attention to the fact that social institutions are absolutely 

 necessary means of securing these essential factors of industrial 

 success. In the solution of the farm problem we must deliberately 

 invoke the influence of quickened means of communication, of cooper- 

 ation among farmers, of various means of education, and possibly 

 even of religious institutions, to stimulate and direct industrial activ- 

 ity. What needs present emphasis is the fact that there is a definite, 

 real, social end to be held in view as the goal of rural endeavor. 

 The highest possible social status for the farming class is that end. 



We may now, as briefly as possible, describe some of the difficulties 

 that lie in the path of the farmers in their ambition to attain greater 

 class efficiency and larger class influence, and some of the means at 

 hand for minimizing the difficulties. A complete discussion of the 

 farm problem should, of course, include thorough consideration of 

 the technical, the business, and the economic questions implied by 

 the struggle for industrial success; for industrial success is prerequi- 

 site to the achievement of the greatest social power of the farming 

 class. But we shall consider only the social aspects of the problem. 



Rural Isolation 



Perhaps the one great underlying social difficulty among American 

 farmers is their comparatively isolated mode of life. The farmer's 



