234 CHAPTERS IN RURAL PROGRESS 



They are the forces now most efficient, and the 

 ones that promise to abide. This classification 

 may appear to be a mere truism, when we sug- 

 gest that under the church should be placed all 

 those movements that have a distinctively 

 religious motive, under the school all those 

 agencies that are primarily educational in de- 

 sign, and under farmers' organizations those 

 associations whose chief function is to settle 

 questions which concern the farmer as a business 

 man and a citizen. But the classification 

 answers fairly well. It includes practically 

 every device that has been suggested for rural 

 betterment. 



There are two interesting facts about these 

 rural institutions: (i) None of them is doing a 

 tithe of what it ought to be doing to help solve 

 the farm problem. The church is apparently 

 just about holding its own, though that is doubt- 

 ed by some observers. Rural schools are not, as 

 a rule, keeping pace with the demands being 

 made upon them; comparatively few students 

 in the whole country are studying scientific 

 agriculture. Not one farmer in twenty be- 

 longs to a strong farmers' organization. (2) All 

 these institutions are awakening to the situation. 

 Progress during the last decade has been espe- 



