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- 



