PROBLEMS OF RURAL SOCIAL LIFE 



359 



upon the common interest of agricultural production and na- 

 tional upbuilding as it is for a body of college students to be- 

 come upon the subject of an athletic contest, or for a nation to 

 become on the subject of war. The church which can give its 

 people or its neighborhood a great and noble enthusiasm like 

 this will have no difficulty in creating a vibrating social life. 

 Then it will not seem out of place, or bad taste, for the people 

 to sing whenever they get together. 1 The absence of any com- 

 mon enthusiasm means a disunited, egoistic, disintegrating social 

 life, compared with which even war, horrible as it is, may be the 

 lesser evil if it results in uniting the people in a common in- 

 terest and a common cause. Since Denmark has shown that a 

 people may develop a common enthusiasm for the arts of peace, 

 it ought to furnish a basis for a constructive faith in its possi- 

 bility elsewhere. If the church is not to be the conservator of 

 that constructive kind of faith, where shall we look for it ? 



The country school. The country school, though a younger 

 institution than the country church, is regarded by many as the 

 more powerful and influential of the two. It has certain mani- 

 fest advantages, chief among which is the fact that it belongs 

 to the whole community instead of a part of it. Therefore it can 

 be made the center of the life of the whole neighborhood more 

 easily than the church can, especially where denominational 

 differences tend to divide the community. On the other hand, 

 the fact that the school is a territorial institution that is, that 

 it belongs to all the people living within a certain territory 

 puts it at a disadvantage as compared with the church in a 

 neighborhood where the majority of the voters are unprogres- 

 sive and unenlightened. In such a neighborhood the school is 

 like]y to be of little use, except in so far as it is compelled by 



1 .1 ncidentally it may be mentioned that many of the oldest recorded hymns 

 of the Indo-European branch of the human race, those of the Rig Veda, are 

 agric ultural hymns. 



