PREFACE 



THIS little volume modestly seeks to establish the four 

 facts (i) that America, because of her location, her 

 natural resources, her racial heritage, her history and the 

 ideals of her people, gives promise of becoming, in the words 

 of Sir Gilbert Parker, " the vast controlling factor in the 

 destinies of modern nations;" (2) that Rural America, great 

 relatively in the " Age of Homespun," less influential during 

 the rise of the cities to supremacy, but today all athrob with 

 new life, is enjoying a renaissance prophetic of a brilliant 

 future; (3) that Rural Leadership, with a vision of the moun- 

 tain-top variety, with the incentive of the most inviting careers 

 in the field of human endeavor, and with the prospect of won- 

 derful accomplishments in the Big Business of both the Secular 

 and the Spiritual Kingdom, is enthusiastically assuming the 

 responsibility of an inspiring task; and (4) that Rural Co- 

 operation, in developing a more satisfactory economic plan, 

 in building up a better social and recreational life, in strength- 

 ening the agencies that contribute to intellectual growth, and 

 in fusing the scattered forces of the spiritual realm into unified 

 effort, is working out an epochal Program of Preparedness. 



The manuscript was read by Professor G. Walter Fiske, of 

 the Oberlin Theological Seminary, Mr. Albert E. Roberts, of 

 the International Committee of Young Men's Christian Asso- 

 ciations, and Mr. Percy F. Bicknell, literary critic, to all of 

 whom, as well as to several others, grateful acknowledgment 

 is made, for valuable criticisms and suggestions. 



E. I. A. 



Van Wert, Ohio, 

 March 6, 1916. 



