RURAL I I'l.lFT ELSEWHERE 233 



has become more free and strongly evangelicaL New 

 church buildings are being erected by Lutherans and 

 Gruntvigians jointly as community structures. Thus, 

 under the impulse of a true education for practical life 

 directed by an intense evangelical spirit and securing 

 co-operative organization on a national scale, Denmark 

 has been reconstructed as a nation, her depleted soil re- 

 plenished, her landscape made beautiful ; she has been 

 uplifted out of a great military defeat, out of debt, out 

 of social disintegration. She has almost closed her poor- 

 houses and abolished pauperism. I''rom being one of 

 the poorest of countries she has attained the largest per 

 capita wealth of Europe. She is a land of rural homes 

 and of altruism. 



In Ireland a remarkable advance has been made 

 under co-operation. In 1889 Mr. Phinkett, now Sir 

 Horace Plunkctr. rciiirned to Ireland after ten years' 

 residence in the American West. Competition from 

 Denmark threatened the Irish dairy industry. Govern- 

 ment aid towards land purchase by small farmers offered 

 opportunity for a betterment movement. ^Ir. Plunkett 

 advocated co-operative societies. Fifty meetings were 

 held before the first one was formed ; over two additional 

 years' advocacy In'fore the seconcL Lciiislation was se- 

 cured — for all the United Kingdom — by the Industrial 

 and Provident Societies Act of 1893 and tlie I^'riendly 

 Societies Act of 189G. The Irish Agricultural Organ- 

 ization Society was established to proiuote the forujation 

 of societies; the Irish ('o-oj)erative Agency Society to 

 co-ordinate marketing of products. Demonstrators are 

 employed f<i teach scientific! agriculture on the farms. 

 The outcome is that " in a little more than twenty ^^'ar8, 

 against tretnendous <liffi<Milti('S, in an atmosphere 



