480 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



condition of the rural community must be known and recorded. 

 The community must know where it stands. It must understand 

 its assets and its liabilities. 



Survey work is legitimate wholly aside from its application. 

 I have no patience with the doctrine of "pure science," that 

 science is science only as it is uncontaminated by application in 

 the arts of life ; and I have no patience with the spirit that con- 

 siders a piece of work to be legitimate only as it has direct bear- 

 ing on the arts and affairs of men. We must discover all things 

 that are discoverable and make a record of it: the application 

 will take care of itself. The application of science lies not alone 

 in its employment in particularities here and there, but quite as 

 much in the type of mind and the philosophy of life that result 

 from it. If we knew our exact rural status in materials, ac- 

 complishments and deficiencies we should by that very fact have 

 a different outlook on the rural problem and a surer process of 

 attacking it. We should do little guessing. We should correct 

 many vagaries and many a foolish notion to which we now are 

 all, no doubt, very much given. We should not be obliged to 

 follow blind or self-wise leaders. A substantial body of accu- 

 mulated fact would set bounds to the promoter and the agitator 

 and the schemer. 



The result of survey-work in agriculture should be to tie the 

 community together. Such work would provide a basis for real 

 judgment on the part of every intelligent resident of the neigh- 

 borhood. One interest would be tied up with another. Apple- 

 growing would not be distinct from wheat-growing, or church 

 work from school work, or soil types from the creamery business, 

 or politics from home life. The vicinage would be presented to 

 the citizen as a whole. Nothing, in my opinion, would do so 

 much to develop pride of neighborhood, local patriotism, and 

 community common sense as a full and complete knowledge of 

 what the community is in its resources, its history, its folks, its 

 industries, its institutions, and its tendencies. 



When the survey idea is once understood and begun, every 

 locality will desire to be represented. Certain regions will de- 

 velop full surveys, and the reports will be standard ; the surveys 

 of intermediate localities may not need to be so elaborate or 

 minute. 



