594 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



more profoundly than his city cousin, but less alertly and rapidly. 

 His social awkwardness is a correlative fact of which he is 

 deeply conscious, and which explains his proverbial bashfulness, 

 especially evident in the presence of city girls accustomed to 

 dancing-school escorts. This in turn acts as a powerful in- 

 hibitive and discourages any social prominence. He is socially 

 awkward because of the lack of social practice and adequate self- 

 expression. 



What, then, are some of the elements in the rural environ- 

 ment which constitute this social repression to which I referred 

 a moment ago, which inhibits the development of the strong 

 latent leadership in rural personality? In summary I would 

 suggest: lack of the social stimulus which comes from city 

 crowds and city life ; lack of sufficient challenge to self-expression, 

 with personal growth under social pressure; lack of variety of 

 social opportunities to challenge variety of personal talent; 

 and lack of adequate training in leadership, acutely felt by 

 conscientious people who would gladly lead in community wel- 

 fare if they felt they could. Then there is strong positive in- 

 hibition by rural conservatism in general ; positive repression of 

 ambition by neighborly jealousy (a genial combination of 

 terms ! ) ; the deterrent effect of long mutual acquaintance with 

 its leveling influence, too apt to level down all latent leader- 

 ship by saying in effect, "Start something if you dare! Show 

 your head as a leader, if you want to lose it ! " Such rural social 

 democracy is all too common, and it keeps everybody plodding 

 along in the ruts instead of venturing forth in community lead- 

 ership. Hence the homespun leader is discounted and emerges 

 from the crowd with great diffidence. 



The farmer is the natural leader in country life. Yet to a 

 remarkable degree he falls short of his opportunity in leader- 

 ship. He constitutes 30 per cent, of the adult male population 

 of the country engaged in gainful occupations, yet he has re- 

 markably small leadership, for instance, in politics. There are 

 about seventy times as many farmers as lawyers in the land, yet 

 what about their relative influence? Almost 60 per cent, of our 

 present Congress are lawyers. Barely 3 per cent, are farmers. 

 The 120,000 lawyers in America constitute less than one-half of 

 1 per cent, of the adult male workers. Their representation in 



