SOCIAL SIDE OF THE FARM QUESTION 201 



children and state and freedom than for mil- 

 lions. In other words, the maintenance of the 

 typical American farmer the man who is es- 

 sentially middle class, who is intelligent, who 

 keeps a good standard of living, educates his 

 children, serves his country, owns his medium- 

 sized farm, and who at death leaves a modest 

 estate the maintenance of the typical American 

 farmer is the real agricultural problem. 



If this analysis is a correct one, it will vitally 

 affect our plans for agricultural training. The 

 student will be taught not only soil physics, but 

 social psychology. He will learn not only the 

 action of bacteria in milk fermentation, but the 

 underlying causes of the social ferment among 

 the farmers of the last thirty years. He will 

 concern himself with the value of farmers' or- 

 ganizations as well as with the co-operating 

 influences of high-bred corn and high-bred steers. 

 The function and organization of the rural school 

 will be as serious a problem to him as the build- 

 ing and management of the co-operative cream- 

 ery. The country church and its career will 

 interest him fully as much as does the latest 

 successful device for tying milch cows in the 

 stable. He will want to get at the kernel of the 

 political questions that confront agriculture 



