600 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



rural communities. There is great hope of the spread of the 

 community-church movement. From Atlantic to Pacific you 

 may find such churches, not simply undenominational union 

 churches with no outside connection and missionary outlet, but 

 a local union of churches as one congregation, having diversity 

 in unity, loyally meeting their denominational duties abroad, 

 but being an absolute unit in worship and community service 

 at home. Given this united Christian force instead of a jangle 

 of quarrelsome, competitive sects, and the community can afford 

 a living salary for a whole man, a manly man, for a minister, 

 a man with modern training and with the social vision. And 

 in such a community there is a man's job; it is a real oppor- 

 tunity for community building as well as religious teaching, and 

 they go well together. And not the least of such a country 

 minister's opportunities for usefulness is the training of the 

 latent leadership which he discovers in his young people. I 

 believe that an intelligent effort should be made to enlist and 

 train rural-minded young people for a life-investment in the 

 country and for some sort of community leadership, if they have 

 the capacity for it, rather than to encourage them to go to the 

 city, where many of them will be social misfits and partial fail- 

 ures. A fair share of country boys and girls must stay in the 

 country or city and country alike will suffer; and it must not 

 be the survival of the unfit, but the selection of those best fitted 

 for rural success and community service. 



There has been such remarkable rural progress in the past 

 generation, and even during the present decade, that we have 

 no reason for pessimism for the future. The rank and file is 

 unquestionably rising; the leadership will surely be forthcom- 

 ing. Rural social organization has been fortunately simple. 

 I share with Professor Mann, of Cornell, the belief that an era 

 of organization is probably the next stage of the country-life 

 movement. With keen vision he suggests : 



The new organizations will largely be farmer made and controlled. It is 

 the stage of organized self-help. It will be marked by an apparently rapid 

 shift from individualism to a social consciousness and sense of copartner- 

 ship. The welding process is on. Group spirit is accumulating. Farmers 

 as individuals will become less independent; farmers as a class will bo- 

 come more independent. Evidences of personal and group power, large 



