COUNTRY LIFE, OLD AND NEW 



town as had their predecessors. The church and the 

 school must readjust themselves to the new conditions. 

 Agriculture readjusts itself to new economic conditions 

 more quickly than do other rural forces. The church 

 and the schools must follow its example and so plan 

 their work as to fit the new environment. The social 

 life of our rural towns is being developed through other 

 agencies than the church. The mistake that the church 

 has commonly made is in holding herself aloof from 

 the life of the community, instead of being a part of it. 

 In those communities where the church is the center of 

 the social and the literary life of the farm folk, as is 

 conspicuously the case in a few rural towns of this 

 county, the hold on the religious life of the people con- 

 tinues strong. The ministry must be in sympathy with 

 farm life and the natural advantages of life in the open 

 country in order to have the church retain its hold on 

 the farm people. A special class of pastors, who know 

 from experience the real problems of the farm, will be 

 the logical outgrowth of any effective movement for a 

 better religious life in our country towns. 



Organization is the key-note of modern farm life. 

 In fact, farm life as a business and a social force is now 

 being organized as never before. There was a time 

 when the life of the farmer was individualistic in the 

 extreme, but that time has passed. Through the va- 

 rious organizations, whose function is to foster a 



