leadership in the army, in the
legislatures, in the colleges and universities, and above all, in the
pulpit.

In these three types of successful farmers religion is an essential
factor. No history can be written of the Mormons, of the "Pennsylvania
Dutch" or of the Scotch Presbyterian without recording their religious
devotion, their obedience to leaders, to customs and to creed. One
cannot live among them without feeling the peculiar religious
atmosphere which belongs to each of them. They are admirable or
obnoxious, according as one likes or dislikes this religious character
of theirs, but it pervades the whole life of the community. If it be
true that there is no type of farmer--except the scientific farmer of
the past few years--who has succeeded as these three types have
succeeded, and there is no country community so tenacious as their
communities are, and if it be true that these farmers more uniformly
than other farmers are religiously organized, then it follows that there
is an essential relation so far as American agriculture goes, between
successful and permanent agriculture and a religious life. The country
church becomes the expression of a permanent and abiding rural
prosperity. Agriculture is shown by its very nature to require a
religious motive. An element of piety appears to be necessary in the
makeup of the successful farmer.

In these three types of successful farmer there appears another
principle which is common to them all. They are not only organized for
farming, but they are organized as a mutual prosperity association,
based on their consciousness of kind. Prof. Gillin has called attention
to the habit of the Dunkers in Iowa, who are of the Pennsylvania German
sects, by which they extend their farming communities.

"The thing that is needed is to make the church the center of the social
life of the community. That is easier where there is but one church than
where there are several, but federation is not essential. Thought must
be taken by the leaders to make the church central in every interest of
life. I know of a community where that has been done. It is the
community located south of Waterloo, Ia., in Orange Township. It is
composed of an up-to-date community of Pennsylvania Dutch Dunkers. From
the very first they have made the church central. When these great
changes of which I have spoken began to occur, the leaders of that
community began to take measures to checkmate the attractions