erse conditions
has been due to the co-operation between their religious and their
economic habits.

The "Pennsylvania Dutch" have simple doctrinal characteristics. They
have never worked out in detail the logic of their beliefs. They put the
weight of their organization upon practical customs, as the Quakers did.
In some cases, this applied to clothing; in some or all of these sects
to the manner of speech; to family customs; but, the one peculiar
principle in it all, which has been vital to the success, to the
persistence, to the wide extension of these sectarian groups has been
that the religious life has penetrated the economic life. They have not
permitted members of their community to be poor. They have turned the
attention of their religious sympathies to the economic margin of the
community. They have enforced the payment of debts, and they have
governed and controlled marriage conditions. By subtle enforcement of
custom having the power of laws, they have governed the community in its
vital relations, and perfected the system by which the poorest man shall
make his living and by which the richest man shall make his fortune.

Recently, I was in Lancaster, Penn., and passing through a market I was
told by a resident that all the truck farming of the market for that
city had come into the hands of the Amish, and my friend added, "If you
go at an early hour to buy, and ask the price of certain vegetables, you
will probably be told, 'We do not know the price yet; we will have to
wait until all the farmers come in.'" That is, after two hundred and
more years of living as farmers in this section of Pennsylvania, these
sectarians maintain their community life, co-operate in the monopolizing
of an industry, and in fixing the price of the monopolized product in
the markets of a Pennsylvania city.

This survey of community-building peoples in America may throw light
upon the recommendations of Sir Horace Plunkett for the organization of
country life upon an economic basis. The present writer heartily agrees
with him that the center of the community must be economic. He says that
"Better business must come first" in constructive policies for American
country life, but "by failing to combine, American and British farmers
persistently disobey an accepted law."

Social division is the impending danger which threatens the future of
the American community in the country. For if the analysis of
agricultural success in this c