ce for the building of the church and the community. Its
teachers were men of scholarly ideals. Its students were from the
locality, being selected by ambition for learning, and by their ability
to pay the tuition.

The development of the high schools has generally resulted in the
abandonment of the academies. A few have survived and have adapted
themselves to new times. But it is to be doubted whether the common
schools have so far done as much for building and for organizing country
communities, for providing local leadership, for building churches, as
did the rural academies of New England, Pennsylvania and other Eastern
States.

The farmer's church is the classic American type of church at its best.
The farming economy succeeded to the pioneer economy without serious
break. The troubles of the country church have their beginnings in the
period of the exploiter which is to follow, but the farmer developed the
church of the pioneer with sympathy and consistency. The church of the
farmer still values personal salvation above all. The revival methods
and the simplicity of doctrine have remained, but the farmer has added
typical methods of his own.

The effect of this individualism is exhibited in the multiplication of
churches among farmers. So long as it is admitted that the church is for
personal salvation, it does not need to be a social institution. A small
group is as effective as a large one for securing salvation for
individuals. Two churches or three may as well serve a community as one,
if personal salvation be the service rendered. The gospel is for the
farmer good tidings,--not a call to social service. The result of the
farmer period has been, therefore, the multiplication of competitive
country churches. An instance of this competitive condition is: the
community in Kansas in which among four hundred people resident in a
field, there are seven churches, each of them attempting to maintain a
resident pastor. In Centre County, Pa., in a radius of four miles from a
given point, there are twenty-four country churches. In the same
territory within a radius of three miles are sixteen of these country
churches. This condition is satisfactory to the ideals of the farmer. If
the farmer type were permanent these churches might serve permanently
for the ministry of personal salvation. They are well attended by devout
and religious-minded people. Their condemnation is not in the farmer
economy but in the inevitable