Dunkers. Reference is made elsewhere to
the communal support given to their own members who suffer economic
hardship. The serious tillage of the soil necessarily involves mutual
support and the husbandman's life is in his community.

The third factor in communal husbandry is progress. Everyone testifies
to the leadership of the "best families" in the transformation of the
older modes of the tillage of the soil to the newer. It is impossible
for the scientific agriculturist to make much improvement upon a country
community until the more progressive spirits and the more open minds
have been enlisted. Thereafter the better farming problem is solved.
There can be no modern agriculture in a community in which all are
equal. The communities of husbandmen will be as sharply differenced from
one another, so far as I can see, as men are in the great cities.
Leadership is the essential of progress. Gabriel Tarde has clearly
demonstrated that only those who are at the top of the social scale can
initiate social and economic enterprises. The cultivation of the soil
for generations to come must be highly progressive. To recover what we
have lost and to restore what has been wasted will exhaust the resources
of science and will tax the intelligence of the leaders among
husbandmen.

For this reason the ministers, teachers, and social workers in the
country should be not discouraged, but hopeful, when confronted with
rural landlords and capitalists. The business of the community leader is
to enlist in the common task those persons whose privileges are superior
and inspire them with a progressive spirit. Without their leadership the
community cannot progress. Without their privileges, wealth and superior
education, no progress is possible in the country.

If these pages tell the truth, then agriculture is a mode of life
fertile in religious and ethical values. But it must be husbandry, not
exploitation. Religious farming is a lifelong agriculture, indeed it
involves generations, and its serious, devoted spirit waits for the
reward, which was planted by the diligent father or grandfather, to be
reaped by the son or grandson. Men will not so consecrate themselves to
their children's good without the steadying influence of religion. So
that agriculture and religion are each the cause, and each the effect,
of the other.

If this is true, then the country church should promote the husbandry
of the soil. The agricultural college should b