m the brown soil. In
virtue, in intelligence, in real worth, this half compare favorably with
the other half who saw wood, and shovel sand, and pull throttles, and
prepare briefs, and write sermons. The business of agriculture provides
directly for the material welfare of nearly forty millions of our
people. It supports gigantic railway systems, fills the hulls of immense
ships, furnishes raw material for thousands of industries. This rural
hemisphere of American economic and social life is surely worthy the
thought of the captain of industry, of the statesman, of the economist,
of the educator, of the preacher. We may also, without danger of being
put to confusion, assume that the tiller of the soil is in essential
character very much like other people. Farmer nature is usually a fair
specimen of human nature. Nevertheless the environment of the farmer is
a peculiar one. Individually as well as socially he is comparatively
isolated. He meets but little social friction. The class to which he
belongs is largely a segregated class, physically and socially.

All these things give to the rural social problem a distinctive
character and give rise to the great social needs of the farmer. What
are these needs? I name three: (1) _Completer organization._ Farmers do
not co-operate easily. They never had to co-operate largely under the
old regime, for pioneer farming placed a premium on individualism. The
present century however, with its emphasis upon organization and
co-operation, calls the farmer to the task with the warning cry that
unless he does organize he is in danger of losing his present
industrial, political, and social status. (2) _Better education._ The
rural schools may not be so deficient as to deserve all the scorn heaped
upon them by educational reformers; but it is little enough to say that
they can be vastly improved. They are not keeping up with city schools.
The country is especially lacking in good high-school privileges. Of
technical training too, in spite of forty years of agricultural
colleges, the country is sadly in need. Neither in primary grades, in
high schools, in special schools, is there an adequate amount of study
of the principles of agriculture--principles which an age of science
demands must be mastered if the independent farmer is to be a success.
(3) _Quicker communication._ Isolation has been the bugbear of farm
life. It must be overcome partly by physical means. There must be a
closer touc