nt
cooperative organizations, having no organic connection with the grange,
with the exception of grange insurance companies whose advantages are
usually limited to grange members.

Possibly the greatest service of the Grange is its educational and
social work. The "lecturer's hour" is a feature of every meeting, and in
this hour a program planned by the lecturer is given by members of the
grange, or outside speakers are invited to address it on topics of
interest. These programs include both discussion of educational topics
having to do with all phases of agriculture, home life, and civic
affairs, but also music, recitations and other entertaining features.
Special social evenings and suppers are held at frequent intervals and
the young people often enjoy an informal dance after the regular grange
meeting. The local grange, more than any other organization, provides a
forum for the discussion of the problems of agriculture and country
life, and is thus a powerful agency for the creation of public opinion
on any matters of community concern. The management of its business and
the participation in the lecturer's programs furnish the best
opportunity for the development of leadership and for training in public
speaking, so that the local Grange has been the means of discovering and
training much of our best rural leadership.

For many years the attention of the Grange seemed to be directed chiefly
toward the support of needed national legislation, but recently grange
leaders have perceived that, like all such organizations, its permanent
strength and influence depend more largely on the degree to which the
local grange is a vital force in the life of its members and of its
community. In a recent article on "The Future of the Grange," S. J.
Lowell, Master of the National Grange, ably voices this point of view:

"The farm people of America are better informed on all the
great questions of the day; are pursuing better agricultural
methods; are demanding better roads, better schools, better
churches; are doing more effective teamwork for
forward-looking projects; and in consequence are more
valuable men and women and citizens because of the Grange
influence of the past and its presence in their life to-day.
Remove the Grange from America and there would be taken out
of our progress of a half century one of the largest
contributing factors.

"It will be set