ting up a declaration contrary to the belief
of some that exerting legislative influence, important as it
is, is not the most valuable function of the Grange; that
its cooperative activities, however they may have
flourished, will not loom largest in the grange program of
the future; that not even its efforts for state and national
reform will be recorded as its greatest service to its day
and generation. Rather we must estimate the Grange value of
the future by its quiet, steady, unfaltering efforts,
continued year after year, in thousands of local
communities--many of them far removed from the busy
activities of men--to bring the rural people together, to
teach them the fundamentals of cooperation, of efficiency,
of teamwork, of practical educational progress, and of the
value of a forward-looking rural program, into whose
accomplishments all the people of a locality may
conscientiously enter.... This view of Grange service to
rural America is apparent in the extent to which the
community-betterment program has been taken up by
subordinate granges in nearly every state. Though a secret
organization--a fraternity in fact as well as in name--the
Grange is more and more making of itself an overflowing
institution, seeking to render actual benefits to its
immediate home locality. Hundreds of live Granges this year
are carrying out some form of community improvement along a
great variety of directions."[70]

He then goes on to give a brief glimpse of the variety of these
community enterprises. In Massachusetts the State Grange has for several
years had a committee which awards annual prizes for the best community
improvement work done by the local granges, and this has stimulated a
lively interest in community activities.

Although the Grange is primarily a farmers' organization, yet where the
local grange meets in the village, and particularly in the older states,
a considerable number of the members are village people, so that the
Grange represents the life of the whole community. On the other hand, in
many neighborhoods which are at some distance from a village center, the
Grange hall may be located in the open country, its membership is
composed wholly of farmers, and it is solely a class organization. No
studies are available to show the proportion of Granges which me