church.

125. =Farmers' Institutes.=--Another type of organization exists which
can hardly be called institutional, but which performs a useful
community service. As illustrations may be mentioned the farmers'
club, the farmers' institute, and the Chautauqua movement. These are
organizations or movements for stimulating and broadening the
interests of farm regions. They bring together the farmers and their
families, sometimes from several neighborhoods and for several days,
for the consideration of agricultural problems and for entertainment
and mutual acquaintance. They are able to attract speakers from the
State agricultural college or board, and even from national halls, and
they become a valuable clearing-house of ideas and experience. They
serve much the same purpose as a church or teachers' convention, and
are restricted to a limited number of persons. Farmers' institutes
have become a regular part of the State system of agricultural
education throughout the country, and a large staff of lecturers and
demonstrators exists for local instruction. The particular interests
of women and young people are receiving recognition in institutes of
their own in connection with the larger gatherings. The expense of
such institutes is met by the government. Their success is, of course,
dependent on the attendance and intelligent interest of the farm
people, who gain greatly in inspiration and knowledge from contact
with one another and from the experts to whom they listen. The
institutes prove the value of association for the enrichment of
individual and family life by means of suggestion, communication, and
concerted activity.

READING REFERENCES

BUCK: _The Granger Movement._

BUTTERFIELD: _Chapters in Rural Progress_, pages 104-120, 136-161.

CARNEY: _Country Life and the Country School_, pages 90-107.

GILLETTE: _Rural Sociology_, pages 208-213.

CUBBERLEY: _Rural Life and Education_, pages 117-159.

CHAPTER XVIII

RURAL EDUCATION

126. =The School as a Social Institution.=--There is one institution
in every American community that stands as the gateway into the
promised land of a richer life. This is the school. It supplements
home training and prepares for the broader experiences of community
existence. Into it goes the raw material of the bodies and minds of
the children, and out of it comes the product of years of education
for the making or marring of the children of the community. The