published and
distributed regularly, and farmers are being brought into closer and
closer touch with these institutions.

=Conventions.=--During this awakening period, conventions of various
kinds are held, which give the farmers an opportunity to hear and to
participate in discussions pertaining to the problems with which they
are wrestling. They come together in district, county, or state
conventions, and the result has been that a class consciousness, an
_esprit de corps_, is being developed. Farmers hear and see bigger and
better things; their world is enlarged and their minds are stimulated;
they are induced to think in larger units. Thought, like water, seeks
its level, and in conventions of this kind the individual "levels up."
He goes home inspired to do better and greater things, and spreads the
new gospel among his neighbors. At the conventions he hears a variety of
topics discussed, including good roads, house plans, sanitation,
schools, and others too numerous to mention.

=Other Awakening Agencies.=--The agricultural paper, which practically
every farmer takes and which every farmer should take, brings to the
farm home each week the most modern findings on all phases of country
life. The rural free delivery and the parcel post bring the daily mail
to the farmer's door. The rural telephone is becoming general, and also
the automobile and other rapid and convenient modes of communication and
transportation. All these things have helped to develop a clearer
consciousness of country life, its problems and its needs.

=The Farmer in Politics.=--Add to all the foregoing considerations the
fact that, in every state legislature and in Congress, the number of
rural representatives is constantly increasing, and we see clearly that
the country districts are awakening to a realization not only of their
needs but of their rights. All of these conditions have helped to turn
the eyes of the whole people, in state and nation, to long neglected
problems.

=The National Commission.=--So the various agencies and factors
enumerated above and others besides, all working more or less
consciously and all conspiring together, finally resulted in the
appointment of a National Commission on Rural Life, the results and
findings of which were made the subject of a special message from the
president to Congress in 1909. The report of the commission was issued
from the Government Printing Office in Washington as Document Number
70