Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs

A Foundation for Sustainable Rural Community Development

Recommendations of the Commission

• CLC home page
• Introduction
• Report

Summary

• Purpose
• Commissioners
• Survey & Hearings
• Prominent Deficiencies
• Underlying Problem
• Migration
• Agriculture Challenges
• Public Health
• Role of Farm Women
• Conservation & Land Use
• General Corrective Forces
• Commission Recommendations
• Legislative Recommendations
• Remedies
• The Call for Leadership

Legacy

• American Country Life Association
• Rural Sociology
• American Farm Bureau Federation
• Highways
• Agricultural Economics

Resources

• Bibliography
• Web Resources
• Timeline

From The Report of the Country Life Commission (text) (p. 19):

1. Taking Stock of Country Life. – There should be organized, as explained in the main report, under government leadership, a comprehensive plan for an exhaustive study or survey of all the conditions that surround the business of farming and the people who live in the country, in order to take stock of our resources and to supply the farmer with local knowledge. Federal and state governments, agricultural colleges and other educational agencies, organizations of various types, and individual students of the problem should be brought into cooperation for this great work of investigating with minute care all agricultural and country life conditions.
2. Nationalized Extension Work. – Each state college of agriculture should be empowered to organize as soon as practicable a complete department of college extension, so managed as to reach every person on the land in its State, with both information and inspiration. The work should include such forms of extension teaching as lectures, bulletins, reading courses, correspondence courses, demonstration, and other means of reaching the people at home and on their farms. It should be designed to forward not only the business of agriculture, but sanitation, education, home making, and all interests of country life.
3. A Campaign for Rural Progress. – We urge the holding of local, state, and even national conferences on rural progress, designed to unite the interests of education, organization, and religion into one forward movement for the rebuilding of country life. Rural teachers, librarians, clergymen, editors, physicians, and others may well unite with farmers in studying and discussing the rural question in all its aspects. We must in some way unite all institutions, all organizations, all individuals having any interest in country life into one great campaign for rural progress.