Western Illinois University

A Foundation for Sustainable Rural Community Development

The General Corrective Forces
That Should Be Set in Motion

From The Report of the Country Life Commission (text) (p. 52-63):

Need for Agricultural or Country Life Surveys
  • The time has now come when we should know what our agricultural resources are (p. 52).
Need for a Redirected Education
  • In every part of the United States there seems to be one mind, on the part of those capable of judging, on the necessity of redirecting rural schools. There is no such unanimity on any other subject. It is remarkable with what similarity of phrase the subject has been discussed in all parts of the country before the commission. Everywhere there is a demand that education have a relation to living, that schools should express the daily life; and that in the rural districts they should educate by means of agriculture and country life subjects. It is recognized that all difficulties resolve themselves in the end into a question of education (p. 53).
Necessity of Working Together
  • It is of the greatest consequence that the people of the open country should work together, not only for the purpose of their economic interests and of competing with other men who are organized, but also to develop themselves and to establish an effective community spirit. This effort should be a genuinely cooperative or common effort in which all of the associated persons have a voice in the management of the organization and share proportionately in its benefits (p. 56).
The Country Church
  • This commission has no desire to give advice to the institutions of religion nor to dictate their policies. Yet any consideration of the problem of rural life that leaves out of account the function and possibilities of the church, and of related institutions would be grossly inadequate. T his is not only because in the last analysis the country life problem is a moral problem, or that in the best development of the individual the great motives and results are religious and spiritual, but because from the pure sociological point of view the church is fundamentally a necessary institution in country life. In a peculiar way the church is intimately related to the agricultural industry. The work and the life of the farm are closely bound together, and the institutions of the country react 6n that life and on one another more intimately than they do in the city. This gives the rural church a position of peculiar difficulty and one of unequaled opportunity. The time has arrived when the church must take a larger leadership, both as an institution and through its pastors, in the social reorganization of rural life (p.60).
Personal Ideals and Local Leadership
  • Everything resolves itself at the end into a question of personality. Society or government cannot do much for country life unless there is voluntary response in the personal ideals of those who live in the country (p. 63).

The General Corrective Forces That Should Be Set in Motion

From The Report of the Country Life Commission (text) (p. 10, 48-52):

The ultimate need of the open country is the development of community effort of social resources (p. 48)

  • There is a general lack of wholesome societies that are organized on a social basis (p. 48).
  • The first condition of a good country life, of course, is good and profitable farming (p. 48).
  • The farmer must be enabled to live comfortably (p. 48).
  • Small manufacture and better handicrafts need now to receive attention, for the open country needs new industries and new interests (p. 48).
  • Local government must be developed to its highest point of efficiency, and all agencies that are capable of furthering a better country life must be federated (p. 48).
  • It will be necessary to set the resident forces in motion by means of outside agencies, or at least to direct them, if we are to secure the best results. It is especially necessary to develop the cooperative spirit, whereby all people participate and become partakers (p. 10).
  • We have farmers from every European nation and with every phase of religious belief often grouped in large communities, naturally drawn together by a common language and a common faith, and yielding but slowly to the dominating and controlling forces of American farm life (p. 49).
    • Even where there was once social organization, as in the New England town (or township), the competition of the newly settled West and the wonderful development of urban civilization have disintegrated it.
    • The middle-aged farmer of the Central States sells the old homestead without much hesitation or regret and moves westward to find a greater acreage for his sons and daughters.
    • The farmer of the Middle West sells the old home and moves to the Mountain States, to the Pacific coast, to the South, to Mexico, or to Canada.
  • Even when permanently settled, the farmer does not easily combine with others for financial or social betterment (p. 49).
    • The training of generations has made him a strong individualist, and he has been obliged to rely mainly on himself.
    • Self-reliance being the essence of his nature, he does not at once feel the need of cooperation for business purposes or of close association for social objects.
    • In the main, he has been prosperous, and has not felt the need of cooperation.
    • If he is a strong man, he prefers to depend on his own ability.
    • If he is ambitious for social recognition, he usually prefers the society of the town to that of the country.
    • If he wishes to educate his children, he avails himself of the schools of the city.
    • He does not as a rule dream of a rural organization that can supply as completely as the city the four great requirements of man-health, education, occupation, society.
    • While his brother in the city is striving by moving out of the business section into the suburbs to get as much as possible of the country in the city, he does not dream that it is possible to have most that is best of the city in the country.
  • The philosophy of the situation requires that the disadvantages and handicaps that are not a natural part of the farmer’s business shall be removed, and that such forces shall be encouraged and set in motion as will stimulate and direct local initiative and leadership (p. 50).
  • The situation calls for concerted action. It must be aroused and energized. The remedies are of many kinds, and they must come slowly.
    • We need a redirection of thought to bring about a new atmosphere, and a new social and intellectual contact with life.
  • This means that the habits of the people must change. The change will happen gradually, of course, as a result of new leadership; and the situation must develop its own leadership (p. 50).
  • The regular agricultural departments and institutions are aiding in making farming profitable and attractive, and they are also giving attention to the social and community questions.
    • There is a widespread awakening as a result of this work. This awakening is greatly aided by the rural free delivery of mails, telephones, the gradual improvement of highways, farmers’ institutes, cooperative creameries and similar organizations, and other agencies (p. 51).
  • Aside from the regular churches, schools, and agricultural societies, there are special organizations that are now extending their work to the open country, and others that could readily be adapted to country work.
    • The libraries are increasing, and they are developing a greater sense of responsibility to the community, not only stimulating the reading habit and directing it, but becoming social centers for the neighborhood.
    • A library, if provided with suitable rooms, can afford a convenient meeting place for many kinds of activities and thereby serve as a coordinating influence.
    • Study clubs and traveling libraries may become parts of it. This may mean that the library will need itself to be redirected so that it will become an active rather than a passive agency. It must be much more than a collection of books (p. 51).
  • It is important that recreation be made a feature of country life, but we consider it to be important that recreation, games and entertainment be developed as far as possible from native sources rather than to be transplanted as a kind of theatricals from exotic sources (p. 51).
  • Other organizations that are helping the country social life, or that might be made to help it, are women’s clubs, musical clubs, reading clubs, athletic and playground associations, historical and literary societies, local business, men’s organizations and chambers of commerce, all genuinely cooperative business societies, civic and village improvement societies, local political organizations, and all groups that associate with the church and school (p. 52).
  • There is every indication, therefore, that the social life of the open country is in process of improvement, although the progress at the present moment has not been great (p.52).
  • The proper corrective of the underlying structural deficiencies of the open country are knowledge, education, cooperative organizations, and personal leadership (p. 10).