where in the United States; the problem to be solved is not especially different, the obstacles quite as unrelenting. Indeed, the fluctuations of population, the " moving out "of old settlers and "moving in "of new possibly adds a feature which is absent from the problem in some sections, but it is an element not devoid of certain advantages. Sometimes the only hope of improvement in a neighbourhood lies in the introduction of new blood, or the death or translation of some one who has hindered social development.
The usual plans are being followed in the main by social reformers dealing with country life. They include the attempt to organize farmers into granges or farmers' unions, to develop local clubs, to promote a better and more adequate type of rural education by substituting the systematized consolidated "rural life school "for the traditional one-room one-teacher country district school. There are attempts likewise to improve the recreational and religious conditions of the country neighbourhood.
All sorts of influences are at work. The farm people of good ideals are earnest and untiring. Merchants and bankers are interested, state agencies like university and agricultural college extension services and the educational departments, national bureaus of education and of agriculture—all are active here as in other sections of the United States. And progress is being made, although to the impatient reformer the forward movement seems slow and tedious.
Organization of rural communities from village
