on." Prince Lvov, the long-time President of the Russian Zemstvos, which have been called "The Farm Bureaus of Russia," recently said in an article in Our World, "The people of the soil were always the creative force and defense of the empire." And Dr. Guest in "The Struggle for Power in Europe" says, "All over Europe . future politics depend upon an agreement (or a fight in lieu of an agreement) between town and country." And Mr. H. L. Brailsford, the English publicist, has repeatedly, since the close of the war, called attention to the almost certain dominance of the peasants in the affairs of nearly all the European countries during the next few years. Hilaire Belloc believes that the quarrel between the proletariat and the capitalist is, in Europe at least, a most serious menace, and he says that "if our civilization were mainly industrial," then this peril might be vital. He says, however, that "happily for us the most of our European civilization is a peasant civilization, and one of the most remarkable of the changes of the quite recent times is the resurrection of the peasant in Europe, that is, the men working on the land and having their full proprietor

ship in the land." And Signor Mussolini, the new leader of Italy, said not long ago in an interview that his government would "devote all its efforts to the creation of an agrarian democracy based on the principle of small ownership."

But we do not have to go to Europe to discover a full-blown agrarian movement. Our neighbors in Canada have witnessed not only in provincial elections, but in their federal elections, a distinct effort on the part of the farmers to gain power in politics. Up to this time the farmers have in a large measure succeeded. In our own country the rise and continuance of the Nonpartisan League, the agricultural bloc in Congress, and above all the remarkable development of the American Farm Bureau Federation, at present the most powerful farmers' organization which we have had in the United States in recent times, if not in all our history-these, I say, are distinct, definite, significant aspects of a genuine farmers' movement in North America.

As a matter of fact the world is witnessing the most widespread, the most determined, and the most powerful agrarian uprising in all his

tory. And this fact, quite in itself, demands that we shall attempt to make this movement thoroughly Christian. To-day it probably has in it as much Christianity as has any other economic movement, and probably no more. It is a phenomenon, however, not to be ignored or neglected, particularly by those who believe that the Christianizing of the social order is the most imperative demand of our day.

The Inevitable Segregation of Farmers

We are frequently warned against trying to build a wall of separation between the urban groups and the rural groups. We are re

minded that human nature is much the same whether in city or in country. We are urged to deprecate the growth of class consciousness on the part of the farmers. But after all, is there any escape from an inevitable segregation of rural folk? As a matter of fact they do live apart from the urban populations. Even if they live in villages, these are rural villages; there is no mistaking them. rural environment is not the city environment. There is a "rural mind." True, the instincts of rural people are the same as those of other

The

people, but these instincts come to expression through different channels, simply because the spiritual topography, so to speak, differs from that of the city. But even if we cannot sustain theoretically, as I think we can, this idea of the necessary apartness of the rural people, in the realm of practical service there can be no doubt. The moment the city-trained teacher is transplanted to the country school, she discovers a difference. When the city-trained pastor takes a country church, he realizes that he is in a new atmosphere. When the citytrained social worker attempts rural projects he finds a new class of "cases." Rural folk must be "handled" differently. When they are talked to they must be addressed differently. To advocate attention to rural affairs as such is not to encourage separateness. It is merely efficient specialization. There are, for example, nine hundred social agencies in Massachusetts practically all urban. In general, the rural school has been neglected in our education reform, the rural church in our religious advancement, the agricultural industry in our discussion of industrial reform.

Doubtless the rural part of our civilization

must be fully knit with urban civilization. We cannot afford to have a distinctive class of tillers of the soil who have less intelligence, less economic efficiency, less political skill, a less satisfying mode of life. Unfortunately through most of our world's history and in most countries the farmers have been inferior. The most notable exception are the American farmers, who are quite the equal and probably on the whole the superior of similar economic groups in the city; though there are, of course, in every country superior farmers, men of the very highest type. But whatever the actual situation, as we look into the future we want to be sure that there is not an essential wall of separation between city and country.

But we cannot escape the fact that there will be physical segregation of the farmers, and we must do all that we can to see to it that this physical segregation does not result in spiritual or social isolation.

It is only fair to say, in calling attention to the failure of present Christian programs to take the farmer into account, that this fact of segregation is one explanation. Furthermore, the agricultural industry is not based