FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64  
65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   >>   >|  
e brought into the country parish, for the church's sake. Indeed the minister would do well if his scholarship be the learning of the husbandman. No other science has such religious values. No other books have such immediate relation to the well-being of the people. The minister is not ashamed to teach Greek, or Latin,--dead languages. Why should he think it beneath him "to teach the farmer how to farm," provided he can teach the farmer anything? If he be a true scholar, the farmer, who is a practical man, needs his learned co-operation in the most religious of occupations, that the land may be holy. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 12: Rural Economics, by Prof. Thos. Nixon Carver.] [Footnote 13: "The Country-Life Movement," by L. H. Bailey.] [Footnote 14: "Ireland in the New Century," by Sir Horace Plunkett.] [Footnote 15: Professor Thomas Nixon Carver.] [Footnote 16: See Chapter V.] V EXCEPTIONAL COMMUNITIES Most of this volume is devoted to the average conditions which prevail throughout the United States. The attempt is made to deal with those causes which are generally operative. It is the writer's opinion that the causes dealt with in other chapters are the prevailing causes of religious and social experience in the most of the United States. As soon as the community, after its early settlement, becomes mature, these causes show the effects here described. But there are exceptions which should be noted and the cause of their different life made clear. These exceptions are represented in the Mormons, the Scottish Presbyterians and the Pennsylvania Germans. "The best farmers in the country are the Mormons, the Scotch Presbyterians and Pennsylvania Germans." This sentence expresses a general observation of Prof. Carver of Harvard, speaking as an economist. The churches among these three classes of exceptionally prosperous farmers show great tenacity and are free from the weakness which otherwise prevails in the country church. There is a group of causes underlying this exceptional character of the three classes of farmers. These exceptional farmers are organized in the interest of agriculture. The Mormons represent this organization in the highest degree. Perhaps no other so large or so powerful a body of united farmers is found in the whole country. They have approached the economic questions of farming with determination to till the soil. They distrust city life and condemn it. They teach thei
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64  
65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Footnote

 

farmers

 
country
 

religious

 

farmer

 

Mormons

 

Carver

 
exceptional
 

exceptions

 

Presbyterians


Germans

 

Pennsylvania

 

classes

 
minister
 
States
 

United

 

church

 
community
 

Scottish

 

Scotch


social
 

prevailing

 
settlement
 

mature

 

effects

 

experience

 

represented

 

exceptionally

 

powerful

 
united

Perhaps

 

represent

 

organization

 
highest
 

degree

 
approached
 
distrust
 

condemn

 

economic

 
questions

farming

 
determination
 
agriculture
 

interest

 

churches

 

economist

 

chapters

 
prosperous
 
speaking
 

expresses