the seeds of the idea.
So far as machinery is concerned it may not be necessary to form any new
organization. Indeed, what is chiefly necessary is a sort of
_clearing-house_ for an exchange of ideas and plans among all who are at
work on any phase of the rural social problem. There is need of a
central bureau that shall emphasize the necessity of a study of
agricultural economics and rural sociology, and press the value of
co-operation in the work of social progress in the country. There is
need that somewhere "tab" shall be kept on the whole rural social
movement. We need a directing force to assure a comprehensive view and
study of the whole rural problem. It is important that some
investigations should be carried on that are not likely to be taken up
by some other agency. It would be desirable to have a certain amount of
publication, and in various other ways to carry on a campaign of
education. Above all, it would be desirable to initiate local, state,
and national conferences pervaded by the spirit and purpose of securing
the hearty co-operation of all rural social forces, of all the
organizations that have any rural connection whatever, and of all
individuals who have the slightest genuine interest in any phase of the
farm problem.

Such a bureau should keep in constant touch with, secure the confidence
of, and supply appropriate literature to, country teachers, preachers,
editors, doctors, and business men, and, more than all, to intelligent
and progressive farmers. And let me add at this point, that it must be
fully understood that the work contemplated cannot possibly achieve
large success unless it is done _with_ the farmers, rather than _for_
the farmers. The problem is far from that of doing a missionary work for
a down-trodden and ignorant class. It is a much less heroic, a much more
commonplace task. It is simply carrying the idea of co-operation of
individuals a step farther, and endeavoring to secure the co-operation
of interests that have precisely the same goal, although traveling upon
different roads. The prime purpose of the movement is to bring the
specialist into close touch with the more general phases of the problem,
to secure breadth and wholeness, to assure well-balanced effort.

[NOTE.--A paper with the title of this chapter was read before the
American Civic Association in 1901, at Minneapolis. A portion of
the paper is retained here. The history of the development of the