e of transactions reaches large figures. A host of societies
of a purely educational nature exists among stock-breeders,
fruit-growers, dairymen. It is true that no one general organization of
farmers, embracing a large proportion of the class, has as yet been
perfected. The nearest approach to it is the Grange, which, contrary to
a popular notion, is in a prosperous condition, with a really large
influence upon the social, financial, educational, and legislative
interests of the farming class. It has had a steady growth during the
past ten years, and is a quiet but powerful factor in rural progress.
The Grange is perhaps too conservative in its administrative policy. It
has not at least succeeded in converting to its fold the farmers of the
great Mississippi Valley. But it has workable machinery, it disavows
partisan politics and selfish class interests, and it subordinates
financial benefits, while emphasizing educational and broadly political
advantages. It seems fair to interpret the principles of the Grange as
wholly in line with the premise of this paper, that the farmers need to
preserve their status, politically, industrially, and socially, and that
organization is one of the fundamental methods they must use. The
Grange, therefore, deserves to succeed, and indeed is succeeding.

The field of agricultural organization is an extensive one. But if the
farm problem is to be solved satisfactorily, the American farmers must
first secure reasonably complete organization.

RURAL EDUCATION

It is hardly necessary to assert that the education of that portion of
the American people who live upon the land involves a question of the
greatest significance. The subject naturally divides itself into two
phases, one of which may be designated as rural education proper, the
other as agricultural education. Rural education has to do with the
education of people, more especially of the young, who live under rural
conditions; agricultural education aims to prepare men and women for the
specific vocation of agriculture. The rural school typifies the first;
the agricultural school, the second. Rural education is but a section of
the general school question; agricultural education is a branch of
technical training. These two phases of the education of the farm
population meet at many points, they must work in harmony, and together
they form a distinct educational problem.

The serious difficulties in the rural school question are