fair has been started, and as a result of
club picnics and play days community picnics or festivals have become an
annual event in many places and have brought better feeling and
increased pride and loyalty to the community. In 1919, 464,979 boys and
girls were enrolled in club work.

Thus the extension movement started by the agricultural colleges and the
United States Department of Agriculture has become a national movement
of rural people, men, women, and children, whose strength is largely due
to the fact that it has been the means of organizing the local
communities and of bringing them together in county organizations, which
with the aid of state and national funds and supervision, employ trained
executives to stimulate and supervise the work of the local groups. It
is a unique agency for the education and organization of rural life
which is giving the American farmer a new position in the life of the
nation.

FOOTNOTES:

[47] This movement can only be sketched in barest outline. It is fully
and authoritatively discussed in another volume of this series by Prof.
M. C. Burritt, entitled "The County Agent and the Farm Bureau." See also
O. B. Martin, "The Demonstration Work." Boston, The Stratford Co.

[48] For a full discussion of this movement, its objectives and
accomplishments, see O. M. Kile, "The Farm Bureau Movement," Macmillan,
New York, 1921.

[49] Nat. T. Frame, "Lifting the Country Community." Circular 255,
Extension Division, W. Va. University, 1921.

[50] See "Status and Results of Boys' and Girls' Club Work, Northern and
Western States," 1920. George E. Farell. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture,
Department Circular 192.

CHAPTER XI

THE COMMUNITY'S RELIGIOUS LIFE

From the earliest times and among all peoples the common religious life
has formed one of the strongest bonds of the rural community. Several of
the original thirteen colonies which formed the United States were
settled by those seeking freedom to worship as they chose, and as their
descendants migrated westward many of the new settlements were largely
composed of the membership of some one church or those of a similar
faith. Dr. Warren H. Wilson has called attention to the fact that the
Mormons, the Pennsylvania Germans, and the Scotch Presbyterians are the
most successful farmers and remain on the land because they have given a
religious sanction to country life and have made the church the center
of the life of the community, a