at the agricultural colleges. Some communities have neighborhood dinners in honor of the new renters when they arrive in March. There is coming to be a fine unselfishness which puts the good of the whole community above the good of any one person. Many country people are coming to be like the farmer in the coöperative creamery, who shook his head when his check came, fearing it was too much and saying: "You see it wouldn't be right for me to have too much for it would have to come out of my neighbors." With such a spirit in a community, we may well hope for great things for the country homes there.

"THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD"

Recently at the Eastern Tennessee Farmers' Convention, I heard one of the ten thousand country club girls in Tennessee recite "The House by the Side of the Road.” She was a girl who had made a great record in canning. She had listened with intense interest that day as the teacher told how to draft patterns. I am sure she had done good work in her country school. And as she stood there so straight and wholesome, with her eyes shining and a radiant, unselfish look in her face, I knew she had caught this other greater thing, too, and that she would use all she had learned to make the country home she would have some day, "A House by the Side of the Road" that would be of service to her neighborhood and to all who came that way. The education for home life on the farm which is genuine and really worth while will develop in the heart of every girl and boy a wholesome and happy

COUNTRY LIFE CREED

I am glad I live in the country. I love its beauty and its spirit. I rejoice in the things I can do as a country child for my home and my neighborhood.

I believe I can share in the beauty around me in the fragrance of the orchards in spring, in the bending wheat at harvest time, in the morning song of birds, and in the glow of the sunset on the far horizon. I want to express this beauty in my own life as naturally and happily as the wild rose blooms by the roadside.

I believe I can have a part in the courageous spirit of the country. This spirit has entered into the brook in our pasture. The stones placed in its way call forth its strength and add to its strength a song. It dwells in the tender plants as they burst the seed-cases that imprison them and push through the dark earth to the light. It sounds in the nesting notes of the meadow-lark. With this courageous spirit I too can face the hard things of life with gladness.

I believe there is much I can do in my country home. Through studying the best way to do my every-day work I can find joy in common tasks done well. Through loving comradeship I can help bring into my home the happiness and peace that are always so near us in God's out-of-door world. Through such a home I can help make real to all who pass that way their highest ideal of country life.

I believe my love and loyalty for my country home should reach out in service to that larger home that we call our neighborhood. I would join with the people who live there in true friendliness. I would whole-heartedly give my best to further all that is being done for a better community. I would have all that I think and say and do help to unite country people near and far in that great Kingdom of Love for Neighbors which the Master came to establish-the Master who knew and cared for country ways and country folks.

TRAINING FOR RURAL LEADERSHIP

BY JOHN M. GILLETTE, PH.D.,

Professor of Sociology, University of North Dakota.

The question of leadership in rural life has assumed much importance during the course of the discussion that has taken place and the investigations which have been made relative to country life problems during the past few years. Quite in agreement with the findings in other fields of human effort the importance of the personal factor has emerged as the problems of rural communities have become better understood. The traditional tendency, to elevate the personal factor above all other elements in the situation, first asserts itself when new social problems arise and men turn their attention toward discovering solutions; it is asserted that it is inconsequential to change the form of organization, since if individuals are right all will be well. The radical reaction from this view consists in the stressing of organization; the attitude being assumed that if the perfect form of organization can be found and adopted the social utopia will have been realized. But eventually the intelligent conclusion is reached that since society is an assembly of organizations which human beings use to realize their interests, neither the human nor the structural factors can be disregarded but that a greater perfection of institutions is a necessary attainment for the realization of more perfect men.

To generalize, it may be asserted that the attitude of the rural population concerning its own problems has run the course of these three stages. The first attitude was the passive one of taking dogmatic teaching for granted and allowing things to drift. When the rural problem arose in its full significance, almost the entire emphasis was placed on organization, so that reorganization became the shibboleth, and the economic factor received almost exclusive consideration. But with the passage of time the farmers have become wiser and, imbued with a larger degree of humanistic sentiment, they are now discussing what sort of institutions will turn out the best men and women. And it is very significant that the perception has gradually arisen that a rural leadership is an indispensible means to the attainment of permanent improvement.

THE MEANING OF LEADERSHIP

The significance of leadership cannot very well be observed until a somewhat definite meaning is attached to the term. The necessary implication of the word may be brought into perspective by the use of particular cases. A dirty urchin and an aristocratic lady alike exercise the function of leadership in respect to a dog through the instrumentality of a chain, in which cases physical superiority and necessitous instincts play the chief rôle. Superficially, the gaily attired drum major marching at the head of a band is the epitome of the leader, for does not the band go where he leads and does it not respond to his spectacular gyrations? Yet the cynical doubtless would assert that he exercises less influence over the band than on the minds of the spectators and that his chief asset resides in his gay uniform and spectacular movements. Then there is the body of troops who under its commander goes through the manual of arms, and performs all sorts of field maneuvers, filing right and left, marching and countermarching. Surely the commander is the genuine leader. But so far, he is only a drill master and the responses which his troops make are purely formal and mechanical, not due to individual initiative and foresight, but to the will of a superior officer clothed with absolute authority.

Thus by a process of exclusion and assent we arrive at the point where it is seen that leadership must be invested with certain characteristics and qualifications which enable it to exercise particular functions relative to free but susceptible human beings. I shall express in a few words what I consider the prime requisites of a productive rural leadership, namely, the power of initiative, organizing ability, sympathy with human aims, trained intelligence, and vision or outlook. That these qualifications must be present in the individual who assumes the function of leadership, at least to a measurable degree, and that their absence in a working form from all of the inhabitants of any given community precludes the possibility of the manifesting of any resident leadership in that particular community, are statements which probably will prove acceptable to all.

THE FUNCTION OF THE Leader

In order that the place and function of the leader in the rural community may be intellectually visualized it may be well to depict and exposit the sociological view of the rôle of the exceptional

man in relation to society and the community. The well balanced sociological view puts the capable individual into the relationship with the concept of social progress, not making him exclusively responsible for it, as does the "great man" theory of Carlyle, not investing him with exclusive power to bring about changes in society; but constituting him a very essential factor in the realization of movements and transformations which advance collective interests. Within the scope of this limited conception, then, that part of progress which is due to direct human intervention is brought about by the few human beings who constitute the innovating class. By reason of their inborn capacity and developed ability they constitute an exceptional class. Out of this class arise the inventors, discoverers, creators of all kinds of new ideas whether social or "material." Without this class of innovators the structure of society would remain relatively fixed and the readjustments which are essential to secure a greater measure of satisfaction would not take place.

In striking contrast with this small class the great mass of human beings living in any particular society are regarded as static relative to society. Were the affairs of society to be left with them exclusively, they would forever remain as they are and have been, except for the perturbations set up by means of other agencies. Instead of having innovating, creating minds, these people are endowed with imitating minds. They are able to follow example, to fashion after the models already produced, but not to initiate, in the sense of projecting the new. As a consequence the preponderating majority of people are followers only.

In seeking to apply this conception, which, I think will be agreed, essentially depicts the historic situation, it at first thought might be concluded that if a community possessed no rare individuals of the first class it could not hope to make progress, unless happily it could borrow innovators. This makes necessary a closer inspection of the second, the imitating class, to discover if the case is that extreme, and fortunately there are signs sufficient to renew our shrinking optimism. Since democracy is so largely constituted of common people it is a satisfaction to learn that there is no such thing as a "dead level" in it which is inevitable.

Recalling the statement which was previously made regarding the qualifications a leader must have-initiative, organizing ability,