We may say (assuming the home life, of course) that the church, the school, and the farmers' organization are the great rural social institutions. They are the forces now most efficient, and the ones that promise to abide. This classification may appear to be a mere truism, when we suggest that under the church should be placed all those movements that have a distinctively religious motive, under the school all those agencies that are primarily educational in design, and under farmers' organizations those associations whose chief function is to settle questions which concern the farmer as a business man and a citizen. But the classification answers fairly well. It includes practically every device that has been suggested for rural betterment. There are two interesting facts about these rural institutions: (1) None of them is doing a tithe of what it ought to be doing to help solve the farm problem. The church is apparently just about holding its own, though that is doubted by some observers. Rural schools are not, as a rule, keeping pace with the demands being made upon them; comparatively few students in the whole country are studying scientific agriculture. Not one farmer in twenty belongs to a strong farmers' organization. (2) All these institutions are awakening to the situation. Progress during the last decade has been especially gratifying. Co-operative efforts among farmers are more cautious, but more successful. The Grange has nearly doubled its membership since 1890; and it, as well as other farm organizations, has more real power than ever before. The rural-school question is one of the liveliest topics today among farmers as well as educators. Opportunities for agricultural education have had a marvelous development within a decade. Discussion about rural church federation, the rural institutional church, rural social settlements, and even experiments in these lines are becoming noticeably frequent. The Young Men's Christian Association has, its officers think, found the way to reach the country young man.