Perhaps the sorest spot in the rural problem is the lot of the neglected farm wife and mother. Even where agricultural prosperity is indicated by great barns filled with plenty, often a dilapidated little farmhouse near by, devoid of beauty, comfort or conveniences, measures the utter disregard for the housewife's lot. Money is freely spent when new machinery is needed on the farm, or another fifty-acre piece is added after a prosperous season; but seldom a thought of the needs of the kitchen. While the men of the family ride the sulky plow and riding harrow of the twentieth century, the women have neither a washing machine nor an indoors pump,--to say nothing of running water, sanitary plumbing or a bathtub![44] Sometimes the drudgery of the farm kitchen is endured by the mother uncomplainingly, or even contentedly; but the daughters recoil from it with growing discontent. The life conditions of farm women are rapidly improving; but the gospel of better homes and convenient kitchens needs thousands of gentle apostles, equipped with modern methods of household economy, hygiene, cooking and every domestic art and science. It necessitates rare tact, and it is doubtless most effective when least professional, when its benevolence is simply veiled by neighborliness, joined perhaps with the daily routine of the teacher or librarian. But the purpose involved is a splendidly worthy one, to raise the standards of housekeeping in a whole community of homes and bring in a new comfort and efficiency for both men and women. To do this is to enrich and sweeten country life at its source. _Demonstration Centers of Rural Culture_ In the cities a very effective social service is done in the settlements as demonstration centers of refinement and Christian living. We need the same quietly effective plan in thousands of rural communities where life is still crude rather than simple and where the finer life-values are too little appreciated. As the new rural civilization develops and the higher education becomes more diffused, this gentle but powerful leavening of country life is bound to follow. In very many communities it is already in process. It ought to follow as a matter of course that wherever a college-bred woman returns to a country home, or founds a new one, there is developed a real demonstration center of rural culture. The down-drag of environment sometimes proves too strong for weaker natures and higher ideals are gradually forgotten. Sometimes, too, a tactless condescension reveals to sensitive neighbors that fatal sense of superiority which is deadly to all good influence, for rural democracy is passing proud. But with the right spirit of neighborly helpfulness and an effort to overcome the barrier which is always raised at first by superior advantages, the woman of true unaffected culture has a great chance for fine influence in a rural community.