In one vast field of our social territory the problem of maintaining the good life has become peculiar in its conditions and difficult in the extreme. The rural community has suffered in nearly every imaginable way from the rapid and rather crude development of our industrial civilization. The emigration of strong, ambitious men to the towns, the substitution of alien labor for the young and sturdy members of the large American families of other days, the declining birth rate and the disintegration of a hearty and cheerful neighborhood life, all have worked together to create a problem of the rural neighborhood, the country school and the country church unique in its difficulties, sometimes in its discouragements. To deal with this problem two things are undeniably necessary. There must be a thorough examination of it, a complete analysis and mastery of its factors and conditions. The social survey has become as imperative for the country pastor as the geological survey is for the mining engineer. And when the facts and conditions are known, the church must resolutely set about the task of dealing with them in the practical spirit of a practical age, without too much attention to the traditions and the handicaps of an age that has gone by. It would not be possible, I think, to present these two aspects of the problem of the country parish with more of first hand knowledge, or with more of the wisdom that is born of sympathy and reverence for all that is good in both the past and the present than the reader will find in Dr. Wilson's pages. I welcome and commend this book as a fine product of studies and labors at once scientific and practical. FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION IX I THE PIONEER 1 II THE LAND FARMER 18 III THE EXPLOITER 32 IV THE HUSBANDMAN 48 V EXCEPTIONAL COMMUNITIES 62 VI GETTING A LIVING 79 VII THE COMMUNITY 91 VIII THE MARGIN OF THE COMMUNITY 108 IX NEWCOMERS IN THE COMMUNITY 123 X CO-OPERATION 142 XI COMMON SCHOOLS 158 XII RURAL MORALITY 171 XIII RECREATION 189 XIV COMMON WORSHIP 208 INTRODUCTION