The Survey, Volume 30, Number 4, Apr 26, 1913Various
History
The Survey, Volume 30, Number 4, Apr 26, 1913
Various
Charities -- Periodicals; Social problems -- Periodicals; United States -- Social conditions -- Periodicals
Some communities, Dr. Wilson recognizes, are exceptional. He apparently
agrees with Prof. T. N. Carver of Harvard that the best farmers in the
country are the Mormons, the Scotch Presbyterians, and the Pennsylvania
Germans. Each one of these peoples—for they are no less—has come to
agricultural prosperity because this agriculture has been built around
the church. The organization of the Mormons, for instance, is not only
efficient, but it revolves around the church. Dr. Wilson might very well
have gone further in this connection and called attention to the fact
that the leaders of the Latter Day Saints have made their people happy,
here and now, by realizing that all their wants—social, economic,
religious, political—were so closely interrelated that they must all be
taken care of by collective action.
As a clear and well-proportioned statement, characterized by ample
knowledge, careful statement and good temper, the book is valuable.
WARREN DUNHAM FOSTER.
CONSTRUCTIVE RURAL SOCIOLOGY
By JOHN M. GILLETTE. introduction by George E. Vincent, president of
the University of Minnesota. New York, Sturgis & Walton. 301 pp. Price
$1.60; by mail of THE SURVEY $1.75.
There can be no doubt that this work is constructive if we remember that
adequate information is the beginning of all sound construction. The
book is packed with information on all phases of rural life. Whether it
is sociology or not depends upon one’s point of view and one’s bringing
up. It may be economics. Among the eighteen chapters there are included
such topics as Rural and Urban Increase (IV), Improvement of
Agricultural Production (VII), Improving the Business Side of Farming
(VIII), and Rural and Social Institutions and Their Improvement (XV and
XVI). There are numerous tables and illustrations, including an
interesting map of a rural Methodist parish.
One of the most interesting chapters is entitled Social Aspects of Land
and Labor in the United States, though in the first paragraph the reader
is confronted with the statement that “The nation’s population is
ultimately determined by the amount of its arable land.” This is
doubtless a casual statement and ought not to be allowed to mar what is
otherwise an excellent chapter. Of course it is only the nation’s rural
population which is ultimately determined by its arable land. So long as
foreign markets hold out, there is no limit to the urban population
short of lack of building room. Or one might say that the population of
a nation which aims to be self-contained, or physically self-supporting
as distinct from commercially self-supporting, is limited by its arable
land. The reviewer does not remember to have seen so good a discussion
of the problem of agricultural labor as is found in this chapter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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