The Rural Community and Its School 9780231897136

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"A nation habituated to think in terms of problems and the struggle to remedy them, before it is actually in the grip of forces which create the problems, would have an equipment for public life such as has not characterized any people." —John Dewey

and Its School LORENE

K.

FOX

King's Crown Press Momingside Heights, New York 1948

Copyright 1948 by LORENE K .

FOX

Printed in the United States oí America by Vail-Ballou Press, Binghamton, N. Y.

KING'S CROWN

PRESS

is a division of Columbia University Press organized for the purpose of making certain scholarly material available at minimum cost. Toward that end, the publishers have adopted every reasonable economy except such as would interfere with a legible format. The work is presented substantially as submitted by the author, without the usual editorial attention of Columbia University Press.

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Preface T i n s is A study of rural life and education in a period of profound cultural transformation. It is an attempt to elaborate and give concrete meaning to the theory that a rural school program in a democratic society should be closely related to the actual living processes of the community and should aim to facilitate the adjustment of traditional modes of life and thought to emerging life conditions. To discover and develop defensible patterns for this kind of program, I have undertaken to examine the life activities and relationships, the deeply rooted and evolving attitudes and outlooks, the institutions old and new, the conflicts, resources, and promises of the farm people of a particular area. This seemed important, as a process through which schools and communities of any such area, seeking to enhance the values and develop the competence and skills required of their citizens for a healthy democratic society, might better define or re-define their educational purposes and discover the materials and method for fulfilling them. The selection of Chautauqua County, New York, for the particular setting in which such a study could be appropriately grounded and made concrete, is not assumed to limit in any major sense the philosophical and educational implications of the study. The county's social and occupational structure, its home and community patterns, political, religious, and educational institutions, the historical backgrounds of all of these and the attitudes and outlooks there rooted—all combine to give identity to this particular section. The same factors, though differing in detail as well as relationship, figure in many rural communities throughout the nation. Of general nature too are the broader forces and trends here described which importantly impinge upon or interact with the local community patterns, again serving to give uniqueness as well as a common stamp to particular localities. Certainly the description of the rural schools of Chautauqua County, of their modes of responding or remaining aloof to the ongoing community problems and processes outside the schools and to the need among farm families for help in making constructive adjustment between old and new, is pertinent in many re-

vi

Preface

spects to schools far and wide. In a significant sense, then, though focused locally, this is a general philosophical analysis of rural life and education in a period of cultural crisis. The study began to take form in the late autumn of 1939 when, driving into Chautauqua County for the first time, to join the staff of the State Teachers College at Fredonia, I was moved at once by the warmth and charm and friendliness of this section of the country. My work at the College, especially with student teachers over the next several years, took me into all parts of the area through autumn, winter, and spring. It gave me opportunity to become acquainted with teachers, principals, boys and girls in many of the schools, as well as the countryside from which they came for miles around. As the study assumed direction, I came to know farmers who tilled this countryside. I talked with many of them, sometimes casually, many times through special appointment. Farmers, farm women, farm boys and girls the county over have collaborated in this study, both consciously and unconsciously. To them I am deeply grateful. I am grateful also to the many others who have given so generously of their time and ideas in the development of the study: To teachers, school administrators, boys and girls from kindergarten through high school in country and central schools, school nurses, dental hygienists, custodians, vocational agriculture and home-making teachers; To officers or members, and in many cases both, of the following organizations and agencies in Chautauqua County: the Farm and Home Bureaus and 4-H Clubs, the Agriculture Adjustment Administration, the United States Forest Service, the County Land Class Committee, the County Agricultural Defense Committee, the Agricultural Experiment Station, the Olean Production Credit Association, the Chautauqua and Erie Grape Growers' Co-operative Association, the Portland Fruit Growers' Association, the Dairymen's League, the Granges, the G.L.F., Health Service Clubs, Farmers' Clubs; To the County Nurses, Social Case Worker and Supervisor of the County Welfare Office, County Probation Officer, County Judge, Elections Commissioner, Case-Work Supervisor of the Chautauqua County Children's Bureau, members of the County Board of Supervisors, Curator for the County Historical Society, village librarians, Y.M.C.A. Director, Catholic priests, Protestant ministers; To staff members and students of the State Teachers College at Fredonia, Professors of the College of Agriculture and Department of Rural Sociology at Cornell University, sociologists and others of the Bureau

Preface

iHi

of Agricultural Economics, United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., and in the regional office at Upper Darby, Pennsylvania; To my good friends, Don Burgess, Millie Almy, Gordon Fischer (all natives of Chautauqua County), Celia B. Stendler, and my sister Ruth Fox Williams, who, in addition to others already referred to, have read the manuscript in whole or in part at various stages and given invaluable help in both the organization and the writing; To members of the staff of Teachers College, Columbia University: Dr. Edmund deS. Brunner, Dr. George S. Counts, Dr. Frank Cyr, and especially Dr. Roma Gans and Dr. John L. Childs, whose friendly, wellconsidered, and penetrating counsel through the years has done so much to lift my sights and make this undertaking in the main a stimulating and broadening experience. To all of them I extend my deepest appreciation. L. K. F.

For use of the copyrighted material included in this book, permission has been secured either from the author or from his authorized publisher. In addition to those listed in the preface, the following are acknowledged with thanks: American Agriculturist; Carl Carmer; George H. Doran Company; Ginn and Company; Harper and Brothers; Ulysses P. Hedrick; Houghton Mifflin & Company; Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc.; Editor, Grape Belt and Chautauqua Farmer; Department of Superintendence, National Education Association; The New Republic; New York State College of Agriculture; Reynal and Hitchcock, Inc.; The Saga Press; Science; National Farmers Union; Chautauqua County Historical Society; James M. Williams.

Contents

I.

PREFACE

V

CHAUTAUQUA C O U N T Y , T H E L A N D AND P E O P L E

1

The Setting Physical Features Population The Farm People Political and Institutional Structure II.

T H E HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Early Settlers Conditions of Settlement Beginnings of Commercialized Agriculture Further Effects of Industrial Revolution After World War I III.

THE HOME FARM

Types of Farm Enterprises Quality of Land Size of Farms Farm Ownership and Operation Tenancy Farm Labor Technological Improvements Land Erosion and Conservation Practices Farm Incomes Farm Organizations and Agencies IV.

T H E F A R M H O M E AND C O M M U N I T Y

Housing Clothing

1 2 3 4 6 8

8 9 14 19 23 25

25 30 32 33 35 36 38 41 43 44 56

56 59

Contents

X

Food Health and Welfare Agencies Community Relationships Recreation Family Relationships Growing up in Early Chautauqua County V.

R U R A L SCHOOLS IN T H E C O U N T Y

Schools in Early Times Schools in the County Today The Small Rural School The Central or Consolidated School VI.

CHUBCHES IN T H E C O U N T Y

The Protestant Church in Early Times The Protestant Church Today The Catholic Church VII.

C O U N T Y G O V E R N M E N T AND P O L I T I C A L O R I E N T A T I O N

Early Political Structure and Issues County Government and Political Orientation Today VIII.

L I F E ATTITUDES AND O U T L O O K S

Strong, Deeply-rooted Individualism Attitude of Resignation and Belief in the Inevitability of Progress Uncertain Attitudes toward Other Nationalities and Groups The Concept of Farming as a Business Impatience with Poverty and Unemployment Resentment toward Labor Provincial Booster Spirit Attitudes toward the Federal Government IX.

W I D E R FORCES IMPINGING: THE CULTURAL CONFLICT

A Time of Crisis Increased Mechanization Growth of Commercialized Farming Growing Interrelation of Country and City Growth of Organization and Consolidation

59 62 65 69 71 75 81

81 83 87 92 119

119 124 129 132

132 137 142

142 145 147 150 154 156 158 159 165

165 165 169 173 176

Contents Growth of Long-Term and Wide-Scale Planning Increased Role of the Federal Government Trend toward a World Economy An Era of Potential Abundance X.

A PROPOSED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

Major Conceptions for the County Livelihood and Education in a Democracy Related Possibilities for the Functional Curriculum Knowledge and the Use of Knowledge Youth and Adults Together

xi 178 179 184 186 189

189 194 204 210 213

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

217

BIBLIOGRAPHY

222

INDEX

227

CHAPTER

ONE

Chautauqua County, the Land and People THE SETTING the westernmost county of New York State, nestles comfortably in the crook of Pennsylvania's elbow. Further flanked to the north by Lake Erie, and to the east by the rest of the Empire State, Chautauqua County presents to the casual observer a picture of easy charm and quietude long characteristic of this section of the country. At any season of the year it offers varied attractions: skylines changing with every curve of the road; hills now wooded, now bare; occasional tilled crops in short but discernible rows running up and down the rough slopes; in the valleys, meadows of fresh green hay being hurriedly mowed between rainstorms; cows turned to pasture. Some of the farmhouses are ample and pleasantly worn, impressive with barn and silo; and others, long abandoned but still picturesque in their setting of gnarled fruit trees and rambling shrubbery, with scattered patches of goldenrod lending a friendly accent. To the north, between quiet little villages, are acres of heavily-fruited vineyards and fields of tomatoes sloping away from the highway. An old "gulf" or windbreak of glacial origin, now pretty well forested, cuts across the fruit belt and off into the uplands. The county is rich in lakes—Chautauqua, Findley, Cassadaga, and Erie itself, whose wooded shores are dotted with cottqges and villages filled to overflowing in summer. Everywhere are clusters of trees, of all varieties, bursting to bud, ablaze with color, or etched in clear and close detail against a winter sky. Only on second look is it apparent that the picture is being remade. The modern industrial patterns of nearby cities have impinged significantly—Buffalo, in the adjoining county, twenty-five miles on down Lake Erie; Erie, Pennsylvania, about the same distance up the lake; Cleveland, Ohio, further on; Corry, Pennsylvania, just over the southern State line; Pittsburgh, some two hundred miles to the south; and even four-hundred-miles-distant New York City. The county's own cities of Jamestown, nationally known for the making of furniture and more CHAUTAUQUA,

2

The Rural Community and Its School

recently for varied industrial achievements, and of Dunkirk, close to Lake Erie, housing large branch plants of steel and silk companies as well as local works, together with scattered growing villages in and near the county, contribute importantly to the modification of rural patterns. Three major east-west railway systems and a number of minor lines have long operated in the county, although in recent years most of the latter have been crowded out by newer trucking and bus lines. A veritable network of state and national highways imposes however haphazardly upon the rural isolation of a few years back. "The . . . . cement highway [U.S. 20] that runs south from Buffalo toward Erie, Pennsylvania," writes Carl Carmer, "is alive with the speeding traffic of many states. Cars flash by each other in long unbroken lines, and the great truck caravans labor mightily as they climb the almost imperceptible grades. The business of America carries on here at break-neck pace and it makes a lot of noise about it." 1 The picture is repeated with greater or less faithfulness in several parts of the county. And the people of Chautauqua County do not merely look on.

PHYSICAL FEATURES The topography of the county is highly varied. The "grape belt," which makes it the highest producing county of American-type grapes in the nation, coincides with Erie's lake plain, a narrow strip of from three to five miles in width, extending across the entire county and running parallel with the lake shore. Beginning with an escarpment about two miles inland, the plain ranges from six- to nine-hundred feet in elevation. It is well drained, well ventilated for the most part, and well wanned, with a longer growing season than that of the colder, steeper uplands to the south, where the elevation ranges from twelve- to twentyone-hundred feet and the topography generally is rougher and more rolling. The soils of the lake plain, though they vary considerably, are by far the richest in the county and, especially those of loamy, gravelly character, are very congenial to the long sprawling roots of a healthy grapevine. Other fruits and vegetables are also raised in abundance along the lake plain. In contrast, the soils of the higher, rougher regions to the south, which make up the bulk of the county's acreage, tend to be "shallow, heavy, poorly drained, stony, and low in lime"; 2 although within an area of similar topography, the quality and nature of the soil are not always

Chautauqua County, the Land and People

3

consistent. "One farm may have good soils while the neighboring farm has relatively poor soils. Both good and poor soils may be found on a single farm." 3 Many of the fields in these higher regions, apart from the fact that their soils are inferior, are cut up and irregular. Steep grades and dirt roads, often muddy, characterize such regions, since the hard-surfaced roads and highways as well as the railroads tend to run through the lowland farm areas. The climate of the county is varied, too. Along the fruit belt, tempered as it is by Lake Erie, the growing seasons are generally warm and pleasant, and more than ample for the maturing of fruits and vegetables grown in that area. Farmers have no guarantee against the frosts at either end of the summer, however, and there are times when early buds or ripening fruits are seriously damaged. The winters are hard and cold, with abundant snowfall, especially in the southern, hilly regions, where growing seasons are of comparatively short duration. One can never be sure of the weather in Chautauqua County, at any season. A cold spell, a spell of good weather, a wet spell, a frost, or a severe windstorm, may spring fullblown and quite unheralded at almost any time. Rainfall is heaviest in the eastern part, averaging 51.2 inches annually, and 21.1 during the growing season. The county's average for the growing season is about eighteen inches. Growing seasons thus moist are favorable to grass-growing and account in large part for the extensive dairy farming practiced throughout the county. POPULATION Of the 123,580 inhabitants of Chautauqua County included in the 1940 Census, approximately one in five live on farms.4 About the same number live in rural villages—villages with populations of less than 2,500—which function largely as service centers for the farmers of the area. The remaining three-fifths of the population are classed as urban, some 42,000 of them living in Jamestown in the southeastern part of the county, 17,000 in Dunkirk to the north, and the others in the larger villages of Fredonia, Silver Creek, and Westfield in the fruit belt, and Falconer which lies adjacent to Jamestown. The census shows a decrease of 2.2 percent in the population as a whole during the past decade, with a loss in farm population of about 5 percent. Most of the decrease in the county has occurred among the age groups under twenty years, with some 6,400 fewer in these groups than in 1930.

4

The Rural Community and Its School

There also has been a decrease of about 1,000 in the age groups between thirty and forty-five years. At the same time the age groups above thirtyfive years show substantial increases: close to 1,100 from forty-five to fifty-five years of age; around 1,400 fromfifty-fiveto sixty-five; 1,100 from sixty-five to seventy-five; and around 775 over seventy-five years of age. The age group from twenty to thirty shows an increase of something like 300. Thus it will be seen that the trend toward increasing age of the county's population has been very marked during the past ten years. Between 1875 and 1930, the population of Chautauqua County almost doubled. By 1940, however, it had registered a loss of almost 3,000. The cities of Jamestown and Dunkirk show decreases over the past decade, as do eight of the twenty-seven townships in the county. Most of the population is still of New England and English descent. The 1940 census reveals that less than fourteen percent of the population of the county is foreign-born. Swedish folk contribute more than 7,000 to this group and tend to swell the Swedish-American stock already settled in Jamestown and the southern part of the county generally. The Italians come next with close to 4,000. They tend also, as has been their previous wont, to settle in the cities and along the fruit and vegetable areas. The 1,300 Polish immigrants settle for the most part in industrial or fruit farming sections. The Irish and German, although scattered throughout the county, tend to cluster more or less around the urban sections. Other nationalities are represented in various parts. There are also four hundred Negroes, most of them in Jamestown, and about eighty people of other races, twenty-seven of whom are Indians on the 1,427 acres of Cattaraugus Indian Reservation that lie within county lines. THE FARM PEOPLE It is with the farm people of Chautauqua County that this study is primarily concerned, together, of course, with their expanding and intensifying relationships with village and city. Like the population of the county as a whole, the farm people are characterized by wide and growing diversity. So are the farms on which they live and by which they make their living. For with all the changes which, for better or for worse, have reshaped rural living over the past few decades, farming in Chautauqua County is still for the most part a family enterprise. The home and farm are inextricably bound together, each responding in important degree to the demands of the other. Both are means and both

Chautauqua

County, the Land and People

5

are ends. Agriculture continues to be a way of life as well as of making a living. The psychological identification is historically rooted in the life of the people. And, as subsequent portions of this study will bear out, modern changes—even the carefully cultivated notion of farming as a business—have affected but have not destroyed this identification. As with the rest of the county, the farm population of 23,000, representing 18.6 percent of the county, is becoming markedly older. The average age of farm owners is fifty-two, and of tenants, almost fortyfour. A little over 35 percent of the farm population are minors, as compared to 31.1 percent for the non-farm population. More than 15 percent are sixty years old or more, and 6 percent are seventy or over. It is possible that this aging of population has contributed to the traditional conservatism and resistance to change which mark the rural areas of the county. Far and away the largest number of farm families too are of old and New England descent. And of this heritage they are vocally proud. Other nationality groups, although more numerously represented among the urban and rural village population, have also contributed to farm areas. The early Irish immigrants in the northwestern part of the county, as the somewhat fewer Scottish along the eastern border, have handed down their farm lands through several generations. The Holland Dutch in the southwestern part have made and kept it distinctive. The great number of Swedes in the south and southeast still imposes and assimilates patterns. A few farmers of German stock dot the countryside. And almost every township in the county is home to farm families of Polish descent. Of later years large groups of immigrants from Italy and Sicily have helped to shape farm practices in the fruit belt. Of the present total rural farm population, the census reports close to 2,000 foreignborn, or 8.3 percent. The population shows wide diversity with respect to educational background. Farm men and women over twenty-five vary from the 150 reported in the census as not having completed a single year of schooling, to the 250 reported as having completed four years or more of college. (This latter number includes the group whose professional practice rather than farming is, or has been, their primary line of work.) The median for the farmers stands at 8.5 years of schooling, a figure slightly less than that for the urban areas. The farm population is no longer stable and settled as it once was. The young people especially are continually attracted from farms to the cities and villages. Taking their places, numerically at least, are the unrooted newcomers, many of whom were forced through industrial

6

The Rural Community and Its School

unemployment to leave the cities during depression days and wrest some sort of livelihood from the poorer farms or lands they were able to "pick up cheap." From time to time others have come in with their families to lease a small place for a year or two and perhaps find seasonal work in the vineyards or canneries. These people figure in the census; their children attend the public schools and some of the churches; in a few instances their names appear on the rolls of the health and welfare agencies or the Farm Security Administration; occasionally scattered individuals among them are called before the county court to answer crime or delinquency charges. Otherwise they are left pretty much to work out their salvation as they see fit, usually finding their closest associates among their own numbers. Except for the professionally trained or others who come with a definite service to perform for the community, newcomers tend to remain newcomers over a long period of time, even though they may find their farm neighbors "neighborly" enough when occasion or emergency arises. This is not equally true of all parts of the county. Rural communities differ; so do the newcomers. But the general observation has come to the writer's attention from both sides of the fence.

POLITICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE The civil divisions within Chautauqua County, apart from the cities of Jamestown and Dunkirk and nine incorporated villages, are the traditional townships, or towns as they are commonly called. There are twenty-seven townships in all, and a small part of the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation which extends into the northeast corner from Cattaraugus and Erie Counties. Each township is governed by its town board, headed by the township supervisor, and made up of other elected officers, as town clerk, justice of the peace, assessor, collector, superintendent of highways, school director, and sometimes others. The twenty-seven township supervisors, plus ten supervisors elected from Jamestown and Dunkirk, make up the County Board of Supervisors, who sit at the scheduled quarterly meetings at Mayville, the county seat, to consider whatever matters of county concern may arise. Farm families support, or help to support, a variety and waning number of Protestant churches, both country and village; and among the Polish, Italian, Irish, and German, wherever facilities extend, the Catholic Church is now holding and somewhat increasing its membership. Rural schools of the county vary widely. At one extreme is the steadily

Chautauqua County, the Land and People

7

decreasing number of traditional one-room schools, in which children of grades one to six (or eight) are still taught by a single teacher. At the other extreme are the massive new central or enlarged village schools, with student body from kindergarten through high school, increased and specialized teaching staff, and expanded curriculum, all patterned largely after proved city systems of the nation. To these, the farm children travel by bus from miles around. As elsewhere, the trend toward centralization of schools is very strong in Chautauqua County, a trend which figures significantly in the current process of standardization and urbanization of rural living. This brief sketch has introduced, and the following chapters will portray more fully, rural Chautauqua County—a people as diverse as the histories which have made them, and as homogeneous as the experiences, problems, and outlooks which have tended to hold them together.

CHAPTER

TWO

The Historical Context and a half of Chautauqua County lives powerfully in its present. This is true not alone in terms of romantic reminiscence characteristic of any long-settled agricultural region in recent years become painfully unsettled; nor yet of the air of proud satisfaction with which a notable number of Chautauquans can boast of being the fourth or fifth or even the sixth generation to operate the family farm. More importantly does it live in the body of attitudes, mores, traditional outlooks, many of them unconscious, which operate to set the limits for and

T H E PAST CENTURY

identify the behavior of the rural people.

EARLY SETTLERS The settlement of this area began in the early 1800's. The first great stream of settlers, most of them of English descent, came from New England, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and especially eastern New York. They brought with them their store of institutional customs and traditions adapted from the mother country to conditions of colonial settlements from which they had come. This group has been highly important to the intellectual and emotional climate of the county. So also has been the impact of subsequent waves of European immigrants— each of distinctive social, familial, religious, educational, economic backgrounds—on the concepts and patterns already established in the county as fundamentally "American." A resident of the region writes: "Chautauqua County was developed by heterogeneous groups of peoples, diverse in racial strains and affiliations, separate in interests, religion, and social distinctions." 1 Purposes motivating the early settlement of this area, as of other parts of the state, were varied. Few of the settlers, we are told, were moved to any appreciable degree by the religious devotion that had characterized their colonial ancestry. "Worldly, temporal considerations were the mainsprings of action in settling New York," Hedrick contends.

The Historical Context

9

"Land speculation, fertile farms, . . . some taste for romance and novelty, and no little desire to get rid of the sombre restraints of religious institutions, gave the chief impulse to many to come." 2 Others, more recently arrived from oppressed parts of Europe, looked to western New York for some humble, dependable employment, through which they could set up homes for their families and find refuge from oppression and want. They came to these parts to build bridges and railroads, to work in field and forest, furniture factory and textile mill. But because the earliest body of tradition and custom had, naturally, the chance to root itself the most strongly and assertively, the major institutions of Chautauqua County throughout her history have reflected in great measure the old New England, or what their descendants especially like to term "early American," patterns. Family relationships, for example, have flourished in the old patriarchal mold, bound in the main though to varying degree by New England religious and church traditions and moral codes. Thrift and industry and conservatism have ever characterized the region, emphasized by the continuous draining off of the more adventurous of the population by emigrant caravans headed westward along the old Lake Erie route. Political, civic, and educational organization of the county has tended roughly to follow its old New England precedent. So have agricultural methods and tools, long little improved over those of ancient Rome, and handed down with fidelity from father to son along the eastern seaboard and in subsequent settlements west—with some notable tempering, of course, through cumulative ingenuity and techniques picked up from the Indians. Early neighborhood outlooks were markedly reflective of their old colonial origins. The early patterns of co-operation on the one hand, and equality of opportunity and rugged respect for the individual on the other, marked the settlers not only of Chautauqua County, but of successive frontiers across the whole of America. Thus colonial backgrounds loom large in the cultural fabric of Chautauqua County. Subsequent repatteming and modifications, however manifold through the years, have reoriented but have not masked the identity of this great initial influence.

CONDITIONS OF S E T T L E M E N T Western New York was settled late in point of national history, though rapidly when once the start was made. By the close of the Revolution,

10

The Rural Community

and Its School

reasonably safe passes through the mountains had been discovered and used; the Indian problem had been pretty well disposed of through treaty, trade, or battle. The character of the land itself remained the greatest obstacle. And obstacle it was, to be sure. At one time the whole of New York State was one great single forest, vast and formidable. "So thick-set were the trees," Hedrick tells us, "and so dense were the boughs and the leafage, that a savage might skulk from the Hudson to Lake Erie without once exposing himself to the glare of the sun." 3 And Love writes: "Western New York, in the year 1800, was a vast unexplored land of forest and streams with here and there a cleared space used by the Indians in growing their limited crops and a few fairly well marked trails connecting scattered villages and favorite hunting and fishing locations." * THE HOLLAND LAND COMPANY

It was not until the Holland Land Company, "that unpopular and alien corporation which had purchased this section," 0 had undertaken a four million dollar program of road and bridge building, that even the most adventurous from the Atlantic seaboard viewed the area with serious intent. For some years before this particular venture in western New York at the close of the eighteenth century, land had been considered a fine source of revenue. Vast tracts of the forested public domain had been taken up by politicians and wealthy speculators of the times. The Holland Land Company purchased an extensive tract of land west of Seneca Lake, including what is now Chautauqua County, from the Revolutionary financier Robert Morris. And although the programs of improvement of this company were eventually responsible for a sudden expansion of population during the early 1800s, their selfish and shortsighted policies are said to have caused continuous trouble among the settlers and projected a drabness or futility of outlook among them that long survived that first generation. "There were prolonged controversies between debtor and creditor in the disposition of land in every one of the large tracts," we are told. "Settlers purchased land in youthful enthusiasm and in many cases made final payment in old age if at all; they made farms relatively valuable by clearing and tilling only to find they must pay rent indefinitely." 9 An old Chautauqua settler wrote in 1885: The usual price of wild lands was $2.50 per acre. Very few of the early settlers were able to pay in advance for their land; hence it was a general practice to take an article usually running ten years, with

The Historical Context

11

annual interest, paying down $10 or less on a hundred acres. Very many would take but fifty acres, incurring a smaller debt, and thinking that more could be obtained if they succeeded in paying for this amount. Taking the road from Sinclairville to Mayville not more than one in forty of the first settlers, who took articles of their lands, ever succeeded in paying for same without help from abroad, by heirship or otherwise. All failed who took but fifty acres; those who took 200 acres or more sometimes would be able to secure 100 by selling the remainder in advance of the purchase price.7 It was required of the settlers from the beginning that all land payments be made in cash. And although the virgin soils yielded well, the task of converting the produce into cash before adequate markets were developed was next to impossible. Conditions became the more intolerable, so the story goes, when in 1835 the Holland Company sold its outstanding contracts to a land company from Batavia. Their agents in turn imposed such demands— drastic increases in interest rates on outstanding debts and extension of contracts—that the settlers rebelled. From miles around Mayville, the county seat, they gathered in the dead of night, as previously plotted, marched into the village, destroyed the land office, and burned the company's records in the highway.8 There were copies of all articles in the Batavia offices, of course, so the venture proved little more at the time than a dramatic show of protest. It gave the settlers courage, however, and trouble continued until the company was obliged to transfer its interests to still another concern which canceled the increases and did what it could to restore harmony among the hard-pressed farmers. These difficult terms and conditions may well have accentuated the traits already strong in this area—thrift and industriousness, persistence, caution, and conservatism generally. The continued heavy indebtedness, persisting through the years among large numbers of farm families, gives further support to such speculation. SELF-SUFFICIENCY OF EARLY F A R M

FAMILIES

Although many of the early farm families of the area were poor in terms of worldly goods, they were hopeful, hard-working, and genuinely resourceful. Their farms were self-sufficient in the main, yielding within their boundaries all that they had for meeting the needs of the rigorous frontier family life. Converting goods into cash for taxes and land payments was difficult. Markets for farm produce were meager at best, and did not exist for most of the settlers for the first several decades. Transportation was clumsy and costly for a good many years; access to the

12

The Rural Community

and Its School

distant markets was largely limited to the larger and more fortunate landowners of the area. Providing for family needs was enough of a task for most. But life was not without satisfaction to these families. One of Chautauqua County's earliest settlers wrote from his own recollections: A man would come from Massachusetts or Connecticut and after looking around for a while pick out a lot to suit him—post off to Batavia for his article—that is to enter into a contract with the Holland Land Purchase for his land. He would return, clear a small patch, put up a log house, and then repair to his former home and bring on his family if he had one, if not marry a wife and fetch her to his wilderness home there to share his troubles, double his joys and cook his potatoes. All this made a good summer's work for him. After providing a necessary stock of provisions for the winter his strong arm would begin to level the forest—and by the next spring he would have quite an opening. As the virgin soil produced all kinds of crops in abundance, from that time he had no lack of provisions, but a surplus to share with the newcomer.9 FORESTS AND FOREST INDUSTRIES I N EARLY CHAUTAUQUA

COUNTY

As settlements grew and demands and desire for cash and expanded services increased, the resources of the county were turned more and more to profitable account. The forest as a primary resource in Chautauqua County is of great significance to her cultural history, contributing to the habits and outlooks already associated with it all across the northern part of the country where through the years one virgin region after another had succumbed to the hardy frontiersmen. To them, be it remembered, the forest had been obstacle as well as resource. For before adequate homes could be built for their families and materials provided for the purpose, before lands could be tilled and crops planted for food to supplement forest fruits and wild game, the required acreage must be cleared of forest ages old. This was an old story; and the young had developed naturally the concept of forest as obstacle. Men and their sons went at this job of destruction like soldiers into battle. In 1811, we are told, "the county was a wilderness; deer were numerous, and there were some bears and a few wolves." Another reference reports that out of the forest year after year came "ravaging bands of wolves" 10 to destroy the sheep. So the forest gave strength to the concept of the struggle of man against nature. "The essential economic method of the early days was direct attack upon nature," writes Wil-

The Historical Context

13

liams. "This developed persistence—keep digging, sawing, striking, shoving, prying, heaving, until the obstacle gives way." 11 One of the ways in which the forest served earliest as a source of income to Chautauqua County settlers, and important for a long time as almost the sole source of cash, was the burning to ashes of the magnificent hardwood stands in the area. The sawmills could use the pine and fir, [we are told by a resident of the county] but there was no market then for hardwoods such as beech, birch, and maple; so when land was cleared there remained enormous quantities of hardwood trees, limbs, etc., which could only be disposed of by burning. This became a sort of communal project and the neighbors would gather for miles around with their ox teams, haul this material into great piles and have a big bonfire which would burn for days. Incidentally they made of it quite a festive occasion with plenty to eat and drink and a fiddler for the dance. When the ashes from these fires cooled they were gathered and leached, forming what was called "black salts." These salts were hauled to the nearest ashery, where they were baked in a kiln, under great heat, [and] became a pearly gray color. This substance was sold to chemical companies in Montreal and New England, who transformed it into lye, saleratus, and other chemicals.12 Asheries were located in a number of the earlier villages of the county. As years went by the lumbering industry cut deeply into Chautauqua's forests. "After farming to gain a livelihood from the soil, the first business of the early settlers would naturally be that of lumbering, and every township in the county had sawmills operating within the first ten or fifteen years of settlement." 13 Trapping and tanning were common enterprises also. So was cooperage, in response to the great demands for wooden barrel staves, churns, tubs, and buckets prior to the age of tin and iron. The charcoal industry was continuously remunerative in those days; and closely dependent upon it was the vocation of the blacksmith. The gristmill, forerunner of the larger industrial flour mill, was important to every settlement and town in the county. Fishing flourished along the lakes and streams, often bringing in needed money and tiding many a settlement over serious food shortages. The heavy forests, then, were of primary importance to the development of the social and economic history of Chautauqua County as of the state generally. "All other industries with which rural New York has been concerned in the establishment of agriculture," states Hedrick,

14

The Rural Community and Its School

"sink into insignificance in comparison with the products garnered from forest trees. From first to last primeval woods and the wood-lots that succeeded them have furnished by-products of off-season labor in farming that have carried agriculture far, far beyond what it possibly could have become had Hudson discovered a prairie when he sailed up the great river." 14

BEGINNINGS O F COMMERCIALIZED AGRICULTURE T H E ERIE CANAL

The first great public enterprise to break in on the individualism of western New York was the Erie Canal. Financed through an appropriation from the New York State Legislature, its completion in 1825 proved a boon to Chautauqua County—this, in spite of the fact that the then smaller town of Buffalo had been selected as its western terminus in preference to the county's own port of Dunkirk, which for several years had aspired to this role. For the county profited from the great influx of population which followed the canal's completion, as well as from the opening up of markets for her agricultural and forest produce. Providing cheaper rates for the farmers than they had ever known, the canal took away the large urban markets from northern New York State and gave them instead to western New York, Pennsylvania, and eastern Ohio. "What the canal meant to the northwestern farmer is indicated by the fact that where previously it had cost $100 and taken twenty days to ship a ton of freight overland from Buffalo to New York, now the rate was only $15 a ton and the time was cut to eight days. The value of farm produce in western New York doubled." 15 To the increasing demand for wheat and corn at eastern centers, Chautauqua County, along with the rest of the region, cheerfully responded. And although the patterns of self-sufficiency were slow to give way in this area, more acres of every settler's farm were planted to wheat and corn. Cultivation of potatoes and other vegetable crops began in real earnest also. Even then, however, matters were not too favorable for a great many of the farmers. Ingrained habits kept large numbers of them from producing much beyond what they used themselves. Especially for the smaller ones, the lack of working capital was a hindrance. Credit facilities were poor, and they had to meet land payments and maintain their families from one harvest to the next on returns from farm produce. The country store served as the chief source of short-time credit; but because of frequent losses the interest charges were high. Although mortgages

The Historical Context

15

increased during the period, the money was used for land investment or even outside speculation instead of for financing farm improvements. Poor market organization was another drawback. "The country merchant, the chief middleman for farm produce, performed his function badly and at high cost." 18 It was a small number of farmers who could ship to those distant markets without great difficulty, and it is they who can be credited with the beginnings of commercial agriculture in western New York. The great bulk of farmers in Chautauqua County turned to the development and extension of the sustaining industries which with little capital outlay would supplement their farm returns, rather than to intensive specialization of farm enterprises. As already noted, the forests made possible most of these industries, which grew with the years in almost direct proportion to the rate of destruction of their common source. But even so agriculture was at its height during the mid-century decades, at a time when there was as yet but dim vision of the possibility of worn-out lands and loss of markets through western competition spurred on by the catapulting expansion of railroads and railroad rates. OTHER TRANSPORTATIONAL

DEVELOPMENTS

The county's geographic location also has been a major determining factor in the changing agricultural and marketing patterns. For from the beginning Chautauqua County has watched the parade of important transportational changes from a superior vantage point. Important eastwest routes of water, highway, and rail have paralleled within or barely without her northern borders. Further, the shortest portage route connecting the Great Lakes with the watershed of the Ohio and the Mississippi Basin lay within her borders. The old Portage Road still stands, with some sections of it now used as highway. It should be remembered also that a considerable program of bridge and road building, utilizing old Indian trails that cut through the forests and lowlands, had been carried out by the Holland Land Company some time before actual settlement had reached any sizable proportions. Steadily flowing rivers and smaller waterways, so long as the forests stood, could be found all over the area; and the bulk of Chautauqua's farm and forest produce was transported both inside and outside the county by boat, raft, or scow for many years. The chief beast of burden in earliest days had been the slow and ungainly ox. Then in time the ox gave way to the faster and more adaptable horse. The development and steady use of the stage-coach lasted for over forty years, in spite of stiff competition from water transport dur-

16

The Rural Community

and Its School

ing summer months. Settlements in the county very early felt the pinch from the labor shortage brought about by employment opportunities on the stage coach lines. Proprietors recruited from the farms a long line of drivers, agents, and runners to keep the stages running on schedule. The latter was not an easy task. Roads were frequently bad, and wheeled vehicles, however sturdily built, could not be insured against mishap. For many years privately-owned turnpikes and a large number of state roads in the area were supported by toll-gates set up every few miles. Sleighs were a common form of transportation during the winter months, especially for heavy hauling. The Great Western Turnpike, cutting across the northern spread of the county, was a scene of continuous transport. Over it, most of the surplus products of central and western New York went to market [writes Hedrick]; over it were driven droves of cattle, sheep, and pigs from as far west as Ohio; over it to the markets in Albany went huge freight wagons piled high with bags of potash or slatted racks of charcoal, or heavily laden with barrels of whiskey, or leather from western crossroad tanneries. . . . The westward files of wagons were loaded with cargoes scarcely less varied—stores for the grocer, clothier, milliner, stationer, and vast quantities of horseshoe iron, nail rods, and metals for a thousand and more blacksmiths; wines and brandies for taverns.17 Settlers along the east-west routes found additional small marketing opportunities. Travelers bartered with them for whatever was needed to restock their stores. Steamboats, both before and after the opening of the Erie Canal, required lengths of pine, basswood, and hemlock for feeding the boilers. These were picked up at various docks along the lake shore, where fanners had delivered them for $1.25 per cord. Even with the coming of the railroads, the locomotives for a long time burned wood for fuel, and the station-master contracted with fanners of the area to furnish, cut, and stack the wood in convenient piles for use. These sources of payment, however small, were highly valued by settlers whose taxes and land payments could be met only in cash. Just as the county's position in relation to the rest of New York State had drawn the more adventurous settlers of central and eastern portions, so did it cause depletion of local forces by emigration still farther west. For the wave of migration which settled western New York continued heavily for the next several decades, accelerated by the nation's acquisition of the Oregon Territory and California, and more specifically by the gold rush. The major east-west routes of the county running along

The Historical Context

17

the entire lake plain greatly enhanced the westward movement. Those who grew impatient with the uncertainty of the weather, with the cut-up topography, and with the stiff terms of the Holland Land Company, were tempted by these westbound trains to sell out their meager holdings and make off for wider spaces and larger stakes. "In June, 1848, gold was discovered in California, and the rush was started," a native of the county remarks. 'The first Chautauqua County resident to arrive in California was H. W. . . . of Ellery, who . . . was followed by many others from the county, including a party from Westfield who, traveling with Buffalo men, made the trip around the Horn. A large percentage of these miners had fair success, and returned within a few years amply repaid for their efforts." 18 There were many, however, who did not return. So the westward movement undoubtedly contributed to the conservative nature and adherence to custom of the early population of the county. The definitive character of the man who remained behind— the hard-working, more or less resigned, cautious, thrifty farmer—became accentuated as his more adventurous brothers and their families headed west. T H E RAILROADS

Scarcely had the county adjusted itself to the agricultural and social changes wrought by the Erie Canal, when the construction of the railroads was begun. The New York and Erie Railroad skirted along the tier of southern New York counties, opening up for further exploitation great stretches of hardwood forest, and providing markets for forest and agricultural products hitherto undreamed of. Passing through Jamestown it provided employment opportunity for many in the county, and was finally completed to Dunkirk on Lake Erie in 1851, making the most direct route from New York City to the Great Lakes. Population increased, particularly with the Irish and a few German immigrants who worked their way in as the railroad progressed. The new trade and travel brought ready cash to the cities and towns on the route and thus promoted additional local markets for the farmers. Once begun, the railroads spread rapidly throughout the area, bringing their hardships as well as advantages. A local historian gives the following summary of railroad building in Chautauqua County up to 1875: In 1849 not a mile of railroads had been built in the county except that portion of the New York and Erie Railroad leading easterly from Dunkirk, which had been abandoned. In 1851 the New York and

18

The Rural Community

and Its School

Erie Railroad was completed to Dunkirk. . . . In 1852 the Buffalo State Line Railroad was opened from the state line of Pennsylvania to Dunkirk, and on February 22, to Buffalo. This road was originated by the people of Fredonia, and a large part of its stock subscribed by them. It was at first located through that village, and considerable grading was done, but the Board of Directors changed the roadway by way of Dunkirk. . . . In 1860 the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad was completed through the southern towns. For nine years the lake towns had enjoyed railroads, while the southern towns were wholly without them. The building of this road was promoted by Spanish capital advanced by intelligent bankers. . . . In 1865 the Buffalo and Oil Creek CrossCut Railroad was chartered and the name subsequently changed to the Buffalo, Corry, and Pittsburgh Railroad. . . . On June 22, 1871, the Dunkirk, Allegheny Valley, and Pittsburgh was completed, running to Titusville in Pennsylvania, giving Dunkirk access to the coal and oil section of the Keystone State. . . . The Buffalo and Southwestern Railroad, constructed to the city of Jamestown, was completed in the fall of 1875. This road was finished from Buffalo to Gowanda in 1874, and the town of Ellicot was bonded in the sum of $200,000 to aid in its building. The Supreme Court of the United States held that the bonds were invalid, and they were consequently never paid. The road from Jamestown to Mayville on the easterly side of Chautauqua Lake, and the extension to Westfield, was completed after the period covered by this paper [1875], as well as all of the trolley lines within the county, many of which have recently been abandoned.19 The farmers at first put up strong resistance to the railroad. It was said that they would frighten and destroy livestock, and make it impossible to use horses on turnpikes which they paralleled. They . . . would create a monopoly on transportation. The farmer preferred river and canal carriages, since for $100 he could buy a boat or with a little expense build one with his own hands which could carry 25 tons or more, a load which would require several of the small cars of the time with a locomotive, costing several thousand dollars. A horse cost little, carried his own fuel and emitted no sparks.20 Had farmers realized how truly ruinous to their farms generally would be the great expansion of railroads, their resistance might have been even stronger. Instead, as time went on, they were led to see the immediate advantages ahead of the evils, and wherever they could muster

The Historical Context

19

the means they purchased bonds to help with the building of railroads. The coming of the railroads played havoc with transportation and institutional arrangements already established in the county. In a directory of Chautauqua County written in 1873, the following report appears: During the spring and summer months and early fall the main thoroughfares leading west through the county were lined with emigrant covered wagons whose destination was some portion of this county or . . . the Western Reserve in Ohio. On the completion of the Erie Railroad these all disappeared together with the country taverns. The stage routes running east and west were abandoned about the same time. A trip along the "Ridge Road" of Lake Erie and the traveler will note the long line of desolation in ghostly hotels once gay and joyous with ringing laughter, sent to oblivion and trampled under foot by the iron horse and his train of thundering cars. . . . 21 And in a local history more recently written: Another important factor in the industrial life of the county was brought about largely in this period (1865-75) when the water power industries throughout the county, which were not located near the railroads, commenced to suffer by competition with the companies established along the railroads by reason of the better transportation facilities of their competitors. It took practically twenty-five years to bring about this industrial readjustment due to the railroads, and due to the almost complete abandonment of water and lake transportation. . . . 22

FURTHER E F F E C T S OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION During all this time Chautauqua County, except of course for the lumber industry, was agricultural in the main, although the new manufacturing processes had been attracting small numbers of men off the farm and swelling populations of fast-growing towns within the county's borders and others farther east. These in turn had expanded the farmers' markets, both local and distant. It was not until the widespread construction of better highways and railroads that followed the Civil War, however, that industrialism really took hold in this area. At that time, Tennant tells us, "the industrial life of the county commenced to develop rapidly, and to take many people from agriculture into the infant industries. The worsted mills were established in Jamestown un-

20

The Rural Community and Its School

der the Broadheads. . . . The Brooks Locomotive Works of Dunkirk was organized with a capital stock of $350,000 in November, 1869." 23 These were typical of numerous industries newly come into being. There had been changes in the agricultural picture, too. In 1873 : it was described as follows: The staple productions of the county are the cereals, especially spring wheat. . . . The dairy interests, already important, are increasing in magnitude. . . . A belt of country bordering upon the shore of the lake . . . is largely devoted to the culture of grapes. . . . This county ranks as fifth in the number of gallons of wine made; first in the number of gallons of maple molasses; eighth in the number of tons of hay and pounds of flax; sixth in the value of its forest products; and tenth in the value of its orchard products. 21 WESTERN

COMPETITION

After a number of years that were fairly prosperous for many, hardship was brought upon farm families of this area through the opening up of vast, fertile lands to the west. Agriculture generally was taking on more of a specialized commercial nature, tardily in some of the oldest areas, but steadily. Before Chautauqua families had had time to accustom themselves to the changing demands and methods of a newly commercialized agriculture, and as they were only beginning to benefit from selling new produce on new markets at a price that augured well for prospective mortgage payments, the threat of western competition was upon them. The Civil War, of course, had accelerated the industrial revolution, which has been summarized as follows: "Agriculture was transformed from a simple, pioneer and largely self-sufficing occupation into a modern business organized on a scientific, capitalistic and commercial basis; industry definitely underwent the change from hand labor in the home to machine production in the factory; and the local market was transformed into the world market." 25 The Chautauqua County farmer, like others, both profited and suffered from the effects of these changes. He too began to invest in farm machinery in spite of heavy obstacles, gradually to modify longcherished practices, to try to build back the fertility of his exhausted lands. He was handicapped in a number of ways. His fields, being hilly and rough, were not always conducive to the use of machinery, nor his acreages large enough to justify the added investment; but the scarcity

The Historical Context

21

of manpower gave him no recourse. His soils, in many instances of only poor to fair quality originally, were badly worn and depleted by unchecked erosion and poor tillage practices. At the same time, farm prices were high. And in order to increase his volume of produce for expanded markets, he set out to buy up more land, increasing his debt load with unbridled hope. Freight rates, always higher than the average farmer could afford to pay, were continually mounting. Nor did high tariff rates and other measures designed to further the new and strident industrial expansion serve him well. Always the fanner labored under disadvantages that prevented him from receiving a full share either of his own increased production or of the industrial goods that the improved technology of urban industry made possible. Farm living standards rose, but they did not rise in proportion to the farmer's increased efficiency or as rapidly as those of the urban middle class whose tastes and standards were increasingly important as models for rural emulation.28 Further, the settlers of the vast expanses to the west had not been marking time. They too were raising corn, by the hundreds of acres, and wheat on a much larger, more modern scale. New machines for both tilling and harvesting, which the more conservative farmers of the northeast had tended to resist through the years, now turned endless stretches of western lands to profitable account. The advent of the railroads, heralded by the nation and encouraged by outright gifts of money and lands from the federal government, had also been helping the West. Quite as the opening of the Erie Canal had taken the markets away from northern New York and given them to farmers farther west, including Chautauqua County, so now on a much broader scale, rails to the Mississippi and beyond at this time opened up vast quantities of fertile and easily tilled land in the Middle West on which were transported wheat, com, and livestock to eastern markets at a price which was ruinous to the eastern farmer. Prairie agriculture was far cheaper than woodland agriculture. . . . As rails reached new western frontiers, farmers in New York and all the East found that the cattle industry had moved west and that the East could not compete with it. The corn-growing regions of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska were the cattle-feeding centers of the country, while the regions farther west and south into Texas supplied the young stock. . . . Cattle in the West fed on government

22

The Rural Community

and Its School

land or in splendid pastures which cost perhaps $1.00 an acre; pasture land in the East was worth from $30 to $100 an acre. Corn in the West sold at from 10 to 30 cents per bushel; in the East at 75 cents to $1.00 per bushel.27 The effects of western competition in Chautauqua County have been threefold: first, because of the wide differences in land policy during the time of their respective settlements, Chautauqua County settlers were at a grave disadvantage; second, many of the more energetic, speculative, and adventurous settlers of the county were induced to move on to the great open lands of the West; and third, until recent protective state legislation, the West was helped by governmentencouraged railroads and mechanized agricultural improvements to take over the Chautauqua County farmer's markets one after another just as he had succeeded through long and patient effort in building them up to profitable proportions. The scars from these defeats still persist, giving rise to a sharpened resentment and bitterness, especially on the part of those who are given to recounting the story, highlighting the handicaps and tending to oversimplify the issues. GROWTH O F AGRICULTURAL

EDUCATION

It is to be expected that this widespread revolution and the pressures, problems, and rebellions it engendered in the nation, should give birth to a great surge of agricultural education and organization. In 1862, after years of preliminary action, the Federal Department of Agriculture was set up to begin a program of research and education. It was expanded to include regulatory activities in 1884. Since that time, its responsibilities and activities have been widely extended. The organization of the Granges of the Patrons of Husbandry—with New York State's first chapter set up in Chautauqua County—the beginning of the co-operative movement, state government regulation of business, the Populist Party, and other reforms and reform groups, sprang out of this period. Land-grant colleges and state agricultural experiment stations, and later the extension services and also agricultural fairs and journals, were all outgrowths of the steady agricultural expansion. Emphasis was put on farming as a "business" enterprise, which set the tone for many of these educational ventures. Agricultural courses were introduced into the grade schools, preparatory to the work in specialized agricultural high schools and colleges. Most of these organizational and educational phases of agricultural

The Historical

Context

23

development have found counterpart in rural Chautauqua County, and are responsible to significant degree, though very unevenly, for the economic, scientific, and social postulates of its modern agriculture. These will be described in later chapters. AFTER WORLD WAR I What World War I did to agriculture and rural life of America, and of Chautauqua County in particular, needs little elaboration at this point. Following several decades of comparatively "quiet adjustment to the lack of any more virgin land, and to the new order of machines and commercialization," 29 the first World War broke out, and farmers were plunged into a heyday of highly compressed and revolutionary changes with devastating results. The United States changed from debtor to creditor nation in fifteen months—from a debt of $500,000,000 to a credit of $132,000,000.29 Production was vastly stimulated as prices soared. From 1914 to 1919 the gross agricultural income of America shot up by ten billion dollars.30 But land values soared also, and production costs mounted steadily— freight rates, labor costs, intensified machinery investment, fertilizer costs, taxes, rate of interest on farm mortgages, living costs generally. "The mounting rate of these charges during the war was significant," writes Genung, "especially because of the situation after the war, when prices crashed and the swollen taxes and interests remained as huge burdens." 81 Further, though war years were profitable for farmers generally, "there were many farms in both the East and the West that failed to make current wages for the labor of the men who operated them." 32 Statistics show that Chautauqua County was not hit so hard as some others in the country. Nevertheless, many of its farmers suffered keenly, especially as competition for labor was acute, and proximity to great industrial areas of the state enabled them to observe that once again it was industry, not agriculture, that was lapping up the lion's share. The impact on Chautauqua County's rural life of years that have followed—years of the great depression succeeding the post-war boom, marked by tragic human waste and suffering, by problems of surplus production in a hungry society, low farm prices, generally depressed agriculture; those years of widespread unemployment, and the exodus from the cities of desperate men, women, and children to the cheap marginal farm lands; the rapid growth of federal, state, and local organizations and

24

The Rural Community and Its School

measures designed to meet these "emergencies"; and more recent developments of even broader scope and closer interrelationship, leading up to and growing out of the years of World War II—will round out this rapidly running account of Chautauqua County's history. They have had a significant part to play in the story that follows. It should be noted, in sum, that events and developments here briefly sketched have called for a long series of adjustments. And Chautauqua County farmers and their families through the years have variously complied. Sometimes the changes have been made easily, almost unconsciously, and with a minimum of cultural dislocation. More often, as the following pages will indicate, these adjustments have come tardily, unevenly, and very painfully. Individual and organized efforts in the county have been helpful but quite insufficient. Fanning and farm life in Chautauqua County and elsewhere are the result of the continuous impact of new on old, of rapid technological and material changes on the more conservative psychological and physical factors in the people's heritage. And the schools of the county, largely absorbed in the perpetuation of their more academic concerns, seem to have played little more than a meager role. The chapters to follow will discuss the farm and community life of Chautauqua County as the writer has found it during several years of intensive study and inquiry. What the schools have contributed and what the implications are for an educational program more closely related to the life described will in some instances be obvious. More generally, however, these questions will be complicated by the seesaw of conflicting problems and modes of behaviour here delineated. In times like these and in human societies like ours, the central question of what is desirable in the educational world can only be defined when full account is taken of what is possible and feasible, in terms of the concrete conditions, institutions, attitudes, and outlooks of the particular culture in which it is to operate.

CHAPTER

THREE

The Home Farm A

STUDY, from whatever vantage point, of the 5,500 farms which are home to more than 23,000 of Chautauqua County's children and adults, reveals increasing diversity.1 Significant differences are observable, and for various reasons, with regard to types of farm enterprises, quality of land, farm size, problems of farm operation, extent of technological improvements, degree of self-sufficiency or commercialization, land erosion and conservation practices, marketing patterns and problems, and incomes the farms provide. There are observable likenesses also, common characteristics without which the county could hardly have preserved its identity. The impact of new on old, however, has lessened the homogeneity. More than ever before in the county's history, the scale of differences has been extended, and the sharpening extremes at either end are important to the picture.

TYPES OF FARM ENTERPRISES The county's major adjustment to the instability of agriculture over the past decade or two has been its deliberately diversified farming. This is true both of the once highly specialized fruit farms of the grape belt, where the unpredictability and wide fluctuations of weather, labor, and market conditions have made the grape-growers' risks very high; and, to lesser degree, of the dairy farms which take up the great bulk of its cultivated lands. Enterprises once fairly specialized are variously combined by farm families, many of whom have learned through bitter experience not to put all of their eggs in one basket. DAIRYING

The most important farm enterprise in Chautauqua County is dairying. The abundant rainfall and snow, soils favorable to the growth of hay and pasturage, and dependable market and transportation facilities, have all contributed to the comparative stabilization and growth of the

26

The Rural Community and Its School

dairy industry. Especially is this true of the great portion of the county that lies to the south of the lake plain—although dairy herds of varying size have helped to pull many grape-growers over periods of low fruit prices. "In the past," reads the Chautauqua County Agricultural Report, "dairying has consistently paid as well as any fanning enterprise in New York State. It should continue to pay because of the great population here in the East, and the possibility of continued or increased demand for fluid milk." 2 The fluid milk market has proved a boon to Chautauqua County fanners. In the years before east-west transportation lines enabled dairy regions of the Midwest to take over the eastern metropolitan markets, most of the county's milk was sold in the form of cream, butter, and cheese. Now, buttressed by New York State marketing laws, the bulk of it is sold for fluid consumption through the metropolitan milk producers' co-operative bargaining agencies. "Some cream is still shipped," a farmer explained to the writer, "but it's mostly milk now, and the cheese factories have all but disappeared. Our milk goes into Dunkirk," he added, "and there's a lot of milk along here that's picked up for condensed milk. It's sent to the condenseries at South Dayton, Sinclairville, and Mayville." During the latter years of the war, with ceiling prices on milk as on other produce, and with feed and labor costs unusually high, the dairy farmers received federal subsidy payments, a program to which at the outset they were solidly and bitterly opposed. Many of the dairy farms have seen steady improvement over the years. Due in great part to the leadership of agricultural agencies in the area, and more recently to pressures and promises of war and postwar demands, accepted modern practices are crowding out the old. The quality of herds has been improved, artificial insemination has begun to gain support, milk production records have climbed, if rather unsteadily, and the use of labor-saving devices has increased at remarkable rate. Hundreds of farms in the county, however, continue to be operated in quite the same manner from year to year, and even from decade to decade. Their livestock is inferior, milk production low, and not only do they not have electric milkers, refrigeration facilities, and other improved dairy equipment common to better farms, but in many cases are wholly without electric power. This county, like others, is prone to describe its progress in terms of its more prosperous and resourceful minority, who do in actuality set the pattern which farmers less fortunate, less far-seeing, or less adaptive are striving more and more to follow, or at least to set as a goal for better days.

The Home Farm

27

OTHER LIVESTOCK RAISING

The raising of beef cattle, sheep, and hogs has been declining steadily ever since the vast expanses of the West were opened up for cheap pasturage and grain raising. With modem transportation, meat and wool products can be shipped great distances without loss. So can milk and milk products, with the use of mobile refrigeration; but New York laws, as already stated, have protected the farmers' northeastern markets for fluid milk. For this reason dairy cows, especially as a regular enterprise, have proved much more profitable to Chautauqua County. The local meat demand, however, and certainly the increased demand of the present markets, have made the raising of meat-producing animals an increasingly worth while side line or means of diversification along with dairying. Such animals require less time, can be housed in less expensive shelter, and can make use of poorer pasturage and waste feed than can dairy herds. Also, farmers whose farms are inconvenient to milk routes are raising veal calves to considerable profit, since the city of Buffalo especially provides a good veal market. On most farms of the county, whatever their nature, a few meat-producing animals are kept to supply family needs and thus cut down the cash cost of living. Largely because of the limited farm size and rough topography, there is still need for horses on a number of Chautauqua County farms. But because they can be raised far less expensively on the western ranges, colt raising here until very recently had almost disappeared. Even now, with expanding demands for supplemental horsepower, and as gasolinepowered machinery has become more difficult to obtain, farmers are urged to raise colts only where feed and labor cannot be used more profitably. POULTRY FARMING

Poultry raising, a diversification enterprise on both fruit and dairy farms, is important to more than two-thirds of the farms in the county. Reasonable proximity to Buffalo and Erie markets, and commodity express rates to New York City, plus special freight rates on all poultry feed, make it a profitable enterprise generally. On some farms it is the major source of income, and on many it is a supplemental source and means of making more efficient use of labor and buildings. In light of these conditions, it was something of a shock to the farmers to learn, through the 1940 census, of a drop of 25 percent in the number of birds in the county in the past ten years. Although this seems to have been in line with what agricultural leaders term a fairly regular cycle,

28

The Rural Community

and Its School

the county's Farm Bureau attributes the drop in major part to the general economic situation and to a tremendous increase in poultry disease problems which large numbers of farmers have never frankly faced. In the Farm Bureau 1941 Program, generally very constructive in emphasis, we read the following: Diseases continue to cause large losses annually. Much of the loss . . . can be controlled to a large extent. Many poultrymen do not follow approved rearing methods, many overcrowd, and many do not follow a good sanitation program. Many ranges are poor. Many poultrymen, and particularly those with farm flocks, do not follow a sufficiently rigid culling program. 3 [And further:] The marketing of a high quality egg is still a problem on many poultry farms. According to a co-operative which purchases eggs throughout New York State, the poorest eggs secured come from western New York, which would indicate considerable work is necessary along these lines.4 Technical progress in poultry farming, during the past few years, has been notable in many respects. The possibilities that have been opened up through breeding improvements and artificial incubation, through developments in physical plants and labor-saving equipment, in feeding programs, production improvement, and marketing are quite unprecedented. The counterpart of every stage of this progress, from the most primitive to the latest modern word, can be found in Chautauqua County today. The gap between what is and what can be thus becomes more of an educational challenge. FRUIT AND VEGETABLE GROWING

Grape growing has long been the principal enterprise of farmers along the Lake Erie plain. It has been an enterprise fraught with strain and uncertainty. "The relation between the prices of grapes and of other farm commodities has always been out of balance," a county agent explained. For twenty years before the recent war, the grape harvest, even when heavy, barely yielded cost of production. With the exception of a few remarkable and by now memorable years, grape prices, set almost wholly by the juice processing plants of the county, were consistently and comparatively low. Net results of even the sky-high years proved to be grim in most cases, since the future they seemed to promise led many a farmer to overexpand his vineyards, to the tune of heavily increased indebtedness which, with the impact of sudden depression years, he was hopelessly unable to survive,

The Home Farm

29

From 1915 to 1920, grape prices rose steadily, passing the $100-a-ton mark in 1925. A fruit farmer picks up the story: "The farmers made plenty of money then," he reminisces; "and everyone was trying to expand, to put his profits back into the land. Then suddenly the bottom fell out of the grape market. Farmers sold their grapes at $25 a ton in 1926—and furnished the baskets besides. Grape prices were low the next year, too, and the next, and the next, and the next. Grape farmers were just out of luck. They kept thinking that things would be better the following year. But anyone who didn't turn to something else couldn't make a go of it. "We began raising canning crops," he continues, "tomatoes and peas. Currants and raspberries were good, too, considering the labor involved. We turned to poultry and dairying. Some of the farmers who'd kept only a cow or two when prices were good began building up their herds. We raised our own hay and forage crops—silage crops, too—enough corn and alfalfa for all the cattle. Had to do it if you survived. A lot of em who started when I did have had to quit." Most of the grapes grown in the region are of the Concord variety and are sold to the juice plants. High freight rates have contributed to this trend, making marketing near the source of production almost imperative. "We've been at the mercy of the canneries and juice factories around here," a farmer complained to the writer a few years ago, "and haven't had a living price for our grapes in years. They pay just enough to get by on and that's all. Over at Waterloo they were paying $25 a ton at the same time we were getting $15 here. And you can tell it. The vineyards in the county aren't nearly as good as they were ten years ago. They're getting older and poorer. There are fewer young vineyards; fanners won't put out any new ones. If the companies aren't careful they 11 find they won't have any grapes to buy in another ten years." With wartime demands, of course, the situation changed. The federal government set the prices at $60, $85, and then at $90 a ton for the best grade of grapes. The prevalence of vineyard diseases, the expense and difficulty of procuring spray equipment, and the increasing labor shortages, were the foremost concerns in this period of expanded demand. The uncertainty of the weather, as usual, was also a factor. With the expectation of continued good market prices, however, whatever the counteracting concerns, the lot of Chautauqua County grape growers over the past several years has once more improved. As already indicated, it is largely as a means of diversification to supplement income and make better use of labor, as well as to help rebuild the fertility of the soil, that the grape growers of the county have turned

30

The Rural Community and Its School

to the raising of other fruits and vegetables. The trend has increased with the years, and at present fruit and vegetable growing constitutes an enterprise of substantial proportions. The most important commercial vegetable crop in the county is tomatoes, which are sold in the main to local processing plants. Recently more distant green tomato markets have been developing also. Snap-beans and peas are becoming increasingly important, largely as diversifying crops for the grape growers. Other vegetables are grown, too, such as beets, carrots, cabbages, sweet corn, parsnips, primarily for market in the cities of Buffalo, Erie, and Pittsburgh. The number of home gardens in the county has greatly increased in the past few years, currently as a part of the State's better-living-fromthe-farm program, sponsored by Farm and Home Bureaus and 4-H Clubs, and in part by the schools. The 1943 New York Farm Outlook, available to all bureau members, reminded the farmers that "ample supplies of milk, eggs, poultry, vegetables, and meat produced on the home farm for family use provide healthful living at all times and in wartime help to rcduce the burden of transportation and processing facili-

ties."

5

OTHER FARM ENTERPRISES

Other secondary enterprises of commercial value to the farmers of this area are the production of maple syrup, much of the best grade of which is sold to New England dealers and meets the consumer, the writer is told, as the famous Vermont syrup; the production of honey, especially along the fruit belt; the seed business; and the preparing and selling of woodlot products from farm woodlands throughout the county.

QUALITY OF LAND It has already been noted that due to diversity of physical and topographical features, there is a very wide spread in the quality of land in the county, from locality to locality, from farm to farm, and frequently from field to field within a single farm. The land of the county has been classified by number, as part of a state-wide program, in terms of "the use being made of the land, the kind of soil, the topography, the elevation, the size and condition of farm buildings, and the results of years of farm-management research." 6 The more intensive the potential use of the land, the higher the number accorded. The county shows a spotty front in this regard and, apart from the 8 percent classed as residential land, ranges as follows:

The Home Classification

Rating

Class VII Class VI

The richest and most fertile.

Class V

"Land classes III, IV, and V are designed to include all the land needed for the efficient operation of the farms likely to remain permanently in agriculture. Therefore they include [also] some poorer land which can be used as pasture and woods." 8 "The lowest grade of land that is expected to stay permanently in agriculture." 9

Class IV

Class III

Class II Class I

] j

31

Farm

Considered by county and state Land Class Committees "better adapted to forestry and recreational uses than to agriculture." 10

In Chautauqua County None. (Found only in limited areas of the State.) 2%—confined to the richest and best-drained portions of the fruit belt. 7

6%

57%—including most of the county's dairy farms, with soils and climatic conditions favorable to pasture lands, and some farms in and close to the fruit belt. 27%

It is in relation to the lower land classes that the county finds what has been termed "the abandoned land problem." Most of the land in Class I and much in Class II is already idle or growing to woods. And the abandoned lands and farmhouses that can be seen scattered about the county, especially in the higher elevations, lie in these two classes. Between 1900 and 1930 a thousand farms were abandoned. "This abandonment," report farm leaders of the county, "has not been due for the most part to . . . depressing conditions. Census reports indicate that abandonment started practically as soon as the county was settled and has been going on constantly. . . . The fact that most of our idle land was abandoned during a period of prosperous agriculture strongly indicates that this land is not adapted to the growing of annual crops. Shallow surface soil, accompanied by a short growing season due to high elevation, indicates that this land was cleared and settled by mistake. Such land is better adapted to the growing of trees." 11

32

The Rural Community and Its School

Serious effects have resulted from abandonment. Thousands of dollars are lost every year by the county and towns because of uncollectable taxes. Land values have decreased, and improvements in areas adjoining have been gravely thwarted. Of more critical nature, however, is the fact that a considerable number of farms in these poorer lands are still in operation by rural families, in most instances at a very discouraging margin. "Quite often newcomers are encouraged to take over a farm on which many people have previously tried and failed." 12 Among these are the families who, especially during the thirties, left villages and cities where they could no longer find work and made for the worn-out and inexpensive farms. Many of these farms have changed hands again and again as their limitations have been realized. Others in the same area have served as old family farms for several generations; and it is here more than elsewhere that recommendations of the Land Use Committee fall on deaf ears. "When a man has been born and brought up on a poor farm," a committee member told the writer, "it is pretty hard to convince him that it isn't worth while farming poor land—especially if he doesn't have the money to buy better, which of course is nearly always the case. And even if you bought him a farm on a good highway and nearer the school, he wouldn't want to move. When people have lived on a farm for years and years, even if it's a poor one, they don't want to move." The process of abandonment of farms has regained momentum during the past few years, and some of the marginal land thus freed has been reforested. SIZE OF FARMS The 5,500 farms—a reduction of about 800 since the 1930 census report and of more than 1,400 since the 1935 report (made possible by a marked increase between 1930 and 1935 during the great city-to-farm migration)—comprise almost three-fourths of the land of the county. They range in size from the 3 acres set as a minimum for farm classification by the United States Census, on up the scale to the two farms of 1,000 acres or more. There are 19 farms of 500 acres or more; and 216 contain at least 260 acres. The average farm size for the county is 89.5 acres, an increase of 5% acres over the 1930 figure. The state average is 112 acres, the national, 174. The average is affected by the 441 farms in the county that are under 10 acres, among which a number might more realistically be thought of as suburban farm homes for those who carry on their major occupations in the villages and cities.

The Home Farm

33

Under present methods of production and marketing, which give a distinct competitive advantage to bigness, the size of farms in Chautauqua County has proved a growing handicap to a large number of farmers. Small farms as a rule do not warrant investment in improved machinery and methods, and many farm families are obliged to carry on with slower, more toilsome hand methods and cruder, less effective tools than might have been in use had the farms been larger. In many instances, farms are too small to provide an adequate family income. Farmers have been pressed to till the steep hillsides, to plant cash crops year after year, and otherwise to mine the soils, the productivity of which they have been unable without help to rebuild. All this has led to disproportionately high unit production costs, intensified labor shortages, and increasingly one-sided competition within the county itself and within a nation which leads the world in large-scale commercialized fanning. FARM OWNERSHIP AND OPERATION Whatever the size of the farm, farm ownership is important to Chautauqua County farmers and their families. It always has been. For a man to own his own "business"—his land, his home, his instruments of production—is, to the rural Chautauqua mind, to keep American agriculture American. It gives to the farmer the assurance that he belongs, has roots; and it guarantees to him and his family a cornerstone of security in a world that is none too secure. According to the 1940 census, close to 90 percent of the farms of the county are operated by their owners. The security of this 90 percent, however, is not as solid as the popular concept of farm ownership might imply. As already observed, the indebtedness of early Chautauqua settlers was very heavy. So also, according to report, has been that of succeeding generations. Although the total indebtedness had decreased over the decade past, the 1940 census figures show that nearly half of the farms operated by their owners were then under mortgage, with an average indebtedness of more than $1,800. Taxes too make their inroads, to say nothing of the problems of production, and the growing and frequently harassing problems of marketing. The satisfaction of ownership in a good many instances is hampered further by a growing concern for the future of these farms which, to this and to past generations of farmers, have meant so immeasurably much. Industrial and business attractions of village and city are drawing more and more youth off the farms of Chautauqua County. Resisting

34

The Rural Community and Its School

exhortation and the pull of family tradition, they prefer remunerative work in the village or a college education to farming as their life's work. And so farm owners, as well as others of the area, are worried. "We've got to do something to make farm life more attractive to these youngsters," an older resident contended. "What we need more than anything else around here are good, young, enthusiastic farmers who will carry on the agriculture of this county. No excuse for them now not wanting to live on the farms, when they can have everything there they can have in the village, and get into the village as often as they want, besides." Even several years ago, before army demands and defense production had made their most substantial inroads, a dairy farmer remarked to the writer: "It's really pitiful to get out into the hilly regions and see farmers past working age trying to carry on and not able to get help. The young men won't farm. A lot of the farms are poor and they won't work them . . . rather go into the factories or somewhere else . . . they can get more pay." The manager of one of the Chautauqua-Erie Grape-Growers' units voiced the same sentiments: "Ninety pcrcent of our grape growers are

over fifty years old, and two of the members of the board are past seventy," he explained. "There's little young blood. So little profit from grape-growing that a young person'd be a fool to go into it when he can do something else and have a better standard of living. And our farmers here are getting too old to right-about-face on fanning methods. Their sons and sons-in-law have gone elsewhere. And so the older men are saying "What's the use in setting out new vineyards? Might as well just keep things moving along somehow. . . . We can't get the younger men to take our place.' "Yes, the agriculture courses help all right. But even the young men who go off to study agriculture in college, they don't come back. They get a job with the G.L.F. or the Farm Bureau somewhere, or a chemical plant. They don't come back." In truth, they don't come back, as census figures indicate, and rural Chautauqua County mourns her loss of youth. In this regard as in others the county is not uniform. There are farm children in the county, many of them—especially those affiliated with 4-H Clubs or pursuing the vocational agriculture courses in the high schools—who take pride in the prospect of managing farms of their own. In some of the more scattered and isolated communities where contacts with village and city life are less numerous and community self-sufficiency tends to be better preserved, many of the youth still prefer farming to any other way of life. The minister of a little church in such an area pointed out: "They've

The Home Farm

35

never known anything different or better than the way they live and their grandparents lived before them. And while they are willing and glad to fit some of the newer conveniences, like the automobile and the radio, into their ways of living, they all seem to love their farms as they are, and have little desire to change. There's a marked tendency there for the children to want to follow in the footsteps of their fathers." Needless to say, these exceptions are not sufficiently numerous to quell the fears of those most deeply concerned. The fact that farm families, like others, are becoming notably smaller, contributes further to the dilemma. Inducing energetic youth to carry on the agricultural tradition of the county is far from a simple matter.

TENANCY With the strong feeling for farm ownership, it is to be expected that tenancy has never been high in Chautauqua County. The 1940 census reports only 10.9 percent of the farms operated by tenants. Hence the problem is not the usual one, common to other regions of the country, of finding adequate farms for large numbers of potential tenants. "Any good tenant can get good terms in Chautauqua County," an agricultural leader of county and state assured the writer. "And this has been true almost from the beginning. Finding the tenants has been the problem, especially during the past few years. You just can't get the same quality operator for farms that you could thirty years ago. Securing capable men to operate the farms of this county grows more and more serious." Obviously wartime conditions, along with those discussed in earlier paragraphs, exaggerated the problem. For the tenants operating farms in the county in 1940, the average year of initial occupancy was 1933, which was the same as for New York State as a whole. This indicates a fairly stable and solid tenantry, affected undoubtedly and in no small degree by the generally favorable conditions which have prevailed in this regard. Hedrick writes: "In all parts of the state, the tenant farmer has ranked in all respects with the landholder. From the beginning of agriculture in New York down to the present, the terms upon which land is rented have varied less than the prices of labor, the value of land, or the selling price of produce. Agricultural land in New York State has almost never been rented for a money rent, and everywhere is let on shares from year to year. Now, as in the past, if the owner of the land furnishes seed, tools, and animals, his share of the produce is two-thirds or a little less; if the tenant sup-

36

The Rural Community and Its School

plies animals, tools, and seed, the land-owner receives one-half of the produce. These terms vary a little in accordance with the soil, the crop, and the distance from market, but in general they hold for most parts of the state." 13 On some of the specialized dairy farms in Chautauqua County, tenant and owner "share equally both the expenses of the seed and tools, and the profits on the milk check." 14 All renters of land in the county, however, are not held in equal respect. Growing out of the persistence of industrial unemployment during the thirties, small acreage plots along the fruit belt have been leased each year by men largely inexperienced in farming, many of them Italians, for the sole purpose of raising canning crops. "They put their whole families to work," complained one of the larger farmers of the area, "and they use that land for all it is worth, raising their cash crops year after year, till the market is ruined for the rest of us fellows—and shamefully depleting the soil along there because nothing is ever put back into it. "I don't blame them, I guess. The land isn't theirs, so why should they go to the bother of building it up? And they don't know anything about

farming. They shouldn't be farming. Yes, of course, they have to get a living for their families . . . and that's one way to do it. Still I'm sure that that's not right. There ought to be some other way. . . ." This practice has been growing rapidly in the past few years—or was until the war further confused the picture. And it has increased an already marked antagonism toward the Italian population generally. "Different nationalities make different farmers," the observation was made to the writer. "Now the Germans back in 1890 made wonderful farmers. Some of them are still on their farms, dependable, hard-working . . . also the German Poles. But many of the farms along here [the fruit and vegetable belt] are being picked up by a low grade of farmers, Italians and Russian Poles. Soil racketeers, that's what I call them, just plain soil racketeers."

FARM LABOR The conditions which have contributed to the growing stringency of both owner and tenant situation have sharpened the hired-labor shortage—sharpened but not created. For Chautauqua County has rarely if ever experienced rural unemployment . . . industrial, yes, but not rural. The seasonal shortages hit hardest in the fruit belt, where much hand

The Home Farm

37

labor at particular times in the season is required. Local pickers, many of them high school students, have usually worked from late June until school opens in September, beginning with berries and currants and following steadily through the summer with other fruits and vegetables. As a rule the larger farmers have provided regular truck transportation for young summer pickers from Dunkirk and nearby villages. Elderly men and women come down from the hills or out from the villages year after year, usually to the same fields or vineyards, where with wrinkled leathery hands they pick the plump, ripe fruit. Whole families, many of them Polish or Italian, move out from the cities for the season, live very frugally in their meager shacks, work hard and long every day picking fruits or vegetables—even to the old grandmothers and the very little ones who carry the empty crates for their mothers—then go back to their homes in the fall some several hundred dollars the richer. Ordinarily too, quite a number of "well, I don't like to call them "hoboes,'" one farmer put it, "fellows who ride the freight trains, most of them Negroes, come up from Maryland and Delaware about tomato-picking time. They start in Florida picking beans and work their way on up north." But the war altered the situation. "The competition for labor by defense industries close to Chautauqua County is causing a serious shortage of labor on our farms," read the Farm Bureau Program as early as 1942. "Farmers are also experiencing considerable difficulty in obtaining new labor-saving machines, and it is expected that this situation will become more acute. . . . The efficiency of labor on farms must be at a maximum. Already many farmers in Chautauqua County, particularly those farther along in years, have reduced the size of their business entirely because of inability to obtain sufficient labor." 15 During the war, with the tremendous draining from the working population of the youth of army age, together with increased production demands, industrial employment attracted most of these migrants and many of the high school students and younger neighbors usually available. Agricultural agencies, government employment offices, and educational agencies sought co-operatively to meet the dilemma which, together with simultaneous shortages in the several canneries located in the fruit belt, came to be quite serious. In 1942 a migratory work camp was established under government jurisdiction to serve Chautauqua and adjoining counties. It functioned again through the next several seasons, with a few hundred imported Jamaicans working very satisfactorily on the fruit and vegetable farms. "Some of the finest workers we've ever had," an agricultural leader reported. Three other labor supply centers

38

The Rural Community

and Its School

were opened up as a result of appropriations made by Congress to the Agricultural Extension Service for that purpose. Among the laborers recruited were a group of young, inexperienced, and assertedly not too effective, New York City boys, very successful girl and women city vacationers from New York City, and a group of prisoners of war and soldiers who came later in the summer. Regular evening meetings, informational and recreational, were scheduled by those in charge for the duration of the various centers. During September and October also, the high schools of the area shortened their schedules in various ways to free the students to help in the fields. This program was most successful where the schools assumed responsibility for supervision both of students and of conditions under which they worked. Such a program was very profitably worked out by the State Teachers College at Fredonia when, in October of 1942, it suspended classes for ten days and, in co-operation with the U.S. Employment Service and the County Farm Bureau, registered and sent approximately four hundred students and staff-members out into the vineyards. Nearly sixty others were sent into the canneries or processing plants whose fulfilment of government contracts for army provisions would otherwise have been delayed. Altogether these various ventures pretty well met the emergency during wartime harvest seasons, and farmers all along the northern stretch of the county were grateful to the agencies responsible. The dairy farmers of the county did not fare so well. Because their labor demands are year-around rather than seasonal, they are more difficult of solution. This was true under wartime conditions as in peacetime. The low wages offered—many times because the dairy farmers cannot afford to pay more, and sometimes because they object to paying more on principle—are not usually sufficient to induce those with the required abilities to forego industrial or other employment where hours are shorter and conditions of living are more to their liking. "Why, some of the farmers out my way," a dairyman asserted, "have had to sell their cattle, and some of them even their farms, because they can't get help." TECHNOLOGICAL IMPROVEMENTS Extended use of farm machinery is helping to answer the labor shortage on many farms. For the second time in the lifetime of most Chautauqua County farmers, war production demands and accompanying dearth of labor drove them an important step forward in the use of labor-saving machinery.

The Home Farm.

39

A dairy farmer averred: T h e rate of mechanization is growing all right. It started at the beginning of the first World War. In other places they were already using improved farm machinery. And our farmers, driven to the fence for lack of labor, could see what could be done with it. We had to get machinery, that's all, because we couldn't get labor." And one of the larger farmers of the fruit belt, looking back over the years, remarked: "Yes, there have been great changes, and great improvements in farm equipment. There were very few tractors around here in 1915. I didn't buy one until 1922. There were quite a lot out, but they were too large and awkward. They're making them smaller now, and easier to handle. A tractor these days can turn in its own radius . . . has a shorter turning radius almost than horses. I still keep horses though—have five tractors and four horses—and I work about five hundred acres of land. "Also a lot of improvement has taken place in cultivating equipment. The two-row cultivators and planters are pretty fine, what with the speed of the rubber-tired tractors. My combine, too, saves a good deal of work; I've had it now for about six years." It need hardly be called to attention that the transition from hand and horse power to gasoline and electric power in the county has been far from uniform. Along with the scores of farms where, in the words of the American Agriculturist, farm paper of the northeast, "motors pump the water, milk the cows, run the washing machine . . . and do a hundred and one other jobs that once had to be slowly and laboriously done by hand," 18 there are many others in the area, even of similar size, where many of the same jobs are still done by hand labor and slow, ineffective, back-breaking methods. Chautauqua County can point with pride to dairy farms where "stables are warm, well-ventilated, white-washed, equipped with water-buckets and labor-saving carriers for feed and manure." 17 But it cannot hide the farms where barn roofs sag, buildings tumble, and until recent times, pieces of antiquated machinery too old and disreputable for profitable use dotted the landscape. It is interesting to note that processes such as corn planting, grain harvesting, and the like, are carried on in many parts of the county in ways long since outmoded in newer sections of Midwest and West. For although there have always been in this area a number of outstanding, forward-looking, venturous farmers continually sensitive to new possibilities and better ways of doing things, Chautauqua County generally, true to the historic character of New York State and the greater Northeast, has continued remarkably resistant to technological agricultural

40

The Rural Community and Its School

changes. To buttress this psychological resistance, most common among farmers not reached by the most progressive agricultural agencies of the county, are several material factors: ( 1 ) the comparatively small size of many of the farms of this area which, as earlier discussed, has rendered less practicable and profitable the practices employed on larger farms both within and without the county; ( 2 ) the rough topography— steep irregular slopes and gullies, which on many of the upland farms have made individual purchase and use of larger farm machinery expensive and difficult; and ( 3 ) the lack of means until recent war years among growing numbers of farmers. The armor of resistance, with intermittent changes affecting the factors, has grown increasingly, if unevenly, vulnerable. Indeed it is largely due to the spread of mechanization in the county that the past two decades have seen a notable increase in agricultural production: in volume, quality, efficiency, economy of method. The 1940 census reported more than 2,000 tractors on the 5,500 farms of the county, the average being a 1930 model. This increased tractor power has expanded the use of a wide gamut of other farm machinery. Census figures showed also more than 1,600 trucks on Chautauqua County farms, and about 4,675 automobiles, the average model, in this instance, 1933. These have significantly affected if not determined the pace, the scope, and the pattern of fruit and dairying sections, both in production and in marketing. Electricity has been extended to reach a new total of almost 80 percent of the farms, encouraging still further use of technological equipment. Nor has the displacement of labor by increased mechanization been of grave concern to the county. The point has already been stressed that farmers of this area were forced to buy machinery because they could not get labor. During the war they had difficulty getting either; and county, state, and nation worked together on a variety of proposals to counteract the stringencies. Agricultural periodicals and organizations counseled that more family labor be used on the farms; that more efficient care be taken of machinery already in use, for which purpose repair clinics were set up throughout the county, sponsored by the State College of Agriculture and by agriculture departments of several high schools, to which farmers could bring their machinery to give it the needed repair and overhauling under the guidance of trained students and supervisors; and that wider use of machinery be made through co-operative purchase. This counsel and the practices to which it and the war gave impetus have continued beyond the war years.

The Home Farm

41

LAND EROSION AND CONSERVATION PRACTICES Wherever one travels along the network of major highways of farmto-market roads that cover the county, signs of accelerating erosion are visible, as well as of erosion recently checked by improved agricultural and conservation practices. Along U.S. Highway 20, which slices the famous grape belt region almost end to end, one can see, spread over many a gently sloping vineyard, the fresh green of the winter cover crops. More thorough observation, however, perhaps from a smaller side road, reveals quite another picture: dry, grey, shrunken vineyards, which seem in places to be growing right out of a bare, hard sub-soil, stripped of its nutritive elements and badly eroded. In certain areas this condition is due in part to original deficiencies. In many cases, however, it can be ascribed almost wholly to inappropriate soil practices. As is generally true of vineyards as old as Chautauqua's, the vines have been planted in rows up and down the slopes. Heavy rains have gouged deeply into the furrows, washing the topsoil away down the slopes and leaving the scarred surface to dry and harden when the rains have ceased. The hilly regions to the south tell a similar story of barren gullies, washed-out fenceposts, roads obstructed with mud and debris. On the other hand, especially and increasingly during the past few years, one sees occasional carefully terraced hillsides, gullies newly vegetated and under control, check-dams and grassed waterways, furrowed pastures, diversion ditches, winter cover crops to hold the soil against the rains and to increase the organic content of the soil when plowed under during crop cultivation. In some dairy regions of the county can be seen newly-planted trees on slopes too steep or in soil too poor to support adequate pasturage. Eroded, gentler slopes are seeded to permanent pasture. In scattered instances, even though rugged topography makes it difficult of accomplishment, strip-cropping has been utilized to check the loss of moisture and topsoil. Gradually fanners throughout the county are coming to understand that although they "can do nothing to control or alter the climate, nothing to change the natural topography of their land, nothing to change the basic material from which their soil was derived . . . most fanners can . . . crop their land more skillfully, do something to make their soils more permeable to rainfall, and thus reduce the amount of water which now journeys to the river and the ocean, carrying away soil." 1 '

42

The Rural Community and Its School

Crop rotation and the systematic use of fertilizer are increasingly evident, although it is rather the extent than the nature of these practices that is new in the county. Encouraged by the Farm Bureau, and in part by the vocational agriculture programs of the high schools, a number of farmers have long realized that "under cultivation for any considerable length of time, practically no soil in the northeast grows profitable crops without the application of commercial fertilizer. And the trend has been toward heavier and heavier applications to the acre." 1 8 But it is the Agricultural Conservation Program that is doing the most to spread the adoption of improved soil practices. This is a part of the national program growing out of the Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act which, in order to stimulate the use of certain soil and range conservation practices, provided a series of subsidies to individual farmers who carried them out. The program was not accepted with enthusiasm when it was introduced into the county. A number of Farm Bureau members were among the first to "join up." Due to their subsequent testimonies and considerable solicitation from the County Conservation Office at Jamestown, as well as from the volunteer community committeemen, others were persuaded to participate. The voluntary program has grown to substantial proportions in its short period of existence. And although there are wide improvements yet to be made, especially among the smaller farmers, the great majority of fanners in the county are taking part in the program, to varying degree, and with a mixture of feelings. "I think it's a good thing," a fruit and vegetable farmer told the writer. "The program encourages farmers to use the proper fertilizer, to plant cover crops which many of them couldn't otherwise do, mainly because they don't have the money to put five hundred pounds of superphosphate in a field. The farmer who's had a lot of money, he could do these things right along; but lots of farmers haven't had it. They can do all these things with help, though. The government pays three-fourths, they pay one-fourth. And I think it's a good thing." And another: "Some of the farmers, in order to make a go of it, grow tomatoes and more tomatoes, until they wear the soil out. Now they can earn fertilizer and keep the soil fertile. And a lot of themU do it, too. Another good thing about the program, they can't go over their allotments, and this controls the surplus produce. I'm only alloted six acres of wheat this year. But I can have ninety-eight acres of vegetables." A dairy farmer, closely associated with the program since its inception, took on a different tone, not uncommon in the county: "Good farmers have always used good practices . . . without being paid for it either.

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And it isn't right to use public money to pay the others for what they should have been doing anyway. They get so they expect it." And another: 'The program was set up mostly to help those farmers in the Midwest. And we feel that if they can't make money out there off of corn or wheat, let them turn to something else. That's what the farmers around here have had to do." More recently a farmer, also a township supervisor, had this to say: "I'd say about 60 percent of the farmers of our town are in the program. And that's about all the farmers of any size. That's the trouble: the little fellow who needs these things worst doesn't seem to get in on them. Most of the farmers out here now, they're used tb the conservation program and they think it's a good idea. They went into it first to get the payments . . . wanted to get something for nothing, I guess, . . . but now they seem to think it's the thing to do. Why, I think when the program stops they'll go right on with it on their own."

FARM INCOMES The determination of farm incomes of the county is affected by a wide variety of factors. In addition to those mentioned in the foregoing pages, a few facts brought out by the 1940 census also have bearing: Real estate taxes levied among farm owners in the county, including both full and part owners, amounted to more than $300,000 in 1939, the average tax per acre standing at $1.13, and the taxes per $100 of assessed valuation at $2.19. As earlier mentioned, almost half of the farms operated by their owners were under mortgage, with an average indebtedness of $1,815, although the average age of their owners is around fifty years. The average age of the owners of farms free from mortgage is fifty-four. These figures tell an interesting story, especially when spotlighted by a few pertinent facts called to mind regarding land use in the county. It will be remembered that 8 percent of the land is in residential classes; another 8 percent is in Classes IV and V; 57 percent is in Class III; and the remaining 27 percent in Classes I and II, the poorest of seven classifications. Dr. Hart writes: Surveys of farm incomes on land class III indicate that if a person owns a farm in a land class III area and is not too heavily in debt, he may reasonably expect to make a living on it and to pay off indebtedness. However, the experience of farmers is that few farmers who run heavily in debt for a farm on land class III are able to make enough to cover operating expenses and interest on a large indebtedness and

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The Rural Community and Its School

have anything left to pay on the principal of a mortgage. Apparently, incomes on land classes IV to VII are good enough so that a young farmer may run in debt for a large part of the investment in a farm and expect to pay for it during an average working lifetime.20 Land classes I and II never were adapted to farming, and changing economic and social conditions have made these areas still less adapted to agriculture. Under the conditions that prevailed when the country was being settled, a family could make a living on some of the farms on land classes I and II, but that time is past.21 It is hardly surprising, then, that the farm incomes vary widely in Chautauqua County—"from less than nothing at all, net income," a leader of one of the farm organizations expressed it, "to more than $7,000 cleared on one of our fruit farms." The 1940 census figures show that in 1939, more than one-half of the farms in the county provided gross incomes under $1,000 and more than two-thirds, under $1,500. At the lower end of the scale, nearly nineteen hundred gross farm incomes were under $600. At the other end, something over one hundred gross farm incomes were over $6,000 each, and thirty-four were more than $10,000. It is of significance to note that fewer than one-half of the farmers of Chautauqua County raised more than four-fifths of the total produce. Nearly 37 percent, or 2,043 farmers, supplemented their 1939 farm incomes by working at jobs away from their farms, 1,230 of this number reporting such work for 100 or more days, and 1,615 reporting other than farm work. This compares with about 31 percent for the state as a whole.

FARM ORGANIZATIONS AND AGENCIES Farm families of Chautauqua County are served by and participate in an increasing number of farm organizations and agencies, whose programs vary widely as do their folio wings. The total organizational framework of the county has been built up considerably during the past decade or so, in conformity with national trends. In an effort to obtain agricultural relief and adjustment during the steep nationwide slump that followed upon the heels of post-World War I pseudo-prosperity, as well as to meet subsequent problems, the federal government has embarked upon a quite unprecedented series of agricultural ventures and activities.

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These activities [writes Wells] include efforts to obtain acreage adjustments, to regulate agricultural marketings, to stabilize annual supplies, to insure crop production, to put a floor under prices through the use of commodity loans, to obtain soil conservation, to encourage farm forestry, to rehabilitate distressed farm families, to adjust the rural tax structure, to develop a more adequate farm-credit system, to subsidize exports, to encourage increased consumption of food among relief clients, to develop new uses for agricultural products, and to reduce marketing costs. They also include the efforts of farmers and their representatives to appraise agricultural problems and plan ahead.22 Because these efforts make up a program national in scope, all have had an indirect effect upon Chautauqua County. And in spite of strong emotional resistance to government "interference" or regulation in the county, a number of them, voluntary in nature, have now become an integral part of the agricultural picture of this area. Both government and non-government agencies, for instance, have been concerned, especially in recent years, with the expansion of soil and water conservation practices and the improvement of land use generally. The work of the County Land Use Committee already has been discussed, with particular reference to recommendations concerning the use of poor or marginal lands. The United States Forest Service also, working out from offices in Jamestown, has done much to encourage public purchase and reforestation of the lands unfit for profitable cultivation, as well as the planting to trees of the marginal portions of individual farms in the higher land classes. The Civilian Conservation Corps, while in active operation in this area between 1935 and 1937, worked under the U.S. Forest Service on the twelve thousand acres of newly-acquired state-owned land within the county's boundaries. The program of agricultural research and demonstration carried on by the Soil Conservation Service, with headquarters at Warsaw, has also contributed along these lines. But the program of the past few years most outstanding in the actual improvement of farm-land use and of bad soil conditions steadily growing worse, has been the Agricultural Conservation Program already mentioned, with central offices in Jamestown. Volunteer farmer commodity committeemen helped to plan and supervise the program throughout the county with farmers who elected to participate. Working closely with the Farm Bureau and the Agricultural Extension Service, the program is administered by the Agricultural Adjustment Agency, operating under the United States Department of Agriculture.

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The Rural Community

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Specifically tempered to meet state and local conditions through the Northeast Division Office, the Agricultural Conservation Program was introduced into Chautauqua County in 1936. In its efforts to educate and encourage the great body of fanners in the county to the need and use of soil conservation techniques, it met with considerable opposition. Farmers long used to being their own bosses and to earning by the sweat of their brows every cent they made, resented the government's stepping in to say what should be done, and under what conditions. Good farmers had always used fertilizer, good tillage methods, and cover crops, they argued. The total disintegrating effect through the long years of the bad practices of those farmers who could not or did not use modem methods was seldom recognized. Nor did they sense the need for a sound educational system to further such programs already in process, even though the Farm Bureau had been sponsoring such a program for years. The idea of subsidy rankled, the distinctively modern conditions which gave rise to it being such a far cry from the traditional individualistic self-sufficiency on which rural Chautauqua County grew up. Farmers who use poor methods and have poor lands, it was felt—and still is, to a notable degree—deserve to be poor. They oughtn't to be paid to do better. Nevertheless, supervisors and committeemen, themselves a little cautious at first, worked hard to carry through the responsibilities they had undertaken, and gradually achieved heartening results. Other phases of the program, again because the broader ramifications have not been understood, have been more bitterly attacked, although with each year the criticisms seem to diminish. In view of greatly unbalanced production on a nation-wide scale, with the shrinkage of export as well as domestic markets preceding the recent war, the program sought for several years to regulate the production of certain crops. This it did by setting agricultural allotments financed by conditional grants or benefit payments to encourage planting in line with national requirements, commodity loans to stabilize agricultural prices, and marketing quotas for use in years of excessive supplies of particular crops.28 This phase of the program, bitterly opposed by a unified rural and urban press, and to a considerable extent by the older agricultural agencies of the county, has been much harder to take. "The soil conservation is all right, I guess," a typical reaction goes, "but this monkeying with allocations is all wrong. Give the farmer his market and he can work out his own adjustments. With all his experience, it seems like he ought to know what to plant and what not to." (These arrangements were worked out before World War II made its radical changes in market demands.)

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The Farm Bureau, along with a full and varied program of its own, has done much to publicize these state and national efforts among its own members. Some twenty-three hundred farmers are members of the Chautauqua County Farm Bureau, which is a part of the State and of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Conjointly with the Home Bureau and the 4-H Clubs, this organization also carries out the work of the New York State Agricultural Extension Service, whose program in co-operation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture takes shape at the State College of Agriculture at Cornell University in Ithaca. The work of the Extension Service and the Farm Bureau is largely local in nature, and has contributed to the growth and improvement of many phases of the agricultural and rural life of the county. These include farm management, proper land use, disease control, marketing, price fluctuations, transportation, use of farm machinery, soil-building practices, rural electrification, farm forestry, animal husbandry, plant breeding, fruit and vegetable production and harvesting, poultry and egg production, milk production, and farm accounting. The emergency program for helping to meet the labor shortages, in which the County Agent of the Extension Service and Farm Bureau took a very responsible part, was described earlier. The Farm Bureau's methods of reaching its membership and others outside of the ranks who profit by its program are numerous. A mimeographed outline of the program for the year is available to the membership. It includes a brief statement of situations as they exist, the specific local problems that need attention in fields mentioned above, recommendations for meeting these problems, and means of attack. The Chautauqua County Farm and Home Bureau News is published and distributed monthly. It contains information, news, and recommendations of county, state, and nation-wide importance. The wide range of Agricultural Extension Service Bulletins, as well as bulletins from the State Department of Farms and Markets, the Agricultural Experiment Station, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are made available through the County Farm Bureau Office at Jamestown. These deal with all phases of farm and rural problems, general and technical. Special leaflets, service letters, and mimeographed cards, are mailed out to members as the need or situation arises. These include timely recommendations on spraying, feeding, labor-saving techniques, the use of fertilizer. Frequent meetings, clinics, and demonstrations held from time to time in convenient meeting places throughout the county inform the farmers of new and important ways of improving agricultural conditions. Information broadcasts are sponsored and presented regularly.

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Another important part of the program is the individual help given members as they bring in or send in requests for information or counsel. The Farm Bureau works closely with other organizations and agencies. As a part of the organizational plan of a recent Farm Bureau program, for instance, the following was listed: "Co-operate throughout the year with the other extension departments and with other progressive agricultural organizations and groups working constructively for agriculture." 24 In another program are numerous inclusions such as the following: Co-operate closely with the Agricultural Defense Committee in its program to relieve the labor situation. . . . Co-operate with agricultural teachers in their machinery programs and labor problems. . . . Co-operate with the Geneva Experiment Station in further research on insects in 1942. . . . Continue to work with the committee and the United States Department of Agriculture War Board for a better tomato contract. . . . Co-operate with the United States Department of Agriculture program calling for increased tomato and pea production.25 The growth of the organization in size and extent of influence has been particularly marked during the past several years. More than half the farmers of the county, however, do not belong to the Farm Bureau. And there are many farm families throughout the county unreached by the Agricultural Extension services to which they all are entitled. Working closely with the other farm agencies of the county in an effort to put agriculture on a sounder and more scientific basis, is the Agricultural Experiment Station at Fredonia, a branch of the State Experiment Station at Geneva. Here intensive research and experimentation in problems important to Chautauqua County and vicinity have been carried out since the station's establishment in 1909, and their results publicized among farmers. Important findings and information relative to fruit-growing—vineyard and orchard pruning, breeding of new varieties, pest control, cover-cropping and commercial fertilizing of soils— have been made available at state and federal expense to farmers throughout the area. Another field which has been given attention by government and nongovernment agencies has had to do with marketing. Along with the federal program of agricultural allotments and benefit payments, has come the development of marketing agreements and orders and other efforts to improve the general efficiency of the agricultural marketing system.

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Marketing agreements [Wells explains] are used chiefly in connection with the marketing of fruits, vegetables, and fluid milk. These devices offer a means of regulating marketing, including the manner in which supplies are divided among different markets or split up among the several forms in which a commodity may be marketed. Other activities designed to improve the marketing system include grading and standardization work and efforts to reduce interstate trade barriers, to reorganize terminal market facilities, to reduce freight rates, and to regulate commodity speculation. Co-operative marketing associations, of course, are another device which many farmers are using to improve their marketing situation.28 Through the years the Granges of Patrons of Husbandry have done much, in Chautauqua County and elsewhere throughout the country, toward the establishment and spread of at least certain phases of the agricultural co-operative movement. Farmers from every section of the county belong to the Grange, the national farm organization which in its earlier days fought so earnestly and valiantly to protect the rights and improve the status of the farmer in a young, expanding industrial nation. Among the reforms for which they have fought on a national scale are railroad rate reductions, "good roads, rural free delivery and parcel post, woman suffrage, farm legislation and relief, tariff control, antitrust laws and much other legislation for the betterment of farm life." 2 7 The more conservative, quiet program which the leaders and Grange members now pursue in the various localities throughout the county is said to be a far cry from the militancy of the organization's flaming youth. The county's village of Fredonia boasts the first subordinate of this organization to be established in New York State. The Grange still lays claim to a liberal tradition, although economically and politically it has long since supported the status quo. Through the years it has contributed importantly to the agricultural and social life of Chautauqua County. With changes and competing interests of the past decade, however, the role of the Grange has dwindled in most farm communities. Until fairly recent years the Grange did a great deal by way of experimentation in co-operative undertakings. "The program was very much under-financed, however," a late Grange and G.L.F. leader told the writer; "also it limited its program to the Grange membership, and the margin of profit proved to be very small." Finally, sensing the futility of trying to carry on effectively alone in this regard, they pooled their plans and support with those of the Dairymen's League and the Farm Bureau, to form the commercial co-operative organization known as the

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G.L.F. (the name derived from initials of the Grange, the League, and the Farm Bureau). Co-operating with farm organizations outside of New York State as well as in, as part of the United Co-operative League, the G.L.F. serves farmers in New York State, upper Pennsylvania, and the whole of New Jersey. Membership is voluntary. There are no contracts. There are both large and small stockholders, each of whom has one vote. The patron members as well as the stockholders have a say in the control. Bargaining agencies for the marketing of milk function in the Buffalo area, which includes Chautauqua County, and in the areas of Rochester, Syracuse, and New York City, most of them under the auspices of the Dairymen's League. The law provides that several co-operatives can thus work together without violating the anti-trust laws, as long as the prices arrived at have the approval of federal officials in the Department of Agriculture and that of the agricultural agencies of the state. This powerful co-operative effort has greatly improved the dairying conditions of the county. Egg marketing has also been improved through G.L.F. efforts, as have the purchase and distribution of much of the fertilizer and feed, and some of the gasoline and oil used in the county and other areas concerned. The Chautauqua-Erie Fruit-Growers' Co-operative Association, organized in 1921 and commonly known as the C. & E., is of a more local nature. Farmers throughout the fruit belt express their appreciation of the services of this co-operative, including as it does six units, each carrying on within a smaller radius the work once centered in the main offices at Westfield. These units, under local directors, are concerned with securing improved contracts with the processing plants, and with cooperative purchase and distribution of fertilizer, feed, spray, and gasoline. Many of the grapes in the area are sold through this organization or the smaller, though similar, Portland Fruit-Growers' Association. "You've got to have a strong organization to stand up for the rights of the farmers," one of the directors told the writer. "And it works all right as long as the farmers stick together. The farmers around here are a pretty independent lot though. They'll stay with the association as long as it gets better prices for them. But just let another company offer them a better individual price, and there's a lot of them who'll withdraw their membership just like that—and then want to come back in the next year if it looks like the association can help them." "That's true all right," another grape-grower attested. "Just something about fanners. They won't co-operate . . . even when it's perfectly clear

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that it's to their own good, they won't co-operate. Oh, no, that's not true of all of them. In fact, I'd say as a rule they're getting better. But there's still enough individualists among us that some years we have a pretty difficult time." When prices went down and stayed down in 1929 and the early thirties, C. & E., eager as always to reduce the spread between grower and consumer prices, bought up an abandoned wine factory at Brocton, converted it into an unfermented juice plant, and processed their own grapes for several years. "Got along fine, too, until about 1934," a unit official recalls. "Then payment on grapes for one reason and another got to be a little slow—the association couldn't always pay the farmers on delivery. And some of those chaps who had their money already spent, they just couldn't wait around any more. They got control of things, talked a lot of farmers into it, and sold the plant. And away went the goose that laid the golden egg. . . . There's many a farmer now," he added, "who wishes we had that plant back. It was taken over by some men from New York City though, and they've really made it a credit to the grape belt." Another venture of a co-operative nature in certain fundamental respects is the newest farm credit agency in the county, the branch of the Olean Production Credit Association recently set up in Fredonia. The Olean Production Credit Association, administered under the Farm Credit Administration, and serving Chautauqua and three neighboring counties, opened office in Olean in March, 1934. The Farm Credit Act of 1933 had provided for the establishment of such agencies to make short-term and immediate-term loans to fanners. There are more than seven hundred farm members of the four-county Production Credit Association, the writer was informed, including three hundred fifty in Chautauqua County. To become a member a farmer pays five dollars for each $100 or fraction of it that he borrows. The stock in non-assessable, and the farmers participate in any profits that accrue. "This is a splendid and dignified organization," an ex-officer proudly told the writer. "It is not set up as a welfare agency. We're not lending government money. Rather is it set up to lend good farmers money on a Wall Street basis. The fanner's note is used as security on bonds issued and sold to the American people. The farmer can't bonow the money, but the association can, for say 1 y2 percent. So the farmer pays the association 3 percent on what it borrows, making his total interest 4 % percent. Yes, it's a wonderfully set-up organization—just a bank for the farmer, to keep him in touch with the cheapest money in the world." The average loan among Chautauqua County members is $1,000.

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Personal security is accepted, such as cattle and horses. If the fanner's financial statement is favorable, no security is needed. The terms are short-loan, thirty months when borrowed for the purpose of buying cattle, horses, machinery, or home improvements. The recurring loans, for buying fertilizer, seed, etc., are to be paid within the year in which the loans are made. "The association was really set up," the ex-officer explained, "because the bankers of the country failed to understand the farmers. Bankers wanted to apply city standards to farmers, even when it was hard going for agriculture, and matters grew worse and worse. Times have changed now," he added triumphantly. "Banks are wanting farmers to borrow from them now. We're having to compete with the banks these days." The farmer whose application cannot be accepted is referred to the Farm Security Administration, which will accept real estate as security. On the other hand, for regular long-term loans, Chautauqua County farmers will usually apply to one of the Federal Land Banks, a semigovemment agency which since 1917 has made loans to the farmer whose security is good. Thus for Chautauqua County farmers, as for others, credit facilities since the depression have considerably expanded in response to needs which were threatening and grave. E. C. Johnson summarizes the national structure, of which the credit system in this area is a part: Under the Farm Credit Administration the country has been divided into twelve farm credit districts. In each district there is a federal land bank, which makes long term mortgage loans; a production credit corporation, which supervises the production credit associations making short-term loans; a federal intermediate credit bank, which serves as a dependable source of funds for financing institutions making short- and intermediate-term loans; and a bank for co-operatives extending credit to farmers' co-operative associations.23 The Farm Security Administration, replacing on a national scale the earlier Resettlement Administration, established its Chautauqua and Cattaraugus County offices in Little Valley, in 1937. Since that time it has carried on an active rehabilitation program among farm families of the lower income groups, primarily those families who were so hopelessly hit by the depression that, unaided, they were unable to make a comeback. At the time of the writer's conference with the acting farm supervisor, the staff of three—farm supervisor, assistant farm supervisor, and home supervisor—were working with about ninety active cases in rehabilitation. Their task included supervising loans applied for, for the

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purchase of cattle, machinery, and the like; helping to make plans for farm and home adjustments, such as advising a farmer to get rid of his old cows, to join the Dairy Herd Improvement Association, and otherwise advising, supervising, or giving technical assistance; encouraging co-operative buying and use of equipment and machinery; organizing a purchasing and marketing association among Farm Security borrowers, with other low-income farmers also encouraged to participate; helping to adjust long-standing debts to the fanners' ability to pay, through reduction of principal, reduction of interest, or extension of payments; and, especially in response to the war food-production demands, encouraging low-income farm families to produce their own milk, butter, and eggs. The staff was hoping that appropriations would one day be increased to make possible a more extensive program of farm and home improvement, to help all farm owners of the area to reach a decent minimum standard of living, including adequate diet, clothing, housing, and medical care. The slashing of appropriations for the Farm Security Administration since that time, however, has made the hope seem a futile one at present. Briefly, the F.S.A. program is on a low-interest rehabilitation loan basis, and the percentage of loans actually paid off in full to date runs unusually high. That there should be small losses on some of the loans, and larger losses on a few, is quite to be expected in view of the total agricultural picture. Outright grants have been made only in extreme cases, for subsistence needs, medical care, etc. Such grants might be made, for instance, in cases where poor eyesight, crippling rheumatism, or other forms of ill health have kept individuals from carrying out their plans; or where farmers simply have had no possible way of carrying on, yet because they own property, however worthless, they have been kept off the relief rolls. The chief causes of low income in Chautauqua and neighboring counties, according to the acting farm supervisor of the F.S.A., are "farm businesses" that are too small, and lack of diversification. There have been many cases of continuous specialization or one-crop production, he pointed out, on farms of insufficient size and quality to yield any positive returns. At one time farm woodlands supplemented the meager income on many such farms. But once the woodlands were gone and the areas inadequately reforested, if at all, this source too was cut off. Rehabilitation and low-interest loans answered a very urgent need, he explained, especially in times of unemployment and the resulting surge from the cities to the marginal farms of the county.

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The Rural Community and Its School

During the war, all of the farm organizations, along with the special committees set up for that purpose, tried hard to help fanners to meet the demands of wartime. The County Agricultural Defense Committee, working in collaboration with the New York State Defense Committee, was organized to deal with the problems arising from the war emergency. Much of their time was spent on plans and proposals for meeting the severe labor shortages already discussed in this study. Helping farmers to secure needed transportation facilities, farm machinery, and fertilizer, and in other ways to cope with new production demands were also closely related phases of the program. "No, we haven't done much about post-war agriculture yet," said a member shortly after the committee was set up. "We may get to that though, since this is a continuing committee. Of course, we're encouraging farmers right along not to go into debt, and to get the debts they already have cleared up. . . . I think we've pretty much learned our lesson—don't think we'll expand quite as much as we did during the last war. In many ways though, it's just the same as before . . . and whatever depression we have won't hit till years after the war. "Then if shops shut down again," he added grimly, "I guess we'll just have to bring 'em back on the farm again. They're better off out here, no matter what happens, than they are crowded together in tenement houses in the cities. . . . We just can't help those things, I guess, and the more you get to thinking about it, the more you find yourself just going around in circles." A year or so later, another agricultural leader observed, "Farmers of this area are expecting and preparing for another depression. We learned a few lessons from the last post-war period, and I doubt that we'll be so hard hit this time. For one thing, farmers are not expanding their business unduly as they did before. They can't—I guess that's the main reason. Shortages of machinery and labor are serving as a check on expansion this time—and I guess it's all to the good." That all farm families in the county are affected in some measure by the programs of these organizations is true, although very unevenly so. Many farmers, particularly the middle and more prosperous groups, belong to a number of organizations. These profit and contribute a great deal indeed. There are others, however—still the numerical majority— who for one reason or another are not joiners in any significant sense. The organization opportunities are there, and intensive publicity and membership campaigns are carried on from time to time throughout the county. As actual membership increases, more and more farmers respond to suggestion, careful experimentation, and recommendation.

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War pressures made a difference, too, as they did in all fields of endeavor. But compared to possibilities and to related achievement in the industrial world, the progress seems slow. So runs the story of farming in Chautauqua County today. So runs the great variety of conditions surrounding the families for whom farming is the major way of life and source of living. To these conditions the county's own public schools, except for the vocational program to be described later, have seemed to hold remarkably aloof.

CHAPTER

FOUR

The Farm, Home and Community T H E SAME TRENDS o f d i s t i n c t i v e n e s s a n d d i v e r s i t y w h i c h c h a r a c t e r i z e

farming in Chautauqua County are observable also among modes of farm family living. Farming is largely a family enterprise, as has been noted, with home and farm activities closely interrelated. And quite as the conditions of management and operation of the farms of the county have undergone marked changes over the past few decades, so too have home operations and patterns of living responded to modern pressures a n d d e m a n d s . F a r m families h a v e widely e x p a n d e d their c o n t a c t s in

recent years. More closely than ever before are they tied up with village, city, and national concerns and events. The county today is characterized by an increasing breakdown of rural isolation, and by growing urbanization, both of which have led to improved standards of living on the part of many though not all families.

HOUSING Farm homes throughout most of the county are roomy old two-story structures, the median number of rooms being just under eight. 1 Many of them are larger, over six hundred reporting eleven rooms or more. They are usually built of native lumber, and winged by an "L," a "T," or a series of extensions added on at the back, frequently with an open porch extending across the front or side, on which in all but sunny weather the family "wash" is usually hung out to dry. These homes were built in the main when families were large, 60 percent of them dating back more than fifty years, and over 25 percent, more than eighty years. Hence, with the steady declining of family size and the draining of rural youth to cities and villages—the median number of persons per household is now reported as fewer than four—the houses are proving too large in many instances for adequate upkeep or comfort. Many farm homes visible from the highways, and still more from the

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less-traveled roads, appear to be badly in need of a new coat of paint and other major repairs. In some of the more isolated sections roofs curl badly, broken window panes are stuffed with old clothing to keep out the cold, porch floors are sagging, and steps are almost rotted away. "Takes a mighty lot of paint to cover an old house like this," a farmer commented to the writer, proudly surveying the painting job which he and his fifteen-year-old son had been at for several days. "Folks are wondering, I guess, where we finally got the money for it. But we've been working pretty hard for a long time now, kids and all. And we haven't taken a trip any farther than from here to Jamestown for a good long time. Thought we'd rather wait and fix up the house a little first. It all depends, I suppose, on how folks want to use the money they get from their crops these days." One of the "old-agers" on the county welfare rolls, ill and unable to work on his old, run-down, once-attractive place, now overgrown with rambling shrubbery and half-dead old fruit trees, told the writer and a social case worker about a bad storm of the week before. "Yeah, it sure did rain. Came down in bucketfuls, I tell you . . . and everyone around here was complaining about how their house was a-leaking. This old house of ours leaks bad . . . it needs new shingling . . . every time it rains, we sure do get it. Put buckets around, and that helps some. Cost a lot o' money to put a new roof on this big house . . . the wife an' me'll never live to see it done." No more than a fourth of the farm homes of the county report any kind of central heating system. For heating also is difficult. The rooms are usually large with high ceilings. Hence most of the houses are heated only in part, usually by a wood-buming heater or "chunk-stove" in the living-room or "parlor"; and by the cook stove, 60 percent of them wood-burning also, in the large roomy kitchen where many farm families still gather of a winter evening. The Rural Electrification Administration and, to some extent, the private companies in the area are responsible for the fact that more than three-fourths of these homes are now lighted by electricity. This has made possible improved refrigeration and labor-saving household equipment for many farm families, though there are still a good many who cannot afford these improvements. Twenty-five percent reported some kind of mechanical refrigeration equipment in 1940. Others used ice or devised their own refrigeration schemes. Nearly 60 percent reported no refrigeration equipment whatever. Nor does electricity always insure adequate lighting. Understanding of the best use of electric lighting and other new conveniences and

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improvements does not come automatically to those long accustomed to antiquated equipment. The common single bulb suspended from high ceiling is all too often relied upon as the sole source of light in a room, even where reading, sewing, and other close work are in progress. In other cases, homes may be very healthfully lighted. Everything from oil lamps, in the farm homes still without electricity, to the most carefully selected reading lamps, may be found in these homes. All of the better and many of the medium-quality farm homes, so far as the writer has been able to learn, have both hot and cold water indoors. The 1940 census reports running water in half the farm homes, while something more than another fourth have indoor hand pumps. In the more prosperous homes, bathrooms too have been installed, although the outdoor septic tank toilets are common throughout the county. According to census figures, 60 percent of the farm families use outdoor toilets of one kind or another, and more than 70 percent of them do not have access to bathtub or shower. In many houses only the cold water is piped or pumped indoors; in others, outdoor pumps or wells are used within close distance. Occasionally, because of the demand of

numerous head of stock, water has been piped into the barn but not into the house. In 155 cases, according to the census report, there is no water at all within 50 feet. And in some of these, the writer was told, farm families are obliged to carry all their water in milk cans a distance of one, two, or three miles or more from a neighbor's pump. "Add to this the fact that in a substantial number of these homes," a county nurse reminds, "the little cash required for buying soap has to go instead for seed for next year's crop, and you see that family sanitation in some of the homes of the county has two strikes against it from the start." About one-third of the farm homes have telephones, an observable decrease since 1930 when the proportion stood close to one-half. Besides more convenient transportation facilities available, the greatly expanded use of radios at much lower operational costs and serving some of the same general functions as the telephone—still available to many through nearby neighbors—may account in part for this change. Nearly 85 percent of the homes have a radio of some sort, even though, in a number of cases, it is little more than an outmoded battery set. So the weather reports, the news, the time of day, and various emergency notices—such as the closing of schools or of highways because of a heavy snowstorm—formerly learned from rural telephone operators, come from the same outlay that furnishes a much wider range of listening appeal. Farm and Home Bureau programs, agricultural and marketing reports, systematic newscasts, a variety of "soap operas," professional

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drama, variety programs, cowboy songs, swing bands, classical symphony and opera, to say nothing of the carefully worked-in and embellished advertisements to which farm families are reputedly prone to respond—all are helping the once-isolated farm family to become one with the outer world. The role of the radio in the urbanization of rural living probably cannot be overestimated.

CLOTHING Throughout much of the county, the earlier distinction between country and village people with regard to dress also is rapidly disappearing. In many instances, to be sure, less of the farm family budget than of comparable village family budget goes for clothing. Although in both situations the trend toward purchase of the ready-made is notable, more of the clothing of women and girls is still made in the farm home than in the village. "And in some of our more conservative communities," the writer was informed, "even among those who can well afford more, farm families tend to make their suits, hats, and dresses do year in and year out. Children come to school in hand-me-downs or even in new clothes almost down to their ankles and then grow into them." But the central schools, the motion pictures, other village contacts, urban newspapers and magazines, and the mail order catalogue, are contributing to the increasing urbanization of rural dress. In most central schools, for example, it is becoming quite impossible to distinguish farm children from their village associates. Even among the less prosperous families, the trend has its effects. Farm children are becoming clothes-conscious at an earlier age than formerly and are bringing pressure to bear on their families as they realize that peculiarities in dress set them apart from "the crowd." Parents of many of these children have become similarly sensitive, to such degree that where financial conditions are very bad, they tend to avoid Parent-Teachers meetings or other village gatherings in order to save themselves and their children embarrassment in this regard. As common standards are accepted, the widened inequalities in means for achieving them become the more distressful.

FOOD It is assumed that farm families have a more healthful diet than do villagers or city folk. And in Chautauqua County as elsewhere, there

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are good reasons for such an assumption relative to a large number of families. Where milk, cream, butter, eggs, meat, garden vegetables and fruits all come from the farm itself, a wholesome fare may be assured. Even with the unprecedented degree of commercialization or cash-crop farming prevalent in the county, most of the farms produce for use some or all of the foods mentioned. This is far from true of all families, however. A county nurse observes: "It is surprising how little milk is drunk on some of our dairy farms. Sometimes it's because the children don't like milk. On many farms they have no refrigeration in warm weather and the animal taste still lingers in the milk. In other cases, especially on some of the poorer farms, only the food which cannot be sold is consumed by the family; and the milk is usually sold." Again, this is the case only with the minority; and it is with them that the diets are least adequate. Before the recent industrial boom—which opened opportunities for many heads of families who had previously derived their sole incomes from the poorer farms—there were among them adults and children who did not have enough to eat, and many more who did not and do not have the right kind of food, especially in winter. Often it is because they do not can or preserve foods. The better beans, the eggs, butter, milk, and, in some cases where they have been unable to get feed, the chickens, are all sold to get money for seed for the crops and feed for the stock. The diet in winter then may consist of bread, potatoes, and cabbage or meat. Children on such farms are undernourished and often poorly developed. These families of course are the least healthy generally. With poor land to begin with, a short growing season, uncertain weather, little equipment, and poor health and spirits, they struggle along to raise their crops and their stock—both of which are meager—eat inadequately, and rarely go to a physician for correction of defects. Mothers, badly nourished, seldom consult a physician when carrying children. Their babies, according to a county nurse, are frequently delivered by a neighbor or by one of the family, after which the doctor may or may not be called in. Of recent years many physicians in the county will deliver babies only in hospitals, where facilities are far too costly for families in these circumstances. Most farm families in the county live on a much better scale and are quite unaware that others of their number live so much less well. Nurses report, however, that even among the medium income groups and the more prosperous families, diets are frequently poorly balanced. This is sometimes due to dislike of certain healthful foods; to a lack on some farms of the fresh, leafy vegetables and the inconvenience of getting

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to market to buy them; to an almost traditional preference of farm people for the heavier, starchy foods—bread, cereals, and potatoes—and to a lack of simple knowledge or concern as to what constitutes a good diet. Free literature, designed to improve the diet of America, has been made available through various channels, but it still does not reach many families most in need of it. Nutrition classes taught in the villages have included comparatively few farm women. As always, the Home Bureau is doing a great deal in this regard. Canning or preserving of foods is taking place on an increased scale. "We haven't a member of our Home Bureaus who doesn't can," the County Demonstration Agent asserted. And although county nurses report that canning is not done to any appreciable degree among the very poorest families, who do not belong to the Home Bureau, it is increasingly significant throughout the county as a whole. The homemaking and home economics departments in the high schools have contributed to varying degree. The encouragement of home gardens has had an important effect in the past few years, although there are still dairy and poultry farms where all efforts are concentrated upon these more specialized enterprises, and family food is purchased with the returns from eggs and milk. In some cases this is because labor can be more profitably used in this way than in raising a garden. In others, especially in the higher, colder regions, the growing season may be too short for the maturing of garden vegetables; or on farms in the poorer land classes, the soil is not rich enough to yield a successful garden, regardless of effort. One of the dairy farms visited by the writer where the soil was reputedly poor, lay up in the hills in a delightfully scenic spot. "Scenic enough maybe, but what's the difference!" the farm wife responded bitterly. "I don't like this place, and I've never liked it. Came from Illinois twenty years ago, and I've wished ever since then we hadn't a' come. Not a thing on the place this year. Well, we do have a few chickens, a couple of turkeys . . . and a cow for our butter and milk, thank heavens! But no garden . . . it won't grow. We planted it the first time, but it just wouldn't come up. The second time the rain washed it out, potatoes and all. Corn didn't do anything either. That's what I say, you can't raise anything here. When you have to go to the mill and buy the feed for your cows and chickens, can't raise it like we did in Illinois, then where can you expect to get off? If you've ever been in Illinois, you know how in those western states you can raise anything. But here . . . I say about it here: You can't even raise an umbrell' around here." A scant dozen miles from this scene of discouragement lies the fruit

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belt, with its rich fertile gardens and vineyards stretching along the highway for all passers-by to admire. An old resident of the fruit belt took a different view of the situation: "But why do we hear all this fuss about poor land . . . and poor families not able to get on? If they were willing to farm, they'd do all right. Take almost any land in this county, and not a very big piece of it either, and it'll provide a good living for any farm family. I don't say they can make a living, but they can raise a living, everything they need . . . and what if they don't have anything to sell on the market? They'd be well taken care of, that's what I always say. But the fanners today they just aren't willing. . . ." No, the farmers of Chautauqua County just are not willing or even able to live as the farmers did in the days of the old man voicing these words. They have been exposed to and affected by too much of the changing world around them to settle back contentedly into the old mold. "Technology has brought new goods and services to the market and thus enlarged the list of human wants. Standards of what constitutes an adequate living have changed too as science has increased our understanding of human needs." a The old patterns of self-sufficiency and isolation of the farm home of even a generation ago have tended to fade out together. The telephone and the rural free delivery have played important roles in the process. With the latter has come increased subscription to urban newspapers and magazines. "Few farms are without a daily paper any more, at least in most sections," the writer was informed. "And many families take a local weekly, an agricultural publication, and one or two women's magazines which we like to exchange with our neighbors." Those able to meet the village library hours have further access to books and periodicals. As earlier mentioned, the central schools and the radio have played an important part here. But probably the most far-reaching force to affect this process, to open the floodgates for practically all of the changes in farm family living, is the automobile. Only when the pinch of gasoline shortages was felt so keenly, did farm folk begin to sense the degree to which the family car—whether a smooth new passenger car, or a half-ton truck with an old quilt thrown into the back for the children to sit on—has made possible their present mode of living. HEALTH AND WELFARE AGENCIES The welfare program in Chautauqua County is set up on a township and county basis, with a welfare officer selected from each township

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to work under the direction of the County Welfare Office, which in turn is supervised by the State Welfare Commissioner and his staff. The services, most of them jointly financed from county, state, and federal funds, include old age assistance, aid to the blind, aid to dependent children, and home relief, the last of which is administered through the town welfare officers. There are special county case workers and supervisors to administer the other services. The case load varies in different parts of the county and at different periods of time. Townships in the southwestern part of the county, for instance, have consistently the smallest load of "old agers" receiving assistance. Opinions differ as to reasons for this. Some feel that it is because the Holland Dutch in those parts are conservative and economical and can fare adequately with much less than most. Others attribute it to the pride and independence of these people; and still others, to the strength of the family ties in the particular area. With regard to the case loads generally, there is discernible though apparently not very significant correlation of soil and financial conditions as a whole. It seems that every part of the county has some farm folk who, for one reason or another, sometimes temporarily and sometimes for a longer period, need the help of the Welfare Office. The work of the Farm Security Administration has made an important difference to this group, including both long-time residents and new. Emergency employment opportunities have lightened the relief load, although it has never been particularly high among farm people, apart from "the shifters and drifters and careless folk," in the words of a former county judge, "the slums of the country really, who picked up the abandoned land and cheaper places, and who seem to like best of all the rundown skimpy places around the villages." Even among this group the case load has not been as great as in the villages and cities, with regard to either welfare or court cases. "Only a fringe, and a pretty narrow fringe at that," the same judge observed, "of a rural community ever gets into the courts. But what crime there is in these rural areas," he added, "very definitely comes from this group of newcomers." In addition to the Welfare Office, there are several other agencies set up especially to serve boys and girls, rural as well as others, and particularly those growing up under the most obvious disadvantages. The Children's Bureau, the Catholic Charities, the Children's Health Camp sponsored by the County Tuberculosis Association and paid for by the sale of seals, the County Health Commission served by township health officers and county nurses, are all seeking to minister to the needs of "disadvantaged" children and youth. The Children's Bureau and the

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Children's Court serve to meet problems of a somewhat different nature, although the correlation quite naturally is apparent between unwholesome moral and social conditions and unfortunate economic or physical conditions. It is interesting to note, however, that the case load of these latter agencies among the farm boys and girls of Chautauqua County is reported to be almost negligible. "Whenever we do get a boy in the court," the county judge affirmed, "it is a clear indication every agency that deals with that boy has failed—the home has failed, the school has failed, the church, and the whole community—all have failed to give the boy the kind of satisfactions he needs for normal well-rounded development." The health program of the county, like the welfare program, is administered in terms of both county and township, under the supervision of the County Public Health Committee, and more indirectly of the District State Health Office at Jamestown, one of twenty such in New York State. Each township has its own health officer, with whom one of the three county nurses, each responsible for a certain portion of the county, works very closely on whatever health problems demand their attention. "The nurses are the only link between the homes and doctors who are far removed from the rural families, doctors whose hours are already too filled to make the visits demanded of them." 8 Designed to give especial emphasis to the educational and constructive aspects of health, the county nursing program includes well-baby clinics or child health conferences, conducted monthly in each of about half the townships, toxoid and smallpox clinics, home nursing classes, health service clubs, bedside visits, maternity care, follow-up work on syphilis, tuberculosis, and other diseases. The county nurses work closely with the school nurses and with the teachers in the schools where there is no school nurse, also with the Newton Memorial Tubercular Hospital and Children's Health Camp at Cassadaga. General hospital facilities in the county are reputedly inadequate, insufficient as they are to meet even the urban demands. Only a small number of farm families enjoy the benefits of group hospitalization. Although enrollment increased somewhat during the war as farm people went into industrial employment, group medical programs of any sort have made comparatively little headway in the county. The writer learned from a number of sources that this was due in large part to strong opposition and discouragement on the part of the state and county medical bodies, in line with the attitude of the American Medical Association. An editorial in an issue of the semi-weekly Grape Belt and Chautauqua Farmer a few years ago expressed a phase of it as follows:

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The bureau of medical economics of the American Medical Association has declined to put its stamp of approval on the various plans of group hospitalization. The group charges that this is too often a scheme to augment hospital income rather than to assist the needy to obtain hospital services. . . . The bugbear in the minds of the doctors, always, is state medicine. They see in group hospitalization a step or an entering wedge to group medicine and state medicine, a possibility which they seem to abhor. But there is no reason why a public, anxious to solve its own economic problems, should be deterred from a sound plan of group hospitalization, or if you will, hospital insurance, by the terrors which the doctors seem to have of state medicine. . . . 4

COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS The organized group life of the farm folk varies throughout the county, though of recent years it has tended to become increasingly village-centered. The earlier crossroads centers and smaller villages are more and more on the wane as the process of centralization and concentration of community life goes on. Local merchants are reported as saying: "If the storm keeps up and the roads are bad, we'll have a good run of business here. But if it clears up and the highways are good, then people will go to Jamestown or Buffalo to do their Christmas shopping." "The central schools have hit hard at all these other things," a village minister, also pastor of a small country church, points out. "For the central school more than almost anything else, aided by the automobile, has attracted farm people to the village, sapping the real interest more and more from the small community projects. Communities are less unified on that account." Just as one community differs from another in the extent and intensity of its support of the church, or the schools, or political groups—to each of which a chapter of this study will be given—so also does it differ with regard to other group activities. The Granges (Patrons of Husbandry) carry on local educational and social programs in various communities, although their membership has gradually tapered off as other organizations and interests have expanded and intensified. "Many farmers stay in it down our way," one man remarked, "so they can get in on the reduced insurance terms for members. No very active program any more. The few people still interested attend the Grange

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in a neighboring village." In most communities membership tends to be of the older generation, although there are others in which the younger people too are active. "It all depends on the Grand Master," one town supervisor contended. "For several years our Grange hadn't amounted to anything. A few irregular programs or parties were arranged, but not many people turned out to any of them. Now we have a new Grand Master, a man who is a real leader and knows how to get things done. And people who hadn't attended a Grange meeting in years are very active." Many of the farm men and women, as earlier pointed out, belong to the Farm and Home Bureau, which in Chautauqua County is practically synonymous with the County Agricultural Extension Service. The Home Bureau, in most cases organized on a township or village basis, seems to attract village women more than farm women in most communities, although some units include many of the latter. Only about 300 of the county's 1,012 Home Bureau families overlap the Farm Bureau membership. "We tend to get the best people in Home Bureau," the Home Demonstration Agent contended. And these "best people"

seem to find the program highly satisfying. Regular lessons, demonstrations, and activities of various kinds, having to deal especially with information and techniques for improving homemaking and family living, are interspersed with or accompanied by recreational functions. The Home Bureau is felt by many to be the most effective program of adult education for women carried on in the county. That it reaches such a small portion of the women on Chautauqua County's 5,500 farms seems not to be commonly realized. The Farm Bureau is set up to serve in a different way, as earlier described. It deals directly and specifically with individual and county agricultural problems as they arise, with small meetings or clinics or schools scheduled at appropriate time and place to consider problems of specific and frequently technical nature. Except for the annual County Farm and Home Bureau Conference, the bureau as a whole is seldom called together. Nor are there organized units as in the Home Bureau, Instead, committeemen selected from each community help to localize their program. About 2,300 of the county's 5,500 farmers belong to the Farm Bureau, although among the 2,200 farmers not so reached are many who are greatly in need of just such help as the Farm Bureau offers. Again, the materials and services of the Agricultural Extension Service, financed jointly by the county and the State and Federal Departments of Agriculture, are available through the Farm and Home

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Bureau Offices to all for the asking. This seems not to be widely known among farm families outside the Farm Bureau membership. A third arm of the County Bureau, the 4-H Club, deriving its name from the pledge of its members to better living through improvement of Head, Heart, Hands, and Health, reaches about a thousand farm boys and girls of Chautauqua County and is considered by many to be the most vital educational force affecting farm boys and girls of the county. It is made up of farm youth from ten to twenty-one years of age. There are sixty 4-H Clubs in Chautauqua County, operated on a local community basis, with a growing membership fairly evenly divided between boys and girls. A full-time county agent, government-employed, is in charge of the county program, with about eighty-five men and women volunteers from the local communities serving as club leaders. No dues or membership fees are required. Most of the boys enrolled are carrying on agricultural projects, while the girls pursue home projects of various kinds. There are a few girls who work at the agricultural projects also—gardening, raising of dairy cattle and poultry, and in the case of a dozen or so, the raising of colts. At the same time, some of the boys are studying foods and a few of them doing some work on the care and grooming of clothing. Out-ofschool youth make up a small but very active part of the membership. Only a few of the enrolled girls, and about one seventh of the boys, are also taking vocational agriculture in the high schools. It is reported that the 4-H Clubs bear no relation to the elementary schools of the county. The projects are all carried on after school hours or during vacation period. Six or eight of the leaders are teachers, but not in their home communities where the 4-H Clubs meet. This is interesting to note, since from 1919 to 1930, the New York State Department of Education provided a part of the funds for the several counties with county agents, and the county administrative unit included a representative of the District Superintendent of Schools. The Department withdrew the funds in 1930, and the Club Leader's Office, formerly with the Department of Rural Education, became an administrative division of the Extension Service. In 1931, the Farm Bureau and Home Bureau constitutions were revised so that the 4-H or Junior Department and the two bureaus could henceforth operate as three co-ordinated divisions. During this time, in fact until 1937, there was no county organization of 4-H Clubs in Chautauqua County. For several years a few active clubs, with self and local financial help and whatever help and counsel

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the Farm Bureau was able to give them, were running along pretty much on their own. It was they who formed the nucleus which created the demand for the county organization in 1937. Since then the movement has been steadily growing, making a significant contribution to living in rural areas, building upon and extending as it does the rural backgrounds and interests of youth. T h e club handbooks are made available to both leaders and members, and letters are frequently sent out containing information needed on the specific projects to be carried through. A close record of progress is kept, and the leader, in addition to advising group functions, gives counsel on the individual projects. Gardening is always the most popular project with the members, especially home and market gardening with one or two special crops. Every farm family should have a garden, 4-H Clubs advise; and as far as their own families go, these boys and girls are seeing that the advice is followed. Other projects that have had wide appeal are dairying; poultryraising; forestry; bee-keeping; the raising of sheep, swine, or baby beef; agricultural engineering, such as rope work, soldering, elementary electric repairing, care of tools, gasoline engine projects; as well as the long list of homemaking projects dealing with various aspects of food, clothing, and shelter. During the war, special war-demand projects, such as scrap metal and paper drives, were also a part of the program. Not only is the work of the 4-H Clubs proving profitable to its membership, but parents too are able to see the value of many of the improved and efficient techniques employed by their young sons and daughters. Furthermore, curiously enough, only about one-third of the members are from families belonging to Farm or Home Bureau, which means that much of the educational material of these agencies is reaching the farm families through their youth. T h e Future Farmers of America, a much smaller group, is sponsored directly by the vocational agriculture departments of the high schools, and will be described in the following chapter. There are also other groups who serve Chautauqua's farm children and youth. Religious and educational functions once almost wholly assumed by the family have more and more become institutionalized as a part of farm community life and, much more frequently in recent years, of village life. T h e Sunday Schools, Bible classes, week-day religious schools, young people's groups and the like, located in country or village, draw on farm youth, though in assertedly minor proportions. T h e same tends to b e true of Boy and Girl Scouts and of Girl Reserves. In a few scattered instances, the Junior Grange, the Junior Co-operators, and other small

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groups attract the interest of farm boys and girls. Needless to say there are many farm children and youth of Chautauqua County unreached by any organization save the schools. This tends to be true on a family scale in many instances. A large number of farm families in the county, as already stressed, especially among the newer and poorer groups, are quite untouched by the social and agricultural programs of the organizations and agencies. It is pretty generally the same farm folk who belong to the Grange or to Farm or Home Bureau who also are Masons, Odd Fellows, or Rebekahs, the activities of which are almost wholly village-centered. Their strongholds differ throughout the county. But it tends to be the more or less prosperous group of farm men and women who are the "joiners," who tend to participate most consistently in organized community life. The answer is not wholly economic; but conditions affecting the economic seem also to affect the social, and in somewhat similar degree. The great group of farm families unaffiliated with any community organization is not confined to any particular portion of the county. Every community shelters some part of this group. In each of several townships or smaller farm communities a number of farm men and women have long found social satisfaction through what are termed Farmers' Clubs. In a few communities also Health Service Clubs are functioning, and farm women especially find opportunity for leadership and activity in such organizations. The Conservation Club in the environs of the county seat includes a large number of farmers as well as villagers. Other organizations throughout the county draw also on small numbers of farmers.

RECREATION Most of these groups contribute importantly to recreational life in rural areas, although membership in most of them is reputedly dwindling. The Health Service Club in one of the towns, for instance, draws a dozen members to its meetings now, whereas a few years ago three or four times that number turned out regularly. Apart from emergency employment which for a time lowered the attendance of both men and women groups, the general trend toward concentration of rural activities in villages and larger centers has played havoc with organized life within the farm communities. The motion picture house, the bowling alley, the high school gymnasium and extra-curricular program, together with the automobile which makes all of these attractions avail-

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able, are greatly changing the recreation habits of the farm families of Chautauqua County. They too are becoming rapidly urbanized, except in the more isolated and remote communities, or those in which the church or other community groups deliberately provide a local recreation program. While the farm home is in many instances still the scene of much gayety and group recreation, it is gradually relinquishing the hold that it had in earlier days. The schools, unconsciously or no, have strengthened this trend. "We used seldom to think of leaving our farm for a good time," one farm-bred teacher observed, "except, of course, as we exchanged visits with other families. Farm life itself provided enough variety. W e used to take our picnic down into the gully beyond our cornfield; bring pans of fresh snow into the kitchen to do some 'sugaring off'; munch pop corn and apples and play games before the grate-fire in the living room; skate on the ice or swim in the pond by our pasture; ride our ponies or even our work horses all over the place; and otherwise spend our leisure hours on our own property." Such customs persist in Chautauqua County, but to much less intensive degree as commercialization makes its inroad. Barn dances are becoming fewer; it is only seldom that one hears of the old-time community square dance being enjoyed by whole families until the wee hours of the morning. Communities vary widely here. One of the county nurses tells of a recent wedding in a Dutch community attended by five or six hundred of all ages, the women from all over the township having baked beans and made pies and cakes and other preparations for the occasion. Church suppers, family reunions, and similar festivities are still a part of the picture in many communities. And the County Fair, held at the fair grounds at Dunkirk each September, continues to draw the farm people from all over the area to participate in as well as to watch recreational activities and to view the agricultural, homemaking, floral, and other exhibits. The 4-H Club exhibits are particularly attractive; they are a satisfaction to proud parents as well as to the young folks whose responsible, constructive, and long-term efforts produced them. It seems to be the contention, however, of all of those who work closely with youth outside the schools—the 4-H Club County Agent, the Y.M.C.A. Director, ministers Protestant and Catholic, county nurses, child welfare leaders, the county probation officer, the county judge, and others—that there is a crying need in Chautauqua County for more constructive and challenging recreational opportunities for farm children and youth, particularly for those who tend to be cut off from the various village activities. They are disturbed by the growing com-

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mercialization of village recreation and the almost complete lack of recreational opportunities for many of the farm youth. The schools are doing something, they acknowledge, but not nearly enough. The responsibility is community-wide, of course; all agencies and individuals should be concerned. "What we need is leadership," one county worker contends, "—leadership and initiative. And in our rural areas we don't seem to have it." Others feel that the potential leadership is there if only some organized group will set off the spark. In a few communities, to be sure, such impetus has already been given by the church or some other agency.

FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS With this breakdown of isolation and the increased and diversified contacts of individual members, old family relationships quite naturally are changing. The austere parental authority of a generation or two ago is markedly on the wane for the most part, and has all but disappeared in many of the homes in rural Chautauqua County. As children spend more time at school, especially in the central school with village classmates and teachers, and less and less time working directly with their parents, they grow more independent and assertive. Differences between farm parents and their children tend to be more pronounced. As a minister in one of the rural communities pointed out: "Some of these farm youngsters, when they get into the eighth or ninth grade in a central school, have had as much schooling as their parents; and not realizing the value of long and varied experience, try to tell their parents what is right and what is wrong." Another rural minister elaborated on the same idea: "True enough. And the children can come into the village affairs all dressed up, can carry themselves well, and are just as much at ease as the village children. Many times their parents can't hold a candle to them." In some cases this makes for more or less strained relationships. The young people come to look down on their parents as somewhat unpolished and "countrified." They hesitate to bring their village friends home with them, without first cautioning father to change from his milking clothes before coming in, or otherwise carefully preparing family and home for receiving guests accustomed to the accepted ways and manners of village life. "The first year I came into town to school," a young village wife recollects, "I was very conscious of being a fanner's daughter . . . the only one in the room who wore high-top shoes, I

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remember. As I came to associate more and more with village friends, I grew away from my family. I felt ashamed of them, I must admit, though I wouldn't have them know it for the world. And when it was my turn to have the Epworth League, I was ashamed of our house too, and was always afraid that something would go wrong." There is a wide difference among the boys and girls of the county. There are many who take great pride in living on the farm, who have experienced with their fathers the esthetic satisfaction of working on the land and with the herds. Boys and girls the county over have taken to poultry raising, sometimes as their own independent projects and sometimes as part of the family enterprise on a much more extensive scale. There are those who work at fruit and vegetable farming also. The work is hard and the hours are often long; berry moth, poor soils, labor shortages, and marketing difficulties cause frequent headaches. But many young people take these things in their stride, and they like it. Life on the farm, above everything else, is what they prefer. There are increasing numbers of others who, as they grow older, tend to resent farm responsibilities and hard work once acceptcd without question. They desire to have the leisure and comforts and to follow the fashions of young village classmates. Traditional farm family modes and cherished clichés of the elders are annoying in contrast. Financial stresses pinch and limit. The adolescents become restless and tend to seek the material satisfactions of the moment which radio, billboard, and an occasional movie, endow with such novel and popular appeal. While this trend is less marked among farm than among non-farm youth of the county, it is coming to be more general throughout rural areas. Under the impact of new ways of living, expanded social relationships and interests, old institutional ties grow less binding. Subject to outside and frequently contrary influences, youthful ideas and outlooks generally tend to veer from old family traditions much more than in earlier times. The increased capacity of agriculture to produce and the shift from crude self-sufficient farm patterns have meant that the amount of time and energy required of the family to meet subsistence demands has been considerably diminished. Children and youth today do not put in the long hours of hard work on most Chautauqua farms that were required of their fathers and grandfathers as children. Many of them have their chores, it is true—carrying in wood, feeding the calves, milking several cows night and morning, cleaning the barns, helping to plow and to plant in the spring, feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs, and other such farm and household duties—for which they are held respon-

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sible even during the school season. In summer work hours are longer, especially for the older children. Some work on the home farm; others find work for the season picking fruit and vegetables on someone else's farm; still others may do non-farm work entirely for the summer, picking up a job in a nearby factory, in a summer hotel at Chautauqua, at a village lunch counter. And so boys and girls are less confined than formerly to their home farms and families, and their hours of work for the most part are shorter. Much less is required of them especially during the school term. They are given time for homework and study, and a great deal more time then ever before for extra-curricular activities of the school and for their own independent leisure. So it is only natural in a growing number of homes that farm parents have less influence over their children, and that farm children develop ideas and desires and ambitions quite foreign to those of a generation or two ago. Especially does this seem to be true where the parents take an uncompromising attitude, where one or the other of them holds firmly and doggedly to his old ideas. "Take some of these hard-headed dyed-inthe-wool old farmers who are so sure that what was good enough for them is good enough for their children," the writer was advised, "and you'll see that they keep their families in continual disagreement. Almost everything that happens leads to haggling. Yes, the unbending attitude of parents causes a great deal of difficulty in some of our old farm families." "Most of the parents though," another informant observed, and the former agreed, "and certainly the wise parents, are doing some adjusting themselves. It is a mutual adjustment that is going on—children and parents working their problems out together. There are disagreements, yes, and some pretty serious problems cropping up. But they go at it with the spirit of give and take." In communities whose contacts with village and city life have been fewer, traditional family relations are much more apt to persist. Children tend to be better satisfied with the fundamental home and farm customs of their fathers when they have had but fragmentary glimpses of other ways of life. These people still function socially, religiously, and agriculturally as family units. Nationality backgrounds seem to make a difference, too. The Holland Dutch in the southwestern part of the county, and the great group of "home-loving Swedes" in the southeastern, can always count on some one of the sons or sons-in-law to take over the operation of the family farm. Many of the Polish families and some of the Italians are still closely-knit family units in many ways. Again we see growing diversity. Family living in rural Chautauqua

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County is far from a simple and measurable affair. It differs from community to community and from family to family. For the most part, however, in the tumult of conflicting pressures, demands, and attractions, both the youth and their parents are hard put to it to make their decisions and set their goals. Often there are differences of opinion as the youth set off for greener, more adventurous, and more remunerative fields; and values long held and deeply cherished go by the board. "I think the schools are responsible for a lot of the trouble," an old resident reflects, and the writer has heard others voice these sentiments, "especially the big central schools. The teachers, many of them, don't know very much about farm life. And the boys and girls come to leam a lot about village and city ways. And first thing you know they get to think that living on a farm isn't good enough for them . . . get their heads full of ideas about how they can do big things and make more money without having to work so hard. They think money is everything. Now if these young girls from the normal schools are going to teach farmers' children, they ought to learn something about living on a farm first . . . and like it. Then maybe the boys and girls'd think it was all right to stay on the farms—not all of them, but a lot of them. If we don't do something like that pretty soon, we're not going to have many good farmers left in this county before long." It is not only the children whose ideas about life are affected by village contacts. More and more activities once largely restricted to home and farm communities are shifting to the village, quite as village life shifts currently to still larger centers. Members of the farm family go to town to do the shopping, to see the movies, to attend the basketball game, to participate in federated or village church activities, to attend Home or Farm Bureau or 4-H Club meetings, and sometimes the Grange, the Masons, Odd Fellows, Rebekahs. As a result of these contacts, farm life is changing at the insistence not only of the children, but also of the men and especially of the women. The changing role and increasing status of the women, though not as marked as in villages and cities, is strongly evident here. All of these changes bring their repercussions. In instances where they are thought through and dealt with by the farm family as a group, they unify the family in the process; in many others, as already indicated, they are causing strained relationships and divisions in the family. The distorted conditions of wartime further accentuated the confusion, particularly of the youth. Growing up in rural Chautauqua County today is not the simple, well-rounded though vigorous process it was in the earlier rural communities.

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GROWING UP IN EARLY CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY For life in early Chautauqua County, as described in previous chapters, was all of a piece. The home, the farm, the neighborhood, and even the early village conspired to make it so. The old Chautauqua family functioned as a unit in many ways. Families were large; and children learned very early to carry responsibility, conscious of the fact that the success of the family enterprise was significantly affected by the quality of their own performance, conscious further of the stem authority which bade them hold the line and do their share. For the fanner was the leader of the family in the daily work. He ruled his family rigorously, in some cases harshly, priding himself on the amount of work his wife could do, on her economic and efficient management, and on the amount he could "get out" of his boys. The strength of habit of the early days cannot be understood without constantly keeping in mind the necessity of long hours of hard work and the director of the work keeping the family at it. Industrious habits are not in line with the impulses of the young and the father of the family was intent on keeping the family at work, that they might not lose their industry. He himself had been so trained; he "never let up" himself; and his habit was to hold others to their work without any let up. This applied not only to economic habits but to all others. No child was allowed to stay off from work or to indulge himself in any other way or to stay home from church. Every habit was as important as every other in the sense that a letting down in any one would encourage a general letting down. The father always took the lead in this strenuous life. As he gave his boys a stint of work for the day, so he gave himself one. . . . The boys might fear him and dislike the monotony of the strenuous life, but they respected him. His power of discipline required that he never ask them to do what he would not do himself." Life was rigorous, but it was unified and simple. Each experience had meaning and a clear-cut relational quality. Children and adults alike were in on the process of things vastly more than they are today. Products used in home and field were for the most part made or grown in home and field. When something was needed, something was made to fill the need, with all the necessary processes executed in the home, on the farm, or in the neighborhood. The hats and suits and shoes they wore, the food they ate, the chairs or benches they sat upon, the tools

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they used, were all products of processes which young and old knew well from beginning to end. More often than not the children could boast of their own part in the handiwork. Consider, for example, the learning experiences involved in the following pages, written in 1885, from the story of an old Chautauqua settler, experiences which were common to both old and young of early Chautauqua County: In nearly all the log cabins of fifty years ago would be seen the big and little [spinning] wheels in active operation by the mother and girls of the family. The mother would be seated at the little wheel, distaff in hand, one foot upon the treadle, the other jogging the cradle at her side. . . . In one corner, one of the girls would be seated beside a basket of tow, carding it into bolts one foot long and two inches wide, with a pair of hand cards, while the sister would be moving backward and forward with nimble steps beside the big wheel, full 12 feet in circumference, and spinning these bolts into yarn. It was quite a knack to operate one of these and give it the proper flop and swing, it being held in the left hand, but it was quickly made and occupied much less room than the long-armed four-headed clock reel. During the winter and early spring it was the business of the women to manufacture sufficient tow and linen cloth for the summer clothing of the family and to replenish the bedding. . . . The mother and girls claimed the clear linen and for dresses they would make a piece checked or striped with copperas, and when starched or ironed who will say the girls were not as attractive and winsome as those of the present day with their quirks, kinks, and dingle-dangles of numberless patterns of butterfly orientations? . . . Weaving was always performed by women, one or more skilled in the work being found in every neighborhood. The price for weaving plain tow, linen or flannel cloth, was about six cents a yard, and from six to ten yards was a good day's work, the quills being wound by the aid of the swifts and quill wheel by one of the children of the family. We have a vivid recollection of winding the quills for a strong healthy woman who wove twenty yards of flannel in one day, but such cases were exceptional and was only possible where there was great strength and activity and little breaking in the warp and filling. These tow and linen cloths being manufactured into pants, shirts and frocks for the men and boys and dresses for the women and girls, sheets, pillow cases and towels for all, they were soon engaged in the manufacture of flannel for winter garments. Every farmer owned a flock of sheep and they were carefully yarded

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nightly to protect them from the wolves. . . . The wool being taken from the sheep it was hurried off to the carding machine where it was made into rolls. Soon the girls are all busy again at the spinning wheel. A day's work was thirty knots of warp or forty knots of filling. Some of the most active would spin twice this amount. Frequently two or three wheels would be seen in operation in the same household. . . .« Few indeed of the processes of living or of making a living were beyond the geographic horizons or manual skill of the young of early Chautauqua County. They learned much from direct experience and could sense the thrill of accomplishment. Again to quote the county's Judge Bugbee: Necessity would often compel the children of tender age to labor in the fields in picking up the bits of brush and light chunks of rotten wood that would impede cultivation. . . . Boys from seven to ten years of age were required to go to mill, often six to eight miles distant. The father would fill the bag about two-thirds full, divide it in the middle, throw it over the saddle and strap it on with the stirrup straps and mount the boy on top of the grist, telling him to look out for the mud puddles and hang on to the mane. After the grist was ground the miller always went through the same strapping and mounting process. . . . In times of drouth the Rapids, Dexterville, or Kennedyville [mills] were the main dependence of a large section of the county. At such times a wagon would be loaded by the neighbors with a few bushels [of wheat] for each and with two or three boys for company and a yoke of oxen for a team would creep away to mill at the rate of about two miles an hour, never returning until the next day. The miller would usually keep us over night.7 As the children grew older, though still of what is now public school age, they frequently worked with their fathers at felling the trees, preparing the black salts for market, tilling the soil, sowing the seed, harvesting the crops, hunting the wild game, tanning hides, caring for the oxen. Family ties were strong in those days; and the problem of one, to quite an impressive degree, was the problem of all, whatever the age. Preparing for winter or building the new woodshed was not solely a job for adults. And it was the concern of all, even to the youngest, when pests infested the fields, wolves got the sheep, old Bossy gave birth to twin calves, Genesee Fever hit the farmhouse of the neighbor down in the hollow.

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Long hours of work and great physical hardship tended towards even greater unification. For in those days, "all suffered hardships; none, wellto-do or poor, could escape them. The summer's heat was oppressive to the haymakers," writes Williams, "the winter's cold benumbing to the woodsmen. The constant exertion through long hours made work, inside and out, excessively wearisome." 8 Hedrick gives a vivid picture of the hardships of unusually cold weather in 1816: There was much suffering in the winter. The houses built of illyseasoned logs, floored with planks, if floored at all, let in the stinging cold of winter through cracks and chinks, and rifts of snow sifted through in every winter gale. Beds were snow-covered in upper rooms, and bed-coverings were fringed with congealed breath. Night after night, food, water, and moisture-soaked clothing and boots froze solidly. Bread and meat had to be thawed at the fire-place before they could be cut. The freshly cut timber in a house cracked in zero weather like rifle shots in the cold. The sick and disabled suffered terribly under winter conditions. Chilblains were universal, no one was spared, feet and hands long and often exposed to cold became swollen and inflamed with almost unendurable itching and pain and sometimes ulceration. The ailment was slight and never dangerous but so woefully uncomfortable that school children and guests might take off shoes and stockings without impropriety to attend to chilblained feet.9 Children's informational background then, garnered largely through the real and severe experiences of which early pioneer life in Chautauqua County was made, differed little from that of their parents. In truth, their experiences, frequently in the company of adults and much the same as theirs, bred similar traits and outlooks. "Children derived their religious, political, and other beliefs about as they did their table manners." 10 They were "constantly exhorted to do and think as their parents did and thought. The father and mother made it a point to agree in all their beliefs, as in all requirements of the children, in order that the parental authority might not be weakened by disagreement." 11 Throughout the first several decades of settlement, it was the parents who assumed responsibility for the religious and educational training of the young. Recreation, too, was an integral part of family living. And of course the vocational training down through the years was mainly the passing on from father to son, through the effective and usually rigorous method of working together, of the fundamentals of agricultural living

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which the father had come by in similar fashion. Children developed resourcefulness, self-reliance, endurance, and remarkable versatility of skills because the actual situations in which they lived both demanded and fostered such traits. As time went on and settlers tended to cluster, the same became true on a neighborhood, village, or town scale. Goods were exchanged as the settlements grew; gristmills, lumber mills, tanneries sprang up, and neighborhood and village stores were opened. Even with the shift of manufacture from the home to the village factory, the process was still within reach. Children could watch the cobbler transform their father's leather into shoes, the miller grind into flour the wheat they had helped to harvest, the sawmill cut the great logs into lumber. They knew the blacksmith busy at his anvil; they looked in often at the wagon shop; stopped in on the occasional trip to town to see in operation the newly built sash, door, and blind factory of which the clustered families were so proud. Thus most of the genuine education of the time, and certainly that which most significantly patterned ideas and attitudes, grew out of the rigors and realities of living on the old family farm. Recorded history bears this out in vivid detail. "Learning through meaningful, purposeful experience" had validity long before it had label. The everyday experiences, purposes, and interests of the early farm family group, and later of the neighborhood, were notably the dominant conditioning factors in the life of the young. Nor are these experiences wholly lacking now among the youth of Chautauqua County. With the breakdown of rural isolation, however, the wide increase of contacts and interests outside the home, and the consequent lessening of time spent with parents, together with the increase in labor-saving devices of home and field, the farm responsibilities assumed by boys and girls are steadily becoming fewer. This the adults will concede. They observe also that family enterprises in which every member must "fall to" in order to complete the tasks satisfactorily, are far less common today than in times when they, the parents, were farm children. Furthermore, the youth of today are cut off from the important processes of construction of even the most common, ordinary products which they use and know. Rarely do they have even a fractional part in the manufacture of the everyday household objects, of their shoes and hats, the cloth from which their clothes are made, the children's toys, the tools and farm implements, the vehicles in which they ride. Moreover, they seldom have opportunity to view any stage of these creative

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processes. Most of such processes take place away from their community and even beyond the county and state boundaries. The young folk know the raw materials that are raised on local farms and something of the raw products other than agricultural. They know the finished products purchased at the stores or through mail order catalogues. But the significant and fascinating creative miracles wrought between these two extreme stages are today quite outside the realm of understanding and experience of both children and adults. This is a very important difference to be noted between early and modern conditions of growing up in rural Chautauqua County, and one which an educational program for the county should certainly take into account. How far the educational program now in operation is taking into account this and the many other changing conditions, pressures, and conflicts which are reshaping the fundamental patterns of living of farm families in Chautauqua County, and to what degree they are operating independent of such factors, can be observed in part from the story of the schools to follow. This is a story which is not peculiar to Chautauqua County. Probably the majority of the school systems of the nation will recognize themselves to some degree in this portrayal.

CHAPTER

FIVE

Rural Schools in the County SCHOOLS IN EARLY TIMES IT WAS as a supplement to this genuine, direct, and sometimes too severe learning through experience of children and youth on the self-sufficient farms of long ago, that the early schools of Chautauqua County were set up. The patterns of the old "select" school, designed and established for training the elite, for educating the aristocracy, so to speak, were carried over from Europe and from older settlements farther to the east. They persisted in Chautauqua County, it is said, for thefirsthalf century. During this time, the desire for schooling opportunities for children of the county's population generally, whose financial resources never were such that they could afford to patronize the select schools usually situated in the villages, gave birth to an increasing number of little country schools throughout the county. The township of Pomfret bears a typical record: "The first school in the town was taught that winter [1806] by Mrs. Woodcock, at the request of the neighbors. She had sixteen pupils." 1 Of the town of Sherman we read: "Otis Skinner kept the first school, in his own house, in 1828."2 And of Ellington: "Milo Camp taught the first school in a part of McConnell's log house."8 These early schools were set up primarily to fulfil two purposes: (1) to equip the young with the skills of reading, writing, and figuring—the "three R's" as they are commonly termed—which were held necessary to individual achievement and success in life; and (2) to pass on to them the common heritage and moral traditions of their people. Proudly patterned as they were after the select schools, the emphasis of this early education seems to have been almost solely upon the "scholastic." The skills and knowledges were taught in isolation, apart from the everyday experiences and processes in which they were to function. But they were taught, and the crude and strenuous life of the early farm people was enriched as their children mastered the techniques of reading and writing and arithmetic and applied them wherever they found the need. And though the books of the day were scarce and

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inadequate, their carefully spelled-out literature, information, and morals became common wealth among growing numbers of Chautauqua County farm families. Hedrick describes the early schools as follows: Until well after the turn of the nineteenth century, in all of the regions west of the Hudson, children still walked to school through woods infested with wolves and bears. Schoolhouses were, almost universally, log structures hastily run up, cold, illy lighted, poorly heated with fireplace, and furnished with rough benches for seats; of desks there were none. The little red schoolhouse came a generation or two after the first settlements. Schools were taught for two months in the summer by a woman who had seldom attained her twenties and whose education had been received in some similar district school. . . . The winter terms of two or three months were taught by a man. . . . Neither schoolma'am nor schoolmaster was out of pocket for "keep" since they were expected to board with the parents of their pupils, regulating their length of stay in a farmhouse by the number of children the farmer had in school. . . . County scholars learned reading, writing, and arithmetic fairly well. . . . Grammar, algebra, and geography were extras for bright pupils. Webster's spelling book first appeared in 1784 and served the children of four or five generations. Morning and afternoon the school opened with reading from the Bible and with prayer. Daily the master flogged stupid and mischievous youngsters and must on occasion engage in hand-to-hand fights with ruffians of older years whose ambition it was to put the teacher out. Pupils and teacher ate a cold dinner at the noon recess. Of maps, charts, globes, dictionaries, models, and schoolroom ornaments there were none. The path of knowledge was rough and the teacher had no appliance, except the rod, to smooth it. To make learning easy was not the duty of the master.4 Nor was the scholastic and bookish emphasis of these schools a matter of too grave import in early times. The few months of school each year were supplemental, as already pointed out, to a vigorous program of responsible, well-rounded, and largely co-operative home-farm living. And parents and children alike seemed proud to have it so. In the minds of those sincere, hard-working, early Chautauqua parents—many of whom themselves had been obliged to reach adulthood with a modicum of formal schooling—the school represented the means for their children to rise above the commonplace. Such indeed was what gave to

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the subsequent public education movement its picturesquely democratic tone. Equality of educational opportunity came to mean the dramatic chance for everyone—rich or poor, farm- or city-bred, old-stock or immigrant—to pursue the rudimentary forms of 'learning" earlier available only to the few. In a very fundamental sense, to the early Chautauqua mind, this meant that all children were on a substantially equal footing, their possibilities for success limited only by the degree of application and industry individually brought to the task. The little country schools became a symbolic bulwark of democracy. Many of them still, in the face of consolidation trends, are wending their traditional way independently and defiantly, most of them apparently quite unconcerned with the actual experiences and problems of the children's more practical workaday living. These schools have persisted as a bulwark in other ways as well. Many a scattered neighborhood or small community has been made conscious of its communality through the succession of "affairs" or "gatherings" which, quite apart from its "learning" program, have endeared the country school as an institution to rural hearts.

SCHOOLS IN THE COUNTY TODAY Since those early times many changes have occurred, of far greater magnitude outside than inside the schools. The old supplemental school patterns, hallowed by time and the power of tradition, have been perpetuated and institutionalized to remarkable degree. Modifications have been made by the schools, it is true, in an effort to do the job ever better, usually patterning after policies and practices of the larger school systems of the country, and at comfortably tempered rate so as "to take their communities with them." But the traditional mold through the years has tended to become fixed, while events and developments outside the school have been revolutionizing the ways of living in both rural and urban areas. Apart from the city schools of Jamestown and Dunkirk and the numerous parochial schools, which lie outside the scope of this study, the county is composed of five supervisory school districts, each with a supervisor or superintendent, local boards or trustees, usually laymen, a tax receiver, an attendance officer, and a clerk. The length of the school term is set by the state at thirty-six weeks, and state aid to schools is computed in terms of the average daily attendance. Within the supervisory districts, in spite of a growing trend toward

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consolidation of schools, a considerable number of small country school districts have survived, suffering difficulties common to similar districts elsewhere. Dr. Sanderson wrote: The small district is badly handicapped by lack of competent administration. This is most apparent in the selection of teachers who are all too frequently employed for personal reasons rather than for their professional qualifications, about which local trustees or boards are quite incompetent to pass an intelligent judgment. The small district is unable to command the services of special teachers, such as music or art, or health services from a school nurse, because of the difficulty of getting a number of independent districts to co-operate effectively in their employment. The small district is also unable to obtain effective supervision of its teachers; it lacks expert, professionally trained leadership. Its supplies and equipment cannot be purchased as economically or efficiently as those of a larger district. Finally the small district suffers from the lack of equalization of the tax rate [which is possible in a larger district]. 5 It is largely because of these disadvantages that many of the districts of the county have seen fit to consolidate or become a part of the larger districts, usually closing down the country schools and sending the children by bus to the larger schools some miles distant. This movement is met by stiff resistance in many parts. In community after community during the past few years, individual farm families have held out against it to the last ditch—and for a variety of reasons. Fear of higher taxes seems to be one of the strongest. For in spite of promises to the contrary, farmers have noted from the experiences of others in the county that all these new additions are costly; not only the state but the parents have to pay out more money. Others complain that the children have to have better clothes to attend the schools in the village. And they resent the fact that their children, just because they live in the country, should have to ride such long distances to secure an education. Not only is riding the buses dangerous, they point out, but it is time-consuming as well. "Our neighbor's little girl is only four and a half," a farm mother told the writer, "and she has to leave home before eight o'clock every morning and doesn't get back until after four at night. It's bad enough for the bigger ones, but for those very little children I think it's dead wrong." The children learn dirty stories, too, some parents insist. "No, the resistance is largely because of ignorance and tradition," a district superintendent contends. "These country people don't want to

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relinquish the authority they've been able to wield in their little schools. They can't be running up to the central school all the time, you know, to tell the teachers what to do about this and that as they've been used to. And it hurts." An older farm woman puts it this way, however, and very adamantly, too: "I think it's a crime against society to close down these country schools. Why, when you look for a place to live, you always try to get where the school will be close for your children . . . and to make these children ride all the way to Bemus Point over those icy roads in bitter cold weather . . . why, one of the little girls says when they go down some of those hills, you can just feel the back of the bus skidding across the road. You know you're always reading of how buses have accidents and run into trains and all that . . . and I think it's very dangerous. "All four of our boys [grandsons] went to the little school down yonder," she continued wistfully. "It was a good school, too, and they loved it. Then all these people came in from outside and from other countries even. They didn't know what it was all about, but they all got together and voted us down. Why, one family came in—they had three children—and voted to have the school closed; and within thirty days, they had moved somewhere else. One woman who voted for it, I actually heard her swear last winter when her children were having to ride the bus in such bitter weather. And I just said to her, I said: 'It serves you just damn good, for bringing in all those people and voting us down the way you did.'" Walking with the writer to the door, she concluded: "Yes, there's the little schoolhouse over there . . . you can see it from here. They've sold it, you know, and are moving it off soon. I sure hate to see it go. When I told Ralph—he's the one in the Army—he wrote and said, 'Grandma, if I had enough money, I'd buy that little school for you and we'd make it over into a home.' Yes, they all went to that school, our boys did, and they loved it so. . . . It sure was a good school." To the older generation, the country schools are a symbol of days gone by, a remnant of a hallowed past which is slipping all too rapidly away. As a county worker puts it, "these schools belong more to the parents who fight to keep them than to the children who go there to learn." Serving as the scene of square dances, farmers' meetings, spring festivals, church suppers, Christmas programs, quilting parties, farewell frolics, elections of every kind, and even sometimes of funerals, to say nothing of symbolizing all that education purports to these hopeful, hard-working groups, the rural school in many communities has become a tradition as cherished and deeply-rooted as the frontier outlooks it

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was established to foster. When such a school is closed, the group entity of the scattered families has all too often been lost, leaving them at loose ends on the fringes of a larger community, of which as yet many of them have rarely been made to feel an important or integral part. Nor does the brunt of the burden always fall on the scattered community. T h e long school day works hardships on very young children, and on some of the more conscientious older ones who must fit "homework" or lessons into a schedule of farm and home chores. Some of the schools are trying to counteract the long hours by providing hot, inexpensive lunches, sometimes as a part of the current federal and state supported plan; by scheduling morning and afternoon rest periods for kindergarten and first grade children; and by providing additional supervised recreation periods. Other schools make no extra provisions whatever, so that their promise of improved health facilities falls short of fulfilment in at least this important regard. Another, though decreasing, hardship for farm children grows out of the attitude toward them of some of the central schools. Boys and girls from a noil-academic cultural background, often quite unused to frequent contact with others, all too often meet stiff and discouraging competition from village children much more accustomed to central school life. ' T h e village children have so much more to offer," a central school teacher will observe, and with great pedagogical honesty. For the areas of scholarship generally recognized by the schools rarely extend to include the ability to repair a fence, to track down a 'possum, to spray an apple tree, to prepare the eggs for marketing, to help feed and water the livestock. T h e break between in-school and out-of-school emphases becomes too great for some of these children to cope with comfortably. Their rural roots, however healthy, are little used or built upon in the school's curriculum. They are pulled two ways at once; they are identified with and judged in terms of conflicting enthusiasms and values. For too many, the childhood experiences and satisfactions of living on a farm come to count for little in their suddenly academic and village-centered world. In the little country schools, for all their drawbacks, the situation is apt to be less serious. T h e group is usually small enough, the children well enough acquainted with one another outside of school as well as in, that competence in lines other than the academic has more opportunity to claim recognition from teacher and fellow schoolmates. T h e shy and somewhat withdrawing country child, other things being equal, has a better chance of being valued for what he really is by the intimate small-school group. Too many times in the larger schools, a considerable

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number of the "bus children" still make up the slower, less aggressive, remedial-case minorities, and are so regarded by their teachers and classmates. This need not be so. That it is makes it worthy of comment. And so the objections go. The fight against losing their rural schools, though lessening greatly as years go by, has been a long and bitter one for some families. And since New York State regards the matter as one for persuasion or conversion rather than force, at least with regard to the first six grades; there are localities where a teacher has been held on the payroll, the little schoolhouse heated and kept intact, and the lone country road leading to it kept open for the children of only a very few families who refuse to give in to the rosily-painted pictures of increased opportunities in the big central schools. They have listened with little credulity to the promises of increased efficiency in both budget and educational program: better teachers at potentially better salaries; more modern equipment for classroom, laboratory, and library; increased supervision and therefore more uniform standards of achievement; and a better testing program. They question the promise of improved health and sanitation facilities, more opportunity for children to participate and mix with others of their own age and grade levels, increased contacts and broadening experiences of various lands, extra-curricular activities, safe and efficient bus transportation wherever needed. The list could be lengthened; it has been elaborated, too, with much persuasive enthusiasm when occasion has demanded. For teachers and administrators in the county have probably been no less loathe than the decreasing number of resisting parents to admit that, under existing arrangements, there are legitimate grounds for arguing either side. Be that as it may, the resistance has all but broken down in the county at large. Each year a few more country schools are closed. The teacher shortage, exaggerated by war conditions, has deepened the trend. So the county is dotted with one- and two-room schoolhouses boarded up or converted, and a rapidly decreasing number from which the hum of learning still drones and over which the stars and stripes continue to fly defiantly. THE SMALL RURAL SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION

The trustees are still important in the surviving common school districts of Chautauqua County. It is they who do the hiring and firing, and with varying standards of judgment. It is they whom the teacher must

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please if she hopes to make out through the year and be offered a contract for the next. Trustees differ, of course. They are not all as hovering as the one who advised the new four-year-trained teacher that she, the trustee, was in the habit of making out the examinations for the children every six weeks; that she had for years written the Christmas plays for the children to put on; that she hadn't filled the orders for art materials because they weren't really needed; and that she made it a point to visit the school some three or four times every week. The trusteeships change hands now and then in many small districts, giving a number of people the opportunity "to have served." And in many communities individual parents are frequently close to control of the school. Incidents are recounted throughout the county where whole communities turn out to the school meetings, to consider "how many hooks should be put in the cloakroom and where, whether the teacher's pay should be increased, whether new textbooks should be purchased, whether the seats no longer used should be moved out of the classroom." 'They used to go at it hammer and tongs in our district," a native rccalls, "always wrangling, and with interest high. N o wonder

they feel out of things now that their children go into the village to school." There are schools, on the other hand, which parents rarely visit. "Don't seem to be interested—just leave it to me," a teacher observed. "Many of them don't have time—especially these Polish parents. They have big families, and the mothers work all day and far into the night. Our Christmas program and the spring festival are the only things they can find time to come to." RURAL TEACHERS

The teachers of these one- and two-room schools vary. Some of them are older teachers, a number of them mothers themselves, gradually adding to some two years of training through occasional extension or summer school classes. Having taught in the same little schools for a good many years, not a few have seen all the children of several families through every year of their elementary school life. There are others, of recent years decreasing in number, who are young teachers-college graduates and who have accepted positions in rural schools merely as stepping stones to something else. They may teach in the same school for one, two, or even three years, if they do not marry, and then, if they have shown any promise at all, some larger school employs them at increased salary. Not that they haven't enjoyed teaching in a country school. "I will always consider it a very profitable experience," one may hear. Or, "Believe you me, I wouldn't trade those two years in a rural

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school for anything. If I can teach in a one-room school, with all the grades from first to sixth, I can teach anywhere." Their reasons for leaving are several: The lowest salaries in the county were usually paid to the country school teacher, until the state set the minimum salary first at twelve hundred and more recently at sixteen hundred dollars.0 This means that such a teacher still has less prestige. If she can't get any other kind of job, it is commonly remarked, a graduate will accept a rural school offer. Further, the living conditions are sometimes difficult for a girl unused to relatively isolated farm life, and fond of the varied group contacts which four years of college have afforded. Also the idea of teaching a single grade, of having to make just one preparation in each of the required subjects instead of half a dozen, even though the number of children to be taught may be tripled, is apt to sound pretty attractive. To be one of a group of teachers rather than an only teacher has several advantages, such as the comradeship, the varied contacts, the chance to work problems out together, and— not the least—the fact that several teachers can somehow be more independent of community scrutiny and mores than can an only teacher. The opportunity to work in an attractive, well-equipped, well-heated building also has its appeal. A good rural teacher in Chautauqua County has many things to consider before she signs her contract for another year, however congenial and challenging the farm community in which she is serving. T H E CHILDREN

Children in the small rural schools are generally scattered intermittently through grades one to six or eight, with now and then a grade or two missing because there happens to be no one of the appropriate age. Many times there are one or two grades in which but one child belongs, while in others there may be from two to five or more. This means that some farm children will go through their entire elementary school life working by themselves for the most part. "I sure wish there was another boy born here when I was," one such child observed to the writer. "I don't like to be the only fourth grader. I been the only one in my grade ever since I come here and I don't like it that way. The sixth graders they're sure lucky—only one girl, too. They do everything together and they have lots more fun. Teacher says if there was anybody in the fifth grade she could maybe put me in the fifth grade, too, but there ain't. Sometimes she lets me work with the third grade kids, but I don't • Since this manuscript was completed, the state minimum salary for teachers, elementary and high school, has been raised to two thousand dollars.

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like that so well. . . . They're both girls. Goshee, I sure wish a fourth grade kid'd move out here." However intact the traditional grade organization may remain, the children vary widely in their ability and in their background of experience. For the specifics of growing to maturity in Chautauqua County differ remarkably from locality to locality, and from home to home. The wide variety of home and farm conditions described in this study tend to set the limits for the processes of growing up. Children develop in terms of their interaction with the day-to-day environment, including of course the human environment in which they live and grow. The whole of their physical, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional development is markedly reflective of the particular, individual setting. T H E SCHOOL PLANT

The one- and two-room schoolhouses of Chautauqua County are generally old, having served several generations of school children. The typical schoolroom is heated by a large round stove or furnace set off toward the back of the room. Children sitting close to it are apt to be overwarm while those at some distance feel chilly. It usually takes the building several hours to warm up. The janitor—frequently the teacher herself, for additional remuneration—usually lives at some distance from the schoolhouse. Hence for their opening exercises and first class or two, the children are often obliged to huddle together about the stove. Lavatories or "privies" in most of the schools now are indoors, though not always heated. Few schools have drinking water piped indoors; various kinds of "sanitary" tanks or fountains are installed, filled from time to time from an outdoor pump by one of the older children. Most of these schools are badly in need of paint, often assertedly because of the uncertainty of their survival in the face of centralization trends. The equipment is pretty much what it has been through the years, with items added from time to time, and with little taken away. Great shelves of drab, closely-printed old textbooks and copy books, dating well back into the nineteenth century—"too good to throw away," but much too old and outdated for profitable use—can be found in many a country school of Chautauqua County. Newer materials, textbooks, encyclopedias, readers, work books, standardized tests, writing and drawing paper, and now and then a few colorful library books, are usually kept on the lower shelves or in cupboards where they are easier to get at. Except for the few schools newly and more modernly renovated, the

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classrooms are equipped with the desks that were used by the parents of children now claiming them. There are fewer in use, for the families are smaller, and the poorest farms in some of these areas have been abandoned. The extra desks are usually piled in the comer of the discarded second classroom, in the runway to the lavatories, or in the cloakroom. Those in use are arranged in the customary straight rows, in some cases leaving space for work and play activities in other parts of the room. Many of the schools provide inadequately for the care of wraps, are poorly lighted, drab of appearance inside and out, and meagerly equipped as to playground wherewithal, although generally with ample yard space which is seldom landscaped or improved to meet specific needs. There are some country schools which differ from this picture. It purports, however, to be reasonably typical. SCHOOLROOM

ORGANIZATION

The organization of the country schools is patterned pretty largely after that of the village and city schools, with whatever changes the rural limitations have seemed to require. The same grade system is used throughout, with similar "norms" and requirements. Bulletins from the State Education Department and the State Teachers Colleges have advocated the combining of classes wherever common subject matter or method seems appropriate to children of different grade levels. Thus all the grades might be brought together for music, for drawing, for safety and health, and in some cases for language and writing. Several might be combined for the social studies in situations where geography and history requirements are not set up separately for each of the grades. In spite of such advocacy, however, there is pressure to the contrary from community tradition, from school trustees, from prospective Regents Examinations, or from fear of veering from a pattern already established. Many rural school teachers strive deliberately and earnestly to work into the daily program separate classes for almost every subject for every grade, or at best for every two grades, in the school, regardless of the number of children in each. This means, of necessity, that the day is broken up into many little independent periods and recitations—reading, spelling, arithmetic, language, social studies, or history and geography, several times over. Assignments and recitations, usually in terms of the textbook used, approach an almost individual basis in many of the rural schools. So it is individual rather than group accomplishment that is commonly given stress, in spite of the real or

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potential group rapport that grows out of much working together. Curricular emphases, methods of teaching, evaluation and promotion policies and practices, tend also to be patterned after those of the larger schools; with surprising aloofness, in many instances, to the farm life earlier described—the problems, conflicts, achievements, resources, and possibilities of the scattered families to which the children belong. There are exceptions, to be sure, outstanding teachers throughout the county largely unheralded beyond their isolated school communities, who have lived close to the land themselves and close to the joys and the hardships of the human beings who make their living from it. Within the patterns set for the schools—certainly not always because of them—they have been able to contribute significantly and directly to the life of those families who still look to the country schools to hold their communities together. (See pp. 100-102.)

THE CENTRAL OR CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL Just as there are farm parents of Chautauqua County who cling tenaciously to the little country schools, so are there others who are happy to have their children attend the larger schools, to have them enjoy the opportunities afforded village children. This is especially true of families less isolated in the farm communities, and those whose standards and modes of living already more closely approximate those of village families. Farm mothers belonging to the Home Bureau, for instance, are proud to have their children mingle with children of other bureau members, most of whom live in the villages. Much of their life is closely allied with the village—shopping, recreation, sometimes church and other group affiliations. They take pleasure in belonging to the larger ParentTeacher Association. It gives them status with village folk as well as with fellow farmers. To these parents, centralization is right and full of promise. Other farm folk, too, once quite opposed, are coming to feel that maybe the new schools aren't so bad. "I want my children to have an easier lot than I've had," one hears a farmer say with sighs of weariness, and not a little pride, "though I guess I haven't done so bad with what I had. Kids ride the buses to school now, go into town to the big new central school. No finer school building in the whole state, they say— even in the big cities they don't beat it. Wood paneling in the front hall there is the handsomest I ever saw. And the place is so big, I tell my boy I don't see how he doesn't get lost in it,

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"Nothing like that around here when we were kids, I tell you, and had to trudge two miles through the snow to the little school in the Hollow. Lot of fine characters made in our day though . . . really had to work in that ole school, little fellows and big. None of your fal-de-rals and children's play in those days. We knew what school was for." Evident everywhere among rural people is a curious combination of attitudes toward the school, often conflicting and confused. There is a desire for and pride in the new, yet a fear lest it differ too much from the old, lest it substitute pleasantries for the good old hard drill and discipline "that me and my dad, too, in his time, were made to conform to." There is acceptance, partly unconscious, of change in the technological world, especially in modes of transportation and communication, but at the same time a strong feeling concerning education that what was good schooling for my father and for me is also good schooling for my son. There is occasional amazement that small children can know so much that even the parents never learned, accompanied by a vague fear that a slurring of the 'three R's' may be the price required for such knowledge. "Then there's the matter of deportment, too, and character. I don't know, but it seems like the young folks don't mind their elders these days like they used to. They like to argue back. They don't work as hard either. Even the little jobs around the house, their mother has to keep right after them about. And they're not getting such good marks either, I'm afraid, and check-marks after one thing and another. I tell their mother she ought to go in some day and put it up to the teacher, but I guess she don't like to. . . . It's kind of hard to get in now, too, with the little ones at home and all." T H E SCHOOL P L A N T

Financed in part by the state, and usually undertaken with high enthusiasm, the new central schools in the county are by all odds the most expensive, the most imposing, and the most obviously durable structures in their respective localities. Flanked by a fleet of buses each, they are in several instances set quite apart from the older, shabbier, more settled architecture of the village proper, identifying themselves far more harmoniously with other central schools throughout the state and nation. They make an impressive picture outside and in, equipped as they generally are with rather elaborate auditorium, gymnasium, library, homemaking and shops departments, science laboratory, cafeteria, kitchen, teachers' room, large light offices (with amplifying system installed throughout), and kindergarten room. The

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latter is frequently two or three times as large and two or three times as well equipped as the first grade room which the same group of children will occupy the succeeding year. F o r the classrooms generally are small—much smaller than teachers would like, they indicate with conviction—and equipped in "standard" modem style as are other new schools throughout the country. T h e buildings are centrally heated, of course, and a few of the rooms, such as the homemaking department and the kindergarten, may be graced with attractive fireplaces. Some of the older village school buildings, appropriately located and renovated, are used as central schools also, with buses bringing children in from districts once served independently. In both cases the elementary and high schools are usually housed in the same building, although this is not always the case. ADMINISTRATION AND TEACHING STAFF

The Boards of Education in these central or consolidated districts are made up of village and farm people, with the village usually predominating. Thoy work closely with the Supervising Principal of the school and with the District Supervisor or Superintendent, in some instances encouraging but more often serving as an effective brake on the process of modernization. Frequently the school leadership in its turn, varying from school to school in the county, has tended to check the inclination and many times the enthusiasm for change on the part of the teaching staff. In addition to the classroom teachers, the central school may employ a full-time nurse, a librarian, special music, art, and physical education teachers, and during very recent years, a part-time dental-hygienist. The teachers in these schools, as in the country schools, are New York-trained for the most part, in teachers colleges whose programs aim to equip them for teaching successfully within the educational framework here described. It is estimated that about thirty-five percent of these teachers come from the farm. Another twenty percent or better come from large towns or cities. T h e remainder, close to forty-five percent, come from villages. T h e State minimum salary for a four-year graduate teaching in elementary schools was twelve hundred dollars in 1942; in high school, thirteen hundred. In 1944 this minimum was raised to sixteen hundred and eighteen hundred dollars respectively." CHILDREN

The proportion of farm children in these schools varies widely, from about ten percent to one hundred, the latter in situations where the ° Since this manuscript was completed, the minimum salary for all teachers in the state has been raised to two thousand dollars.

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schools have been built at some distance from the population centers. The variety of home conditions from which the children come need hardly be stressed again. Since it is the farm children with which this study is primarily concerned, the earlier picture is applicable. That farm children are here in competition with village children, however, in some instances complicates rather than simplifies the educational problem. "You can still tell which are the country children in our central school," a young, former student observed, "especially the ones from the poorer sections around. It isn't so true of the high school students, 'cause a lot of them drop out. But all through the grades you can see it. The teachers have had to maintain a fund from their own pockets for the children who come from B , it's that bad; and they buy the poorest ones coats and galoshes and food and even eye-glasses. Of course, our village is old, and the families have always been pretty well off, and I guess that makes a difference." As a rule, however, as earlier chapters show, common interests, common experiences, the trends of urbanization generally, are rubbing out the earlier outward distinctions between farm and village children. The more subtle differences, psychological in the main, are persistent to varying degree and more difficult of recognition. CURRICULAR EMPHASES AND PRACTICES

The dominant curricular pattern both country and village, is the proverbial subject arrangement. Elementary subjects usually include: reading, English, spelling, penmanship, arithmetic, social studies (sometimes taught in third grade and above as separate subjects—history, geography, citizenship, etc.), health and safety, art, science, music, and physical education. Regular periods are scheduled for the study of these subjects, most of them daily. In the elementary grades, and sometimes seventh and eighth, all subjects are taught by the classroom teacher, with the exception of music, art, and physical education, which in most of the larger schools are taught by special teachers. The grade organization in these schools tends to run as follows: kindergarten and grades one to six in the elementary school; grades seven and eight in the junior high school; and grades nine, ten, eleven, and twelve in the high school. The high schools are departmentalized, with a more or less specialized teacher in charge of each subject. Most seventh and eighth grades are included in this organization also. The subjects in the high school include both required and elective courses, such as algebra, geometry, physics and chemistry, English and literature, foreign languages, health education, homemaking and home economics, vocational agriculture in

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most schools, and others, in addition to those in the elementary school list. From this latter list, reading, spelling, and penmanship as such sometimes have been omitted on the assumption that, by high school age, these fundamental tools should have been mastered and can be put to use without further segregated drill. All of the students, from the eighth grade up, are expected to take the State Regents Examinations in the regular subjects. And much stress is put upon the outcome in most schools, even on the junior high school level. Those who fail the eighth grade Regents, for example, usually enter high school as special students. These Regents examinations, made up and sent out from the State Office, test the mastery of details far more than of generalizations. It is quite to be expected that through the years they have exerted a powerful, and in many cases very narrowing, influence on the quality and scope of education in these grades. Due to various pressures within the State Education Department and out, this rigid hold is gradually, though very slowly some teachers feel, giving way. Special review books have been drawn up and published for the express purpose of helping students and teachers to prepare for the Regents in different subjects. In many of the classrooms, these are now used intensively, almost like textbooks, for days and sometimes weeks before the regular examination week. Hints and precautions for taking the tests, as well as type questions and examples apt to be encountered, are included as a help to the students. "Write in ink and write legibly," one such hint reads. "You will lose points if the teacher marking cannot understand what you write. . . . In the essay type question, when a specific number of words is not required, use about eight words for every point of credit (about 160 words for a twenty point question)." 8 And again: "The Composition question rates thirty percent. You can readily see, therefore, how important it is to get as high a mark as possible for this question. Your passing the Regents Examination in English depends upon your ability to do this." 7 Far and away the dominant emphasis in most of the schools attended by farm children is on the skills or the "tools" of learning and the mastery of knowledge about the past. The three R's have always been central to Chautauqua County's educational thinking, as brought out again and again in this study. Children, from village or farm, are promoted or retarded in terms of their ability to master the academic requirements of their respective grades. Degree and direction of progress are important, but relation to grade level is more so. And the boys and girls and their parents are made to feel this. Without doubt it is an important reason, in combination with others which lie outside the school, that as many as

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forty-five percent of the students of this area drop out of high school before graduation. Nearly every classroom has its over-age repeaters, country and central schools alike. In every classroom, too, there is a range of ability in academic skills of some three to five years or more, as standardized testing programs bear out. Yet all children of a single grade are usually given the same required assignments; are measured— at least for purposes of reporting to the office or to parents—on the same scale; use the same textbooks, work books, and other materials; and are generally taught through pretty much the same methods. Where these factors are deliberately varied, it is usually on the assumption that "all children are alike except that some are slower than others." Indeed both teachers and administrators seem to regard the wide range of abilities, in everything but the purely physical, as something of a departure from the normal. "If this were an ordinary fifth grade," a teacher will say, "it wouldn't be so difficult. But these two boys in the back really can't read a third grade reader yet, and there are about five others who really should be in no more than fourth. Oh yes, surely I have faster ones. That boy up near my desk just finished reading Tom Sawyer. He can read anything you give him—even high school books. So can the girl behind him. You see, that makes it very difficult." And so it does—but only normally difficult, if that which comes pretty close to being universal is to be considered the normal. The assumption that that very-rare-indeed situation is normal—in which all fifth grade children of whatever background, by virtue of their being in fifth grade, are on "the fifth grade level" or above, that all first graders are on first grade level, and so on—is by no means peculiar to teachers of Chautauqua County. Many factors historic and modern have contributed to its prevalence. The scientific measurement movement has not been the least of these.0 Almost every school in the county that can afford it, as well as some that cannot, has a standard-testing program. (Indeed in some instances the materials for testing reading, let us say, • The standardized testing movement can certainly be credited with contributing the scientific evidence required to help school people recognize the normally wide range of abilities in every classroom group. One might wonder, however, if the attention the tests have focused, albeit through misuse, upon fixed "grade norms" and upon "getting the slower children up to the norm" is not tending to counteract that initial positive influence. The emphasis seems to have shifted, in many schools, from what the situation actually is (with regard to the range of children's abilities in reading or spelling or arithmetic) to the abnormally near-uniform state which teachers in some instances have been led to believe that it should be and have been driven to their wits' end to achieve. As earlier implied, this has worked hardship on many children at both ends of the scale, as well as on their teachers.

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are far more adequate than the number and variety of books with which the children are expected to learn to read.) Widely used commercial work books in reading, spelling, English, arithmetic, geography, and social studies have also contributed to the rather rigid and narrow conception of grade levels. So have the graded readers. So have the Regents examinations in the high schools. And probably as much as anything else, so have the full sets of textbooks in geography, history, grammar, arithmetic, and almost every other subject—one for every student in the room, regardless of maturity or reading ability. Reliance on textbooks in Chautauqua County schools seems to be greater than on the state syllabi, which have been advocating for years the use of varied materials and references, and many times greater than on the everyday home and community life of which the farm children and youth are part. The textbooks in English, spelling, science, mathematics, geography, history, civics, and recently the more inclusive social studies are a very important factor in determining the method, organization, and content of the school work in grades four through twelve in this area. Some of the textbooks are old and outmoded. Others are new and colorful and thoughtfully organized. Most of them, as Dr. Horn has called to attention, are packed full to the brim with too little about too much.8 A large number are much too difficult for most of the students required to read them. Dr. Horn's observation that many a child goes through elementary school, junior high school, and high school, struggling with textbooks that are too hard for him,9 is applicable to rural Chautauqua County as elsewhere. The schools do follow more or less, however, the broad areas of study suggested in the bulletins of the State Education Department at Albany, particularly those made available during the thirties, it seems. Most of the teachers in this area like to have some pretty well worked out pattern to follow; and recent publications from some divisions of the Education Department are not of this type. They are more philosophical in nature, encourage wider study and use of community resources, and tend to place more reliance on individual teacher resourcefulness.10 The exceptional teachers who value this kind of help are scattered along the whole gamut of grades, especially in the lower where they are closer to the informal influences of the kindergarten and farther from the Regents boogy-man and proverbial college preparation. In the kindergartens (confined pretty much to the larger schools) and first and second grades, the curriculum tends to center about simple studies of the home, the school, and the immediate community. Beginning with very early first grade, the commercial reading systems de-

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voted to these same areas set the tempo for reading, for drawing, for seat-work, for discussions, and in some instances for almost total vocabulary. With few exceptions, the teaching of reading is stressed from first to last, whether the children have had the more transitional and socializing experiences of kindergarten or no. Social studies in the third and fourth grades, although sometimes still taught separately as geography and history, usually deal with "life in far-away lands and far-away times," which may include the study of primitive man, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, the Sahara, the Amazon, polar regions, "detailed study of Australia," etc.; and the study of food, clothing, and shelter. In fifth and sixth grades comes the study of North America, of the United States, of New York State in particular, and of Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America. Seventh and eighth grades study United States history, United States government, and United States and world geography. Ninth and tenth grades generally deal with world history and geography; and the eleventh and twelfth with American history, geography, and civics, in varying combinations. In many classrooms the study of current national and world happenings comes in as a separate entity one day a week, through reading, discussion, and filling in blanks on the last sheet of My Weekly Reader, Current Events, or some other such sheet devoted to the news. Teaching techniques vary even within the textbook pattern. Some are routines of more or less established inflexibility, such as the following which the writer has observed: On Monday students read silently the assigned chapter in the text book; on Tuesday they write the answers to the questions at the end of the chapter; on Wednesday they read the answers aloud and check with the class for correctness, referring to the text book to clear up any specific difficulties; on Thursday they take a quizz which the teacher has made to test what has been learned; on Friday they go over the test together and check the returned papers which the teacher has carefully scored. In other classrooms, in order to understand more thoroughly what they are reading from books too difficult for many of them, the children are called on to take turns reading a paragraph or two aloud to the group, each with book in hand, while the teacher injects questions or comments for clarification in between paragraphs. Another common practice is to have the boys and girls read silently and take notes on or outline the material they are reading, in preparation for discussing it the next day. Still another is to have them read a paragraph or a page to find an answer to the teacher's specific question, answer the question aloud, listen to the teacher's next question, and proceed with the reading. Merely assigning the reading,

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often as "homework," and asking questions about it or giving an examination next class-time, is also a common practice among teachers. On occasion, and especially when reviewing for tests, the students are sometimes encouraged to make a guessing game of the subject, telling riddles to stimulate reading and remembering, choosing sides as for a spell down and flinging subject-matter questions instead of spelling words. Countless other variations on the old traditional theme are in the repertoire. NEWER PRACTICES

As already indicated, this is not the whole picture. There are teachers, country and village, old and young, with an eagerness to make education "more real to the child," more in line with newer practices of other schools throughout the country, and with their own conception of leading educational postulates of the day, who have injected into their individual classrooms over the years a barrage of newer techniques. Imaginary journeys, dramatizations, projects, units, activities, excursions, informal programs, or what you will, are labels for what have been largely sincere, deliberate modifications for the purpose of doing something better. Some of these innovations have occasioned a distorted concept of scholarship; a tendency to be satisfied with following willynilly, rather than utilizing, the children's interests; an over-emphasis on the physically active and the dramatic while ignoring the intellectual phases of some project. But this is only to be expected. That the total upshot of all of them has been to the good is believed by an increasing number of teachers, a few administrators, and here and there "progressive-minded" parents. One of the oldest and most common devices for making learning "real to the children" is the so-called journey method. Many students in the county, their teacher having read in the State Social Studies Bulletin "How One Class Took the Journey," 11 have bought their imaginary tickets and made their imaginary trip day by day, a bit at a time, across the United States via Lincoln Highway—taking the ferry boat, driving their cars, watching a rodeo, eating breakfast high up in the Rockies. One of the "Possible Activities" listed in the same bulletin, reads: "Imagine that you are members of La Salle's group and go with him on his exploration. Give sufficient concrete details to make the trip real and living to other pupils." 12 Another suggestion from the same source is: "The teacher may well begin the story of Central America with an imaginary trip aboard a fruit steamer from New York to Puerto Barrios." 13 Still another: "Do not pursue the journey method too far

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after Sydney is reached. While pupils may picnic with Australians, visit their sheep stations and enjoy seeing their strange animals, a more systematic treatment should gradually be introduced through particular problems of geographic significance." 14 The writing of imaginary letters and diaries comes under the same category. So do many forms of dramatization. The purpose of course is to stimulate interest, to aid the imagination, to give to the farm or the village child a clearer concept or meaning. That such a figment may distort rather than clarify concepts is obvious. Various kinds of constructional activities observed, designed in major part for purposes of clarification, and occasionally as a center around which the three R's and other subjects are deliberately tied, seem also to lead to distortion of fact. An Amazon village in the sand pile, with palm trees made of paper and dowel sticks, and lakes of old looking glass; a farm on the floor with a mush-box silo, willow fence posts made to stand erect through the use of plasticene, toy animals brought in from the dime store, and a tractor as big as the house; Eskimo igloos made to look real by gluing on cotton for snow; the Lincoln Highway extending across a section of the room, with paper skyscrapers of the city of Chicago covering more space than the great stretches of Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah combined . . . and other such constructional efforts, for all their excellent calling forth of co-operative resourcefulness, obviously fall short of contributing to scholarly clarification and the ability to distinguish between fact and fancy. Other and fewer teachers, recognizing the value of co-operative experiences of a more realistic nature, have provided boys and girls with the opportunity to churn butter, to make apple-sauce, to make Christmas candles, to set up a library corner, to build an aquarium, to test the porosity of soils, to design the scenery for the senior play, to install an electric doorbell, to repair a piece of farm machinery or an electric iron. For clarification purposes also, more and more teachers in the county are using pictures—actual photographs and colored slides. A number of schools are securing motion-picture films, through the exchange office at the State Teachers College at Fredonia and from other sources; and a few of the rural as well as a large number of the village schools are making some use of them. Excursions are also becoming more common as an educational resource in the county. Several of the high schools have made it a custom for many years for the senior class to make a visit to the nation's Capitol. Children from a number of the schools have spent parts of the school day visiting a bakery, a dairy farm, post office, newspaper plant, juice

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factory, grocery store. Others, and probably fewer, have taken shorter trips for more intensive purposes: to see the effects of heavy rain on gullies, check-dams, cover crops, the variously covered parts of their own school grounds; to the furnace room to talk with the janitor and learn how the building is heated. Occasional teachers have sent small groups or committees to interview the village clerk, the oldest resident of the community, the town librarian. On rarer occasion these community folk, including in wartime a merchant seaman or soldier on leave, have been brought into the classrooms or school to talk with the boys and girls. This emphasis on the utilization of educational resources of the community, long encouraged by some of the State Education Department and Teachers College staff members, is growing in a number of the schools of the county, although as yet only a minority of the teachers seems to be responding to a significant degree. Beyond the third or fourth grades, it is also only a minority of teachers that is substantially relaxing the dependence on textbooks. That this minority is growing, however, can be observed. More individual teachers on all the school levels are coming to use the textbook plus supplementary materials. They are bringing in books from the public libraries, easy and hard ones; encouraging the use of the school libraries; writing or having the students write for government materials, Public Affairs Pamphlets, Building America. Here and there an occasional teacher has helped her principal to see the value of buying fewer copies of more kinds of books, plus newspapers, maps, and periodicals, with the same expenditure of funds that would otherwise go for a set of thirty-five textbooks, all alike, often with accompanying work books each of which can be used once only. Farm children and youth in these situations, both in country and village schools, are learning to varying degree to use the library, to make use of reference materials, to compare authors and points of view, to track down matters of fact, to differentiate between material relevant and that irrelevant to a question at hand, to distinguish between fact and fancy, to take notes, to organize reports, to contribute intelligently to discussions. It must be repeated, however, that these newer techniques, though old as education itself in scattered instances, and in spite of the fact that many of them have been advocated by educational leaders for many years, have as yet made but a bare, brave inroad into the educational warp and woof of Chautauqua County.

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PROGRAM

The central schools' most important answer to the growing social and recreational needs of rural children and especially youth is their variously planned exfra-curricular programs. The school dances, the parties, the picnics, the athletic activities, the class meetings and functions, the orchestra and band practices and concerts, the school newspaper, public speaking contests, debates, school plays and operettas, club meetings of different kinds, art exhibitions, assembly programs and lectures, are all activities in which students, and in some cases parents and other townspeople, participate to differing extent. The athletic program, for instance, quite apart from the physical education and inter-class activities, is likely to focus its emphasis on competitive games with other schools. Participation, in other than an audience capacity, is limited largely to the few more outstanding athletes of the school who can make the football or basketball team. This team then comes to represent not only the school, but often the village or community itself in more or less good, friendly rivalry throughout the area. Major participation in the school play, the public speaking or debating activities, publication of the school paper, orchestra or band, and the special music presentations is also largely limited to the more talented along these lines, usually those who have had earlier opportunity to pursue them. Further, most of these activities require consistent hours of after-school practice. Thus the extra-curricular program of the central schools, although it does much for the students in many ways, is apt to be geared more to the village than to the farm children and youth, who in most instances have to rely on scheduled bus transportation. "Further," contended one who works closely with the farm families, "the Junior Prom and the Christmas Dance and the other parties are getting to be such formal affairs in some of the bigger schools, that the young folks can't have a good time unless they can go in 'couples,' and in a car, and all dressed up in beautiful clothes. This means that a lot of things are limited pretty much to the more 'sophisticated' type of students. And these, with some exceptions, are not the farm children." Most central school teachers with whom the writer discussed the matter seem not to sense this distinction. "No, the farm children have just as much chance to participate in all these activities as anybody else," they respond thoughtfully. "Why, it was a farm boy who had the leading part in our school play last year," one of them pointed out. "And two of our best basketball players come from the farm." (It was disclosed later that one of these boys lived within what could be called walking dis-

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tance of the school, and the other two had independent means of transportation. ) Many, including students, contend that whether they come from village or farm has little to do with it. "There's always a few guys who get into everything," a tenth-grader noted. "They're good in sports and everything and all the kids like them and so they always get chosen." And a teacher observed: "There is always something for all those who want to, to get into. But you know how it is. Just like everywhere else, there are a few leaders who are willing to do the work, and are really good, too, and of course, they tend to run things. But that is not because they're village children particularly." There are those, however—teachers of country schools, especially those who themselves have now gone into the central schools, and some farm parents whose sons or daughters are less active than they would like to be because of transportation limitations or because their farm chores interfere—who seem to feel that farm children are often under a handicap in this regard. The situation differs, of course, from school to school. Some are doing much more than others to make sure that farm boys and girls, as others, are fully included in the social affairs of the school. Under the existing centralized setup this becomes a difficult task; it can hardly be accomplished adequately without more thoroughgoing adjustments in the regular routine and program than many schools in the county seem ready to make. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Farm boys and girls of high school age who look forward to leaving the farm and seeking employment in the village or city, have opportunity in most of the high schools to pursue "commercial courses,"—typewriting, shorthand, business arithmetic, bookkeeping, mechanical drawing,— and in some of the larger schools, shop machinery, applied electricity, and other more specialized courses. There are regular vocational high schools in Jamestown and Dunkirk, although in the main, of course, these serve city children. Rural high schools have also been given valuable assistance in vocational education and guidance by the county's Y.M.C.A. leader through a project which he has initiated for the purpose of acquainting high school students with vocational possibilities and requirements in which they might be interested. School teachers, electricians, building custodians, retail salesmen, are invited to go with him from time to time to visit the different high schools where arrangements have been made for a morning or afternoon assembly program, in which their respective vocations are discussed with the students.

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For those who elect to remain on the farm or to follow pursuits closely allied, vocational agriculture courses, federally supported in large part through the Smith-Hughes Vocational Education Act of 1917, are offered now in most of the county high schools. They begin usually with a general orientation course for the older ninth grade students. In accordance with suggestions of the Bureau of Agricultural Education at Albany, this earlier course centers around three types of work: (1) farm and home mechanics or shop work, where individual students carry out a series of projects such as grinding an axe or a hatchet, making a water stand for poultry, making a rope halter, computing cost of building materials, making a metal garden trowel, cleaning a paint brush; (2) farm and home project enterprises undertaken by the students such as market gardening, raising rabbits, raising beef cattle or dairy cows, bee-keeping, small fruit growing; and (3) orientation and guidance, which is really the "instructional" phase of the course, and is concerned with helping the students to get acquainted with the leading farming practices and policies of the community and state and to develop the characteristics of a successful fanner. Although it differs from school to school, this course generally serves as an introduction to the vocational program which extends through grades 10,11, and 12 and which attracts primarily those boys who plan to be farmers. The content of this curriculum, whose purpose is "the vocational preparation for an agricultural occupation," is drawn up by the specially trained agriculture teacher, in accordance with state suggestions, in terms of "the business organization of the farms of the region and the farm enterprises conducted on them. . . . Home projects and other forms of supervised practice in agriculture are required as a part of each year's work. This practice should be reasonably comprehensive in scope," the state advises, "and should be continued by pupils throughout the senior high school, so as to enable them to make as substantial a start as possible in becoming established in farming as a career." " In a number of communities young, out-of-school farmers are profiting from similar programs in line with state policy. Every department of vocational agriculture within the State [a bulletin reads] should accept the responsibility for continuous assistance to young men on the farms of the school area. . . . The main aim of agricultural teaching is the establishment of young men in farming. It is the duty, therefore, of school officials and particularly of teachers of agriculture to give continuous concern to this

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problem of establishment, not only throughout the period of instruction given in classes, but whenever opportunities occur, in order that farm youth may have the benefits of the school and of teacher contacts. This requires an adequate understanding, on the part of teachers, of home and family conditions, of farming opportunities at home or elsewhere, and of appropriate types of instruction, whether group or individual in form.1" Sources of information for the high school agriculture courses are varied. The school or agricultural library is becoming increasingly important as it stocks up with various farm periodicals, "vocational texts, recent technical studies, federal and state publications relating to agriculture," 17 selected motion pictures, charts, soil maps, and the like. There are trends also toward more frequent utilization in these courses of farm leaders in the communities, agricultural agencies and their representatives, and men engaged in agricultural business other than farm business, as those at feed stores, milk plants, and canning factories. Summer programs have been developed by most of the agriculture teachers of the county, with meetings, field trips, demonstrations, and recreational activities scheduled. Teachers report that the continuity thus provided is proving of benefit. As mentioned earlier, the agriculture departments sponsor also the local chapters of the Future Farmers of America, a voluntary organization whose membership corresponds pretty closely with that of the "Ag" classes. The club meetings are more informal, of course, than the classes. The boys are usually given more responsibility for the planning and execution of club activities; and while educational and agricultural activities are stressed, there is somewhat more emphasis on the social and recreational phases of farm life. The Future Farmers of America are very active in some high school communities, and they contribute generally to the progressive agricultural undertakings in the county and to the social life of the comparatively few farm boys whom they reach. The high school "Ag" departments work closely also with the 4-H Clubs, the Farm Bureau, the Agricultural Conservation Program, and other farm agencies of the county. Further, the agriculture teachers in Chautauqua County are themselves a closely-knit group. They meet together frequently to discuss and evaluate their work and to further their own good fellowship. That the total effect of the high school agriculture programs on the farming of the county is positive and dynamic, is attested by teachers

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and farm leaders alike. The supervised practice has been a direct contribution. But more important is what it augurs for the future, both for the boys who will in all probability continue their farming in terms of the best accepted practices of the day; and for their parents who, many of them for the first time, are glorifying something other than seasoned experience as a requisite to successful farming. "Book farming," long resisted by the bulk of Chautauqua County farmers, is making a difference to the agricultural patterns of a growing number of parents through profitable application and demonstration by the youth. In this regard the proper allocation of credit between vocational agriculture and 4-H Club programs is not easily determined. Nor is such allocation important. In fact, there is an overlapping of membership in a number of communities; both work together and contribute significantly to the total agricultural program of the county. It should be noted that the dominant emphasis in the vocational agriculture program, as in the 4-H Clubs, is local in terms of type enterprises of the community and related jobs and problems. What consideration there is of farm legislation and broad economic and social issues, comes usually during the last few weeks of the senior year, with only brief sporadic discussions during earlier years. The emphasis further is on the conditions, processes, and specific improvements of production. Only a minor part of the program as yet is concerned with the problems of marketing, which on local and national scale are so significant to the general status of agriculture in modern society. Such emphases, of course, are not unique with the high school agriculture courses, nor with Chautauqua County. Growing out of long years of an economy of scarcity, the disproportionate stressing of production over distribution in all forms of agricultural education, as well as in historic rural attitudes, is patent and quite to be expected. That the agriculture program, furthermore, with so much to commend it as a truly dynamic and vital kind of education for rural communities, reaches such a small portion of the total rural youth of Chautauqua County, is something to be regretted. It is estimated that fewer than 30 percent of the farm boys of the county are enrolled in vocational agriculture. Some feel that they already have enough farm work to do before and after school, an agriculture teacher explained, and they have little desire to extend such labor into their school work. Others are given little encouragement by their fathers, especially those from farms where the machinery and techniques advocated and used in the "Ag" courses are not considered applicable for financial or other reasons. In some instances, too, another teacher observed, the feeling exists that the "Ag"

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department is likely to draw those boys who are stronger of brawn than of brain, those who tend to be problems in other classes. This is conceded to have some effect on enrolment, although the enthusiasm and dramatic achievements of "Ag" students are often sufficient to counteract such effect. The difficulties involved in taking a double-period class when there are so many other courses to be included in one's program makes for some hesitation also. And so, certainly, does the desire of farm youth to prepare for and look toward some more remunerative and attractive occupation for their future than fanning. In addition to lack of opportunity in the high schools where agriculture courses are not available, these are the conditions variously responsible for the fact that more than 70 percent of Chautauqua's rural youth are not reached by the vocational agriculture courses. It is estimated that the vocational homemaking program, set up with similar purpose and support in a parallel field, reaches a slightly higher proportion, or close to one-third, of the high school girls from the county's farm areas. In these courses a wide variety of problems of home and family are treated, such as health practices, home decorating, cooking, sewing, house cleaning, selecting of materials, creating and laundering of clothing, purchasing and care of furniture and household equipment, family diets, preparation and preservation of foods, first aid care, beauty care and dress, individual and family budgeting, child care, and the like. The homemaking department, in conjunction with the home economics department—which is usually a more specialized course common to both urban and rural high schools, as part of the regular high school offering rather than of the Smith-Hughes Vocational program— is equipped with cooking and sewing facilities and various kinds of household materials. This makes possible the execution, or at least the demonstration, of many of these projects by students and teacher right in the classroom. The homemaking classes are much more informal, therefore, than the more traditional phases of the high school program. The periods are usually twice as long as those for other classes, the number of students is smaller, and, by the very nature of the problems dealt with, the teacher has opportunity to become better acquainted with the out-of-school life of the girls than do most of the teachers who work with them. In some schools the relation is very close; and the homemaking teacher can know, even more than the regular statewide homemaking examinations can measure, to what extent the learning within the classroom is making a difference to the life of these girls and their families outside. Because

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of the distance from school of some of the farm homes, and sometimes of the wide differences in conditions of living among them, certain aspects of the homemaking program are apt to be better suited to village than to farm students, especially in the case of those whose homes lack the modern sanitation facilities and labor-saving equipment such as are used for demonstration or projects in the classroom. Nearly 60 percent of the farm families in the county use wood-stoves for cooking, and about the same number, it will be remembered, report no mechanical refrigeration whatever. It is commonly believed that the use of electric equipment in the homemaking department will encourage farm families to work toward these improvements. There are those, however, who feel that such disparities are rather adding to the dissatisfaction of young folks from farm homes so difficult of upkeep, and to their desire to leave the farm and live in village or city where these conveniences are more commonly available. At any rate, it must be conceded that the homemaking and home economics courses, where cooking, sewing, and similar projects are also pursued, are making an observable contribution to the quality of farm living in the county. It is felt by a number of teachers, parents, and students with whom the writer conferred, that the contribution could be greater if these departments were able to reach more of the girls and thus more of the homes of the farm areas. And it could also be greater if, like the agricultural courses, they could carry on the supervised projects in the actual farm home settings and over a longer period of time. They seem to think this would be difficult, though not impossible, to work out under the present organizational setup of the high schools. T H E HEALTH PROGRAM

With the help of the school and county nurses, many of the schools, especially the larger ones of the county, in recent years have established various routines for safeguarding the health of the children. In most of the larger schools physical examinations are provided for all children entering for the first time, although some teachers observe with concern that these are often little more than perfunctory. In a number of instances these examinations are repeated periodically throughout the grades and into high school. Defections are recorded and reported to the families with recommendations for correction or further consultation with specialists. Because of limitations earlier described in this study, there are many farm families through the county quite unable to follow up these recommendations. In the most urgent of such cases—usually through the efforts of teacher or school or county nurse—the schools, the

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teachers themselves, or some public or private agency may be persuaded to finance an urgent tonsillectomy, the removal of adenoids, the fitting of glasses. Upon recommendation of the State Dental Association, a dental hygienist is now employed for a few weeks in each of a number of the central schools to clean the children's teeth, diagnose and report further dental care needed, and advise children concerning proper care of their teeth. Health history cards for each child are kept in the nurse's or principal's office, and contagion is guarded against. Vaccinations and inoculations are a regular part of the program for most of the larger schools; lung X-rays and hearing and vision tests are routine in an increasing number of the schools. That these services are not always extended to the children of small country schools is regretted by county nurses, parents, and school people alike. In large part, it is the resourcefulness and concern of the teacher herself that determine the health program in the one- and two-teacher schools of Chautauqua County. This is one of the most forceful arguments u s e d in favor of school consolidation. F u r t h e r , the use of gymna-

siums and special athletic equipment, of cafeterias healthfully managed in some cases through the help of the home economics department of the high school, of better heating and ventilating facilities are all included in the case for the central schools. Health classes of varying effectiveness are taught in all the schools, many times from health readers or textbooks, through methods already described. Sometimes Good Health or Safety plays are dramatized by one class for the rest of the school; health villages or castles are built in the sandpile; posters are made showing well-balanced lunches and other meals. All this has gone on for a number of years, it may be noted, while family diets on which farm children are growing up continue to be heavy and starchy and largely unvaried. "Drink Milk" posters frequently have a prominent place on the walls or special bulletin board, on the assumption, it seems in many instances, that all children who want milk in this area can get it. In most classrooms, especially of the elementary grades, a health inspection for clean face, hands, nails, teeth, groomed hair and a fresh handkerchief is a rather perfunctory part of the opening exercises. Sometimes the rows of children are pitted against each other in competitive fashion and the winning row's number is conspicuously posted. In other classrooms, charts are made and on occasion attractively illustrated, and stars are placed after the names of those individuals who comply most regularly. In this way, it is felt, the needed pressure is most

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effectively brought upon those children, whatever the sanitary facilities and family habits with which they grow up at home, who forget to comb their hair, to wash their hands at least to the wrists, to bring a handkerchief or just a clean cloth, often left in the desk for the purpose. Indeed it would seem that the clean and attractive appearance of children is more important to the teachers who stress these superficial matters than are the far graver conditions of malnutrition, of overexertion, of eyestrain or fatigue, from which some of these same children may be suffering. Children do respond, of course, and some are rather more attractive of appearance and probably more careful of their persons because of the regularity of this inspection. In some of the country schools, the older teachers who are a part of the community have been able to work more closely with the homes and families, and health education in these instances has been put on a much more genuine plane. The schools are conscious of physical welfare in other ways also. In a number of schools, one sees kindergarten and sometimes first grade children resting on rugs on the floors at regular periods. In most of the schools, however, the "resting" consists of merely putting the head and arms down on the desk and being very quiet, usually after a period of vigorous physical exercise. Little attempt is made to provide adequate rest facilities for many of even the youngest children whose long hours at school are further lengthened by the morning and late afternoon bus rides. A growing number of country and central schools, either with or without the aid of the Federal Surplus Foods program, are serving a hot lunch or one hot dish to the children, at least during the winter months. This program has grown considerably in the past few years. Teachers also continue to stress the wearing of adequate clothing during bad weather. From their own pockets, as well as through solicitation of charitable individuals and agencies in the community, they have provided rubbers, shoes, gloves, and cast-off coats and dresses to children otherwise poorly protected from the wet and the cold. Some are stressing with all the children better care of the clothing they have, although the usually crowded or otherwise inadequate cloakrooms in both country and central schools counteract this precept in part. Physical education programs are given prominence in the central schools of the county, and children are profiting to different degree. Seating equipment also is coming to be more healthful than formerly; but it is still not uncommon in country schools, and sometimes in central, to see small children at work for most of the day in seats and at desks much too large for them, and older students trying to find a comfortable

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position for long legs or tired backs in seats that are much too small. Many of the classrooms, new and old, are crowded, and there is little space to move around. Further, in a number of the central schools, supervising principals and teachers have found it much more convenient to schedule and supervise play periods in the gymnasium, perhaps as a part of the lunch period, than to see that the children get into snow suits and galoshes and out to play in the fresh air and all-too-rare sunshine. This is not everywhere true. Individual teachers as well as school and county nurses are emphasizing the importance of outdoor activity. There are those among them who resent the fact that the playgrounds and equipment of most of the central schools of the county, because of insurance laws and other obstacles, are not open for children's use after school or on week ends. Some of the health classes in the high school, as well as the agriculture, homemaking, and home economics courses, are helping to make a difference to the health of the farm boys and girls in this area. Wartime conditions and pressures made it more difficult for them for a time, increasing the work day and work load of older children and youth as well as deepening the strains and day-by-day problems of the farm families generally. The schools of the county, largely intent upon meeting successfully the academic requirements demanded of them, were hard put to it to find ways of counteracting such strain. THE SCHOOLS IN W A R T I M E

War conditions affected the schools of rural Chautauqua County in a number of ways. The teacher shortage here as elsewhere became acute, accelerating the centralization trends in districts unable to secure country teachers, and occasionally lowering the requirements and standards to fill vacancies left by teachers who joined the armed services, secured defense employment, or found more attractive teaching positions elsewhere. The youth were affected by the same trends. Older students left high school, also for the armed forces or the chance to make "big money" through emergency employment. Some, it was reported, were making as much as their teachers. Part-time jobs during after-school hours were also common, even among farm children, although it was reported that most of the country youth used whatever time they could get off from school to help on the family farm or that of a neighbor. The shortening and crowding of the school schedule to free students for work on farms during the planting and harvesting season have already been noted. The State Education Department also made allowances. High school students were allowed thirty days of the school year

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for farm work, provided no more than twenty were taken in any one semester. Absences beyond this number were counted as regular unexcused absences. And here, although such absences were comparatively few, was where the greatest pressure existed. There was pressure on the farmer because he could not get help; yet the farm work had to be done—and done at a particular time—to forestall losses. There was pressure on him from the school and perhaps from his wife, because he was not supposed to keep his children home for such purposes beyond the days allowed by law. There was pressure on and from the son because last time he missed school he had been told that his father had no right to keep him out, that he was losing state money for the school every time he did so. There was pressure on principal and teachers because they were expected to keep illegal absences down to a minimum. There was pressure on the state, no doubt, because if it had no such laws, neither would it have the means for making sure that the school funds would be used for the education of its children. And so it went; and so it goes. The nature and the extent were left largely to the schools and in some cases even to the individual teacher, but it was expected that all of these absences would be "made up" in the classroom in one way or another. Although the supervised farm work was excellent experience for boys and girls, and although the contribution was valuable to the fanners and even to the war effort, this farm work could not, it seems, take the place of reading from textbooks, writing of themes, working of "math" problems, and in the larger schools, the activities in the gymnasium. With the vocational agriculture courses, it was a different matter. The nature of their organization and purpose is such that they were able to contribute to the significant farm work of the area as a part of their regular supervised and accredited program. Nor did this concrete farm experience prove, in the long run, to interfere too seriously with the academic records of the children involved. Children's physical and mental health undoubtedly were hazarded in unsupervised situations through the county, due to unwholesome working conditions here and there and the exploitation of immature children through work too demanding of them. Parents and county nurses and individual teachers feel that the schools as a whole should have taken a much stronger part and a firmer stand in this connection. But from the scholastic angle, which as pointed out seems to be the major concern of many school people of the county, the effects seemed not to be so grave as might have been expected. Observations of teachers and principals tend to concur in the main with a report of a nearby county

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made by the Regional Office of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and quoted here in part: Considerable time was spent in attempting to determine whether or not the age-grade school progression of school children is being affected by farm work. There was general agreement on the part of school officials that although schools were making considerable adjustment in their programs to meet the farm labor needs, that few, if any, individual children were being retarded in their school work because of this reason. One rural school principal, for instance, checked the list of failures for last year and concluded that not a single one was related to farm work. Another school official described the age-grade progression situation as follows: if a boy misses school he is expected to keep up on the general work, although he will undoubtedly miss many details of the class participation. When examination grades are in, usually the teacher takes this factor of farm work into consideration when giving out the final grades and may lower the standard for this particular student. In other words, if a student with a B average in former years made a rather consistent D grade in his work for a particular part of a semester, and if he seemed to show a diligent attitude and worked as hard as possible to make up for lost time when he returned to classes, probably he would receive at least a C, if not a B final grade for that course. . . . Insofar as could be determined there was a most co-operative relationship between schools, students, and farmers in meeting local labor needs and probably the total educational process is not being affected drastically by absences for farm work. 18 The schools of rural Chautauqua County made other adjustments to wartime, with little interruption of their regular academic schedule. Many of them, for instance, sponsored or supported metal and paper scrap drives, as well as War Stamp sales, in which farm children participated as conditions would allow. The schools distributed ration books too; they helped the Red Cross and First Aid groups. As tensions heightened at home, they heightened at school also. "Current events" discussions centered around dramatic phases of the progress of the war. Children of all ages followed battles and engaged in "war talk," both inside and outside of school. Many had brothers or fathers or neighbors who wrote from the battle fronts. The gas shortage, price controls, and Other restrictions on civilian life entered the picture as well; though the

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homes more than schools tended to color the outlooks here. The pledge of allegiance and flag ceremonies made their way back into prominence. Patriotic songs were given special emphasis in music classes. In the larger schools, air-raid drills were conducted from time to time. In these ways the schools of the county were made conscious of the war; and in all these little ways they responded. Otherwise, the traditional academic patterns, the "scope and sequence" of curriculum, the regular day-to-day classwork and activities of the schools were affected by world conflagration little more than by any of the long series of social and technological changes, and the conflicts bred by them, which ultimately brought it about. RELATIONS W I T H F A R M PARENTS

Farm parents are kept in touch with the central schools in a number of ways. Chief among them, of course, is the direct report from their children. The evening meal or supper seems to be the most common time when the goings-on at school are discussed. Many farm children, pleased with their everyday chance of mingling with people outside their farm neighborhood or community, take delight in bringing back to their elders the account of what happened at school, in the assembly, on the school bus, and occasionally in the village library. Many of the boys and girls have homework, too, and that gives the parents a chance to envision something of the scope of their learning. Sometimes indeed weary farm parents have had to take a more active part than they welcome in keeping the children or youth at their lessons, in trying to explain a geography question or arithmetic problem which seems to cause difficulty. "It really shouldn't be Dad's and my job to explain to those two boys when we've been working all day ourselves," one farm mother put it, jovially but with point. "Seems like the teachers ought to be able to teach the lessons so they wouldn't ask for so much help at nights. Our kids are smart enough all right, their Dad says." Parents are kept in touch with the schools through the report cards, sent out regularly to inform them of the academic progress of their children, in relation to other boys and girls in the same classroom. In some schools the "grades" or "marks" are in terms of percentages; in others they are in terms of letters, as A, B, C, D; still others, in terms of numerals, as 1, 2, 3, 4; and in a few, check marks or plus or minus symbols are used with brief remarks of explanation. An occasional teacher or school staff, sensing the inadequacy of older type reports to give any real information, has adopted the practice of writing letters

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instead. Conduct, deportment, character, initiative, effort, application, or other such categories, are frequently listed and "marked" on the report card, along with reading, writing, spelling, history, and other regular school subjects. The parents are asked to sign the report cards as an indication that they have given them attention. Sometimes this communication, designed to stimulate higher scholarship among the students as well as to keep the parents posted on their progress, serves to bring farm parents into constructive and favorable relations with the school. So does the regular publication of the honor roll in the village newspaper. In other cases, however, they work quite the other way, reminding parents that their children, however reliable and hard-working they may be at home or in the field, do not measure up academically; that they do not work as well as other children; that their attitude is poor. "What can be his trouble at school I can't understand," a mother will remark with concern. "He certainly works well enough around the place here . . . is always the first one to get out to the chores after supper. And he's the most considerate boy we have, thoughtful of others and all. But none of the other children have had any trouble at school. Blessed if I know what the matter can be." Some parents are anxious to give their report on how well children do things at home. They think it would be well for the teacher to know; and some teachers feel so, too. Teachers of small rural schools especially have frequently lent ear as farm parents have talked of their children. They feel it important that the school and the home work together. Many other teachers throughout the county express this belief, but they make little effort to know what the farm child's life out of school is like. It is sometimes rather difficult for farm parents, because of the home and farm ties, to visit the schools to talk over such matters with the teachers. There are some who feel timid about "talking up." They don't want to be thought complaining; and after all, the teacher ought to know best. "If she wants to know more about our children, she'll ask," one farmer told his wife in the writer's hearing, "and you can bet your life if they get into trouble, she'll tell us about that, too." So it seems to be generally true that, although in their small rural districts they may have turned out to the school functions regularly, and have talked with the teacher and seen her at work now and then, many farm parents of Chautauqua County rarely visit the central schools except on occasion of some special performance or exhibition. Now and then, the teachers report, an irate farmer will come in to make a complaint or to find out "just what the trouble is"; or an interested farm wife, at the pressing invitation of her child, will come in a half hour be-

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fore school is out, remain at the close for a few words with the teacher, and viewing the highlights of the new school building on her way out, will walk with her child to the village to meet Father in front of the feed store. As a general rule, however, visits from farm parents are not frequent in the county's central schools. The situation is quite as some principals and teachers would have it, moreover. The schools are the business of school people, they feel. It's just as well that the parents don't get into the habit of interfering with what is our business. A number of the central schools, as already mentioned, have parentteacher associations. The meetings of this organization, too, are better attended by village than by farm folk. The school is handier to the village. Evening chores are not so pressing. The village parents tend to have better clothes, to be more facile of speech. They are also more apt to know one another and the teachers, and therefore to be more at ease at the meetings than are most farm parents. This is far from true of all, however. Usually, although not always, the officers of the organization are villagers, too. They and the teachers are in large part responsible for the meetings, and it tends to be the same people, either from farm or from village, who turn out to them time after time. In some of the schools, following policies encouraged by the national body, regular contests are held among the classrooms, with a P.T.A. banner as the reward, to see which can get most parents out to the meetings. Thus pressure is brought on the children, and through them on their parents as well. Sometimes this works well for a few months; and then, unless there is something of very vital attraction on the program, the interest dies. Refreshments are served also to attract the crowd, especially if a speaker of some note has been invited to address the body. The classrooms are usually opened at the close of the meetings, to which parents can go to talk with the teachers about the progress of their children. Some of these organizations are very active and well supported throughout the year. Others, especially in communities where there are many other diversions, have gradually dwindled in membership until, as teachers from several schools report, "there seemed to be no one turn out but the teachers and officers, so we decided not to continue." As earlier mentioned, some farm parents, especially those whose children are taking part, drive in to the occasional school play, to the band concert, and a smaller number to the basketball games. Farmers come in also to the machinery repair clinics from time to time. On the whole, however, as this study indicates, the farm parents of Chautauqua County are not as yet a very active and integral part of the central school communities. That is in part why many of them still look back with long-

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ing to the days, not so many years ago for some, when the whole neighborhood, old and young, turned out to the little country school—to help with and enjoy the Thanksgiving and Christmas parties, the spring festival, the farm exhibits, the square dance or spelling bee, the school's community picnic. It is also in part why some other farm communities of Chautauqua County, still turning out, old and young, to help with and enjoy such occasions, are ready "to fight to the very last breath" to save their small rural schools.

CHAPTER

SIX

Churches in the County THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN EARLY TIMES the early settlers of this area were not moved to the same depth and zeal of conviction that had characterized their New England forefathers, the religious and moral history of the county is not without its drama. Indeed it was the religious zeal of its people that made of the county a birthplace of notable religious and cultural movements. The world-famous spiritualist movement held its first national convention at Kiantone Springs in Chautauqua County, and the well-known spiritualist camp at Lily Dale still attracts leaders from every clime. The colorful but short-lived Harris Community, an experiment in a kind of Christian communal life, was bom, flourished, and died in the little village of Brocton near the shores of Lake Erie. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, since grown to nationwide proportions, is claimed by some to have originated in the village of Fredonia. And the famous Chautauqua Institution, begun as a Methodist camp meeting and Sunday school assembly, has come to serve as a source of cultural inspiration throughout the land. Its venerable and attractive birthplace on the shores of Lake Chautauqua every summer attracts artists, lecturers, religious leaders, educators, and audiences from all parts of the nation and world. ALTHOUGH

During the first few years of settlement, churches were few in the area. Religion was a family concern for the most part, and the moral training of the young was carried on in the home. In 1810, when the population of western New York was about 5,000, there were no more than twenty churches in the three westernmost counties combined. By 1840, with 120,000 inhabitants, "a score of denominations and over 200 churches were ministering to their spiritual needs." 1 A native of these parts wrote of her grandmother: "She was a strong Episcopalian, almost the only one in Forestville. She would have the Colville children come to her house every Sunday and she taught them their catechism. Then a Mr. Porter, not ordained, came to hold services

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at her home once a month. He taught them their catechisms and brought the first Sunday-school books. . . . Grandmother was very strict with us, making us observe Good Friday and all the other Church Days." 2 Further insight into those earliest times is given by another Chautauquan: "The growth of the churches in the new county followed a certain general pattern laid down by the wilderness conditions," she writes. "The Methodist circuit-rider and the Baptist or Congregationalist missionary must, to a great extent, blaze their own trails, find their own little groups to preach to, endure the same hardships as the settlers who had gone before them to establish homes, and run into their own special difficulties in their travels, meeting floods, winter storms, wild beasts, and other wilderness dangers, far from shelter in the worst possible weather. A light in the forest might mean a welcome by the hospitable fireplace of a Christian family; through their efforts one might gather an audience for outdoor preaching around a stump pulpit or in a barn. Where for some reason this could not be done, the missionary was glad to preach to a single family as was often done." 8 S o for a long time, religious services w e r e held in t h e h o m e s , outdoors,

in the barns, and in many instances in the schools. Then as settlements grew, the building of churches began. They were co-operative enterprises in the main, with families of similar faith contributing for the purpose their labor, their teams of oxen and later of horses, and lumber and stone from their farmlands and forests. To quote concretely: "The red bricks in the Methodist Church were made in the kiln on the Pattison farm two miles from the village. Other materials that went into these churches were home grown, and produced by home labor. The lumber used in the Methodist Church came from trees that grew on the farm of C. Gage south of the village. He cut down the trees, hauled the logs to the saw mill, and drew the lumber to the church. It was by united sacrifices that these houses grew, by many little gifts of money, labor, time, and materials, and by a few large gifts." 4 And the people were proud of their handiwork and were pleased to worship God in churches they had built with their own hands. These country churches, furthermore, have carved an important place for themselves in the institutional history of Chautauqua County. For a good many years, and in many a scattered crossroads community, they served as religious and social centers. Farm families, dressed up in their "Sunday-go-to-meeting best," would travel for miles through sunshine or snowstorm, to attend the services and mingle with their friends, to sing lustily in the church choir, to listen enrapt or with stifled impatience

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to the warnings and prophecies and moral exhortations of the minister. Children learned their catechisms through the week that they might not falter when, filled with awe, they were called on to recite them before others of their faith. Also during the week there were meetings and social functions that took in the whole countryside, in culinary preparations quite as much as in the gatherings themselves. Almost everything of a neighborhood or community nature took place in the church or the school, and in many places the church even more than the school was the center of life. Revivals have played an important part, too, in the religious history of Chautauqua County. "The decade between 1830 and 1840 was noteworthy for religious revivals. Evangelism and camp meetings were the order of the day. Some of these were orderly," writes Wilder, "and others led by overzealous and undertrained men left ill effects in their wake. All provided the necessary opportunity for the various communities to get together, trade horses, talk politics and become aware of their common dependence on each other and God. . . . These revival services brought many families back into the church, who, during the early pioneer days, had been too far off or too poor to attend worship of God anywhere." 5 By this time too, a Sunday-school union was functioning throughout the area, "but without the co-operation of the Methodists and the Episcopalians." 6 The successive influxes of population brought into the county through the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 and through subsequent railroad construction and industrial expansion, tended to swell villages and cities more than farming areas. So the continued expansion of both Protestant and Catholic churches to which they gave rise has been pretty well confined to the centers of population. The growth of the country churches was earlier and of shorter duration. As time went on, and communities grew, so also did the competition among their churches. A number of denominations vied for membership many times in the small community. The Baptist and the Methodist were most common among farm families. There was also the Congregationalist, and later the United Brethren, Evangelical Reformed, and others. The Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches had sizable followings, although as years went by, they centered more and more in the villages and cities to become largely the churches of the more prosperous people. Each major influx of immigrants gave rise to new churches, located usually in the villages, but attended by some

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and Its School

farm families as well. The Germans brought Evangelical Churches along the shores of Lake Erie. The Dutch brought the Dutch Reformed to the county's southwest. The Swedes in the vicinity of Jamestown brought the Swedish Reformed and the Swedish Lutheran. The Irish very early, the German, then the Polish, and more recently the Italian, brought their respective Catholic Churches to the cities and larger villages of the county, especially along the fruit belt. These were also supported by some Catholic families from farm areas. Through the years the church's emphasis was on individual salvation through belief in Christ, and on earning a worthy reward in the next life through uncomplaining, righteous living in this. With little major controversy, the Bible was the widely accepted authority throughout the county. Abstinence from the sins of the flesh was stressed at all times. The moral codes were stringent in early Chautauqua County, and religious and moral judgments were very severe. The church, the home, the school, and the neighborhood underwrote with marked uniformity the accepted standards of conduct, "although denominations were jealous of one another, and marriage between families of different faiths was frowned upon." 7 The use of alcoholic drinks was prohibited among church members, and, by some of the denominations, dancing too was forbidden. So among people of more worldly bent, the small country taverns which dotted the main routes of the county, together with wayside hotels, very early became the rival of the churches in matters of recreation and leisure. They were also the targets of upbraidings by the ministers and others who sought to reform and to capture from sin. Especially in the years prior to the Civil War were the churches actively interested in temperance and abolition. Neighborhoods, congregations, and even families were divided on these issues and were everywhere vocal about them. The story of stranger or friend or neighbor or even close relative whose life was ruined through the overpowering habit of drinking, sometimes including the ruin of his innocent family, became hauntingly familiar lore to every member of family or congregation. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, later part of the national movement, was organized at Fredonia in 1873, and its technique of exacting drastic promises from business men and dealers of liquor spread rapidly through the county. The movement made notable headway during the next several decades, spilling over county boundaries to gain the support of churches generally and the animosity of taverns and hotels who both fought and ridiculed it.

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The story of the abolition issue in Chautauqua County is particularly dramatic also, since it centers around the famous "Underground Railroad," over which Negro slaves were helped to escape into Canada. A branch "crossed the state line at or near Sugar Grove, passed through Busti and Jamestown and thence across Lake Erie or Buffalo and on to the 'railroad's' terminal in Canada." 8 Over this route Chautauqua families would secretly assist Negro fugitives on their dangerous route to freedom. It was illegal behavior as well they knew. But the law of the land and the warm sympathies of honest, kindly, but enraged people for their "dark brothers" and their welfare, came into deadlock. And help the runaway slaves they did, many of them. As agents of the "railroad," they "secreted, fed, and by night transported their unfortunate charges, without reward, always in danger of arrest and punishment by fine and imprisonment, and not without conflict with the sentiments of their nonAbolitionist neighbors. For even in Jamestown," writes Bailey, "an antislavery speaker of the time was saved from mob violence only by the physical strength and fearlessness of a minister of the Gospel." 8 The Civil War—or War of the Rebellion as it was called in these parts—in which large numbers of Chautauqua County men gave their services and many their lives, first heightened and then gradually brought to an end this moral conflict, although to this day indeed can be found deep divisions on principle. The country churches of the county had failed to grow or even to maintain stability long before the time of the Civil War, and through the 'seventies and 'eighties many of the village churches also joined in the decline. Other interests began to cut in on the church's following. Of this trend Wilder observes: "Out from Protestantism during this period stemmed many movements. The Protestant meetinghouse became a center, and the place of origin for many organizations and institutions. Most of these were and are worthy, but many of them developed into competitors for the services and attentions of the people. The decline of the church as a community center can be traced, in part at least, to the rise of these other groups. The Grange, Women's Christian Temperance Union, Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A., along with all the secret and semi-secret social organizations, depended for their support upon the same people as the church, and took from the church and continue to do so much of the work it did as the main community center. The Protestant Church as a whole became interested more in the salvation of its own soul." 10 Toward the close of the nineteenth century and on into the twentieth, revivals and camp meetings again took hold in the county, calling back

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into the fold with their stirring and dramatic appeal many who had tended to lose interest. World-famous evangelists were brought in to aid the local groups in these revivals. Spiritualism, by now a world movement, was flourishing at the little camp of Lily Dale. And the great Chautauqua Institution had come to be a cultural force in the county and even in the nation. Protestant ministers of all denominations, as well as a small number of Catholics, were drawn to its activities every season. Village church membership expanded, budgets increased, and costlier churches were built with corresponding indebtedness. In the meantime the country churches were fast losing ground. Families were growing smaller, and many were moving into the village to live or at least to worship. Churches once filled to capacity could hardly maintain themselves through the few families left in the fold. Then came the depression, which hit with shattering blow both the village and struggling country churches. Many village churches have been able to right themselves in the uncertain years that have followed. But beset by the deepening modern trends and difficulties already discussed, many country churches have been unable to make such a comeback. THE PROTESTANT CHURCH TODAY "No sir, there isn't a church in our whole township now," a farmer told the writer, "—not a Protestant Church anyway. A man did come over from Dunkirk there for a while—wasn't licensed or anything, but thought we needed it, I guess—and he tried to get a group together once a week. They didn't turn out very regularly though, so I think he's given it up. I don't know why it is, but farm people just don't seem to be interested any more. Seems that the last few years they've all been too busy. . . . I don't know." Of another part of the county, a Home Bureau leader observed: "Why, down around Clymer practically everything is wrapped around the church. The whole community for miles around turns out, to social functions as well as religious. And that's true of a number of places in this county." Again from a Protestant farmer: "About the only really religious people in our part of the county are the few Catholics we have there. You gotta hand it to them. No matter what happens they always have time to go to church. Nobody anywhere so devout as the Catholics . . . you can say what you want. Guess their religion means more to them than

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ours does—or maybe the habit was stronger with them in the first place." So this picture too is varied, although it is commonly observed that the role of the church in the farm areas generally is less marked than it was a few generations ago. This is evident in a number of ways, and quite to be expected in view of community changes already discussed. Many of the small country churches built at some once busy crossroads or in flourishing farm communities have had to close down in the past twenty years, due to waning population and interest, to lack of financial support, to increased village and city contacts, to competition rather than co-operation among the independent little churches. There were always more churches than were needed, a farm wife asserts. And those that still survive have a difficult time. "Why, our little church at home used to be filled at every meeting," a native recollects, "and on special occasions like Christmas, I remember, we even crowded the balcony. But it isn't the same any more. My wife and I went back this year to the Christmas services, and we just couldn't get over how that congregation has dwindled. I don't know how they can hold out much longer. "Of course, the families there are much smaller than they used to be. Why, all of our neighbors used to have five kids at least, I remember. Now there are fewer neighbors, and the families are not so large. A lot of the farms out that way have been abandoned too in the last few years, and others sold to make bigger ones for the more prosperous farmers. More people drive into the village, too, and go to the village churches." This latter trend is growing steadily in the county, with farm families making the trip by car every Sunday and sometimes during the week. Other people have lost interest in as well as the habit of going to church anywhere. "And that is only natural," an old resident contends. "Why, when I was a boy, we all went to church. Folks would drive their teams for miles to attend, and-through all kinds of weather, some of them because religion meant a lot, and many because that was their only chance to get together in a social way. And that was important. Well, today there are too many other interests competing with the church. If you have time to take Sunday off, you get the family in the car and go somewhere. And you go places during the week, too, and meet people, so the church doesn't mean so much in that way any more. Then there's another thing: You can hear a good sermon over the radio now whenever you're of a mind. I can tune in on a minister in Buffalo on Sunday mornings and get a lot more inspiration than I can by getting dressed up and going out to hear the minister of our own church." Differences in attitudes toward church-going cut across communities,

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neighborhoods, and even families. Some members of a family may be very reliable church-goers, while others of the same family rarely step inside a church. It is reported further that among the farm people who do not attend church, quite a number are glad to have the churches maintained in their communities. Some of them, those whose wives and children attend, for instance, are not only very cordial to the minister and donate the use of their cars whenever there is need, but also make financial contributions from time to time. The fact that so many churches have had to close their doors, however, indicates that this practice is not so common as one might be led to suppose, that it is probably its dramatic quality rather than its frequency that gives the story persistence. Nor does rural Chautauqua County feel that it has lost its religion. "If I live right and pay my honest debts and obey the Golden Rule," a farmer will say, "well then I would say that is religion." Williams makes this observation of rural New York: "Farmers are, to be sure, less isolated than formerly and they have more business and social interests so that they dwell less on the postulates of religion. The decreasing interest in the subjective side of life is seen even in the most staunchly religious farmer. Yet he will tell you, if you ask him if farmers are as religious as they used to be, 'I think they are as religious but they aren't so pious. Their religion is more a matter of Christian conduct.'" 11 The ministers and the active church members are a little impatient with this position, although the whole idea of "relative goodness," they seem to feel, is more prevalent among villagers than farmers. "Wherever it appears, it is just a defense or an excuse for not going to church; it's really not a conviction with them," one minister points out. That competing and increasing interests are keeping many people away from the church, Protestant ministers seem to agree; "which means that the people we do get out are the really religious ones," one of them remarked with satisfaction. Some feel further that it is the leaders of the communities who are the active church members—"the most stable of the farm population, economically, socially, and in their own families. Whenever help is called for in the communities, as for the 'blood bank' or observation work, it is the church people who are counted upon every time." Church people, they feel, just tend naturally to be organizationminded; you will find them affiliated with most of the community organizations. On the other hand, it is a different story with the people who are not interested in the church, the large group of poorer people out on some of the farms who have come in the past decade or two. They very rarely attend church, and they steer pretty clear of any or-

Churches in the County

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ganized group. They apparently are not interested in joining in or mixing at all. That the responsibility does not lie wholly with these non-joiners seems not to have been given much thought, although one minister called it to attention thus aptly: "I'm not sure they were born non-joiners. You know, in some of these rural areas, if you don't come in by way of heritage, it's pretty difficult to crash the gates." Among the country churches which have survived the growing indifference and financial difficulties, there are several observable trends. One is that denominational lines, while still very marked in a number of places, are weakening generally. "The hard-shelled Baptist and the stiff-necked Calvinist are not so common any more," according to local report. Experiments of federated and community churches, while not outstandingly successful due in large part to the persistence of this very denominationalism, have at the same time made significant contribution to its diminution. "The most successful of these [community] churches," a local historian writes, "is the one at Sherman in Chautauqua County. The Methodists, Presbyterians, Universalists, and a few Baptists, came together and organized a fine church. The Methodist Church building is used for worship; the Presbyterian house for the church school; and the Universalist edifice was sold. A Baptist Church still thrives in the community, but the citizens of Sherman have made an honest effort to solve their church problem." 12 Other experiments of the community and the federated type have not been particularly effective, largely because in the former it has been difficult "to secure trained ministers and proper outlets for their missionary and world activities," 1S and in the latter because church people have tended to support only the phase of the venture for which their own denomination has had sponsorship. More common in the county is the combining of a village church with one or two rural churches, usually of the same denomination, under the leadership of one minister, who so arranges his schedule as to enable him to conduct the services and guide the activities of both village and farm communities. This practice seems to work out satisfactorily, the writer was advised by several ministers who thus operate. But a local writer protests: "The essence of Protestantism, in part at least, was the pastor living in his parish, knowing intimately the joys and sorrows of his flock. The preaching of a sermon on Sunday by a minister, who must speed away from that church to the next, will never hold religion at its present strength or weave it into the lives of the people." 14 The behavior trends of the ministers have also played a part in the weakening of denominational lines. Much of the current training for

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the ministry, the writer was informed, is non-denominational. And in Chautauqua County, groups of Protestant ministers from the various churches meet together frequently to discuss their common problems and promote good fellowship. The Fruit Belt Ministerial Association, the Jamestown Ministerial Association, and the smaller one in the Mayville vicinity all are active. A number of activities in which all of their churches participate, as for instance Prayer Week, services at the county jail, and Christmas festivities, are planned jointly from time to time by these groups and are well supported by the church memberships. Many functions also, such as Ladies' Aid dinners, Guild meetings and the like, are attended by church members and non-members alike. One minister reports that a Ladies' Aid group of thirty or forty will include possibly a dozen active members of his church; and another, that probably only a third of those responding to week-day functions in his rural parish are church members. One such regular afiFair which the latter described is the semi-monthly Ladies' Aid dinner, for which not only farm wives but farmers too from the whole community gather at the home of either member or non-mcmbcr about eleven o'clock of a weekday morning. While the women are arranging the co-operatively prepared meal, the men sit or stand about on the porch or the front lawn to discuss the latest cattle auction in the neighborhood, the difficulty of getting farm machinery and repairs, the ceiling on farm prices and the dangers of the subsidy program, and other timely topics of the day. They all enjoy the hearty meal together; then the men depart to get back to the farm work, leaving the women to carry on their meeting. A second and closely related modern trend is the church's broadening concept of its own role in answer to the developing demands of the constituents for something more than religious instruction and inspiration. More and more are the churches, both Protestant and Catholic, finding that the general welfare and needs of farm families must lie within the realm of their concern if they are to be sought for spiritual uplift also. More and more are those churches that survive tending to focus their emphasis on educating for better living. Ministers recognize the need for going beyond old creeds and traditions if their sermons are to continue to attract especially the young. Young people's groups, church socials of various kinds, and—in the case of some of the rural Catholic churches recently built as part of a new rural program—adult meetings to learn of co-operatives, of life in other countries visited by the particular priests, of current opinions and problems, bear evidence also of this enlarged concept.

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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH But the story of the Catholic Church in rural Chautauqua County is somewhat different from that of the Protestant. Throughout the county's history, the growth of the Catholic Church has been almost wholly a village and urban affair, not a rural development. During the first several decades of settlement, while population was sparse, little headway was made. In 1822, outside of New York City and Albany, there were only eight priests in the whole of New York State. One of them, "Father Patrick Kelly, was assigned as pastor of all western New York. For two years he labored under conditions which made his task almost hopeless," we are told. "The people had been without the services of a priest so long that many had completely fallen away and others lacked the disposition to co-operate with their pastor. Then, too, the only way to travel from one place to another was by horseback, by wagon, or on foot over roads practically impassable in winter and none too good in summer. With such a large territory to cover under these circumstances, it was impossible for him to even visit the isolated settlements of Catholics, much less to try to organize them properly. . . Nor did the rural situation improve very markedly when, with the growth of early villages, a young seminarian from Fordham University was ordained resident pastor of western New York. "For six years Father McEvoy worked among the Catholics in these five counties," two Catholic students jointly record, "traveling from place to place on foot or on horseback, saying mass in private homes or public buildings, administering the sacraments, and in general taking care of the spiritual needs of the faithful. . . . He went as far as Jamestown and Dunkirk but, naturally, such trips were not frequent. Nowhere in the five counties were there any real churches or organized parishes, but Father McEvoy conducted services in every possible place for the benefit of his people, many of whom traveled for miles to hear mass and receive the sacraments." 18 In the late forties also, Bishop Timon, the first Bishop of Buffalo, with Father McEvoy and two others, toured the whole southern district, including Jamestown, Mayville, Dunkirk, and Fredonia. "The Bishop also stopped at every other settlement he could find, whether there were Catholics in the place or not, in order to preach to the people and perhaps to conduct services." 17 With the completion of the Erie Canal; the subsequent construction of railroads; the beginnings of the seed industry, and later the metal

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industries of Dunkirk and Jamestown; and the fruit and vegetable farming and canning in the fruit belt; corresponding influxes of predominantly Irish, German, Polish, and Italian people swelled the population of villages and cities. This gave rise to a relatively steady expansion of the Catholic Church in this area. But since the Catholic population in the rural areas was pretty widely scattered, the country churches were few. Catholic families in most farm areas have had to travel for miles to hear mass. With the modern trends, which affected them as well as their Protestant neighbors, many of them have inclined to become indifferent and to lose whatever desire they had for attending church. Of recent years, however, a new program has begun. "The Catholics are at last coming to recognize the source of their great population, the countryside," a national farm leader observed to the writer. And the priest in charge of the Catholic Rural Life Program in Chautauqua County points out that among the farm families, there are an estimated ten thousand potential Catholics. "It is our goal," he explained, "to r e a c h this large group of people, most of them Irish, German, Polish,

and Italian—and to see that every Catholic in Chautauqua County has a chance to go to church." The program is designed, in addition to the traditional church services, to go beyond the ministering to religious needs as usually conceived. "We want to give the people a chance to live their religion to the full, and to see outside their own little neighborhood," say the group of young priests who travel out from Mayville. The adult study groups already discussed are a part of the program, planned as a series of six weekly meetings for each community in the circuit. In these groups problems related to community improvement are studied, to go hand in hand with the social and recreational programs already under way in a few communities where children, youth, and adults of all denominations have been quite without worthy resources for spending their leisure time. In these instances free motion pictures and parties with refreshments served at the church's expense have been open to all people in the community. "The program is new, but the results are satisfying," the priest in charge observed. Five little churches or "missions" have been erected since the fall of 1941, when the building program began. Four more are to go up before very long in different parts of the county. A few of the older country churches still stand also, although a number have closed down in the past decade or two as the population has waned. The old church still stands at French Creek, for example, where in the earlier days a flourish-

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ing Irish settlement hoped in vain for the railroads to pass through it. The program of these older parishes is being revitalized in line with the newer plans. "Rural communities in this county have needed leadership for a long, long time," a Protestant minister averred. "And now the Catholic Church, with plenty of funds behind it, is stepping in to do a job that the Protestant churches, or any other group, including the schools, have so far failed to do. The rest of us had better be waking up, I'd say, unless we want all of the unchurched areas to go Catholic." Thus the churches of rural Chautauqua County, both Catholic and Protestant, have run something of a rocky road. And the hold which they have upon farm families, while it varies among the communities, is far from that which they would like to have in the county generally. Certainly their Golden Age, so far as Protestantism goes at least, to date lies in the past. Many of the churches, under impact of modern forces and changing outlooks, seem to be groping for a new foothold in a rearranged institutional order, a new niche to fill in the lives of the rural families whom they serve. An educational program for farm people of this area cannot afford to ignore these ends and these efforts, nor to overlook the potential resources which, working together as sister institutions in many of the same communities, the schools and the churches can have at their command.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

County Government and Political Orientation 1 H E POLITICAL divisions of Chautauqua County, it will be remembered, apart from her two cities and nine incorporated villages, are the traditional townships or towns. Each is governed by a town board, headed by the township supervisor, and made up of other elected officers, as town clerk, justice of the peace, assessor, collector, superintendent of highways, school director, and sometimes others. The twenty-seven township supervisors, and ten more elected from Jamestown and Dunkirk, make up the County Board of Supervisors, who come together at the quarterly meetings and the annual five-day sessions at Mayville to consider various matters of county concern.

EARLY POLITICAL STRUCTURE AND ISSUES Thus the structural form of the old New England town meeting persists in the area; however much may have been lost with the passing of rural isolation and community self-sufficiency, of the widespread interest, participation, and deeper local satisfactions that set it apart in an earlier day. Indeed through Chautauqua County's history, so long as conditions existed to which they were appropriate, the township and county governments tended to figure significantly. The following account of its first election, read before the County Historical Society some thirty years ago, serves to give something of the setting in which the political flavor and interests of this area, building largely on New England backgrounds, began to take shape: David Eaton was clerk of the Board at the first town meeting held in Chautauqua County; this was in 1807. Instead of the first Tuesday in November as at present, the elections were held on the last Tuesday in April and continued during the two following days. The Board had the power to adjourn to such place as seemed most convenient for the settlers. At the first election the polls were opened on the first day at the house of William Bemus on the east side of Chautauqua

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Lake, the second day at the house of Widow Perry at the Cross Roads, or what now goes by the name of Westfield. The third day in the forenoon at Canadaway, now Fredonia, in the afternoon in the town of Sheridan. The only way of getting about was on horseback through a deep woods and roads that were no roads, only trails. The Board packed their ballot boxes in their pockets and took up their winding way in single file from one point to the others designated. There were sixty-nine votes cast in Chautauqua County—none of the voters stayed away from the polls. The expense of the election was $68— each vote costing almost a dollar—no graft in this.1 A first major issue, and one which from time to time through succeeding years threatened to rend the county apart, had to do with the location of the county seat. At the time the county was organized, in 1811, there were but two townships: Chautauqua in which Mayville was located, and Pomfret of which Canadaway or Fredonia was the population center. The Chautauqua Town Historian writes: "The location of the county seat at Mayville excited the jealousy of the residents of Pomfret, who desired to have the county buildings at Fredonia, then known as Canadaway; and in 1812 an appropriation of $1,500 for the construction of county buildings, authorized at the creation of the county, and proposed by the supervisor of Chautauqua, was opposed by the Pomfret supervisor."2 The story is told—although the writer was unable to find it in writing, and there are those who deny its likelihood—that Mayville was selected as the county seat in order to enable the Holland Land Company, with offices at Mayville, more easily to dispose of the rather poor lands in that area which had not been selling so well. At any rate the resentment and rivalry occasioned by the choice was very deep and continued to crop up in the form of criticisms or compromise proposals for many years. "From 1831 to 1834 an attempt was made to divide the county," an older resident writes. T h e movement originated with the people of Fredonia, who were dissatisfied with the establishment of the county seat at Mayville. The division of the county was blocked by a resolution passed at a public meeting at the courthouse at Mayville."8 Nearly twenty years later another tactic was tried, when "on October 16, 1852, a notice was given of a resolution to the Board of Supervisors to move the county seat to Delanti from Mayville, the point selected being in Stockton as it is now known, and on the central plank road to Ellicot. . . . The resolution was lost by a vote of 13 for and 7

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against . . . A shift of one vote at that time would have shifted our county seat."4 Issues and differences of opinion of endless variety have stirred the voters of county and individual township down through the decades. They were early divided, for example, on attitudes toward the Masons. And since a series of incidents in Chautauqua and neighboring counties had led many to feel that the secret order of Masons had been prone to take the law too recklessly into its own hands, the sentiment throughout the area was heavily anti-Mason for a number of years. Of 1828 Tennant records: "This was the year in which anti-Masonry obtained a foothold in politics. Nationally Andrew Jackson was elected President, and Martin Van Buren elected Governor, both of them being Masons, but in the county the anti-Mason sentiment elected Hazeltine and Mixer by a large majority. . . ." 1 By 1833, however, the feeling had subsided; "the antiMasonic Party practically disappeared from the political field and merged with the National Republicans under the name of Whigs in 1834." 4 That year also the people of Chautauqua County were given adequate proof that their county government was taking seriously its responsibilities for meting out justice, without need for the aid of independent secret organizations. Local writings tend to make much of this phase of the county's history, and they may have had some effect on the general rural attitudes toward the Ku Klux Klan in later years. The most dramatic of all public county affairs to which the people of Chautauqua have responded, and one which has had horrible fascination for talebearer and hearer alike from one generation to the next, followed the Damon murder in Fredonia in 1834. Old residents especially still like to ponder on its various aspects. "He never meant to kill her, I'm sure of that," the writer was told little more than a year ago. "He was a pretty decent man, I believe. But he came home drunk on this particular night, and his wife started nagging at him. Well then he got mad—you know how it is—and he came down with the poker and hit her on the head . . . and it killed her. And I don't think he really meant to kill her no more than anything." This was the first murder in the county, and after a prolonged trial, the man was sentenced to hang. Excitement was rife through the whole area. The hanging was to take place in Mayville, of course; and men, women, and children from all over the county brought their provisions and moved in on the awful spot, by ox team, on foot, or on horseback, determined to miss not a whit of the terrible spectacle. One report reads: "Damon was convicted and hung at Mayville. When the trap

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was sprung, the rope broke and he fell to the ground. After frantic appeals of Damon for his life and after repairs to the gallows, the hanging proceeded in the presence of about 10,000 people. Some estimates placed the number at 18,000."7 The event must have cut deeply into the minds of the spectators, especially in the days when standards of moral judgment were far more severe than now. And the moral attached to it persisted quite as strongly as the story. It fit in well with similar tales which were made the most of in the zeal for the spread of temperance in the county. For the conflict of views regarding temperance was rampant in this area. Families, congregations, and communities the county over were divided on this issue. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, following its organization on a national scale, spread over the country. Everywhere people were heatedly debating whether temperance was a matter for the law or solely for moral suasion. Indeed the prohibition issue has stirred strong division and debate throughout the county's entire history, not subsiding in the least as the wine industry became an important source of livelihood for farm families of the fruit belt. This was well before the days of prohibition and the establishment of local fruit juice factories. "The shift from the wine to the great grape juice industry during the late nineteenth century came about because of the social and moral outlook of the upstanding citizens of this county," the writer was advised by a county official. "It fit right in with their psychology." The abolition issue earlier mentioned also colored the political thought and tenor of the day. So did problems of water and rail transportation and other developments local and wider. And throughout history lower taxation and reduction of public expenditures have had their effect, serving as political promise or record of telling appeal to successive generations of Chautauqua County citizens. For quite appropriate to the rugged individualism of early Chautauqua settlers and to the conditions which gave it birth, there persisted through the years the widespread notion, again built on colonial tradition, of the least government as the best. Chautauquans tended to believe with Emerson: "The less government we have the better—the fewer laws, the less confided power. . . . To educate the wise man, the State exists; and with the appearance of the wise man, the State expires. The appearance of character makes the State unnecessary. The wise man needs not army, fort, or navy—he loves men too well."8 Such concept colored the local thinking on government problems generally and especially on those pertaining to the federal government.

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With the gradual multiplication of political issues and problems, brought about by local and national changes discussed in an earlier chapter, party allegiance in rural Chautauqua County tended to deepen. Faced by increasing social complexity, the fanners came to be moved more by deeply-rooted attitudes than by serious reflection and study of the issues involved. Again, this was more particularly true with regard to state and national politics, the intricacies of which lay farther afield from their own concrete needs and intellectual province. "Neighbors differed vehemently without reflecting why," Williams writes; "each thought he had the truth when each was reacting merely to a partisan attitude, usually acquired unconsciously from parents." " The newspapers tended also to serve as instruments of one party or the other, with the growing majority in western New York subscribing to Republicanism. "In the 'nineties we took our politics very seriously," a Chautauquan recollects, "and a man's political convictions were made by the newspaper he took. Every Democrat subscribed to The New York World, and all Republicans received The New York Tribune. The few but faithful Prohibitionists stood by The Voice." 10 L o c a l papers fit even more concretely into the rural mode. Williams presses the point: "The increase of newspapers and magazines made people think they were "better informed' than in the early days when really they were merely better served with justifications of their own attitudes." 11 Indeed rural Chautauquans voted particular men into office for a number of reasons. Sometimes it was because they felt that the knowledge and experience of the candidate peculiarly qualified him for some specialized office of township or county, although this was far from the rule. As Williams calls to attention, "offices that did not require expert knowledge . . . tended to be given to the good fellow or the candidate who needed it most.' . . . Popularity was [and is] a strong factor in the choice of town officer, for the candidate could canvass the entire town and talk personally with all the rural voters and with many of those of the village. So personal popularity counted much not only when the office did not require any unusual ability but also when it did." 12 Despite continuous opposition to any but the most conservative of public expenditures, the construction over the years of the long series of public buildings has been a source of great county pride to successive generations. Some indication of it as well as of policies and practices of the time, can be noted in the following excerpt from the county directory of 1873: The county seat is still located at Mayville at the head of Chautauqua Lake, and all the county buildings, except the poor house and

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insane asylum, are located there. . . . The jail is a brick building situated southeast of the courthouse. . . . The sheriffs family occupy the front third of the brick part and most of the wing, a portion, however, being occupied by the sheriff as an office. The rest of the brick part and the upper part of the wooden addition are used for the confinement of prisoners. There are twelve cells in the brick part, which is used for male prisoners. The females are confined in the upper part of the wooden addition in a single room. At present there are fourteen inmates, six of whom are confined for intoxication, one for debt, on body execution, two for vagrancy, one for grand larceny, one for petit larceny, one for assault and battery, one for obtaining goods under false pretenses, and one for murder, all of whom are males. The jail is not sufficiently large, but is calculated to insure the safety and comfort of the inmates, when the number does not exceed that it was designed to accommodate. The poor house and insane asylum are located about three-fourths of a mile north of Dewittville, upon a farm of 306 acres, valued at $24,480. They are elegant brick structures, suitably furnished, and evince a care for the welfare and comfort of their unfortunate inmates, which reflects much credit on the county. . . . Religious services are held at the poor house once in two weeks. The present number of paupers [May 1873] is 120; of insane persons, 77. The poor house will accommodate 200 persons; the asylum, 60. The insane who cannot be accommodated at the asylum are cared for at the poor house." COUNTY GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL ORIENTATION TODAY The courthouse and jail have since been supplanted by more modern structures, the new jail in fact being only a few years old. The old jail still stands on the corner lot next it in Mayville and has been converted into offices for welfare workers, probation officer, and others of county employ. At the present time the County Board of Supervisors is concerned with the proposal for a new and larger courthouse. Indeed there is pressure afoot to have two courthouses in the county, one of them to be in Jamestown. "We don't really need a new courthouse, so far as I can see," a supervisor observed to the writer. "And certainly if we do build one, it ought to be here and not in Jamestown. Dunkirk and Jamestown are always anxious to get more of the government functions moved into the cities;

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it would build them up and mean a lot, of course. But we don't think that is right. And there are just enough of us rural supervisors that if we stick together we can swing a decision." Rural Chautauqua County is still overwhelmingly Republican—so Republican indeed that in most of the townships Democratic nominations are rarely even made. Eighteen of the twenty-seven townships follow the primary system for nomination of candidates for the township offices; the remaining nine hold caucuses for the purpose. And records of recent elections show that nineteen of the townships entered on their tickets no Democratic candidates whatever, while each of four others entered but a single candidate. Now and then, in scattered towns, a Democrat is elected to office, although usually in company with a large majority of successful Republican candidates. In most instances where names on the Republican tickets are to be opposed by new candidates, a new, temporary, and independent party is set up for the purpose, instead of running the candidates on the Democratic ticket. In a biographical sketch of a prominent figure of the county, the following tribute is paid: "The district in which he lived is strongly Republican in politics, and Democratic success here is in the nature of a forlorn hope. Mr. M. nevertheless accepted the nomination of his party for the State Assembly, and twice for Representative in Congress, and greatly reduced the majority of his opponents whenever he ran." 14 It is common knowledge that a number of outstanding political figures of Chautauqua County, once Democrats, came to grasp the futility of their situation somewhere in the early stages of their careers and, shifting their party label, became identified with the Republican bailiwick. It seemed in an almost apologetic tone that a local historian admitted to the writer: "Well, we did go Democratic there twice, you know. Voted for Roosevelt once for Governor, and once, in 1932, for President. That's because the people thought he'd be something like his cousin Teddy. But they made a mistake—he turned out to be more like Wilson." There is a tendency in some parts of the county for supervisors and other public officers to be returned to office again and again. Largescale changes usually can be credited to extreme dissatisfaction or deliberate political maneuvering. "Farm people of the county are largely willing to let others do their political thinking for them," the writer was told. Qualification for office is less important for political success than personality, party affiliation, and in some instances, the "pull" the candidate has with those already in office. At the time of this writing, there is one woman on the County Board of Supervisors. "And the reason she got in is this," one of the twenty-six

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men supervisors explained. "Her father was on the board for years and years. So when he died here not so long ago the town thought they could show their appreciation, I guess, by electing the daughter to the office. And they did. . . . She mixes in all right, too," he added. "Mixes right in and has her ideas on things, and gets along quite all right with all of them." As a matter of fact, except for a very active group of farm leaders, the farm population of Chautauqua County usually takes pretty much for granted the running of affairs of their county, and to large degree also of their state. Agricultural agencies call to the attention of their members from time to time proposed farm legislation which should have their support or opposition. But the exercise of their right of franchise is sufficient to satisfy the desires of most to have a part in the government of, by, and for the people. Perhaps that is why they are always referring to "politics," "politicians," and even "the government," as something apart from themselves—"they" rather than "we"—something indeed that borders on a stealthy rival of the genuine relations and purposes of the people. Through the years rural Chautauquans, as others, have looked askance at politicians, sensing in politics always something of the negative, of the not-to-be-trusted quality. That there has been some justifiable basis for such a notion in the history of the area will hardly be denied; and people have tended to generalize from every dramatic example. "No politics for me," they will say. "It was all right till the politicians took it over." Or, "He's far too fine a man to get mixed up in politics." Speaking of a Chautauqua County native who rose to prominence in liberal political circles in Washington and later to the Supreme Court, one of the older residents remarked to the writer: "Yeah, I like Bob. Him and me became 32nd degree Masons together. Lot of people around here though think he got started off on the wrong foot. You know, it's strange, but no matter how good a man is or how bad he is, once he gets into high office, he doesn't stand right in the public eye, I like him. I think he's straight." To account for the lack of effective political interest which Williams has found among New York farmers generally, he writes: The political behavior of the farmer is largely a matter of attitude and belief rather than of intelligent understanding of political issues. Another reason is that the farmer is slow to consider his own economic grounds to be legitimate grounds for political action. He is also loathe to credit men of his own vocation with capacity for political leadership. To him the farmer lacks the requisites of success as a public

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official, lacks ability to speak in public and to discharge official duties. So he has let men of other groups have the offices, and has trusted in the promises of the lawyer, the business man. The groups which have thus become accustomed to political control have come to assume an exclusive right to political power and are correspondingly annoyed at the increasingly aggressive political attitude of farm organizations." There are those who contend that the township is an inadequate structure for local government. These are largely students and experts in the field of government outside the county. Conditions revealed in this study would seem to support their contention, based on the fact that few of the concerns or problems of rural areas today are bounded by township lines, and comparatively few by county; the township lines in fact are observed for little else than political purpose. Hence these experts feel that a new and more appropriate structure is needed. Of this Chautauqua County, her rural areas especially, seems quite unaware. The township supervisors are proud of their old traditional precedents. They are proud to be thus identified with the historical and constitutional processes of democracy in America. They enjoy further the social satisfaction that comes of meeting with one another at the regular annual sessions at the county courthouse, although the hours hang heavily, they will concede, as they sit around chatting idly, and perhaps munching delicious, freshly picked apples brought for the occasion by Farmer C., while they wait for business to be brought in by the various committees. An editorial in one of the county weeklies a few years ago included this observation: "We are obviously in an age of governmental transition, but we surmise that changes will be few in Chautauqua County, and probably few are needed." 16 Certainly the Board of Supervisors, and the great majority of farm people who voted them into office and pay their expenses at the county seat, seem unaware that the situation may call for improvement. The writer of the editorial further remarked: "In this respect it is well to recall that of all of the governing units in which we have a part, the very minimum of complaint is heard about the county government. Perhaps its functions are too remote from our ordinary vision and our contacts with it rather infrequent. In any event there seems to be complete satisfaction with, or immense apathy toward, county government. . . . " 17 Indeed, it seems to be true that in line with the breakdown of rural isolation and the trends toward increasingly wider horizons discussed

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in this study, interest in township and county politics has gradually subsided, as state and more intensive national politics have stirred up wider and deeper and more highly emotionalized concerns. Again, this is not equally true of all parts of the county. There are still rural communities and townships where local political climate is tense, and where local battles rage with an ardor unrivaled even in presidential campaigns. "People out in our little community," a minister observed of his rural parish, "would rather lose their right arm than their vote. You see the polling places lined with cars at every election, local and national. They take their voting pretty seriously in those parts." Generally, however, feeling is high during presidential and gubernatorial elections and only lukewarm in odd years, unless there happens to be a local candidate running for high office or a particularly "hot" issue is at stake locally. On a state and national basis, the person and the party figure even higher in political choices than on the county level. To most of the rural folk, outside of local concerns, the Governor is the state and the President is the federal government. These two men are voted for, credited or criticized accordingly, regardless of conflicts that may come between them and their respective legislative bodies of such nature as to change crucially the tide of original programs. Especially was this true during the several terms of the New Deal; partly because it was throughout this period that farmers came to realize and to express themselves more than ever before about the relation of governmental policies, or lack of them, to their own occupational welfare. Be that as it may, with the general run of farmers, opposition to the increased role of federal government has been personalized, and simultaneously emotionalized, to an important degree. Rightly or wrongly, for a dozen years it was focused on Roosevelt, the Democrat. "Northeastern agriculture is out on a limb," the writer was told in the spring of 1944, "and will be as long as this administration holds out. Roosevelt never has had the interest of the eastern farmers at heart." This general attitude is not as simple as here made out to be, of course. The wider and deeper ramifications will be discussed in the chapters to follow. The point to be stressed in this connection is the significance of the individual candidate as a man and of the political party to which he belongs, even more than of the specific platform or program which he represents, in shaping the major political reactions of Chautauqua County farmers on local as well as on wider issues. And again, these issues, trends, and processes, which over the years might have been more intelligently handled through the deliberate deepening of insights and expansion of outlooks, have remained largely outside the concern of the local or even the national educational program.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

Life Attitudes and Outlooks I T is DIFFICULT to ascertain just what is the psychological deposit of all that has gone before in Chautauqua County, rounded out by events and developments of a swiftly changing and highly technical modern world. Certainly the earliest traditions and moral and intellectual dispositions have not weathered the years intact and unaltered. They have persisted diversely, sometimes strengthened, sometimes weakened, but in the main they have persisted. Today is an effect of yesterday, of all the yesterdays combined. And the life attitudes and outlooks most common to the farm people of Chautauqua County, in light of backgrounds discussed in this study, tend to be rooted pretty firmly in her past.

STRONG, D E E P L Y - R O O T E D INDIVIDUALISM Chief among these and significantly pervading all others, however tempered by the patterns of neighborhood co-operation, is a strong and deeply-rooted individualism. This has grown out of the rugged conditions of settlement and subsequent development of the county, together with the great Christian tradition to which her heterogeneous peoples have variously subscribed, and the early institutions to which it gave rise. The precepts of the Golden Rule, of universal brotherhood and benevolence to the poor, of eternal salvation itself which was the ultimate end, were built upon and in turn strengthened the concept of the worth of the individual, of every individual. The Bible, accepted as the word of God by all churches of the area whatever their creed, reminded whosoever believed in it, the educated or the unlearned; the Protestant or Catholic; the English, Irish, Swede, or Italian; that he counted in the sight of God. Again and again were congregations assured that every lamb was important in the fold, the wayward one newly returned quite as much as the ninety and nine. Even those who were not identified with the church, except indeed the most lawless, tended to live by these precepts. "Faith in man's dignity, in his natural rights to

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liberty, to equality of opportunity, and to happiness," writes Curti, . . was a heritage of actual experience on American soil." 1 Social institutions existed, in fact, to preserve and to foster this legacy. The patriarchal family, the neighborhood, the little schools of which they were so proud, all contributed to an emphasis on the welfare and worth of individuals. It must be noted that it was not an exploitive individualism that weighted the outlooks of Chautauqua County farmers, then or now, in the way that the individualism of private capitalism, with which they seek to identify themselves, has often been exploitive. The old cooperative, warm-hearted ventures of early farm families and neighborhoods already described—barn-raisings, quilting-bees, house-warmings and the like—and later, the coming together to build a school or a church, were not uncongenial to the kind of individualism that characterized the area. Nor was the policy, frequently practiced among relatives and neighbors, of helping in one another's fields—cutting the hay, harvesting the grain, and otherwise exchanging labor informally, one farmer and his sons with another. Moreover, Chautauqua farmers then even more perhaps than now turned out in numbers when emergency arose to help a distressed neighbor and his family. But despite these group activities, the early farmer was remarkably on his own mettle. Under the self-sufficient patterns of the times, he and his family were largely responsible for and absorbed in what went on within the confines of their own home and farm. His was a sort of dogged, persevering, you-have-your-opinion-and-IH-have-mine kind of individualism, grown out of the rugged agrarianism of Chautauqua County's past. That the farmer in many respects is still pretty much the same kind of individualist, even in the closely-knit world in which he now operates, is commonly asserted by farmers themselves. A minority of them have come to recognize that in certain of these respects, however admirable for an earlier day, there are grave limitations. "If the farmers do get anywhere in this day and age," one of the larger and more prosperous fruit farmers persisted, "they'll have to work for it, and they'll have to work for it as a group. And that's where the difficulty lies. Just try to get the farmers around here to pull together." He smiled wryly. "They're a pretty individualist lot all right . . . and the funny thing is, they're proud of it. We could do a lot better in our fruit growers' association if we'd all just leam to hang together. But lots of the farmers won't do it. They'll stay with the association as long as they can't do any better anywhere else. As soon as any one offers them a better price for

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their grapes, out they go. The canneries are onto that, too, and they've broken us up a number of tunes." Yes, Chautauqua County fanners in the main are proud of their persistent individualism. "The farmers have always done as they pleased around here," one of them said. "They're used to being their own boss, and that's what they want. They're skeptical about getting tied up with government or with anything else where someone is going to tell them what to plant and how much fertilizer to use." And another: "No, farming isn't the place to make money. As I tell my wife, I could have done much better financially working at the steel plant or like that in Dunkirk. But I wouldn't leave this old farm for anything. Never did feel I wanted to work for anybody else . . . to have someone always telling me what to do. I guess that's the way with farmers." And so it is, it seems, with a good majority of them. In spite of changed conditions and often bitter experiences to the contrary, rural Chautauqua County still clings to the belief that the individual is and should be responsible for his own success or failure. The long-fostered traits of thrift and industry, so forcibly ingrained in the development of western

New York, are held sufficient, with innate intelligence, to pit the individual farmer and his family against the great myriad of intertwined forces and events that go to make up the modern world. Thus prone to overlook the significant factors lying outside of an individual's control, most of the farmers of the county tend to think of even the most complex and broadly sourced problems—surplus- or under-production, price stabilization, soil conservation—as solvable by farmers alone and within their own geographic province . . . if only the government will not interfere and weight the scales. Geared to economic scarcity, and in line with the historic emphasis of the county as well as with much of the agricultural education of the time, the rural people are likely to put unreasoned premium on increased production. The processes of production still hold paramount fascination for the majority of those who work close to the soil. And in their minds unfavorable market conditions, whatever the cause, are tied up with some deliberate effort by somebody to interfere with the natural law of supply and demand. This means that in the main, as the writer was reminded again and again, farmers of the area have been slow to recognize the importance of group effort in the improvement of market conditions. One of the larger fruit and vegetable farmers spoke out of pertinent experience: "The only time to strike against low factory prices and have it do any good is before the tomato plants are even in the ground, not

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after you've put a whole summer of effort and expense on them. That'd make a lot of difference to the processing plants and they'd see they'd have to come around. But you could never get the farmers around here to try that. They'd rather go along in their old individual way and just hope each year that they'll get a better deal." Exceptions to this narrowly individualistic attitude are growing in number, due largely to changes already discussed. Co-operative ventures among both fruit and dairy farmers of the county have vastly improved the marketing situation over the past several years. They continue to be limited, however, as farmers themselves concede, by the persistent individualistic outlooks of many of their fellows. ATTITUDE OF RESIGNATION AND BELIEF IN THE INEVITABILITY OF PROGRESS Likewise out of the severity of life in early Chautauqua County, especially the uncontrollable hardships such as those due to uncertain and rigorous weather, to hard work on poor farms with little yield, to pestilence of whatever sort; there developed an attitude of resignation, further nurtured by the teachings of the church, which has left its stamp throughout rural areas of the county. The uncomplaining frame of mind in the face of adversity still draws forth admiration even from those most vocal of complaint. "Man proposes but God disposes," fanners have said in the wake of a killing frost, a sudden flood, or a hailstorm that may have wiped out the fruits of many months of heavy toil and expense. This is an attitude still widely subscribed to, particularly in the poorer, more isolated sections. "If that's the way it's to be, with both me and the wife down with rheumatiz' and not able to get help even in putting in the garden, well then that's the way it's to be. The Lord moves in a funny way his wonders to perform. . . . We've done pretty well in our day and we got a good family of honest upright children and grandchildren, so I guess we've got nothing to complain of. Youngest daughter just went into the airplane factory at Buffalo. . . . Wish the two boys would come over from Westfield oftener. They could put that garden in for us in no time, and then I think I could manage. But they got their families and their own farms, and with their two sons in the army, I guess we mustn't expect too much. There's a reason for all this, I tell the wife . . . we don't know what it is, but there's a reason for all this." In different parts of the county this attitude of resignation is gradually but obviously giving way. Improved practices and precautions counseled

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by agricultural agencies to offset or forestall adverse weather effects, the broadening of religious outlooks already described, and psychological effects of scientific and technological achievements and trends, are all making a difference. Though still numerous in many parts, the proportion of those who cheerfully accept their station, as in the olden days, "submit to poverty with faith that they might better their lot through practice of frugality, industry, and obedience to the moral teachings of God"2 is definitely on the wane. The realization seems to be growing on the part of an assertive minority of farm people that if they, the farmers, are ever to assume the status they would like to have in American society, they will have to push deliberately toward that end, to "insist on their rights." That's what business is doing, they observe; that's what labor unions certainly are doing; that's what farmers will have to do if ever they get anywhere. At the close of a county conference of Farm and Home Bureaus in early 1944, a dairy farmer declared with regard to the government's proposed subsidy program: "By gollies, we're not a-going to take it sitting down. W h y should there be a ceiling on milk prices at a time like

this when feed and labor are so high you just can't buy them? If industry can be put on a cost-plus basis, why can't the farmer? The other side of the problem? There's only one side to this problem. Now take, just for instance, my last milk check. . . And a county worker observed somewhat jocularly to the writer: "Farmers of today are reputedly the greatest crabbers on earth. They may not do very much about the things they complain of; but they do love to crab. It's always low prices or bad weather or the government helping the cattlemen again." "Or the blankety-blank labor unions asking for still higher wages," another party added. As a matter of fact, although organization records show that an increasing number of farmers are trying more and more to do something about conditions which to them seem limiting and unfair, large numbers of farm people throughout the county still tend to evade the actual facing of problems and to find solace to varying degree in the age-old attitude of resignation. Closely allied with this attitude and even more persistent among these rural people is a strong belief in the inevitability of progress, an assumption that the universe is morally ordered. Whatever the nature and duration of the struggle with evil in man or in society or in the world, the good will ultimately win out. Even in the face of grave threats to civilization from fascist designs, together with more intimate anxieties about sons or grandsons in the thick of heavy battle, this tradition and faith remained unshaken on the part of most. It seemed, in fact, par-

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ticularly during those years, to be a source of great comfort and hope. God and mankind generally, it was assumed, are disposed toward "the democratic way of life"; its triumph is inevitable. Democracy is held synonymous with the good and the natural, now as in earlier days. For as Johnstone points out: "The idea of progress was a basic element in the creed of early America, both rural and urban. It was not merely an opinion reached by calm deliberation. It had begun indeed as an intellectual doctrine, but soon became an unreasoned basic attitude, an assumption that the very law of nature itself compelled man and society to go on improving indefinitely. It was, however, ordinarily considered that America was the peculiarly favored domain of progress."3 Inherent in this disposition, and further fostered by the churches, is an assumption of the inevitability of justice and the retribution of wrong. "People get pretty generally what they deserve," one hears from time to time. "I always said Hitler would get what was coming to him, have no fear." And, "As my father used to tell me, and as I tell my children, if we all work hard, are honest in our dealings, and do our bit, well never have to worry. 'God's in his Heaven, all's right with the world.'" UNCERTAIN ATTITUDES TOWARD OTHER NATIONALITIES AND GROUPS Despite the historic tradition of the worth and dignity of every individual, relations between the Chautauquans and the races, nationalities, religions and other groups set apart from their own, have been spotted and varied through the county's history. Such consistent attitudes as have followed through and are apparent today, at times have bordered closely on the condescending. People who differ from the major body of rural Chautauquans—the old families of English and northern European descent generally—are more often than not conceived of as outsiders. And to the extent to which the outsiders differ and to which they attempt to assert themselves in the affairs of the communities in which they are the minority, however large, to that extent are they resented and even looked down upon as inferior. This resentment is not always a conscious reaction. Many of these farm people will answer immediately that they have no prejudice but . . . ; that their communities accept the Italians or Poles or Catholics as they do others of their own descent but. . . . And it is in the "buts" that the condescension lies. Several factors seem to enter here. There is some feeling in Chau-

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tauqua County, though not peculiar to it, against the "foreign-born," particularly those who differ obviously in physical appearance and modes of living. The feeling against other races seems not to be commonly evident, due no doubt to the fact that less than .3 percent of the county's population are people of other races. A proposal for the construction of a housing project for Negro defense workers in Fredonia a few years ago met with serious opposition, however, on the part of those living near the suggested neighborhood. This was a village more than a rural affair; but since so much of farm life is coming to be tied up with village, the observation seems pertinent. There is feeling also, conscious or unavowed, against the "poorer" classes economically—the people who live in the least fit sections of village or country, whose standards are low. Resentment is apparent against laboring men, especially the village and city workers who organize to improve the conditions under which they work. It is apparent also against the Catholics, among families whose own religion or that of their fathers grew out of protest, however long ago, against "the g r e a t a n d a b o m i n a b l e C a t h o l i c C h u r c h . " T h e r e t e n d s to b e f e e l i n g

against the newcomers, who have come in to make their homes and to seek livelihood after the county had achieved its status through long years of toil and hardship. Resentment may be found against any minority in Chautauqua County who in any way can threaten the political, economic, or social dominance of the group already long in positions of leadership. Each of these resentments bears weight. And in combinations of two or three or even four or five of them, resultant attitudes can be pretty strong. The Polish hot-metal workers, for instance, largely Catholic, who came into the county in the late nineteenth century, are described by a rural man in public office, who works with both rural and village people, as "the lowest grade of immigrants we've had come into the county—a poor group mentally and culturally." The Swedes and the Dutch he lauds as "honest, hard-working people, willing to start from humble beginnings, a credit to the county." A farm woman comments thoughtfully: "The Italian families? No, I don't mind them, so long as they keep their children clean and their house up and all. It's when the women work out in the field and don't pay any attention to how the children get fed or the house gets cleaned or anything, that makes the neighbors not like them. We have both kinds up our way, and sometimes there's a lot of feeling. Most of the time though, the others just leave them alone. And the Italians kind of get together, too. And we all mind our own business."

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There is a great tendency among the "old stock" of the county to generalize about these "foreign" groups, who stay foreign in many parts of the county for as many generations as their names and their distinctive physical features set them apart. "It's the Italians' own fault," one man asserted. "I've always done business where there's been a big 'foreign element,' it seems; and the Italians are the hardest bunch of all to do business with. They'll come in and look at everything you have in the store and then go out without buying. Later on they 11 come back several times and you have to show them the same things all over again. Then finally they buy the very thing you showed em in the first place. That's what happened to me yesterday with a family out Sheridan way whofinallybought a new stove. They're just different from other people. Even the Poles are more American than they are." A retail fertilizer and feed man had this to say: "An awful high relief rate among the Italians there for a while. Why, I knew a fellow who was renting eight or ten acres of tomato land. And when he heard that a neighbor of his, also Italian, had gone on relief, why he just gave up that farm and settled back and went on relief, too. And it spread all along up there . . . all the Italians around in that section, they went on relief, too, and let their farms go. Now that just don't seem right to me." (It didn't seem right to the writer either. A check with the authorities at the relief office, who denied the story, showed moreover that there had been no Italian farmers on relief, and that the number of village Italians who had been on relief, in proportion to their population in the area, was a little lower than that of the rest of the people.) "Those Italians won't join our growers' associations either," a fanner complained. "Figure they can get more on their own, I guess. And they sure make it tough for the rest of us." Needless to say, there are wide differences in this regard throughout the county. A dairyman, for instance, took this stand: "Well sir, we have fine respectable Polish families in our community, and I think they're all right. And the Eyetalians . . . do you know what I think is the trouble about the Eyetalians? They're just better farmers than a lot of those fruit growers up there, and the others are jealous, that's what. They take their families out, and they work hard and make a lot of money; and the other fellows just don't like it. Funny thing though, you put an Eyetalian on a dairy farm now, and he can't do a thing. Funny thing. . . ." It is difficult to know to what degree these attitudes toward other groups have derived from patterns of history: The early Americans' relation to the Indians as, without stroke of conscience and in "self-

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defense" they killed off the Indians and their women and children to make room for themselves in a land which for generations had belonged to the red men. The mixed reactions of the early Chautauquans to the Negro slaves and the abolition question. The sharp distinctions among the many Protestant sects, and between the Protestants and Catholics. The early attitudes of some of the farm families already established on the land to the great influxes of immigrants who came in as laborers in the county. The attitudes of the farm people toward the villagers, and of the villagers toward rural areas. The resentment against newcomers to the county, especially the unemployed from the urban centers, many of whom required help from the government. The resentment of the old-stock Americans toward the more recent influxes of Poles and Italians. . . . All of these attitudes and traditions, as well as many others, have helped to fashion moral outlooks of today. Through the years individuals within these groups have co-operated and worked harmoniously together. But the ability of different groups to co-operate and work with one another, to overlook or to capitalize on differences and move to-

gether toward common ends, is shown by historical record to have been notably lacking. It is also difficult to estimate just how much help or hindrance in this regard is coming from the surviving churches or the central and rural schools of the county, working with aggregates of individuals more than with functional groups in which each member has a unique and responsible relation to the whole. And there are differences from community to community. In many public schools of the county, rural or village, it is almost impossible for a Polish girl, on an Italian, or anyone who professes the Catholic faith, to secure a position. Many times young people have changed their tell-tale names to save themselves embarrassment. And this has worked hardships on families the county over. The concept of the old Protestant family of English or North European descent as the "early" and "truly" American, has not disappeared from the rural, nor indeed from the village and urban areas of the county.

THE CONCEPT OF FARMING AS A BUSINESS Since shortly after the Civil War, agricultural reformers and leaders have sought persistently to get farmers to think of farming as a "business" and of themselves as "business men." And Chautauqua County farmers, especially the more modern and prosperous who set the pattern for

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many of the deliberate rural outlooks, have complied. Agricultural literature, high school courses, and Farm Bureau activities, have greatly furthered this movement, fostering bookkeeping, cost accounting, and other forms of business efficiency. It seems, in fact, to have been part of the triumph of business and the worship of wealth, deliberately cultivated by business enterprise through the late nineteenth century.* But the timing of this psychological alignment has in a sense proved unfortunate, as trends already here discussed have shown. For as Johnstone points out: "The farmer was becoming a businessman, but he was doing so under a great disadvantage. The main advantages were beginning to accrue to large-scale organization, and the farmer as a lone individual has had to pay tribute." 5 The consciousness of himself as a businessman has had definite psychological effects upon the farmer of Chautauqua County and his family; for in taking the name the farmer has taken on as well many of the businessmen's outlooks. Important among these is the almost universal identification of democracy and "the American way" with the system of private enterprise along with which it made history. For years Chautauquans "have accepted in practice an interpretation of 'democracy' which has operated on the principle that if everyone looked after his own interests the common interest would best be served." * And to continue, using "their" instead of "our": "That practice became entrenched . . . and deeply embedded in their business practices and organizations, their institutions, their laws, their thought, their education, and their ethics—almost in their nervous systems." 7 The exploitation and depletion of the resources of the county—its immense forests and its soils—bear testimony of the persistence as well as the fallacy of such identification. This attitude also, as already shown in previous chapters, has served as an emotional block on intelligent consideration of proposed plans and policies, social and agricultural. "We take a stand against the subsidy program," a Farm Bureau leader told the writer, "because that is socialism; and we are against socialism. What we want is democracy and the American way." Antagonism toward the Conservation Program, it will be remembered, was based on similar fears. Then, along with the moral optimism of early Chautauqua County, there also developed, albeit somewhat dichotomously, a professed distrust or suspicion of city ways. Together with the belief that farm life was the natural and therefore the good way of life, was the idea that corruptness and evil were natural accompaniments to urban living. However, we are told, "it is to be noted that farming was never cited as

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the vocation of great and illustrious men; models were inevitably other than farmers. This is significant because farm youth were urged simultaneously to prepare for success and yet to stay on the farm and ignore the false and illusory rewards of the city." 8 The curious combination of disappointment and pride written on the faces of the older generation of this area who watch their sons and sons-in-law turn away from the old family farms toward the town or city, not merely as an emergency measure but as an important step in a lifelong plan, bespeaks the persistence and survival of this historic confusion. Closely related is the changed concept of ownership—the shift of emphasis from a use concept to a paper concept of ownership, importantly modifying in many parts of the county those earlier attitudes which had identified the farm "as a home providing an opportunity for the production of the necessities of life by the sweat of the brow, where obstacles were natural rather than social." 9 Further, as villages grew throughout the area, toward the latter part of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, and more and more of t h e county's w e a l t h a c c r u e d to e m e r g i n g industrialists, b a n k e r s , a n d

others of what have been termed the "village kings," the gulf between farm people and villagers developed apace. The farmers felt looked down upon, and they struck up a defensive air, reminding themselves and others of their occupation as the very foundation upon which rested all other life, village included. At the same time there was growing up among urban and rural families alike a healthy respect for the successful entrepreneurs, the men of wealth who, starting at the bottom as all the others, had achieved worldly success through their own exercise of unusual thrift and hard work and superior judgment. Local writings are replete with homage to such "outstanding citizens" of Chautauqua County; and they are sprinkled here and there with anecdotes indicative of this respect. An old resident, for example, proudly records the following for the Chautauqua County Historical Society: Over in the town of Arkwright, six miles from the nearest village, lived one of our most unique characters. Chauncey A. had a good farm in Farington Hollow, and although the milk he produced all went into cheese which sold for six cents a pound, he prospered and found it easy to make money by lending it to his neighbors. They were having a revival meeting in the little schoolhouse, and members of the congregation were giving their experiences. The preacher called upon Mr, A. He rose and said that he didn't know what to say, and a feeble

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voice of an old lady piped up, "Say ten percent, Channie, say ten percent." A. became one of the pioneer bankers of the county. Across the county in the little village of Busti, a squat little Englishman began his career in America in a little stone blacksmith shop. He later became the head of one of the county's greatest industries, and later William B. and his sons were the owners of textile mills, interurban and city trolley lines, steamboats, and large real estate holdings. In the other end of the county another little Britisher, D. S. W., whose motto was "One hundred cents on the dollar," established a seed business, and his three sons and two daughters made it a great industry and built up the largest fortune of the county.10 The pace and patterns of living set by these "leading" businessmen and their families have had great effect upon people of the villages and, with the increasing breakdown of rural isolation, upon farm people as well. The farm families have sought to imitate the comforts and ways of the villagers even while protesting. And the process continues today. Rural institutions of family and community are becoming more and more deliberate duplicates of village and city ways. And the conscious identification of fanners as businessmen lends special sanction. It lends sanction, too, to the farmers' changing business relations which, with the shifts and developments of marketing modes through the years, have become more and more impersonal. In many parts of the county there has been a notable shift from the old spirit of mutual trust and confidence which for so many years permeated the farmers' relations with one another as well as with the villagers with whom they did business. "The important characteristic of farmers in my day," an old village resident recalls, "was that you could count on 'em—and they counted on you. If a farmer said his potatoes were good, you wouldn't even go down to see; you'd take his word for it. You knew they were good. And they always were. But things are more business-like nowadays. They have to be, I guess, with farmers selling to people they don't know, and everything on such a big scale. They've got so they don't expect people'll just take their word any more." The exchange of farm labor among neighbors, formerly on an informal and co-operative basis, of necessity has taken on a more impersonal nature under the impact of increased mechanization and commercialization of farming in the county.

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IMPATIENCE WITH POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT The identification of fanners as businessmen has made a difference also in the attitude of farm families toward poverty and unemployment. Particularly because of the stringencies under which the county was settled, it was once held that virtue was the characteristic of the poor and the humble. "There was nothing in the social code that forced a man to lose his self-respect because of poverty, for no one was far from hardship and none had excess of ease." 11 Whatever their present status, all had promise of a better future. Gradually, however, the old Calvinistic doctrine took hold, that material blessings were rewards of virtue. "Constant, regular, habitual and systematic application to business must in time, if properly directed, produce great results," the people of the county were admonished in 1873. "It must lead to wealth, with the same certainty that poverty follows in the train of idleness and inattention. . . . As most of the poverty we meet with grows out of idleness and extravagance, so most large fortunes have been the result of habitual industry and frugality." 12 Almost unconsciously, it seems, this old doctrine is accepted today by the majority of farm families of the county. Partly because they themselves have survived poverty, through successive periods of extreme competition from the West, extended depression, subsequent low prices locally and nationally, these rural Chautauquans tend to associate poverty and unemployment with laziness and lack of thrift. "After all, a farmer is his own boss in America; if he has it in him he can make good." This does not mean that these people are callous to the welfare of their more unfortunate neighbors. Throughout the county's history the care of the poor has always been an accepted function of township and county government, as well as of church and of other institutions, to which farm families seem glad enough to give their support. It has also been called to attention that in times of misfortune, bereavement, or accident, the entire neighborhood can be counted upon to turn out to the aid of the family concerned. And even where they feel that shiftlessness is at bottom the cause of continuously straitened circumstances, some of the neighbors are sure to make allowances. They will send over food and outgrown clothing and maybe old bedding. "If it wasn't for the children, I'd say, 'Let 'em starve,'" one farm woman remarked with disgust. "But you can't stand by and see children go on without enough to eat, and with nothing to cover their backs, just because their father is

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too lazy to go out and round himself up a job . . . and his wife don't know how to manage what they do get, either." It is the "poor" families, especially the oft-mentioned newcomers living outside the immediate neighborhood often in the more isolated hilly sections, about whom the rural Chautauquans seem to know least and with whom they have least patience. There are public officers, too, on county and township level, who harbor the same attitudes. "No, I don't think you can help most of those people," was a typical observation made to the writer. "They're really beyond help. Have always lived that way, and seem to want to live just that way. Give 'em help and the chance to live better, and first thing you know they slip right back. Ten to one their children will be the same way when they're grown up." The most vocal farm people also express a ruthless impatience with the unemployed, rural and urban, strengthened of course by the almost ever-present shortage of farm labor in their own county. Published facts and figures seem to take little hold on their thinking in this regard, partly to be sure because the press of the area is little given to calling attention to the plight of the unemployed. Even before the shortages brought about by war conditions, it was assumed that if a fellow really wanted work he could get it. "Of course, with the government continually making it easier for them, there's a lot of these fellows who don't really want to work," was a typical comment. "They'd rather have it handed out to them. I take the position that nobody owes anybody a living—that if he don't want to work for it like the rest of us have always done, well then he can go without, and the government ought to let him." It seemed to be generally taken for granted by those who gave it thought that there would be a good deal of industrial unemployment following the war. "Yes, we'll just have to expect a lot more of these poor families to come out and take up our cheap farms again," a member of the Land Class Committee told the writer. "It happened during the depression and it'll probably happen again. A lot of political promises and such to the contrary . . . but itH probably happen again. And I guess at that they'll be better off than in the slums and tenements of the cities. They can at least get fresh air and good food." That county, state, nation, or private enterprise itself, has a definite responsibility to plan for and work out means for full employment, as part of a larger postwar program, is not a common view in this area. Rather, responsibility for being employed is assumed to lie with the individual. Faith in the inevitability of progress and the triumph of a good society, further fostered by the press, the churches, and the schools, in the main includes the

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assurance that always there will be opportunity for those who are worthy. RESENTMENT TOWARD LABOR The attitudes of farm people toward labor, especially organized labor, are also significantly in line with their psychological affiliation with the business world. This has not always been so. The early farmers of the county for the most part identified themselves with respectable, thrifty, industrious men everywhere; although the influx of Irish and Polish Catholic immigrants specifically as laborers in western New York gave rise to the beginnings of a rift fairly early in the county's history. By the time modern trade unions were developed, farmers of Chautauqua County as elsewhere were conscious of themselves as employers. Tending as they did by that time to associate material rewards with virtue, they had begun to look upon those who worked for wages, especially industrial wages, as of quite another class from the farmer. Like the employer of the business world, the farmer owned and operated his own enterprise. "Much of the trouble," writes Johnstone, "came from the fact that higher pay and shorter hour agitation by labor unions sometimes offended the rural mind, which out of its own experience had required a deep respect for long hours of hard work for humble rewards . . . country people have tended to look upon work as a moral duty, to regard insistence upon conditions and terms of labor as a partial abrogation of that moral duty, and to project their own moral and non-exploitive outlook into the industrial situation." 13 Furthermore, nurtured by an ultra-conservative press, they have built up an exaggerated stereotype of the industrial worker—mercenary, irresponsible, frequently violent, unpatriotic, eager to strike at the least provocation. To the rural Chautauqua mind, the labor unions have been importantly responsible for farm labor shortages, having jacked up industrial wages to such point that the small-scale farmer has been unable to compete. They were prone to accept also the exaggerated impression given through press and radio of the extent and scope of strikes by defense workers and of their effect on the total war program. "Any man that goes out on strike at a time like this ought to lose his pay entirely . . . ," one would hear, "or better still, be made to join the armed forces. No time for workers to be demanding higher wages now, when they're already getting twice as much as lots of us farmers who

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work harder and longer and own our own farms besides." "What if our boys on the fighting front would decide to strike," was another typical reaction. "Where would these union men and their families be then?" Seldom did anything the Chautauqua County farmer heard or read remind him of the swelling profits of the great industrialists, or refer to instances where individual employers or large corporations deliberately exploited war conditions for unfair profit. Quite naturally then his attitudes reflected this omission. There is yet another tradition, further deepened by the emphases of the American school system, which the people of the county have followed almost unconsciously and have allowed to color their attitudes toward industrial and other laborers. That is the widely-rooted cultural separation of the mental and the manual, of theory and practice, of brain and brawn. It is a part of rural thinking too; and thus catching themselves, as it were, in their own prejudices, the farmers are somewhat confused. For in Chautauqua County, as elsewhere in America, the educated man tends to be the one who has achieved facility of mind, of tongue, and of pen; as opposed to the uneducated who, lacking in these accomplishments, frequently not having had the opportunity to pursue them, is obliged to earn his living through physical labor. For the educated man, physical or manual activity generally tends to be voluntary; it is in the nature of avocation or recreation: gardening, golf, hiking, carpentry, or whatever else. To the uneducated, on the other hand, manual labor is his bread and butter; while it is into the "cultural" pursuits he can dip, if indeed he has the leisure, the means, or the inclination. And so the verbal expert has been exalted, both in and out of school; and the respect and dignity accorded manual labor in the early days of the county has been weakened accordingly. The concept of scholarship has not as yet been generally extended to include those areas in which farmers are apt to excel. That this has gone hard with many farm parents is obvious, and hard too with their children attending the village schools. Farm ownership helps to take off the sting. And it is no little wonder that the Chautauqua farmer likes to think of himself as an entrepreneur, to refer to his "farm business," to identify himself consciously with the business world, to ally himself with employers in his tastes and in his convictions. Two editorials in the same issue of a local paper, widely read among fruit farmers of the county, are indicative of further encouragement lent to the shaping or strengthening of these rural attitudes. The first editorial, entitled "A Great and Good Man Passes," runs, in part, as follows:

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There are monuments to the major in constructive achievements. The Children's Pavilion at Newton Memorial Hospital is there because of the major's long efforts. He was the moving genius of the Children's Camp. He sponsored the Social Service league. Finally he even shared his home with the people by opening his beautiful estate as a public recreation ground. . . . That was civic pride on a scale of greater grandeur than Dunkirk had ever seen before—or since. And there, along that seawall, Dunkirkers may gaze out over the eternal reaches of Lake Erie and enjoy the enduring monument to the ideals of a great and good man. Were there but ten like him, Dunkirk would be the most magnificent city in the world. . . The second is called "A Disquieting Note": This talk of purging our industry of its Fordsl Amazing! Mr. Ford has no aristocratic background. His industrial ideas are such that he seeks constantly to lower the price to the consumer while increasing the rate of wages to his employees. In this policy he has succeeded to such an extraordinary degree that the whole nation was forced to a higher wage level, while the product of his industry has been placed virtually within the reach of all. Does this call for purging? And why the selection of that unhappy word which smacks so much of the communistic jargon? Is the administration going into the liquidation idea for its enemies after the manner of Stalin and Mussolini? Labor built America, of course, but those with special capacity had to organize labor. To them went higher rewards, but they came for the most part from the ranks of labor itself, and the same opportunity is open to all. . . .1B

PROVINCIAL BOOSTER SPIRIT Partly a product of the early frontier optimism and partly of the advertising temper of the modern business man, a provincial "booster" spirit is evident among the more prosperous at least of these farmers. Be a booster, not a knocker! they advocate with enthusiasm. Work hard and don't complain! Who says Northeastern agriculture is decadent! Chautauqua County the best in the land! All this, of course, at the same time they are deploring, and quite vocally, the various limitations under which they are forced to operate.

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E. W. Mitchell, writing in the centennial issue of the American Agriculturist, lent to the writer by one of the Chautauqua County subscribers, typifies this widespread attitude with the plea that the apple growers should continue to increase production and fight for their market, rather than reduce their crops and yield the field to competing fruits. True enough, the total, and per capita, and proportional consumption of apples may have decreased; the number of bearing trees and replacements may be less; and the financial returns from apple growing be fading or gone; but does surrender ever mean success? Is all the fighting spirit of those fruit growers who led the way gone from the present generation that tend their trees and till their farms? I hope not. True success lies in facing difficulties and overcoming them. Apple and fruit growing here in the Northeast offers just as good an opportunity as it ever did or as anything else today, and we are rearing generations of farm boys and girls just as capable of overcoming difficulties as any that have gone before. The fruit industry must and will succeed.18 ATTITUDES TOWARD THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT It is hardly surprising, in view of these observations, that among the most widespread and emotionally charged outlooks in which fanners of this area have joined with businessmen, and one which has gained momentum in recent years, is the strong resentment toward the federal government and its increased scope of activities. This resentment is historically rooted in the county as well as in other commercial centers. It is weakening, of course, with more recent trends and events. "There ought-a be a law agin a thing like that," one may hear, for instance. Or, "The government ought-a take fellows like that and string them up." Or, "Now here's the place where Government really should step in." Police society, track down and punish the culprits, yes. But regulate the normal and everyday affairs of men, no . . . that's not the business of the government. A free society cannot be free under fetter of government, one is reminded. Clean, fair, open competition under private enterprise and the law of supply and demand must always be the American way. Thus, the incensed business world with which he identifies himself, the ultraconservative press, and the rabid and bitter anti-New Dealism of most agricultural journals to which he subscribes have helped the Chautauqua County farmer to pile up a remarkable score against a source of help

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badly needed to pull him through the highly complex state of affairs, national and international, which for several decades has been crowding him to the wall. Particularly during the New Deal years, the government, increasingly synonymous with "the Administration," and even more pointedly with President Roosevelt, was liable in rural Chautauqua County on the following charges: First, it unfairly distorted the competition under which Chautauqua County farmers and their families had toiled so long and so hard and so honestly. This it did by lending a partial hand, through the Agricultural Conservation Program, to their old competitors of the Midwest; by encouraging inefficient and indolent farmers, again through the Agricultural Conservation Program and the Farm Security Administration; by helping the unemployed out of all proportion to their worthiness and need, thus making them come to expect a living from someone else; and by taking sides time and again with organized labor. Second, the government interfered with the agricultural market, domestic and foreign. It kept farm prices down over a long period of time, while developments right along had been favorable to industry. (It is interesting to note the resentment of the Chautauqua County farmers toward a system of tariffs which has worked consistently against them, at the same time that they have voted again and again for the political party responsible in major part for such a tariff system.) The Government further bungled the handling of the "surplus" from first to last. In fact, rural Chautauqua County, in view of all her experiences in an economy of scarcity, was hardly able to recognize that there could have been a surplus. Farm families still smart at the memory of the government's insistence on the killing of little pigs and the dumping of oranges into the ocean, while they themselves, to say nothing of the millions the country over less fortunate than they, could not afford what fresh pork and oranges they would like to have had for their own dining table. "It's referred to again and again even now," a county nurse reports of her district, "and draws forth about as much ire as anything they can talk about." Indeed it seems difficult for these people to believe that the problem of surplus production was not caused by those who strove so hard and so long to resolve it. Third, rural Chautauquans maintain that the government has been continually hamstringing private enterprise and the American way through reckless bureaucracy, social security, regulation, and planning. And by so doing it is heading the country dangerously toward dictatorship, socialism, and even communism.

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Fourth, it has done all this at tremendous public expense and, in spite of the great increase of taxes, through creation of a huge national debt. Nor does the press spare any pains to keep the area continually aware of the unprecedented "extravagance" and wastefulness. Furthermore, grown out of a history heavy with debt load, it is quite to be expected that the county's stereotype of indebtedness, when carried over from private to public, would call forth reservations of considerable gravity. Local literature, for instance, makes frequent reference to the fate of those who live beyond their means, and is even more dramatic about those who speculate. In the county directory of 1873-74 is found this moral lesson: Every large city is filled with persons who, in order to support the appearance of wealth, constantly live beyond their income and make up the deficiency by contracting debts which are never paid. Others there are, the mere drones of society, who pass their days in idleness, and subsist by pirating on the hives of the industrious. Many who run a short-lived career of splendid beggary, could they be but persuaded to adopt a system of rigid economy for a few years, might pass the remainder of their days in affluence. But no! They must keep up appearances, they must live like other folks. Their debts accumulate; their credit fails; they are harassed by duns, and besieged by constable and sheriff. In this extremity as a last resort, they submit to a shameful dependence, or engage in criminal practices which entail hopeless wretchedness and infamy on themselves and families. Stick to the business in which you are regularly employed. Let speculators make thousands in a year or a day; mind your own regular trade, never turning from it to the right hand or to the left. If you are a merchant, a professional man, or a mechanic, never buy lots or stocks, unless you have surplus money which you wish to invest.17 And another writer, reaching back even further to clothe his admonition to people of his own and succeeding generations, wrote: The speculations in real estate, which were at their height during this period [about 1857], and which have resulted in such incalculable injury to the interests of the whole people, affected the village of Dunkirk more seriously than any other point in the county. The termination of the New York and Erie Railroad at this place, was pointed out to those most deeply affected by the contagion, as a spot on which operations of the kind might be carried on for a while at least with success. The rage for corner lots and eligible sites was rife, and ran

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so high a pitch that men of all pursuits—farmers, mechanics, merchants, lawyers, and even ministers of the gospel, embarked upon the wild sea, without rudder or ballast, with nothing to propel them but a whirlwind, that soon scattered them in broken fragments upon a lee shore. The general result has been a stagnation of trade, depreciation in the prices of all kind of property, the ruin and entire prostration of many families who had been in prosperous circumstances, and on the high road to competence and even independence, and the hopeless bankruptcy of thousands of others. Though affected to a greater degree, this village was not alone in its madness. Most of the other villages were more or less influenced by the mania that swept over the land, and suffered in proportion to the extent of their operations.19 Yes, public indebtedness greatly disturbs these thrifty, industrious people. For a great nation, with income increasing to tremendous proportions, to borrow from itself to increase its own collateral, to forestall acute conditions far more serious for the future than the extension of indebtedness, seems quite beyond the pale of logic or of wisdom to the rural mind or to that of the business world with which the farmers have traffic. Fifth, in the war crisis, while making its extensive demands of agricultural areas, the federal government was slow to defer farm boys, thus aggravating an already serious farm labor shortage; it made purchase of essential farm machinery almost impossible, thereby jacking up production costs; it refused to revise parity formula for adequate inclusion of increased labor costs, thus hamstringing the farmers' first opportunity in years to make decent profit; it persisted in trying to meet this problem through a program of subsidies which farmers of the area, in line with powerful agricultural forces throughout the nation, fought with unreasoned feeling as a threat to democratic processes; it expanded the scope, the powers, and the cost of government bureaus; it allowed the cost of living to mount; it put the nation on Daylight Saving Time, much to the farmers' disadvantage. In addition the government rationed gas and tires to a crippling point, lowered the income tax base, and caused other inconveniences, many of which of course, despite complaining, the county was willing and glad to endure to have the war over and the boys safely homel The fact that it was a Democratic administration played its part, too, in a steadfastly Republican county. As earlier brought out, the political party tends to be more important in these parts than the program itself.

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Chautauqua County was particularly pleased with the 1942 elections. Bringing the New Deal to terms, and it was high time, was viewed by many as a first move toward saving the nation from the dictatorship of a third-term president. Proudly it returned to Washington a representative from within its own boundaries, who cast a consistently anti-New Deal vote on 19 of the 20 crucial issues to come before the House during the legislative session which adjourned in the summer of 1943.19 * The pattern has been repeated with little variation in each of the subsequent elections. Thus the picture must inevitably be distorted by party politics and personalities—whatever the cost to future generations, it would seem— in addition to the distortions due to traditional concepts, confused need for scapegoats, confusion and inconsistencies of programs of government itself, and press-fanned misunderstanding of issues and problems involved. A further factor is the wounded pride and sensitivity of the independent, hard-working, long-experienced Chautauqua County fanner, the public assumption that he is incapable of meeting farm problems and that to set his business straight he must have the help of bookeducated theorists, largely young men of little or no experience in actual "dirt-farming." "We believe farmers should never surrender their voice," a Grange and G.L.F. leader averred, "even in the supervision of farm activities. As soon as they do, they turn it over to some bureau or other. Let government stick to research; and let the farmers control their own business." And another farmer stated to the writer: "With the proper information passed out to the farmer, he'll make his own adjustment. I stick to the fact that you can't control production with A.A.A. or anything else. I still think the individual fanner is smart enough to run his own business. And I don't believe in subsidies for anything." Not only do farmers tend to subscribe to the axiom that experience is the best teacher; in matters of fanning many of them recognize it as the only valid teacher. For although "book farming," as it was traditionally termed, is steadily growing throughout the county as a supplement to practical experience, there still remain some pretty sturdy strongholds against it. The attitude expressed in the following recollection seems * It is interesting to note that the published words of this representative commending conservation and wise use of the soil (by the Indians of this area) were used in the preparation of this study. At least five of the nineteen issues he voted against in the session named had to do directly with the improvement of farm conditions, including the bill approving appropriations for the Soil Conservation Program!

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to be fairly typical of them: "In the nineties, agriculture was not taught in the schools or colleges; there were no farm bureaus; the cattle were of the poorest sort; most of the farm machinery was yet to be invented, but there were no abandoned farms and we had a prosperous and contented farm industry. We were content then to take things in our stride, and it was not until we came to rely upon crackpots and legislators that agriculture met disaster." 20 Further, as earlier called to attention, Chautauqua County farmers and their families tend to see their problems, even when nationally sourced, as predominantly local of solution. This has bred further disagreement and shortsightedness, just as some ambitious programs, not too well grounded in wide practical experience, in an effort to attack problems on a nation-wide scale, have failed to take into account important local factors. So runs the grain of traditions and outlooks which go to make up the intellectual and moral climate of rural Chautauqua County today. Individual adults subscribe to varying degree. The faith of some in these older ideals has been shaken. With others, the very tenor of groping and insecurity brought on by sweeping events, has caused them to hold more tenaciously, to defend the status quo, or even the obsolete, like martyr to holy cause. And the press which farm families follow, the radio commentators to whom they listen, the schools, the churches, and other institutions through which they find expression have been prone to underline far more than to clarify. These outlooks, together with variations referred to in previous chapters, make up a weighty and frequently subtle part of the intellectual disposition of the area. Farm children, as well as their parents, seek to grasp and interpret new concepts, both in and out of school, in these terms. Therefore it is important that those who would educate, many of them bound by the self-same traditions, be aware of the nature and power of their persistence.

CHAPTER

NINE

Wider Forces Impinging: The Cultural Conflict A TIME OF CRISIS IT IS upon this complex of attitudes and outlooks, products for the most part of an earlier, simpler agrarian society, that the powerful forces of the new industrial era are making their profound and often painful impact. To all of these forces, in certain respects, farm families of Chautauqua County have significantly responded; modifying their patterns and adapting their ways, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes quite willingly, and sometimes simultaneously with their protests. In other respects, and to differing extent as these chapters show, they have strongly resisted the trends, thrusting forward old attitudes to meet new conditions; so that changes in certain areas of living have outstripped those in others, even when closely related. The old and the new are everywhere side by side, mixed in haphazard proportion and quite without logic throughout the county and among the different aspects of living. It is largely this unevenness then which has produced the "cultural conflict," as it has been termed, the lag between technological changes and the far slower psychological adjustments which they call forth. Farm people of Chautauqua County are worried, distraught, and confused by the pull of conflicting values. For them, as for farmers everywhere in the new industrial America, this is a time of crisis—a time when, in the words of Sumner, "great new forces are at work changing fundamental conditions while powerful institutions and traditions hold old systems intact." 1 These forces are closely interrelated. They are identified here for purposes of analysis: INCREASED MECHANIZATION The most pervasive of these trends, perhaps, is the increased mechanization inside and outside the county. In spite of stiff resistance in

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many parts, it has quite remade the face of farming in this area and genuinely upset the stable rural patterns of a few generations back. However limited their understanding of the scientific technology, farm people the county over are using mechanized devices in household and field and, in the words of Dr. Curtí, are "no longer startled by the appearance or prophecy of new mechanical wonders." 2 The 4,600 and more passenger cars and 1,600 trucks on the farms of the county reported in the 1940 census, have naturally multiplied the contacts and interests of the farm people and widely encouraged urbanization of many phases of rural living. In addition they represent a vast saving of hours and effort and bodily discomfort over the wagon and team or buggy and horse with which farm families of this area made their trips to the village over all kinds of roads a generation or two ago. The great parade of farm machinery, of transportation improvements, and of mechanized household devices, has greatly reduced the drudgery of earlier operations. The more than 2,000 tractors in operation on the farms of the county are making possible the wider use of all kinds of mechanized equipment which is improving and, on some of the larger farms, almost revolutionizing farm practices and methods. The volume of agricultural production has increased accordingly. The advancement of mechanization also has built and expanded the markets for this increased produce and made possible increasingly swifter and more economical means of shipping and travel and communication, thus extending the horizons of farm people far beyond the outer limits of any generation before them. And predictions for the future augur still more miraculous achievement. So mechanization has wrought many changes and brought many improvements to farm life in Chautauqua County. They have not been simple changes, nor always easy, even for those who have welcomed them most. The introduction of a single machine on a farm—an automobile, say, or a tractor, or an electric milker—has not of itself automatically harmonized with or streamlined the old established farm and family patterns. More often it has disorganized the whole way of living, accelerating the pace and therefore demanding new schedules in home and field, new distribution of responsibilities. It has called forth new demands on the budget as further related improvements come to seem plausible and even necessary; new marketing arrangements; new relations with neighbors perhaps, and even among family members. Problems have arisen, adjustments have been called for. New outlooks, new desires and ambitions have developed, often coming into deadlock with the old. This network of changes, set off by the introduction of a single

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mechanized device on a family farm, is characteristic also of the effect of mechanization on neighborhood or larger community level. It sets an educational task of greater proportions than many who deal with farm children and families of this area have realized. As stressed throughout, these changes have not been universal. Mechanization has weighed unevenly on original limitations and old traditional ways of life, widening the range and greatly extending the scale of differences earlier mentioned among all phases of living. The sense of equality that pervaded the earlier periods of agrarian development no longer characterizes a county half modern, half old. It is largely the march of mechanization, coupled with high elevation and rough topography, that has made the small farm size an increasing handicap in the county. As mechanization increases it becomes more and more difficult to make adequate family incomes on the smaller farms and poorer pieces in the upland region, especially as the unit-of-production costs on the large mechanized farms generally have been shrinking with every technological advance. Increase the size of the farm business wherever possible and farm only the land that is reasonably good, the State College of Agriculture, along with other farm agencies, has advised the farmers of this area. So consolidation of farms, as census figures indicate, has been going on in the county for a number of years. Usually it has required more capital than most of the farmers have had at their disposal. But improved credit facilities of the past decade or two, as well as increased part-time, offthe-farm work for cash wages, have tended to meet the dilemma of many of those so disposed. Throughout the county, therefore, farmers who are able to get the means, provided further that there are good pieces of land close at hand and available, are "buying out" their neighbors and making their modern "businesses" pay. There are many, to be sure, with acreage only of average size who, because their lands are flat and the soils good, are able through careful management to make reasonably effective use of mechanical equipment. There are others, however—especially on the smaller, rougher farms of the county—who have not only been unable to buy better or additional farm lands but have been pressed to find means for purchase of even the simplest farm machinery, to say nothing of improved household devices. Lack of electricity on more than twenty percent of the farms of the county has proved to be still another obstacle. For some then, despite increased comfort and reduced physical drudgery, the maintenance of the family farm has become more difficult rather than easier because of these progressive developments, however profit-

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ably they may be working out for the more prosperous neighbor. There are those indeed who fear lest mechanization in time will drive the small farmer and his family off their lands; lest the man who wants to live on the farm because he loves it, because he prefers it as a healthy, happy way of life for himself and his children, will be crowded out by the fellows who farm only to make money, who enlarge their lands continually and mechanize more and more of their farm practices, who sell all their farm produce and satisfy their needs and their wants with cash. The old satisfactions of farm life are fast disappearing, they declare with concern. Many are driven by such conflicts, especially the old-timers whose memories are most mellowed by the years, to call for a return to what they recall as the more reliable if less productive arrangements of an earlier day. This they do, and outspokenly, at the expense of being labeled "old fogies" by neighbors and youth who think farming can be improved through more and not less farm machinery, more and not f e w e r of t h e scientific p r a c t i c e s t h a t successful t e c h n o l o g i c a l f a r m i n g

anywhere involves today. It can be noted, however, that most of those who call with conviction for a return to the old days and ways have themselves quite willingly accepted many of the fruits of science and technology, including certain resultant changes in patterns of living which have come to be taken for granted in rural as well as urban quarters. Reactions indicate that these same farm people would be loathe to part with the automobile which has served to further the welfare of unified farm and home living. Likewise they would want to retain the radio in order to keep abreast of what goes on outside. They would want to receive the daily newspaper and the magazines made possible by mechanization. Certainly wherever possible they would desire to include in the farm home the refrigerator, the separator in some instances, electric lights and power, running water, at least the septic-tank toilet, improved stoves and heaters, screens on the doors and windows. It is doubtful that many would advocate the slow and wasteful process of spinning and weaving in the home, of making the shoes, straw hats, men's suits and overalls for the family. It is highly doubtful that they would advise the building in toto, from tree to finished products, of the furniture needed in the farm home, to say nothing of the tools to be used in such processes. This would be foolish indeed; and they will concede as much. It is not the physical things of an earlier day that they ask, the hardships of weather and long hours and backbreaking work, nor indeed is it the material comforts from which they would now run away. It is rather the human relationships, the strengthening or weakening of spiritual values that went with them. These farmers wish to recapture

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the mutual trust, the sense of creative achievement, the feeling of security and self-reliance they recollect, the close family and neighborhood ties. They want respite from the rapid pace of the present day, the conflicting pressures all around, the fluctuations and uncertainties of farm prices, the commercialized amusements of the villages, the billboards that strengthen superficial wants and values. Could the best of old and new be combined, no doubt there would be less turning back to the past. Just what mechanization and other trends related to it will ultimately mean for the future patterns of agriculture in this area, it is difficult to know. In all probability the agriculture of the future will be a mixture—a continuation of the various practices already in process. Some patterns will be weakened and some strengthened; without doubt there will always be diversity. Whatever the answer, important problems are set thereby for all the rural agencies, including the schools. Surely there is need for a co-ordinated inventory and examination of the needs, the resources, the possibilities of modern agriculture in this county. The agencies, working together, could make available such an inventory—and here the schools could help as a basis for further agricultural planning for this area. It might well include, for example, the extent of good land in the county appropriate for full-time and for part-time fanning; the acreage of land now under cultivation that should be turned back to forest; employment possibilities in the area, farm and industrial, full-time and part-time or seasonal; possibilities for developing new resources and occupations in the area. The agencies could survey machinery and equipment needs in the county and means for extending and improving the purchase and use of such equipment. They would do well to concern themselves further with the development of new or modified outlooks required in this connection: new attitudes toward farm labor and tenancy as respectable alternatives to farm ownership, toward the seeking by fanners of specialized counsel and help, toward the processes of group decision and action. Means might be studied for recapturing and preserving many of the old values and satisfactions of an earlier day which, not incompatible with mechanization, could enhance and strengthen the new. GROWTH OF COMMERCIALIZED FARMING As the foregoing illustrates, with the increased mechanization in the county has come also a marked increase in the commercialization of fanning. And since mechanization and commercialization in most cases

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put a growing premium on vast lands and large-scale producing and marketing, this means at the outset that, apart from the few large land owners reported in the 1940 census, the farmers of Chautauqua County are pretty much at a disadvantage. In any case the old-time self-sufficient rural economy described in an earlier chapter, in which taxes and land payments comprised almost the sole requirements for money as an exchange, has been largely supplanted by an economy based upon cash. Farm machinery and expanded lands have cost money. So have improved dairy herds and new bams and equipment. Cash has been required for buying the family automobile and radio and refrigerator, for shingling the roof, for buying ready-made clothes, for paying the electric light bill. Nor is this demand for cash weakened when, as so often happens, the larger purchases are made on the instalment plan. Youth of Chautauqua County as well as their parents both need and want cash. As farm life becomes more and more tied up with village, their wants expand for the things that; money can buy—the things that lend prestige among village classmates and associates. The dependence of great numbers of farm families on cash intake has reached a remarkble high in the county's history. Specialized farming and the growing of "cash crops" have gone on apace, with some tempering in recent years, through deliberate diversification as earlier described. Farmers of the fruit belt especially are cautious about too narrow specialization, recalling as they do how the craze that followed the successful introduction of the grape industry into the county caused the downfall of many of their fellow farmers. "Why, people along here even pulled up good orchards to make room for grapevines," an older man recollects. "Planted all their lands to grapes. And as prices got higher, they went still deeper into debt to buy up more land to put out still more vineyards. It was almost like a fever with them . . . and they've certainly learned their lesson. You've got to raise more than one crop around here, or you'll never survive." In the rest of the county, farmers have specialized in dairying; although they too, in line with the advice of the Farm Bureau and other farm agencies, usually carry along some supplementary enterprise also commercial in nature. Commercialized farming, by its very nature, throws tremendous emphasis on marketing processes. A part of the trend has been a multiplication of agricultural occupations and services and a thoroughgoing realignment of marketing modes and requirements. The shift in the county from the production of butter and cheese to the marketing of fluid milk is one of the evidences of this change. Cheese factories of

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which Chautauqua County at one time was so proud have disappeared, and separators hum today on only a few of the dairy farms. Other changes have taken place also. Produce once largely disposed of locally, within the neighborhood or at farthest within county borders, is now being shipped greater distances. For example, most of the eggs and milk produced go to New York and other large cities; meats and many fresh vegetables are shipped to Buffalo, Erie, and Pittsburgh. (The county's own city of Jamestown, it should be noted, in turn now imports from Buffalo most of the fruits and vegetables required for her markets. ) The marketing and processing of grapes and tomatoes, and more recently of other fruits and vegetables, take place in large measure at the local canning factories where the pace and the patterns are largely determined for fruit and vegetable growing in the area. The maple syrup from Chautauqua's sugar bushes, as earlier mentioned, is processed mostly in New England. This means that the whole marketing process has become more impersonal. Large-scale commercialized producing in and out of the county has required large-scale and specialized marketing, cutting the costs and increasing the profits of those whose volume of business makes it possible, but weighing more precariously on the fate of smaller farmers whose old-time individualistic methods and outlooks were never meant for such stiff competition. So the trends of commercialization, while contributing much to some areas of farm living in Chautauqua County, have brought conflict as well. Farmers have accepted specialization of farming to an important degree; but many of them have been loathe to accept, to say nothing of seek, the advice of experts, specialized training, or "book farming" which technical farming on a new scale is bound to require. Specialized and mechanized farming, especially cash crop growing, has depleted the soils of valuable elements. Nevertheless the fanners of the county in the main have been slow to accept the conservation program set up to bring about better care and improvement of the soil, as well as the recommendations of the Land Class Committees for more appropriate usage of lands. They are coming more and more to embrace commercialization of farming, but they still resent in great part the infringement of certain marketing policies and regulations and organized marketing efforts that it has made necessary. Steeped in traditional attitudes grown out of an economy of scarcity, and further abetted by even the most modem agricultural education and farm agencies of the county, the farmers of this area are still disproportionately absorbed in the processes of production. Indeed farm-

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ing through the years has meant production, the process in toto taking place on the farm itself, with the fanner and his family responsible for every stage of it. Always it has been their concern, and that of most of the agricultural agencies working with them, to raise more of whatever products they deem wise and profitable. They resented being held to allotments, being paid from public funds to raise less of their own choice. They discount the influence on local conditions of the broader agricultural situation and events, the sometimes drastic fluctuations of export markets, the conditions of the domestic market, the tremendously increased production of vast commercial and mechanized farms in other parts of the nation. Whatever these wider trends, farmers of Chautauqua County seem to feel strongly that the emphases of production, the crops to be raised in whatever amount, are matters for local and even for individual determination. The problem of surplus production in a nation plagued by poverty and want just has never made sense to the farm folk of this area. Give the farmer his own market, they insist again and again, and don't interfere, and he will make his own adjustments and make them well. They have seen competition becoming more uneven both inside and outside the county, but they have complained at any attempts by the government to plan in terms of the total national situation. Yet the effects of these trends on a national scale have been even more striking than in the county itself, increasing and accelerating the consolidation of holdings in order to make the process still more profitable. And the consequences for Chautauqua County are more important than is locally realized. Giant, fertile fruit farms of California, vast acreages of corn and grain in West and Midwest, extended cotton plantations of the South and Southwest, where efficiency of mass production is on unprecedented scale, reap rewards of technology such as the average Chautauqua farmer is quite incapable of envisioning. He, meanwhile, is earnestly absorbed in wresting a simple, modest living from his less than ninety acres of rolling fair-to-poor farm land. It is difficult also for him to conceive of the powerful influence that owners and operators of these large-scale agricultural interests have on the destiny of the national agriculture of which his county is a part. They set the requirements for much of the farm implement production; they determine or affect conditions of marketing and distribution; they wield policy-making power generally through relations with the press and through such "representative" groups as the farm bloc of Congress. Sometimes the interests of these groups are common to the 'little" farmers; sometimes they are not. And this, as a major source of the uneven

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competition under which he is obliged to labor, the trusting Chautauqua County farmer has been slow to recognize. Farmers are farmers, he seems to assume, whether their "business" be large or small. Indeed the same satisfaction that comes through his identification with successful businessmen—industrial entrepreneurs—buoys him up as he links his interests also with the powerful agricultural entrepreneurs of the nation, even though he and other small farmers are apt to suffer for it in the long run. The widespread task that is set by these conflicts and contradictions is too great to be assumed independently by the individual farm families who are disturbed by them. They can do a great deal, to be sure. The co-operative efforts of fruit growers and dairymen, plus the work of farm agencies all over the county, are improving the picture in many respects. As farming has become commercialized and has taken on more of a business character, the farmers too have gradually come to see the importance of understanding the marketing changes and the wider insights and transactions that are involved. In terms of possibilities, however—and almost of downright imperatives, one is tempted to say— the progress has been slow. There are still many farmers throughout the county who are greatly in need of help along all of these lines. Certainly the rural schools, along with other agencies of the county, should figure here. Nor is it merely a matter of adjusting to conditions that exist, to trends as they are moving. Farmers are not speaking without grounds when they complain that these modem forces are progressively destroying the old human values and warm satisfactions of life on the farm; that they are focusing concern more and more on the material things of life, the outward earmarks of progress, the goods and the pleasures only money can buy. As already shown, these considerations too set a task that is worthy of careful concern. The problems though grave are probably not insurmountable.

GROWING INTERRELATION OF COUNTRY AND CITY At one end of the commercialized farming trend in Chautauqua County are the families who produce for the markets, and at the other end are the people in the cities who are largely the purchasers of what the farmers produce. As more and more of the farm products are raised and sold for cash, and as mechanized transportation becomes more commonly available, the interrelation of rural and urban areas has in-

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creased tremendously. The cities are in large part the source of die wealth of manufactured goods which, once provided by farm families themselves or at least by their neighbors, now come from all parts of the nation to meet the expanded needs of these farm families. Larger villages and cities in and near the county have figured increasingly in the individual, family, and institutional life of the farm people. As some older farmers lament, these urban attractions have all but wiped out the self-sufficient ways and the small neighborhood functions once so characteristic of rural areas. It is increasingly the urban centers that set the tempo and pattern for rural living as cash from the farm family income buys city-made goods and equipment. "Boughten" products take precedence over home-made as youth's urban contacts increase. City newspapers, magazines, motion pictures, radio programs, mail order catalogues, and billboard advertisements intensify the trend. "The rural community . . . is largely dependent upon the cities," Sanderson writes, "and is involved in an economy which is dominated by city interests, whose ascendance has been made possible by modern transportation facilities. . . . The outstanding change in the modern environment is due to the increase of cities." 8 Industrial centers have dictated also the extent and the nature of offthe-farm and to-the-farm migration. Frequent reference has been made to the large group of families who, because of slack industrial employment during the twenties and especially the thirties, have drifted into the county to form what a prominent county official has no compunctions at terming the "rural slums." The other extreme was recently manifest when the industrial plant of the nation, operating under full steam to meet war production, drew off in dramatic numbers the farm youth and the usual supply of farm laborers not in the armed services. This movement in turn drove farm operators to unprecedented use of machinery wherever war restrictions did not stand in the way of their purchase. They added extra hours to already overloaded work days on the farm; and, in an increasing number of cases, they were forced in desperation to dispose of stock or of farm land, perhaps themselves to capitalize on defense or wartime employment. Even in normal times, as pointed out earlier, the drain of youth from the farms by industrial and other employment attractions sets a chronic problem for the county. It is largely the older generation that is left to man the farms. Further, the part-time work through which an increasing number of farmers are supplementing their farm incomes and securing the means for additional farm equipment is largely located in urban areas. As just noted also, it is the cities which serve as markets for the great

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bulk of Chautauqua County's farm products. Up until the outbreak of World War II, one of the greatest obstacles to rural welfare in these parts was the effect of low industrial wages and employment in Buffalo, Erie, Pittsburgh, New York, and because the causes of such conditions were nationwide, of other more distant cities. This was true not only because it backed up the unemployed onto the cheaper and poorer farms of the county—although the movement in Western New York was somewhat less intensive than elsewhere in the country—but more importantly, because it meant widespread lack of purchasing power among the great numbers of urban families who normally purchase the farm products of Chautauqua and her neighboring counties. This in turn lowered farm prices over the years and decreased the rural purchasing power, thus leading to still further decrease in industrial employment opportunities. The depressing effect upon Chautauqua County's farm families has been shown throughout this study, although the farmers themselves, antagonistic as they are toward industrial labor groups, have been slow to grasp the significance of these-relations. There has been little in urban or agricultural press, or indeed in the program of church, school, or local farm agencies, to help the people of this area to see that, as O. V. Wells states: "Farmers can do much to improve their economic and social status by their own efforts, but as long as the chief source of farm income is the sale of farm products for consumption by people who are not farmers, efforts to increase and stabilize the incomes of nonagricultural consumers are as important as any efforts that can be made in the agricultural field itself. In a broad sense, there is one problem, not two." * For reasons already discussed, the fanners of the county—especially those most effectively reached by the farm agencies—feel a close kinship with employers large or small the country over. The press helps them here. They see therefore in the great body of industrial workers, organized or unorganized, something of a threat to their own independence and potential prosperity. It will require no small effort to weaken this psychological alignment in Chautauqua County and to help farmers to realize that their fate and fortunes are bound up fully as closely with the laboring groups as with their employers; that in many important respects the labor unions whom they deplore are working earnestly and effectively for the very same things which they, the farmers, cherish most deeply. Organized labor is actively concerned with the preservation of the family-sized farm; improved standards of living for all American families, rural and urban; the chance for more stable family relationships; the provision for a well-rounded education for all of their chil-

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dren; a heightened respect for and increased enjoyment of work with the hands as well as the brain; and better health and recreational facilities for those who now can hardly afford them. To help the fanners to see this community of interests will be no small task, on the part of public schools and whatever agencies of the area can be induced to lend support. It will be particularly difficult since most of the farm agencies of the county are hardly in sympathy themselves. Indeed they are largely responsible for the strength of the concept of fanners as businessmen in this area. The Farmers' Union (Farmers' Educational and Co-operative Union of America)—the one national, non government, farmers' organization which works co-operatively with organized labor groups toward the same ends—although recently organized in a few counties of New York State, has not had a look-in in Chautauqua County. "No, thank God, no union!" an agricultural leader responded a few years ago when the writer asked if there was such a group in these parts. The very name as well as the forthright slanted program stirs resentment. So the task will be hard, but it need not be impossible. These farm people, however steeped in the old individualistic tradition, are not inflexible. They are what their histories have made them. GROWTH OF ORGANIZATION AND CONSOLIDATION Along with the increased technological developments and the close interrelation of city and country, there has been developing also a marked growth of consolidation and organization in all phases of modem living. The individual farmer of Chautauqua County, bending to these forces with almost every decision and act, seems only vaguely aware that they are so significantly remolding his world. They are apparent in the consolidation of land holdings already mentioned; the consolidation of school districts, of churches and church functions, and of recreational activities; the organization of purchasing and marketing groups, of agricultural agencies and committees, of credit agencies, of business men, of school teachers, of industrial labor unions, of chambers of commerce, of chain stores, of political groups, of processing plants and corporations, of a wide variety of other corporations, and of service groups of all kinds. Farm people of the county are conscious only in limited measure that all of these are part of the wider state and national picture: giant and still growing corporations, two hundred of which in years preceding

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World War II controlled more than fifty percent of the nation's wealth; huge labor unions whose membership runs into millions; national banking groups; medical societies; purchasing, marketing, and consumer cooperatives; educational associations; agricultural groups; scientific societies; news agencies; transportation lines; radio networks; artist and other professional groups in increasing numbers; great chain stores of all kinds; chain hotels; chain service stations; and many others that could swell the list. There is scarcely a field of human endeavor that does not have an organization to chart its course, press its demands, or sponsor its publicity. And the trend still grows. The farmers probably need further help to realize that these great forces are not confined to localities or carefully bounded areas. Consolidated or corporate bodies find unity through nature and purpose rather than geography. More and more they are taking on a national character; smaller groups are federating into larger, more effective bodies capable of dealing with others of similar power and scope. Great economic corporations, even world cartels, cut across all boundaries to coalesce still further so that they may chart their production more profitably, set prices, foster research, and in other ways make long-term plans for their best interests. Chain stores carefully spotted throughout the country undersell and outdistance the village shopkeeper. Large businesses everywhere crowd out the smaller. The much touted American characteristic of "bigness" seems to be well in the saddle, since a scientific and technological economy is most profitably and efficiently run on a very large scale. And institutions and organizations most responsive to the age seem to take pride in similar spread, irrespective of once appropriate smaller geographic units. Chautauqua County itself, its people will note, agriculturally can hardly be said to function as a unit. It is a part of the great New York Milk Shed. It is a part of the Chautauqua-Erie Crape Belt; a part of the several-state area served by the co-operative efforts of the G.L.F.; a part also of the Northeastern Region as classified by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of the United States Department of Agriculture. Its marketing problems are affected by the sale of vegetables in Florida and alfalfa seed production in Utah, by national price controls, and by world trade barriers or agreements. Sweeping events and conditions of a war-shocked world have tightened relationships in every direction. And so farm people of the county are coming to feel the frustration and futility of their own individual efforts against forces too powerful for them to cope with; at the same time they continue to make their almost habitual assertion that if thev are onlv left alone and not inter-

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fered with, they can make out all right and so can their neighbors. The ability to work effectively in and with groups does not develop automatically with the mere "joining up." Modifications of attitudes and outlooks are comparatively slow in this area, as already shown. Farm agencies are making a wide difference in this regard among those whom they reach most consistently. But the process should and can be speeded up through carefully co-ordinated precept and experience. It will undoubtedly require the unified effort of all the agencies and institutions who work with rural people, and this must include the schools. There must be compromising of desire and harmonizing of differences for the greater good if the farmers would attain either locally or nationally the status or the standards to which they are entitled.

GROWTH OF LONG-TERM AND WIDE-SCALE PLANNING Along with the powerful trends of our highly technological era, the need for and consequent growth of wide-scale planning have become more and more marked. Because it is the fruits rather than the process of planning that figure most obviously in their day-to-day living, the farm people of the county are hardly aware of the extent to which such planning touches their own affairs. They are coming to see the value and necessity of looking ahead on their family farms. The introduction of new devices and techniques have frequently called for complete reorganization of many phases of farm and family life. This has meant planning, sometimes on an individual, more often on a family basis. Farm agencies are helping to encourage and strengthen the process, and farmers throughout the county are becoming increasingly conscious of its importance and spread. They have good illustrations close at hand. The Agricultural Conservation Program, for instance, functions by carefully laid plans based on national and international as well as local developments. The Farm and Home Bureaus chart their programs for the year in terms of both the local and the more widespread conditions, problems, and needs. They make plans in conjunction with local community committees or groups, State College committees, the Agricultural Extension Division, State and National Farm and Home Bureau leaders, and others. The Agricultural Defense Committee was specifically an emergency planning body for the county, working in close relation with similar state and regional bodies and with other government agencies. Fruit growers' co-operative units come together to make plans on a larger scale. Certainly the several

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fruit and vegetable processing plants of the county do not function in terms of the local situation alone. Current national and worldwide trends continually make great difference to their plans and policies. The great milk marketing agencies, to which most dairymen of any size in the county belong, are affiliated and work actively with national co-operative bodies and with other large groups whose concerns overlap their own. County health or welfare officials draw up their programs with representatives of state and national offices. The chain stores and mail order houses with which rural Chautauquans do business are made possible only through wide-scale and long-term planning. The farm people, like others, take these processes for granted; they seem hardly to be aware of them as "planning." On a wartime worldwide basis, the trend was far more spectacular. Military achievements and unprecedented industrial production records are tribute to a far-flung network of public planning, even the most easily observable workings of which seem little short of miraculous. Although subject to some criticism, this was generally accepted and marveled at and depended upon in wartime, even in the most traditional strongholds of the county. It was all a part of winning the war, and had to go on at whatever cost. Wide-scale government planning in peacetime, however, is something quite different, something indeed which the farm folk resent. The vision of what is at stake is less clear and alarming. Further, they seem not to sense that every corporate body—economic, social, political, medical, welfare, educational, recreational—is laying out its program with increasing deftness and care. Many do not realize as yet that the unplanned, resigned, day-to-day sort of living characteristic of steadier times cannot compete for long with the more scientific methods. It is the surveying of needs and possibilities and the planning in terms of them which measure an organization's vitality, effectiveness, and probability of survival. It is no longer a question of whether there shall be planning, but rather of who shall do the planning and toward what ends. It is important for rural Chautauquans to become aware that this is so. INCREASED ROLE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT It will be easier for them to see then that in this welter of organizational expansion, pressure, and conflicts, the federal government has been obliged to expand and extend its role. The farm people of the county, while joining the chorus of bitter complaint against the govern-

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ment's encroachment on individual liberty and the private enterprise system of which they consider themselves a typical part, are coming more and more to take for granted public improvements which their forefathers and even their fathers no doubt branded in their day as dangerous. There is scarcely a phase of rural living in this county that has not been directly affected by government's role: the highways and bridges over which farm families drive; the mails which carry their letters and make possible their business with mail order houses, their subscriptions to newspapers and magazines; tariff policies; freighting controls; marketing regulations. Their children have attended new central schools constructed in part from federal funds. Greater numbers of them have been provided free or partially free lunches through the Federal Surplus Foods program. Their youth have been helped through high school and some even through college by the National Youth Administration. The teachers of vocational agriculture and homemaking are paid in substantial part out of federal funds. Areas worthless for cultivation in the county have been reforested by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and recreational facilities have been extended. The Rural Electrification Administration has made electric power newly available to many farm families. Cheaper credit facilities have been extended to them through a system that is federally planned. The Farm Security Administration, through cooperative working and planning, has helped their poverty-stricken farm neighbors to become once more self-dependent. These services have already been described elsewhere, together with other phases of the role of the federal government in the county's agricultural program. During the war the federal government supplied funds to the County Extension Agent for helping to meet the acute farm labor shortage. It set prices on grapes, tomatoes, and other fruits and vegetables sold in the area; parity prices on milk and other farm produce; priority ratings on farm machinery and equipment; and it made numerous other provisions, restrictions, and suggestions incident to wartime developments. The close of the war did not stop the expansion of federal programs. Many proposals are being reviewed in Washington: bills for extensive health programs; for federal aid to the schools, for the extension of free lunch programs; proposals for various forms of social security, some of them to cover farm labor and even farm owners; for the construction of the tremendous St. Lawrence Waterway Project which, in view of precedents elsewhere, would mean so much to farm families of this area; for further regulation of transportation and the tools of communication.

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The long-term trend is definitely toward a stronger, not a weaker, role of the federal government in postwar America. And farm people of Chautauqua County, in many ways more loyal to the business interests than to their own government, are genuinely afraid of this "encroachment." Moved by the one-sided, conservative press, by the traditional slant of the usual news commentators, and by their own older farm agencies, in line with the national bodies, they lend their emotionalized and vocal allegiance to the anti-government forces of the area. It gives them a cause that seems to mean much in this time of insecurity and conflict, when forces that seem to matter most lie outside of their control. They worry lest the government take over control of affairs lock, stock, and barrel; lest the private enterprise system, synonymous with liberty and democracy, be hopelessly throttled; lest bureaucracy lead to dictatorship, to "socialism," even to "communism," whatever the words may mean. And the farmers are truly earnest in this fear. They have little opportunity either to read or to hear any other interpretations of their dilemma. That there may also be threat to democracy and to their own freedom of thinking in this near-monopoly of the means for shaping public opinion, does not enter their thinking. How can it when they are not aware of the existence of such monopoly? Further, the old historic individualism comes into curious deadlock here. Ever willing to come to the aid of the man or the family genuinely in need, deserving of help, and warmly appreciative of it, farm people of this area nevertheless resent the same program extended to numbers of men or of families. Help the individual farm family to get back on its feet, yes; or even several of them if you can make sure that they need it. But extend the same program to a larger number, as with the Farm Security Administration, and that is socialism and is to be avoided in this country. Help the individual man to find a job, yes; even make work for him if it is constructive, if he is really eager for work and has tried hard to find it. The poor man must have some way to support his wife and children. He will appreciate it, too, of that you can be sure. But extend the program over a wide area, helping thousands or millions of just such men to constructive work in a depression, no. That too is socialism. And it makes people lazy; it makes them want something for nothing. They won't appreciate it—or how can you make sure that they will? Help the deserving high school or college girl through school, yes. But help the many, as through N.Y.A., and that is not so desirable. And so it goes. There seems to be in Chautauqua County a pretty strong concern lest someone get something for nothing, "while I have

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always had to work hard for it"; lest a few undeserving receive help along with the many in need; lest some of the families who are given help are not truly appreciative of it. This fear is found among farmers no more than among villagers, including the teachers. In programs as wide of scope as that of W.P.A., N.Y.A., Farm Security, Agricultural Conservation, there has been less opportunity, of course, than among early rural neighborhoods for guarding against such "shortcomings" in the process of righting wrongs. The personal, face-to-face relations characteristic of earlier times no longer figure, but attitudes grown out of them persist. Indeed the history of Chautauqua County's attitudes toward government has been an interesting one. Her earliest problems were largely local of source, of nature, and therefore of solution. There was little need for help from any source beyond neighborhood, township, or county. So the inherited concept of the least government as the best was strengthened. Public enterprise did figure at an early date in the statefinanced construction of the Erie Canal which, although not touching the county geographically, had important effect on it. The succession of fairly unsuccessful federal and state enterprises of similar nature which followed bred mixed attitudes. Further, the federal government aided the railroads which enabled the West and the Midwest to take away eastern farm markets. Its western land policies too were unfair in view of the fact that farmers of this area were having to pay so dearly for their much smaller farms. Throughout the gradual shift that has taken place from private to public responsibility, from individual to neighborhood to township to county to state and, in some instances, to federal level; strong protest and acceptance on the part of these farm people have frequently overlapped just as they do now. For in spite of emotional and loudly vocal opposition, the government programs are making some headway in rural Chautauqua County. In fact, like other groups and individuals throughout the country, the farmers are asking for help in this way and that. They would like a ceiling on feed prices, on wages both farm and industrial, on otherwise exorbitant freight rates. Further, if there are to be additional federal funds for school lunches, for school buildings, for reforestation and other works projects, for increased old age pensions, for extended health programs, the fanners, just as others in the county and the state, will want to be in on them. They were not disturbed, it was noted, when much of the current federal program which they still fight was incorporated into the popular promises of their recently favored presidential candidate.

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The federal government has always been regarded by these farm people as something quite apart from themselves; "they" not "we" have been the government. And the deep Republican tradition of rural Chautauqua County especially has tended to strengthen this concept and to becloud the significant issues which great modern changes have thrust to the fore. This poses a tremendous educational task, quite as difficult as it is important to the welfare of farm people of this area, indeed of America. Fanners of Chautauqua County need to understand with Williams that: "With the growth of population and the increasing intimacy of association, with the development of modern industry and the extension of markets served by factory and farm, with the increase of indulgence and speed of modern life, the necessity of protecting the population has resulted in a great increase of laws and administrative officers. Every class of people is affected by this tendency, farmers, business men, wage earners. So the regulating function of the state has grown, and with it the power of the state has increased." 8 Farm people need to sense, in fact, the obligation of the federal government to assume a positive, forceful role in this day of growing concentration and potential monopoly; to utilize the vast resources and full productive capacity of the nation toward the betterment of living for the many, rather than to allow exploitation for the benefit of the few. They need to shake themselves loose from the spell of the powerful corporation and business interests whose concerns are less conducive to farm prosperity and welfare than they think. They need to face squarely their responsibility as citizens in safeguarding their federal government as the effective instrument of the people, not of ambitious politicians or more subtly selfish groups; to realize that they, the people, can be the Government insofar as they exercise their prerogatives of constructive citizenship. As more and more farm people of this area participate actively in federal programs locally administered, and as they come to see themselves in relation to the wider picture, the modification of older outlooks in terms of newer technological and scientific developments is wholly possible. This modification is necessary. As shown throughout this study, the old and the new are not always incompatible. Neither are local and national interests. What is needed is an intelligent and courageous and realistic synthesis in terms of the times. The "grass roots" are important. For "it is in local communities," as Dr. Brunner reminds, "that national trends impinge on individuals, and every local community has its own variants of these trends which must be understood and interpreted

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educationally." 8 But equally important, in times like today, is the exercise of vision and bold leadership from a broader perspective. TREND TOWARD A WORLD ECONOMY Even as Chautauqua County farmers are slowly trying to accustom themselves to the increased role of the federal government in matters that were once individual or local affairs, more and more of their problems are understandable only in terms of a world setting. The same factors that are making functionally obsolete the county and state boundaries are spilling over the national limits as well. Communication and transportation facilities that defy time and distance and the natural impediments of oceans, weather, and mountains, are tying the world together in unique and spectacular fashion. The most geographically remote farm family in the county, gathered about the old battery set that after each successful tinkering blats out a little more of the world news, is being reminded in a very fundamental sense that it lives in a world society. These marks of growing interdependence were particularly obvious while hostilities lasted. Relations of a world everywhere absorbed in the throes of a single well-planned and well-unified war were tightened and deepened at an almost alarming rate. The explosion of that first atom bomb over Hiroshima and subsequent world developments of many different shades are affecting the farm people of this county today far more than the happenings in neighboring counties affected those of a generation ago. The air is full of pleas for the people of war-wounded nations. Yet even as agricultural groups are everywhere being reminded of their tremendous production task as a starving world attempts to get back on its feet, there looms again the subtle threat of surplus food production. The drama strikes a familiar chord to the older farmers of this area. Once again there are dangers ahead, as well as promises for our postwar era. This time they must come to see much more clearly than in the past that agricultural problems which appear to be local in source are often closely bound up with national and world conditions of a most unstable nature. To keep abreast of these conditions, they will need far more help than has ever before been within their reach. Certainly the changing relations of the United States with other countries during this century, challenging as they have the ingenuity of experts, have remained quite outside the grasp of the general run of farmers in this area of traditionally local horizons. High tariffs and

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other trade barriers and lopsided international agreements have all affected Chautauqua County farmers more acutely than they have known. Inflationary periods followed by sudden deflation, with uneven changes in various prices and price relations, have been largely in terms of world events and conditions. They have tended generally to go pretty hard with the small independent farmers of Chautauqua County and elsewhere who, misreading the causes of such unexpected disjunctions, have suffered the more. "No democracy has ever been exposed to such terrific pressure as the United States since 1919," wrote Henry Wallace in 1934, and the statement has signal pertinence today. "At that time only about one person in ten thousand appreciated that the United States had become a creditor nation with a debtor nation psychology, and that there must be radical changes in American habits of thought, built upon several generations."7 Conditions and problems of surplus production which until changes wrought by demands of World War II flattened rural Chautauqua County to a fairly consistent low, grew largely out of unbalanced international arrangements allowed full sway by widespread economic ignorance. For shifts in the modern international scene may be quite as rapid as they are far-reaching, while adjustments in habits of thought they give rise to are often slow and distressful. The problem seems to be to speed up those adjustments—to forewarn of or even to forestall the crises before they mature. Technologically and organizationally, as shown through this study, the means for reaching the farmers of Chautauqua County are greater today than at any time previous. Certainly the scientific and mechanized wonders which have brought them so much closer to affairs of the world should serve them better than ever before to understand them. But understanding of affairs so complex, so vast, so continuously changing, does not develop of itself. The schools and farm agencies of the county may have in this situation one of their most difficult educational responsibilities. These farmers are by tradition provincial and individualistic, by tradition deeply loyal to the political party opposing reduction of tariffs, by tradition closely allied psychologically with the business interests whose stand on international affairs is sometimes significantly determined by what it will mean to their profits. To help the fanners of this area then to think and act in terms of international co-operation will be no simple matter. The war is still close to them now. Many had sons and brothers and

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neighbors at the battlefronts. They still remember the grave loss of life and the fabulous monetary costs of war. More than many others, they felt the effects of acute labor shortages, of the difficulties of getting gasoline and machinery to meet the greatest agricultural production demands they have known. Certainly there must not be a World War III in another few years, they agree. War henceforth must be outlawed as a political instrument among nations. Otherwise the fondest hopes and aspirations of the farm folk of this area, for themselves and their children, will have little chance of fruition. Indeed civilization may not be able to stand another highly mechanized war. So rural Chautauqua County would have war outlawed, by all means; and many are hopeful that a lasting peace can be maintained. Here as elsewhere, however, the people need help in defining or envisioning the required conditions for peace. They need to know more of world affairs and conditions to see the urgent necessity for improved international relations that will guarantee a fairer, more farsighted system of access to raw materials of the world, to legitimate markets, to sound international credit, to scientific and educational resources. They must see all of these as necessary conditions for peace even though that means a reduction of tariffs, increased checks on the profits and practices of large business interests, and even the occasional lowered market prices for Chautauqua County produce in the difficult process of swinging into long-term peacetime relations. Once subscribing to these conditions, furthermore, they must come to see that nations of the world individually cannot achieve and maintain them, that this can only be done through the creation of a strong and powerful international organization girded by the necessary force to insure these fair relations among nations. The responsibility of helping them further to keep abreast of world events and relations, to understand the problems involved, and to recognize the need for local co-operation and constructive support of these far-reaching federal and international programs will tax the most intelligent and creative efforts of all the educational institutions of this county and of the government itself.

AN ERA O F POTENTIAL ABUNDANCE So the possibilities of the scientific and technological era, the impact of some of whose major trends on rural living in Chautauqua County has here been discussed, are tremendous, either for eventual global destruction or for the building of a better world than man has yet known.

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The same forces that have thrown out of balance the long-settled habits and outlooks and ways of life of rural Chautauqua County, have at the same time made possible, for the first time in recorded history, an era of abundance for all. This is one of the most important and revolutionary facts of our time, or of all time. In an area like Chautauqua County, long geared to a doctrine of economic scarcity, the realization of such possibility does not easily take root. It is difficult for local farm folk to realize, for example, that with the technological resources now at hand, the conditions of living for all in the area can be lifted to new levels; that through intelligently co-ordinated capacity production and the full employment it makes possible, comfortable, attractive, and sanitary housing can be attained. So can better clothing, ample and healthful diets, educational programs for all age levels, and a wide variety of wholesome recreational opportunities together with the leisure time required to take advantage of them. These things cannot be achieved by the people of Chautauqua County alone. Theirs must be the local creative grass roots interpretation of the wider program which they themselves will have helped to fashion and to which they will have lent intelligent support. If they would achieve local well-being, they must play a significant part in programs of wider scope, made possible as well as urgent by improved communication and transportational facilities. They must be concerned with the improvement of living for farmers everywhere, and for village and city folk the country over. They must be helped to free themselves from certain prejudices, to work with other groups who strive toward similar goals. They must come to see that such groups as the Farmers' Union and the labor unions are really concerned with bringing to concrete fulfilment the promises of the times. Excerpts from a program adopted by delegates to a national convention of the Farmers' Union a few years ago indicate this concern: We renew our profound commitment to the basic Farmers' Union principle: the security of the farm family on the land in an economy of abundance brought about by a free exchange of goods and services. The time calls for a chart to win the war and the peace. It must include: Full production now, for war; in peace, for the needs of men. This means full employment—no closed factories, no idle farms, now or after the war. This means that monopolies and patents shall be controlled in peace as is necessary in war. . . .

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Full protection of our human resources. Our national resources consist not only of soil, minerals, forests, and waterways, but most important, the lives of the people. We must have conservation programs not only to preserve and build up the soil, but to assure to all persons adequate food, clothing, housing, medical care, education, and the free communication of information. . . . Full participation in the councils of the nations, to the end that we may live in abundance in a world that is governed by law based on justice. This means that we cannot return to isolationism, but must participate in world affairs to protect the way of life we are determined to achieve. Insistence upon world trade policies that will give all peoples everywhere the chance to earn a decent living. B E rr FURTHER RESOLVED, that we reaffirm our historic friendship, sympathy, and willingness to co-operate with other progressive organizations of farmers, labor, religious groups, and committees having similar general or specific interests and objectives and with whom we can work in areas of agreement while retaining our autonomy as an organization of, by, and for working farm families. . . Chautauqua County farm folk too must come to take a unified stand on these matters. That the great majority of them, old and young, are quite unaware of the fact of potential abundance sets an important task for all educational agencies, including the schools. Perhaps the primary responsibility of all the agencies through the next generation of Chautauqua County's history will have to do with the thoroughgoing shifts required in habits of thinking among the farm people, thinking and acting in terms of a world of abundance instead of scarcity. Better techniques must be developed among them for surveying needs, for planning and working together to meet these needs, for working constructively and creatively with the federal government, not against it, toward intelligent fulfilment of the maximum social promise of an age of abundance.

CHAPTER

TEN

A Proposed Educational Program MAJOR CONCEPTIONS FOR THE COUNTY of the foregoing analysis of conditions in rural Chautauqua County, including the existing educational program, directs attention to the need for building upon three major conceptions: that of social planning, of a functional curriculum, and of a broader interpretation of a functional curriculum.

T H E WHOLE

SOCIAL PLANNING

The first of these, which should be both a condition for and a significant outcome of a dynamic program of rural education for the county, is the conception of social planning. There is scarcely a page of this study that does not point to the need for the people of Chautauqua's communities to work together on problems no longer solvable through individual effort alone; to plan for the future deliberately and cooperatively, farm and village, rural and urban, in terms of the actual resources and possibilities described in these chapters. As earlier noted, farm agencies are already at work on some phases of a long-term planning program. The Land Use Committee of county and state, agricultural planning committees, the Agricultural Conservation Program, the Forestry Service, the Agricultural Experiment Station, the Farm Security Administration, the C. & E. Grape Growers Cooperative, the Farm Bureau—indeed most of the organizations and agencies reviewed in Chapter III, The Home Farm, are engaged in some phase or phases of agricultural planning. Village and urban groups are also making their plans, as previous chapters call to attention. Industry and labor groups, planning commissions, churches and ministerial associations, educational and professional groups, business men and women, parent-teacher organizations, health and welfare agencies, veterans groups, and others are studying possibilities for improving the lot of the people of this county and are making their plans for the future accordingly.

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That many of these agencies are working for the most part independently of one another and quite unaware of the degree to which the problems and concerns and achievements of all of them are related and interrelated, is the critical point here. The weight of this study supports the contention that it is impossible to plan with any long-time effectiveness for rural families independent of city, for any one occupational group in the area independent of others whose welfare is so closely tied up with their own. It is reasonable to assume from the foregoing analysis that the quality of living in Chautauqua County during the next several decades, rural and urban, and the degree to which the promises and possibilities reviewed in the previous chapters will reach fruition, will depend upon how well her people can co-ordinate the work of these existing groups and agencies, how well their respective programs can be fitted into a deliberate, co-operative, comprehensive plan for the county as a whole. Public education will be one element in this over-all county plan. N o r is planning on a community and county-wide basis enough. It is

obvious that many of the problems and difficulties described in these pages, commonly faced by rural families of the county and by the agencies at work in their interest, lie outside the realm of family or community or even of county solution. They derive from, and therefore can be solved only in terms of, conditions and events of a wider, more general nature. The basis of a realistic program of social planning sufficiently comprehensive to include the factors of both source and solution of such problems must extend to regional, national, and in an important sense, to worldwide proportions, as the chapter immediately preceding makes clear. A program of planning for rural Chautauqua County must function within and contribute to the framework of an increasingly broader program. It follows then that the concept of social planning must rest on a common acceptance of the positive functions of government, especially of federal government, the acceptance of a positive rather than a negative minimal role of the duly elected representatives of the people. The welfare of a genuinely democratic society today, indeed its very survival, demands a comprehensive program of social and economic planning. This is something quite unprecedented in a society of free men. Something quite unprecedented also are the powerful forces and trends of a highly interdependent technological world which make it imperative. A program of planning for the people's own welfare, through the people's own political instrument, appears to be by all odds the soundest positive guarantee against the usurpation and exploitation of the stu-

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pendous resources of modern science and technology by increasingly powerful and concentrated private groups to their own selfish ends. This point was elaborated in the preceding chapter. So was the fact that such a conception of social planning rests quite as importantly on a forthright recognition of the increased individual and group responsibilities which the citizenry of a democracy must therefore assume in order to safeguard their government as a genuine instrument of the people. Positive functions of government in a democratic society call for positive functions of citizenship. Politics, in the thinking of Chautauqua County people, must no longer be something to be shunned, to be left to the "politicians." It must come to mean something more than going to the polls to cast their votes at successive elections. It must come to mean for rural and urban, old and young, responsible participation in community, county, and regional programs of reconstruction, in making sure that competent people are elected to responsible positions for still wider programs of planning; in supporting sound programs of planning and taking a forthright stand against any that are unsound, at whatever level. To repeat, the broader the base of the planning program, the less apt it is to become the tool of the demagogue. In this connection, the various groups in a democratic society play an important role. On national as well as on county and regional level, they serve to keep the over-all program from becoming distorted and onesided. From their own special vantage point and functional concern, they bring particular data with which to temper the program and make it well-rounded. The responsibility is a two-way affair, however. Conditions discussed in the previous chapter point to the great need for all of these groups to realize more keenly that they are part and parcel of the larger whole—county, state, region, nation, world. They must sense that the exclusive, narrow drive for profits, for higher wages, for better farm prices, for special concessions of government and technical sciences, must all be co-ordinated within a plan of broader scope. This wider plan must be set up to maintain production, stability of employment, and a budget for national welfare projects such as improved housing, food, health, recreation, educational programs. Such a conception of social planning, local and national, will necessarily make powerful demands on the schools. It views education, on the county level, as one of those dynamic agencies whose program is to be co-ordinated with that of other agencies n the county, whose program indeed will be defined within, and positively contribute to, the wider

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comprehensive plan for the county as a whole. The school becomes at once then a part of the program to be planned, and a major instrument for teaching and furthering the processes of intelligent, deliberate, cooperative social planning in a democracy. Such a reconstructed educational program can function most effectively, of course, after the social concepts and processes here proposed are already at work in the county. For then can the ends and the methods of the schools be one. But the schools, with adequate help from state and nation, must also play a significant part in bringing about this state of affairs, this working conception of a functional planning democracy. A FUNCTIONAL CUBRICULUM

This leads to the second conception grown out of the foregoing chapters, which is that the schools of rural Chautauqua County must concern themselves with a curriculum that is functional, the structural base of which will be the ways of making a livelihood and the possibilities they define for the families of this area. The existing school program of the county, described in Chapter V, is far too abstract and too segregated, too much unrelated to the stuff of which all the other chapters are made, to be an integral part of or contribute significantly to a comprehensive plan for the county or region or nation. Somehow or other America has failed to project a school in terms of the democratic conception of a functional society in which all are workers. The point was earlier made in the study that the American schools, including Chautauqua County's, have too easily accepted an autocratic leisure class concept of education, patterned after the old "select" schools, later adding a lot of supplementary specific skills and narrow trade interests as varied services and occupations through the years have come to demand. Thus tradition lends strength to the separation of culture and vocation, of art and utility, of knowledge and science and useful work, of citizenship and functional interests and needs. What is called for by conditions described in this study, and by the conception of genuine social planning just developed, is a wholly new concept of the nature of the public school in a democratic society. In a sense what they ask is that the schools of rural Chautauqua County be "vocational" schools—with a much richer interpretation of the meaning of vocational school. If our democracy can be conceived to be a functional society in which all are workers—no drones, no idle at either end of the economic scale,—a society in which each member contributes in a differentiated way genuinely satisfying to himself but important at the

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same time to the over-all welfare, then the schools in truth must be vocational in nature. In a technological and scientific society such as ours, the processes of production and distribution and the relation of human beings to them significantly set the limits to and the possibilities for the social and economic and physical and cultural relations of men. In such a society the development of wide understanding of those processes and the ways in which they can be made best to serve human ends, individual and social, must be a central function of the curriculum. Being functional then, the curriculum will be such as to help boys and girls of rural Chautauqua County to deal constructively with the everyday problems they encounter. No problem of living will be too mundane, no situation extraneous to the concerns of the rural schools of the county. Repairing a fence or mulching a strawberry patch, let us say, may be quite as appropriate to the curriculum of rural youth as reading about the invention of the cotton gin or looking up words in the dictionary. So may helping to plan a better distribution of "chores" within the family, a richer program of recreation for home, for school, for neighborhood, more wholesome menus for the week, wiser purchase and use of machinery at home or at school, better modes of marketing milk in line with modern possibilities, of keeping tools in repair, of storing foods, of securing information about credit or health co-operatives. This means that the curriculum will necessarily consist, for all, of the mental and the manual, of theory and practice, of actual, purposeful, first-hand experience or participation in programs of action as well as of "study"— with the two always closely related, ideally and typically interrelated. A BROAD INTERPRETATION OF A FUNCTIONAL CURRICULUM

The third concept is really a refinement or elaboration of the second— in truth, a far broader interpretation of "functional curriculum" than is commonly held. It is quite clear, for example, that such a curriculum as here called for cannot be merely a made-on-the-spot affair. It must be carefully and broadly planned in terms of the general socio-educational objectives here discussed, although the concrete means of accomplishing these will necessarily be matters for local school and even classroom determination. Within the broader occupational or livelihood framework of interests and objectives, plural means can and should be employed. These will vary from school to school, from teacher to teacher. It is also clear that no curriculum for the public schools of our democracy today can be adequate if its concern is limited to the contemporary. If they are to understand the present, the schools must help boys and

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girls to understand the past from which it has come, and the future to which they can aspire. The curriculum must provide opportunity for them to learn of the development of the democratic, scientific way of life, of the long and persistent struggles for these values—democracy and science—which people in our own and other countries have suffered and carried through to success. Many of them, indeed, they must suffer anew if these same values are to survive the present cultural crisis and enable the common people of Chautauqua County and of the nation and of the world to realize the unprecedented possibilities already discussed. Neither can the functional curriculum here proposed deal with the local alone, nor in provincial manner. It need hardly be re-emphasized that the people of Chautauqua County, as elsewhere, must learn better to view the local in terms of the broader social setting—regional, national, and one-world—in which their everyday problems are nested. It should be observed further that this functional curriculum does not propose to ignore that second great objective (the passing on of the

cultural heritage being the first) for which the early schools of this area and others were established: to help boys and girls to master the fundamental tools of learning—the skills of reading, writing, and figuring. But it will be clear that the Three R's are not here conceived of as separate individual skills, to be taught out of context and later applied. Rather is it assumed in this study, as many educational leaders throughout the country are agreed, that these skills are most effectively taught through functional use, as basic tools in a dynamic program of intelligent co-operative social action, carefully planned in terms of the interests, abilities, and maturity of the boys and girls involved.

LIVELIHOOD AND EDUCATION IN A DEMOCRACY AGRICULTURAL PLANNING

It has been emphasized that the ways of making a livelihood in rural Chautauqua County should provide the structural base for much of the school curriculum. These ways are predominantly agricultural in nature as the study shows, and in all probability will continue to be so for some time to come, both in the open country itself and in the villages which serve more and more as trading and cultural centers for rural families. Agricultural occupations, and the ways in which they are related to wider forces and events, tend still to set the conditions and possibilities for rural patterns of living in this area.

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The point has been stressed though, and the weight of this study supports it, that the agricultural problems and any realistic plans for the future of rural life in this area, must be viewed in inherent relation to all other phases of the closely-webbed, industrialized, modem society in which they find being. To repeat the sense of the opening paragraphs of this chapter: a county-wide, and beyond that a regional, program of reconstruction with a very wide urban and rural planning base is probably the direction that any successful agricultural planning must eventually take. Already the agricultural agencies of the area are engaged in some phases of such a program. The problem that calls for the greatest stress is that of co-ordinating the work of these agencies—agricultural with other agricultural, rural with urban—and of harmonizing the programs of all of these within the framework of a broader, more comprehensive plan of county, state, region, and nation. It is an educational problem in the main, as the previous chapter makes clear, with education viewed in its broadest sense. Only a part of it belongs to the school. Indeed many aspects of such a wide-scale planning program as is here envisioned would be necessarily the responsibility of adults, and of adult experts and agencies. Other phases, such as the industrial and agricultural surveys suggested in an earlier chapter (page 169), could be carried on by youth and adults together; and some, under the careful supervision of the schools, could be pretty much the responsibility of boys and girls and their teachers. All aspects of the program, however, as well as of the progress made, should be studied by groups of individuals the county over, and should be followed, weighed, and modified as the situation demands.* Undoubtedly a widely representative group, rural and urban in nature, should come together to spearhead such a co-ordinated program of planning for the county. They should work with similar groups over a wider area and draw heavily upon the resources, surveys, andfindingsof the groups already at work, as well as advice from other experts needed from time to time in the process. The County Board of Supervisors might set up such a body. Or perhaps the Agricultural Planning Committee, a labor, veteran, school, or federated church group could call together at least a temporary, unofficial, but widely chosen group. They would be brought together, not primarily in terms of their particular group affiliations, but rather because of their active concern and their special ° Participation in such a co-operative program of county and regional reconstruction would undoubtedly alter the "rejection attitudes or some city and larger village youth toward the rural or farm population.

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vantage point or ability to help in thinking the program through from all sides. Much better that the individuals that make up such a body, or other specialized commissions they may set up—as agriculture, industry, housing, health, education, and the like—should feel themselves representing and planning and pushing for the welfare of the whole community or county rather than for just a particular organized, occupational, or geographic segment of it. The comprehensive program for the rural areas will necessarily begin with the assumption or realization that the present patterns of agriculture can no longer be regarded as the occupational mainstay in many parts of the county. Every chapter of this study has made clear that, with the changing conditions of industrial society which put many factors quite beyond the control of the individual family, it has become quite impossible for all engaged in farming in this county to make a living from full-time farming alone. Other possibilities for livelihood, such as part-time farming combined with industrial employment, and related agricultural and other occupations and services needed in the area, are being and must continue to be explored. In line with recommendations of the Land Use Committee and with the promise of continued high production and employment in the larger villages and cities nearby, part-time employment for those farmers whose farms are unsuited for making an adequate living for their families will take on increasing importance. War production achievements significantly accelerated this trend, which in 1940 affected close to a third of the farmers reporting. A planning program for the area must seek to make clear the advantages to all concerned if in some areas of the county, along with consolidation trends in others, present farm lands are cut up into smaller plots. Here families, one or more of whose members perhaps work in industrial plants of Dunkirk or Jamestown or during certain seasons of the year in the processing plants of the fruit belt, would be encouraged to buy or to rent. In this way they could have a garden in the country, chickens, a few head of livestock, and some of the other satisfactions that only life in the open country can offer. Such a measure will become the more attractive for farm people as well as urban if, following the recommendations of the Land Use Committee, more of the county land in Class I and some in Class II can be purchased, reforested, and operated as public recreation grounds. The many farms throughout the county, richer, larger, flatter, or in other ways better capable of yielding an adequate family income, will continue to be the major concern of most of the agricultural agencies of the area. The plan for the farm areas as a whole, however, should be

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such as to comprehend the best possible future for all of the families of the county or region who choose to live by the soil, either full-time or part-time, as owners or tenants or farm hands. Just how the rural schools of the county will work within and toward this comprehensive program of agricultural and social planning will be in part a matter for local determination. It will be the purpose of these next few pages, however, to suggest in concrete form something of the character and scope and variety of possible activities which would make up the functional curriculum as here proposed. Insofar as their resources and the maturity of the boys and girls with whom they deal will permit, the country and village schools should help directly to work out a satisfactory program of living and making a living for rural Chautauqua County. They should help youth and adults together to study the wider programs under way and to face the common problems of more local nature. For example: In what ways will our own community or our own farm neighborhoods be affected by the plans and proposals now under consideration? What can we do to help? What kind of jobs will we be wanting in a few years from now? What kind of homes? What kind of family life? How can we best interest all the families of our community in the possibilities of the future and help them to keep informed? What agencies and specialists can we call upon to help us? How can we be of help to the agencies in getting across their related programs? How can we make sure that all families of the community, with or without children in the school, especially those unreached by the agencies and organizations, are brought into the study and thinking and planning of at least the local aspects of the program? On the soil or road maps available, boys and girls could locate the areas recommended for continued and extended use as productive fulltime fruit or dairy farms, as well as the poorer areas proposed for public purchase. They could help estimate how many farm families would thus be displaced; could spot the most plausible areas for part-time farming of families whose members work in Jamestown, Dunkirk, Buffalo, Erie, in the processing plants of the fruit belt, in the various villages; could help estimate where the most concentrated farm neighborhoods would thus be apt to develop; could explore the possibilities for increased and improved public facilities thus needed, the consequent programs proposed for housing, for reforestation, conservation, and land rehabilitation, for game conservation, for health, recreation, school districting, church organization, government units, bus lines, marketing. In line with recommendations suggested, boys and girls could help plan, plant, and care for vegetable gardens on their school and family

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plots; they could help devise plans for co-operative gardening, pasturing, and raising of meat-providing animals, etc., in neighborhoods where the quality of the soil and therefore the uses to which it can be put vary widely. They could help plan and carry out with all families of the community possible programs of co-operative buying and use by the neighborhood of costly farm machinery; they could encourage all farm families to build up the soil, vegetate the gullies, and follow other recommended practices of land use and soil conservation. Again with the help of experts, within the school or without, boys and girls could explore and disseminate suggestions for replanning home or farm buildings, for planning the farm day and the farm year in terms of individual farm and community needs and resources. A group of older boys and girls in a central school might be concerned with finding out ways in which electricity has made farm life in their community richer and happier and more efficient, with surveying the possibility and wisdom—within the wider program already discussed— of having the lines extended to outlying farms; with finding ways through which electricity might be more effectively utilized by individual farm families; with discovering reliable sources of information on this subject; with devising ways in which helpful suggestions can be most easily and impressively available to all families in the community. The individual family farms would serve as laboratories where boys and girls, working with farmers, farmers' wives, teachers, and in many instances adult farm agencies, would lay out plans and carry out programs of improvement. The purchase and introduction of a new tractor or other piece of machinery on the farm or on several farms in the neighborhood—bringing with it the wide gamut of pressures and problems already described—would call for similar study, planning, and proposals for action by those concerned in order to bring about more effective utilization of the new. The school would purchase some of its own most commonly used farm equipment, to be used on the school farm and as part of the work experience program, to be hired out to farms in the community with older boys who had learned to operate it. Such equipment might include a tractor, maybe a spray with hooded boom, a plow, planter, cultivator, and perhaps a small truck. The farm repair shop would be conducted or at least supervised by boys and girls who had used and kept these machines in good repair. A part of the school's most effective equipment then would be the community itself. Especially during the growing and harvest seasons, groups of boys and girls throughout the county would be spending a large part of the school day or the week or the month in the berry patch,

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the tomato field, the vineyard, the pasture that needed terracing, the clover field. The cultivating, planting, mowing, pruning, tying, harvesting, they would do under supervision of the schools as well as of the fanners; and, in order to meet the labor needs of the area, in conjunction with agricultural agencies trying to fill these needs. The older boys and girls would be paid for the work, where it was of substantial proportions, as part of the work-experience program later to be discussed. They would participate in the setting up of the wage scale, the standards for working conditions in compliance with the law, and the expected achievement. In a very real setting they would learn something of wage conditions, of labor legislation that does and does not apply to farm labor, of farm credit needs and facilities, of prices of produce, of price and cost fluctuations, of relative purchasing power, of market conditions generally, and factors that affect them. They would learn about co-operatives, the importance of collective bargaining with the processing plants in the area. Working with agricultural agencies in the county, they would reach the farm families now on the fringe of such programs and help to organize new marketing co-operatives where needed, and to strengthen those already in need of the farmers' more consistent support. With the same kind of help, and through extensive study, planning, and effort, a group of boys and girls in a single school could initiate and help to carry through an intensive drive of community or even county-wide proportions. This might be a drive—of extended duration—to rid the county of poultry or orchard or vineyard disease, to terrace the gullies, to plant cover crops, or to raise home gardens where feasible. Boys and girls would not be expected to "make up" in classes the time spent on these "outside" activities. They would be an integral part of the total school program. Working closely with the specialized agencies, groups of school youth would help to organize forums, town meetings, and small discussion groups in the community; to work out radio programs that would probably be a regular series on important issues in community, county, or regional program. They would write articles for the local newspapers and letters to the editor; make charts, maps, graphs, and posters to put the message across; write and make available simple, well-written pamphlets and brochures; plan and present community or neighborhood pageants or dramatizations; present films on soil conservation, forestry, TVA. Groups of boys and girls could collect and make available to all the families of the community—either at the school, the village library, or

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the farm neighborhood center—books, articles, pamphlets and maps which would be helpful in this regard. They could send for, study, and make available the regional studies of the National Resources Planning Board, State and county studies of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of both State and United States Department of Agriculture, materials of the State Extension Service (supplementing the stock already on hand in the Farm Bureau Office at Jamestown), charts, maps, and pamphlets from the Soil Conservation Service, Farm Security Administration and Department of Labor publications, and others recommended for use in this regard. Other students could make an intensive study of the proposed St. Lawrence Waterway Project and what it would mean to this area, as well as help the various school communities most profitably to channel to the Government their support of this project. Through continued experience in instigating and participating in local and widespread programs of social planning, they would learn when and how to use the advice of experts; they would see the importance of carefully thought through theory and organization, of "book-farming," say, to the most practical of experiences. They would see the folly of trying to do everything themselves, of biting off more than they could chew, of duplicating or infringing upon the programs of other groups already functioning in the community. They would know the organizational set-up of neighborhood and county and would either solicit the help of a particular agency or co-operate with its program already set up. They would see the importance of organized local participation in programs of wider scope and the necessity of gearing the wider program deliberately to build upon, encourage, and co-ordinate planning and action on the grass roots level. Through responsible participation in it, Chautauqua people of all ages would come to see the significance of this two-way process of social reconstruction to the very survival of our democratic form of society—a planning rather than a planned society. T h e y would see the value of planning, both short- and long-term, individual and group, in all phases of modern living, and the corresponding importance of keeping appropriate records of their plans, of their study and action. And they would learn to evaluate and criticize and generalize from these experiences. For however unpredictable the future may be, one thing seems to b e certain. T h e boys and girls and men and women of Chautauqua County over the next several decades must learn to live with change constructively and comfortably. Through experience and study they must become accustomed to the fact that in our tightly interwoven, swiftly-moving, technological world, changes in one field of living must necessarily

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bring changes in others, creating new problems that have to be dealt with, new possibilities that have to be taken into account. They must see further that this process requires continuously the intelligent reexamination of attitudes and the development of new or modified patterns of thinking and behavior. All of this calls for looking ahead and planning. All of this is planning. Planning together to deal with change, and in variously significant or minor ways to direct it. Planning to meet forthrightly and positively the network of problems brought on by changes rather than to go on resisting and being increasingly frustrated by them. Planning to keep successive changes from throwing the whole way of life hopelessly out of balance. Planning for instead of being pushed into—belatedly and defensively, as these pages illustrate—the use of new machinery or of soil conservation practices, new concepts and methods of land use generally, new ways of marketing milk or vegetable produce, new ways of educating youth, the expanded obligations of the federal government and increased individual responsibilities toward it, new relations with labor unions, with other urban groups, with people of more distant areas. Planning for, instead of being pushed into, the multitude of. complex adjustments which changing conditions and trends are shown here to have made urgent and even necessary to healthy survival. A much more flexible, mobile program than that described in Chapter V should enable the county's schools to provide for children and youth—and for adults wherever possible, with transportation provided —the opportunity to observe and study at first-hand the technological and social processes of their own and neighboring communities. They should have opportunity, for example, as a part of the regular school program, to visit the juice factories, milk condenseries, grain and feed stores in their own or a neighboring village; to visit the locomotive plants or the silk mills of Dunkirk; the textile mills, the furniture factories, the radio station in Jamestown; assembly plants, housing projects, Science Museum in Buffalo. They should have opportunity to study a bulldozer at work, to see highways under repair and buildings in process of construction. Likewise they should see the tomato-plant planter in operation, the electric milker, the combine, the wide variety of farm machinery on their own or their neighbor's farm which the wide introduction of tractors or the extension of electricity onto the farms of the county has brought into the realm of common practice. They should visit the airports, the shipping wharfs on Lake Erie, the railroad stations; they should visit the newspaper presses, listen in at a steelworkers' meeting, at a session of the County Board of Supervisors. All these ex-

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periences Chautauqua County's rural schools should help her people to have first-hand. They should be carefully, healthfully, and progressively planned by boys and girls and adults as an integral part of the total school program and they should be elaborated and clinched through pointed discussions; through conferences with adults or experts of the community; through wide and intelligent reading of carefully selected books and other reading materials; through studying and showing films, photographs, graphs, and charts; through organizing, writing, and illustrating factual records and materials for further use by school and community; through observing and experimenting on a small and simple scale with motors, wheels, magnets and other scientific and technical equipment in the school, on the playground, in the home, or on the farm. A great deal of controlled study and observation is needed to determine with any assurance the capacity of boys and girls at different levels of maturity to be concerned for the welfare of members of the wider and wider community of which they themselves are part. Evidence seems to point to the fact that human concern can be developed, especially through responsible participation with others in working toward common goals. A sense of belonging to the group or community— whether it be family, classroom, school, neighborhood, or larger community—comes through helping to tackle its problems realistically. Their sense of community seems to expand, along with concern for the welfare of all the members of it, as the participants see their relations to and define their own responsibility toward the larger and larger group. Boys and girls should come to see for themselves and help others to see the importance of keeping abreast of economic and social issues of the day, local, national, and world. They should recognize the need to exercise their responsibilities as constructive citizens at each successive community level. They should acquaint the community or county with the issues and proposed amendments to be voted upon in the coming election, with the factual records and achievements of political candidates. They should learn the various techniques of courageous, forthright political action for making individual and group convictions count. They would thus acquire the minimum essentials for constructive social planning, for effective responsible living in rural Chautauqua County today. These techniques do not develop of themselves. They must be taught. And this can only be done through a carefully planned and courageous program of functional group experience that contribute?

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to the enrichment and improvement of rural living in this county and state and region. The program would be geared, of course, to the maturity, capabilities, and needs of the children of both farm and village. Records would be kept—and put to good use—of the experiences, progress, and needs of individual children and classroom groups throughout their school life. At appropriate levels the students would help with the records. With the younger children, the problems and processes would be simpler, as already stressed. The program of first-hand experience and study would be more unified and such as to build up emotional security and satisfying identification with the group. As boys and girls grow older, the problems with which they would deal, and the work programs in which they would participate would become more complex and far-reaching, would take on more social significance in community and county. For youth of high school age, a part of the school program for both farm and village would be worked out on a co-operative basis with farmers, farm agencies, business men, shopkeepers, and other individuals and organizations in the area. This would give students opportunity for well-planned and jointly supervised work experiences, with pay, over periods of several successive weeks. They would serve in the nature of apprentices in probably two widely differing situations during the last year or two of their school life, both as a means of vocational exploration and as a close-up opportunity to get acquainted with specialized community processes. Building upon the long and varied program of trips, excursions, field work, and other kinds of social participation all through their elementary and high school years, this experience should do much to give them insight into and techniques for dealing with problems and processes of living in the modern industrial world of which they are a part. From kindergarten on up through high school, as they recognize the importance to every individual of responsible identification with the group, the boys and girls would progress in their ability to face problems together, to distribute responsibility effectively, to utilize the efforts of people of varied abilities, backgrounds, and resources. Working co-operatively, they would tend to break down the apprehensive attitudes toward "foreigners" earlier described, toward people of other creeds or occupational habits. They would seek ways to bring into active participation those on the fringes of the group, whether in classroom, neighborhood, central school community, or in the case of newcomers, the county generally. In view of trends brought out in earlier chapters, these are important techniques for social planning in rural Chautauqua County.

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R E L A T E D P O S S I B I L I T I E S F O R T H E FUNCTIONAL CURRICULUM The schools also should deal with many other closely related areas in which common problems of rural living are posed to greater or lesser degree by conditions of livelihood, and which figure in a comprehensive planning program for the county. Public health is one of these areas, and will serve to illustrate further imperatives for a functional curriculum grown out of the foregoing analysis. There are many organizations actively concerned with the improvement and upkeep of health in Chautauqua County: the County Public Health Committee, under the District Office of the State Health Department, the county nurses, the Farm Security Administration, the County Tuberculosis Association with Sanitarium and children's health camp at Cassadaga, the County Medical Society, doctors "whose hours are already too filled to make the visits demanded of them," and the larger schools of the area. But this does not mean that all of her rural people, or even most of them, are healthy. This study points again and again to the inadequacies in this area of the health program and of the medical facilities available to families, particularly farm families, served by the rural schools. It is clear that one of the first requisites to the improvement of rural or urban living in modern Chautauqua County, like many other counties throughout the nation, is the availability of health and health facilities for all of her people, in line with federal legislation currently proposed. Therefore it must be the concern of the whole community, including the schools, that a sound and adequate program be designed to this end. One of the first tasks in setting up such a program could well be that of pulling out for study and consideration from the cursory review afforded by this study, the programs already carried on by the various agencies discussed. If an adequate and practicable health program for the county is to be developed, a study must be made of the lacks that seem to be greatest in this field, the problems that need to be solved, improvements that need to be made. A group of older boys and girls, or a group of youth and adults together, might begin by drawing up such a list, adding to it in terms of their own local set-up, and securing the help of county nurses, the Public Health Committee, or other agencies named. They would need to decide on which of these things the school boys and girls should take the initiative, and which should more rightly

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be the concern of specialized agencies already functioning, with the schools and other groups co-operating. With the facts of this study before diem, and in view of current wider developments in our own nation and others, youth and parents and health groups of the county would most certainly see that public health in general is too wide in scope and specialized in nature to continue to be so importantly the business of the school. They would become aware of the growing trends of specialization and science in the medical profession and the consequently significant effectiveness of group medicine. They would probably decide that keeping the community healthy should be a major public concern—not something to be taken over in part by one agency, in part by another, in part by the more sympathetic individual teacher or service groups in the community who can be called upon to finance the most urgent tonsilectomy or glasses-fitting. A plan might be worked out by them whereby the well-baby clinics, for instance, set up in most of the townships by county nurses, and perhaps several new clinics, located more centrally but easily accessible to rural areas, could be expanded to make available to all people of the county, adults as well as children, the health services requisite to a healthy county and nation. These should include thorough medical examinations with check-ups at regular intervals; chest X-rays; vaccinations and inoculations; expert medical counsel and care as needed; and, as rapidly as facilities could be extended, hospitalization where adequate treatment requires it. Visiting nursing facilities, such as the county nurses now provide, should be greatly expanded, especially in those sections described where the need is so urgent. An adequate dental program should be similarly planned, more inclusive than the services now offered by the dental hygienist in several of the schools, and perhaps with mobile facilities for the more remote areas of the county. Just how this would be financed or accomplished, at least until federal or state legislation sets down some of the conditions, would be a matter for study and group planning as well. It might be worked out on the basis of a fiat rate per family each year, an extension of an existing plan such as the Blue Cross, or some other appropriate form of insurance, possibly as a part of a national program which seems to hold out promise. Or, perhaps, the community, county, or state, in line with the best national standards and medical traditions, could work out a modified way of its own, making sure that all families in the county were adequately included. This would be a decision to be made after wide study and consideration. The County Medical Society, in the interests of the public good as well as their own, should be encouraged and even pressed

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to help, not to block such a program. For certainly it would be the doctors and dentists of the area who would play the central role. Youth in the schools, working with the health agencies earlier described, could study and make available for the community to study, the wealth of reliable and concrete materials and proposals that have resulted from years of experimentation and experience in public health programs throughout the country and in progressive countries throughout the world. It might well be the rural schools of the county who could best stir farm and village families to a realization of the health needs of their communities and a forthright study of the possibilities along this line. It might well be the schools, working with other agencies, who could best solicit active support and pressure for appropriate legislation needed in state and nation. They might initiate locally, perhaps through a health service club or a church group or the county nurses or health officers, what could well grow into the kind of extensive health program for the county here proposed, with groups throughout the area coming together to study the facts and make plans accordingly for their local communities. Groups of children and teachers should come together to plan how their own school facilities can better serve the health of the children, calling in other adults of the community as they are needed. They should call attention to the county's many school needs and help make the plans for filling them. These might include plans for shelters to be constructed along those roads or highways where children wait for the buses in all lands of weather; sidewalks along the most hazardous roads where children walk to and from the remaining country schools or the bus stops; more adequate supervision on the school buses; cots and adequate resting facilities at school for the smaller children especially; better playground facilities during and after school hours; more healthful and appropriate school furniture; adequate shower facilities for regular use by all of the children at least once or twice a week; feasible ways for arranging the classrooms healthfully; a school program that involves more outdoor work and play, especially in sunny weather. Boys and girls and their teachers should explore the ways in which both school and homes can contribute to the improvement of the diet of all of the families, farm and village. At appropriate ages they could help to work out the menus for the school lunches. They could help to purchase the foods also, to prepare and to serve them in the most healthful fashion. Further, they could plan, compile, and make available to all families inexpensive and healthful recipes and menus, or adapt those sent out by the government to the resources of their particular local farm

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areas. Central or village schools might profitably set up a family counsel service, utilizing the home economics teacher or some other specialist, to function at convenient times and places in aiding family members with problems of nutrition or health or any other matters of family living on which they would come to seek counsel. Students of the rural schools, working with adults, should encourage the planting and care of home and school gardens to insure the availability of leafy green vegetables, fruits, and the like to as many families as possible. Where conditions make it wise, these could be co-operative gardens or could involve at least the co-operative use of farm machinery. With the help of specialists and farm agencies, as earlier mentioned, they should make helpful farming suggestions available at least to those families now unreached by the agencies. Such families could be aided in the raising of meat-producing animals and milk cows or goats enough to provide the milk that is needed, with whatever exchange or use of pasturage seems to work best for the good of those concerned. With the help of the science or agriculture teacher, or maybe the Home Bureau, school children should experiment with and encourage the use of dandelions, water cress, and other wild greens and foods of the area. They should study and make suggestions with regard to consumer buying of various kinds, to plans for co-operative bulk buying for the more remote farm neighborhoods. They should plan for and help with the gathering, preserving, or storing of what might otherwise be waste foods, such as wind-blown apples, last pickings of tomato or other vegetable and fruit crops. In the rural school also, central and country, there should be household equipment for supervised use by school boys and girls and by any families of the community concerned with learning newer and better techniques: sewing, cooking, and canning centers; freezing lockers; a room provided with modern equipment for washing, ironing, and mending. Boys and girls should learn to use these machines, and to help others to do so. This they could do while contributing to the regular operation of the school: canning foods from the school garden for later use in the school cafeteria; helping to plan, to purchase, to cook, and to serve the school lunches already proposed; making table linen, cooking aprons, drapes for the school or town library; mending, pressing, making or remaking their own clothes; laundering their aprons, the smocks for the kindergarten children, the towels for the shower room. They could experiment with making the soap for laundering, and compare its cost and quality with those of the commercial brands available. A part of this supervised work could be carried on in their own homes: painting

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the woodwork; turning out a clean white wash, helping to organize a neighborhood co-operative for the purchase and use of household or farm equipment; planning and working with classmates, teachers and family members in diverse ways toward more attractive, healthful farm and village homes; more efficient and economical arrangement of kitchen, dining room, closet and storage space, study corner, washroom, or cooler; better means of heating the large farm houses, of weather stripping and screening the doors and windows. Under the supervision of the school, and with the help of wellequipped teachers and other adults of the community, high school students could help to do something about the 60 percent of the farm homes of the county reported in the census as lacking any kind of refrigeration equipment. They could help to plan and to make coolers and various lands of improvised refrigerators; they could find the cost and availability of, and the potential market for, commercially made refrigerators and for freezing lockers for farm neighborhood or village community where they are not yet available. They could investigate also the comparative costs and advantages to farm families of septic tank toilets; of indoor toilets, showers, and bathrooms; of the installation of sinks and the piping of hot and cold water indoors in different farm homes where families desire such counsel. In their own homes, and in other homes where such help is sought, boys and girls could learn a good deal by helping with the actual installation of such improvements. Working with adults they could help also with plans and programs for repairing household fixtures and equipment, for improving the garbage disposal or collection in the village, for the extermination of rodents. Similarly, the recreation program for rural communities could be a matter for joint concern and planning by youth and adults in schools, churches, clubs, and other community groups. This program should be designed to meet the particular rural needs referred to in earlier chapters, fitting in with the time, the tempo, and the possibilities set by the occupational patterns of the area. Quite obviously a good deal of study and careful research should precede and accompany these co-operative ventures, all of them far more real to the learners than building health castles in the sandtable, staging a play about the Health Queen and her vitamin attendants, or competing for stars in the perfunctory morning inspection earlier described. And die study aspects of such a realistic program, both incidental and as a part of a more systematic treatment, would give meaning and direction to the social planning process thus involved. It is not the function in these pages to set up an inclusive course of study in this regard. That

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will be a problem for the well-informed creative teachers and educational leaders of the area. Within the broader framework earlier proposed, however, and in view of conditions brought out in the previous chapter, a few of the many possibilities are here projected. Older students in the rural schools of the county should study the progress of medicine through the years: progress in surgery and medical science; in immunization against contagious diseases; in checking and treating tuberculosis, cancer, and heart disease. They should learn of their own county's contribution in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis. They should note that mortality rates have decreased in America and in the county, that the average length of life has been extended, and they should note that research is still being carried on along these various lines. They should learn that many problems still exist, however; that to make available the fruits of these generations of study and achievement to all families, even in their own communities, is difficult but very important in modern times. They should learn of the long struggle of factory workers, of miners, of farm workers, to improve the conditions under which they work. They should study the history, purposes, program, and remarkable achievements of the labor unions along this line, local as well as national. They should sense the need for increased protection for workers, for shorter hours, for regular rest periods, for wellbalanced diets, as the nature of industrial work becomes more concentrated and more strenuous and its tempo increases. They could find out how local and nearby factories, processing plants, and assembly lines "stack up" in this regard. They should see the importance to Chautauqua County, to the state and to the nation of having healthful conditions for all of the people, rural and urban, whatever their line of work. They should see the urgency, if this is to be substantially accomplished, of a full-employment program; of adequate rural and urban purchasing power; of improved and extended social security, unemployment compensation, old age pensions, housing, health, education, and recreation programs. They should come more and more to see the necessity for the local, state, and especially the federal government to make laws and to enforce regulations for the protection and welfare of all of the people. They should learn about patent medicines, about laws governing the labeling and sale of drugs. They should learn to analyze the nature of present-day advertising in newspapers and magazines, on billboards, and over the radio; and to be cynical about exaggerated appeals, misleading statements, and subtle propaganda. They should study proposed legislation and help to plan ways for themselves and for the community to use the

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various channels available for keeping informed about and for helping to influence the passage of important health bills. They should study the relationship of developments throughout the world to the patterns of living in their own community, and they should come to sense the responsibility of citizens and future-citizens of the United States toward other people in this postwar crisis and later. They would want to modify their own plans, and help others in their communities to do so, in order to co-operate fully with the government's proposed program for helping the war-torn nations through this acute food shortage. They would come to see that it is highly important, in an age of unprecedented interdependence and potential plenty, that the standards of living be healthy and wholesome for all peoples throughout the world. And in view of the wide scale of differences, shown in earlier chapters of this study as characteristic of community, county, and nation, this concern must begin at home.

KNOWLEDGE AND THE USE OF KNOWLEDGE The sources of knowledge and the methods of acquiring knowledge in such a curriculum as here proposed would be varied. Much of the knowledge and understanding, it is clear, would be acquired and developed through purposeful participation in real life tasks, individual or social. These tasks should be planned co-operatively and carried through by family, by school group, by neighborhood, by increasingly wider community; with each member contributing in a way that is satisfying to him as an individual as well as to the whole group concerned. Obviously this participation would involve direct observation; it would involve contacts and conferences with people, first-hand experience of one kind and another, both inside and outside the school. It would require and utilize further the wide fields of knowledge available through books, pamphlets, pictures, charts, and other reference materials of many kinds. The several chapters of this study—the analysis of the actual conditions of rural Chautauqua County and its interaction with the wider social and historical setting—should give direction to the program. They should aid the schools in providing opportunity for boys and girls to obtain a deeper insight into the scientific and technological world in which they live, to the local repercussions of the great trends of interdependence, industrialism, consolidation, organization, mechanization, and commercialization already described. Indeed, all of the conditions,

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resources, and trends brought out in this study—local, national, and world-wide in nature, current as well as historical—should go to make up such a functional program of study and action. Accordingly students would learn to seek out and track down information from various sources, to read widely and intelligently, to organize facts and draw implications. Also, as already described, they would learn better and better to disseminate this information, to use a variety of communication channels for getting important facts before all the people. They would listen to and learn to develop radio programs on pertinent topics; to use appropriate motion pictures, slides, models, and photographs; to conduct interviews; to organize forums; to make arrangements for observation trips, hikes, or picnics, in large or small groups of young people and adults; to turn out reliable and attractive news sheets or pamphlets; to compose music, write stories, paint pictures; to write and produce or help organize plays and pageants or community festivals. Thus youth and adults together would come to value and to gain competence in using a variety of communication skills. And to repeat, this emphasis on constructive consideration of actual problems and conditions of the here and now cannot mean concern for the contemporary alone, as is maintained by some extremists in educational circles. "Today is the effect of yesterday, the condition of tomorrow," as Dr. Childs of Columbia University expresses it. A well-ordered use of the great cultural tradition is basic to intelligent social planning and reconstruction, "a necessary effort on the part of society to understand what it is doing in the light of what it has done and what it hopes to do." 1 Indeed, the trends and issues most stirring to rural Chautauqua County cannot be understood apart from historical perspective. Without such perspective, it is quite impossible to account for the development of attitudes and prejudices reviewed in this study, which tend to determine to significant degree the stand fanners take on these issues. Through a realistic approach to present-day problems, viewed in their broadly social and historical context, the schools can help rural folk of this area to understand that attitudes developed under certain conditions tend to persist long after those conditions have changed; that under widely changed conditions there is need for persistent analysis and redefinition of their own intellectual and moral outlooks. In this way they can come to see that ideas and concepts are not static affairs; that "individual liberty," "public indebtedness," "individual enterprise," "the American way," have come to take on different meaning now the conditions in which they operate are so markedly rearranged.

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In general, the scope of the program of science, social science, economics, government, agriculture, industrial developments—from the standpoint of time as well as geography—would tend to reach backward and outward as children gained insight and maturity. The study of the more remote times and countries would be undertaken in the main by older boys and girls whose direct experiences and study would have already sharpened their powers of discrimination, understanding, and sense of relationships. For older children especially would the program include the study of history. Not only because of the light it can throw upon problems with which they and their parents must deal. Not only because it can help them better to interpret old values in terms of new and changing conditions. The development of historical perspective has further value for what it can do for rural youth and adults trying to face their problems together in a world of change and insecurity, to identify themselves with the great ongoing story of mankind, to feel that they belong to a human c o n t i n u u m far g r e a t e r t h a n any one generation, h o w e v e r w e i g h t y its

problems or mighty its resources. The rootlessness and restlessness of many rural youth in the county, the confusion and futility and insecurity that are driving farm adults to a yearning for and hallowing of bygone times and patterns of living, can be counteracted in significant part if the schools can help to develop this sense of meaningful identification with the past on which they are building. And this task of recreating history—tackled afresh by every generation—of tracing the story of what people of different times and places before them have done to meet conditions both similar and dissimilar to those in which Chautauqua County youth are growing up, reliving the great struggles of mankind through the ages for better ways of living and working and building with their fellow men, can take on meaning only as it relates to the hopes and aspirations and purposes of those who are engaged in it. There would be much in the study phase of the program, it is already clear, which would neither lead to nor be accompanied by direct experience or social action, save as it is to make available to others the outcomes of the study deemed needed. There are many issues brought out in the previous chapter which would necessarily be a part of the school's program of study, but about which boys and girls could do little directly. The same holds true of other areas as well. History, as already described, is one of those areas. And the science program, although importantly centering in local problems and processes, will involve much study above and beyond that which boys and girls can directly apply. So with the different forms of art. The enjoyment and appreciation of

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painting, music, literature, drama, and the dance will be enhanced by but not limited to the projects earlier proposed. An educational program designed to build the broad vision and techniques required for intelligent social planning must be concerned with a variety of ways of seeking and making use of knowledge.

YOUTH AND ADULTS TOGETHER It is clear from the foregoing pages that the functional curriculum proposed here is based on the assumption that educational programs of youth and of adults in the county must have much more in common than now. The schools, dedicated to the effective training of the young, and especially to the preparation of all individuals for functional citizenship in a democracy of workers, cannot be successful so long as they limit their concern to the youth only in an area where older people, by tradition conservative and provincial of outlook, make the major decisions and hold the responsible positions of community leadership. Indeed there are those who maintain that the grave dislocation between generations referred to in earlier pages might not have occurred had the schools helped the youth and adults to tackle their problems together. Many of the problems revealed in these chapters, it will be recalled—problems posed by the developments and possibilities, the insecurities and tensions of modern living in the county, and problems therefore with which the functional school curriculum here proposed must deal—are by nature matters of family concern. Dr. Brunner writes of the farm family: "They are never out of sight of their enterprise. For this reason, the farm family has an absorbing common interest. Father, mother, and children are associated with living things, plants and animals, in the task of feeding the world. Every meal has the possibility of a staff conference," 2 since "the farm family, more than most others, lives in the midst of its ocupation." s The dynamic environment of old and young in Chautauqua County brings much that is new to both. Changes occur, with ensuing adjustments or maladjustments; and conditions that impose limitations on adults usually impose similar, and sometimes even greater, limitations on their children. So too do technological progress and expanded horizons offer promise to farm folk of all ages. The improvement of rural life in this county calls at once for the tempered wisdom of age and the freshness and vigor and vision of youth. A goodly portion of the rural population, and many of their leaders,

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are older people who find their warmest satisfactions in looking to the past, in identifying themselves vehemently and sincerely with the homey postulates and stereotypes of the reactionary forces generally, who are shown throughout these pages to have long held sway over the area. It will require the most courageous and forthright efforts of the school personnel, working closely with youth and with other liberal individuals and organized groups throughout the area, to broaden the vision and break the hold of the one-sided and conservative forces here analyzed. This does not mean, of course, as earlier paragraphs make clear, that the schools should take over, or even compete with, the adult education program so effectively carried on by the several organizations and agencies already described. But since the home and the farm and the village community, quite as much as the schools, serve as the source of education for rural youth of this county, then the schools must indeed be concerned with the education of adults as well as of boys and girls. A second way in which the schools can be of service with other agencies in a vital program of social planning or adult education, is through broadening the base for community planning. Since they reach more families than any other organized group in the area, the schools can be helpful in bringing into closer, more functional relationship with the community the various elements of which it is composed, particularly those most frequently overlooked: the newcomers of a farm neighborhood; the farm families on the fringes of a central school community; the scattered families of "non-joiners" unreached by farm, health, church, or other organizations or agencies. Still a third important way is with regard to the co-ordination of programs discussed. To repeat, it is essential in social planning to help individuals or groups to see that they have much in common with other individuals or groups: farm with village, rural with urban, fanner with labor, Protestant with Catholic, farm agency with farm agency, school with church, community with entire county, county with state and nation. Helping people to come together to solve common problems, problems common to a wider and wider area, must be an important responsibility of all agencies in Chautauqua County. In some instances, schools would spearhead such planning and its central co-ordination; in others they would co-operate with larger programs of co-ordinated planning already under way. This means then that the schools must help youth and adults to have much more in common, sometimes as family units, and sometimes as individual participants in a neighborhood community project. For the

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schools cannot do an effective job of helping to develop the techniques of intelligent social planning until schools and communities alike learn to capitalize to far greater degree upon the freshness and vision and potential power of their great body of youth; until they see fit to afford them, as youth, greater opportunities for responsible participation and leadership in programs of social and civic import. For even in the schools, as one may note from Chapter V, boys and girls are looked upon as having only potential social value in the broad sense. They have little opportunity for participation in the planning or operation or evaluation of the educational program of which they are a part. Certainly the acquiescent period of "preparation" for taking their places in the outside world has been unduly extended. Youth have been asked to spend a disproportionate amount of their time studying about the ideas and achievements of others, and following pretty largely the directions and suggestions of their teachers or other adults. One would assume that the war surely must have changed this situation as boys and girls of high school age worked side by side with adults in the war industries, on the farms, and on the battlefield and assumed with remarkable adeptness what would ordinarily have been termed adult responsibilities. And through the years, as earlier noted, many farm youth have carried a great deal of responsibility in the home and on the home farm. These same youth, however, once in the schools and a part of the village or central school community, have had little opportunity to assume responsibility commensurate with their potential power. As yet Chautauqua County, both in school and out, seems to have little faith in the capacity of its youth as truly responsible members of the community. The development of this faith is an important need both for the communities and for the youth themselves to whom the satisfaction of genuinely constructive identification with the home plate is so essential. It can be achieved if the rural schools set up their program concretely and deliberately in terms of conditions revealed in this study and, therefore, as part of a positive forthright, closely co-ordinated program of social planning and reconstruction. This concludes our analysis of rural life and education in a time of social crisis. By way of summary: the study in its entirety has shown the impact of the powerful forces and trends of the new industrial era on the old traditional outlooks and intellectual dispositions of this area. The lag between technological changes of a far-reaching nature and the much slower psychological adjustments which they call forth, has

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brought about the cultural conflict described in these pages. Farm people of Chautauqua County, increasingly involved in and affected by events of the national and world environment, are confused by the pull of conflicting values. Confronted with unprecedented possibilities for a more abundant life both materially and culturally, they will not be able to realize these possibilities until they can resolve the conflict in their culture. This poses an educational task of gigantic proportions for all the organizations and agencies of the area. They must set about deliberately and co-operatively to facilitate among these people the adjustment of traditional modes of life and thought to emerging life conditions. The rural schools, the study shows, can play a powerful role. Staffed by teachers and administrators of vision, courage, and imagination, they can contribute significantly to the preservation and strengthening of our great democratic society, through a broadly conceived, dynamic, functional curriculum, developed around the occupational or vocational framework here described. Through such a program, backed by liberal financial support from local, state, and federal sources, and worked out with and as a part of a wider comprehensive plan for the county, region, and nation, they can help to build among children, youth, and adults of these farming and village communities, as indeed of communities the country over, the disposition and sound techniques for intelligent social planning and reconstruction. This working conception of a functional planning democracy is essential to the fulfilment of the highest promise of modem times.

Supplementary Notes CHAPTER O N E :

PACES

1-7

CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, THE LAND AND 1. Carl C arm er, Listen for a Lonesome Drum (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1936), p. 30. 2. Howard S. Tyler, Buying a Farm in New York (Ithaca, N.Y.: New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, 1939-1940), p. 15. CHAPTER T W O :

PACES

THE HISTORICAL 1. Edwin P. Conklin, "Chautauqua, Birthplace of World Movements,' in Historic Annals of Southwestern New York, ed. by W. E. Doty (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co,, Inc., 1940), p. 397. 2. Ulysses P. Hedrick, A History of Agriculture in the State of New York, prepared for the New York State Agricultural Society (Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon Company, 1933), p. 92. 3. Ibid., p. 5. 4. H. F. Love, "Manufacturing in Chautauqua County," in Doty, p. 322. 5. W. E. Doty, "Evolution of Chautauqua County Transportation," in Doty, p. 275. 6. Hedrick, op. cit., pp. 60-1. 7. Judge L. Bugbee, Pioneer Homes and Characteristics, prepared for the Chautauqua County Historical Society (Jamestown, N.Y.: Journal Printing Establishment, 1886), p. 4. 8. Jay Thompson, "The County Seat," MS prepared for Chautauqua Historical Society, Mayville, N.Y., 1943.

PEOPLE

3. Ibid., p. 14. 4. Census figures in this chapter are taken or approximated from Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940 (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of the Census, United States Department of Commerce).

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CONTEXT

9. "Pioneer Life as Described by David Eaton," MS in possession of Chautauqua County Historical Society, Mayville, N.Y. (no date). 10. Hamilton Child, Gazetteer and Business Directory of Chautauqua County, New York, 1873-74 (Syracuse, N.Y.: Journal Office, 1873), pp. 91, 115-6. 11. J. M. Williams, Our Rural Heritage (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1925), p. 38. 12. Love, op. cit., p. 327. 13. Ibid., p. 322. 14. Hedrick, op. cit., p. 137. 15. Everett E. Edwards, "American Agriculture—The First 300 Years," in Farmers Hi a Changing World (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1940), p. 218. 16. Ibid., p. 207. 17. Hedrick, op. cit., p. 181. 18. A. W. Tennant, "Chautauqua County 1825-1875," MS prepared for Chautauqua County Historical Society, Mayville, N.Y., October, 1937. 19. Ibid. 20. Hedrick, op. cit., p. 282.

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21. Child, op. cit., p. 84. 22. Tennant, op. cit. 23. Ibid. 24. Child, op. cit., p. 70. 25. Louis B. Schmidt, "The Agricultural Revolution in the United States 1860-1930," Science, LXXII (1930), p. 588. 26. Paul H. Johnstone, "Old Ideals Versus New Ideas in Farm Life," FarmCHAPTER T H R E E :

ers in a Changing World, p. 148. 27. Hedrick, op. cit., pp. 266-7. 28. Gove Hambidge, "A Summary," Farmers in a Changing World, p. 19. 29. Ibid., p. 20. 30. Ibid., p. 21. 31. A. B. Genung, "Agriculture in the World War Period,' Farmers in a Changing World, p. 291. 32. Ibid., p. 292. PAGES

25-55

THE HOME FARM 1. Census figures in this chapter are taken or approximated from Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940. 2. Agricultural Conference Committee's Report, Farming in Chautauqua County (Jamestown, N.Y.: Smith and Kinne, 1932), p. 10. 3. Chautauqua County Farm Bureau 1941 Program, Jamestown, N.Y., p. 6. 4. Chautauqua County Farm Bureau 1942 Program, Jamestown, N.Y., p. 4. 5. New York Farm Outlook, 1943 (Ithaca, N.Y.: New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Jan., 1943), p. 31. 6. V. B. Hart, Land Use in New York (Ithaca, N.Y.: New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, April, 1939), p. 7. 7. T. E. La Mont, Classification of Land in Chautauqua County ( Ithaca, N.Y. : New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, April, 1937). 8. Alexander Joss, An Economic Study of Land Utilization in Chautauqua County, New York ( Ithaca, N.Y.: New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, 1939), p. 13. 9. Hart, op. cit., p. 7. 10. Ibid. 11. Agricultural Conference CommitCHAPTER FOUR:

tee's Report, Farming in Chautauqua County, p. 6. 12. Ibid., p. 7. 13. Hedrick, op. cit., pp. 353-4. 14. As a tenant farmer expressed it to the writer. 15. Chautauqua County Farm Bureau 1942 Program, pp. 1-2. 16. American Agriculturist, Jan. 3,1942, p. 9. 17. Ibid., p. 9. 18. Glenn K. Rule, "Soil Defense in the Northeast," Farmer's Bulletin, No. 1810 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1938), p. 14. 19. Ibid., p. 3. 20. Hart, op. cit., p. 7. 21. Ibid., p. 13. 22. O. V. Wells, "Appraisal of the Agricultural Problem, Farmers in a Changing World, p. 393. 23. See Reports of Chief, A.A.A., U.S.D.A. 1941-3. 24. Chautauqua County Farm Bureau 1941 Program. 25. Chautauqua County Farm Bureau 1942 Program. 26. Wells, op. cit., p. 394. 27. Paul D. Orvis, "Agriculture," in Doty, op. cit., p. 100. 28. E. C. Johnson, "Agricultural Credit," Farmers in a Changing World, p. 745. PACES

56-80

THE FARM HOME AND COMMUNITY 1. Census figures in this chapter taken or approximated from Sixteenth

Census of the United States 1940. 2. Day Monroe, "Patterns of Living of

Supplementary Notes Farm Families," Farmers in a Changing World, pp. 848-9. 3. Public Health Nurses, Chautauqua County, 1942 Annual Report, p. 4. 4. Grape Belt and Chautauqua Farmer, June 11, 1937. 5. Williams, Our Rural Heritage, p. 53. CHAPTER

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219

8. Bugbee, op. cit., pp. 9-11. 7. Ibid., pp. 13-14. 8. Williams, op. cit., p. 88. 9. Hedrick, op. cit., pp. 102-3. 10. Williams, op. cit., p. 72. 11. Ibid., p. 66.

PACES

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RURAL SCHOOLS IN THE COUNTY 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Child, op. cit., p. 146. Ibid., p. 157. Ibid., p. 120. Hedrick, op. cit., pp. 197-200. E. D. Sanderson, Rural Sociology (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1939), p. 372. 6. A Digest of English 4 Years with Exercises (New York: Saga Press, 1944) p. 4. 7. Ibid., p. 5. 8. Ernest Horn, Methods of Instruction in the Social Studies, Part XV, Report of the Commission on the Social Studies, American Historical Association (New York: Charles Scribner and Sons, 1937), p. 212. 9. Ernest Horn, in an address before the National Society of the Teachers of English, in Atlantic City, N.J., February, 1941. 10. Example: New York State Education Department, Division of Elementary Education, Exploring the Environment, Social Studies Pamphlet III (Albany, N.Y.: The University of the State of New York Press, 1943). CHAPTER

SIX:

11. New York State Education Department, Handbook for Rural Elementary Schools Curriculum Bulletin No. 2 (Albany, N.Y.: The University of the State of New York Press, 1933), p. 36. 12. Ibid., p. 106. 13. Ibid., p. 176. 14. Ibid., p. 132. 15. University of the State of New York, Course of Study and Program of Instruction in Agriculture, p. 2. 16. University of the State of New York, Some Outcomes of an Evaluation in Vocational Education in Agriculture, p. 16. 17. University of the State of New York, Course of Study, p. 3. ( See supra 15. ) 18. Rural Life Trends Project—Study No. 6, prepared by Northeast Regional Office of the Division of Farm Population and Rural Welfare, Bureau of Agricultural Economics. United States Department of Agriculture, Upper Darby, Penna., October, 1943, pp. 11-12.

PACES

119-131

CHURCHES IN THE COUNTY 1. Myron E. Wilder, "Protestant Annals in Southwestern New York," in Doty, pp. 204-5. 2. Juliana J. Shepard, "Early Churches in Forestville and Vicinity" (quoting ane Colvin Wheat), MS prepared or Chautauqua County Historical Society, MayWlle, N.Y., June, 1942. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Wilder, op. cit., p. 204.

J

6. Ibid., p. 204. 7. Ibid., p. 205. 8. William S. Bailey, "The Underground Railroad in Southwestern New York," in Doty, p. 64. 9. Ibid., p. 75. 10. Wilder, op. cit., p. 206. 11. J. M. Williams, The Expansion of Rural Life (New York: F. S. Crofts and Company, 1931), p. 237. 12. Wilder, op. cit., p. 211.

220

The Rural Community and Its School

13. Ibid., p. 212. 14. Ibid., p. 213. 15. J. C. Aud and Clair L. Hodnett, "The Catholic Church in Southwest-

ern New York," in Doty, p. 218.

16. Ibid.,

p. 2 1 8 - 9 .

17. Ibid., p. 219.

CHAPTER SEVEN: PACES

132-141

COUNTY GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL 1. Julia Stowe, "Life of David Eaton," MS prepared for Chautauqua County Historical Society, Mayville, N.Y. (no date). 2. Jay Thompson, "The County Seat," MS prepared for Chautauqua County Historical Society, Mayville, N.Y., 1943. 3. A. W. Tennant, "Chautauqua County, 1825-1875," MS prepared for Chautauqua County Historical Society, Mayville, N.Y., October, 1937. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted in The Essential American Tradition,

ORIENTATION

compiled by J. L. Bennett (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1925), p. 127. 9. J. M. Williams, The Expansion of Rural Life, p. 112. 10. Henry C. Drake, "Chautauqua County Characters," MS prepared for the Chautauqua County Historical Society, Mayville, N.Y. (no date). 11. Williams, loc. cit. 12. Ibid., pp. 113-4. 13. Child, op. cit., p. 71. 14. Doty. op. cit.. III. 443. 15. Williams, op. cit., p. 288. 16. Grape Belt and Chautauqua Farmer, June 8, 1937. 17. ibid.

CHAPTER EIGHT: PAGES

142-164

LIFE ATTITUDES AND OUTLOOKS 1. Merle Curti, The Growth of American Thought (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1943), p. 610. 2. Ibid., p. 69. 3. Paul H. Johnstone, "Old Ideals Versus New Ideas in Farm Life," Farmers in a Changing World, p. 124. 4. Curti, op. cit., p. 632. 5. Johnstone, op. cit., p. 148. 6. National Education Association, The Improvement of Education (Fifteenth Yearbook of the Department of Superintendence, Washington, D.C., 1937), p. 28. 7. Ibid. 8. Johnstone, op. cit., p. 138. 9. Ibid., p. 144. 10. Henry C. Drake, "Chautauqua County Characters." MS prepared for the Chautauqua County Historical Society, Mayville, N.Y. (no date).

11. Johnstone, op. cit., p. 139. 12. Child, op. cit., p. 44. 13. Johnstone, op. cit., pp. 146-7. 14. Grape Belt and Chautauqua Farmer, Jan. 4, 1938. 15. Ibid. 16. E. W. Mitchell, "The First Hundred Years Are the Hardest," American Agriculturist, Jan. 3, 1942, p. 11. (The italics are mine.) 17. Child, op. cit., pp. 44-45. 18. Emory F. Warren, Sketches of the History of Chautauque County (Jamestown, N.Y.: J. Warren Fletcher, 1846), p. 106. 19. "The Score on Congress" in "Reaction in Congress, A Special Section." The New Republic, August 2, 1943, p. 160. 20. Drake, op. cit.

Supplementary Notes CHAPTER NINE:

WIDER FORCES IMPINGING: 1. William Graham Sumner, Folkways (Boston: Cinn and Company, 1906), p. 118. 2. Curti, op. cit., p. 708. 3. Ezra Dwight Sanderson, The Rural Community: The Natural History of a Sociological Group (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1932), pp. 650-1. 4. O. V. Wells, "Appraisal of the Agricultural Problem,' Farmers in a Changing World, p. 396. 5. Williams, The Expansion of Rural Life, p. 291. CHAPTER T E N :

PACES

165-188

THE CULTURAL

CONFLICT

6. Edmund deS. Brunner, "Social and Economic Forces in Rural America and Their Significance to Rural Education," Teachers College Record, Jan. 1940, p. 288. 7. Henry A. Wallace, New Frontiers (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1934), p. 84. 8. Program of Farmers' Educational Co-operative Union of America, 1942. Adopted by Delegates at Annual Convention, 1942 (Oklahoma City).

PAGES

189-216

A PROPOSED EDUCATIONAL 1. Carl L. Becker, Everyman His Own Historian (New York: F. S. Crofts and Company, 1935), pp. 252-3. 2. J. H. Kolb and Edmund aeS. Brunner, A Study of Rural Society: Its Organi-

221

PROGRAM

zation and Changes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1940), p. 8. 3. Ibid., p. 21.

Bibliography REFERENCES USED IN THE STUDY OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY Agricultural Conference Committee's Report. Farming in Chautauqua County. Jamestown, New York: Smith and Kinne, 1932. Anderson, A. A. "The Coming of the Races to Jamestown," Historic Annals of Southwestern New York, edited by W. E. Doty. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1940. American Agriculturist, Farm Paper of the Northeast, January 3, 1942. Aud, J. C., and Hodnett, Clair L. "The Catholic Church in Southwestern New York," Historic Annals of Southwestern New York. Bailey, William S. "The Underground Railroad in Southwestern New York," Historic Annals of Southwestern New York. Bugbee, Judge L. Pioneer Homes and Characteristics. Prepared for the Chautauqua County Historical Society. Jamestown, New York: Journal Printing Establishment, 1886. Canner, Carl. Listen for a Lonesome Drum. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1936. Chautauqua County Farm and Home Bureau News, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, and monthly issues for 1941, 1942, and 1943. Chautauqua County Farm Bureau 1941 Program. Jamestown, New York: 1941. Chautauqua County Farm Bureau 1942 Program. Jamestown, New York: 1942. Child, Hamilton. Gazetteer and Business Directory of Chautauqua County, New York, 1873-74. Syracuse, N.Y.: Journal Office, 1874. Conklin, Edwin P. "Chautauqua, Birthplace of World Movements," Historic Annals of Southwestern New York. Doty, W. E., editor. Historic Annals of Southwestern New York. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1940. Drake, Henry C. Chautauqua County Characters. MS prepared for Chautauqua County Historical Society. Mayville, New York (no date). Grape Belt and Chautauqua Farmer, The, June 8, 1937; June 11, 1937; January 4, 1938. Hart, V. B. Land Use in New York. Ithaca, New York: New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, April, 1939. Hedrick, Ulysses P. A History of Agriculture in the State of New York. Prepared for the New York State Agricultural Society. Albany, New York: J. B. Lyon Company, 1933.

Bibliography

223

Holcomb, George A. "My Homestead," The New Stylus, November, 1940. Joss, Alexander. An Economic Study of Land Utilization in Chautauqua County, New York. Ithaca, New York: New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, 1939. La Mont, T. E. Classification of Land in Chautauqua County. Ithaca, New York: New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, April, 1937. Love, H. F. "Manufacturing in Chautauqua County," Historic Annals of Southwestern New York. Mitchell, E. W. "The First Hundred Years Are the Hardest," American Agriculturist, Farm Paper of the Northeast, January 3, 1942. New York Farm Outlook, 1944. Ithaca, New York: New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, January, 1944. Orvis, Paul D. "Agriculture," Historic Annals of Southwestern New York. Oskamp, Joseph. Soils in Relation to Fruit Crowing in New York. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, 1934. "Pioneer Life as Described by David Eaton." MS in possession of Chautauqua County Historical Society, Mayville, New York (no date). Public Health Nurses, Chautauqua County, 1942 Annual Report. Richen, Charles. "History of the Telephone Development in Allegany County," Historic Annals of Southwestern New York. Rule, Glenn K. "Soil Defense in the Northeast," Farmer's Bulletin, No. 1810. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1938. Rural Life Trends Project—Study No. 5. Prepared by Northeast Regional Office of the Division of Farm Population and Rural Welfare, Bureau of Agricultural Economics. United States Department of Agriculture, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, June, 1943. Rural life Trends Project—Study No. 6. Prepared by the Northeast Regional Office of the Division of Farm Population and Rural Welfare, Bureau of Agricultural Economics. United States Department of Agriculture, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, October, 1943. Scoville, G. P. Economic Study of Grape Farms in Eastern United States. Bulletin No. 605. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University. Shepard, Juliana J. Early Churches in Forestville and Vicinity. MS prepared for Chautauqua County Historical Society. Mayville, New York, June, 1942. Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce. Stegelske, F. S. Poles in Chautauqua County. MS prepared for Chautauqua County Historical Society. Mayville, New York, June, 1917. Stowe, Julia. Life of David Eaton. MS prepared for Chautauqua County Historical Society. Mayville, New York (no date). Summary of Rural Life Trend Studies. Prepared by the Northeast Regional Office of the Division of Farm Population and Rural Welfare, Bureau of Agricultural Economics. United States Department of Agriculture, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, November, 1943. Tennant, A. W. Chautauqua County 1825-1875. MS prepared for Chautauqua County Historical Society. Mayville, New York, October, 1937. Mayville Sentinel, The (Supplement). Mayville, New York, March 16, 1944.

224

The Rural Community and Its School

The New York State 1941 Agricultural Outlook. Ithaca, New York: New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, January, 1941. "Score on Congress, The" in "Reaction in Congress, a Special Section," The New Republic, August 2, 1943. Thompson, Jay. The County Seat. MS prepared for Chautauqua County Historical Society. Mayville, New York, 1943. Ton, Rev. Edward. The History of Clymer. MS prepared for Chautauqua County Historical Society. Mayville, New York (no date). Trump, Frederick. "Origin of Chautauqua Gulf," The New Stylus, March, 1940. Tyler, Howard S. Buying a Farm in New York. Ithaca, New York: New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, 1939—40. Van Wagenen, Jared, Jr. "Pages Across One Hundred Years," American Agriculturist, Farm Paper of the Northeast, January 3, 1942. Warren, Emory F. Sketches of the History of Chautauqua County. Jamestown, New York: J. Warren Fletcher, 1846. Westfield High School. The New Stylus, Quarterly Magazine. Westfield, New York, June, 1939; November, 1941. Wilder, Myron E. "Protestant Annals in Southwestern New York," Historic Annals of Southwestern New York. Williams, James M. Our Rural Heritage. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925. The Expansion of Rural Life. New York: F. S. Crofts, 1931.

O T H E R R E F E R E N C E S U S E D IN P R E P A R A T I O N T H E STUDY

OF

Baker, O. E., Borsodi, Ralph, and Wilson, M. L. Agriculture in Modern Life. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939. Beard, Charles A. A Charter for the Social Sciences. New York: Scribners, 1942. Becker, Carl L. Everyman His Own Historian. New York: F. S. Crofts, 1935. Bell, Earl H. Culture of a Contemporary Rural Community, Sublette, Kansas. Rural Life Studies, No. 2. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, September, 1942. 1941 Blue Book. Washington, D.C.: National Council of Fanner Cooperatives, VIII, February, 1941. Brunner, Edmund deS. "Social and Economic Forces in Rural America and Their Significance to Rural Education," Teachers College Record, XLI, No. 4 (January, 1940). Brunner, E. deS., and Lorge, Irving. Rural Trends in Depression Years. New York: Columbia University Press, 1937. Brunner, E. deS., Hughes, G. S., and Patten, Marjorie. American Agricultural Villages. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1927. Co-operative Digest, the National Magazine of Agricultural Co-operation, I, No. 11 (May, 1941). Curtí, Merle. The Growth of American Thought. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1943.

Bibliography

225

Digest of English 4 Years with Exercises, A. New York: Saga Press, 1944. Edwards, Everett E. "American Agriculture—The First 300 Years," Fanners in a Changing World. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1940. Esmond, Irwin. Public Education in New York State. Albany, New York: New York State Teachers Association, 1937. Essential American Tradition, The, compiled by J. L. Bennett. New York: George Do ran, 1925. Exploring the Environment. Social Studies Pamphlet III. Albany, New York: University of the State of New York Press, 1943. Extension Work in New York in Agriculture and Home Economics. Extension Bulletin, No. 443. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, August, 1940. Ezekiel, Mordecai. Jobs for All Through Industrial Expansion. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1939. Genung, A. B. "Agriculture in the World War Period," Farmers in a Changing World. Hambidge, Gove. "A Summary," Fanners in a Changing World. Handbook for Rural Elementare Schools. Curriculum Bulletin No. 2. Albany, New York: The University of the State of New York Press, 1933. Horn, Ernest. Methods of Instruction in the Social Studies, Part XV, Report of the Commission on the Social Studies, American Historical Association. New York: Scribners, 1937. Johnson, E. C. "Agricultural Credit," Farmers in a Changing World. Johnstone, Paul H. "Old Ideals Versus New Ideas in Farm Life," Farmers in a Changing World. Kirkpatrick, E. L. Guideposts for Rural Youth. Prepared for the American Youth Commission, American Council on Education, Washington, D.C., 1940. Kolb, J. H., and Brunner, E. deS. A Study of Rural Society: Its Organization and Changes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1940. MacLeish, Kenneth, and Young, Kimball. Culture of a Contemporary Rural Community, Landaff, New Hampshire. Rural Life Studies No. 3. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Department of Agriculture, April, 1942. McConnell, J. A. "Report of the General Manager." Presented at the 21st Annual G.L.F. Stockholders' Meeting, Syracuse, New York, November, 1941. Moe, Edward O., and Taylor, Carl G. Culture of a Contemporary Rural Community, Irwin, Iowa. Rural Life Studies No. 5. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, December, 1942. Monroe, Day. "Patterns of Living of Farm Families," Fanners in a Changing World. National Education Association, Department of Rural Education. Community Resources in Rural Schools, Yearbook, 1939. Washington, D.C. National Education Association, Department of Superintendence. The Improvement of Rural Education, Fifteenth Yearbook. Washington, D.C., 1937. National Resources Planning Board. Regional Planning, Part XII, Arkansas Valley, Preliminary Report. Washington, D.C., October, 1942. Patton, James G. Maintain and Increase Farm Production in 1943. Washing-

226

The Rural Community and Its School

ton, D.C.: Farmers Educational Co-operative Union of America, 1942. Program of Fanners' Educational Co-operative Union of America, Adopted by Delegates at Annual Convention, Oklahoma City, 1942. Rich, Mark. The Larger Parish, An Effective Organization for Rural Churches. Extension Bulletin No. 408. Ithaca, New York: New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University, 1937. Sanderson, Ezra Dwight. Farm Income and Farm Life, a Symposium on the Relation of the Social and Economic Factors in Rural Progress. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937. The Rural Community: the Natural History of a Sociological Group. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1932. Rural Sociology. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1939. Rural Sociology and Rural Social Organization. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1942. Schmidt, Louis B. "The Agricultural Revolution in the United States 18601930," Science, LXXII (1930). Smith, T. Lynn. The Sociology of Rural Life. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940. Taeuber, Conrad, and Rowe, Rachel. Five Hundred Families Rehabilitate Themselves. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, February, 1941. United States Department of Agriculture. Achieving a Balanced Agriculture. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940. Fanners in a Changing World. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940. United States Department of the Interior. Agricultural Education, Organization, and Administration. Vocational Division Bulletin No. 13. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Office of Education, 1939. Wallace, Henry A. New Frontiers. New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1934. Wells, O. V. "Appraisal of the Agricultural Problem," Fanners in a Changing World. Wynne, Waller. Culture of a Contemporary Rural Community, Harmony, Georgia. Rural Life Studies No. 6. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, January, 1943.

Index Abolition issue, 122,123, 135, 150 Adjustment of old and new, aim of school to help facilitate, V, 164, 189-216 continuous, called for by technological changes, 19, 24, 185-188, 189-218 difficulties of, 24, 39-40, 93, 184, 165188 intelligent, requires planning, 166188, 189-216 Agricultural Adjustment Agency, 45 Agricultural agencies, 44-55 Agricultural allotments, 42, 46, 48, 172 Agricultural Conservation Program, 42, 45-48, 160, 182 Agricultural Defense Committee, 48, 54, 178 Agricultural education, growth of, after 1860, 22-23 Agricultural Experiment Station, 22, 47, 48 Agricultural Extension Service, 38, 47, 66, 180, 200 Agricultural occupations, multiplication of, 170 Agricultural planning, 194-204 agencies engaged in, 189 need for coordinated survey, 169, 195 Agricultural production emphasis on, 107, 144, 171-172 increased, 40, 72 surplus, government policy on, 42, 46, 160 American Farm Bureau Federation, 47 American Medical Association, 64-65 Asheries, early, 13 Attendance, school, 112-114 Automobile, 40, 62, 65, 69-70, 166, 168 See also Transportation Booster spirit, 158-159 Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 114, 177, 200

Business, fanning as a, 5, 20, 22, 33, 37, 53, 105, 150-153, 157, 167, 173 Business men, identification of farmers with, 150-153, 156-158, 181, 185 Canneries See Processing plants Catholic Charities, 63 Catholic Rural Life Program, 130 Cattaragus Indian Reservation, 4, 6 Central schools, today, 7, 65, 74, 84-85, 92-118 administrative staff, 94 children, 94-95 curricular emphases and practices, 95100

extra-curricular program, 103-104 health program, 109-112 newer practices, 100-102 plant, 93-94 relations with farm parents, 115-118 vocational education, 104-109 wartime practices, 112-115 Chautauqua County, historical backgrounds of, 8-24 major conceptions for, 189-194 reasons for selection of, V-VI the setting for this study, 1-7 Chautauqua Institution, 119, 124 Chautauqua-Erie Grape-Growers Cooperative Association, 34, 50, 51 Children, agencies serving, 63-64, 67-69 educational program to meet needs of individual, 203 fond of farm life, 34-35, 72-73 Children's Bureau, 63 Children's Court, 64 Children's Health Camp, 63-64, 204 Churches, Catholic, 6, 128, 129-131 Rural Life Program, 130

228

Index

Churches ( Continued) Protestant, 6, 119-128 early, 119-124 federated and community, 127 Citizenship, responsible, 183-184, 190191, 202 Civil War, 20, 122, 123, 150 Civilian Conservation Corps, 45, 180 Clothing, farm, 59 Commercialization of agriculture, 14-22, 23, 169-173 See also Machinery, farm Communication facilities, 35, 47, 58-59, 61, 156, 159, 164, 174, 175, 181, 199, 209, 211 Community agencies, 62-71, 74 health and welfare, 62-65 serving children and youth, 63-64, 6769 See also Agricultural agencies Community, bs a school laboratory, 189-216 sense of belonging to, 202-203, 215 use of the school plant, 83, 117-118, 206-208 Community planning See Planning Community relationships, 65-69, 7071 Competition, uneven, 33, 171-173, 182 Western, 20-22, 26, 27, 43, 160, 182 Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, 42 Cooperative patterns, early, 9, 13, 22, 77, 82, 143, 153 contemporary, 9, 20, 40, 45, 48-53, 106, 114, 127-128, 145, 150, 154, 173, 176, 177, 188 in the church, 70, 120, 127-128, 143 proposed, 169, 178, 183-188, 189216 See also Marketing Coordination of groups and agencies, needed, 190,195, 215 County government, 6, 62-64, 132-141, 154 See also Political structure & orientation County Health Commission, 63 County Medical Society, 64, 204, 205206 County nurses, 64

County Public Health Committee, 64, 204 County Tuberculosis Association, 204 County Welfare Office, 63 Crisis, a time of, 165-188 cultural, rural life and education in a, VI, 194 Cultural conflict, 165-188, 216 Curriculum, functional, 189, 192-194, 197-216 related possibilities for the, 204-210 Dairy Herd Improvement Association, 53 Dairying, 20, 25-26, 29, 38, 170-171 labor shortage, 38 Dairymen's League, 49-50 Democracy, and science, the study of, important in educational program, 194 developing responsible citizenship in a, 190-191, 202 education for social planning and reconstruction in a democracy, 189-

216

identification of, with private enterprise, 151, 159 livelihood and education in a, 194-204 new concept needed of nature of public schools in a, 192-193 Depression, 6, 23, 28, 44, 54, 124 District Office of the State Health Department, 64, 204 Diversification of farming, 25, 26, 27, 2930, 170 Economy of scarcity, persistence of attitudes based on, 107, 159, 160, 171172, 187-188 Educated man, exaltation of the, 157 Education, early, 81-83 proposed, 189-216 today, 83-118 Educational purpose, statement of, V Employment, full, 187, 209 Farmers' Union stand on, 187 iossibilities for, 187 ustrial, emergency or defense, 34, 37, 63, 112, 174 farm youth attracted by, 33-35, 174

i

Index Employment, industrial ( Continued) part-time, 44, 169, 174, 191, 196, 197 See also Unemployment Erie Canal, 14-15, 182 Excursions for observation, 101-102,201202, 203, 210 Experience, as vocational exploration, 203 first-hand, and study, 193, 100-102, 201-202, 203 work, for children and youth, early, 75-79 today, 72-73, 79-80, 105-107, 108, 193, 198-199, 203, 207-208 4-H Clubs, 67-69 during war, 112-114 Family,

counsel service, proposed, 207 patterns of living, 56-80 relationships, 9, S&-35, 71-80, 115117, 119-120, 126, 213 early, 75-79, 119-120 size, 35, 56, 125 Farm attitudes and outlooks, 142-164 Farm bloc, of Congress, 172 Farm Bureau, 28, 30, 34, 38, 42, 45-46, 47-48, 66-67, 170, 178, 200 Farm credit, 14-15, 51-53 Farm Credit Administration, 51-52 Farm enterprises, 25-30 Farm diet, 59-61, 187-188, 206-207 Farm housing, 56-59, 187, 196, 197, 208, 209 household equipment, 57-59, 207-208 Farm incomes, 28-29, 33-35, 43-44, 167, 174, 196 Farm labor, 36-38, 197 displacement of, by mechanization, 40 shortage of, 33, 37, 38, 47, 54, 162 early, 16 migrant camps, 37 Farm organization and agencies, 44-55 Farm ownership, 5, 33-35, 157, 169, 197 Farm prices, 22, 23, 28-29, 46, 50-51, 144-145, 160, 167, 170, 177, 180, 185 Farm Security Administration, 6, 52-53, 160, 181, 182, 200, 204 Farm size, 27, 32-33, 40, 53, 167, 172 Farm tenancy, 5, 35-36, 169, 196-197 Farms, consolidation of, 167 Farmers' Clubs, 69

229

Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union of America See Farmers' Union Farmers' Union, 176, 187-188 Farming, a way of life, 4-5 a family enterprise, 32, 56, 213 and source of living, 4-5, 55, 56, 213 Federal aid to education, 180, 182, 191, 192, 216 Federal Department of Agriculture, 22 Federal government, 21, 22, 29, 44-49, 51-53, 135, 144, 155, 159-164, 179184, 200, 209-210 attitudes toward, 44-49, 51-53, 135 141, 144, 155, 159-164, 179-184! 190 increased role of, 29, 172, 179-184, 190, 209, 210 post-war programs proposed, 180, 186, 191, 210 protest against, simultaneous with acceptance, 180-182 See also Political structure and orientation Federal Land Banks, 52 Federal subsidy program, 26, 46 151 162 Fishing, early, 13 Forests, 12-14, 30 and forest industries, 12-14, 20 as resources, early, 12 farm, 30, 47, 53 4-H Clubs, 30, 34, 47, 67-69, 70 Fruit and vegetable growing, 28-30, 3638, 47, 48, 170-171 labor shortages, 36-38 Fruit belt, 170 See also Crape belt Functional curriculum See Curriculum, functional Future Fanners of America, 68-69, 106 G. L. F., 34, 49-50, 177 Gardens, 30, 61, 197, 197-198, 199, 207 Grange See Patrons of Husbandry Grape belt, 2, 41, 177 See also Fruit belt Grape growing, 28-29, 171 See also Fruit and vegetable growing Health, 60, 204 agencies, 64-65, 204 community program, 64-65

230

Index

Health (Continued) program in the schools, 86, 109-113 proposed school and community program, 204-210 Health Service Clubs, 69 Historical backgrounds, Chautauqua County, 8-24 Historical perspective, need for, 193194, 211, 212 History, reasons for study of, 193-194, 210-213 Holland Land Company, 10-11, 12, 15, 17, 133 See also Land payments, early Home Bureau, 30, 47, 66, 178 Home economics, 108, 109 Homework, school, 100, 115 Honey production, 30 Household conveniences, 57-59 Immigrants, 8, 17, 121-122, 130, 150, 156 See also Population, foreign-bom Increased production See Agricultural production Indebtedness, 11, 21, 28, 33, 43-44, 53, 54, 161-162 public, 161, 211 stereotype of private, carried over to public, 161-162 Individual, identification of the, with the group, 203 records of, progress and needs, 203 responsibilities as citizens, 191, 192, 201 Individualism, 14, 50-51, 142-145, 171, 172, 176, 181, 187 Industrial revolution, 14-24 effects of, after 1875, 19-23 Industrial worker, stereotype of, 156-157 Industries, forest, 12-14 home, early, 75, 79 village, early, 79 Institutional structure, 6-7 Interdependence, 23-24, 176-179, 184188, 190, 195, 200, 214, 215-216 Inter-group antagonisms, 147-150 against immigrants, 150, 156 against labor, 150, 156-158, 175-176 against newcomers, 5-6, 36, 63, 150, 155, 174 against unemployed, 150, 154-156, 160, 181

Inter-group antagonisms (Continued) weakening of, 127-128, 203, 214 denominational, 121-122, 150 nationality, 36, 147-150 racial, 148-150 International credit, need for sound policy of, 186 International organization, need for strong, 186 International trade, 184-186, 188 barriers and agreements, effect on county, 186 Interrelation of country and city See Rural-urban relations Juice plants See Processing plants Knowledge, and use of, 210-213 Labor, attitudes of farmers toward, 146, 156158, 169, 175-170 common purposes of farmers with, 175-176 Land, abandoned, 31-32 classification of, 30-31, 43-44 erosion, 41-43 See also Soils, conservation of payments, early, 11, 14, 16 See also Holland Land Company quality of, 30-32, 61-62 speculation, 9, 10, 161 use, recommendations for, 196 Land-grant colleges, 16, 22 Land Use Committee, 32, 45, 171, 196 Library facilities, 62, 101, 102, 106, 199200 Life attitudes and outlooks, 142-164 Livelihood, and education in a democracy, 194204 framework, and occupational, 193, 216 making a, the structural base of the curriculum, 192, 194 Livestock raising, 27 Living processes of community, relation of schools to, V, 189-216 Machinery, farm, 20, 23, 27, 39-40, 47, 48, 54, 174, 198, 201 resistance to use of, 39-40 See also Commercialization of agriculture

Index Machinery repair shops, 40, 117, 198 Maple syrup production, 30, 171 Marketing, agreements, 48-49 dairy, 26, 49-50, 170-171 expanding, 21 fruit and vegetable, 28, 29, 30, 36, 38, 50, 143-145 impersonalizing of, process, 171 local to world, 20 meat, 27 poultry, 27, 170-171 See also Cooperative patterns Markets, 28-30, 144-145, 170 cities as, 174-175 early, 11-12, 15-16, 19, 20 Masons, 134, 139 Meat-producing livestock, 27 Mechanization, increased, 22, 38-39, 165-169, 173 and commercialization, 153, 210 See also Commercialization of agriculture, Technological improvements and changes Migration, off-the-farm, 5-6, 34, 174 seasonal, 36, 37-38 to-the-farm, 5-6, 36, 53, 175 Ministerial associations, 128 National Resources Planning Board, 200 National Youth Administration, 181, 182 New Deal, 141, 163 Newspapers and magazines See Press Olean Production Credit Association, 5152 Organizations, competing with church, 123 Ownership, changed concept of, 152 Parent Teachers Associations, 92, 117 Participation, responsible, of children and youth in community action, 197-200, 206-208 of youth and adults See Youth Patrons of Husbandry, 22, 49-50, 65-66 Physical features, 2-3 See also Topography Planning, growth of long-term and wide-scale, 178-179

231

Planning (Continued) social, an educational program for, and reconstruction, 189-216 need for community, county, state, and national, 189-192 See also Agricultural planning Political action, developing competence in, 191-192, 202-203, 209-210 Political structure and orientation, 6, 132-141, 154, 155, 159-164, 179184, 209-210 See also County government, Federal government Population of Chautauqua County, 3-6 foreign-bom, 4, 5 See also Immigrants Portland Fruit-Growers' Association, 50 Potential abundance, an era of, 186-188, 216 Poultry farming, 27-28, 47, 171 Poverty, rural, 60, 63 Press, 40, 102, 106, 136, 140, 155, 156, 159, 164, 175 Processing plants, 6, 28, 29, 37, 38, 179, 197 Production, capacity See Employment, full Progress, inevitability of, 146-147 Purchasing power, low urban, 174-175 Railroads, 2, 3, 15, 17-19, 21-22, 161162, 182 Radio, 35, 47, 58-59, 164, 168, 170, 184, 199 Reconstruction, social, in a democracy, an educational program for, 189-216 Records of experience and progress, keeping, 200, 203 Recreation, «9-71, 103-104, 117-118, 187, 197, 208, 209 Regents examinations, 96, 98 Religious institutions See Churches Resettlement Administration, 52 Résiliation, attitude of, 145-146 Rural electrification, 26, 39, 40, 57-58, 167, 198, 201 Rural Electrification Administration, 57 Rural free delivery, 62 Rural schools today, small, 83-92 administration, 87-88 children, 89-90 organization, 91-92

232

Index

Rural schools today (Continued) plant, 90-91 teachers, 88-89 Rural-urban relations, 5-6, 21, 36, 37, 65-66, 68, 69-74, 125, 151-153, 189-190, 195 St. Lawrence Waterway Project, 180, 200 School centralization, resistance to, 83-87 support for, 84, 92 trends, 83-87 See also Central schools today, Educational program, proposed School plant, use of by community, 83, 117-118, 206-208 Schools, early, 81-83 Schools today, 6-7, 83-118 See also Central schools today, Rural schools today, small Science program, proposed, 212 Scientific and technological era, 186,190191, 210 Seed business, 30 "Select" schools, 81, 192 Self-sufficiency, decline of, 20, 25, 34, 62, 72, 170 of early farm families, 11-12, 143 persistence of, 34-35 supplanted by economy based on cash, 170, 174 Settlement of Chautauqua County, conditions of, 9-14 Settlers, early, 8-9 Soils, 2-3, 21, 33, 36, 41-43 conservation of, 41-43 Specialization of fanning, 15, 53, 170 Spiritualist movement, 119, 124 Standards of living, great diversity of, 56-65 improvement of, through the educational program, 189-216 State College of Agriculture, 40, 47, 167 State Defense Committee, 54 State Department of Farms and Markets, 47 State Education Department, 91,98,102, 112 State Teachers College, Fredonia, VI, 38, 101, 102 Supervisors, 6, 132, 137-140 County Board of, 137-140, 195, 201 township, 132, 133, 137-140

Surplus production See agricultural production Taxes, 11, 16, 23, 32, 33, 43, 161 Teachers, 81-82, 88-89, 94, 195, 206, 216 Technological improvements and changes, 24, 25, 28, 38-40, 57-58, 62, 173, 176, 184, 187, 198, 201, 207, 213, 215-216 Telephone, 58, 62 Temperance issue, 122, 135 Testing, standardized, 97-98 Textbooks, 98, 99-100 Three R's, dominant emphasis today on, 96 taught througn functional use, 194 teaching of, a primary purpose of early schools, 81-82 Topography, 2, 17, 20, 27, 40, 41, 167 Township supervisors See Supervisors, township Traditional outlooks, persistence of, 142, 188, 211, 215 Tractors See Machinery, farm Transportation, early development of, 11, 14-19, 129, 133 modern improvements in, 26, 27, 35, 47, 62, 65, 166, 168, 173, 184, 187 See also Automobile Unemployment, industrial, 5-6, 23, 36, 53, 174, 175 impatience with, and poverty, 154156, 174-175 United States Department of Agriculture, 45, 47, 50, 177, 200 Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 200 War Board, 48 United States Department of Labor, 200 United States Employment Service, 37, 38 United States Forest Service, 45 Urban-rural relations See Rural-urban relations Village attitudes, toward farm population, 150, 152, 195 "Village Kings," 152 Village life, trend toward, 5, 56, 65-74, 152, 170

Index Village life (Continued) emulation of, 152-153 See also Rural-urban relations Vocational education, 104 agriculture, 105-108 homemaking, 108-109 public schooling as, 192-193, 216 War, a threat to democratic institutions and survival, 185-186 See also World War I and World War II War Board, 48 Weather, 3, 17, 78, 145 Welfare program, 62-64 Western competition See Competition, western Westward migration, 16-17, 19 Women, changing status of, 74 Women's Christian Temperance Union, 119, 122, 135

233

Woodlands, farm See Forests, farm Work experience See Experience, work Works Progress Administration, 182 World economy, trend toward a, 184186 World peace, required conditions for, 186 World War I, 31, 39 after, 23-24 World War II, 179, 184-186 pressures of, 29, 34, 35, 37-38, 40, 54, 55, 112-115, 162, 174, 215 on the schools, 112-115 Youth, and adults together, 213-216 participation of, in social planning and reconstruction, 189-216 power and capabilities of, a great social resource, 215