Part 5 (1/2)
CHAPTER XV.
THE CO-OPERATIVE FARM AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION.
”From the thorough understanding and appreciation of these principles, by the workers on your model co-operative farm, must come the necessary zeal, the cementing enthusiasm of a mighty purpose which, with ever increasing volume, shall urge them forward to the goal of complete success. As one of the means to insure this success, we must strive to introduce a new era for agriculture, in which co-operative working shall be supplemented and reinforced by co-operative thinking. As applied to farm work, this is a new and untried field which promises grand results.
”In all kinds of productive labor, muscular effort is a mental demonstration! The keener the mentality controlling the muscles, the more satisfactory the work accomplished. The more interested and the healthier and happier the laborer is in his work, the easier it becomes for him to produce superior results. For centuries, farm work has been considered the natural avocation of the ignorant and the illiterate!
Strange as it may appear, it seems to have been generally conceded that the typical clodhopper was the ordained farmer! That this perverted idea regarding the requirements of a tiller of the soil, should have maintained its existence for so many ages, is a matter of profound astonishment to every intelligent thinker!”
”Pardon me, Mr. Fenwick,” said Fillmore Flagg, ”if at this time I quote a case in point from my own state. As late as the year 1897, a Bishop Withington, of Nebraska, speaking of farmers' sons who were struggling for an education, says of them:
”'The farmers' sons--a great many of them--who have absolutely no ability to rise, get a taste of education and follow it up. They will never amount to anything--that is, many of them--and they become dissatisfied to follow in the walk of life that G.o.d intended they should, and drift into cities. It is the over-education of those who are not qualified to receive it that fills our cities, while the farms lie idle.'
”This, Mr. Fenwick, is but a sample of many like expressions from the lips of public men, showing the stigma and low estimate which is placed on farmers as a cla.s.s, by clerical, professional and commercial people.
When we consider that farming people form a large majority of the citizens of our republic, a republic whose const.i.tution guarantees equal rights for all; whose chief corner stone from the beginning, has been its admirable system of free education in its public schools; the manifest endeavor of the Bishop and his cla.s.s, to consign the tillers of the soil to a caste of low order, and to argue that education is for the few and not for the farmer, indicates something radically wrong in our social system that augurs ill for the future of our republic. That the dissatisfaction is widespread and serious, is manifest to all thinkers and observers. To discover the cause and cure, and to speedily apply the remedy for this growing discontent, becomes an imperative duty for all patriotic people. In my experience, the following are some of the most prolific causes:
”The isolation and loneliness of the small farm.
”The long hours of tedious, monotonous toil for both man and woman.
”The constantly increasing compet.i.tion of large farms, armed with capital and expensive machinery, which tends to reduce the price of farm products.
”The want of proper society, healthful amus.e.m.e.nts, books, and many other necessary educational facilities.
”The discouraging meagerness of the financial returns for a year of such constant toil.
”These things all tend to destroy the farmer's love for, and pride in, his occupation, until farm work becomes a repulsive drudgery, and he flies to the city for a more congenial employment. Is it then, under the circ.u.mstances, any wonder that the farmers' sons should become dissatisfied with the occupation of their birth? That in company with their sisters and sweethearts they should be determined, at all hazards, to escape from the evils of what Bishop Withington terms a 'G.o.d-ordained' cla.s.s of hewers of wood, drawers of water, and tillers of the soil, a cla.s.s which dooms them and their children to a future of hopeless toil?
”Agriculture forms the basis and support of our national, industrial and commercial success. Therefore it is imperative that agricultural pursuits be made to become the most n.o.ble and pleasing of all occupations. How can this be accomplished?
”Surely, co-operative farming, with its improved conditions and methods, is the remedy indicated!”
”Yes, Mr. Flagg,” said Fennimore Fenwick, ”Co-operative farming is the partial remedy which shall start the healing process, and lead to the discovery of a perfect cure. You have ably stated the evils which make living on small farms so unsatisfactory. You have also made an excellent argument for our work from the text Bishop Withington has so blindly and unthinkingly furnished. It is quite evident that neither he nor his cla.s.s, have the least conception of the true cause of the discontent they so deeply deplore. It is also equally clear that with all the advantages of superior conditions, with the observation and education of a lifetime, they have so far, utterly failed to understand or appreciate the real object and purpose of human life. They are sorely in need of an object lesson which we must furnish.
”In efforts to slake a natural thirst for knowledge, the brightest minds, the most profound thinkers of the past ten centuries, at the end of lives devoted to study, have declared that the vast domain of knowledge still remained practically an unexplored field. This domain is for coming generations to conquer and possess. It invites the efforts of millions of co-operative thinkers, born and trained for the task. Hence, to me, it is as clear as the noonday sun that the embodiment of more mind by our agricultural people, is a matter of imperative necessity.
They should have the leisure and the opportunity to become familiar with all the varied phenomena of nature, through the recorded observations that comprise the different sciences, which describe and explain all phases of surrounding life. Thus equipped, they will be able to discover that they are a living, working, part of nature, which defined, means the combined life of the planet; that they act upon all things about them and are in turn acted upon. A comprehension of these things can come only to the cultivated mind, and the richer its store of facts, the more perfect its grasp and control of surrounding conditions. Therefore mind, as the expression of the soul and body of the dual individual on the physical plane of existence, is EVERYTHING! It controls and molds structure; the body; the people around. All history is but a detailed description of the action of mind.
”The great minds are the dominant thinkers; they sway the mult.i.tude, mold public opinion, effect legislation and shape the nation. These dominant minds should come from the people of the soil, as best equipped to discover and proclaim the law of the planet's unfoldment, also best able to conceive and formulate the wise laws which should guide and govern its people. Hence the necessity for our farmers to become thinkers--dominant thinkers.
”What are the best conditions for mind unfoldment?
”As Professor Elmer Gates so wisely says, 'The human body is composed of myriads of living organisms--a co-operative colony of more or less intelligent cells--which respond to the control of the individual Ego through the action of the mind, and to the electrical conditions which flow from the emotions.' Hence the body is an important part of the thinking machine and, therefore, a perfect mind must absolutely be the highest expression of a perfect body. The perfect body needs to be well born. To be well born, is to demand conditions for a perfect motherhood, and the perfect unfoldment of both mother and child together.
”Where can these conditions be found?
”We find them best and most abundant in the rural districts, far from the turmoil and strife, the smoke and poisonous gases of the great city.
Surrounded by fields and forests, in the pure air of a broad expanse of country, domed with the blue sky, and flooded with golden sunlight, on the soil of the farm, close to the fostering bosom of our planet mother, Earth. Therefore it must be the distinctive and well defined purpose of our co-operative farm to furnish and perfect these conditions, thus uniting in perfect harmony stirpiculture with agriculture, a union as poetical as it is practical. From these conditions must come a race of dominant thinkers, the exponents and champions of the real objects and purposes of human life.
”With the coming of such a race, comes the beginning of the era of unselfishness, and the end of the present era of selfishness, the age of gold wors.h.i.+p, where greed for gold blights and withers public and private conscience, dominates and corrupts all forms of society, and makes conditions which breed monopolies, caste, tramps, paupers, armies of idle men, strikes, discontent, starvation and revolution!
”Verily, a perfect catalogue of the ways and means by which 'Man's inhumanity to man, makes countless millions mourn!' With the dawn of the unselfish era, comes the demonstration of how man's humanity to man can and will make countless millions rejoice!