That place is Sunnyside, Wash., in the midst of that splendid irrigated valley of the Yakima. The thing that is needed is to make the church the center of the social life of the community. That is easier where there is but one church than where there are several, but federation is not essential. Thought must be taken by the leaders to make the church central in every interest of life. I know of a community where that has been done. It is the community located south of Waterloo, Ia., in Orange Township. It is composed of an up-to-date community of Pennsylvania Dutch Dunkers. From the very first they have made the church central. When these great changes of which I have spoken began to occur, the leaders of that community began to take measures to checkmate the attractions of the towns for their young people. For example, Fourth of July was made a day of celebration at the church. When the people of other country communities were flocking to town by hundreds, the youth of that community were gathering, in response to plans well thought out beforehand, to the church grounds where patriotic songs were sung, games were played, a picnic dinner was served, and a general good time was provided for the young. They have also arranged that their young people have a place to come to on Sunday nights where they can meet their friends. The elders look to it that provisions are made for the gathering of the young people on Sunday so that they shall "have a good time," with due arrangements for the boys and girls to get together under proper conditions for their love-making. Even their church "love feasts," held twice a year, are also neighborhood gatherings for the young people. The church is the center of everything. Is a farmers' institute to be held in the community, or a teachers' institute? The church until very recently was open to it. Is a farm to rent or for sale? At once the leaders get busy with the mail and soon a family from the East is on their way to take it. This country church has not remained strong and dominant in the community just by accident or even by federation. It has survived because it had wise leaders who have met the changes with new devices to attract the interest of the community and make the church serve the community in all its affairs, but especially on the social side. Such thought takes account of the "marginal man" too. The hired man and the hired girl, the foreigner and the tramp are welcome there. No difference is made. There is pure democracy. With the growth of the class spirit I do not know how that can survive. These hirelings are not talked down to; they are considered one with the rest. They will some day get enough to buy a farm and become leaders in the community, perhaps. The church is theirs as much as anyone's else. It looks after their interests, not only for the hereafter, but here and now. Under its fostering care they form their life attachments, it provides for their social pleasures, it is the center to which they come to discuss their farming affairs or whatever interests them. And in spite of the fact that the preaching has little contact with life and its interests, so strong is the social

spirit that the preaching can be left out of account. What could be accomplished were the preaching as consciously directed to forwarding the social interests of the community one can only speculate.

T. N. CARVER

The tone of Dr. Wilson's paper is admirable, and the general argument seems to me to be entirely sound. I have therefore nothing but commendation to offer. One or two suggestions, however, I should like to make, not in the spirit of criticism, but merely to correct possible misapprehensions or to turn attention to some important phases of the general question.

In the first place, I think it is a mistake to assume in the free and easy manner of some of our long-distance farmers-or Christian Science farmers as they may be called, that is, those who are trying to solve the rural problem by absent treatment-that our American agriculture is wasteful, or that it is inefficient. That depends altogether upon our point of view. If we regard land as of more importance than men, then our American agriculture is wasteful, because it takes a good many acres in this country to produce a given amount of product. But if we regard men as of more importance than land, then American agriculture is the most economical and efficient in the world. Nowhere in the world will you find such an efficient economy of labor, or so large a product per man, as on the American farms. There are two ways, for example, of growing 100 bushels of corn. One is by putting a great deal of labor into it and growing it on one acre. That is economical of land but it is wasteful of labor. Another method is to put less labor on two acres. This is economical of labor, since it takes absolutely less labor to grow 100 bushels on two acres than on one; but is relatively wasteful of land. In a country where land is dear and men are cheap, the former method, however, would be regarded as more economical. But in a country where land is cheap and men are dear, the latter method is the more economical. Let us not cease to give thanks that conditions in this country are still such that men are dear, even though land be cheap; and let us hope that a merciful providence will save us from the state where men are cheap and land becomes dear.

Again, the suggestion is made that the commonplaceness and monotony of rural life is a problem which the country church must try to solve. That suggestion is undoubtedly a good one; but again let us hope that it will not be solved by trying to introduce the variety and excitement of city life into the country. Let us rather try to solve it by trying to create in the minds of rural people an appreciation of this same monotony and commonplaceness. Rather let me correct myself by saying, let us teach them that country life is not commonplace and monotonous if one only has the power to see the interest and the variety which the country affords. If one is blind to the interesting things that exist in a city, nothing could be more

monotonous than city life, but those who are awake to the multiplicity of things to be found there find anything but monotony and commonplaceness. Similarly, if one is really awake to the interesting things of country life, one will see there anything but monotony and commonplaceness. As a matter of fact, a great deal of the interest of city life is of the dime-museum and the two-headed-calf variety; that is, it is of the queer, bizarre type, which is of course of great interest to certain minds. No one who reads Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne or Miss Mitford's Our Village gets the impression from these classics that country life is uninteresting or monotonous, or even commonplace. But even the word commonplace itself ought not to have any terrors for normal minds. Suppose a thing is commonplace; is not that an indication of its merit rather than of its demerit? All the large facts, all the large values of life are commonplace. It is only because we are looking for something queer or abnormal or unusual that we fail to appreciate the larger and more commonplace facts of life. It has seemed to me also that the country church needs to emphasize, more than most of our sociological students have seen, the value of the neighborhood idea as a basis of social reconstruction. This is a thing that has to be re-created in the city, but in the country the neighborhood as a fact is usually taken for granted. It was a city man, a lawyer, I believe, who once asked a countryman the question, "Who is my neighbor?" Such a question would never occur to a countryman. To him the term neighbor always means the man who lives near by, who is within reach, who can be helped and who can give help because of physical or geographical nearness. The whole tendency of city life is to destroy the neighborhood idea and to build up the class idea, to make one ask, not is he a man who is near by, but is he a man who is a member of my class, or occupation or profession? The neighborhood idea may have fallen into decay in the country, but I think there are few rural neighborhoods where the class idea, which is positively demoralizing or immoral, has taken its place. The most constructive workers in our cities are beginning to see that they must restore the neighborhood idea and get rid of the class idea. The constructive social workers in the country, therefore, it seems to me, have a distinct advantage: they do not have to get rid of the class idea.

SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE DOMESTIC RELATIONS

GEORGE ELLIOTT HOWARD
University of Nebraska

For four centuries the ancient constitution of the household has been in process of dissolution; and for the same period society has been striving to put in its place new forms of control. By "household" I mean, in all its wide implications, the trinity of institutions, marriage, family, and the home; and by its "constitution" I understand the vast complex of relations, internal and external, arising in Nature's triad of personalities, the father, mother, and child.

Now, in America this dual process of constitutional decay and substitution is far advanced. Here the remnants of the old patriarchal authority are swiftly passing. Here the wife is gaining a more even place in the connubial partnership. Here precocious youth is often too soon "emancipated." Here the voluntary and state experiments in child-saving are many and daring. Here the household economist and the sociologist are joining hands in the earnest effort to create better methods of home building and higher ideals of family living. At last there are distinct signs of an awakening of the social consciousness and of the social conscience to the cardinal truth that the household, as just defined, is the basic fact in our national life, and hence the dynamic factor which ultimately, for good or for ill, must determine the quality of American civilization.

Nevertheless, the American people have as yet no thoughtout or comprehensive policy for developing a proper social control of the domestic relations. This is the simple truth which I wish to emphasize in this paper. We have many "movements," we are doing many things--some wise and some otherwiseto secure such control in this or that direction; but our efforts are not correlated or wisely economized. Reform goes on more or less at random in the various cities and states. What expert

social servant, for instance, can tell without research how many varieties or instalments of the social control of parental authority, or of marriage relations, or of home economics, or of domestic hygiene have already been established by law? or which of them have stood the test of actual experience? or what new projects are arising?

A "HOUSEHOLD PROGRAM"

In a word, is it not high time to construct a scientific program for the promotion of the right social control of the domestic relations? The "Municipal Program" worked out by experts several years ago has borne good fruit. Is not a "Household Program" quite as urgently required? Such a program is not the business of an hour. Its genesis might well engage the earnest attention of this society. Its final construction would be a task worthy of a conference of the leaders of American social science and American social service.

A brief discussion of several questions, as examples, may perhaps reveal the nature and magnitude of the problem which such a concerted policy would help to solve. What basic influences, for instance, are causing the dissolution of the mediaeval constitution of the household and the rise of new forms of social control? In what directions is there a growing demand for the further extension of social control? Is it possible to construct a new system of education, broad enough and intensive enough to provide efficient training for the business, the obligations, and the domestic relations of the household? If that should be accomplished, may we safely restore to the family group some portion of the functions which we are now taking from it?

WHY THE MEDIAEVAL HOUSEHOLD CONSTITUTION IS BEING

DISSOLVED

To the student of modern history the gradual change in the household constitution appears clearly as a process of social liberation which is profoundly affecting the relative positions of man and woman, of parent and child, in the family and in