While rural life is often supposed to be fatally deficient in facilities for growth because of its isolation, the women living on our farms are thought to be the especial victims of this lack of social opportunity. No doubt there is much of truth in the popular opinion. Modern city life unquestionably tends to enliven, to sharpen, to put a razor-edge on capacity. Naturally the women as well as the men of the city are thus stimulated. An instance of the opportunities constantly presented to the city women is the rapid multiplication of women's clubs, which, especially in smaller towns, are absolutely revolutionizing the life of womankind. But have not the women of the country some resources of a similar character? Can they not in some way break the bonds of isolation? Are there not for them some of the blessings that come from a highly organized society? Are there not, in the country also, opportunities for the co-operation of mind and heart for common service? I think all these questions can be answered in the affirmative. It is at least worth while to endeavor to describe several means by which the woman of the farm can keep pace with her urban sister, and under conditions not so discouraging as many may suppose.

Probably no movement has had such a profound significance for the farm women of America as has the Grange movement. We have already discussed the general aspects of Grange work. It must be remembered that the farmer's wife is practically equal with her husband in Grange law and practice. She votes, she may hold office, even the higher executive offices. A delegate to the State Grange is always two—a man and his wife if he has one. The wife serves on committees and votes as she pleases. This equality extends throughout the order. The woman bears her share of work; she reads papers; she directs the social phases of the Grange; she talks on farm topics if she wants to; she debates school affairs; she visits neighboring Granges. All this means education, and education of a very valuable sort, the effects of which permeate so thoroughly those communities where the Grange has long been established that one hardly realizes the work that has been accomplished. For it is not at all an exaggeration to assert that a positive revolution often comes about from the planting of a Grange in a neighborhood where no such organization has ever existed. It finds most of the women diffident, many of them with restricted views, few of them with the instinct for social service developed beyond the needs of friendly neighbors. In the Grange these women find new acquaintances, learn the power of concerted action, meet the responsibility of office, get to their feet for a few words—unheard-of courage! Such speech is usually brief and perhaps not ready, but it is likely to be cogent, because it is born of experience and "stops when through." County and perhaps State Granges add their experiences. And so on through the years these shy, reserved, possibly narrow, lives come to flower. And the Grange has furnished the dynamic. Strong leaders among farm women have been developed by the opportunities the Grange has afforded them. And thousands of other women in all parts of the country have by this same means grown out of their narrowness, "discovered themselves," and become comparatively cultured, well read, able to take a woman's place in this day of woman's power as a public factor. It is safe to say that the Grange has been the greatest single influence in America with respect to the development of the women of the farm.

Another factor in the life of farm women which has arisen in more recent years is the farmers' institute. The audiences in some cases are largely of men, but as a rule the attendance of women averages one-third to one-half. Until very recent years the women joined with the men in all sessions of the institute, and their presence was recognized by appropriate subjects on the programme, frequently presented by women themselves. Several years ago Minnesota and Wisconsin initiated separate meetings for women, held simultaneously with the main meeting, for purposes of instruction in domestic science. Michigan, a little later, developed the "women's section" of the farmers' institute. This is held one afternoon of the usual two-day session of the institute in a hall separate from the general meeting, and only women attend. Two topics are presented for discussion, one by a woman sent by the state, the other by a woman from the town or a neighboring farm. Topics concerning child-training, making housework easier, home life on the farm, and even themes relating to the problems that center about the sex question, are thoroughly discussed. Women take part much more freely than they do in the general sessions of the institute. Across the border, in Ontario, the women have formed separate institutes, as they have also in Indiana.

All this means a new opportunity for the farm woman. The Grange is an organization, and its members gain all the development that comes from engaging in the work required to maintain a semi-literary and social organization. The institute, on the other hand, is an event, and there cluster about it all the inspiration and suggestion that can come from any notable convention for which one will sacrifice not a little in order to attend. Institute work for women is in its beginnings.

So far we have found that existing institutions for women in rural districts bring together merely the women of the farm. In the women's section of the institutes half the audience is usually from the town. This meeting occurs, however, but once a year, and the social effect of the commingling of city and farm women can prove only suggestive of the desirability of further opportunity for similar gatherings. At a Michigan institute some years ago this desire fructified, and the product was a "Town and Country Club." This club secured a majority of its membership, of some ninety, from among women residing on farms. Its meetings are bi-weekly. It is to be hoped that this sort of club may be organized in large numbers. It represents another step in the emancipation of the farm woman, because it brings her into contact with her city sister—and contact that is immediate, vital, inspiring, continuous, and mutually helpful. It may be thought unnecessary to form a new set of clubs for the purpose indicated, but the fact seems to be that the ordinary women's club even in small towns has failed to reach the woman who makes her home upon the farm.

Another feature of this idea of the Town and Country Club is the "rest room" for farmers' wives. In a number of cases where this has been tried, the women of the village or town provide a room as near the shopping center of the town as possible, where the country women can find a place to rest, to lunch, and to leave their children. These rooms are fitted up in a neat but inexpensive manner with the necessary conveniences, and are entirely free to those for whom they were intended. If these rooms are well managed, they offer not only a very practical form of assistance to the women of the farm, but they may be the means of developing a form of co-operation between the women of the village and the farm, and eventually leading to some permanent scheme of mutual work. Possibilities of this sort of thing are easily recognized.

In the realms of higher education the girl who is to stay upon the farm has not been wholly neglected. In Kansas, Iowa, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan, at least, and in connection with the agricultural colleges of those states, courses for women (including domestic science) have been provided. They are well patronized by girls from the farm. Many of these girls do not marry farmers; many of them do. And their college training having thus been secured in an atmosphere more or less agricultural, they must inevitably take rank among their sisters of the farm as leaders in demonstrating what farm life for women may be.

Nor should it be forgotten that the tremendous movement of recent years which has so multiplied standard reading-matter, both periodicals and books, has reached the farm. A census of country post-offices will reveal the fact that the standard magazines go regularly to thousands of farm homes. Agricultural papers, religious papers, and even dailies find multitudes of intelligent readers among farmers.

With the advent of better highways, electric car lines, rural free delivery, and the rural telephone, each of which is looming on the horizon as an important feature of American farm life; with the Grange or similar organization in every school district; with the development of courses for women at all our colleges of agriculture, and the logical complement of such courses in the form of college extension—farmers' institutes, reading-courses, traveling libraries, lecture and correspondence courses—we shall find farm life taking on a new dress, and perhaps farmers' wives may come to enjoy the envy of those women who are unfortunate enough not to have married farmers.