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The article presents information on the annual meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, held in Detroit, Michigan, December 28-30, 1938. The first serious consideration of Rural Sociology by the American Sociological Society was in 1916 at the annual meeting in Columbus under the presidency of Dr. Geo. E. Vincent, who chose the theme "The Sociology of Rural Life." The first meeting of the new section was held before the regular sessions at Chicago in 1922. Since then the section on Rural Sociology has had a regular place on the program. In 1928 under the presidency of Dr. John M. Gillette, the theme of the annual meeting of the American Sociological Society was "The Rural Community." The last few years have been ones of notable progress. There has been a steady increase in the number of state agricultural experiment stations conducting research in rural sociology, an increase in their staffs, and a larger recognition of the importance of the subject by experiment station directors and agricultural college executives. Most of the membership is in the states in which agriculture is the major industry. The northeastern section of the U.S., east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio rivers, contains about half of the population and 70 per cent of the nation's income, but it contains a minority of the rural sociologists.

The depression has affected rural life mostly on the economic side, but indirectly it has had a considerable influence on its social organization. It has given a larger place to the subsistence values of rural life. It has given impetus to soil conservation. County organization of rural social work, direct attack on the tenancy problem and a strong movement for federal aid to the common schools are other movements resulting horn the depression. Farmers have become convinced of the necessity of collective action, but it has also become apparent that their interests are regional, and that the integration of the opposing interests of different regions is essential for a national policy for agriculture. These movements have all been conducive to a reconsideration of the fundamental values of rural life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of interest to rural sociologists everywhere is the organization of the Rural Sociological Society of America, which took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on December 1937. Approximately 75 rural sociologists in attendance at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Society were called into special session by Dr. George von Tungein, Chairman of the Section on Rural Sociology, to hear the report of a special committee appointed in December 1936, to consider ways and means of better organization for rural sociologists. During the meeting Ginn & Co. announces the publication of Social Living, Principles and Problems in Introductory Sociology, a high school text by Paul H. Landis, associate professor of sociology, and Judson T. Landis, fellow in the department of sociology, Louisiana State University. The committee reported that the United States Department of Agriculture, and the State Experiment Station have outlined a co-operative study on Farm Labor Conditions in the Delta areas of the state of Arkansas. The reduction of croppers and tenants to a farm labor status is creating problems of a serious nature.

There is a general impression that the depression has caused a considerable increase in the number of tenant farmers. If the gross increase is considered, this is true, for the number of tenant farmers in the United States increased 7.5 per cent from 1930 to 1935. However, if the proportion of farm operators who were tenants, is considered, it is found that there was an actual decrease from that of 1930. In comparison to both North and South, the largest proportion of tenancy was in the Central States. It is indicated that the effect of the depression on tenancy was very different in the North than in the South, and that it was different in some states from others. The differences in the North Central States indicate the need for careful analysis of the tenancy trend in each state and by agricultural regions. Tenancy is already an acute economic problem, but public policy with relation to it should be based upon an accurate knowledge of the social trends produced by it. For this purpose comprehensive studies of the social effects of tenancy in counties are required where it is highest in the Corn Belt as well as throughout the South.

The article studies rural community in the U.S. as an elementary group. Elementary groups are those with one bond of association termed as functional associations. The rural community consists of the village business and social center and the area which most of the farm families used for most of their social and economic activities. Rural people in many parts of the U.S. have recognized common association within the area tributary to a village center and have various forms of community associations, quite apart from any political areas. There are definite functional differences in the village center of the rural community which vary with its population and the specialization of services which it affords. Types of rural communities change with the techniques of agriculture and with the environmental conditions, but some form of rural community seems essential for any permanent social organization of rural life. The vocation of agriculture necessarily attaches farmers to the land and for success requires a relatively permanent residence which makes inevitable an acquaintance and the development of common interests within a local area.

This article presents a report of the committee on post-war retirement and training of the rural sociological society in the U.S. The committee report covered securing faculty members, reorganization of courses, and providing such special activities as a joint summer camp for returning men to take refresher courses and the whole question of recruiting new students. The committee had to work by mail. Its first step was to develop and send out a questionnaire to thirty-seven departments of rural sociology in thirty states. Five of these were in privately endowed institutions, the others in state colleges of agriculture or universities. This questionnaire asked for a list of recent graduate students who had not completed their doctoral work or who, having the master's degree, were good doctoral prospects. The reporting institutions indicate that from one-third to three-quarters of their graduates go into the Farm Security Administration, the Agricultural and Home Economics Extension Service and into rural social service, largely through employment by state boards of welfare.