The Challenge of the Country: A Study of Country Life Opportunity. Fiske George Walter

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СКАЧАТЬ them to stay in the country as community builders. Many of them will gladly stay if given a real life chance.

      The City’s Dependence upon the Country

      The country is the natural source of supply for the nation. The city has never yet been self-sustaining. It has always drawn its raw materials and its population from the open country. The country must continue to produce the food, the hardiest young men and women, and much of the idealism and best leadership of the nation. All of these have proven to be indigenous to country life. Our civilization is fundamentally rural, and the rural problem is a national problem, equally vital to the city and the whole country. The cities should remember that they have a vast deal at stake in the welfare of the rural districts.

      The country for centuries got along fairly well without the city, and could continue to do so; but the city could not live a month without the country! The great railway strike last fall in England revealed the fact that Birmingham had but a week’s food supply. A serious famine threatened, and this forced a speedy settlement. Meanwhile food could not be brought to the city except in small quantities, and the people of Birmingham learned in a striking way their utter dependence upon the country as their source of supply. The philosophy of one of the sages of China, uttered ages ago, is still profoundly true: “The well-being of a people is like a tree; agriculture is its root, manufactures and commerce are its branches and its life; but if the root be injured, the leaves fall, the branches break away and the tree dies.”10

      That far-seeing Irish leader, Sir Horace Plunkett, after a searching study of American conditions, is inclined to think that our great prosperous cities are blundering seriously in not concerning themselves more earnestly with the rural problem: “Has it been sufficiently considered how far the moral and physical health of the modern city depends upon the constant influx of fresh blood from the country, which has ever been the source from which the town draws its best citizenship? You cannot keep on indefinitely skimming the pan and have equally good milk left. Sooner or later, if the balance of trade in this human traffic be not adjusted, the raw material out of which urban society is made will be seriously deteriorated, and the symptoms of national degeneracy will be properly charged against those who neglected to foresee the evil and treat the cause… The people of every state are largely bred in rural districts, and the physical and moral well-being of those districts must eventually influence the quality of the whole people.”11

V. A Challenge to Faith

      The seriousness of our problem is sufficiently clear. Our consideration in this chapter has been confined mainly to the personal factors. Certain important social and institutional factors will be further considered in Chapter V under Country Life Deficiencies. With all its serious difficulties and discouragements the rural problem is a splendid challenge to faith. There are many with the narrow city outlook who despair of the rural problem and consider that country life is doomed. There are still others who have faith in the country town and village but have lost their faith in the open country as an abiding place for rural homes. Before giving such people of little faith further hearing, we must voice the testimony of a host of country lovers who have a great and enduring faith in the country as the best place for breeding men, the most natural arena for developing character, the most favorable place for happy homes, and, for a splendid host of country boys and girls the most challenging opportunity for a life of service.

Test Questions on Chapter I

      1. – How would you define the Rural Problem?

      2. – Illustrate how the growth of the city has affected the rural problem.

      3. – Explain the terms rural, urban, city, town, and village.

      4. – What misleading comparisons have been made between city and country conditions?

      5. – In what six states has the rural population, as a whole, shown a net loss in the last ten years?

      6. – To what extent has rural America grown in population the past half century?

      7. – Describe the symptoms of a decadent village.

      8. – Under what conditions do you find a village improving even when losing population?

      9. – Discuss carefully the comparative degeneracy of the city and the country.

      10. – Describe some of the stages of rural degeneracy.

      11. – What signs of rural degeneracy have come under your personal observation and how do you account for the conditions?

      12. – What evidences have you seen of the “urbanizing” of rural life, and what do you think about it?

      13. – Why do country boys and girls leave the farm and go to the city?

      14. – What must be done to make country life worth while, so that a fair share of the boys and girls may be expected to stay there?

      15. – How do you think a farmer ought to treat his boys?

      16. – To what extent is the city dependent upon the country.

      17. – Why do so many prosperous farmers rent their farms and give up country life?

      18. – How does the village problem differ from the problem of the open country?

      19. – Do you believe the open country will be permanently occupied by American homes, or must we develop a hamlet system, as in Europe and Asia?

      20. – To what extent have you faith in the ultimate solution of the country problem?

      CHAPTER II

      COUNTRY LIFE OPTIMISM

I. Signs of a New Faith in Rural LifeTHE FARM: BEST HOME OF THE FAMILY: MAIN SOURCE OF NATIONAL WEALTH: FOUNDATION OF CIVILIZED SOCIETY: THE NATURAL PROVIDENCE

      This tribute to the fundamental value of rural life is a part of the classic inscription, cut in the marble over the massive entrances, on the new union railroad station at Washington, D. C. Its calm, clear faith is reassuring. It reminds us that there is unquestionably an abiding optimism in this matter of country life. It suggests, that in spite of rural depletion and decadence here and there, country life is so essential to our national welfare it will permanently maintain itself. So long as there is a city civilization to be fed and clothed, there must always be a rural civilization to produce the raw materials. The question is, will it be a Christian civilization?

      Our opening chapter has made it clear, that if the rural problem is to be handled constructively and successfully, rural life must be made permanently satisfying and worth while. It must not only be attractive enough to retain a fair share of the boys and girls, but also rich enough in opportunity for self-expression, development and service to warrant their investing a life-time there without regrets.

      The writer believes there are certain great attractions in country life and certain drawbacks and disadvantages in city life which, if fairly considered by the country boy, would help him to appreciate the privilege of living in the country. It is certainly true that there is a strong and growing sentiment in the city favoring rural life. Many city people are longing for the freedom of the open country and would be glad of the chance to move out on the land for their own sake as well as for the sake of their children.

      In this connection the most interesting fact is the new interest in country life opportunity which city boys and young men are manifesting. The discontented country boy who has come to seek his fortune in the city finds there the city boy anxious to fit himself for a successful life in the СКАЧАТЬ