Part 1 (2/2)

The first organized expression of the country-life movement in the United States was the appointment of the Commission on Country Life by President Roosevelt in August, 1908. It was a Commission of exploration and suggestion. It could make no scientific studies of its own within the time at its command, but it could put the situation before the people. President Roosevelt saw the country-life problem and attacked it.

The Commission made its Report to the President early in 1909. It found the general level of country life in the United States to be good as compared with that of any previous time, but yet ”that agriculture is not commercially as profitable as it is ent.i.tled to be for the labor and energy that the farmer expends and the risks that he a.s.sumes, and that the social conditions in the open country are far short of their possibilities.”

A dozen large reasons for this state of affairs, a state that directly curtails the efficiency of the nation, are given in the Report; and it suggests many remedies that can be set in motion by Congress, states, communities, and individuals. The three ”great movements of the utmost consequence that should be set under way at the earliest possible time, because they are fundamental to the whole problem of ultimate permanent reconstruction” are: taking inventory of country life by means of ”an exhaustive study or survey of all the conditions that surround the business of farming and the people who live in the country, in order to take stock of our resources and to supply the farmer with local knowledge”; the organizing of a nationalized extension work; the inauguration of a general campaign of rural progress.

It is suggested that Congress provide ”some means or agency for the guidance of public opinion toward the development of a real rural society that shall rest directly on the land.”

The Report of the Commission on Country Life makes no discussion of the city-to-country movement.

The Report recognizes the fundamental importance of the agricultural experiment stations and of the great chain of land-grant colleges and of government departments and of other agencies; and the work that it proposes is intended to be supplementary to them.

_The three fundamental recommendations of the Commission._

The taking stock of the exact condition and materials of country life is immensely important, for we cannot apply remedies before we make a diagnosis, and an accurate diagnosis must rest on a mult.i.tude of facts that we do not now possess. This is the scientific rather than the doctrinaire, politics, and oracular method of approaching the subject.

It is of the first importance that we do not set out on this new work with only general opinions and superficial and fragmentary knowledge.

Every rural community needs to have a program of its own carefully worked out, and this program should rest on a physical valuation. It may be some time yet before the importance and magnitude of this undertaking will impress the minds of the people, but it is essential to the best permanent progress.

Agricultural extension work of a well-organized kind is now beginning to come out of the colleges of agriculture, and this must be extended and systematized so that, with other agencies, it may reach every last man on the land. A bill to set this work in motion is now before Congress.

The third recommendation of the Commission for immediate action is ”the holding of local, state, and even national conferences on rural progress, designed to unite the interests of education, organization, and religion into one forward movement for the re-building of country life. Rural teachers, librarians, clergymen, editors, physicians, and others may well unite with farmers in studying and discussing the rural question in all its aspects. We must in some way unite all inst.i.tutions, all organizations, all individuals having any interest in country life into one great campaign for rural progress.”

Conferences are now being held in many parts of the Union by universities, colleges, state departments of agriculture, chambers of commerce, business organizations, and other bodies. This will make public opinion. Such conventions, discussing the larger social, political, and economic relations of country life, should now be held in every state and geographical region.

It is now time that states undertake country-life programs. There is still much attack of symptoms; but persons in political offices, for the most, are not yet well-enough informed to make the most of the rural situation as it exists, or to utilize to the best advantage the talent and the inst.i.tutions that the country now possesses. One has only to read the recommendations to legislative bodies to recognize the relative lack as yet of constructive plans for the improvement of rural conditions.

_A national conference on country life._

If there should be state and local conferences for country life, so also should there be a national conference, meeting yearly. Such a conference should not be an agricultural convention in the ordinary sense, nor is it necessary that it be held in commanding agricultural regions. It should deal with the larger affairs and relations in their applications to rural civilization.

_A voluntary movement._

The interest in country life is gradually a.s.suming shape as a voluntary movement outside of government, as it properly should do. It should be in the best sense a popular movement; for if it is not a really popular movement, it can have little vitality, and exert little effect on the ma.s.s of the people. As it gets under motion, certain things will crystallize out of it for government to do; and governments will do them.

As a pure matter of propagation, such a voluntary organized movement would have the greatest value; for, in these days, simple publicity often accomplishes more than legislative action.

_The international phase._

If the interest in rural economics and sociology is world wide, then we should have international inst.i.tutions to represent it. Several organizations now represent or include certain phases. We need such an inst.i.tution not so much for propaganda as for research. A Country Life Inst.i.tute has been proposed by Sir Horace Plunkett, who is so well known and admired by all students of rural situations through his far-seeing work in Ireland and his many fruitful suggestions for America. It would seem that here is an unusual opportunity for a great and productive foundation.

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