176 



TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



We are to ask, then, not what are the present limitations of the 

 country school, but what are these big vital problems which are of such 

 vast concern as to claim the active attention of so many men in high 

 authority. We are concerned to know what is the real function of the 

 country school, and whether or not it is part of a conscious program for 

 handling these larger issues, or whether the state has merely said: let 

 there be a country school, and then sat quietly by with folded hands. 

 This latter may still be entirely too true, but if so it is high time that 

 the state should be taking the constructive side of its problems more 

 seriously. 



The country problem is one for all people, urban as well as rural, 

 for in its last analysis the welfare of all rests flat down upon the land. 

 That is not too broad a statement, for though other industries undoubt- 

 edly have a future in this country, yet we can not fail to see that it is 

 America's broad and fertile acres that determine her responsibility 

 among nations, as well as her future economic position. Whatever 

 affects the occupation of farming, therefore, is of consequence to the 

 rural situation in general. 



A glance at the accompanying chart will impress one with at least 

 one very important change that has taken place in the past century and 

 a quarter. 



When our nation was first established there was almost no city life 

 at all, and even in 1800 only 4 per cent, of the people lived in cities of 

 8,000 inhabitants or over. By 1850 this had increased only to 12^ per 

 cent., after which its increase is very rapid, till in 1910 almost half our 

 total population lived in the city. At the rate of the past decade, the 

 next census will show that here, in the greatest agricultural nation in 

 the world, the few are feeding the many. This means over ninety 

 million cons'"; mers, with only about forty-five million producers. 



