128 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



things, exhilarating sights, and social life, it will be gratified, though 

 the old father and mother live alone on the farm. And this is one 

 great reason why the children of the farmer flock to the towns and 

 cities. The age in which they live has given them tastes that are not 

 and cannot be gratified in farm life, as it is too often conducted. In 

 town and city there are attractions of an overwhelming nature in 

 ever}^ window, beautiful yard, pretty buildings, in every social 

 gathering, and therefore they abandon the farm and seek the city 

 that they may gratify tastes that have come to them without their 

 asking. 



Again, it is said that the farmer's children flock to the towns and 

 cities because of their love of excitement that cannot be had in the 

 country, and this statement is true, though it should be couched in 

 better form. 



The statement suggests certain fundamental truths that must be 

 better understood before man can fully comprehend his own nature. 

 Underlying everything else in man is the desire to feel that he is 

 alive— the desire to feel a consciousness of existence. This is man's 

 protest against death, and everything that is allied to it. 



One person resorts to study and mental labor, that he may obtain 

 the sense of life that comes from thinking; another resorts to feverish 

 action for the same purpose; others to the theater and the various 

 forms of associated life; and still others resort to intoxicating drink, 

 for no other purpose than to feel the pulsations of life within them. 

 In fact, human beings plunge into any and everything that will 

 impart to them this exhilaration. Call it love of excitement, if you 

 will, but it is nevertheless based upon fundamental laws of human 

 nature. 



In the country these opportunities are unfrequent. Life is too 

 tame; and the young, feeling the growing desire for a sense of exist- 

 ence, flee to the towns and cities, and the country is robbed of its best 

 blood. 



In these two reasons we find the underlying causes of this exodus 

 from the farm to the towns and cities. The fact is a strain upon the 

 life of our people, and a drain upon agricultural life. Already we 

 feel the bad results. 



Farming is undervalued; towns and cities are overpopulated, and 

 crime increases with amazing rapidity. 



The time has arrived, fellow-citizens, when this evil must be con- 

 sidered—when the current must be reversed. 



Much is being done in the right direction by the economic laws 

 that operate without our consent, and which compel men to flee from 

 towns and cities to the country, because of the increasing difficulty 

 of obtaining subsistence in the former. And this cause will continue 

 to work good results in the future. But the real remedy must be 

 applied with an intelligent purpose by beings who are capable of 

 building up a State. 



What is the remedy? The answer is simple : The attractions of 

 the town and city must be transferred to the country; the farming 

 class must create a new condition. 



I need not particularize the details. It is enough to say that farm 

 life must be elevated by the arts that beautify the home and its sur- 

 roundings. Provision must be made for the gratification of refined 

 tastes in the ten thousand little and great things that make up exist- 



