62 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Sept., 



germs of the neighborhood idea, which has almost died out in 

 the towns and cities. The city people have already lost all 

 conception of its value, and I am afraid that even the country 

 people only partially realize its value and it fundamental im- 

 portance in all genuine and progressive social life. The 

 neighborhood idea is based essentially on territory, on land, 

 or on the geometrical relations between man and man. The 

 cities are largely dominated by the class idea, which is super- 

 ficial, pestilential, and of the devil. It is artificial, due merely 

 to our ways of thinking rather than to the fundamental 

 conditions under which we have to live. Class consciousness, 

 class war, — all such obscene notions, are the products of city 

 life and not of country life. The essential difference here 

 was brought out once upon a time in a famous dialogue. 

 This dialogue took place between a man from the country 

 and a man from the city. If you forget that essential fact, — 

 that the one man was from the country and the other from 

 the city, — you will never get the real meaning of the dialogue. 

 The man from the city inquired of the man from the coun- 

 try, "AA'ho is my neighbor?" The man from the country 

 answered with the story of the good Samaritan. The man 

 from the city had forgotten what neighborhood meant; like 

 all city people, he was thinking in terms of class. So were 

 the various people who, on the way to Jericho, passed by the 

 wounded man because he did not belong to their set or class, 

 until the Samaritan came along who recognized the geo- 

 metrical relations of life rather than the class relations, and 

 thus exemplified the principle of neighborhood. 



Country people generally understand what the word 

 ''neighborhood" means. They have that much, at least, in 

 their favor. Until city people re-learn the meaning of the 

 word ''neighborhood,'' there can be no such thing as good 

 city government, or good social or economic conditions in 

 any city. Cities and the dwellers therein will doubtless go on 

 trying other experiments, tinkering with the situation, trying 

 by various psychological processes known as "taking 

 thought." to add a cubit or so to the moral stature, but all 

 such efforts are futile and vain. 



I remember very well a certain ardent social reformer who 

 leally thought he had a remedy for most of the ills of society 



