108 NINETEENTH REFOKT. 



put into practice and when jjracticed that they will convert the deplor- 

 able conditions painted by us into a veritable heaven on earth. It might 

 be well to draw tlie picture of present conditions with the pen of the 

 mechanical draftsman and let the artist paint in glowing colors the 

 results derived from our campaign, in order that the contrast may 

 redound favorably to the work of improvement. While over enthusiasm 

 and rash promises must be avoided, I am sure that we know many things 

 about sanitation that are not now generally known and appreciated in 

 the majority of rural families, that we could be of real assistance to the 

 farmer's family in bettering his condition hygienically and aesthetically 

 without revolutionizing his method of life and that the proper appeal 

 to the country people would result in these gradual and beneficial changes. 

 At the same time it will be necessary to constantly, and even speedily, 

 acquire new facts concerning the best methods of applying the principles 

 of sanitary science to the peculiar rural conditions. 



The principles of Sanitary Science apply in all cases. Those prin- 

 ciples, based on the physiologic requirements of the living animal body, 

 have been fairly well worked out. It is quite true that much has yet to 

 be learned — and unlearned for that matter — concerning the fundamentals 

 of right living, but we may surely fight the good fight with courage, 

 using only the armor and weapons now at our disposal. We cannot 

 help but feel that the application o%piese great principles to the peculiar 

 isolated rural conditions is the difficult task. 



In attempting to correct the determined evils surrounding the farmer's 

 life we will find tliat Sanitary Science, ^Sociology and Economics are in- 

 separable. We should not repeat the mistake of the beautiful but 

 ignorant Marie Antoinette. W^hen the hungry mob was shouting outside 

 the palace window, she asked the cause of the commotion and was told 

 that the people were hungry and wanted bread. "If they iiaven't bread, 

 why don't they eat eake.^ " was her niiivc comment. I have often won- 

 dered how much good it was tliought could be accomplished by urging 

 poverty-stricken, penniless jDcople of tlie slums and lung blocks to keep 

 clean, eat plenty of nourishing food and sleej) with the windows open 

 in order to overcome tuberculosis when the total assets of the family 

 couldn't purchase a cake of soap, when a fresh egg was beyond the 

 mefans of the well-to-do, and when perchance there was no window in the 

 luxurious one-room apartment. We should be careful about indulging 

 in this type of humor — this is wit, bitter irony. It is with the science 

 of economics that such conditions must be met. And we must not deceive 

 ourselves with the belief that the rural communities have no problems 

 of bodily cleanliness, diet or liousing that can lie remedied only by 

 altered economic conditions. 



