Home MoJicts' Conference. 355 



been the hope of the nation ; in our country, as a rule, the leaders of 

 men in all walks of life came from the farm home. 



An acknowledged modern authority contends in substance that the 

 prime causes leading to the fall of Rome were : ' ' Dislike of patient 

 toil, hope of quick profits, extravagant desires, the creation of pleasure- 

 loving appetites, resulting in the abandonment of agriculture, the rush 

 to cities, the hatred of loneliness and nature, and the proclivities for 

 street life and sensation." 



If the overcrowding of town centers and the abandonment of agri- 

 culture preceded the downfall of Rome, is it not timely to give thought- 

 ful examination into the causes of this movement in our own nation? 



Ex-President Roosevelt thought so when he appointed that group- 

 of scientific men — The Country Life Commission — to study the eco- 

 nomic, social and educational conditions on the 840,000,000 acres of land 

 now devoted to farming, and raised this question : ' ' How can the lif e- 

 of the farm family be less solitary, fuller of opportimity, freer from 

 drudgery, more comfortable, happier and more attractive? How can 

 life on the farm be kept on the highest level, and when it is not al- 

 ready on that level, be so improved, dignified and brightened as to 

 awaken and keep alive the pride and loyalty of the farmer's boys and 

 girls, or the farmer's wife and the farmer himself? How can the de- 

 sire to live on the farm be aroused in the children who are born on the 

 farm?" The first sentence sounds the keynote to the situation where 

 it says "less solitary, fuller of opportunity, freer from drudgery, more 

 comfortable, happier and more attractive," and it implies some failures 

 on the part of home and school, else why this wholesale depopulation of 

 rural districts? 



The home is the unit of American civilization, and the school may 

 be the best or the worst influence that may come to the home, and should 

 always be regarded as an auxiliary of the home. The best culture of 

 the school will aid in making the ideal home, and the ideal home is con- 

 stantly busy in planning and providing for the best possible type of 

 school. Let me show you a rural school in North ^Missouri that I have 

 viewed so many times from the Wabash train the past six years; a 

 school within the shadows of a model rural school house, wdiere patrons, 

 directors and teachers must have heard of the State Superintendent's 

 repeated appeals for annual tree plantings, cleaning-up days, etc. This 

 school building has weathered such influences successfully, and there it 

 stands today unchanged except by the wear of Time and continued neg- 

 lect. It is the box-car type of building, with the usual outbuildings, in 

 themselves a menace to the moral health of the children. It stands in a 

 yard bleak and bare — a type so imiversal that the traveler from any 



