1919] p:ditorial. 709 



inquiry. This will be helpful to those who liaAe accepted in an 

 academic way the growing importance of this subject, but have only 

 conceived dimly the research aspects of it or the specific lines along 

 which inquiry should proceed. Here, as in rural economics, the secur- 

 ing of a sufficient background of data will be essential to the develop- 

 ment of facts of limited range, and the taking of these will naturally 

 constitute a rather elementary type of work. The broader surveys 

 will clear the way for more detailed and intimate studies and at the 

 same time will disclose actual conditions on which remedial or correc- 

 tive measures must rest. 



It is the consensus of opinion that the individual and the circum- 

 stances which surround him are vital factors to be taken account of 

 in farm management and farm economic studies, and it is natural 

 therefore that the Office of Farm Management should supply the 

 nucleus for the new line of study relating to the farmer and his envi- 

 ronment. For, as Professor Galpin shows, the rural problem, the 

 problem of how to maintain a high standard of rural citizenship, is 

 a much broader one than that of financial prosperity. Fundamentally 

 it is the maintenance of American standards of living on the farm. 

 The conditions of it are as yet unknown because unstudied. The 

 country people often solve it by moving away from the land, thus 

 taking from the country the persons possessing seasoned farm practice 

 and the high qualities which it is especially desired to retain there. 

 The problem, as he states, " is a very complicated social, human, psy- 

 chological, and political problem, having to do with a class of people 

 whose cultural, esthetic, and intellectual aspirations have hitherto 

 been very largely postponed by one force or another, by one set of 

 circumstances or another." That these things can be analyzed and 

 studied in a way to develop trustworthy relations between cause and 

 effect there can be little doubt. 



