604 EXPERIMENT. STATION RECORD. 



" The Avidespread {•ontiimiiig depletion of soils, with the injurious 

 effect on rural life: 



" A general need of new and active leadership. 



•• Other causes contributing to the general result are : Lack of any 

 adequate system of agricultural credit, whereb}" the farmer may 

 readih' secure loans on fair terms; the shortage of labor, a condition 

 that is often complicated by intemperance among workmen ; lack of 

 institutions and incentives that tie the laboring man to the soil; the 

 burdens and the narrow life of farm women ; lack of adequate super- 

 vision of public health." 



The three great general and innnediate needs of country life as 

 summarized by the President from the findings of the commission 

 are: "First, effective cooperation among farmers, to put them on a 

 level with the organized interests with which they do business. 



'* Second, a new kind of schools in the country, which shall teach 

 the children as much outdoors as indoors and perhaps more, so that 

 they will prepare for country life, and Jiot as at present, mainly for 

 life in town. 



" Third, better means of communication, including good roads 

 and a parcels post, Avhich the country people are everywhere, and 

 rightly, unanimous in demanding. 



" To these may well be added better sanitation; for easily prevent- 

 able diseases hold several million country people in the slavery of 

 continuous ill health."* 



The report of the conmiission states that the subject of paramount 

 importance as developed by the inquiries of the commission is educa- 

 tion. •' In every part of the United States there seems to be one mind, 

 on the part of tho.se capable of judging, on the necessity of redirect- 

 ing the rural schools. There is no such unanimity on any other sub- 

 ject. It is remarkable with what similarity of phrase the subject 

 has been discussed in all parts of the country before the commission. 

 Everywhere there is a demand that education have relation to living, 

 that the schools should express the daily life, and that in the rural 

 districts they should educate by means of agriculture and country 

 life subjects. It is recognized that all difficulties resolve themselves 

 in the end into a question of education." The commission is of the 

 opinion that "' the most necessary thing now to be done for public- 

 school education in terms of country life is to arouse all the jDeople to 

 the necessity of such education, to coordinate the forces that are be- 

 ginning to operate, and to project the work beyond the schools for 

 youth into continuation schools for adults." The commission there- 

 fore suggests the establishment of nation-wide extension work. " The 

 first, or original, work of the agricultural branches of the land-grant 

 colleges Avas academic in the old sense; later there w^as added the 

 great field of experiment and research ; there noAv should be added 

 the third coordinate branch, comprising extension Avork, Avithout 



