114 



The Journal of Heredity 



knowing the past and foreseeing the 

 future of human progress! 



Having ascertained that our institu- 

 tional system is not a congenial stock 

 for agricultural education, we should be 

 ready to try the alternative experiment, 

 to see how much education can be 

 grafted on agriculture. The methods 

 that are being developed to extend the 

 use of special agricultural and house- 

 hold information among farmers could 

 be applied to the diffusion of knowledge 

 of other kinds, and make it possible to 

 determine the true possibilities of rural 

 education. Not only the feeding and 

 care of infants, but the nurture of old5r 

 children can be learned bv parents If 

 the need is recognized, instead of the 

 schools assuming responsibilities that 

 they are uneible to meet. 



Not only in education, but in many 

 other ways, the habitual acceptance of 

 urban ideas interferes with the concrete 

 biological, human-interest study that 

 farm problems need. Agriculture must 

 be set in the midst of the world's thought, 

 not merely taken for granted, or given 

 only casual, peripheral attention. Re- 

 flecting that agriculture is the basis of 

 our existence will not maintain our 

 civilization if farm life is submerged 

 and smothered by urban superfluities. 



FARM PROBLEMS NEED r-ERSISTENT 

 STUDY 



Instead of waiting blindly for ab- 

 stract "economic principles" to deter- 

 mine the fate of our civilization, as of 

 t)lhers in the past, we should see that 

 practical adjustments of human rela- 

 tions and activities need to be worked 

 out with the same scientific patience 

 and precaution as the devek)pment of 

 flying-machines or other difticult inven- 

 tions. (Gravitation and equilibrium 

 offered many baffling problems, but did 

 not make flying-machines impossible. 

 No such intensive consideration has 

 been given to human welfare adjust- 

 ments as to mechanical (le\ices, militarv 

 tactics and strategy, or to industrial 

 and commercial systems. Theology 

 and astronomy have absorbed more 

 high-power intelligence than the scien- 



tific study of agriculture or of human 

 progress. 



Farmers, no less than scientific in\es- 

 tigators or business experts, need time 

 and opportunity to discuss, organ- 

 ize, and develop constructive ideas. 

 "Farming is a job that requires the best 

 brains of the best men, for no country 

 has ever solved its agricultural prob- 

 lem." But the urban problem of 

 making money out of the farmers has 

 had many ingenious and effective solu- 

 tions, reached by persistent stuck-. 

 Beyond the urban horizon are the farm 

 problems, as wide and many-sided as 

 civilization itself, which essentially is 

 an outgrowth or epiphenomenon of 

 agriculture. A true, agricultural civili- 

 zatitm would provide for a full develop- 

 ment of human instincts and abilities, 

 while urbanism permits only a partial, 

 restricted development. Hence, ur- 

 banism is to be distinguished from civil- 

 ization, and avoided like a disease. 



Instead of being concerned with 

 civilization as a highly complex organi- 

 zation of human activities, much of our 

 so-called "political economy" is mere 

 formulation of urban interest — the 

 science of wealth, but not the study of 

 welfare. Discussion usually is en- 

 tangled in abstract definitions and 

 deductions, or interest is di\'erted to 

 moral or political "principles," instead 

 of facing the issues of agricultural 

 progress. Many economic writers con- 

 sider only commerce and finance, 

 while others treat of land as a form of 

 pro{)erty, or of crop production as 

 affecting industr\' and taxation, but 

 not t)f agriculture as a human environ- 

 ment, a fun<lamental condition of the 

 life, liberty, and progress of civilized 

 j^eople. There is warrant for the critic 

 who says: "I get the impression from 

 books on political economy that most 

 writers and readers first dehumanize 

 themselves as a prerequisite to a dis- 

 cussion of the morals of trade." Kcono- 

 niists are not eugenists. They do not 

 use the "Man-Measure" of the ancient 

 (ireeks, nor regard the jioet's warning, 

 "Where wealth accinnulate.s, and nu-n 

 decay." 



