NEED OF ORGANISATION 95 



which, communities of owned farms have over those of tenant 

 farms." 



To assist in this, bankers are readily offering their aid in the 

 shape of credit, which helps greatly in organisation. 



Beyond this, also, Americans have understood the nature of 

 this great and beneficial task for which the Chairman of the 

 Agricultural Commission of the American Bankers' Association, 

 Mr. Joseph Hirsch, advocates " a national drive." They are doing 

 much to provide new roads — a thing now happily not required in 

 this country — proposing to vote 200,000,000 dollars for the purpose. 

 They are pushing sanitary improvements. " I shall not be satisfied," 

 said Secretary Houston, " until efficient sanitary agencies are set 

 up and hospital and clinical facilities are provided in every rural 

 district." They are improving school teaching by making one 

 fairly large, well-staffed and well-equipped school out of a number 

 of small and less efficient ones, and two-teacher establishments, 

 even in country districts, sending motor cars round to convey the 

 children to their destination. And they are laying themselves out 

 greatly for the enlistment of women's work in rural life. The idea 

 of doing so — which has now greatly " caught on " in pretty well 

 all countries — in truth took its birth in the United States, from which 

 M. de Vuyst carried it into Europe — his own country, Belgium, 

 first of all. That does not mean only that women are to be rendered 

 more useful as workers in farm and field. They are — both in the 

 United States and in Canada — emphatically called " home-makers " 

 — their special intended task being to make " homes," without 

 which, being comfortable and attractive homes, there can be no 

 country life satisfactory to those who are called upon to lead it. 

 More will have to be said about this, as about other points already 

 touched upon. The present is not the proper stage for entering 

 into details. Evidently this is a point at which we greatly fail in 

 comparison with our trans-Atlantic brothers and cousins. Germany 

 educates its " home-makers." British travellers in France remark 

 upon the striking difference in humble country dwellings on this 

 side of the Channel and on that. Beyond it, women manage to 

 infuse something of beauty and cosiness into peasant homes, with 

 their peculiar knack of decorating rooms and creating neatness, 

 besides providing more toothsome dishes for the table. Our own 

 peasant has his dwelling — if indeed they be lucky enough to secure 

 one ; but as a rule it lacks all the attributes of a " home " ; and yet, 

 abroad ours is the country of all others, looked upon as the preserve 

 of ;< homes " and " home life." Decidedly, as in Sterne's days, 



