318 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



Atlantic not only would materially benefit our rural population, 

 but seem, in addition, distinctly called for. If there is a will to 

 provide them, there ought to be no serious difficulty about procuring 

 also the necessary funds. 



Under the aspect of women's part in the shaping of rural recon- 

 struction the American girls' clubs, indeed, deserve far greater 

 attention in this country than, as being something " outlandish," 

 they have thus far received. There is no more effective help to the 

 " back to the land " — or, rather, which is the better part of the 

 programme, the " keep on the land " — policy. If, as President 

 Roosevelt has put it, " the successful mother, the mother that 

 does her part in rearing and training aright the boys and girls who 

 are to be the men and women of the next generation, is of greater 

 use to the community, and occupies, if she only would realise it, a 

 more honourable, as well as more important, position than any 

 successful man, it follows also that . . . she is the one superior asset 

 of national life." Here is a splendid testimony accorded to the farm 

 woman. It is she who makes the family, she who makes the race 

 — she, accordingly also, who makes the social life of the country 

 and determines whether it is to be community fife, as we wish, or 

 not. You may see the effect of woman's influence in this way at 

 the present time under a telling aspect in what used to be the 

 Prussian provinces of Poland. The Prussian Government at an 

 extravagant expense sent tens of thousands of Germans to settle 

 there, in order to Germanise the country. However, a large 

 number of those settlers married Polish wives, and the result is a 

 rich crop of thoroughly Polish offspring. I have pleaded, in the 

 matter of raising of live stock, for greater consideration to be paid 

 to the choice of dams, by the side of the common favouring of 

 sires. The object at stake in our present case being much 

 higher, it is of much greater importance that, when dealing 

 with the human species we should pay becoming attention to 

 the female side, not indeed of the pedigree, but of the upgrowing 

 generation. Thus far, speaking generally, for the humbler grades 

 of society, the female education has not been as good as the 

 male. The Canadians, detecting the mistake made in this, have 

 in their own way applied a remedy. In Canadian educational 

 organisation female teaching is, in rural districts, preponderant, 

 and the rising female generation experiences the benefit. And 

 we may gather from the report which Mr. John Hamilton, of 

 the United States Department of Agriculture, presented to the 

 International Congress held at Brussels in 1910 — in which he admits 



