And State Papers 339 



nently proper work of making the conditions of life 

 easier and better for the people whom of all others 

 we can least afford to see grow discontented with 

 their lot in life the people who live in the country 

 districts. The extraordinary, the wholly unheard-of, 

 rate of our industrial development during the past 

 seventy-five years, together with the good sides 

 has had some evil sides. It is a fine thing to see 

 our cities built up, but not at the expense of the 

 country districts. The healthy thing to see is the 

 building up of both the country and city go hand in 

 hand. But we can not expect the ablest, the most 

 eager, the most ambitious young men to stay in the 

 country, to stay on the farm, unless they have cer 

 tain advantages. If the farm life is a life of isola 

 tion, a life in which it is a matter of great and real 

 difficulty for one man to communicate with his 

 neighbor, you can rest assured that there will be a 

 tendency to leave it on the part of those very people 

 whom we should most wish to see stay in it. It is a 

 good thing to encourage in every way any tendency 

 which will tend to check an unhealthy flow from the 

 country to the city. There are several such ten 

 dencies in evidence at present. The growth of elec 

 tricity as a means of transportation tends to a cer 

 tain degree to exercise a centrifugal force to offset 

 the centripetal force of steam. Exactly as steam and 

 electricity have tended to gather men in masses, so 

 now electricity, as applied to the purposes which 

 steam has so long claimed as exclusively its own, 

 tends again to scatter out the masses. The trolley 



