52 CHAPTERS IN RURAL PROGRESS 



sires that the evolution shall be Acadian in its 

 results. It is to be hoped indeed that country 

 sweets shall not lose their delights; that the 

 farmer himself may find in his surroundings 

 spiritual and mental ambrosia. But what is 

 wanted, and what is rapidly coming, is the break 

 ing down of those barriers which have so long 

 differentiated country from urban life; the ex 

 tinction of that social ostracism which has been 

 the farmer's fate; the obliteration of that line 

 which for many a youth has marked the bounds 

 of opportunity: in fact, the creation of a rural 

 society whose advantages, rewards, prerogatives, 

 chances for service, means of culture, and pleas 

 ures are representative of the best and sanest 

 life that the accumulated wisdom of the ages 

 can prescribe for mankind. 



