GENERAL PRINCIPLES 21 



The fact that agriculture is still a family industry where the 

 work and the home life are not divorced, and where all members 

 c-f the family participate in the common toil for the support of 

 the home, gives a natural basis for a type of family life which 

 i: is very difficult to maintain in the city. Educators will gener- 

 ally agree that one of the greatest weaknesses of the city home is 

 the lack of a common business interest among all the members 

 of the family. City parents who are wise will always recognize 

 this weakness and take pains to overcome it. But the typical 

 farmer's family requires no artificial methods to bring its various 

 members together on the basis of a common interest. When the 

 breadwinner of a city family is not self-employed, but an em- 

 ployee, as the majority of them are, this weakness is still further 

 emphasized. There* is, then, nothing in the way of a business 

 interest to be handed from father to son. The sons are deprived 

 of the priceless advantage of learning to work along with the 

 father, under his direction and in imitation of him. This advan- 

 tage the country boy usually has, partly because of the fact, al- 

 ready mentioned, that agriculture is an industry of small units, 

 which means that a large proportion of those engaged in it 

 a vast majority of them in this country are self-employed. 



As a result of this, there are business problems, aside from 

 the perennial one of household expenditures, to be discussed in 

 i he family council, questions of selling as well as of buying, 

 of investing for production as well as buying for consumption. 

 All these things add to the strength of the bonds which hold the 

 rural family together. One result is that the rural family is a 

 stable institution, whereas the city family has become a rela- 

 tively unstable one. This relative instability is shown in sev- 

 eral ways. In the first place, the divorce rate is much higher in 

 die cities than in the country districts. In the second place, 

 the city families tend to die out through celibacy, sterility, and 

 various other agencies, whereas the rural families persist. The 



