GENERAL PRINCIPLES 



27 



technic. There are probably no instruments known to any craft 

 which are more perfect in their adaptation, with more fine 

 poiits upon which excellence in their form and construction 

 depends, than some of the simpler implements of modern hus- 

 bandry. The common plow is an example. The shaping of 

 the moldboard so as to give the maximum efficiency with the 

 minimum resistance is a problem of the utmost nicety. It is 

 a problem to which Thomas Jefferson himself gave years of 

 thought and calculation. Though this part of his work has not 

 attracted so much of the world's attention as that which he 

 de\oted to the problem of the best form of government, it is 

 not quite certain that it was less important. 



These considerations should combine to give character and 

 dignity to rural life and work, at least in the minds of those 

 who see deeper than mere superficial culture, or manners, or 

 arts of expression, and are able to appreciate the relative value 

 to the world of various ways of getting a living. 



Isolation the menace of farm life as congestion is of city life. 

 At the same time these considerations should call our attention 

 to some of the real dangers of rural life. The sheer isolation 

 of farm life has a depressing effect upon the intellectual life of 

 those who require the stimulus of excitement and contact with 

 other men to keep their minds active. Such people frequently 

 sink into a state of mental inactivity and moral torpor which 

 helps to justify some of the epithets which have been applied to 

 them. This is a danger to which a new country such as ours is 

 peculiarly open. Where the conditions of life are as easy as 

 they have been in this country up to the present time, even very 

 inefficient specimens of humanity have been able to hold their 

 own against competition. If they are fortunate enough to get 

 possession of land which does not attract more progressive 

 farmers, they may live unmolested for generations. Accordingly 

 ont: finds, in out-of-the-way places in different sections of our 



