202 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



Some students of social problems have concluded that this 

 character of progressiveness on the part of the people at large is 

 of even more value than technical scientific knowledge. Tech- 

 nical scientific knowledge can easily be borrowed from another 

 nation if our people have but the disposition to use it ; but the 

 disposition itself cannot be borrowed : it must be bred into the 

 blood and bone of the people, as it is the result of generations of 

 training. The Japanese, for example, have been able to borrow 

 from the occidentals all that they knew about the art of war- 

 fare, together with armaments and equipments. What they did 

 not borrow, and from the nature of the case could not borrow, 

 was that splendid courage, discipline, and enthusiasm which en- 

 abled them to use these technical advantages with such effect. 

 It is not too much to say that if our educational system succeeds 

 in developing a progressive attitude of mind, a genuine desire 

 to be always improving, our people will manage in some way 

 to get the necessary technical knowledge of agriculture. If, in 

 addition to the development of the progressive attitude, the 

 schools can also supply the farmer with technical knowledge, 

 they will have done doubly well. 



V. CAPITAL AS A FACTOR IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 



In preceding chapters we have seen that capital is a means 

 of utilizing land more perfectly, or of economizing it, and also 

 of economizing in the use of labor. We have now to examine 

 the nature of capital, and to inquire into the conditions under 

 which it comes into existence and the part it plays in agricultural 

 production. 



What are economic goods ? All useful things may be divided 

 into two great classes, called economic goods, and noneconomic 

 or free goods. The former are scarce ; that is, they do not exist 

 in usable form in sufficient abundance to satisfy all our wants, 

 and therefore they have to be economized. The latter are so 



