PROBLEMS OF RURAL SOCIAL LIFE 351 



religion to give people a saner appreciation of things, teach 

 them to be more interested in normal calves than in two-headed 

 calves, in normal men than in dime-museum freaks, in sane 

 writers than in certain degenerate types now holding the atten- 

 tion of the gaping crowd. If this can be brought about, then it 

 will result that the religious type of man, even in cities, will 

 more and more prevail over the irreligious, provided the reli- 

 gion itself is worth preserving, that is, provided it becomes 

 a positive factor in the conservation of human energy. 



As has already been suggested, there is a great deal more in- 

 volved in the making of a good farmer than in the teaching of 

 scientific agriculture. Mr. Benjamin Kidd, in his " Social Evo- 

 lution," has done well to emphasize the importance of moral 

 qualities as compared with intellectual achievements. In the 

 first place, intellectual achievements, or their results, can only 

 be utilized where there is a sane and wholesome morality as a 

 basis. In the second place, the results of the intellectual achieve- 

 ment of one race or of one man may be borrowed freely by the 

 rest of the world, provided the rest of the world have the moral 

 qualities which will enable them to profit by so doing ; whereas 

 moral qualities cannot be borrowed from one race by another. 

 Japan, for example, could easily borrow from European nations 

 the art of modern warfare, together with its instruments of de- 

 struction ; but she did not borrow, and could not borrow, that 

 splendid courage and discipline which enabled her to utilize so 

 efficiently the inventions which she borrowed. So one nation 

 can easily borrow farm machinery and modern methods of agri- 

 culture, but it cannot borrow the moral qualities which will en- 

 able it to profit by them. Saying nothing of mental alertness 

 and willingness to learn, which might be classed as mental 

 rather than moral, it could not borrow that patient spirit of toil, 

 nor that sturdy self-reliance, nor that stern and unrelenting sense 

 of duty, nor that forethought which sacrifices present enjoyment 



