370 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



according to aristocratic principles, in that the grouping is based 

 upon something besides the accident of birth ; but it falls short 

 of a thoroughly democratic ideal, according to which social life 

 ought to run freely without regard to the boundaries of class, 

 creed, or fraternal order. This ideal, however, has not yet been 

 realized, for those countries and communities where hereditary 

 aristocracy is least in evidence are the places where secret soci- 

 eties and fraternal orders are most highly developed and most 

 influential. Doubtless they furnish a protection against the dis- 

 agreeable obtrusiveness of the mob element in our aggressive 

 democracy ; but there is danger that their very exclusiveness 

 should breed a spirit of snobbishness. 



Shall rural people set their own standards, or shall they 

 imitate city people? But all the organizations and agencies 

 which contribute to the social life of rural communities will fall 

 short of their highest possibilities unless they make rural life 

 socially self-supporting, and independent of the standards and 

 fashions of the city ; unless, in short, they give to the social life 

 of the country a character and dignity of its own, instead of being 

 a bad copy of city life. So long as country life lacks this dis- 

 tinctive character and dignity, so long as country people look 

 to the cities for their standards of dress, their social habits, and 

 their ideals of propriety, so long will rural social life remain un- 

 satisfactory. The domination of the city over the country is, in 

 last analysis, a mental or spiritual domination. It will end when 

 country people are able to set their own standards, when they 

 stop trying to be city people, or to be like city people. When 

 they develop a reasonable pride in the fact that they are country 

 people, and in their country dress, country habits, country cus- 

 toms ; and when this pride is justified by the inherent sanity 

 and simple, unostentatious dignity of their lives, then we shall 

 have a rural civilization worthy of the name. Unless this result 

 is achieved, many of the so-called rural improvements will merely 



