PROBLEMS OF RURAL SOCIAL LIFE 



373 



to be desired, unless it be some information as to cost of production. 

 Full justice is done to the new country life when the Farmers' Club of 

 New York fulfills its chief function, the annual dinner at Delmonico's. 

 Then agriculture is extolled in fine Virgilian style, the Hudson villa and 

 the Newport cottage being permitted to divide the honors of the rural 

 revival with the Long Island home. But to my bucolic intelligence it would 

 seem that against the " back-to-the-land " movement of Saturday afternoon 

 the captious critic might set the rural exodus of Monday morning. 1 



A few magnificent villas, where wealthy townsmen spend the 

 money which they acquire in town, will -not help to solve the 

 problem of country life for those who have to make their living 

 from the soil, except where wealth is combined with taste, tact, 

 and sympathy. If these qualities are absent, the display of urban 

 magnificence in the country tends rather to increase the discon- 

 tent of the young men and women of the neighborhood. It helps 

 to create the impression that the only satisfactory way to live 

 in the country is to go to town and make a fortune, and then 

 come back to the country to spend it. There were many mag- 

 nificent villas owned by Roman magnates in Italy, even in the 

 very worst period of rural decline under the Roman Empire. 

 The dominance of the city was so complete that the country 

 was never looked upon as a place in which to live unless one 

 had a fortune to spend there. Aside from its function of fur- 

 nishing pleasing sites for villas, the country was regarded merely 

 as a place where the city could get supplies of food. People 

 really lived in town. In fact, this dominance of the town over 

 the country was one of the characteristics of ancient civilization, 

 though that dominance was more complete at certain times than 

 at others. 



On this point the following passages are significant : 



Rome was, in its origin, only a municipality, a corporation. The govern- 

 ment of Rome was merely the aggregate of the institutions which were 

 suiied to a population confined within the walls of a city; these were 



1 The Rural Life Problem in the United States (New York, 1910), p. 152. 



