430 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



of human activity. The factor of time is indispensable in all such 

 movements. The ancient Hebrews of the Exodus spent forty years in 

 the wilderness before they were ready to adopt an agricultural existence, 

 and it is a new generation nurtured in the wilderness of modern Pales- 

 tine who now appreciate the need of a more effective conquest of the art 

 of agriculture. 



The persistence of the colonists in the face of so many difficulties 

 naturally arouses interest in what might be accomplished if a people 

 capable of so much devotion and self-sacrifice should really face the 

 problem of developing an agricultural civilization adapted to the local 

 conditions. As the colonists had not been farmers in Europe, the life 

 they undertook in Palestine broke absolutely with all their previous 

 existence. "What the previous existence must have been can best be 

 judged, perhaps, by what the colonists are willing to accept in Palestine 

 as an improvement. The absence of agricultural knowledge or experi- 

 ence means that they must work at first at the greatest possible disadvan- 

 tage, and encounter all manner of unnecessary toils and hardships that 

 people with agricultural traditions would readily avoid. But even after 

 incredible perseverance has overcome the handicap of unskillful and in- 

 efficient labor and brought material prosperity, the lack of agricultural 

 ideals is even more apparent, for the colonists have still to appreciate 

 and utilize the opportunities that are within their reach, in the direction 

 of securing the normal advantages of agricultural life. And yet in some 

 respects the conditions appear extremely favorable for progress along 

 new lines. The very existence of the colonies is evidence of a strong 

 determination to escape the artificial restrictions represented by the con- 

 ditions of life in the European cities whence most of the colonists have 

 come. 



In the effort to resume a simple agricultural existence the colonists 

 may be said to have gone back about 3,000 years to the time of the 

 ancient theocracy, before the establisliment of kingly government in the 

 persons of Saul and David. The provisions of the law of Moses evi- 

 dently contemplated the development of a purely agricultural civiliza- 

 tion, and made no provision for the control of urban populations by a 

 permanent centralized government. The modern colonies are also free 

 from any attempt at governmental organization and it may be this that 

 has enabled them to develop peaceably in the midst of a population tra- 

 ditionally hostile, but actually much more tolerant than many European 

 communities. 



The reasons of safety that might have impelled the early colonists to 

 crowd themselves together in small slum-like villages no longer justify 

 the continuance of such methods at the present time. The more settled 

 state of the country and the development of telephones and other means 

 of communication would make it possible for each family to live on its 



