84 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



It is rare, indeed, that the farmer of the present day cannot 

 afford to send his children to school for at least six months of 

 each school year during the greater portion of their school age. 

 Our high schools and universities and especially our agricul- 

 tural colleges (which, twenty years ago, were hardly known, 

 except on paper) ^ furnish ample evidence both of the greater 

 interest of the farming classes in higher education and of their 

 fitness for the higher lines of work. 



Whether we look to the external signs of comfort and general 

 welfare or to the character of the farmhouses, there appears 

 overwhelming evidence of a great change for the better with 

 respect both to the dependent and independent classes,^ the 

 greater advantage appearing, however, to be in favor of the 

 independent class. 



To ascribe these improved conditions to the introduction and 

 use of machine power alone would doubtless be to overstate the 

 truth, and yet, even waiving the impracticability of providing the 

 requisite food supply by the earlier methods of culture, it is not at 

 all clear that, under those earlier methods of heavy and exhaustive 

 toil, men could be able effectively to interest themselves in affairs of 



instruments are found in a large proportion of the country homes ; a daily paper, 

 some of the best magazines, and often the leading novel of the day are not 

 uncommon. . . . The attractiveness of our rural communities is growing. The 

 movement of the population which has been so strongly toward the cities is now 

 turning toward the country. Improved highways and the extension of trolley 

 lines are bound to encourage this tendency. If formerly country people have 

 sought homes in the cities, it is evident that the people of to-day are appreciating, 

 as never before, that the country offers the strongest inducements for the building 

 up of homes where health and the comforts of life can be enjoyed. Chas. S. 

 Phelps, " Is there a Decadence of New England Agriculture ? " A^ew England 

 Magazine, Vol. XXV, pp. 382-383 



1 U.S. Dept. Agr., Year Book, 1899, p. 173. 



2 But most have a false idea of farm life as it is to-day. The wife need not be 

 the drudge she was once. Bearings have shifted, things are done differently, life 

 runs smoother and better. More is accomplished with less wear of muscle and 

 nerve. People work easier and do more, have greater leisure for recreation and 

 self-culture. Much that the wife did formerly is provided for in other ways. . . . 

 Advanced methods have made farming more profitable, easier indoors and out, 

 have carried to the thinly settled country most of the refining influences and 

 many of the advantages of city life. Clarence E. Blake, "Abandoned Farms 

 as Homes for the Unemployed and City's Poor," New England Magazine (N.S.), 

 Vol. XXIV, p. 582 



