MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 173 



duct. The spectacular character of moral struggle and ethical 

 effort in the city makes urban life a source from which to draw 

 interesting moral appeal. This bias in teaching is magnified not 

 infrequently by the attitude of the teacher toward rural life, 

 consciously or unconsciously. The suggestion of the urban 

 minded teacher and the urban inspired school system are bound 

 to provide effective suggestions that will later provide a basis for 

 rural discontent. 



The early experience on the farm may leave a suggestion of 

 unreasonable toil. Romantic youth can not rest content with 

 a vision of endless, lengthened hours of work and merely a living. 

 Other opportunities provide a living also, with less toil. Parents 

 have at times been responsible for this conception of farming, 

 because they have insisted upon having their sons and daughters 

 work unreasonably during vacation and after school. The 

 parent, who looks backward upon a generation more given to 

 long toil than this, and uses his own earlier experience as a 

 standard, may the more easily commit this mistake and teach 

 his children to hate the farm and rural life. 



The boy on the farm finds at times that his holiday and vaca- 

 tion are encroached upon by needed labor. Weather and harvest 

 conditions rob him of the pleasures that his village chum enjoys. 

 Some definite plan for an outing,, or some greatly desired day > of 

 sport has to be given up that the crop may not be injured. 



Doubtless parents allow these disappointments to happen with 

 little reason, and looking at the matter from an adult point of 

 view, do not regard the boy 's feelings as of serious significance ; 

 and yet, in the light of modern psychology, we know that such 

 experiences may build up a very significant hostility to the rural 

 environment that appears to be the cause of the agonizing disap- 

 pointments. The cumulative effects of a few bitter experiences 

 of this nature may be' sufficient to turn the boy away from the 

 country in his heart of hearts for all time. In such cases the 

 first opportunity to leave the country for the town vpll be ac- 

 cepted gladly, as a way of escape from a life emotionally in- 

 tolerable. 



The student of rural life is tempted to look too much to the 

 country and too little to the city for the cause of rural migration. 

 It is not easy to value properly the constant and impressive sug- 



