MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 177 



West especially attention has been given to the rural hostility to, 

 or at least misunderstanding of, city movements which attempt 

 ambitious social advances. It is safe to assume that this attitude 

 of rural people is widespread and is noticeable far West merely 

 because of a greater frankness. The easterner hides his attitude 

 because he has become conscious that it opens him to criticism. 

 This attitude of rural hostility is rooted in the fundamental 

 differences between the thinking of country and of city people, 

 due largely to the process of social selection. This mental dif- 

 ference gives constant opportunity for social friction. If the in- 

 dividuals who live most happily in the city and in the country are 

 contrasted, there is reason to suppose that the mental opposition 

 expresses nervous differences. In one we have the more rapid, 

 more changeable, and more consuming thinker, while the thought 

 of the other is slower, more persistent, and less wasteful of 

 nervous energy. 



The work of the average farmer brings him into limited asso- 

 ciation with his fellows as compared with the city worker. This 

 fact also operates upon him mentally. He has less sense of social 

 variations and less realization of the need of group solidarity. 

 This results in his having less social passion than his city brother, 

 except when he is caught in a periodic outburst of economic dis- 

 content expressed in radical agitation, and also in his having a 

 more feeble class-consciousness and a weaker basis for coopera- 

 tion. This last limitation is one from which the farmer seriously 

 suffers. 



The farmer's lack of contact with antagonistic groups because 

 his work keeps him away from the centers where social discontent 

 boils with passion and because it prevents his appreciating class 

 differences makes him a conservative element in our national life, 

 but one alwa\ r s big with the danger of a blind servitude to tradi- 

 tions and archaic social judgments. The thinking of the farmer 

 may be cither substantial from his sense of personal sufficiency or 

 backward from his lack of contact. The decision regarding his 

 attitude is made by the influences that enter his life, in addition 

 to those born of his occupation. 



At this point, however, it would be serious to forget that some 

 of the larger farming enterprises are carried on so differently that 

 the manager and owner are more like the factory operator than 



