192 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



profoundly the value of the lessons to the young, as well as hasten 

 or delay the actual application of our program to their lives. 

 Therefore we need an abundance of plain, practical extension 

 teaching on this subject. Most of our state universities are 

 making some efforts in this direction and the State Boards of 

 Health are frequently doing good work and can do more still. 

 There is no good reason why health extension teaching should 

 not be made available wherever it proves valuable. It can be 

 carried on through local clubs, farmers' institutes, the social 

 center where one has been developed, the rural lecture course, and 

 even the rural church. All of the leading facts about health and 

 sanitation can be easily and clearly presented in public lectures 

 and through bulletins, and people will be interested in them 

 when so offered. Of a more general educational nature, but 

 distinctly valuable in its way, is the rural health survey. 



Two diseases from which the rural population suffers more 

 than the urban are nervous and circulatory derangements. 

 Clearly then more than sanitation alone, perhaps more even than 

 health teaching, must be provided for the rural community. 

 There is too much isolation, life is too monotonous, there is too 

 much introspection, too much brooding over problems and dif- 

 ficulties by the rural dweller and too little self-forgetfulness in 

 the presence of others. For this difficulty we must prescribe a 

 better social life, intercourse which gives to the thought new 

 objects of attention and makes life seem less of a struggle and so 

 little a pleasure. Farm women especially are lacking in such 

 contacts. The best remedy here is the social center which 

 cooperates with the home. If contacts are to be broadened, as 

 they should be, care must be taken that they be made restful 

 rather than competitive and destructive of energy. Another in- 

 direct menace to health comes from the excessive severity and 

 duration of labor on the farm at certain times of the year. It 

 may not be possible to abolish seasonal labor altogether, nor to 

 find machines to do all of the excessively difficult tasks, but a 

 better system of farm management, more cooperation in farm 

 labor, and a better understanding of the dangers of physical and 

 nervous overstrain should do much to remove some of the worse 

 evils in this connection. 



The various methods of improving rural health here suggested 



