194 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



children and of country people in general is that the science and 

 art of human living, of conserving and improving human health 

 and general human welfare, have advanced much more rapidly 

 in the cities than in the country districts. The problems of 

 safety and comfort as affected by congestion of population and 

 many other conditions of urban life have thrust themselves upon 

 human attention and have received much consideration. 



The art of human care has progressed much more slowly in 

 the country. The father in the city spends, on the average, a 

 larger percentage of his income for the welfare of his children 

 than does the father on the farm. The farmer, relatively, raises 

 everything else more carefully and, as a rule, more successfully, 

 than his children. 



Still another condition which helps to explain this astonishing 

 inferiority of the country child is the environment. The country 

 home and the country school are, on the average, less sanitary 

 and healthful than the city home and the city school. 



It has been assumed that because the country child has all 

 the features of the country, he is, of course, surrounded by for- 

 tunate and wholesome conditions. But the possession of all 

 outdoors is far from enough. The farmer's home is, as a rule, 

 insanitary in many respects. It is often terribly unventilated, 

 and the dwellers in the house are fed many hours of the day with 

 bad air. Country water and food are less wholesome than water 

 and food in the city. The standards of living on the American 

 farm, when tested by the accepted principles of sanitation and 

 hygiene, are alarmingly defective. 



The rural school, from the standpoint of health and general 

 fitness for its important use, is the worst type of building in the 

 whole country, including not only all types of buildings used for 

 human buildings, but also those used for livestock and all do- 

 mestic animals. Rural schools are, 011 the average, less adequate 

 for their use than prisons, asylums, .almshouses, stables, dairy 

 barns, pig pens, chicken houses, dog kennels are for their uses. 



In the city the best ideas are more readily brought into contact 

 with all of the people. For many in our cities, deprived through 

 poverty of the material necessities of life intellectual and social 

 as well as physical a bounteous philanthropy frequently sup- 



