THE SOCIAL SIDE OF FARM LIFE 391 



child is allowed to get in touch with a larger cross section of life, 

 and as the farm father grows to feel on easy terms with the 

 business men of his community. 



One strong influence leading to hope and appreciation in the 

 home will be a policy of screening off from the house and home 

 view, with objects of beauty, the more vulgar aspects of farm 

 work, necessary as they may be. Walls, trees, hedges, vines, 

 have always been used as screens, more or less, about the house. 

 A public policy to this effect would make the practice more gen- 

 eral. All pictorial representations of farm life in advertisements, 

 in books, in magazine articles, in wall decorations, would do a 

 service to the life side of the farm household if they were to put 

 forward the best, the ideal indeed, rather than the common 

 realistic instance in posture, garment, gait, and use of hand 

 implements. 



There is one reservation to be made in regard to the reorganiza- 

 tion and socialization of the farm household. America will 

 demand that no scheme of organization of the farm home shall 

 endanger the stamina of the farm family as a basal unit of the 

 nation. No social progress would be worth while at the price 

 of a weakening of the family tie on the farmstead. The final 

 statement, therefore, of the farm household problem is how to 

 give the farm family the higher goods of life in much larger meas- 

 ure, and how at the same time without fail to maintain the 

 present bond of virility in the family unit. 



The neighborhood. Family life in the country is environed 

 with neighbors. As in biblical history, the drama of life on the 

 farm is played by father, mother, sons, daughters, servants, 

 and neighbors. The neighborhood is a unit of loose organiza- 

 tion. However, its bond of cohesion, racial, topographical, or 

 institutional, is usually very real and admits of tightening. 

 " Good neighbors," " accommodating neighbors," " neighbors 

 you can depend on," are phrases which indicate the tie of 

 organization. " Gossipy neighbors," " slippery neighbors," 

 " rough neighbors," indicate a deficiency in organization. 



The fact is that scientific farming needs neighborhood spirit, 

 enterprises, and mechanism of organization. Technical co- 



