62 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



ALWAYS ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT 



But to win our case for the importance of improving 

 country life, it is not necessary to dwell at length on 

 the great defects. We can fall back upon the general 

 proposition that there is no farm community so good 

 that it cannot be better. We can challenge with the 

 assertion that "the best is none too good." If there is 

 one thing in the community that is not what it ought to 

 be, let us make it right. If there is one family in the 

 neighborhood that can be aided by intelligent sympathy 

 into a better way of living, shall it not be done ? Why 

 worry about the effects of well-meaning city people or 

 organizations, so long as we can, out of our own obser- 

 vations and ambitions, find a way toward the betterment 

 of our farm life ? 



THE CONCERN OF THE CITY 



It is often said that such matters as we have been 

 mentioning are not the concern of the city anyhow and 

 that urban discussion of country life is impertinent. 

 But that is not correct. The war has taught us once 

 and for all that no nation liveth or dieth unto itself 

 alone. America now has a deep interest in every cor- 

 ner of the earth. And so at home, we cannot enter the 

 New Day fully prepared to meet its problems unless we 

 are conscious that the problems of New York's East 

 Side have a meaning for the farmers of the wheat belt ; 

 and that the quality of farm life in every remote county 

 of the land must have its bearing on the interests of 

 the great city. There is a stream of human life con- 

 stantly flowing from country to city ; is it pure and 

 wholesome or muddy and defiled? The answer is of 

 vast concern to the city. A careless dairyman up in 



