THE RURAL PROBLEM 51 



cooperation, a real community interest. Each can 

 help the other. 



Permanent Agriculture without Caste. We have a 

 shifting agricultural population. There is scarcely 

 any part of America which has not suffered from over- 

 frequent migration to the city or to other parts of the 

 country. Ownership changes frequently. This imper- 

 manence is not true everywhere, but it is characteristic 

 of American agriculture. It cannot result in the best 

 farming. It has not contributed to the best community 

 life. Leadership is lost; yet we would not want every- 

 body born in the country to stay in the country. The 

 idea of keeping all the farm boys on the farm is the 

 poorest policy we could follow. We cannot afford to 

 arrange our rural education so that the boy is obliged 

 to stay on the farm or go to the city handicapped in his 

 preparation for life. The door from country to city 

 must swing wide. There must be freedom of inter- 

 course between city and country. We must not have a 

 peasantry a rustic group. In no parts of our coun- 

 try must there be a possibility of farmers being looked 

 down upon or being sharply distinguished from other 

 classes in any way that marks them off as a caste. How 

 then may we adjust our modes of living, our education, 

 our country life, our village life, so that we shall secure 

 the advantages of permanent occupation of the land 

 without the disadvantages of a caste system? 



Some Special Problems. There is no doubt but the 

 racial problems which have disturbed our country show 

 themselves in agriculture. Special groups, such as the 

 negro farmer, the mountaineer able but isolated, the 

 emigrant farmer sturdy but foreign, must in some 

 fashion be taken into the common lot. Only so can we 



