1 64 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



wrong doing of an individual as merely his own affair. 

 A bad man is a plague spot in a community. Thou- 

 sands of men would almost give their right arms if 

 they could have avoided in youth certain contacts with 

 men who were not clean. We have been too tolerant 

 of sin and too intolerant of the sinner. We must re- 

 verse our scales and contend the evil by extending a 

 friendly hand to the repentant. But what can be done 

 in the rural community? Well, if every wrong were to 

 become a community affair, it would be easier to en- 

 force the law. At present, it is difficult to enforce law 

 in the rural community because enforcement is such a 

 personal affair between people who know one another. 

 But once public opinion demands right doing and the 

 officer of the law knows that he is representative not 

 of his own authority, but of the community, he will be 

 obeyed. Then too Tightness can be made a fundamen- 

 tal article in community program. Unify the religious 

 and moral forces that abide in the church, the Sunday 

 school and the rural Y. M. C. A. into a combination of 

 high ideals and practices. Lay the foundations for 

 good morals by clean sport for the young and healthy 

 recreation for the older ones. Make morality red- 

 blooded. Banish the long-faced preacher and elect no 

 man a church deacon unless the boys in the church nom- 

 inate him. Hold aloft the ideal of a righteous com- 

 munity. The life of the rural people is the most im- 

 portant part of the rural problem. Therefore it ought 

 to be the concern of every rural community to see that 

 in education, in home life, in church life, in health and 

 recreation, in beauty and convenience and morality, 

 high ideals are maintained and practiced and continu- 

 ous steps taken to build up the sort of life that the best 

 people at all times and all people in their best moments 

 acknowledge as half of the great end of living. 



