62 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



under normal conditions be produced on our 

 own farms. Students of sociology do, it is 

 true, point out in absolutely convincing 

 language the evil effects of urban over- 

 crowding due to the incessant influx from 

 country areas. Physiologists tell us that a 

 healthy family which migrates into a city 

 rapidly deteriorates in the changed environ- 

 ment, and rarely persists beyond the third 

 generation. Military students point out that 

 100 years ago some 75 per cent, of the British 

 army was recruited from our rural districts, 

 and refer with alarm to the well-known fact 

 that in 1900 out of 11,000 applicants for 

 enlistment at Manchester only 1000 reached 

 the standard required for the Regular Army. 1 

 Farmers lament the departure of the most 

 active and intelligent young men. There are 

 whole stretches of territory in Great Britain 

 where alert youths of sound intelligence are 

 the exception rather than the rule. Mr. 

 Hueffer discovered from a careful investigation 

 that on eighteen farms covering an area of 

 eight square miles only five boys found 

 employment and all of them were below the 

 normal intelligence. In forty-six labourers' 



1 A favourite argument in Germany for the Junker f 

 policy of protective duties on farm produce is the necessity 

 of getting sound young men for the Kaiser's army. 



