22 RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



solidation, but what of the social loss where eight per- 

 sons replaced thirty-eight? 



There is one school district within the bounds of my 

 congregation where for four years past there have been 

 but three children on the roll, and for three months of 

 the last school year but one pupil was in attendance. 

 Yet the school registers of forty years ago show an 

 average attendance of forty-five pupils. What is the 

 social significance of this fact? 



Spencerville, a hamlet of two hundred inhabitants, 

 is situated on the Nation River between two con- 

 cession roads. On the nearer of these concessions, 

 right over against the village, are seven consecu- 

 tive farms, once occupied, now without an occupant. 

 What is the sociological bearing of this circumstance? 



These incidents of the situation these indications 

 of a process of change might be duplicated with varia- 

 tion in form or degree from the experience of every 

 observer. They are evidences of a universal tendency, 

 a world-movement. Population the world over is mass- 

 ing itself in cities. Cities are becoming congested, the 

 country depleted. 



Canada during the last decennial census period 

 increased in population by 1,833,523, yet her rural 

 growth was only 574,878, while her urban expansion 

 was 1,258,645. She added 34.13 per cent, to her total 

 population during the decade, but only 17.16 to her 

 people in the country, though 62.25 to those in town 

 and city. We are apt to think of the prairies as purely 

 agricultural regions, yet Saskatchewan, adding 389 per 

 cent, to her rural population, added 648 per cent, to her 

 urban population ; and Alberta, increasing by 344 per 

 cent, in rural growth, increased by 588 per cent, in 

 urban growth. 



