126 RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



ask in vain, Why did not our fathers conserve for us 

 the musk-ox, and all the wild one-time denizens of this 

 world of God's and ours? 



The problem of production, now being solved as re- 

 gards girders and rivets, shall then be solved as regards 

 bread for a fuller world. Shall it be a satisfactory and 

 a satisfied world? That will be found to depend on 

 whether all that is best in every system of agriculture 

 in amplest development, and in every form of industry, 

 shall be crowned by the Christian ideal of service to 

 humanity on the degree to which our struggling de- 

 mocracy shall be transformed into the likeness of the 

 kingdom of God. 



The farmer has been dissatisfied with his returns. 

 But he is even more discontent with his situation. He 

 finds his conditions of labor unsatisfactory, his means 

 of education and recreation, his home, and even his 

 church. The country is lacking in the joy and pride 

 of labor; it is lacking in social life at present, though 

 it remembers wistfully the social pleasures of the 

 past; lacking in a system of education adapted to 

 the farm, as our present school system is fitted to pre- 

 pare for the business office or the university ; it is lack- 

 ing in healthful recreations, in appreciation of eomUry 

 values ; lacking in community ideals, in altruism, in all 

 the newer ethical implications and applications of re- 

 ligion. And, inasmuch as man cannot live by bread 

 alone, even were there no economic problem, people 

 would still leave the country. 



The hours of labor are long upon the farm. A fort- 

 night ago I was a guest over night at a farm home. 

 Though I was downstairs at a quarter past six in the 

 morning breakfast was already over. My hostess apolo- 



