MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS 181 



the precocious development of sex tends to enfeeble the intellect 

 and to prevent the largest kind of mental capacit}'. It is unsafe 

 at present to generalize regarding the differences between country 

 and city life in matters of sex, but it is certainly true when rural 

 life is empty of commanding interests and when it is coarsened by 

 low traditions and the presence of defective persons that there is 

 a precocious emphasis of sex. This is expressed both by early 

 marrying and by loose sex relations. It is doubtful whether the 

 commercializing of sex attraction in the city has equal mental 

 significance, for certainly science clearly shows that it is the pre- 

 cocious expression of sex that has largest psychic dangers. In so 

 far as the environment of a rural community tends to bring to 

 early expression the sexual life, we have every reason to suppose 

 that at this point at least the influence of the community is such 

 as to lead to a comparative mental arrest or a limiting of mental 

 ability, for which the country later suffers socially. Each 

 student of rural life must, from experience and observation, 

 evaluate for himself the significance of this sex precociousness. 

 When sex interests become epidemic and the general tendency is 

 toward precocious sex maturity, the country community is pro- 

 ducing for itself men and women of inferior resources as com- 

 pared with their natural possibilities. Even the supposed social 

 wholesomeness of earlier marrying in the country must be 

 scrutinized with the value of sex sublimation during the forma- 

 tive years clearly in mind. 



THE NEED OP IDEALS IN RURAL LIFE l 



KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD 



ONE grave danger to permanent rural progress is the low level 

 of ideals, determined by community standards. It is not that 

 the average ideals arc lower than in the city. I think they are 

 higher. But they come perilously close to a dead level in im- 

 mense areas of country. There is an absence of that high 

 idealism that acts as yeast upon the whole mass, which often pre- 



i From "The Country Church iind the Rural Problem," pp. 75-78. 

 (Copyright 1011. tin- I'lim-raity of Chicago Press.) 



