186 H. F. PERKINS 



school and refuses to allow their transfer to the state school for feebleminded, 

 and the school commissioners know the parents so well and so shrink from 

 a row that they let the school teacher and the normal children suffer rather 

 than force a commitment. It is quite possible to be too well acquainted 

 with your neighbors for their good or yours, especially if you are not only 

 town clerk but also owner of the general store. You stand to lose your job 

 and your customers if you offend the few inhabitants. 



So lack of backing for law enforcement, local pride, individualism and 

 over developed intimacy all render the problems of social welfare peculiarly 

 difficult in rural communities. 



The studies of migrations that were made for the Country Life Commis- 

 sion by the Eugenics Survey, operating as one of the 30 divisions of the Com- 

 mission, were centered upon three carefully selected towns among which 

 conditions varied as widely as in any selection of rural towns in the state. 

 Population trends have been especially detrimental to the size of rural towns 

 in Vermont. If it had not been for the growth of a few of the cities and larg- 

 est villages there would have been in every census since 1850 a decline in the 

 total population of the state. A great deal of alarm has been felt and is 

 still felt amongst the more thoughtful Vermonters because of this decline 

 in population which they feel is also a sign of deterioration in quality. 

 They use the expression "skimming the cream" in describing this emigration 

 from rural sections to nearby cities or to more promising homes outside of 

 Vermont. More and more towns are in each census reduced to the class 

 having fewer than 1,000 individuals and if this reduction actually deprived 

 the smallest places of the best young people as is generally believed to be the 

 case, we should have in Vermont a backwash, a sedimentary population 

 without sufficient ambition, energy or ability to get out or to accomplish 

 anything where they are. 



The studies that have been made over a period of three years by the Survey 

 give a very much more hopeful prospect for the future not only of Vermont 

 but of other parts of the country to which Vermont contributes some of its 

 best blood. If none but the sediment of the population continued to live 

 in Vermont and raise children there would be no longer any high grade 

 young people to contribute to the life of our cities. But for every individual 

 of high mental ability and physical stamina who leaves the state a dozen, 

 a score, perhaps a hundred others who move from Vermont can carry with 

 them only a meager endowment and their contributions can therefore 

 amount to little or nothing. Furthermore, this is not a new condition. 

 There is ample evidence that a similar proportion of inferior individuals 

 from relatively inferior stock has been leaving the state for decades, and 



