INFLUENCE OF A SINGLE FARM COMMUNITY. 53 



communities, that when the best things of the mind come on call 

 to the door of the farms, the danger of losing the population in order 

 to satisfy intellectual and social cravings is minimized. 



WHEN THE COMMUNITY POSSESSES INSTITUTIONS TO BE PROUD OF. 



The farmers in the Belleville community founded their academy 

 themselves; sacrificed for it, lavished their lives upon it. It became 

 their pride. Before towns and cities in the county had similar in- 

 stitutions, this farm community was pioneering in higher education 

 while pioneering in farming. The farmers determined to have an 

 academy without waiting until they could amply afford it. It would 

 be an extraordinary inducement that would lure from his farm a 

 Belleville farmer whose father had nobly built his life into the local 

 institution. People leave communities when community ties have 

 no holding power. The community institution is an investment of 

 life and energy and is a bond hard to break. 



If one were to put this principle into the form of a recipe for a com- 

 munity suffering from overmigration, he would say: "If you wish to 

 hold your people to the farms, get them to establish institutions to be 

 proud of and let them lavish themselves upon these institutions. 

 And don't wait until you think you can afford it." 



TAKING THE FIRST STEP IN A COMMUNITY TO REMEDY A CONDITION OF 

 OVERMIGRATION. 



A farm community which possesses the economic basis of good land 

 but which finds itself losing its best people — its best farmers, its best 

 young men and women- — if it determines to safeguard itself from 

 depletion, will at once set about the task of building up community 

 institutions which will provide doors to the community for the goods 

 of life from the world at large. The common school will be supple- 

 mented by a local farmer-supported high school. This will become 

 a great center of intellectual life, of community spirit, of agricultural 

 enthusiam. Other institutions will naturally follow this first step 

 in stemming the current of folk depletion. 



WHAT PUBLIC OPINION WILL DO ABOUT OVERMIGRATION. 



The universal cry of "keep the boy on the farm" can be expanded 

 into a great public sentiment for establishing at the very door of the 

 farms the institutions which all people crave. Neither exhortation 

 nor force will keep people on farms, away from the best of the life of 

 the world ; but when the tide of the world flows up into the country 

 and deposits its riches of thought on the institutional thresholds of 

 farm life, the great social motive of youth and middle age for leaving 

 the farms will be undermined. 



