COUNTRY FOLKS

There are literally millions of people in country communities to-day whose abilities along various lines have been hidden, simply because they have never had an opportunity to give expression to their talents. In many respects this lack of self-expression has been due to the social conditions existing in the country, the narrow-minded attitude of society toward those who till the soil, and the absence of those forces which seek to arouse the creative instincts and stimulate that imagination and initiative in country people which mean leadership.

Social stagnancy is a characteristic trait of the small town and the country. Community spirit is often at a low ebb. Because of the stupid monotony of the village and country existence, the tendency of the people young andold is to move to larger centers of population. Young people leave the small town and the country because of its deadly dullness. They want Life. The emptiness of rural environment does not appeal to them. The attitude of mind of the country youth is best expressed by Gray in his “Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard” which runs as follows:

“Full many a gem of purest ray sereneThe dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

Many young people find the town and country dead simply because they crave fellowship and social enjoyment. When an afternoon local train passes through a certain section of any state, people gather at every station, some to meet their friends, others to bid their friends farewell, and dozens to see some form of life. With many it is the only excitement that enters their lives, except on extraordinary occasions. After the harvest many a country lad goes to the city to enjoy a feast of entertainment, in order to satisfy his social hunger.

A few years ago the national Department ofAgriculture sent out hundreds of letters to country women, asking them what would make life in the country districts more attractive. Hundreds of the replies which were received from practically every section of America told the story of social starvation and the needs of country communities. One woman from Kansas in her reply wrote:

“We hope you can help us to consolidate schools and plan them under a commission of experts in school efficiency and community education. Through this commission we could arrange clubs, social unions, and social, instructive, and educational entertainments. We ought not to be compelled to go to town for doubtful amusements, but, rousing the civic pride of the community, have the best at home.”

Another one from Wyoming in her letter stated that she thought the country child had the same right to culture and refinement as the city child. A woman whose home was in Massachusetts gave the following suggestions in her reply:

“On the side of overcoming the emptiness of rural life; articles suggesting courses of reading both along the line of better farmingand of subjects of public interest. Perhaps the wider use of the rural school or church for social centers, or for discussion by farmers, their wives, sons and daughters might be suggested.”

A letter written from Florida contained the following:

“First, a community center where good lectures, good music, readings, and demonstrations might be enjoyed by all, a public library station. We feel if circulating libraries containing books that can be suggested on purity, hygiene, social service, and scientific instruction, that our women in the rural districts need to read for the protection of their children; also books on farming and poultry raising, botany, culture of flowers, and many other themes that will help them to discover the special charm and advantage of living in the pure air and being familiar with the beauties of nature and thereby make our people desire to stay on the farms.”

Social Stagnancy is a Characteristic Trait of the Small Town and the Country

A letter from Tennessee said: “Education is the first thing needed; education of every kind. Not simply agricultural education, although that has its place; not merely the primary training offered by the public schools in arithmetic, reading, grammar, etc. I mean the education that unfastens doors and opens up vistas; the education that includes travel, college, acquaintance with people of culture; theeducation that makes one forget the drudgery of to-day in the hope of to-morrow. Sarah Barnwell Elliott makes a character in one of her stories say that the difference between himself (a mountaineer) and the people of the university town is ‘vittles and seein’ fur.’ The language of culture would probably translate that into ‘environment and vision.’ It is the ‘seein’ fur’ that farm women need most, although lots of good might be done by working some on the ‘vittles.’ Fried pork and sirup and hot biscuit and coffee have had a lot to do with the ‘vision’ of many a farmer and farmer’s wife. A good digestion has much to do with our outlook on life. Education is such an end in itself, if it were never of practical use. But one needs it all on the farm and a thousand times more. ‘Knowledge is power,’ as I learned years ago from my copy book. But even if it were not, it is a solace for pain and a panacea for loneliness. You may teach us farm women to kill flies, stop eating pork, and ventilate our homes; but if you will put in us the thirst for knowledge you will not need to do these things. We will do them ourselves.”

A note from North Carolina read something like this:

“The country woman needs education, recreation, and a better social life. If broad-minded, sensible women could be appointed to make monthly lectures at every public schoolhousethroughout the country, telling them how and what to do, getting them together, and interesting them in good literature and showing them their advantages, giving good advice, something like a ‘woman’s department’ in magazines, this would fill a great need in the life of country women. Increase our social life and you increase our pleasures, and an increase of pleasure means an increase of good work.”

All these answers and many more show something of the social conditions in the country so far as women are concerned. In other words, older people desert the country because they want better living conditions and more social and educational advantages for themselves and their children. Moral degeneracy in the country, like the city, is usually due to lack of proper social recreation. When people have something healthful with which to occupy their minds, they scarcely ever think of wrong-doing. A noted student of social problems recently said that the barrenness of country life for the girl growing into womanhood, hungry for amusement, is one reason why so many girls in the country go to the city. Students of science attribute the cause of many of the cases of insanity among country people to lonelinessand monotony. That something fundamental must be done along social lines in the country communities in order to help people find themselves, nobody will dispute. Already mechanical devices, transportation facilities, and methods of communication have done much to eliminate the drudgery, to do away with isolation, and to make country life more attractive.

An influence which has done a good deal to stifle expression in country people has been the narrow-minded attitude certain elements in society have taken toward those who till the soil. When these elements have wanted to belittle their city friends’ intelligence or social standing, they have usually dubbed them “old farmers.” Briefly stated, the quickest way to insult a man’s thinking power or social position has been to give him the title “farmer.” The world has not entirely gotten over the “Hey-Rube” idea about those who produce civilization’s food supply. A certain stigma is still attached to the vocation. As a group, country people have in many places been socially ostracized for centuries. A social barrier still exists between the city-bred girl and thecountry-bred boy. As a result, all these things have had a tendency to destroy the country man’s pride in his profession. This has weakened his morale and his one ambition has been to get out of something in which he cannot be on an equal with other people, and consequently he has retired. Goldsmith in “The Deserted Village” hit the nail on the head when he said:

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;A breath can make them, as a breath has made;But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,When once destroyed, can never be supplied.”

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:

Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;

A breath can make them, as a breath has made;

But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,

When once destroyed, can never be supplied.”

To be an honest tiller of the soil, to be actively engaged in feeding humanity, should be one of the noblest callings known to mankind and carry with it a social prestige. The Chinese Emperor used to plow a furrow of land once a year to stamp his approval upon agriculture. The reason Washington, Lincoln, Justin Morrill, and Roosevelt became so keenly interested in country life was that they saw the significance of it and its importance to the world. George Washington was a farmer, a country gentleman. Mount Vernon is acountry estate, a large farm. The father of our country believed that a great country people was the basic foundation of a great America. Thomas Jefferson once said, “The chosen people are those who till the soil.” When you ridicule any people, they are not likely to express their talents and the finer instincts which lie hidden in them. A weak rural morale eventually means rural decay. The heart of rural America will never beat true until society looks upon agriculture as a life, as something to get into and not steer away from or get out of its environment.

Another factor which has retarded the expression of the hidden abilities of those who live in the small towns and country communities has been the absence of any force which seeks to arouse the creative instincts and to stimulate the imagination and initiative. Even to-day, those agencies in charge of country-life problems, as well as city life, direct very little of their energies into channels which give color and romance and a social spirit to these folks. The most interesting part of any country community or neighborhood is the people who livein it. Unless they are satisfied with their condition, it is little use to talk better farming. A retired farmer is usually one who is dissatisfied with country life. A social vision must be discovered in the country, that will not only keep great men who are country born in the country, but also attract others who live in the cities.

The impulse to build up a community spirit in a rural neighborhood may come from without, but the true genuine work of making country life more attractive must come from within. The country people themselves must work out their own civilization. A country town or district must have an individuality or mind of its own. The mind of a community is the mind of the people who live in it. If they are big and broad and generous, so is the community. Folks are folks, whether they live in the city or country. In most respects their problems are identical.

It is a natural condition for people to crave self-expression. In years gone by men who have been born and reared on the farm have left it and gone to the city, in order to find aplace for the expression of their talents. This migration has done more to hinder than to set forward the cause of civilization. People who live in the country must find their true expression in their respective neighborhoods, just as much as do people who live in the city. You cannot continually take everything out of the country and cease to put anything back into it. The city has always meant expression—the country, repression. Talent usually goes to the congested centers of population to express itself. For generations when a young man or woman has had superior ability along some particular line and lived in the country, their friends have always advised them to move to a large center of population where their talents would find a ready expression. You and I, for instance, who have encouraged them to go hither, have never thought that we were sacrificing the country to build the city. This has been a mistake. We all know it.

Over fifty years ago a country doctor became the father of two boys. In age they were five years apart. The doctor brought them up well and sent them away to a medical school.Unlike most country-bred boys who go to large cities, when they finished their courses they went back to the old home town and began their practice. By using their creative instincts, organizing power, imagination, and initiative, it was not long before they became nationally known. People call their establishment “the clinic in the cornfields.” To-day these “country doctors” treat over fifty thousand patients. Their names are known wherever medical science is known. Railroads run special sleepers hundreds of miles to their old home town in Olmstead County, Minnesota, which, by the way, is one of the richest agricultural counties in America. The great big thing about these two men is that they found an opportunity for the expression of their talents in a typical country community. They didn’t go to a large city, they made thousands of city people come to them.

Conservatively speaking, there are over ten thousand small towns in America to-day. More than ten million people live in them. These communities are often meeting places for the millions whose homes are in the open country.Rural folks still think of a community as that territory with its people which lies within the team haul of a given center. It is out in these places where the silent common people dwell. It is in these neighborhood laboratories that a new vision of country life is being developed. They are the cradles of democracy. It is here that a force is necessary to democratize art so the common people can appreciate it, science so they can use it, government so they can take a part in it, and recreation so they can enjoy it.

The former Secretary of Agriculture aptly expressed the importance of the problem when he said:

“The real concern in America over the movement of rural population to urban centers is whether those who remain in agriculture after the normal contribution to the city are the strong, intelligent, well seasoned families, in which the best traditions of agriculture and citizenship have been lodged from generation to generation. The present universal cry of ‘keep the boy on the farm’ should be expanded into a public sentiment for making country life more attractive in every way. When farming is made profitable and when the better things of life are brought in increasing measure to the rural community, the great motives which leadyouth and middle age to leave the country districts will be removed. In order to assure a continuance of the best strains of farm people in agriculture, there can be no relaxation of the present movements for a better country life, economic, social, and educational.”

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