Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/627

 SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN FARMERS 6 1 1

often deeply. A spirit of sturdy independence is generated, and freedom of will and of action is encouraged. Family life is nowhere so educative as in the country. The whole family co- operates for common ends, and in its individual members are bred the qualities of industry, patience, and perseverance. The manual work of the schools is but a makeshift for the old- fashioned training of the country-grown boy. Country life is an admirable preparation for the modern industrial and professional career.

Nevertheless, rural isolation is a real evil. Present-day living is so distinctively social, progress is so dependent upon social agencies, social development is so rapid, that if the farmer is to keep his status he must be fully in step with the rest of the army. He must secure the social view-point. The disadvantages of rural isolation are largely in the realm of the social relations, its advantages mostly on the individual and moral side. Farm life makes a strong individual ; it is a serious menace to the achieve- ment of class power.

A cure for isolation sometimes suggested is the gathering of the farmers into villages. This remedy, however, is of doubtful value. In the first place, the scheme is not immediately practi- cable. About three and one-half billions of dollars are now invested in farm buildings, and it will require some motive more powerful than that inspired by academic logic to transfer, even gradually, this investment to village groups. Moreover, it is possible to dispute the desirability of the remedy. The farm village at best must be a mere hamlet. It can secure for the farmer very few of the urban advantages he may want, except that of permitting closer daily intercourse between families. And it is questionable if the petty society of such a village can com- pensate for the freedom and purity of rural family life now exist- ing. It may even be asserted with some degree of positiveness that the small village, on the moral and intellectual sides, is dis- tinctly inferior to the isolated farm home.

At the present time rural isolation in America is being over r come by the development of better means of communication among farmers who still live on their farms. So successful are