Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/839

 PROBLEM OF RURAL COMMUNITY 819

The forces that cause individual loss are still, however, at work. Poor roads, contempt of scientific agriculture, lack of business methods, disregard of hygienic laws, low aesthetic and intellectual ideals, decay of social activity and harmony all these help to depreciate the economic value of individual farm- ing communities.

Another cause of the present condition of rural life is care- lessness in regard to the laws of hygiene and sanitation. Here where there is an abundance of sunshine and pure air, and where life should be the richest and the most healthful, it is often the opposite. The congested cities, indeed, are more healthful through strict enforcement of the laws of sanitation. The death- rate of Chicago for the year 1901 is lower than that of several agricultural states. The lack of hospitals, trained nurses, and competent surgeons is keenly felt in the rural districts.

One of the most prevalent causes of rural degeneration is its lack of initiative and of high intellectual ideals. Motor educa- tion is very much needed. The average country schoolhouse, with its self-conscious young teacher, knowing nothing of the science of pedagogy, is of very little aid. This low intellectual plane is due to the community, which fails to entertain a suf- ficiently high and true conception of the public school ; and it is also due to the close economic point of view which always seeks to cut down the taxes.

Another, and perhaps a stronger, cause of discontent is the poverty of stimulating social life. Man is by nature a social animal. As he requires air and exercise for the development of his body, he requires social contact for the development of his higher self. Deprived of this, stagnation results. Sociability is one of the strongest factors which is building up the cities. The lack of social life in the country is due to various causes : impassable roads, imprisoning the farmers in their homes ; absence of sidewalk and street-lights, discouraging sociability in the villages ; poverty of that intellectual life which stimulates social intercourse and fellowship; schisms social, racial, and religious disrupting the community already insulated from the world by isolated conditions ; absence of those institutions which