Читать книгу The Country-Life Movement in the United States - L. H. Bailey - Страница 9

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The taking stock of the exact condition and materials of country life is immensely important, for we cannot apply remedies before we make a diagnosis, and an accurate diagnosis must rest on a multitude of facts that we do not now possess. This is the scientific rather than the doctrinaire, politics, and oracular method of approaching the subject. It is of the first importance that we do not set out on this new work with only general opinions and superficial and fragmentary knowledge. Every rural community needs to have a program of its own carefully worked out, and this program should rest on a physical valuation. It may be some time yet before the importance and magnitude of this undertaking will impress the minds of the people, but it is essential to the best permanent progress.

Agricultural extension work of a well-organized kind is now beginning to come out of the colleges of agriculture, and this must be extended and systematized so that, with other agencies, it may reach every last man on the land. A bill to set this work in motion is now before Congress.

The third recommendation of the Commission for immediate action is "the holding of local, state, and even national conferences on rural progress, designed to unite the interests of education, organization, and religion into one forward movement for the re-building of country life. Rural teachers, librarians, clergymen, editors, physicians, and others may well unite with farmers in studying and discussing the rural question in all its aspects. We must in some way unite all institutions, all organizations, all individuals having any interest in country life into one great campaign for rural progress."

Conferences are now being held in many parts of the Union by universities, colleges, state departments of agriculture, chambers of commerce, business organizations, and other bodies. This will make public opinion. Such conventions, discussing the larger social, political, and economic relations of country life, should now be held in every state and geographical region.

It is now time that states undertake country-life programs. There is still much attack of symptoms; but persons in political offices, for the most, are not yet well-enough informed to make the most of the rural situation as it exists, or to utilize to the best advantage the talent and the institutions that the country now possesses. One has only to read the recommendations to legislative bodies to recognize the relative lack as yet of constructive plans for the improvement of rural conditions.