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 farming and 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; the education 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 schoolhouse throughout 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 loneliness and 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.