The Social Value of the Telephone
Among these modern blessings in the country home, one of the most significant is the telephone. A business necessity in the city, it is a great social asset in the rural home, like an additional member of the family circle. It used to be said, though often questioned, that farmers’ wives on western farms furnished the largest quota of insane asylum inmates, because of the monotony and loneliness of their life. The tendency was especially noticeable in the case of Scandinavian immigrant women, accustomed in the old home to the farm hamlet with its community life.
To-day the farmer’s wife suffers no such isolation. To be sure the wizards of invention have not yet given us the teleblepone, by which the faces of distant friends can be made visible; but the telephone brings to us that wonderfully personal element, the human voice, the best possible substitute for the personal presence. Socially, the telephone is a priceless boon to the country home, especially for the women, who have been most affected by isolation in the past. They can now lighten the lonely hours by a chat with neighbors over household matters, or even have a neighborhood council, with five on the line, to settle some question of village scandal! All sorts of community doings are speedily passed from ear to ear. Details of social plans for church or grange are conveniently arranged by wire. Symptoms are described by an anxious mother to a resourceful grandmother and a remedy prescribed which will cure the baby before the horse could even be harnessed. Or at any hour of the day or night the doctor in the village can be quickly summoned and a critical hour saved, which means the saving of precious life.
On some country lines a general ring at six o’clock calls all who care to hear the daily market quotations; and at noon the weather report for the day is issued. If the weather is not right, the gang of men coming from the village can be intercepted by phone. Or if the quotations are not satisfactory, a distant city can be called on the wire and the day’s shipment sent to the highest bidder—saving money, time, and miles of travel.
All things considered the telephone is fully as valuable in the country as in the city and its development has been just as remarkable, especially in the middle West where thousands of independent rural lines have been extended in recent years, at very low expense. In 1902 there were 21,577 rural lines in the United States, with a total length of 259,306 miles of wires, and 266,969 rural phones.
Good Roads, the Index of Civilization
When John Frederick Oberlin began his remarkable work of community building in the stagnant villages of the Vosges Mountains, his very first move was to build a road. The status of any civilization is fairly clearly indicated by the condition of the highways. The first sign of rural decay in a discouraged community has often been the neglect of the thoroughfares. One of the widespread signs of rural progress is the recent attention given to good roads. In 1892 the Good Roads Association was formed. In the previous year the first state aid for good road building was granted, and since then state after state has appropriated millions of dollars for this purpose. The proposal that a great macadam road be built by Congress from Washington to Gettysburg, as a memorial to President Lincoln, whether a wise proposition or not, shows how prominent this subject has finally become, in the eyes of the nation.
Progressive farmers have discovered that a bad road is a tax upon every ton of produce hauled to market; that in effect it lengthens the three mile distance to ten; that the trip requires three hours instead of one; and that a good macadam road, or some form of paving, varying with the nearness of materials, pays for itself again and again, in the saving of time and money, and wear and tear on rolling stock and teams. The social effects of good roads are almost as clear as the industrial benefits. There is more social cooperation. People go oftener to town, they gather more easily at church and social functions, and the intermingling means better acquaintance and more helpful friendships. Better business, better social life, better neighborhoods, follow the trail of better roads—and a far better chance for the country church.
Railroads, Steam and Electric
It is hard for us to imagine a world without railroads! Yet before 1830 all long distance travel was by stage coach or by water. The world-view of most men was very tiny and their mental outlook correspondingly narrow. Farm life was seriously restricted by the fact that a distant market for most goods was impossible. It cost $10 per ton per hundred miles to haul merchandise to market, a tax which only high-grade goods could stand.