CHAPTER I

The Rural Problem

I.The Problem Stated and Defined
Definition and analysis.
A classification of urban and rural communities.
II.City and Country
How the growing city developed the problem.
The surprising growth of rural America.
A false and misleading comparison.
III.Rural Depletion and Rural Degeneracy
The present extent of rural depletion.
Losses in country towns.
The need of qualitative analysis of the census.
The question of degeneracy in city and country.
Stages and symptoms of rural decadence.
The Nam’s Hollow case.
A note of warning.
IV.The Urgency of the Problem
A hunt for fundamental causes.
The unfortunate urbanizing of rural life.
Why country boys and girls leave the farm.
The folly of exploiting the country boy.
The city’s dependence on the country.
V.A Challenge to Faith

CHAPTER I

THE RURAL PROBLEM

ITS DEVELOPMENT AND PRESENT URGENCY

I. The Problem Stated and Defined.

Early in the year 1912, some five hundred leading business and professional men of the cities of New York state met at a banquet, under the auspices of the Young Men’s Christian Association. During the evening it was discovered that nine-tenths of these influential city leaders had come from country homes. They were born on farms in the open country or in rural villages of 2,500 population or less.

Facts like these no longer surprise intelligent people. They are common to most cities, at least on our American continent; and herein is the crux of the rural problem. At great sacrifice for a century the country has been making the city. Doubtless thousands of incompetent citizens have been forced off the farms by the development of farm machinery; and the country was little poorer for their loss. But in surrendering to the city countless farm boys of character and promise who have since become the city’s leaders, many a rural village has suffered irreparably. To be sure this seems to be one of the village’s main functions, to furnish leaders for the city; and it has usually been proud of its opportunity. It is the wholesale character of this generous community sacrifice which has developed trouble.