Comparative lack of identical resources need not mean poverty of attainment. Let us agree that relatively the country will lag behind the town. Is the country continually gaining in those things that are fundamentally important and that minister to its best life? is the kernal question.
Perhaps the most common error in studying rural conditions is the failure to distinguish the vital difference between the urban problem and the rural problem. Sociologically the city problem is that of congestion; the rural problem is that of isolation. The social conditions of country and city are wholly different. Institutions that succeed in alleviating social disorders in the town may or may not succeed in the country—in any event they must be adapted to country needs. This applies to organizations, schools, libraries, social settlements. And the adaptation must be one not only of form but of spirit. In other words, the farm problem is a peculiar problem, demanding special study, a new point of view, and sometimes unique institutions.
Those accustomed to large cities make a pretty broad classification of "country." A town of five thousand people is to them "country." But it is not country. The problem of the village and the small town is not the rural problem, take it the nation over. The smaller the town, the more nearly it approaches to rural conditions, but its essential problem is not that of the farm.
And, finally, let no one suppose that philanthropy is the chief medicine for the social ill-health of the country. The intelligent student who possesses the true spirit of helpfulness may find in the rural problem ample scope for both his brain and his heart. But he will make a fundamental and irreparable error if he starts out with the notion that pity, charity, and direct gifts will win the day. You may flatter the American farmer; you cannot patronize him. He demands and needs, not philanthropy, but simple justice, equal opportunity, and better facilities for education. He is neither slave nor pauper.
To conclude: There is a farm problem, and it is worth solving. But it differs from the city problem. And if, as is to be hoped, the recently renewed interest in this question is to be permanent, we trust that those who desire to make it a special study, as well as those whose interest in it is general and widely human, may from the start avoid the errors that are likely to obscure rural conditions when viewed through city eyes.