ing his sense of responsibility than when we
regulate him by exterior enactments.

In the realm of control of the farming occupation we shall invoke other
than legal means, and perhaps these means will be suggestive for other
situations. These means may be somewhat indefinite in the law-book
sense, but they may attain to a better human result. We shall reach the
question by surer ways than the crudities of legislation. We shall reach
the man, in this field, rather than his business. We have begun it by
accepting it as one part of our duty to the race to provide liberally at
public expense for the special education of the man on the land. This is
the reason, even if we have not formulated it to ourselves, why society
is willing to go farther in the education of the farming people than in
the popular education of other ranges of the people. This, of course, is
the fundamental way; and if there are any governments that attempt to
safeguard this range directly by laws rather than by education, then
they have not arrived at a long view of the situation.

We invoke regulatory law for the control of the corporate activities;
but we must not forget the other kinds of activities contributing to the
making of society, nor attempt to apply to them the same methods of
correction.

Into this secular and more or less technical education we are now to
introduce the element of moral obligation, that the man may understand
his peculiar contribution and responsibility to society; but this
result cannot be attained until the farmer and every one of us recognize
the holiness of the earth.

The farmer and every one of us: every citizen should be put right toward
the planet, should be quicked to his relationship to his natural
background. The whole body of public sentiment should be sympathetic
with the man who works and administers the land for us; and this
requires understanding. We have heard much about the "marginal man," but
the first concern of society should be for the bottom man.

If this philosophy should really be translated into action, the farmer
would nowhere be a peasant, forming merely a caste, and that a low one,
among his fellows. He would be an independent co-operating citizen
partaking fully of the fruits of his labor, enjoying the social rewards
of his essential position, being sustained and protected by a body of
responsive public opinion. The farmer cannot keep the earth for us
without an enlightened and very activ