owmen.

_The Paramount Problem._ The paramount problem, therefore, is to make
the conditions of rural life desirable--to convert farming into an
enjoyable vocation; to make farm life and its labors a business to be
envied and not despised. The fact is, planning for beauty and comfort in
the city has progressed far and away beyond the country. It now but
remains for the country to catch up and go the city many times better.
This is entirely possible, since the great "out doors" is a country
heritage and ample spaces are available for exterior delights such as
trees, shrubbery and flowers, and for free access to abundance of pure
air and sunshine.

Moreover, we should not forget that we are now living in a new world.
The old agriculture and its associated rural industries have been shaken
to their very foundation. This makes the solution of the rural problem,
to some extent, speculative.

For one thing the country is becoming urbanized. This may prove helpful.
Again it may not. Individualism, however, is giving place more and more
to commercialized enterprise. At the same time the evils of transient
tenantry follow close upon the heels of successful farming, where
farmers rent their land and move to town; and also of unsuccessful
farming, where the mortgage shark eventually becomes possessed of the
land. What the state needs to encourage, therefore, is farm ownership by
the many rather than by the few, and farm ownership rather than farm
tenantry. We must retain on the farm, as farmers, the best type of
American manhood and womanhood or the nation will fall into decay, just
as Rome fell with the decline of her agrarian influence.

The consolidated country school, by rendering obsolete the one room
district school house, is a progressive step toward improved educational
facilities for rural children.

The country church, on the other hand, has become more decadent than
aggressive. This among other rural agencies is not organized in
proportion to its importance. Some progress, however, is being made by
means of social organizations, but the ultimate solution of the rural
problem depends more largely upon education than upon any other single
factor.

_Rural Social Leaders._ Rural social leaders in full sympathy with the
country life movement will find here a fruitful field for earnest
endeavor. To no class should the state look for such leadership, and
with so much assurance, as to the alumni of its Agricultural Colle