sts must, if he would be permanently
rid of them, learn to respect his hired farm hand. He must provide him
with a comfortable cottage and a modest garden plot upon which his young
family may employ themselves; otherwise, whatever the farmer may do to
attract labour, he will never retain it. In short, the labourer, too,
must get his full and fair share of the prosperity of the coming good
time in the country.

There is one particular aspect of this improved social life which is so
important that it ought properly to form the subject of a separate
essay; I mean the position of women in rural life. In no country in the
world is the general position of woman better, or her influence greater,
than in the United States. But while woman has played a great part there
in the social life and economic development of the town, I hold that the
part she is destined to play in the future making of the country will be
even greater.

In the more intelligent scheme of the new country life, the economic
position of woman is likely to be one of high importance. She enters
largely into all three parts of our programme,--better farming, better
business, better living. In the development of higher farming, for
instance, she is better fitted than the more muscular but less patient
animal, man, to carry on with care that work of milk records, egg
records, etc., which underlies the selection on scientific lines of the
more productive strains of cattle and poultry. And this kind of work is
wanted in the study not only of animal, but also of plant life.

Again, in the sphere of better business, the housekeeping faculty of
woman is an important asset, since a good system of farm accounts is one
of the most valuable aids to successful farming. But it is, of course,
in the third part of the programme,--better living,--that woman's
greatest opportunity lies. The woman makes the home life of the Nation.
But she desires also social life, and where she has the chance she
develops it. Here it is that the establishment of the cooperative
society, or union, gives an opening and a range of conditions in which
the social usefulness of woman makes itself quickly felt. I do not think
that I am laying too much stress on this matter, because the pleasures,
the interests and the duties of society, properly so called,--that is,
the state of living on friendly terms with our neighbours,--are always
more central and important in the life of a woman than of a man.