ice to the cause of rural progress. Such, at any rate, is the
outline of my first proposal for giving to my American fellow-workers
upon the rural problem the assistance which I feel they most need at the
present moment. I pass now to my second proposal.

I suggest that an institution--which, as I have said, will be
scientific, philosophic, research-making--should be founded. It would
be, in effect, a Bureau of research in rural social economy. Personally
I know that, in my own experience as an administrator and organiser, I
have been constantly brought face to face with problems where we could
turn to no guide--no patient band of investigators who had been
measuring, analysing, determining the data. Yet in some directions much
excellent work is being done. Every social worker knows how the
knowledge of what others are doing will help him. It is strange how
little the problems of the rural population have entered into the
studies of economists and sociologists. At leading Universities I have
sought in vain for light. At a recent anniversary in New York, which
brought together the foremost economists of the Old and New World, there
was an almost complete omission of the country side of things from a
programme which I am sure was generally held to be almost exhaustive.
The fact is, the subject must be treated as a new one, and it is
urgently necessary, if the work of the Country Life movement is to be
based on a solid foundation of fact, to make good the deficiency of
information which has resulted from the general lack of interest in the
subject under review. An Institute is wanted to survey the field, to
collect, classify and cooerdinate information and to supplement and carry
forward the work of research and inquiry. The rural social worker
requires as far as possible to carry exact statistical method into his
work so that he may no longer have to depend on general statements, but
may have at his command evidence, the validity of which can be trusted,
while its significance can be measured. I may mention a few typical
questions on which useful light would be shed by the Institute's
researches:--

1. The influence of cooperative methods (_a_) on the productive and
distributive efficiency of rural communities, and (_b_) on the
development of a social country life.

2. The systems of rural education, both general and technical, in
different countries, and the administrative and financial basis of each
system.

3. The