, no one
knows how long, scourged the poor white communities in the Southern
States. The effect of the disease set up by the hookworm, which infests
the intestines, is a complete sapping of all energy, mental and
physical. Mr. Rockefeller has provided a million dollars for the
necessary research work and for such subsequent organisation of sanitary
effort as may be required to extirpate this unquestionably preventable
evil. I wonder how long such a state of affairs would have been
permitted to interfere with the health and to paralyse the industry of
urban communities. Had the hookworm, instead of lurking in country
lanes, walked the streets, how would it have fared?

These two pests furnish a fine illustration of the length to which the
neglect of rural life has been allowed to go in the Southern States.

Neither the Eastern nor the Far Western section presents aspects of
special interest to the foreign student of the Rural problem in the
United States, but in both the constructive statesman and the social
worker will find a rich field for their efforts. In the New England
States--more especially in the manufacturing districts--the competition
between town and country for labour is as marked as in Industrial
England. In this section, however, the lure of the city has a rival in
the call of the West, which still makes its appeal to the farmer's boy.
Secretary Wilson has recently given it as his opinion that land-seekers
who pass by the farms now offered for sale in the western portions of
New York State often go further and fare worse. In these relatively
low-priced lands, it ought not to be difficult for agricultural
communities to establish permanently a rural society worthy of American
ideas of progress. But to do this is to solve the problem we are
discussing. We have some other aspects of that problem to consider
before we can agree upon the essentials of a philosophic and
comprehensive scheme for the rehabilitation of rural life--before we can
lay down the lines of a movement to give effect to our plan.

The Far Western section has hardly yet emerged from the frontier-pioneer
stage, and its rural problem is still below the horizon. I may, however,
note in passing a few evidences that the people of this section have
already shown a very real concern for rural progress. The fruit-growers
of the Pacific Coast have, in the cooperative marketing of their
produce, made an excellent beginning in a matter of first impor