ould not live a month without the
country! The great railway strike last fall in England revealed the fact
that Birmingham _had but a week's food supply_. A serious famine
threatened, and this forced a speedy settlement. Meanwhile food could not
be brought to the city except in small quantities, and the people of
Birmingham learned in a striking way their utter dependence upon the
country as their source of supply. The philosophy of one of the sages of
China, uttered ages ago, is still profoundly true: "The well-being of a
people is like a tree; agriculture is its root, manufactures and commerce
are its branches and its life; but if the root be injured, the leaves
fall, the branches break away and the tree dies."[10]

That far-seeing Irish leader, Sir Horace Plunkett, after a searching study
of American conditions, is inclined to think that our great prosperous
cities are blundering seriously in not concerning themselves more
earnestly with the rural problem: "Has it been sufficiently considered how
far the moral and physical health of the modern city depends upon the
constant influx of fresh blood from the country, which has ever been the
source from which the town draws its best citizenship? You cannot keep on
indefinitely skimming the pan and have equally good milk left. Sooner or
later, if the balance of trade in this human traffic be not adjusted, the
raw material out of which urban society is made will be seriously
deteriorated, and the symptoms of national degeneracy will be properly
charged against those who neglected to foresee the evil and treat the
cause.... The people of every state are largely bred in rural districts,
and the physical and moral well-being of those districts must eventually
influence the quality of the whole people."[11]

V. A Challenge to Faith.

The seriousness of our problem is sufficiently clear. Our consideration in
this chapter has been confined mainly to the personal factors. Certain
important social and institutional factors will be further considered in
Chapter V under Country Life Deficiencies. With all its serious
difficulties and discouragements the rural problem is a splendid challenge
to faith. There are many with the narrow city outlook who despair of the
rural problem and consider that country life is doomed. There are still
others who have faith in the country town and village but have lost their
faith in the open country as an abiding place for rural homes. Before
givin