vast service of
these schools for rural welfare, in both intra-mural and extension work,
can hardly be overestimated.

_The Roosevelt Commission on Country Life_

It will be seen that the country life movement has been making progress
for years. But it really became a national issue for the first time when
President Roosevelt appointed his Country Life Commission. Though greeted
by some as an unnecessary effort and handicapped by an unfriendly Congress
which was playing politics, the Commission did a most significant work.
Thirty hearings were held in various parts of the country and a
painstaking investigation was conducted both orally and by mail, the
latter including detailed information and suggestion from over 120,000
people. The Commission's report, with the President's illuminating
message, presents in the best form available the real meaning of the
country life movement. It will serve our purpose well to quote from this
report a few significant paragraphs:

"The farmers have hitherto had less than their full share of public
attention along the lines of business and social life. There is too much
belief among all our people that the prizes of life lie away from the
farms. I am therefore anxious to bring before the people of the United
States the question of securing better business and better living on the
farm, whether by cooperation among the farmers for buying, selling and
borrowing; by promoting social advantages and opportunities in the
country, or by any other legitimate means that will help to make country
life more gainful, more attractive, and fuller of opportunities, pleasures
and rewards for the men, women and children of the farms."

"The farm grows the raw material for the food and clothing of all our
citizens; it supports directly almost half of them; and nearly half of the
children of the United States are born and brought up on the farms. How
can the life of the farm family be made less solitary, fuller of
opportunity, freer from drudgery, more comfortable, happier and more
attractive? Such a result is most earnestly to be desired. How can life on
the farm be kept on the highest level, and where it is not already on that
level, be so improved, dignified and brightened as to awaken and keep
alive the pride and loyalty of the farmer's boys and girls, of the
farmer's wife and of the farmer himself? How can a compelling desire to
live on the farm be aroused in the children that are born on the fa