rm? All
these questions are of vital importance, not only to the farmer but to
the whole nation."--_Theodore Roosevelt._

_Its Call for Rural Leadership_

"We must picture to ourselves a new rural social structure, developed from
the strong resident forces of the open country; and then we must set at
work all the agencies that will tend to bring this about. The entire
people need to be aroused to this avenue of usefulness. Most of the new
leaders must be farmers who can find not only a satisfactory business
career on the farm, but who will throw themselves into the service of
upbuilding the community. A new race of teachers is also to appear in the
country. A new rural clergy is to be trained. These leaders will see the
great underlying problem of country life, and together they will work,
each in his own field, for the one goal of a new and permanent rural
civilization. Upon the development of this distinctively rural
civilization rests ultimately our ability, by methods of farming requiring
the highest intelligence, to continue to feed and clothe the hungry
nations; to supply the city and metropolis with fresh blood, clean bodies
and clear brains that can endure the strain of modern urban life; and to
preserve a race of men in the open country that, in the future as in the
past, will be the stay and strength of the nation in time of war and its
guiding and controlling spirit in time of peace."

"It is to be hoped that many young men and women, fresh from our schools
and institutions of learning, and quick with ambition and trained
intelligence, will feel a new and strong call to service."

_Its Constructive Program for Rural Betterment_

The Commission suggested a broad campaign of publicity on the whole
subject of rural life, until there is an awakened appreciation of the
necessity of giving this phase of our national development as much
attention as has been given to other interests. They urge upon all country
people a quickened sense of responsibility to the community and to the
state in the conserving of soil fertility, and the necessity for
diversifying farming in order to conserve this fertility. The need of a
better rural society is suggested; also the better safeguarding of the
strength and happiness of the farm women; a more widespread conviction of
the necessity for organization, not only for economic but for social
purposes, this organization to be more or less cooperative, so that all
the people m