Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1893-06-29

some neighboring town or village, where
there may happen to be high school or
academy. So serious has this drawback
to country life become that in Massachu-
setts, a state where something more than
the three RS is universally thought de-
srable, the people are beginning to con-
solidate their schools, and to send out
wagons at the expense of the town to
bring the children together where they
can be effectively taught by competent
teachers. But it is suggested that with
electric railways in operation only one
school in a township would be needed,
and that this school, while it could be
made equal to the best city schools in
every educational advantage, would be
superior to the city schools, with their
mixed attendance, in moral advantages.
Children could be transported between
their homes and centrally located viii
lage school without serious loss of time,
and the demoralizing associations Incl
dental to attendance on city schools
would become an ideal place for the
training of children, and this would
bring further influence to bear in favor
of more rapid increase of rural popu-
lation. 1t is certainly true that the supe-
are among the chief causes for their
rapid growth at the expense Of the
country.
Finally, the argument takes range as
wide as our political and social science.
The effect of practically concentrating a
territory % or 80 miles square into a
space no larger than mile radius under
the ordinary resources of transit is broad
ly considered, and it is concluded that
the social results must be beyond calcu-
lation. First after the consolidation of
schools and the coming of better teach
ers would follow the consolidation
of churches and the advent of bet
ter preachers. The people of large dis
tricts would thus be brought into more
intimate relations with each other, and
a more cosmopolitan spirit would be en-
gendered. Entertainments of an intel
lectual and innocent kind would be
found also everywhere within reach, and
country life, made larger socially and
more varied, would lose the monotony
and dullness which now drives so large
proportion of the sons of farmers to
the cities. The country, indeed, would
become an ideal place of residence. Even
the postman and the newsboy could go
their daily rounds and the morning news
paper would become as familiar a visitor
at the farmhouse as it has long been at
the urban or suburban dwelling. In
truth, the number Of post offices in the
United States could be reduced three
fourths, it is believed, and better SER
vice rendered from the remaining one
fourth than we can ever expect to see I'M
der prevailing disadvantages.
But even yet the arguments in favor
of extending the electric system into the
country are not repeated in full; and it
may be thought by some persons that
the reason still to come should have been
placed first and made the inspiration of
the entire plan. The farmers, it should
be pretty we'll known by this time, are
not altogether satisfied with their prof
its. They think that with their large
capital invested, about the largest, ac-
cording to statistical estimates. in the
country, they should be able to get
larger returns. But it is doubtful if
they can ever get larger returns from
exclusively agricultural operations, or
not, at least, until all the arabic land is
taken up and the fatal facility with
which new men may become farmers is
checked by the cost Of investment. What
the farmers seem to need is an indepen-
dent field for Investments field that
will enable them to put their savings in
to income-producing property beyond
the reach of the fierce competition of
the pillow and the cultivator. This, it is
claimed, is precisely the field that will
be opened by the electric motor. The
companies building and operating the
electric power plant will find wide
source of profit. They will find it not
merely among the farmers themselves,
but in the rural villages, soon to be come
considerable manufacturing towns, de-
manding light and power. The day is
not now distant, either, when the tele-
phone patents will expire, and then the
telephone may be brought into universal
use and made to contribute largely to the
profits of the companies. All this can
be made to accrue to the profits of the
farmer, if he will display sufficient en-
terprise to take advantage of his oppor-
tunities.
These are some of the arguments ad-
trio service into the country. But for
the discontinue of the Wheelmen's
League there is still another argument
which interposes with peculiar force
against their expensive scheme for old
fashioned road improvement. 1t is urged
that the general adoption of the railway
system in this country of magnificent
distances and difficult means of inter-
communication is inevitable, and that
any kind of improvement that cOntem-
plates the perpetuity of horse traction
| on the highways would be mere waste
of money. 1t is consistently claimed
| that there will be absolutely no occasion
| for any farmer or other citizen of the ru-
raj districts to go upon the roads except
in electrically propelled vehicles after
the electric system has been brought into
general use, and that the time when ii
will be in general use is not distant in
any event. The stimulus to activity will
not be lacking, because it is believed to
be the best field of investment in the
United States, and too promising to be
neglected, even should not the farmers
themselves become the promoters. The
capital invested in electrical manufactur.
ing in this country now amounts tC
many hundreds of millions. and, in ad-
dition to this large total, the iron indus.
try and other branches of industry en-.
gagged in manufacture of railway rolling
stock will be equally concerned with the
electrical manufactures in the extension
of the railway system. All these large
interests will work together for com.