The Newtown bee., 1902-08-15

sights, devilish meannessess and the inner ravening of evil passions. But in default of bull-fght, wouldn't cards and dancing serve as a very | wholesome substitute for the sins that now serve as recreations?
 The intellectual life of the real ham, let, you will learn, is directly propor tional to its materi al prosperity. The chief educator, the church, gets just what it can pay for. Cut down the minister's salary, and in place of a preacher you get retired Salvation Army captain, or a''graduate of some
 ridiculous missionary training school, or green boy, or a dotard. So with
 the schools. That scandal of modern civilization, the little red SchOolhouSe,
 is an inevitable result of rural poverty
 It's ingnorant teacher-incapabl of
 giving decent instruction or even of
 making the schoolhouse anything but never be replaced by a better until
 there is money to pay a better. The
 comical village library-if the village
 have library at all-will, unless ecO-
 homie conditions improve continue to
 be stocked with the cheapest books ob--
 tainable. And travel, which fills the
 mind with new standards of compari-
 son and broader outlook, is out of
 the question when whole community
 is tied to the cows tail. You can find
 country people of advanced years who
 have never been beyond the horizon
 visible from their own door steps.
 The lack of any sort of travel has
 worse effect than merely cramping the
 mind; it also works physical harm:
 Having practically no interests and
 no acquaintanceS outside the little
 village, young people marry within the
 home circle, and so small is that circle
 that the same families intermarry,
 generation after generation, till a
 and deformed persons makes it's ap-
 pearance. Make the villages rich
 enough to afford good roads, to induce
 the trolley companies to extend their
 lines and to patronize the railroads
 that already exist, and you will remove
 the prime cause of inbreeding, which
 is isolation.
 This leads to the question of general hygienic improvement. Our farming
 are sickly sort The field laborer
 looks older than he is; his wife is
 pinched and yellow; and the country
 girl-so buxom and red-cheeked as she
 appears on the stage and in sentiment
 tai songs-iS in real life "an organic
 compound of pork and pie." The diff:
 ficulty is purely economic. Bad foOC
 comes of bad earnings; the men over
 work because they can't afford "help;'
 the women have almost no exercise
 because the town is too poor to bullo
 sidewalks. The whole village, with al eye to saving money, unites to chea1 } the doctor. A farmer, instead of con- sulting physician, ''goeS out and con suits fence," and reading there tho ] big-lettered advertisements of variou! s patent medicines, he hopefully invests ] Or, perhaps, having sated his thirs
 for that sort of "treatment," he ap apOO Indian or falls into the hands o
 some travelling quack. The main poin . is Ito get cured cheap" Any bOOby
 trap that is inexpensive enough vii - easily catch it's victim, who is not onl, !, left unhelped, but is generally not ; } little injured. It is true, of course - that country people live forever, bu - how they suffer!
 ' A further problem comes up whel 5 you see how pitifully ugly country life is. The church is bare and forbidding
 UuC OOWu Hall oIldUOy, Ulc oCllOO1uOuoe !, beautiless, and the homes as dull with
 tawdry within. Rocks, fences, barn s and horse sheds blaze with the glarint t advertisements of quack medicines Nobody cares how hideous the towr 3 becomes any more than he cares how 5 hideously he dresses. A general slack |. ness prevails-Old carts standing il , qoorwaYs, broken tools littering tn ! driveway, tin pans and shattered pot ! tery strewn hither and yOn. Indeed adds by contrast a meretriciOuS glam g an incentive-anOther incentive wher, ! incentives already abound toward l. bolting away citywards. Hence tn, T crying need for village improvement e society. Start one, then, and whel z you have made your rural hamlet tn l- prettiest in all the countryside, see i 0 the change won't act with the othe : changes to check the outgoing tide 0 population and to invite newcomers Start one, I say, but not till you have be
 gun to relieve rustic poverty by pro 3 viding profitable employment. M own experience may serve as rathe |. illuminative example. I announced U mass meeting to found village i'm provement society. Result, three lit 2 tie boys and six little girls assemble' } in the Town hall. tried again. Re e suit, one little boy, two little girls am a crusty old gentleman; the old gen !. tleman indulged in furious trad j. against the village storekeeper, wh | twas the worst nuisance distigurin $ this here taown, an .throwin' empt boxes all 'raOund;" the little childrel a repeated the speech where it would d, the most good. Again I tried. Re IS suit: large attendance, composed o D embattled farmers-the retainers o > the crusty old gentleman lined u a against the retainers of the villag a stOrekeeper; society organized and O1 e ticers chosen, amidst much glowering o but when it became evident that eacl - member must pay an initiation fee o s soc, the society promptly disbanded You see, had begun at the wron n end, showing the burghers how t n spend their money before I had show j. them how to earn it. My parsor j. printer is wiser; he has taken tn j. mule by the muzzle, whereas ha' 1, taken him by the tail.
 And l confess l am not littl !. proud of this metaphor of the mule e It fits. And piOus mule it is, tO( o Country people are fatalists, holdin e the crude Calvanistic idea of predesti n nation: They say tacitly, "God mad }, this village, God ran it down at tn d heel, and from the beginning Go s mapped out it's melancholy history You sin against God if you suggest i'm a provement. Remember what happen ed to Uzzah when he tried to stud Q the art of God" That such a philos t ophy should have taken so deep an | immovable hold upon the villager ). may seem astonishing: but observe