The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-11-13


graded roads with mud bottoms, or no
bottoms. And for the frightening OK
country life the good road will
Lie like shaft of light across the land,
Through all the circle of the golden year
and the work of the farm is already great
| w ightened by the introduction OF ma
chinery into well-nigh all its departments,
as well as by the control of the fertility
of the soil by scientific treatment. In
the past fifty years the number of farm
workers has not only doubled, but the value
of their work has been increased twenty
! fold. Are we warranted in expecting the
| time when the experience of Thoreau will
be realized by the average country dwell
| lero He says you may recall that for
more than five years he maintained solely
by the labor of his hands, and found that
he could meet the expenses of living by
working about six weeks q year, which
left him the whole of his winters and most
of his summers free and clear for study
2 Variety of interests The monot-
ony of country life is relieved now by a
greatly increased variety of interests.
| TRANSFORMATION opens markets and makes
profitable man more crops than former
ally Experimentation on the physical
and chemical character of soils. upon the
plants and animals upon the farm offers
an amending means of amusement But
more effective than experiments and varl-
ed products for imparting interest and
zest 10 country life is the new sympathy
with the manifold phases of nature, which
is one of the picturesque features of our
period This feeling and attitude occurs,
indeed. in individual cases from early
| Il, 81 in on
and Lucretius and Theocritus and In
some of the carly English poets, but In
our day is is getting to be almost unlver-
SAL as is shown by the popularity and val
ume of outdoor literature with its invi-
tation
Come forth into the light of things,
Let nature be your teacher
This later phase of it may be traced back
to the eighteenth century to such sympa-
thetic observers as Gilbert White and De
Saussure on the scientific side and on
! he roctic side to Cowper and Words
worth In the latter half of the nine
teenth century it grew rapidly under the
stimulus of the general scientific move
ment of the time and the influence of
men like Ernest Krause in Germany
Jefferies and Ruskin in England and on this
side old Silver Top as John Borroughs
has been affectonately called and his
younger followers as Roberts Long and
Thompson-Seton. What an endowment
of interest and of beauty have we here
! for country life.
"3. Fellowship. Let me speak lastly Of
| the new feowshps OF country life. In
the future its isolation will be only so
deep as individual taste may determine.
For it has now opened communication with
all other sections of human activity.
| The telephone and the rural free de-
! livery supply the opportunity of personal
! fellowship well nigh as close as that of
! the city, with the distinct advantage
| that it may be controlled according to
! ones preference. BY the same means the
/ edge is taken off the fear of sudden
danger in the country's solitude. More
over, the rural school is laying the foun-
dation for an intellectual fellowship with
all the world and all the ages. And the
! free rural library which this Association
had the honor to inaugurate in North
| Carolina completes ittingly the apparatus
| of a simple free, intelligent, strong,
happy country life.
But beg TO point out the danger that
the rural scnool, instead of serving to
most efficient agent in perpetuating its
poverty. Under the operation of the
French Education Bill of 1888, revised in
| 1871, there was fearful exodus from the
farms and villages to the towns and to
Paris have little doubt that many of
! you can duplicate the observation of Prof.
Bailey IN county in New York. He
asked the forty-fve children of a rural
school how many of them lived on farms.
| All hands went up but one. When he
asked how many wished to live on the
! farm no hand was raised. but the one
which was down before. Clearly that
school had been educating the children
away from the farm, killing with bookish
and city methods their native sympathy
| with the country and its pursuits. In
! This matter indifference or compromise
! will lead to disaster We need to insist
| that the rural school shall apply the
| fundamental principle of all education,
and put the rural child into direct SYM
pathy with his rural environment and
! into intelligent relation with 49, -4fe
which he is going to lead The text
hook made by the city man for the only
oh Id he knows. namely. the city child,
viii have to be rigidly excluded. The
! teacher must be less urban and literary
| in his ideals and methods and more at
home amid natural objects.
And now, as l conclude. let me say
| that the old love of nature, which will
have It's way with US at times. and the
new enrichment of country life have al
ready produced distinct movement OF
which one sees signs in Europe as well as
! in America 1T means intensely and
means good. For one thing, the city is
| trying 70 countrify itself. Witness the IN
| PRODUCTION and care of trees-Pars ex-
ponds $50 900 a year on its tfees-the ex-
tension of the park area, the multiplied
ton play grounds, the rapid development
of the Detroi: potato patch experiment
in Other cities, and Che Garden City
Movement of England, which proposes
| that every city which it will build shall
have attached to it in perpetplty and in
violable an agricultural area of SIX thous-
and acres 1t really looks as IT, IN the
city of the future, agriculture Will join
| hands with trade and manufactures to
enhance its prosperity and to preserve It's
! physical and moral health. But this Is
not all. The city in way IS moving
into the country Already men begin to
speak of the problem created by the growth