The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-01
RETURN TO RURAL LIFE IS
 PLEA OF THE PRESIDEN1 I
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1.)

put the mechanic, the wage-worker who works with his hands, and who ought to work in a constantly larger degree with his head, on higher plane of eff f1cency and reward, so as to increase his effectiveness in the economic world, and therefore the dignity the remuneration. ana the power of his position in the so- cial world. To train boys and girls in merely literary accomplishments to the total exclusion of industrial manual, and technical training, tends to unfit them for industrial work; and in real life most work is industrial.
 The problem of furnishing well-trained craftsmen, or rather journeymen fitted in the end to become such, is not simple fe.- problems are simple in the actual process of their solution-and much care and forethought and practical common sense will be needed, in order to work 1t out in a fairly satisfactory manner. It should appeal to all our citizens. I am glad that societies have already been formed to promote industrial education, and that their membership includes man. ufacturers and leaders of labor unions, educators and publiclsts, men of all con- ditions who are interested in education and In industry. It is such cooperation that offers most hope for satisfactory solution of the questions to what is the best form of industrial school, as to the means by which it may be articulated with the public school system, and as to the way to secure for the boys trained therein the opportunity to acquire In the industries the practical skill which alone cal make them finished journeymen.
 Filler of the Soil.
 There is but one person whose welfare is as vital to the welfare of the whole country as is that of the wage-worker who does manual labor; and that is the tiller of the soil-the farmer. If there is one lesson taught by history it Is that the permanent greatness of any state must ultimately depend more upon the character of its countr', population than upon anything else. No growth of cities, no growth of wealth can make up for a loss in either the number or the char acter of the farming population. In the United States more than in almost any other country we should realize this and should prize our country population. When this nation began its independent existence 1t was as a nation of farmers. The towns were small and were for the most part mere seacoast trading and fishing ports. The chief industry of the country was agriculture and the ordinary citizen was in some way connected with it. In every great crisis of the past a uecculiar dependence has had to be placed upon the farming population: and this dependence has hitherto been justi- fled. But it cannot be justified In the future if agriculture Is permitted to sink in the scale as compared with other em- ployments. We cannot afford to lose that pre-eminently typical American, the farmer who owns his own farm.
 Yet 1t would be idle to deny that in the last half century there has been In the eastern half of our country a fall ing off in the relative condition of the tillers of the soil, although signs are multiplying that the nation has walked up to the danger and is preparing to grapple effectively with it. East of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio and the Potomac there has been on the whole an actual shrinkage in the number of the farming population since the civil war. In the states of this section there has been a growth of population-in some an enormous growth-but the growth has taken place in the cities. and especially in the larger cities. This has been due to certain economic factors, such as the extension of railroads, the development of machinery and the openings for in- dustrial success afforded by the unpre- cedented growth of cities
 Facilities of Communication.
 The increased facility of communica- ton has resulted in the withdrawal from rural communities of most of the small, widely distributed manufacturing and commercial operations of former times, and the substitution therefor of the cen tralized commercial and manufacturing industries of the cities.
 The chief offset to the various tenden- cies which have told against the farm has hitherto come in the rise of the physical sciences and their application to agricultural practices or to the ren- dering of country conditions more easy and pleasant. But these countervailing fo-ces are as yet in their infancy. As compared with few decades ago, the social or community life of country peo- pie in the east, compares less we'll than it formerly did with that of the dwell- CTS in cities. Many country communities have lost their social coherence. their sense of community interest In such communities the country church, for in- stance has gone backward both as A social and a religious factor. Now. we can not too strongly insist upon the fact that it is quite as unfortunate to have any social as any economic fall ing off. It would be a calamity to have our farms occupied by lower type of people than the hard-working, self-re- specting. independent and essentially manly and womanly men and women who have hitherto constituted the most typicaly American. and on the whole