The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-06-18

one of far reaching consequences, and
its final solution can be accomplished
only by great wisdom and equally great
patience worthy of the highest type
of educational statesmanship.
Let us consider for moment a few
salient issues that are at stake, and the
results that may be accomplished in
this undertaking for the betterment
and uplift of the agricultural element
of our people
Though the gigantic increase of our
urban population has caught the imag
/ Fination of the nation with it's colossal
aggregations of skyscrapers and well
tering acres of humanity, yet the fact
remains that one-half of the S0,000,000
people of the entire United States live
in the rural regions, while one-third
of the laborers of the union draw their
livelihood from the soil In our south
ern states over so out of every 100 of
our population are classed as rural. To-
day the wealth of agriculture alone is
equal to the combined capitalization of
all the railways and manufacturing in
terests in America. Within the last 80
years agricultural wealth throughout
the union has increased 500 per cent.
Indeed, agriculture truly is the basis of
, the nations wealth. Not more than one
man out of 100 is a lawyer, IA physician,
or teacher. and while their interests
are of gravest Importance, yet how in
significant seems the welfare of apy
small segment of our population com
pared with the immense basal element
of agriculture. The problem Of the
rural school is indeed the problem OF
American civilization.
God Made Country, Man the City
And why should not this man with
the hoe, these teeming children of the
soil and their vast interests have equal
Lon cil Il ffnn ttFitb oh md
the interests of the more favored classes
of our cities and villages. Enlightened
! selfishness-yea, the sense of self-pres-
| Observation-Disclosures the best thought
| of all classes of our country in the So
| luton of the problems that concern our
| agricultural population
/ am one who believes in the senti-
ment voiced by the poet
God made the country and man made
the town"
The vigor and vitality of the cities
themselves is largely dependent upon
/ the constant stream of new red blood
| flowing from the hills and valleys of
| our land into these great neurotic nerve
centers, of our highly wrought civiliza-
| ton. In one of our southern cities
the wealthiest city per capita in. the
| south, we are told that 154 out of 200
| of its wealthiest citizens came origin
| ally from country homes.
| And surely, as ultimate consumers, all
are concerned with the grave question
of the ever-increasing cost of living
the high cost of living, or the cost of
| high living, as we may choose to phrase
| it-day by day, the question OF supply
| and demand of the staple foods of life
grows more and more critical The
| man VINO goes to the market with the
daily wage of 20 years ago brings back
| to his pantry a market basket only
haI full "a hov oil in
| college days the theory of Mr.. Malthus,
| that population increases in geometrical
ratio G., 4, g. 16, 32), while production
| in arithmetical ratio G., 4, 6, 8, 100, and
that starvation is the ultimate fate OF
an oyercrowded world. But thanks to
the magic OF science and invention,
commercial fertilizers and lf-bindin q
reapers and rotation of crops and the
general mastery of the forces of nature
by the ingenuity of man, the zone be-
tweep>ylemand and supply has been kept
fairly broad and open. But, without
all eXaggeration, the lines OF supply and
demand converge. the situation daily
becomes more crucial, and 1T Is Of uni
versal concern. ~
The High Cost of Living
| President j. J. Hill Of the Great
| Northern asserts that the reason for
the high price of beef and pork and but
ter and eggs and the common neces-
! stiles of life is, first. that too few peo-
pie engage in farming, and, second.
| that those who are so engaged are lily
!, prepared for pursuing the business for
| farming is business) with profit and
! with success
Quoting Mr. Truman S. Vance: TAX :
ing Virginia. which is characteristic OF
other southern states and to some de-
gree of all states having rural popula
tion so per cent of the young mon leave
! the farmers home altogether before
they are 20 years old OF the Is pei
cent that enter college and higher pre-
! paratory schools enough come back TO
/ the country as preachers doctors,
school teachers and others to affect
community life TO some extent--and to
/ reduce the net loss to SO per cent, or
to 1900 each year. Added to the loss
of over half the life blood OF the coun-
try is the poverty of the blood that !.
left. With these conditions prevalent
/ 1t is not strange that in the country to-
j day good roads, better schools and
/ churches and community life in general
suffer the blight of half-settled coun-
/ try"
Have Robbed the Soil
Only second in Importance to this
great shifting Of our people from couu-
try life to urban life is the well nigh
universal depletion and impoverishment
of the greatest material asset owned