The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1917-01-25
PROBLEMS or
RURAL VILLAGES
Ambitious Boys and Girls Emf
CRATE to Larger Towns.
CAUSTIC SURVEY REPORTS

Villages Do Not In the Present Day
Offer Sufficient Opportunities For
the Young and Active-Best Efforts
Should Be Addressed to Finding Rem
edy For These Conditions.
English and American poetry of the
past century teens with exalted praise
Of village life, both in this country and
among the green and peaceful wales
of the British isles, says contributor
to the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times. We
are told in iambics, hexameters and
flowing rhine that "far from the mad
ding crowds ignoble strife lis to be
found the village smithy," under the
spreading chestnut tree" and so on to
the end of the praiseful poetry on the
subject.
All this literature on the subject has
but one note-that Of eXalting village
life as contrasted with the busy me-
tropolis or the crowded cities. 1t is
disconcerting, therefore, to come upon
a discordant voice in all this song Of
village beatitudes. The merciless sur
vey" Of this sordid age has penetrated
to the villages and hamlets after gorg-
ing itself on the evils of city life, and
the tale it tells leaves hardly a shred
of the old poetic fctional village OF
our dreams.
No one who has ever been part of
a typical American village-and the
majority of us at one time or another
have, for the most of us first saw the
light of day in village homes-will be-
lieve all the evil things that have been
said about village life in these sur
vey' reports. Some experiences with
survey" Investigations make us chary
Of accepting their statements and then,
too, our memories of such village life
as we may have known, either in
youthful residence or as brief visitors,
prepare us to enter a denial and stand
by the poets, at least until some better
testimony is produced by the prosecu-
ton.
1t is true, however, that in this rest
less age the village does not offer espe-
cial opportunity for broadening ones
life or outlook. The currents Of life
are moving so swiftly nowadays that
the community that is willing to stand
still soon becomes a sort of backwater,
where stagnation is inevitable.
For the young and ambitious life in
a drowsy village naturally becomes in
tolerable, and, distressing as it is, the
most reasonable charge brought against
the village by the surveyors is the
baleful influence it eXerts upon the
ambitious youth Of both sexes who by
circumstances are chained to 1t. 1t is
characteristic of most villages that one
finds largely predominant population
of the aged or the middle aged. Few
young men are to be found. When
they reach early manhood or even adj
vanced boyhood in these times they
seek the larger spheres of life in which
to work out their deStinieS. This
hegira of young men either causes a
ike ulSHC VI Tic yOuuS SAiS " SCACCA0
of population or leaves them behind to
face spinsterhood and mental atrOphy.
The survey is especially insistent in
dwelling upon this feature Of village
life, asserting that it is driving thou
sands of young women into the over
crowded cities to fight an almost GER
tainly losing battle against the forces
that will assail them. This depopula-
ton of the villages by the best of its
young men and women is a natural re-
suit Of village conditions.
To finding some remedy for these
conditions the best efforts of every
community should be addressed. 1t is
all we'll enough for the old folks and
the middle aged to feel the content
and peace of the shut-in village and be
satisfied to end their days under it's
soporific influence. but what of the
young folks? If some supernatural
power could be invoked by which a
right distribution of American youth
could be made from the village sources
a great and pressing problem of life
and the future growth of the nation
would be solved