In my earlier chapters I traced to the Industrial Revolution in England the origin of that subordination, in the English-speaking countries, of rural to urban interests which finds its expression to-day in the problem of rural life. I have shown that the continuance of the tendency in America was natural if not inevitable, and have urged that, for economic, social and political reasons, its further progress should now be stayed. If my view as to the origin, present effects and probable consequences of the evil be accepted, any serious proposals for a remedy will be welcomed by all who realise that national well-being cannot endure if urban prosperity is accompanied by rural decay. In this belief I offer the scheme for a Country Life movement which has slowly matured in my own mind as the result of the experience described in the preceding pages.
The first aim of the movement should be to coördinate, and guide towards a common end, the efforts of a large number of agencies--educational, religious, social and philanthropic--which, in their several ways, are already engaged upon some part of the work to be done. For such a movement the United States offers advantages not to be found elsewhere in the area for which we are concerned. For here public-spirited individuals and associations of the kind required exist in larger numbers than can be known to any one who has not watched what is going on in this field of social service. If I had not already devoted too much space to personal experiences, I could of my own knowledge testify to the remarkable growth of organised effort in American rural communities. Sometimes this is the outcome of a growing spirit of neighbourliness, sometimes it emanates from young Universities and Colleges emulating the extension work with which nearly every big city is familiar. I have been much struck with the way in which, at gatherings of school teachers, pedagogic detail and questions affecting their status and emoluments have become less popular subjects for discussion than schemes of social progress.[9] Similarly, the agricultural Press is becoming less exclusively technical and commercial, and more human. Even the syndicated stuff is getting less townified. My correspondence, newspaper clippings sent to me, and many other indications, point in the same direction. They leave the impression upon my mind that there is a vast, efficient and enthusiastic army of social workers upon the farm lands of the United States badly in need of a Headquarters Staff.