I am much afraid that some of the newer unattached institutions, in their eagerness to make departures and to be self-sufficient, will not profit by our long development, and that the secondary schools and others may make many of the mistakes that the regular colleges of agriculture long ago have made. The presumption is against any school that expects to develop merely a local enterprise, without reference to other schools or to experience.
I am sure we all want to encourage the introduction of agriculture into all educational institutions, but we should not be misled merely by the word "agriculture"; and in the interest of good work we should be careful not to encourage any enterprise of this kind until convinced that it has been well studied and that it will be administered in the interest of rural progress.
WOMAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE COUNTRY-LIFE MOVEMENT
On the women depend to a greater degree than we realize the nature and extent of the movement for a better country life, wholly aside from their personal influence as members of families. Farming is a co-partnership business. It is a partnership between a man and a woman. There is no other great series of occupations in which such co-partnership is so essential to success. The home is on the farm, and a part of it. The number of middle-aged unmarried men living on farms is very small. It is quite impossible to live on a farm and to run it advantageously without family relation.
It follows, then, that if the farming business is to contribute to the redirection of country life, the woman has responsibilities as well as the man. As the strength of a chain is determined by its weakest link, so will the progress of rural civilization be determined by the weakness of the farm as an economic unit, or by the weakness of the home as a domestic and social unit.
Now, the farmer himself cannot have great influence in redirecting the affairs of his community until he is first master of his own problem,--that is, until he is a first-class farmer. In the same way, a woman cannot expect to have much influence in furthering the affairs of her rural community until she also is master of her own problem, and her problem is primarily the home-making part of the farm. In the mastering of his or her own problem, the farmer or his wife may also contribute directly to the progress of the community. Every advance in the management of the household contributes to the general welfare: it sets new ideas under way.