fundamental philosophy concerning it, but we have treasures of political
wisdom dealing with humanity as a social organism in the city States or
as great nationalities. It might be worth while inquiring to what
extent the wisdom of a Solon, an Aristotle, a Rousseau, or an Alexander
Hamilton might be applied to the problem of the rural community. After
all, men are not so completely changed in character by their rural
environment that their social needs do not, to a large extent, coincide
with the needs of the townsman. They cannot be considered as creatures
of a different species. Yet statesmen who have devoted so much thought
to the constitution of empires and the organization of great cities, who
have studied their psychology, have almost always treated the rural
problem purely as an economic problem, as if agriculture was a business
only and not a life.

Our great nations and widespread empires arose in a haphazard fashion
out of city States and scattered tribal communities. The fusion of
these into larger entities, which could act jointly for offence or
defense, so much occupied the thoughts of their rulers that everything
else was subordinated to it. As a result, the details of our modern
civilizations are all wrong. There is an intensive life at a few great
political or industrial centres, and wide areas where there is
stagnation and decay. Stagnation is most obvious in rural districts.
It is so general that it has been often assumed that there was something
inherent in rural life which made the countryman slow in mind as his own
cattle. But this is not so, as I think can be shown. There is no
reason why as intense, intellectual, and progressive a life should not
be possible in the country as in the towns. The real reason for the
stagnation is that the country population is not organized. We often
hear the expression, "the rural community," but where do we find rural
communities? There are rural populations, but that is altogether a