The Country-Life Movement in the United States Part 10

_An educational basis._

In other words, I should like to see, in this single experiment, a complete transfer from the commercial and "amus.e.m.e.nt" phase to the educational and recreation phase. I should like to see the county fair made the real meeting place for the country folk. I should make a special effort to get the children. The best part of the fair would be the folks, and not the machines or the cattle, although these also would be very important. I should make the fair one great picnic and gathering-place and field-day, and bring together the very best elements that are concerned in the development of country life.

I should work through every organized enterprise in the county, as commercial clubs, creameries, cooperative a.s.sociations, religious bodies, fraternal organizations, insurance societies, schools, and whatever other organized units already may exist.

It is often said that our fairs have developed from the market-places of previous times, and are historically commercial. We know, of course, that fairs have been market-places, and that some of them are so to this day in other countries. I doubt very much, however, whether the history is correct that develops the American agricultural fair from the market-place fairs of other countries. From the time when Elkanah Watson exhibited his merino sheep in the public square of Pittsfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1807, in order that he might induce other persons to grow sheep as good as his, and when the state of New York started its educational program in 1819, the essence of the American idea has been that a fair is an educational and not a trading enterprise. But whatever the history, the agricultural fair maintained by public money owes its obligation to the people and not to commercial interests.

_Ask every person to prove up._

I should have every person bring and exhibit what he considers to be his best contribution to the development of a good country life.

One man would exhibit his bushel of potatoes; another his Holstein bull; another his pumpkin or his plate of apples; another a picture and plans of his modern barn; another his driving team; another his flock of sheep or his herd of swine; another his pen of poultry; another his plan for a new house or a sanitary kitchen, or for the installation of water-supplies, or for the building of a farm bridge, or the improved hanging of a barn door, or for a better kind of fence, or for a new kink in a farm harness, or the exhibition of tools best fitted for clay land or sandy land, and so on and on.

The woman would also show what she is contributing to better conditions,--her best handiwork in fabrics, her best skill in cooking, her best plans in housekeeping, her best ideas for church work or for club work.

The children would show their pets, what they had grown in the garden, what they had made in the house or the barn, what they had done in the school, what they had found in the woods.

I should a.s.sume that every person living on the land in the country has some one thing that he is sure is a contribution to better farming, or to better welfare; and he should be encouraged to exhibit it and to explain it, whether it is a new way to hang a hoe, or a herd of pure-bred cattle, or a plan for farmers' inst.i.tutes. I should challenge every man to show in what respect he has any right to claim recognition over his fellows, or to be a part of his community.

I should ask the newspapers and the agricultural press to show up their work; also the manufacturers of agricultural implements and of country-life articles of all kinds.

I should also ask the organizations to prove up. What is the creamery contributing to a better country life? What the school? The church? The grange? The cooperative exchange? The farmers' club? The reading club?

The woman's society? The literary circle? The library? The commercial clubs? The hunting or sportsman's clubs?

_Sports, contests, and pageants._

I should give much attention to the organization of good games and sports, and I should have these cooperative between schools, or other organizations, such organizations having prepared for them consecutively during the preceding year. I should introduce good contests of all kinds. I should fill the fair with good fun and frolic.

I should want to see some good pageants and dramatic efforts founded on the industries, history, or traditions of the region or at least of the United States. It would not be impossible to find simple literature for such exercises even now, for a good deal has been written. By song, music, speaking, acting, and various other ways, it would not be difficult to get all the children in the schools of the county at work.

In the old days of the school "exhibition," something of this spirit prevailed. It was manifest in the old "spelling bees" and also in the "lyceum." We have lost our rural cohesion because we have been attracted by the town and the city, and we have allowed the town and the city to do our work. I think it would not be difficult to organize a pageant, or something of the kind, at a county fair, that would make the ordinary vaudeville or sideshow or gim-crack look cheap and ridiculous and not worth one's while.

_Premiums._

If we organize our fair on a recreation and educational basis, then we can take out all commercial phases, as the paying of money premiums. An award of merit, if it is nothing more than a certificate or a memento, would then be worth more than a hundred dollars in money. So far as possible, I should subst.i.tute cooperation and emulation for compet.i.tion, particularly for compet.i.tion for money.

It is probable that the fair would have to a.s.sume the expense of certain of the exhibits.

_It is time to begin._

This kind of fair is not only perfectly possible, but it is feasible in many places, if only some one or two or three persons possessed of good common sense and of leadership would take hold of the thing energetically. One must cut himself loose from preconceived notions and probably from the regular fair a.s.sociations. He must have imagination, and be prepared to meet discouragements. He need not take the att.i.tude that present methods are necessarily all bad; he is merely concerned in developing a new thing.

Because I should not have horse races in my fair, I do not wish at all to be understood as saying that horse races are to be prohibited. Let the present race courses in the fair grounds be used for horse races, if the people want them. We have June races now, and they could be held at other times of the year when persons who are interested desire to have them. My point is that they are not an essential part of a county agricultural fair. They rest on a money basis, and do not represent the people. Neither do I say that all traveling shows and concessions are bad; but most of them are out of place in a county fair and contrary to its spirit.

If the horse races were organized for the purpose of developing the horses of the county, then I should admit them; but I should give them only their proportionate place along with other means of developing horse-stock,--as of work horses, farm horses, draft horses, driving horses.

_The fair ground._

An enterprise of the kind that I project need not necessarily be held on a fair-ground of the present type, although that might be the best place for it. If there is a good inst.i.tution in the county that has grounds, and especially that has an agricultural equipment worthy of observation, I should think that the best results would be secured by holding the fair at that place. This kind of a fair would not need to be inclosed within a Chinese wall. Of course, there would have to be buildings and booths and stables in which exhibitions could be made.

In every fair there should nowadays be an a.s.sembly hall in which lectures, exhibitions, simple dramas, worth-while applicable moving pictures, and other entertainment features can be given.

_My plea._

My plea, therefore, is that some one somewhere make one experiment with a county fair designed to bring all the people together on a wholly new idea. The present basis is wrong for this twentieth century. The old needs are pa.s.sing; new needs are coming in. I should have the fair represent the real substantial progress of rural civilization, and I should also have it help to make that progress. It should be a power in its community, not a phenomenon that pa.s.ses as a matter of course, like the phases of the moon.

I do not expect all this to materialize in a day; but I want to set a new picture into my readers' minds.

THE COUNTRY-LIFE PHASE OF CONSERVATION

The conservation movement is the expression of the idea that the materials and agencies that are part of the furniture of the planet are to be utilized by each generation carefully, and with real regard to the welfare of those who are to follow us. The country-life movement is the expression of the idea that the policies, efforts, and material well-being of the open country must be highly sustained, as a fundamental essential of a good civilization; and it recognizes the fact that rural society has made relatively less progress in the past century than has urban society. Both movements are immediately economic, but in ultimate results they are social and moral. They rest on the a.s.sumption that the welfare of the individual man and woman is to be conserved and developed, and is the ultimate concern of governments; both, therefore, are phases in a process of social evolution.

These are the twin policies of the Roosevelt administration, an economic and social movement for which that administration will be first remembered after the incidents and personalities of the time have lost their significance.

Not only the welfare but the existence of the race depends on utilizing the products and forces of the planet wisely, and also on securing greater quant.i.ty and variety of new products. These are finally the most fundamental movements that government has yet attempted to attack; for when the products of the earth shall begin to disappear or the arm of the husbandman to lose its skill, there is an end to the office of government. At the bottom, therefore, the conservation and country-life movements rest on the same premise; but in their operation and in the problems that are before them they are so distinct that they should not be confounded or united. These complementary phases may best work themselves out by separate organization and machinery, although articulating at every point; and this would be true if for no other reason than that a different cla.s.s of persons, and a different method of procedure, attach to each movement. The conservation movement finds it necessary, as a starting-point, to attack intrenched property interests, and it therefore discovers itself in politics, inasmuch as these interests have become intrenched through legislation. The country-life movement lacks these personal and political aspects, and proceeds rather on a broad policy of definite education and of redirection of imagination.

_These subjects have a history._

Neither conservation nor country life is new except in name and as the subject of an organized movement. The end of the original resources has been foreseen from time out of mind, and prophetic books have been written on the subject. The need of a quickened country life has been recognized from the time that cities began to dominate civilization; and the outlook of the high-minded countryman has been depicted from the days of the cla.s.sical writings until now. On the side of mineral and similar resources, the geologists amongst us have made definite efforts for conservation; and on the side of soil fertility the agricultural chemists and the teachers of agriculture have for a hundred years maintained a perpetual campaign of conservation. So long and persistently have those persons in the agricultural and some other inst.i.tutions heard these questions emphasized, that the startling a.s.sertions of the present day as to the failure of our resources and the coordinate importance of rural affairs with city affairs have not struck me with any force of novelty.

But there comes a time when the warnings begin to collect themselves, and to crystallize about definite points; and my purpose in suggesting this history is to emphasize the importance of the two formative movements now before us by showing that the roots run deep back into human experience. It is no ephemeral or transitory subject that we are now to discuss.

_They are not party-politics subjects._

I have said that these are economic and social problems and policies. I wish to enlarge this view. They are concerned with saving, utilizing, and augmenting, and only secondarily with administration. We must first ascertain the facts as to our resources, and from this groundwork impress the subject on the people. The subject must be approached by scientific methods. The "political" phase, although probably necessary, is only temporary, till we remove impedimenta and clear the way.

It would be unfortunate if such movement became the exclusive program of a political party, for then the question would become partisan and probably be removed from calm or judicial consideration, and the opposition would equally become the program of a party. Every last citizen should be naturally interested in the careful utilization of our native materials and wealth, and it is due him that the details of the question be left open for unbiased discussion rather than to be made the arbitrary program, either one way or another, of a political organization. Conservation is in the end a plain problem involving economic, educational, and social situations, rather than a political issue.

The country-life movement is equally a scientific problem, in the sense that it must be approached in the scientific spirit. It will be inexcusable in this day if we do not go at the subject with only the desire to discover the facts and to arrive at a rational solution, by non-political methods.

_The soil is the greatest of all resources._

The resources that sustain the race are of two kinds,--those that lie beyond the power of man to reproduce or increase, and those that may be augmented by propagation and by care. The former are the mines of minerals, metals, and coal, the water, the air, the sunshine; the latter are the living resources, in crop and live-stock.

Intermediate between the two cla.s.ses stands the soil, on which all living resources depend. While the soil is part of the mineral and earthy resources of the planet, it nevertheless can be increased in its producing power. Even after all minerals and metals and coal are depleted, the race may sustain itself in comfort and progress so long as the soil is productive, provided, of course, that water and air and sunshine are still left to us. The greatest of all resources that man can make or mar is the soil. Beyond all the mines of coal and all the precious ores, this is the heritage that must be most carefully saved; and this, in particular, is the country-life phase of the conservation movement.