a way that the farmer will have his due proportion of hill and of
valley, rather than that one shall have all valley and another all
hard-scrabble on the hill or all waste land in some remote place. It
means that there will be on each holding the proper relation of tilled
land and pasture land and forest land, and that the outlets for the
farmer and his products will be the readiest and the simplest that it is
possible to make. It means that some roads will be abandoned entirely,
as not worth the cost, and society will make a way for farmers living on
impossible farms to move to other lands; and that there will be no "back
roads," for they will be the marks of an undeveloped society. It means
that we shall cease the pretense to bring all lands into farming,
whether they are useful for farming or not; and that in the back country
beyond the last farms there shall be trails that lead far away.
In the farm region itself, much of the old division will pass away,
being uneconomical and non-social. The abandonment of farms is in some
cases a beginning of the process, but it is blind and undirected. Our
educational effort is at present directed toward making the farmer
prosperous on his existing farm, rather than to help him to secure a
farm of proper resources and with proper access. As time goes on, we
must reassemble many of the land divisions, if each man is to have
adequate opportunity to make the most effective application of his
knowledge, the best use of himself, and the greatest possible
contribution to society. It would be well if some of the farms could be
dispossessed of their owners, so that areas might be recombined on a
better basis.
This is no Utopian or socialistic scheme, nor does it imply a forcible
interference with vested rights. It is a plain statement of the
necessities of the situation. Of course it cannot come about quickly or
as a result of direct legislation; but there are various movements that
may start it,--it is, in fact, already started. All the burning rural
problems relate themselves in the end to the division of the land. In
America, we do not suffer from the holding of the land in a few families
or in an aristocratic class; that great danger we have escaped, but we
have not yet learned how to give the land meaning to the greatest number
of people. This is a question for the best political program, for we
look for the day when statesmanship shall be expressed in the details of
common politics.
We now hear much about the good-roads question, as if it were a problem
only of highway construction: it is really a question of a new map.
_The public program_
It would be a great gain if many persons could look forward to the
ownership of a bit of the earth, to share in the partition, to partake
in the brotherhood. Some day we shall make it easy rather than difficult
for this to be brought about.
Society, in its collective interest, also has necessities in the land.
There is necessity of land to be owned by cities and other assemblages
for water reservoirs, and all the rights thereto; for school grounds,
playgrounds, reformatory institutions, hospitals, drill grounds,
sewage-disposal areas, irrigation developments, drainage reclamations;
for the public control of banks and borders of streams and ponds, for
the shores of all vast bodies of water, for pleasure parks, recreation,
breathing spaces in the great congestions, highways and other lines of
communication; for the sites of public buildings, colleges and
experiment stations, bird and beast refuges, fish and game reservations,
cemeteries. There are also the rights of many semi-public agencies that
need land,--of churches, of fraternal organizations, of incorporated
seminaries and schools, of water-power and oil and coal developments,
of manufacturing establishments, of extensive quarries, and of
commercial enterprises of very many kinds. There is also the obligation
of the general government that it shall have reserves against future
needs, and that it shall protect the latent resources from exploitation
and from waste. Great areas must be reserved for forests, as well as for
other crops, and, in the nature of the case, these forest spaces in the
future must be mostly in public ownership.
Great remainders should be held by the people to be sold in small
parcels to those who desire to get out to the backgrounds but who do not
want to be farmers, where they may spend a vacation or renew themselves
in the soil or under the trees, or by the green pastures or along the
everlasting streams. It is a false assumption which supposes that if
land cannot be turned into products of sale it is therefore valueless.
The present active back-to-the-land movement has meaning to us here. It
expresses the yearning of the people for contact with the earth and for
escape from complexity and unessentials. As there is no regular way for
attaining these satisfactions, it has largely taken the form of farming,
which occupation has also been re-established in popular estimation in
the same epoch. It should not be primarily a back-to-the-farm movement,
however, and it is not to be derided. We are to recognize its meaning
and to find some way of enabling more of the people to stand on the
ground.
Aside from all this, land is needed for human habitation, where persons
may have space and may have the privilege of gathering about them the
goods that add value to life. Much land will be needed in future for
this habitation, not only because there will be more people, but also
because every person will be given an outlet. We know it is not right
that any family should be doomed to the occupancy of a very few dreary
rooms and deathly closets in the depths of great cities, seeing that all
children are born to the natural sky and to the wind and to the earth.
We do not yet see the way to allow them to have what is naturally
theirs, but we shall learn how. In that day we shall take down the
wonderful towers and cliffs in the cities, in which people work and
live, shelf on shelf, but in which they have no home. The great city
expansion in the end will be horizontal rather than perpendicular. We
shall have many knots, clustered about factories and other enterprises,
and we shall learn how to distribute the satisfactions in life rather
than merely to assemble them. Before this time comes, we shall have
passed the present insistence on so-called commercial efficiency, as if
it were the sole measure of a civilization, and higher ends shall come
to have control. All this will rest largely on the dividing of the land.
It is the common assumption that the solution of these problems lies in
facilities of transportation, and, to an extent, this is true; but this
assumption usually rests on the other assumption, that the method of the
present city vortex is the method of all time, with its violent rush
into the vortex and out of it, consuming vastly of time and energy,
preventing home leisure and destroying locality feeling, herding the
people like cattle. The question of transportation is indeed a major
problem, but it must be met in part by a different philosophy of human
effort, settling the people in many small or moderate assemblages rather
than in a few mighty congestions. It will be better to move the
materials than to move the people.
The great cities will grow larger; that is, they will cover more land.
The smaller cities, the villages, the country towns will take on greatly
increased importance. We shall learn how to secure the best
satisfactions when we live in villages as well as when we live in
cities. We begin to plan our cities and to a small extent our villages.
We now begin to plan the layout of the farms, that they may accomplish
the best results. But the cities and the towns depend on the country
that lies beyond; and the country beyond depends on the city and the
town. The problem is broadly one problem,--the problem of so dividing
and subdividing the surface of the earth that there shall be the least
conflict between all these interests, that public reservations shall not
be placed where it is better to have farms, that farming developments
may not interfere with public utilities, that institutions may be so
placed and with such area as to develop their highest usefulness, that
the people desiring outlet and contact with the earth in their own right
may be accorded that essential privilege. We have not yet begun to
approach the subject in a fundamental way, and yet it is the primary
problem of the occupancy of the planet.
To the growing movement for city planning should be added an equal
movement for country planning; and these should not proceed separately,
but both together. No other public program is now more needed.
_The honest day's work_
There is still another application of this problem of the land
background. It is the influence that productive ownership exerts on the
day's work.
Yesterday for some time I observed eight working men engaged in removing
parts of a structure and loading the pieces on a freight-car. At no time
were more than two of the men making any pretension of working at once,
most of the time they were all visiting or watching passers-by, and in
the whole period the eight men did not accomplish what one good honest
man should have performed. I wondered whether they had sufficient
exercise to keep them in good health. They apparently were concerned
about their "rights"; if the employer had rights they were
undiscoverable.
We know the integrity and effectiveness of the body of workmen; yet any
reader who has formed a habit of observing men on day work and public
work will recognize my account. Day men usually work in gangs,
frequently too many of them to allow any one to labor effectively, and
the whole process is likely to be mechanical, impersonal, often
shiftless and pervaded with the highly developed skill of putting in the
time and reducing the time to the minimum and of beginning to quit well
in advance of the quitting time. The process of securing labor has
become involved, tied up, and the labor is not rendered in a sufficient
spirit of service. About the only free labor yet remaining to us is the
month labor on the farm, even though it may be difficult to secure and
be comprised largely of ineffective remainders.
Over against all this is the importance of setting men at work singly
and for themselves; this can be accomplished only when they own their
property or have some real personal share in the production. The
gang-spirit of labor runs into the politics of the group and constitutes
the norm. If we are to have self-acting men they must be removed from
close control, in labor as well as elsewhere. If it is necessary that
any great proportion of the laboring men shall be controlled, then is it
equally important that other men in sufficient numbers shall constitute
the requisite counterbalance and corrective. It is doubtful whether any
kind of profit-sharing in closely controlled industries can ever be as
effective in training responsible men for a democracy, other things
being equal, as an occupation or series of occupations in which the
worker is responsible for his own results rather than to an overseer,
although the profit-sharing may for the time being develop the greater
technical efficiency.
The influence of ownership on the performance of the man is often well
illustrated when the farm laborer or tenant becomes the proprietor. Some
of my readers will have had experience in the difficult and doubtful
process of trying to "run a farm" at long range by means of ordinary
hired help: the residence is uninhabitable; the tools are old and out of
date, and some of them cannot be found; the well water is not good; the
poultry is of the wrong breed, and the hens will not sit; the horses are
not adapted to the work; the wagons must be painted and the harnesses
replaced; the absolutely essential supplies are interminable; there must
be more day labor. Now let this hired man come into the ownership of the
farm: presto! the house can be repaired at almost no cost; the tools are
good for some years yet; the harnesses can easily be mended; the
absolutely essential supplies dwindle exceedingly; and the outside labor
reduces itself to minor terms.
Work with machinery, in factories, may proceed more rapidly because the
operator must keep up with the machine; and there are also definite
standards or measures of performance. Yet even here it is not to be
expected that the work will be much more than time-service. In fact, the
very movement among labor is greatly to emphasize time-service, and
often quite independently of justice. There must necessarily be a
reaction from this attitude if we are to hope for the best human
product.
The best human product results from the bearing of responsibility; in a
controlled labor body the responsibility is shifted to the organization
or to the boss. Assuredly the consolidating of labor is much to be
desired if it is for the common benefit and for protection, and if it
leaves the laborer free with his own product. Every person has the
inalienable right to express himself, so long as it does not violate
similar rights of his fellows, and to put forth his best production; if
a man can best express himself in manual labor, no organization should
suppress him or deny him that privilege. It is a sad case, and a denial
of fundamental liberties, if a man is not allowed to work or to produce
as much as he desires. Good development does not come from repression.
Society recognizes its obligation to the laboring man of whatever kind
and the necessity of safeguarding him both in his own interest and
because he stands at the very foundations; the laboring man bears an
obligation to respond liberally with service and good-will.
Is it desirable to have an important part of the labor of a people
founded on ownership? Is it worth while to have an example in a large
class of the population of manual work that is free-spirited, and not
dominated by class interest and time-service? Is it essential to social
progress that a day's work shall be full measure?
_The group reaction_
One of the interesting phenomena of human association is the arising of
a certain standard or norm of moral action within the various groups
that compose it. These standards may not be inherently righteous, but
they become so thoroughly established as to be enacted into law or even
to be more powerful than law. So is it, as we have seen, with the idea
of inalienable rights in natural property that may be held even out of
all proportion to any proper use that the owners may be able to make of
it; and so is it with the idea of inviolable natural privileges to those
who control facilities that depend on public patronage for their
commercial success. The man himself may hold one kind of personal
morals, but the group of which he is a part may hold a very different
kind. It is our problem, in dealing with the resources of the earth, to
develop in the group the highest expression of duty that is to be found
in individuals.
The restraint of the group, or the correction of the group action, is
applied from the outside in the form of public opinion and in attack by
other groups. The correction does not often arise from within. The
establishing of many kinds of public-service bodies illustrates this
fact. It is the check of society on group-selfishness.
These remarks apply to the man who stands at the foundation of society,
next the earth, as well as to others, although he has not organized to
propagate the action of his class. The spoliation of land, the
insufficient regard for it, the trifling with it, is much more than an
economic deficiency. Society will demand either through the pressure of
public opinion, or by regularized action, that the producing power of
the land shall be safeguarded and increased, as I have indicated in an
earlier part of the discussion. It will be better if it comes as the
result of education, and thereby develops the voluntary feeling of
obligation and responsibility. At the same time, it is equally the
responsibility of every other person to make it possible for the farmer
to prosecute his business under the expression of the highest standards.
There is just now abroad amongst us a teaching to the effect that the
farmer cannot afford to put much additional effort into his crop
production, inasmuch as the profit in an acre may not depend on the
increase in yield, and therefore he does not carry an obligation to
augment his acre-yields. This is a weakening philosophy.
Undoubtedly there is a point beyond which he may not go with profit in
the effort to secure a heavy yield, for it may cost him too much to
produce the maximum; so it may not be profitable for a transportation
company to maintain the highest possible speed. With this economic
question I have nothing to do; but it is the farmer's moral
responsibility to society to increase his production, and the
stimulation reacts powerfully upon himself. It is a man's natural
responsibility to do his best: it is specially important that the man at
the bottom put forth his best efforts. To increase his yields is one of
the ways in which he expresses himself as a man and applies his
knowledge. This incentive taken away, agriculture loses one of its best
endeavors, the occupation remains stationary or even deteriorates, and
society loses a moral support at the very point where it is most needed.
If the economic conditions are such that the farmer cannot afford to
increase his production, then the remedy is to be found without rather
than by the repression of the producer. We are expending vast effort to
educate the farmer in the ways of better production, but we do not make
it possible for him to apply this education to the best advantage.
The real farmer, the one whom we so much delight to honor, has a strong
moral regard for his land, for his animals, and his crops. These are
established men, with highly developed obligations, feeling their
responsibility to the farm on which they live. No nation can long
persist that does not have this kind of citizenry in the background.
I have spoken of one phase of the group reaction, as suggested in the
attitude of the farmer. It may be interesting to recall, again, the fact
that the purpose of farming is changing. The farmer is now adopting the
outlook and the moral conduct of commerce. His business is no longer to
produce the supplies for his family and to share the small overplus with
society. He grows or makes a certain line of produce that he sells for
cash, and then he purchases his other supplies in the general market.
The days of homespun are gone. The farmer is as much a buyer as a
seller. Commercial methods and standards are invading the remotest
communities. This will have far-reaching results. Perhaps a fundamental
shift in the moral basis of the agricultural occupations is slowly under
way.
The measuring of farming in terms of yields and incomes introduces a
dangerous standard. It is commonly assumed that State moneys for
agriculture-education may be used only for "practical"--that is, for
dollars-and-cents--results, and the emphasis is widely placed very
exclusively on more alfalfa, more corn, more hogs, more fruit, on the
two-blades-of-grass morals; and yet the highest good that can accrue to
a State for the expenditure of its money is the raising up of a
population less responsive to cash than to some other stimuli. The good
physical support is indeed essential, but it is only the beginning of a
process. I am conscious of a peculiar hardness in some of the
agriculture-enterprise, with little real uplook; I hope that we may soon
pass this cruder phase.
Undoubtedly we are in the beginning of an epoch in rural affairs. We are
at a formative period. We begin to consider the rural problem
increasingly in terms of social groups. The attitudes that these groups
assume, the way in which they react to their problems, will be
determined in the broader aspects for some time to come by the character
of the young leadership that is now taking the field.
_The spiritual contact with nature_
A useful contact with the earth places man not as superior to nature but
as a superior intelligence working in nature as a conscious and
therefore as a responsible part in a plan of evolution, which is a
continuing creation. It distinguishes the elemental virtues as against
the acquired, factitious, and pampered virtues. These strong and simple
traits may be brought out easily and naturally if we incorporate into
our schemes of education the solid experiences of tramping, camping,
scouting, farming, handcraft, and other activities that are not mere
refinements of subjective processes.
Lack of training in the realities drives us to find satisfaction in all
sorts of make-believes and in play-lives. The "movies" and many other
developments of our time make an appeal wholly beyond their merits, and
they challenge the methods and intentions of education.
There are more fundamental satisfactions than "thrills." There is more
heart-ease in frugality than in surfeit. There is no real relish except
when the appetite is keen. We are now provided with all sorts of things
that nobody ever should want.
The good spiritual reaction to nature is not a form of dogmatism or
impressionism. It results normally from objective experience, when the
person is ready for it and has good digestion. It should be the natural
emotion of the man who knows his objects and does not merely dream about
them. There is no hallucination in it. The remedy for some of the
erratic "futurism" and other forms of illusion is to put the man hard
against the facts: he might be set to studying bugs or soils or placed
between the handles of a plow until such time as objects begin to take
their natural shape and meaning in his mind.
It is not within my purview here to consider the abstract righteous
relation of man to the creation, nor to examine the major emotions that
result from a contemplation of nature. It is only a very few of the
simpler and more practical considerations that I may suggest.
The training in solid experience naturally emphasizes the righteousness
of plain and simple eating and drinking, and of frugality and control in
pleasures. Many of the adventitious pleasures are in the highest degree
pernicious and are indications of weakness.
Considering the almost universal opinion that nature exhibits the
merciless and relentless struggle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth, it is significant that one of the most productive ways of
training a youth in sensitiveness and in regard for other creatures is
by means of the nature contact. Even if the person is taught that the
strong and ferocious survive and conquer, he nevertheless soon comes to
have the tenderest regard for every living thing if he has the naturist
in him. He discards the idea that we lose virility when we cease to
kill, and relegates the notion to the limbo of deceits. This only means
that unconsciously he has experienced the truth in nature, and in
practice has discarded the erroneous philosophy contained in books even
though he may still give these philosophies his mental assent.
It is exactly among the naturists that the old instinct to kill begins
to lose its force and that an instinct of helpfulness and real
brotherhood soon takes its place. From another source, the instinct to
kill dies out among the moralists and other people. And yet it is
passing strange how this old survival--or is it a reversion?--holds its
place amongst us, even in the higher levels. The punishment of a life
for a life is itself a survival. Entertainment even yet plays upon this
old memory of killing, as in books of adventure, in fiction, in
playgames of children, and worst of all on the stage where this strange
anachronism, even in plays that are not historic, is still portrayed in
pernicious features and in a way that would rouse any community and
violate law if it were enacted in real life.
It is difficult to explain these survivals when we pretend to be so much
shocked by the struggle for existence. We must accept the struggle, but
we ought to try to understand it. The actual suffering among the
creatures as the result of this struggle is probably small, and the
bloody and ferocious contest that we like to picture to ourselves is
relatively insignificant. There is a righteous element in the struggle;
or, more truthfully, the struggle itself is right. Every living and
sentient thing persists by its merit and by its right. It persists
within its sphere, and usually not in the sphere of some other creature.
The weeding-out process is probably related in some way with
adaptability, but only remotely with physical strength. It is a process
of applying the test. The test is applied continuously, and not in some
violent upheaval.