{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_33178/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_33178","id":"gutenberg_33178","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33178","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Environmental Issues","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Conservation of natural resources","Country life","Earth (Planet)","Natural resources","Nature"],"text":"Produced by Bryan Ness, Asad Razzaki and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This\nbook was produced from scanned images of public domain\nmaterial from the Google Print project.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n THE\n HOLY EARTH\n\n BY\n\n L. H. BAILEY\n\n\n NEW YORK\n CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS\n 1916\n\n\n Copyright, 1915, by\n CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS\n\n Published September, 1915\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\n                                                 Page\n\nFirst, The Statement: Pages 1-16\n\n    In the beginning                                5\n\n    The earth is good                               7\n\n    It is kindly                                   10\n\n    The earth is holy                              14\n\n\nSecond, The Consequences: Pages 17-171\n\n    The habit of destruction                       18\n\n    The new hold                                   22\n\n    The brotherhood relation                       30\n\n    The farmer's relation                          32\n\n    The underlying training of a people            39\n\n    The neighbor's access to the earth             42\n\n    The subdividing of the land                    48\n\n    A new map                                      55\n\n    The public program                             61\n\n    The honest day's work                          66\n\n    The group reaction                             70\n\n    The spiritual contact with nature              75\n\n    The struggle for existence: war                80\n\n    The daily fare                                 90\n\n    The admiration of good materials              103\n\n    The keeping of the beautiful earth            115\n\n    The tones of industry                         120\n\n    The threatened literature                     124\n\n    The separate soul                             130\n\n    The element of separateness in society        136\n\n    The democratic basis in agriculture           139\n\n    The background spaces.--The forest            150\n\n    A forest background for a reformatory         156\n\n    The background spaces.--The open fields       164\n\n    The background spaces.--The ancestral sea     167\n\n\n\n\nTHE HOLY EARTH\n\n\n\n\nTHE HOLY EARTH\n\n\nFirst, the Statement\n\n\nSo bountiful hath been the earth and so securely have we drawn from it\nour substance, that we have taken it all for granted as if it were only\na gift, and with little care or conscious thought of the consequences of\nour use of it; nor have we very much considered the essential relation\nthat we bear to it as living parts in the vast creation.\n\nIt is good to think of ourselves--of this teeming, tense, and aspiring\nhuman race--as a helpful and contributing part in the plan of a cosmos,\nand as participators in some far-reaching destiny. The idea of\nresponsibility is much asserted of late, but we relate it mostly to the\nattitude of persons in the realm of conventional conduct, which we have\ncome to regard as very exclusively the realm of morals; and we have\nestablished certain formalities that satisfy the conscience. But there\nis some deeper relation than all this, which we must recognize and the\nconsequences of which we must practise. There is a directer and more\npersonal obligation than that which expends itself in loyalty to the\nmanifold organizations and social requirements of the present day. There\nis a more fundamental co-operation in the scheme of things than that\nwhich deals with the proprieties or which centres about the selfishness\ntoo often expressed in the salvation of one's soul.\n\nWe can be only onlookers on that part of the cosmos that we call the far\nheavens, but it is possible to co-operate in the processes on the\nsurface of the sphere. This co-operation may be conscious and definite,\nand also useful to the earth; that is, it may be real. What means this\ncontact with our natural situation, this relationship to the earth to\nwhich we are born, and what signify this new exploration and conquest of\nthe planet and these accumulating prophecies of science? Does the\nmothership of the earth have any real meaning to us?\n\nAll this does not imply a relation only with material and physical\nthings, nor any effort to substitute a nature religion. Our relation\nwith the planet must be raised into the realm of spirit; we cannot be\nfully useful otherwise. We must find a way to maintain the emotions in\nthe abounding commercial civilization. There are two kinds of\nmaterials,--those of the native earth and the idols of one's hands. The\nlatter are much in evidence in modern life, with the conquests of\nengineering, mechanics, architecture, and all the rest. We visualize\nthem everywhere, and particularly in the great centres of population.\nThe tendency is to be removed farther and farther from the everlasting\nbackgrounds. Our religion is detached.\n\nWe come out of the earth and we have a right to the use of the\nmaterials; and there is no danger of crass materialism if we recognize\nthe original materials as divine and if we understand our proper\nrelation to the creation, for then will gross selfishness in the use of\nthem be removed. This will necessarily mean a better conception of\nproperty and of one's obligation in the use of it. We shall conceive of\nthe earth, which is the common habitation, as inviolable. One does not\nact rightly toward one's fellows if one does not know how to act rightly\ntoward the earth.\n\nNor does this close regard for the mother earth imply any loss of\nmysticism or of exaltation: quite the contrary. Science but increases\nthe mystery of the unknown and enlarges the boundaries of the spiritual\nvision. To feel that one is a useful and co-operating part in nature is\nto give one kinship, and to open the mind to the great resources and the\nhigh enthusiasms. Here arise the fundamental common relations. Here\narise also the great emotions and conceptions of sublimity and grandeur,\nof majesty and awe, the uplift of vast desires,--when one contemplates\nthe earth and the universe and desires to take them into the soul and to\nexpress oneself in their terms; and here also the responsible practices\nof life take root.\n\nSo much are we now involved in problems of human groups, so persistent\nare the portrayals of our social afflictions, and so well do we magnify\nour woes by insisting on them, so much in sheer weariness do we provide\nantidotes to soothe our feelings and to cause us to forget by means of\nmany empty diversions, that we may neglect to express ourselves in\nsimple free personal joy and to separate the obligation of the\nindividual from the irresponsibilities of the mass.\n\n\n\n\n_In the beginning_\n\n\nIt suits my purpose to quote the first sentence in the Hebrew Scripture:\nIn the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.\n\nThis is a statement of tremendous reach, introducing the cosmos; for it\nsets forth in the fewest words the elemental fact that the formation of\nthe created earth lies above and before man, and that therefore it is\nnot man's but God's. Man finds himself upon it, with many other\ncreatures, all parts in some system which, since it is beyond man and\nsuperior to him, is divine.\n\nYet the planet was not at once complete when life had appeared upon it.\nThe whirling earth goes through many vicissitudes; the conditions on its\nfruitful surface are ever-changing; and the forms of life must meet the\nnew conditions: so does the creation continue, and every day sees the\ngenesis in process. All life contends, sometimes ferociously but more\noften bloodlessly and benignly, and the contention results in momentary\nequilibrium, one set of contestants balancing another; but every change\nin the outward conditions destroys the equation and a new status\nresults. Of all the disturbing living factors, man is the greatest. He\nsets mighty changes going, destroying forests, upturning the sleeping\nprairies, flooding the deserts, deflecting the courses of the rivers,\nbuilding great cities. He operates consciously and increasingly with\nplan aforethought; and therefore he carries heavy responsibility.\n\nThis responsibility is recognized in the Hebrew Scripture, from which I\nhave quoted; and I quote it again because I know of no other Scripture\nthat states it so well. Man is given the image of the creator, even when\nformed from the dust of the earth, so complete is his power and so real\nhis dominion: And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful,\nand multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion\nover the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every\nliving thing that moveth upon the earth.\n\nOne cannot receive all these privileges without bearing the obligation\nto react and to partake, to keep, to cherish, and to co-operate. We have\nassumed that there is no obligation to an inanimate thing, as we\nconsider the earth to be: but man should respect the conditions in which\nhe is placed; the earth yields the living creature; man is a living\ncreature; science constantly narrows the gulf between the animate and\nthe inanimate, between the organized and the inorganized; evolution\nderives the creatures from the earth; the creation is one creation. I\nmust accept all or reject all.\n\n\n\n\n_The earth is good_\n\n\nIt is good to live. We talk of death and of lifelessness, but we know\nonly of life. Even our prophecies of death are prophecies of more life.\nWe know no better world: whatever else there may be is of things hoped\nfor, not of things seen. The objects are here, not hidden nor far to\nseek: And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very\ngood.\n\nThese good things are the present things and the living things. The\naccount is silent on the things that were not created, the chaos, the\ndarkness, the abyss. Plato, in the \"Republic,\" reasoned that the works\nof the creator must be good because the creator is good. This goodness\nis in the essence of things; and we sadly need to make it a part in our\nphilosophy of life. The earth is the scene of our life, and probably the\nvery source of it. The heaven, so far as human beings know, is the\nsource only of death; in fact, we have peopled it with the dead. We have\nbuilt our philosophy on the dead.\n\nWe seem to have overlooked the goodness of the earth in the establishing\nof our affairs, and even in our philosophies. It is reserved as a theme\nfor preachers and for poets. And yet, the goodness of the planet is the\nbasic fact in our existence.\n\nI am not speaking of good in an abstract way, in the sense in which some\nof us suppose the creator to have expressed himself as pleased or\nsatisfied with his work. The earth is good in itself, and its products\nare good in themselves. The earth sustains all things. It satisfies. It\nmatters not whether this satisfaction is the result of adaptation in the\nprocess of evolution; the fact remains that the creation is good.\n\nTo the common man the earth propounds no system of philosophy or of\ntheology. The man makes his own personal contact, deals with the facts\nas they are or as he conceives them to be, and is not swept into any\nsystem. He has no right to assume a bad or evil earth, although it is\ndifficult to cast off the hindrance of centuries of teaching. When he is\nproperly educated he will get a new resource from his relationships.\n\nIt may be difficult to demonstrate this goodness. In the nature of\nthings we must assume it, although we know that we could not subsist on\na sphere of the opposite qualities. The important consideration is that\nwe appreciate it, and this not in any sentimental and impersonal way. To\nevery bird the air is good; and a man knows it is good if he is worth\nbeing a man. To every fish the water is good. To every beast its food\nis good, and its time of sleep is good. The creatures experience that\nlife is good. Every man in his heart knows that there is goodness and\nwholeness in the rain, in the wind, the soil, the sea, the glory of\nsunrise, in the trees, and in the sustenance that we derive from the\nplanet. When we grasp the significance of this situation, we shall\nforever supplant the religion of fear with a religion of consent.\n\nWe are so accustomed to these essentials--to the rain, the wind, the\nsoil, the sea, the sunrise, the trees, the sustenance--that we may not\ninclude them in the categories of the good things, and we endeavor to\nsatisfy ourselves with many small and trivial and exotic gratifications;\nand when these gratifications fail or pall, we find ourselves helpless\nand resourceless. The joy of sound sleep, the relish of a sufficient\nmeal of plain and wholesome food, the desire to do a good day's work and\nthe recompense when at night we are tired from the doing of it, the\nexhilaration of fresh air, the exercise of the natural powers, the\nmastery of a situation or a problem,--these and many others like them\nare fundamental satisfactions, beyond all pampering and all toys, and\nthey are of the essence of goodness. I think we should teach all\nchildren how good are the common necessities, and how very good are the\nthings that are made in the beginning.\n\n\n\n\n_It is kindly_\n\n\nWe hear much about man being at the mercy of nature, and the literalist\nwill contend that there can be no holy relation under such conditions.\nBut so is man at the mercy of God.\n\nIt is a blasphemous practice that speaks of the hostility of the earth,\nas if the earth were full of menaces and cataclysms. The old fear of\nnature, that peopled the earth and sky with imps and demons, and that\ngave a future state to Satan, yet possesses the minds of men, only that\nwe may have ceased to personify and to demonize our fears, although we\nstill persistently contrast what we call the evil and the good. Still do\nwe attempt to propitiate and appease the adversaries. Still do we carry\nthe ban of the early philosophy that assumed materials and \"the flesh\"\nto be evil, and that found a way of escape only in renunciation and\nasceticism.\n\nNature cannot be antagonistic to man, seeing that man is a product of\nnature. We should find vast joy in the fellowship, something like the\njoy of Pan. We should feel the relief when we no longer apologize for\nthe creator because of the things that are made.\n\nIt is true that there are devastations of flood and fire and frost,\nscourge of disease, and appalling convulsions of earthquake and\neruption. But man prospers; and we know that the catastrophes are\ngreatly fewer than the accepted bounties. We have no choice but to\nabide. No growth comes from hostility. It would undoubtedly be a poor\nhuman race if all the pathway had been plain and easy.\n\nThe contest with nature is wholesome, particularly when pursued in\nsympathy and for mastery. It is worthy a being created in God's image.\nThe earth is perhaps a stern earth, but it is a kindly earth.\n\nMost of our difficulty with the earth lies in the effort to do what\nperhaps ought not to be done. Not even all the land is fit to be farmed.\nA good part of agriculture is to learn how to adapt one's work to\nnature, to fit the crop-scheme to the climate and to the soil and the\nfacilities. To live in right relation with his natural conditions is one\nof the first lessons that a wise farmer or any other wise man learns. We\nare at pains to stress the importance of conduct; very well: conduct\ntoward the earth is an essential part of it.\n\nNor need we be afraid of any fact that makes one fact more or less in\nthe sum of contacts between the earth and the earth-born children. All\n\"higher criticism\" adds to the faith rather than subtracts from it, and\nstrengthens the bond between. The earth and its products are very real.\n\nOur outlook has been drawn very largely from the abstract. Not being yet\nprepared to understand the conditions of nature, man considered the\nearth to be inhospitable, and he looked to the supernatural for relief;\nand relief was heaven. Our pictures of heaven are of the opposites of\ndaily experience,--of release, of peace, of joy uninterrupted. The\nhunting-grounds are happy and the satisfaction has no end. The habit of\nthought has been set by this conception, and it colors our dealings with\nthe human questions and to much extent it controls our practice.\n\nBut we begin to understand that the best dealing with problems on earth\nis to found it on the facts of earth. This is the contribution of\nnatural science, however abstract, to human welfare. Heaven is to be a\nreal consequence of life on earth; and we do not lessen the hope of\nheaven by increasing our affection for the earth, but rather do we\nstrengthen it. Men now forget the old images of heaven, that they are\nmere sojourners and wanderers lingering for deliverance, pilgrims in a\nstrange land. Waiting for this rescue, with posture and formula and\nphrase, we have overlooked the essential goodness and quickness of the\nearth and the immanence of God.\n\nThis feeling that we are pilgrims in a vale of tears has been enhanced\nby the wide-spread belief in the sudden ending of the world, by\ncollision or some other impending disaster, and in the common\napprehension of doom; and lately by speculations as to the aridation and\ndeath of the planet, to which all of us have given more or less\ncredence. But most of these notions are now considered to be fantastic,\nand we are increasingly confident that the earth is not growing old in a\nhuman sense, that its atmosphere and its water are held by the\nattraction of its mass, and that the sphere is at all events so\npermanent as to make little difference in our philosophy and no\ndifference in our good behavior.\n\nI am again impressed with the first record in Genesis in which some\nmighty prophet-poet began his account with the creation of the physical\nuniverse.\n\nSo do we forget the old-time importance given to mere personal\nsalvation, which was permission to live in heaven, and we think more of\nour present situation, which is the situation of obligation and of\nservice; and he who loses his life shall save it.\n\nWe begin to foresee the vast religion of a better social order.\n\n\n\n\n_The earth is holy_\n\n\nVerily, then, the earth is divine, because man did not make it. We are\nhere, part in the creation. We cannot escape. We are under obligation to\ntake part and to do our best, living with each other and with all the\ncreatures. We may not know the full plan, but that does not alter the\nrelation. When once we set ourselves to the pleasure of our dominion,\nreverently and hopefully, and assume all its responsibilities, we shall\nhave a new hold on life.\n\nWe shall put our dominion into the realm of morals. It is now in the\nrealm of trade. This will be very personal morals, but it will also be\nnational and racial morals. More iniquity follows the improper and\ngreedy division of the resources and privileges of the earth than any\nother form of sinfulness.\n\nIf God created the earth, so is the earth hallowed; and if it is\nhallowed, so must we deal with it devotedly and with care that we do not\ndespoil it, and mindful of our relations to all beings that live on it.\nWe are to consider it religiously: Put off thy shoes from off thy feet,\nfor the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.\n\nThe sacredness to us of the earth is intrinsic and inherent. It lies in\nour necessary relationship and in the duty imposed upon us to have\ndominion, and to exercise ourselves even against our own interests. We\nmay not waste that which is not ours. To live in sincere relations with\nthe company of created things and with conscious regard for the support\nof all men now and yet to come, must be of the essence of righteousness.\n\nThis is a larger and more original relation than the modern attitude of\nappreciation and admiration of nature. In the days of the patriarchs and\nprophets, nature and man shared in the condemnation and likewise in the\nredemption. The ground was cursed for Adam's sin. Paul wrote that the\nwhole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, and that it waiteth for\nthe revealing. Isaiah proclaimed the redemption of the wilderness and\nthe solitary place with the redemption of man, when they shall rejoice\nand blossom as the rose, and when the glowing sand shall become a pool\nand the thirsty ground springs of water.\n\nThe usual objects have their moral significance. An oak-tree is to us a\nmoral object because it lives its life regularly and fulfils its\ndestiny. In the wind and in the stars, in forest and by the shore, there\nis spiritual refreshment: And the spirit of God moved upon the face of\nthe waters.\n\nI do not mean all this, for our modern world, in any vague or abstract\nway. If the earth is holy, then the things that grow out of the earth\nare also holy. They do not belong to man to do with them as he will.\nDominion does not carry personal ownership. There are many generations\nof folk yet to come after us, who will have equal right with us to the\nproducts of the globe. It would seem that a divine obligation rests on\nevery soul. Are we to make righteous use of the vast accumulation of\nknowledge of the planet? If so, we must have a new formulation. The\npartition of the earth among the millions who live on it is necessarily\na question of morals; and a society that is founded on an unmoral\npartition and use cannot itself be righteous and whole.\n\n\n\n\nSecond, the Consequences\n\n\nI have now stated my purpose; and the remainder of the little book will\nmake some simple applications of it and draw some inferences therefrom.\nThere is nothing here that need alarm the timid, albeit we enter a\ndisputed field, a field of opinion rather than of demonstration; and if\nthe reader goes with me, I trust that we may have a pleasant journey.\n\nIt is to be a journey of recognition, not of protest. It is needful that\nwe do not forget.\n\nWe are not to enter into a course of reasoning with those whom we meet\non the way, or to pause to debate the definitions and analyses made in\nbooks, or to deny any of the satisfactions of tradition. We shall be\nready for impressions; and possibly we shall be able to find some of the\nold truths in unfrequented places.\n\n\n\n\n_The habit of destruction_\n\n\nThe first observation that must be apparent to all men is that our\ndominion has been mostly destructive.\n\nWe have been greatly engaged in digging up the stored resources, and in\ndestroying vast products of the earth for some small kernel that we can\napply to our necessities or add to our enjoyments. We excavate the best\nof the coal and cast away the remainder; blast the minerals and metals\nfrom underneath the crust, and leave the earth raw and sore; we box the\npines for turpentine and abandon the growths of limitless years to fire\nand devastation; sweep the forests with the besom of destruction; pull\nthe fish from the rivers and ponds without making any adequate provision\nfor renewal; exterminate whole races of animals; choke the streams with\nrefuse and dross; rob the land of its available stores, denuding the\nsurface, exposing great areas to erosion.\n\nNor do we exercise the care and thrift of good housekeepers. We do not\nclean up our work or leave the earth in order. The remnants and\naccumulation of mining-camps are left to ruin and decay; the deserted\nphosphate excavations are ragged, barren, and unfilled; vast areas of\nforested lands are left in brush and waste, unthoughtful of the future,\nunmindful of the years that must be consumed to reduce the refuse to\nmould and to cover the surface respectably, uncharitable to those who\nmust clear away the wastes and put the place in order; and so\nthoughtless are we with these natural resources that even the\nestablishments that manufacture them--the mills, the factories of many\nkinds--are likely to be offensive objects in the landscape, unclean,\nunkempt, displaying the unconcern of the owners to the obligation that\nthe use of the materials imposes and to the sensibilities of the\ncommunity for the way in which they handle them. The burden of proof\nseems always to have been rested on those who partake little in the\nbenefits, although we know that these non-partakers have been real\nowners of the resources; and yet so undeveloped has been the public\nconscience in these matters that the blame--if blame there be--cannot be\nlaid on one group more than on the other. Strange it is, however, that\nwe should not have insisted at least that those who appropriate the\naccumulations of the earth should complete their work, cleaning up the\nremainders, leaving the areas wholesome, inoffensive, and safe. How many\nand many are the years required to grow a forest and to fill the pockets\nof the rocks, and how satisfying are the landscapes, and yet how\ndesperately soon may men reduce it all to ruin and to emptiness, and\nhow slatternly may they violate the scenery!\n\nAll this habit of destructiveness is uneconomic in the best sense,\nunsocial, unmoral.\n\nSociety now begins to demand a constructive process. With care and with\nregard for other men, we must produce the food and the other supplies in\nregularity and sufficiency; and we must clean up after our work, that\nthe earth may not be depleted, scarred, or repulsive.\n\nYet there is even a more defenseless devastation than all this. It is\nthe organized destructiveness of those who would make military\ndomination the major premise in the constitution of society,\naccompanying desolation with viciousness and violence, ravaging the holy\nearth, disrespecting the works of the creator, looking toward\nextirpation, confessing thereby that they do not know how to live in\nco-operation with their fellows; in such situations, every new implement\nof destruction adds to the guilt.\n\nIn times past we were moved by religious fanaticism, even to the point\nof waging wars. To-day we are moved by impulses of trade, and we find\nourselves plunged into a war of commercial frenzy; and as it has behind\nit vaster resources and more command of natural forces, so is it the\nmost ferocious and wasteful that the race has experienced, exceeding in\nits havoc the cataclysms of earthquake and volcano. Certainly we have\nnot yet learned how to withstand the prosperity and the privileges that\nwe have gained by the discoveries of science; and certainly the morals\nof commerce has not given us freedom or mastery. Rivalry that leads to\narms is a natural fruit of unrestrained rivalry in trade.\n\nMan has dominion, but he has no commission to devastate: And the Lord\nGod took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to\nkeep it.\n\nVerily, so bountiful hath been the earth and so securely have we drawn\nfrom it our substance, that we have taken it all for granted as if it\nwere only a gift, and with little care or conscious thought of the\nconsequences of our use of it.\n\n\n\n\n_The new hold_\n\n\nWe may distinguish three stages in our relation to the planet, the\ncollecting stage, the mining stage, and the producing stage. These\noverlap and perhaps are nowhere distinct, and yet it serves a purpose to\ncontrast them.\n\nAt first man sweeps the earth to see what he may gather,--game, wood,\nfruits, fish, fur, feathers, shells on the shore. A certain social and\nmoral life arises out of this relation, seen well in the woodsmen and\nthe fishers--in whom it best persists to the present day--strong,\ndogmatic, superstitious folk. Then man begins to go beneath the surface\nto see what he can find,--iron and precious stones, the gold of Ophir,\ncoal, and many curious treasures. This develops the exploiting\nfaculties, and leads men into the uttermost parts. In both these stages\nthe elements of waste and disregard have been heavy.\n\nFinally, we begin to enter the productive stage, whereby we secure\nsupplies by controlling the conditions under which they grow, wasting\nlittle, harming not. Farming has been very much a mining process, the\nutilizing of fertility easily at hand and the moving-on to lands\nunspoiled of quick potash and nitrogen. Now it begins to be really\nproductive and constructive, with a range of responsible and permanent\nmorals. We rear the domestic animals with precision. We raise crops,\nwhen we will, almost to a nicety. We plant fish in lakes and streams to\nsome extent but chiefly to provide more game rather than more human\nfood, for in this range we are yet mostly in the collecting or hunter\nstage. If the older stages were strongly expressed in the character of\nthe people, so will this new stage be expressed; and so is it that we\nare escaping the primitive and should be coming into a new character. We\nshall find our rootage in the soil.\n\nThis new character, this clearer sense of relationship with the earth,\nshould express itself in all the people and not exclusively in farming\npeople and their like. It should be a popular character--or a national\ncharacter if we would limit the discussion to one people--and not a\nclass character. Now, here lies a difficulty and here is a reason for\nwriting this book: the population of the earth is increasing, the\nrelative population of farmers is decreasing, people are herding in\ncities, we have a city mind, and relatively fewer people are brought\ninto touch with the earth in any real way. So is it incumbent on us to\ntake special pains--now that we see the new time--that all the people,\nor as many of them as possible, shall have contact with the earth and\nthat the earth righteousness shall be abundantly taught.\n\nI hasten to say that I am not thinking of any back-to-the-farm movement\nto bring about the results we seek. Necessarily, the proportion of\nfarmers will decrease. Not so many are needed, relatively, to produce\nthe requisite supplies from the earth. Agriculture makes a great\ncontribution to human progress by releasing men for the manufactures and\nthe trades. In proportion as the ratio of farmers decreases is it\nimportant that we provide them the best of opportunities and\nencouragement: they must be better and better men. And if we are to\nsecure our moral connection with the planet to a large extent through\nthem, we can see that they bear a relation to society in general that we\nhave overlooked.\n\nEven the farming itself is changing radically in character. It ceases to\nbe an occupation to gain sustenance and becomes a business. We apply to\nit the general attitudes of commerce. We must be alert to see that it\ndoes not lose its capacity for spiritual contact.\n\nHow we may achieve a more wide-spread contact with the earth on the part\nof all the people without making them farmers, I shall endeavor to\nsuggest as I proceed; in fact, this is my theme. Dominion means mastery;\nwe may make the surface of the earth much what we will; we can govern\nthe way in which we shall contemplate it. We are probably near something\nlike a stable occupancy. It is not to be expected that there will be\nvast shifting of cities as the contest for the mastery of the earth\nproceeds,--probably nothing like the loss of Tyre and Carthage, and of\nthe commercial glory of Venice. In fact, we shall have a progressive\noccupancy. The greater the population, the greater will be the demands\non the planet; and, moreover, every new man will make more demands than\nhis father made, for he will want more to satisfy him. We are to take\nfrom the earth much more than we have ever taken before, but it will be\ntaken in a new way and with better intentions. It will be seen,\ntherefore, that we are not here dealing narrowly with an occupation but\nwith something very fundamental to our life on the planet.\n\nWe are not to look for our permanent civilization to rest on any species\nof robber-economy. No flurry of coal-mining, or gold-fever, or\nrubber-collecting in the tropics, or excitement of prospecting for new\nfinds or even locating new lands, no ravishing of the earth or\nmonopolistic control of its bounties, will build a stable society. So is\nmuch of our economic and social fabric transitory. It is not by accident\nthat a very distinct form of society is developing in the great farming\nregions of the Mississippi Valley and in other comparable places; the\nexploiting and promoting occupancy of those lands is passing and a\nstable progressive development appears. We have been obsessed of the\npassion to cover everything at once, to skin the earth, to pass on, even\nwhen there was no necessity for so doing. It is a vast pity that this\nshould ever have been the policy of government in giving away great\ntracts of land by lottery, as if our fingers would burn if we held the\nlands inviolate until needed by the natural process of settlement. The\npeople should be kept on their lands long enough to learn how to use\nthem. But very well: we have run with the wind, we have staked the\nlands; now we shall be real farmers and real conquerors. Not all lands\nare equally good for farming, and some lands will never be good for\nfarming; but whether in Iowa, or New England, or old Asia, farming land\nmay develop character in the people.\n\nMy reader must not infer that we have arrived at a permanent\nagriculture, although we begin now to see the importance of a permanent\nland occupancy. Probably we have not yet evolved a satisfying husbandry\nthat will maintain itself century by century, without loss and without\nthe ransacking of the ends of the earth for fertilizer materials to make\ngood our deficiencies. All the more is it important that the problem be\nelevated into the realm of statesmanship and of morals. Neither must he\ninfer that the resources of the earth are to be locked up beyond contact\nand use (for the contact and use will be morally regulated). But no\nsystem of brilliant exploitation, and no accidental scratching of the\nsurface of the earth, and no easy appropriation of stored materials can\nsuffice us in the good days to come. City, country, this class and that\nclass, all fall and merge before the common necessity.\n\nIt is often said that the farmer is our financial mainstay; so in the\ngood process of time will he be a moral mainstay, for ultimately finance\nand social morals must coincide.\n\nThe gifts are to be used for service and for satisfaction, and not for\nwealth. Very great wealth introduces too many intermediaries, too great\nindirectness, too much that is extrinsic, too frequent hindrances and\nsuperficialities. It builds a wall about the man, and too often does he\nreceive his impressions of the needs of the world from satellites and\nsycophants. It is significant that great wealth, if it contributes much\nto social service, usually accomplishes the result by endowing others to\nwork. The gift of the products of the earth was \"for meat\": nothing was\nsaid about riches.\n\nYet the very appropriation or use of natural resources may be the means\nof directing the mind of the people back to the native situations. We\nhave the opportunity to make the forthcoming development of\nwater-power, for example, such an agency for wholesome training.\nWhenever we can appropriate without despoliation or loss, or without a\ndamaging monopoly, we tie the people to the backgrounds.\n\nIn the background is the countryman; and how is the countryman to make\nuse of the rain and the abounding soil, and the varied wonder of plant\nand animal amidst which he lives, that he may arrive at kinship? We are\nteaching him how to bring some of these things under the dominion of his\nhands, how to measure and to weigh and to judge. This will give him the\nessential physical mastery. But beyond this, how shall he take them into\nhimself, how shall he make them to be of his spirit, how shall he\ncomplete his dominion? How shall he become the man that his natural\nposition requires of him? This will come slowly, ah, yes!--slowly. The\npeople--the great striving self-absorbed throng of the people--they do\nnot know what we mean when we talk like this, they hear only so many\nfine words. The naturist knows that the time will come slowly,--not yet\nare we ready for fulfilment; he knows that we cannot regulate the\ncosmos, or even the natural history of the people, by enactments.\nSlowly: by removing handicaps here and there; by selection of the folk\nin a natural process, to eliminate the unresponsive; by teaching, by\nsuggestion; by a public recognition of the problem, even though not one\nof us sees the end of it.\n\nI hope my reader now sees where I am leading him. He sees that I am not\nthinking merely of instructing the young in the names and habits of\nbirds and flowers and other pleasant knowledge, although this works\nstrongly toward the desired end; nor of any movement merely to have\ngardens, or to own farms, although this is desirable provided one is\nqualified to own a farm; nor of rhapsodies on the beauties of nature.\nNor am I thinking of any new plan or any novel kind of institution or\nany new agency; rather shall we do better to escape some of the\nexcessive institutionalism and organization. We are so accustomed to\nthink in terms of organized politics and education and religion and\nphilanthropies that when we detach ourselves we are said to lack\ndefiniteness. It is the personal satisfaction in the earth to which we\nare born, and the quickened responsibility, the whole relation, broadly\ndeveloped, of the man and of all men,--it is this attitude that we are\nto discuss.\n\nThe years pass and they grow into centuries. We see more clearly. We are\nto take a new hold.\n\n\n\n\n_The brotherhood relation_\n\n\nA constructive and careful handling of the resources of the earth is\nimpossible except on a basis of large co-operation and of association\nfor mutual welfare. The great inventions and discoveries of recent time\nhave extensive social significance.\n\nYet we have other relations than with the physical and static materials.\nWe are parts in a living sensitive creation. The theme of evolution has\noverturned our attitude toward this creation. The living creation is not\nexclusively man-centred: it is bio-centric. We perceive the essential\ncontinuity in nature, arising from within rather than from without, the\nforms of life proceeding upwardly and onwardly in something very like a\nmighty plan of sequence, man being one part in the process. We have\ngenetic relation with all living things, and our aristocracy is the\naristocracy of nature. We can claim no gross superiority and no isolated\nself-importance. The creation, and not man, is the norm. Even now do we\nbegin to guide our practises and our speech by our studies of what we\nstill call the lower creation. We gain a good perspective on ourselves.\n\nIf we are parts in the evolution, and if the universe, or even the\nearth, is not made merely as a footstool, or as a theatre for man, so do\nwe lose our cosmic selfishness and we find our place in the plan of\nthings. We are emancipated from ignorance and superstition and small\nphilosophies. The present wide-spread growth of the feeling of\nbrotherhood would have been impossible in a self-centred creation: the\nway has been prepared by the discussion of evolution, which is the major\nbiological contribution to human welfare and progress. This is the\nphilosophy of the oneness in nature and the unity in living things.\n\n\n\n\n_The farmer's relation_\n\n\nThe surface of the earth is particularly within the care of the farmer.\nHe keeps it for his own sustenance and gain, but his gain is also the\ngain of all the rest of us. At the best, he accumulates little to\nhimself. The successful farmer is the one who produces more than he\nneeds for his support; and the overplus he does not keep; and, moreover,\nhis own needs are easily satisfied. It is of the utmost consequence that\nthe man next the earth shall lead a fair and simple life; for in riotous\nliving he might halt many good supplies that now go to his fellows.\n\nIt is a public duty so to train the farmer that he shall appreciate his\nguardianship. He is engaged in a quasi-public business. He really does\nnot even own his land. He does not take his land with him, but only the\npersonal development that he gains from it. He cannot annihilate his\nland, as another might destroy all his belongings. He is the agent or\nthe representative of society to guard and to subdue the surface of the\nearth; and he is the agent of the divinity that made it. He must\nexercise his dominion with due regard to all these obligations. He is a\ntrustee. The productiveness of the earth must increase from generation\nto generation: this also is his obligation. He must handle all his\nmaterials, remembering man and remembering God. A man cannot be a good\nfarmer unless he is a religious man.\n\nIf the farmer is engaged in a quasi-public business, shall we undertake\nto regulate him? This relationship carries a vast significance to the\nsocial order, and it must color our attitude toward the man on the land.\nWe are now in that epoch of social development when we desire to\nregulate by law everything that is regulatable and the other things\nbesides. It is recently proposed that the Congress shall pass a law\nregulating the cropping scheme of the farmer for the protection of soil\nfertility. This follows the precedent of the regulation, by enactment,\nof trusts and public utilities. It is fortunate that such a law cannot\nbe passed, and could not be enforced if it were passed; but this and\nrelated proposals are crude expressions of the growing feeling that the\nfarmer owes an obligation to society, and that this obligation must be\nenforced and the tiller of the soil be held to account.\n\nWe shall produce a much better and safer man when we make him\nself-controlling by developing his sense of responsibility than when we\nregulate him by exterior enactments.\n\nIn the realm of control of the farming occupation we shall invoke other\nthan legal means, and perhaps these means will be suggestive for other\nsituations. These means may be somewhat indefinite in the law-book\nsense, but they may attain to a better human result. We shall reach the\nquestion by surer ways than the crudities of legislation. We shall reach\nthe man, in this field, rather than his business. We have begun it by\naccepting it as one part of our duty to the race to provide liberally at\npublic expense for the special education of the man on the land. This is\nthe reason, even if we have not formulated it to ourselves, why society\nis willing to go farther in the education of the farming people than in\nthe popular education of other ranges of the people. This, of course, is\nthe fundamental way; and if there are any governments that attempt to\nsafeguard this range directly by laws rather than by education, then\nthey have not arrived at a long view of the situation.\n\nWe invoke regulatory law for the control of the corporate activities;\nbut we must not forget the other kinds of activities contributing to the\nmaking of society, nor attempt to apply to them the same methods of\ncorrection.\n\nInto this secular and more or less technical education we are now to\nintroduce the element of moral obligation, that the man may understand\nhis peculiar contribution and responsibility to society; but this\nresult cannot be attained until the farmer and every one of us recognize\nthe holiness of the earth.\n\nThe farmer and every one of us: every citizen should be put right toward\nthe planet, should be quicked to his relationship to his natural\nbackground. The whole body of public sentiment should be sympathetic\nwith the man who works and administers the land for us; and this\nrequires understanding. We have heard much about the \"marginal man,\" but\nthe first concern of society should be for the bottom man.\n\nIf this philosophy should really be translated into action, the farmer\nwould nowhere be a peasant, forming merely a caste, and that a low one,\namong his fellows. He would be an independent co-operating citizen\npartaking fully of the fruits of his labor, enjoying the social rewards\nof his essential position, being sustained and protected by a body of\nresponsive public opinion. The farmer cannot keep the earth for us\nwithout an enlightened and very active support from every other person,\nand without adequate safeguards from exploitation and from unessential\ncommercial pressure.\n\nThis social support requires a ready response on the part of the farmer;\nand he must also be developed into his position by a kind of training\nthat will make him quickly and naturally responsive to it. The social\nfascination of the town will always be greater than that of the open\ncountry. The movements are more rapid, more picturesque, have more color\nand more vivacity. It is not to be expected that we can overcome this\nfascination and safeguard the country boy and girl merely by introducing\nmore showy or active enterprises into the open country. We must develop\na new background for the country youth, establish new standards, and\narouse a new point of view. The farmer will not need all the things that\nthe city man thinks the farmer needs. We must stimulate his moral\nresponse, his appreciation of the worthiness of the things in which he\nlives, and increase his knowledge of all the objects and affairs amongst\nwhich he moves. The backbone of the rural question is at the bottom a\nmoral problem.\n\nWe do not yet know whether the race can permanently endure urban life,\nor whether it must be constantly renewed from the vitalities in the\nrear. We know that the farms and the back spaces have been the mother of\nthe race. We know that the exigencies and frugalities of life in these\nbackgrounds beget men and women to be serious and steady and to know the\nvalue of every hour and of every coin that they earn; and whenever they\nare properly trained, these folk recognize the holiness of the earth.\n\nFor some years I have had the satisfaction to speak to rural folk in\nmany places on the holy earth and to make some of the necessary\napplications. Everywhere I have met the heartiest assent from these\npeople. Specially do they respond to the suggestion that if the earth is\nhallowed, so are the native products of the earth hallowed; and they\nlike to have the mystery--which is the essential sentiment--of these\nthings brought home to them with frequency. I will here let my reader\nhave a letter that one of these persons wrote me, and I print it without\nchange. On inquiry, the writer of it told me that he is a farmer, has\nnever followed any other occupation, was brought up \"in the woods,\" and\nhas had practically no education. I did not ask him, but I judge from\nthe narrative style that he has been a reader or a hearer of the Old\nTestament; and here is the letter:\n\n    As you say, too many people confound farming, with that sordid,\n    selfish, money-getting game, called \"business,\" whereas, the\n    farmer's position is administrative, being in a way a dispenser of\n    the \"Mysteries of God,\" for they are mysteries. Every apple is a\n    mystery, and every potato is a mystery, and every ear of corn is a\n    mystery, and every pound of butter is a mystery, and when a \"farmer\"\n    is not able to understand these things he is out of place.\n\n    The farmer uses the soil and the rains and the snows and the frosts\n    and the winds and the sun; these are also the implements of the\n    Almighty, the only tools He uses, and while you were talking that\n    day, it brought to mind the recollection of an account I once read\n    of an occurrence which took place in the vicinity of Carlsruhe, in\n    Germany, about thirty years ago, and I want to tell you about it. An\n    old man and his two sons, who were laborers on a large farm there,\n    went out one morning to mow peas, with scythes, as was the method in\n    use at that time, and soon after they began work, they noticed a\n    large active man coming along a pathway which bordered the field on\n    one side, and when he came to where they were, he spoke to them,\n    very pleasantly, and asked them some questions about their work and\n    taking the scythe from the hands of the older man he mowed some with\n    it and finally returned it and went his way. After a time when the\n    owner of the farm came out to oversee the work they told him of the\n    occurrence, and asked him if he could tell who the stranger might\n    be, and he told them that he was Prince Bismarck, the Chancellor of\n    the empire, who was staying at his country home at Carlsruhe, and\n    was out for his morning walk, and they were astonished, and the old\n    man was filled with a great pride, and he felt himself elevated\n    above all his fellows, and he wouldn't have sold his scythe for half\n    the money in Germany, and his descendants to this day boast of the\n    fact that their father and Bismarck mowed with the same scythe. Now\n    if it was sufficient to stimulate the pride of this old laborer, if\n    it was sufficient to create for him a private aristocracy, if it was\n    sufficient to convert that old rusty scythe into a priceless\n    heirloom to be treasured up and transmitted from father to son, if\n    it was sufficient for all these things that he had once held a\n    momentarily unimportant association with the man of \"blood and\n    iron,\" how much more inconceivably and immeasurably high and exalted\n    is the station of the farmer who is, in a measure, a fellow\n    craftsman of the God of Nature, of the great First Cause of all\n    things, and people don't know it. No wonder the boys leave the farm!\n\n\n\n\n_The underlying training of a people_\n\n\nThis, then, is the landsman's obligation, and his joyful privilege. But\nit must not be supposed that he alone bears the responsibility to\nmaintain the holiness of the divine earth. It is the obligation also of\nall of us, since every one is born to the earth and lives upon it, and\nsince every one must react to it to the extent of his place and\ncapabilities. This being so, then it is a primary need that we shall\nplace at the use of the people a kind of education that shall quicken\nthese attachments.\n\nCertainly all means of education are useful, and every means should be\ndeveloped to its best; and it is not to be expected that all the people\nshall pursue a single means: but to the nation and to the race a\nfundamental training must be provided.\n\nWe are now in the time of developing a technical education in\nagriculture, to the end that we may produce our land supplies. Already\nthis education is assuming broad aspects, and we begin to see that it\nhas very important bearing on public policies. It is a new form of\nexercise in natural science,--the old education in this great realm\nhaving become so specialized and departmentalized as to lose much of\nits value as a means of popular training.\n\nIt is a happy augury that in North America so many public men and\nadministrators have taken the large view of education by means of\nagriculture, desiring, while training farmers or those who would\nbe farmers, to make it a means of bringing the understanding of the\npeople back to the land. The Americans are making a very remarkable\ncontribution here, in a spirit of real statesmanship. In the long run,\nthis procedure will produce a spirit in the people that will have\nfar-reaching importance in the development of national character, and in\na relation to the backgrounds of which very few of us yet have vision.\n\nIt will be fortunate if we can escape the formalizing and\nprofessionalizing of this education, that has cast such a blight on most\nof the older means of training the young, and if we can keep it\ndemocratic and free in spirit.\n\nWe shall need to do the same in all the subjects that lie at the\nfoundations,--in all the other crafts; all these crafts are of the\nearth. They support the physical man and the social fabric, and make the\nconditions out of which all the highest achievements may come.\n\nEvery person in a democracy has a right to be educated by these means;\nand a people living in a democracy must of necessity understand the\nsignificance of such education. This education should result or function\npolitically. It is not sufficient to train technically in the trades and\ncrafts and arts to the end of securing greater economic\nefficiency,--this may be accomplished in a despotism and result in no\nself-action on the part of the people. Every democracy must reach far\nbeyond what is commonly known as economic efficiency, and do everything\nit can to enable those in the backgrounds to maintain their standing and\ntheir pride and to partake in the making of political affairs.\n\n\n\n\n_The neighbor's access to the earth_\n\n\nWhen one really feels the response to the native earth, one feels also\nthe obligation and the impulse to share it with the neighbor.\n\nThe earth is not selfish. It is open and free to all. It invites\neverywhere. The naturist is not selfish,--he shares all his joys and\ndiscoveries, even to the extent of publishing them. The farmer is not\nselfish with his occupation,--he freely aids every one or any one to\nengage in his occupation, even if that one becomes his competitor. But\noccupations that are some degrees removed from the earth may display\nselfishness; trade and, to a large extent, manufacture are selfish, and\nthey lock themselves in. Even the exploiting of the resources of the\nearth may be selfish, in the taking of the timber and the coal, the\nwater-powers and the minerals, for all this is likely to develop to a\nspecies of plunder. The naturist desires to protect the plants and the\nanimals and the situations for those less fortunate and for those who\ncome after. There are lumbermen and miners with the finest sense of\nobligation. There are other men who would take the last nugget and\ndestroy the last bole.\n\nWe are to recognize the essential integrity of the farming occupation,\nwhen developed constructively, as contrasted with the vast system of\nimprobity and dishonor that arises from depredation and from the taking\nof booty.\n\nThe best kind of community interest attaches to the proper use and\npartitioning of the earth, a communism that is dissociated from\npropaganda and programs. The freedom of the earth is not the freedom of\nlicense: there is always the thought of the others that are dependent on\nit. It is the freedom of utilization for needs and natural desires,\nwithout regard to one's place among one's fellows, or even to one's\ncondition of degradation or state of sinfulness. All men are the same\nwhen they come back to the meadows, to the hills, and to the deep woods:\nHe maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on\nthe just and the unjust.\n\nThe lesson of the growing abounding earth is of liberality for all, and\nnever exploitation or very exclusive opportunities for the few. Even if\nthe weaker anywhere perish in the contest for food, they are\nnevertheless given the opportunity to contest on terms equal to their\nabilities; and at all events, we come, in the human sphere, to the\ndomination of sweet reason rather than to competition in sheer force.\nWhen, by means of reasonable education, this simple relation is\nunderstood by mankind and begins to express itself spontaneously, we\nshall find our voluminous complex of laws to regulate selfishness\ngradually disappearing and passing into the limbo.\n\nIt is now easy to understand the sinfulness of vast private estates that\nshut up expanses of the surface of the earth from the reach and\nenjoyment of others that are born similarly to the privileges of the\nplanet. There is no warrant in nature for guarantee deeds to such\nestates. It is true, of course, that land-estates should not be equal,\nfor capacities for use are not equal, and abilities and deserts are not\nequal. It is legitimate to reward those who otherwise render great\nservice, and this reward may lie in unusual privileges. The present\nemoluments in the way of incomes bear little relation to service or even\nto merit.\n\nWe have not yet escaped the idea that vested rights--and particularly\npersonal realty--are inviolable. Certainly these rights must be\nprotected by law, otherwise there can be no stability and regularity in\naffairs; but there is no inalienable right in the ownership of the\nsurface of the earth. Readjustments must come, and even now they are\ncoming slowly, and here and there in the interest of the neighbor; and\nin the end there will be no private monopoly of public or natural\nresources.\n\nThe cure for these ills does not lie, however, in the ownership of all\nthe land by \"the government,\" at least not in our time and perhaps\nnever. It is well for a person to have his own plot for his lifetime,\nwith the right to use it as he will so long as he does not offend, or\ndoes not despoil it for those who follow: it steadies him, and it\nidentifies him with a definite program in life.\n\nWe usually speak as if all good results in the distribution of the\nnatural bounty will ensue if \"the government\" or \"the state\" owns the\nresources; but government ownership of resources and direction of\nindustries may not mean freedom or escape for the people. It depends\nentirely on the kind of government,--not on its name or description, but\non the extent to which the people have been trained to partake on their\nown initiative. The government may be an autocracy or only another form\nof monopoly.\n\nThe aristocracy of land has much to its credit. Great gains in human\naccomplishment have come out of it; but this does not justify it for the\nfuture. The aristocracy of land is a very dangerous power in human\naffairs. It is all the more dangerous when associated with aristocracy\nof birth and of factitious social position, which usually accompany it.\nA people may be ever so free in its advantages and in its theoretical\npolitical organization, and yet suffer overwhelming bondage if its land\nis tied up in an aristocratic system, and particularly if that system is\nconnected into a social aristocracy. And whenever rigid aristocracy in\nland connects itself with the close control of politics, the subjection\nbecomes final and complete.\n\nWhat lies within a nation or a people may lie in enlarged form between\nthe nations or the peoples. Neighborliness is international. Contest for\nland and sea is at the basis of wars. Recognizing the right of any\npeople to its own life, we must equally recognize its right to a\nsufficient part of the surface of the earth. We must learn how to\nsubdivide it on the basis of neighborliness, friendship, and conference;\nif we cannot learn this, then we cannot be neighbors but only enemies.\nThe proposal now before Congress to cede to Canada the Alaskan\nPanhandle, or a part of it, is an evidence of this growth of\ninternational morals, extended to the very basis on which nations have\nbeen the least ready to co-operate.\n\nIf we may fraternalize territory, so shall we fraternalize commerce. No\npeople may rightly be denied the privilege to trade with all other\npeoples. All kinds of useful interchange are civilizers and peacemakers;\nand if we carry ourselves to others when we carry our produce and our\nwares, so do any of us need that others shall bring their produce and\ntheir wares to us. It would be a sorry people that purchased no supplies\nfrom without. Every people, small or large, has right of access to the\nsea, for the sea belongs to mankind. It follows that no people has a\nright to deprive any other people of the shore, if that people desires\nthe contact.\n\nWe now begin to understand the awful sin of partitioning the earth by\nforce.\n\n\n\n\n_The subdividing of the land_\n\n\nThe question then arises whether lands and other natural resources shall\nnow be divided and redistributed in order that the share-and-share of\nthe earth's patrimony shall be morally just. Undoubtedly the logic of\nthe situation makes for many personal points of very close contact with\nthe mother earth, and contact is usually most definite and best when it\nresults from what we understand as ownership. This, in practice,\nsuggests many small parcels of land--for those who would have their\ncontact by means of land, which is the directest means--under personal\nfee. But due provision must always be made, as I have already indicated,\nfor the man who makes unusual contribution to the welfare of his\nfellows, that he may be allowed to extend his service and attain his own\nfull development; and moreover, an established order may not be\noverturned suddenly and completely without much damage, not only to\npersonal interests but to society. Every person should have the right\nand the privilege to a personal use of some part of the earth; and\nnaturally the extent of his privilege must be determined by his use of\nit.\n\nIt is urged that lands can be most economically administered in very\nlarge units and under corporate management; but the economic results are\nnot the most important results to be secured, although at present they\nare the most stressed. The ultimate good in the use of land is the\ndevelopment of the people; it may be better that more persons have\ncontact with it than that it shall be executively more effectively\nadministered. The morals of land management is more important than the\neconomics of land management; and of course my reader is aware that by\nmorals I mean the results that arise from a right use of the earth\nrather than the formal attitudes toward standardized or conventional\ncodes of conduct.\n\nIf the moral and the economic ends can be secured simultaneously, as\neventually they will be secured, the perfect results will come to pass;\nbut any line of development founded on accountant economics alone will\nfail.\n\nHere I must pause for an explanation in self-defense, for my reader may\nthink I advise the \"little farm well tilled\" that has so much captured\nthe public mind. So far from giving such advice, I am not thinking\nexclusively of farming when I speak of the partitioning of the land. One\nmay have land merely to live on. Another may have a wood to wander in.\nOne may have a spot on which to make a garden. Another may have a\nshore, and another a retreat in the mountains or in some far space. Much\nof the earth can never be farmed or mined or used for timber, and yet\nthese supposed waste places may be very real assets to the race: we\nshall learn this in time. I am glad to see these outlying places set\naside as public reserves; and yet we must not so organize and tie up the\nfar spaces as to prevent persons of little means from securing small\nparcels. These persons should have land that they can handle and\nmanipulate, in which they may dig, on which they may plant trees and\nbuild cabins, and which they may feel is theirs to keep and to master,\nand which they are not obliged to \"improve.\" In the parks and reserves\nthe land may be available only to look at, or as a retreat in which one\nmay secure permission to camp. The regulations are necessary for these\nplaces, but these places are not sufficient.\n\nIf it were possible for every person to own a tree and to care for it,\nthe good results would be beyond estimation.\n\nNow, farming is a means of support; and in this case, the economic\npossibilities of a particular piece of land are of primary consequence.\nOf course, the most complete permanent contact with the earth is by\nmeans of farming, when one makes a living from the land; this should\nproduce better results than hunting or sport; but one must learn how to\nmake this connection. It is possible to hoe potatoes and to hear the\nbirds sing at the same time, although our teaching has not much\ndeveloped this completeness in the minds of the people.\n\nI hope, therefore, that the farmer's piece of land will be economically\ngood (that it may make him a living and produce a surplus for some of\nthe rest of us), and that the farmer may be responsive to his situation.\nThe size of the farm that is to support a family, and the kinds of crops\nthat shall be grown and even the yields that shall be secured to the\nacre, are technical problems of agriculture. In this New World, with\nexpensive labor and still with cheap land, we cannot yet afford to\nproduce the high yields of some of the Old World places,--it may be\nbetter to till more land with less yield to the acre. But all this is\naside from my present purpose; and this purpose is to suggest the very\nreal importance of making it possible for an increasing proportion of\nthe people to have close touch with the earth in their own rights and in\ntheir own names.\n\nWe recognize different grades or kinds of land occupancy, some of it\nbeing proprietorship and some of it tenancy and some of it mere\nshareholding. Thus far have we spoken of the partitioning of the land\nmostly in its large social and political relations; but to society also\nbelongs the fertility of the land, and all efforts to conserve this\nfertility are public questions in the best sense. In America we think of\ntenant occupancy of land as dangerous because it does not safeguard\nfertility; in fact, it may waste fertility. This is because the practice\nin tenancy does not recognize the public interest in fertility, and the\ncontract or agreement is made merely between the landowner and the\ntenant, and is largely an arrangement for skinning the land. It is only\nwhen the land itself is a party in the contract (when posterity is\nconsidered) that tenancy is safe. Then the tenant is obliged to\nfertilize the land, to practise certain rotations, and otherwise to\nconserve fertility, returning to the land the manurial value of products\nthat are sold. When such contracts are made and enforced, tenancy\nfarming does not deplete the land more than other farming, as the\nexperience in some countries demonstrates. It is hardly to be expected,\nhowever, that tenant occupancy will give the man as close moral contact\nwith the earth and its materials as will ownership; yet a well-developed\ntenancy is better than absentee farming by persons who live in town and\nrun the farm by temporary hired help. The tenancy in the United States\nis partly a preliminary stage to ownership: if we can fulfil the moral\nobligation to society in the conserving of fertility and other natural\nresources, tenancy may be considered as a means to an end. Persons who\nwork the land should have the privilege of owning it.\n\nIt may be urged by those who contend that land should be held by\nsociety, that this regulation of tenancy provides a means of\nadministering all farm lands by government in the interest of\nmaintenance of fertility. Leaving aside the primary desirability, as I\nsee it, of reserving individual initiative, it is to be said that this\nkind of regulation of the tenant is possible only with a live-stock\nhusbandry; nor do we yet have sufficient knowledge to enable us to\nproject a legal system for all kinds of agriculture; nor again is it\napplicable to widely differing conditions and regions. A keener sense of\nresponsibility will enable owner and tenant to work out better methods\nin all cases, but it is now impossible to incorporate complete control\nmethods into successful legislative regulations. The increasing\ncompetition will make it ever more difficult for the careless man to\nmake a good living by farming, and he will be driven from the business;\nor if he is not driven out, society will take away his privilege.\n\nYet we are not to think of society as founded wholly on small separate\ntracts, or \"family farms,\" occupied by persons who live merely in\ncontentment; this would mean that all landsmen would be essentially\nlaborers. We need to hold on the land many persons who possess large\npowers of organization, who are managers, who can handle affairs in a\nbold way: it would be fatal to the best social and spiritual results if\nsuch persons could find no adequate opportunities on the land and were\nforced into other occupations. Undoubtedly we shall find ourselves with\nvery unlike land units, encouraged and determined by the differing\nconditions and opportunities in different regions; and thereby shall we\nalso avoid the great danger of making our fundamental occupation to\nproduce a uniform and narrow class spirit.\n\nWe need the great example of persons who live separately on their lands,\nwho desire to abide, who are serious in the business, and who have\nsufficient proprietary rights to enable them to handle the natural\nresources responsibly. There is a type of well-intentioned writers that\nwould have the farmers live in centres in order that they may have what\nare called \"social\" advantages, betaking themselves every morning to the\nfields when the dew is on the grass and the birds sing, hastening back\nevery evening (probably when the clock points to five) to engage in the\ndelightful delirium of card-parties and moving-picture shows (of course\ngathering the golden harvest in the meantime). Other writers are to have\nthe farms so small that the residences will be as close as on a village\nstreet, and a trolley-car will run through, and I suppose the band will\nplay!\n\n\n\n\n_A new map_\n\n\nIf, then, we are to give the people access to the holy earth, it means\nnot only a new assent on the part of society but a new way of\npartitioning the surface. This is true whether we consider the subject\nwholly from the view-point of making natural resources utilizable or\nfrom the added desire to let the people out to those resources.\n\nThe organization of any affair or enterprise determines to a great\nextent the character of the result; and the organization rests directly\non the subdivision into parts. The dividing of a business into separate\nresponsibilities of different departments and sub-departments makes for\neasy access and for what we now know as efficiency; the dividing of a\nnation into states or provinces and counties and many lesser units makes\npolitical life possible; the setting off of a man's farm into fields,\nwith lanes and roads connecting, makes a working enterprise. The more\naccurately these subdivisions follow natural and living necessities, the\ngreater will be the values and the satisfactions that result from the\nundertaking.\n\nHere is the open country, behind the great cities and the highly\nspecialized industries. There are hills in it, great and small. There\nare forests here, none there; sands that nobody wants; fertile lands\nthat everybody wants; shores inviting trade; mineral wealth; healing\nwaters; power in streams; fish in ponds and lakes; building stone;\nswamps abounding in life; wild corners that stimulate desire; sceneries\nthat take the soul into the far places. These are the fundamental\nreserves and the backgrounds. The first responsibility of any society is\nto protect them, husband them, bring them into use, and at the same time\nto teach the people what they mean.\n\nTo bring them into use, and, at the same time, to protect them from\nrapacious citizens who have small social conscience, it is necessary to\nhave good access. It is necessary to have roads. These roads should be\nlaid where the resources exist, direct, purposeful. In a flat and\nuniform country, road systems may well be rectangular, following\nsection-lines and intermediate lines; but the rectangularity is not the\nessential merit,--it is only a serviceable way of subdividing the\nresources. To find one's direction, north or south, is convenient, but\nit may clearly be subordinated to the utilization and protection of the\nsupplies. The section-line division may accomplish this or it may not,\nand it is likely to place roads in wrong locations and to render the\ncountry monotonous and uninteresting.\n\nBut in the broken country, in the country of tumbled hills and crooked\nfalling streams, of slopes that would better be left in the wild, and of\nlands that are good and fruitful for the plow, the roads may go the easy\ngrades; but they ought also to go in such a plan as to open up the\ncountry to the best development, to divide its resources in the surest\nway for the greatest number of persons, and to reduce profitless human\ntoil to the minimum,--and this is just what they may not do. They may go\nup over bare and barren hills merely to pass a few homesteads where no\nhomesteads ought to be, roads that are always expensive and never good,\nthat accomplish practically nothing for society. They leave good little\nvalleys at one side, or enter them over almost impossible slopes. There\nare resources of physical wealth and of wonderful scenery that they do\nnot touch, that would be of much value if they were accessible. The\nfarming country is often not divided in such a way as to render it\neither most readily accessible or to make it the most useful as an asset\nfor the people.\n\nTo connect villages and cities by stone roads is good. But what are we\nto do with all the back country, to make it contribute its needful part\nto feed the people in the days that are to come, and to open it to the\npersons who ought to go? We cannot accomplish this to the greatest\npurpose by the present road systems, even if the roads themselves are\nall made good.\n\nWhen the traveler goes to a strange country, he is interested in the\npublic buildings, the cities, and some of the visible externals; but if\nhe wants to understand the country, he must have a detailed map of its\nroads. The automobile maps are of no value for this purpose, for they\nshow how one may pass over the country, not how the country is\ndeveloped. As the last nerve-fibre and the last capillary are essential\nto the end of the finger and to the entire body, so the ultimate roads\nare essential to the myriad farms and to the national life. It is\ndifficult in any country to get these maps, accurately and in detail;\nbut they are the essential guidebooks.\n\nWe undertake great conquests of engineering, over mountains and across\nrivers and through the morasses; but at the last we shall call on the\nengineer for the greatest conquest of all,--how to divide the surface of\nthe earth so that it shall yield us its best and mean to us the most, on\nthe easiest grades, in the most practicable way, that we may utilize\nevery piece of land to fullest advantage.\n\nThis means a new division and perhaps a redistribution of lands in such\na way that the farmer will have his due proportion of hill and of\nvalley, rather than that one shall have all valley and another all\nhard-scrabble on the hill or all waste land in some remote place. It\nmeans that there will be on each holding the proper relation of tilled\nland and pasture land and forest land, and that the outlets for the\nfarmer and his products will be the readiest and the simplest that it is\npossible to make. It means that some roads will be abandoned entirely,\nas not worth the cost, and society will make a way for farmers living on\nimpossible farms to move to other lands; and that there will be no \"back\nroads,\" for they will be the marks of an undeveloped society. It means\nthat we shall cease the pretense to bring all lands into farming,\nwhether they are useful for farming or not; and that in the back country\nbeyond the last farms there shall be trails that lead far away.\n\nIn the farm region itself, much of the old division will pass away,\nbeing uneconomical and non-social. The abandonment of farms is in some\ncases a beginning of the process, but it is blind and undirected. Our\neducational effort is at present directed toward making the farmer\nprosperous on his existing farm, rather than to help him to secure a\nfarm of proper resources and with proper access. As time goes on, we\nmust reassemble many of the land divisions, if each man is to have\nadequate opportunity to make the most effective application of his\nknowledge, the best use of himself, and the greatest possible\ncontribution to society. It would be well if some of the farms could be\ndispossessed of their owners, so that areas might be recombined on a\nbetter basis.\n\nThis is no Utopian or socialistic scheme, nor does it imply a forcible\ninterference with vested rights. It is a plain statement of the\nnecessities of the situation. Of course it cannot come about quickly or\nas a result of direct legislation; but there are various movements that\nmay start it,--it is, in fact, already started. All the burning rural\nproblems relate themselves in the end to the division of the land. In\nAmerica, we do not suffer from the holding of the land in a few families\nor in an aristocratic class; that great danger we have escaped, but we\nhave not yet learned how to give the land meaning to the greatest number\nof people. This is a question for the best political program, for we\nlook for the day when statesmanship shall be expressed in the details of\ncommon politics.\n\nWe now hear much about the good-roads question, as if it were a problem\nonly of highway construction: it is really a question of a new map.\n\n\n\n\n_The public program_\n\n\nIt would be a great gain if many persons could look forward to the\nownership of a bit of the earth, to share in the partition, to partake\nin the brotherhood. Some day we shall make it easy rather than difficult\nfor this to be brought about.\n\nSociety, in its collective interest, also has necessities in the land.\nThere is necessity of land to be owned by cities and other assemblages\nfor water reservoirs, and all the rights thereto; for school grounds,\nplaygrounds, reformatory institutions, hospitals, drill grounds,\nsewage-disposal areas, irrigation developments, drainage reclamations;\nfor the public control of banks and borders of streams and ponds, for\nthe shores of all vast bodies of water, for pleasure parks, recreation,\nbreathing spaces in the great congestions, highways and other lines of\ncommunication; for the sites of public buildings, colleges and\nexperiment stations, bird and beast refuges, fish and game reservations,\ncemeteries. There are also the rights of many semi-public agencies that\nneed land,--of churches, of fraternal organizations, of incorporated\nseminaries and schools, of water-power and oil and coal developments,\nof manufacturing establishments, of extensive quarries, and of\ncommercial enterprises of very many kinds. There is also the obligation\nof the general government that it shall have reserves against future\nneeds, and that it shall protect the latent resources from exploitation\nand from waste. Great areas must be reserved for forests, as well as for\nother crops, and, in the nature of the case, these forest spaces in the\nfuture must be mostly in public ownership.\n\nGreat remainders should be held by the people to be sold in small\nparcels to those who desire to get out to the backgrounds but who do not\nwant to be farmers, where they may spend a vacation or renew themselves\nin the soil or under the trees, or by the green pastures or along the\neverlasting streams. It is a false assumption which supposes that if\nland cannot be turned into products of sale it is therefore valueless.\nThe present active back-to-the-land movement has meaning to us here. It\nexpresses the yearning of the people for contact with the earth and for\nescape from complexity and unessentials. As there is no regular way for\nattaining these satisfactions, it has largely taken the form of farming,\nwhich occupation has also been re-established in popular estimation in\nthe same epoch. It should not be primarily a back-to-the-farm movement,\nhowever, and it is not to be derided. We are to recognize its meaning\nand to find some way of enabling more of the people to stand on the\nground.\n\nAside from all this, land is needed for human habitation, where persons\nmay have space and may have the privilege of gathering about them the\ngoods that add value to life. Much land will be needed in future for\nthis habitation, not only because there will be more people, but also\nbecause every person will be given an outlet. We know it is not right\nthat any family should be doomed to the occupancy of a very few dreary\nrooms and deathly closets in the depths of great cities, seeing that all\nchildren are born to the natural sky and to the wind and to the earth.\nWe do not yet see the way to allow them to have what is naturally\ntheirs, but we shall learn how. In that day we shall take down the\nwonderful towers and cliffs in the cities, in which people work and\nlive, shelf on shelf, but in which they have no home. The great city\nexpansion in the end will be horizontal rather than perpendicular. We\nshall have many knots, clustered about factories and other enterprises,\nand we shall learn how to distribute the satisfactions in life rather\nthan merely to assemble them. Before this time comes, we shall have\npassed the present insistence on so-called commercial efficiency, as if\nit were the sole measure of a civilization, and higher ends shall come\nto have control. All this will rest largely on the dividing of the land.\n\nIt is the common assumption that the solution of these problems lies in\nfacilities of transportation, and, to an extent, this is true; but this\nassumption usually rests on the other assumption, that the method of the\npresent city vortex is the method of all time, with its violent rush\ninto the vortex and out of it, consuming vastly of time and energy,\npreventing home leisure and destroying locality feeling, herding the\npeople like cattle. The question of transportation is indeed a major\nproblem, but it must be met in part by a different philosophy of human\neffort, settling the people in many small or moderate assemblages rather\nthan in a few mighty congestions. It will be better to move the\nmaterials than to move the people.\n\nThe great cities will grow larger; that is, they will cover more land.\nThe smaller cities, the villages, the country towns will take on greatly\nincreased importance. We shall learn how to secure the best\nsatisfactions when we live in villages as well as when we live in\ncities. We begin to plan our cities and to a small extent our villages.\nWe now begin to plan the layout of the farms, that they may accomplish\nthe best results. But the cities and the towns depend on the country\nthat lies beyond; and the country beyond depends on the city and the\ntown. The problem is broadly one problem,--the problem of so dividing\nand subdividing the surface of the earth that there shall be the least\nconflict between all these interests, that public reservations shall not\nbe placed where it is better to have farms, that farming developments\nmay not interfere with public utilities, that institutions may be so\nplaced and with such area as to develop their highest usefulness, that\nthe people desiring outlet and contact with the earth in their own right\nmay be accorded that essential privilege. We have not yet begun to\napproach the subject in a fundamental way, and yet it is the primary\nproblem of the occupancy of the planet.\n\nTo the growing movement for city planning should be added an equal\nmovement for country planning; and these should not proceed separately,\nbut both together. No other public program is now more needed.\n\n\n\n\n_The honest day's work_\n\n\nThere is still another application of this problem of the land\nbackground. It is the influence that productive ownership exerts on the\nday's work.\n\nYesterday for some time I observed eight working men engaged in removing\nparts of a structure and loading the pieces on a freight-car. At no time\nwere more than two of the men making any pretension of working at once,\nmost of the time they were all visiting or watching passers-by, and in\nthe whole period the eight men did not accomplish what one good honest\nman should have performed. I wondered whether they had sufficient\nexercise to keep them in good health. They apparently were concerned\nabout their \"rights\"; if the employer had rights they were\nundiscoverable.\n\nWe know the integrity and effectiveness of the body of workmen; yet any\nreader who has formed a habit of observing men on day work and public\nwork will recognize my account. Day men usually work in gangs,\nfrequently too many of them to allow any one to labor effectively, and\nthe whole process is likely to be mechanical, impersonal, often\nshiftless and pervaded with the highly developed skill of putting in the\ntime and reducing the time to the minimum and of beginning to quit well\nin advance of the quitting time. The process of securing labor has\nbecome involved, tied up, and the labor is not rendered in a sufficient\nspirit of service. About the only free labor yet remaining to us is the\nmonth labor on the farm, even though it may be difficult to secure and\nbe comprised largely of ineffective remainders.\n\nOver against all this is the importance of setting men at work singly\nand for themselves; this can be accomplished only when they own their\nproperty or have some real personal share in the production. The\ngang-spirit of labor runs into the politics of the group and constitutes\nthe norm. If we are to have self-acting men they must be removed from\nclose control, in labor as well as elsewhere. If it is necessary that\nany great proportion of the laboring men shall be controlled, then is it\nequally important that other men in sufficient numbers shall constitute\nthe requisite counterbalance and corrective. It is doubtful whether any\nkind of profit-sharing in closely controlled industries can ever be as\neffective in training responsible men for a democracy, other things\nbeing equal, as an occupation or series of occupations in which the\nworker is responsible for his own results rather than to an overseer,\nalthough the profit-sharing may for the time being develop the greater\ntechnical efficiency.\n\nThe influence of ownership on the performance of the man is often well\nillustrated when the farm laborer or tenant becomes the proprietor. Some\nof my readers will have had experience in the difficult and doubtful\nprocess of trying to \"run a farm\" at long range by means of ordinary\nhired help: the residence is uninhabitable; the tools are old and out of\ndate, and some of them cannot be found; the well water is not good; the\npoultry is of the wrong breed, and the hens will not sit; the horses are\nnot adapted to the work; the wagons must be painted and the harnesses\nreplaced; the absolutely essential supplies are interminable; there must\nbe more day labor. Now let this hired man come into the ownership of the\nfarm: presto! the house can be repaired at almost no cost; the tools are\ngood for some years yet; the harnesses can easily be mended; the\nabsolutely essential supplies dwindle exceedingly; and the outside labor\nreduces itself to minor terms.\n\nWork with machinery, in factories, may proceed more rapidly because the\noperator must keep up with the machine; and there are also definite\nstandards or measures of performance. Yet even here it is not to be\nexpected that the work will be much more than time-service. In fact, the\nvery movement among labor is greatly to emphasize time-service, and\noften quite independently of justice. There must necessarily be a\nreaction from this attitude if we are to hope for the best human\nproduct.\n\nThe best human product results from the bearing of responsibility; in a\ncontrolled labor body the responsibility is shifted to the organization\nor to the boss. Assuredly the consolidating of labor is much to be\ndesired if it is for the common benefit and for protection, and if it\nleaves the laborer free with his own product. Every person has the\ninalienable right to express himself, so long as it does not violate\nsimilar rights of his fellows, and to put forth his best production; if\na man can best express himself in manual labor, no organization should\nsuppress him or deny him that privilege. It is a sad case, and a denial\nof fundamental liberties, if a man is not allowed to work or to produce\nas much as he desires. Good development does not come from repression.\n\nSociety recognizes its obligation to the laboring man of whatever kind\nand the necessity of safeguarding him both in his own interest and\nbecause he stands at the very foundations; the laboring man bears an\nobligation to respond liberally with service and good-will.\n\nIs it desirable to have an important part of the labor of a people\nfounded on ownership? Is it worth while to have an example in a large\nclass of the population of manual work that is free-spirited, and not\ndominated by class interest and time-service? Is it essential to social\nprogress that a day's work shall be full measure?\n\n\n\n\n_The group reaction_\n\n\nOne of the interesting phenomena of human association is the arising of\na certain standard or norm of moral action within the various groups\nthat compose it. These standards may not be inherently righteous, but\nthey become so thoroughly established as to be enacted into law or even\nto be more powerful than law. So is it, as we have seen, with the idea\nof inalienable rights in natural property that may be held even out of\nall proportion to any proper use that the owners may be able to make of\nit; and so is it with the idea of inviolable natural privileges to those\nwho control facilities that depend on public patronage for their\ncommercial success. The man himself may hold one kind of personal\nmorals, but the group of which he is a part may hold a very different\nkind. It is our problem, in dealing with the resources of the earth, to\ndevelop in the group the highest expression of duty that is to be found\nin individuals.\n\nThe restraint of the group, or the correction of the group action, is\napplied from the outside in the form of public opinion and in attack by\nother groups. The correction does not often arise from within. The\nestablishing of many kinds of public-service bodies illustrates this\nfact. It is the check of society on group-selfishness.\n\nThese remarks apply to the man who stands at the foundation of society,\nnext the earth, as well as to others, although he has not organized to\npropagate the action of his class. The spoliation of land, the\ninsufficient regard for it, the trifling with it, is much more than an\neconomic deficiency. Society will demand either through the pressure of\npublic opinion, or by regularized action, that the producing power of\nthe land shall be safeguarded and increased, as I have indicated in an\nearlier part of the discussion. It will be better if it comes as the\nresult of education, and thereby develops the voluntary feeling of\nobligation and responsibility. At the same time, it is equally the\nresponsibility of every other person to make it possible for the farmer\nto prosecute his business under the expression of the highest standards.\n\nThere is just now abroad amongst us a teaching to the effect that the\nfarmer cannot afford to put much additional effort into his crop\nproduction, inasmuch as the profit in an acre may not depend on the\nincrease in yield, and therefore he does not carry an obligation to\naugment his acre-yields. This is a weakening philosophy.\n\nUndoubtedly there is a point beyond which he may not go with profit in\nthe effort to secure a heavy yield, for it may cost him too much to\nproduce the maximum; so it may not be profitable for a transportation\ncompany to maintain the highest possible speed. With this economic\nquestion I have nothing to do; but it is the farmer's moral\nresponsibility to society to increase his production, and the\nstimulation reacts powerfully upon himself. It is a man's natural\nresponsibility to do his best: it is specially important that the man at\nthe bottom put forth his best efforts. To increase his yields is one of\nthe ways in which he expresses himself as a man and applies his\nknowledge. This incentive taken away, agriculture loses one of its best\nendeavors, the occupation remains stationary or even deteriorates, and\nsociety loses a moral support at the very point where it is most needed.\n\nIf the economic conditions are such that the farmer cannot afford to\nincrease his production, then the remedy is to be found without rather\nthan by the repression of the producer. We are expending vast effort to\neducate the farmer in the ways of better production, but we do not make\nit possible for him to apply this education to the best advantage.\n\nThe real farmer, the one whom we so much delight to honor, has a strong\nmoral regard for his land, for his animals, and his crops. These are\nestablished men, with highly developed obligations, feeling their\nresponsibility to the farm on which they live. No nation can long\npersist that does not have this kind of citizenry in the background.\n\nI have spoken of one phase of the group reaction, as suggested in the\nattitude of the farmer. It may be interesting to recall, again, the fact\nthat the purpose of farming is changing. The farmer is now adopting the\noutlook and the moral conduct of commerce. His business is no longer to\nproduce the supplies for his family and to share the small overplus with\nsociety. He grows or makes a certain line of produce that he sells for\ncash, and then he purchases his other supplies in the general market.\nThe days of homespun are gone. The farmer is as much a buyer as a\nseller. Commercial methods and standards are invading the remotest\ncommunities. This will have far-reaching results. Perhaps a fundamental\nshift in the moral basis of the agricultural occupations is slowly under\nway.\n\nThe measuring of farming in terms of yields and incomes introduces a\ndangerous standard. It is commonly assumed that State moneys for\nagriculture-education may be used only for \"practical\"--that is, for\ndollars-and-cents--results, and the emphasis is widely placed very\nexclusively on more alfalfa, more corn, more hogs, more fruit, on the\ntwo-blades-of-grass morals; and yet the highest good that can accrue to\na State for the expenditure of its money is the raising up of a\npopulation less responsive to cash than to some other stimuli. The good\nphysical support is indeed essential, but it is only the beginning of a\nprocess. I am conscious of a peculiar hardness in some of the\nagriculture-enterprise, with little real uplook; I hope that we may soon\npass this cruder phase.\n\nUndoubtedly we are in the beginning of an epoch in rural affairs. We are\nat a formative period. We begin to consider the rural problem\nincreasingly in terms of social groups. The attitudes that these groups\nassume, the way in which they react to their problems, will be\ndetermined in the broader aspects for some time to come by the character\nof the young leadership that is now taking the field.\n\n\n\n\n_The spiritual contact with nature_\n\n\nA useful contact with the earth places man not as superior to nature but\nas a superior intelligence working in nature as a conscious and\ntherefore as a responsible part in a plan of evolution, which is a\ncontinuing creation. It distinguishes the elemental virtues as against\nthe acquired, factitious, and pampered virtues. These strong and simple\ntraits may be brought out easily and naturally if we incorporate into\nour schemes of education the solid experiences of tramping, camping,\nscouting, farming, handcraft, and other activities that are not mere\nrefinements of subjective processes.\n\nLack of training in the realities drives us to find satisfaction in all\nsorts of make-believes and in play-lives. The \"movies\" and many other\ndevelopments of our time make an appeal wholly beyond their merits, and\nthey challenge the methods and intentions of education.\n\nThere are more fundamental satisfactions than \"thrills.\" There is more\nheart-ease in frugality than in surfeit. There is no real relish except\nwhen the appetite is keen. We are now provided with all sorts of things\nthat nobody ever should want.\n\nThe good spiritual reaction to nature is not a form of dogmatism or\nimpressionism. It results normally from objective experience, when the\nperson is ready for it and has good digestion. It should be the natural\nemotion of the man who knows his objects and does not merely dream about\nthem. There is no hallucination in it. The remedy for some of the\nerratic \"futurism\" and other forms of illusion is to put the man hard\nagainst the facts: he might be set to studying bugs or soils or placed\nbetween the handles of a plow until such time as objects begin to take\ntheir natural shape and meaning in his mind.\n\nIt is not within my purview here to consider the abstract righteous\nrelation of man to the creation, nor to examine the major emotions that\nresult from a contemplation of nature. It is only a very few of the\nsimpler and more practical considerations that I may suggest.\n\nThe training in solid experience naturally emphasizes the righteousness\nof plain and simple eating and drinking, and of frugality and control in\npleasures. Many of the adventitious pleasures are in the highest degree\npernicious and are indications of weakness.\n\nConsidering the almost universal opinion that nature exhibits the\nmerciless and relentless struggle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a\ntooth, it is significant that one of the most productive ways of\ntraining a youth in sensitiveness and in regard for other creatures is\nby means of the nature contact. Even if the person is taught that the\nstrong and ferocious survive and conquer, he nevertheless soon comes to\nhave the tenderest regard for every living thing if he has the naturist\nin him. He discards the idea that we lose virility when we cease to\nkill, and relegates the notion to the limbo of deceits. This only means\nthat unconsciously he has experienced the truth in nature, and in\npractice has discarded the erroneous philosophy contained in books even\nthough he may still give these philosophies his mental assent.\n\nIt is exactly among the naturists that the old instinct to kill begins\nto lose its force and that an instinct of helpfulness and real\nbrotherhood soon takes its place. From another source, the instinct to\nkill dies out among the moralists and other people. And yet it is\npassing strange how this old survival--or is it a reversion?--holds its\nplace amongst us, even in the higher levels. The punishment of a life\nfor a life is itself a survival. Entertainment even yet plays upon this\nold memory of killing, as in books of adventure, in fiction, in\nplaygames of children, and worst of all on the stage where this strange\nanachronism, even in plays that are not historic, is still portrayed in\npernicious features and in a way that would rouse any community and\nviolate law if it were enacted in real life.\n\nIt is difficult to explain these survivals when we pretend to be so much\nshocked by the struggle for existence. We must accept the struggle, but\nwe ought to try to understand it. The actual suffering among the\ncreatures as the result of this struggle is probably small, and the\nbloody and ferocious contest that we like to picture to ourselves is\nrelatively insignificant. There is a righteous element in the struggle;\nor, more truthfully, the struggle itself is right. Every living and\nsentient thing persists by its merit and by its right. It persists\nwithin its sphere, and usually not in the sphere of some other creature.\nThe weeding-out process is probably related in some way with\nadaptability, but only remotely with physical strength. It is a process\nof applying the test. The test is applied continuously, and not in some\nviolent upheaval.\n\nIf one looks for a moral significance in the struggle for existence, one\nfinds it in the fact that it is a process of adjustment rather than a\ncontest in ambition.\n\nThe elimination of the unessentials and of the survivals of a lower\norder of creation that have no proper place in human society, is the\ndaily necessity of the race. The human struggle should not be on the\nplane of the struggle in the lower creation, by the simple fact that the\nhuman plane is unlike; and those who contend that we should draw our\nmethods of contest from wild nature would therefore put us back on the\nplane of the creatures we are supposed to have passed. If there is one\nstruggle of the creeping things, if there is one struggle of the fish of\nthe sea and another of the beasts of the field, and still another of the\nfowls of the air, then surely there must be still another order for\nthose who have dominion.\n\n\n\n\n_The struggle for existence: war_\n\n\nWe may consider even further, although briefly, the nature of the\nstruggle for existence in its spiritual relation. It would be violence\nto assume a holy earth and a holy production from the earth, if the\ncontest between the creatures seems to violate all that we know as\nrightness.\n\nThe notion of the contentious and sanguinary struggle for existence\nfinds its most pronounced popular expression in the existence of human\nwar. It is a wide-spread opinion that war is necessary in the nature of\nthings, and, in fact, it has been not only justified but glorified on\nthis basis. We may here examine this contention briefly, and we may ask\nwhether, in the case of human beings, there are other sufficient means\nof personal and social development than by mortal combat with one's\nfellows. We may ask whether the principle of enmity or the principle of\nfellow feeling is the more important and controlling.\n\nWe are not to deny or even to overlook the great results that have come\nfrom war. Virile races have forced themselves to the front and have\nimpressed their stamp on society; the peoples have been mixed and also\nassorted; lethargic folk have been galvanized into activity; iron has\nbeen put into men's sinews; heroic deeds have arisen; old combinations\nand intrigues have been broken up (although new ones take their place).\nA kind of national purification may result from a great war. The state\nof human affairs has been brought to its present condition largely as\nthe issue of wars.\n\nOn the other hand, we are not to overlook the damaging results, the\ndestruction, the anguish, the check to all productive enterprise, the\nhatred and revenge, the hypocrisy and deceit, the despicable foreign spy\nsystem, the loss of standards, the demoralization, the lessening respect\nand regard for the rights of the other, the breeding of human parasites\nthat fatten at the fringes of disaster, the levying of tribute, the\nsetting up of unnatural boundaries, the thwarting of national and racial\ndevelopments which, so far as we can see, gave every promise of great\nresults. We naturally extol the nations that have survived; we do not\nknow how many superior stocks may have been sacrificed to military\nconquest, or how many racial possibilities may have been suppressed in\ntheir beginnings.\n\nVast changes in mental attitudes may result from a great war, and the\ncourse of civilization may be deflected; and while we adjust ourselves\nto these changes, no one may say at the time that they are just or even\nthat they are temporarily best. We are never able at the moment to\nmeasure the effects of the unholy conquest of peoples who should not\nhave been conquered; these results work themselves out in tribulation\nand perhaps in loss of effort and of racial standards through many weary\ncenturies. Force, or even \"success,\" cannot justify theft.\n\nBut even assuming the great changes that have arisen from war, this is\nnot a justification of war; it only states a fact, it only provides a\nmeasure of the condition of society at any epoch. It is probable that\nwar will still exert a mighty even if a lessening influence; it may\nstill be necessary to resort to arms to win for a people its natural\nopportunity and to free a race from bondage; and if any people has a\nright to its own existence, it has an equal right and indeed a duty to\ndefend itself. But this again only indicates the wretched state of\ndevelopment in which we live. Undoubtedly, also, a certain amount of\nmilitary training is very useful, but there should be other ways, in a\ndemocracy, to secure something of this needful training.\n\nThe struggle for existence, as expressed in human combat, does not\nnecessarily result in the survival of the most desirable, so far as we\nare able to define desirability. We are confusing very unlike situations\nin our easy application of the struggle for existence to war. The\nstruggle is not now between individuals to decide the fitter; it is\nbetween vast bodies hurling death by wholesale. We pick the physically\nfit and send them to the battle-line; and these fit are slain. This is\nnot the situation in nature from which we draw our illustrations.\nMoreover, the final test of fitness in nature is adaptation, not power.\nAdaptation and adjustment mean peace, not war. Physical force has been\nimmensely magnified in the human sphere; we even speak of the great\nnations as \"powers,\" a terminology that some day we shall regret. The\nmilitary method of civilization finds no justification in the biological\nstruggle for existence.\n\nThe final conquest of a man is of himself, and he shall then be greater\nthan when he takes a city. The final conquest of a society is of itself,\nand it shall then be greater than when it conquers its neighboring\nsociety.\n\nMan now begins to measure himself against nature also, and he begins to\nsee that herein shall lie his greatest conquests beyond himself; in\nfact, by this means shall he conquer himself,--by great feats of\nengineering, by completer utilization of the possibilities of the\nplanet, by vast discoveries in the unknown, and by the final enlargement\nof the soul; and in these fields shall be the heroes. The most virile\nand upstanding qualities can find expression in the conquest of the\nearth. In the contest with the planet every man may feel himself grow.\n\nWhat we have done in times past shows the way by which we have come; it\ndoes not provide a program of procedure for days that are coming; or if\nit does, then we deny the effective evolution of the race. We have\npassed witchcraft, religious persecution, the inquisition, subjugation\nof women, the enslavement of our fellows except alone enslavement in\nwar.\n\nHere I come particularly to a consideration of the struggle for\nexistence. Before I enter on this subject, I must pause to say that I\nwould not of myself found an argument either for war or against it on\nthe analogies of the struggle for existence. Man has responsibilities\nquite apart from the conditions that obtain in the lower creation. Man\nis a moral agent; animals and plants are not moral agents. But the\nargument for war is so often founded on this struggle in nature, that\nthe question must be considered.\n\nIt has been persistently repeated for years that in nature the weakest\nperish and that the victory is with the strong, meaning by that the\nphysically powerful. This is a false analogy and a false biology. It\nleads men far astray. It is the result of a misconception of the\nteaching of evolution.\n\nOur minds dwell on the capture and the carnage in nature,--the hawk\nswooping on its prey, the cat stealthily watching for the mouse, wolves\nhunting in packs, ferocious beasts lying in wait, sharks that follow\nships, serpents with venomous fangs, the vast range of parasitism; and\nwith the poet we say that nature is \"red in tooth and claw.\" Of course,\nwe are not to deny the struggle of might against might, which is mostly\nbetween individuals, and of which we are all aware; but the weak and the\nfragile and the small are the organisms that have persisted. There are\nthousands of little and soft things still abundant in the world that\nhave outlived the fearsome ravenous monsters of ages past; there were\nGoliaths in those days, but the Davids have outlived them, and Gath is\nnot peopled by giants. The big and strong have not triumphed.\n\nThe struggle in nature is not a combat, as we commonly understand that\nword, and it is not warfare. The earth is not strewn with corpses.\n\nI was impressed in reading Roosevelt's \"African Game Trails\" with the\ngreat extent of small and defenseless and fragile animal life that\nabounds in the midst of the terrible beasts,--little uncourageous things\nthat hide in the crevices, myriads that fly in the air, those that ride\non the rhinos, that swim and hide in the pools, and bats that hang in\nthe acacia-trees. He travelled in the region of the lion, in the region\nthat \"holds the mightiest creatures that tread the earth or swim in its\nrivers; it also holds distant kinsfolk of these same creatures, no\nbigger than woodchucks, which dwell in crannies of the rocks, and in the\ntree tops. There are antelope smaller than hares and antelope larger\nthan oxen. There are creatures which are the embodiment of grace; and\nothers whose huge ungainliness is like that of a shape in a nightmare.\nThe plains are alive with droves of strange and beautiful animals whose\nlike is not known elsewhere.\" The lion is mighty; he is the king of\nbeasts; but he keeps his place and he has no kingdom. He has not\nmastered the earth. No beast has ever overcome the earth; and the\nnatural world has never been conquered by muscular force.\n\nNature is not in a state of perpetual enmity, one part with another.\n\nMy friend went to a far country. He told me that he was most impressed\nwith the ferocity, chiefly of wild men. It came my time to go to that\ncountry. I saw that men had been savage,--men are the most ferocious of\nanimals, and the ferocity has never reached its high point of refined\nfury until to-day. (Of course, savages fight and slay; this is because\nthey are savages.) But I saw also that these savage men are passing\naway. I saw animals that had never tasted blood, that had no means of\ndefense against a rapacious captor, and yet they were multiplying. Every\nstone that I upturned disclosed some tender organism; every bush that I\ndisturbed revealed some timid atom of animal life; every spot where I\nwalked bore some delicate plant, and I recalled the remark of Sir J.\nWilliam Dawson \"that frail and delicate plants may be more ancient than\nthe mountains or plains on which they live\"; and if I went on the sea, I\nsaw the medusae, as frail as a poet's dream, with the very sunshine\nstreaming through them, yet holding their own in the mighty upheaval of\nthe oceans; and I reflected on the myriads of microscopic things that\nfor untold ages had cast the very rock on which much of the ocean rests.\nThe minor things and the weak things are the most numerous, and they\nhave played the greatest part in the polity of nature. So I came away\nfrom that far country impressed with the power of the little feeble\nthings. I had a new understanding of the worth of creatures so\nunobtrusive and so silent that the multitude does not know them.\n\nI saw protective colorings; I saw fleet wings and swift feet; I saw the\nability to hide and to conceal; I saw habits of adaptation; I saw\nmarvellous powers of reproduction. You have seen them in every field;\nyou have met them on your casual walks, until you accept them as the\nnatural order of things. And you know that the beasts of prey have not\nprevailed. The whole contrivance of nature is to protect the weak.\n\nWe have wrongly visualized the \"struggle.\" We have given it an intensely\nhuman application. We need to go back to Darwin who gave significance to\nthe phrase \"struggle for existence.\" \"I use this term,\" he said, \"in a\nlarge and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on\nanother, and including (which is more important) not only the life of\nthe individual, but success in leaving progeny.\" The dependence of one\nbeing on another, success in leaving progeny,--how accurate and how\nfar-seeing was Darwin!\n\nI hope that I speak to naturists and to farmers. They know how diverse\nare the forms of life; and they know that somehow these forms live\ntogether and that only rarely do whole races perish by subjugation. They\nknow that the beasts do not set forth to conquer, but only to gain\nsubsistence and to protect themselves. The beasts and birds do not\npursue indiscriminately. A hen-hawk does not attack crows or\nbutterflies. Even a vicious bull does not attack fowls or rabbits or\nsheep. The great issues are the issues of live and let-live. There are\nwhole nations of plants, more unlike than nations of humankind, living\ntogether in mutual interdependence. There are nations of quiet and\nmightless animals that live in the very regions of the mighty and the\nstout. And we are glad it is so.\n\nConsider the mockery of invoking the struggle for existence as\njustification for a battle on a June morning, when all nature is vibrant\nwith life and competition is severe, and when, if ever, we are to look\nfor strife. But the very earth breathes peace. The fulness of every\nfield and wood is in complete adjustment. The teeming multitudes of\nanimal and plant have found a way to live together, and we look abroad\non a vast harmony, verdurous, prolific, abounding. Into this concord,\nproject your holocaust!\n\n\n\n\n_The daily fare_\n\n\nSome pages back, I said something about the essential simplicity in\nhabit of life that results from the nature contact, and I illustrated\nthe remark by calling attention to the righteousness of simple eating\nand drinking. Of course, the eating must be substantial, but the\nadventitious appetites accomplish nothing and they may be not only\nintemperate and damaging to health but even unmoral. Yet it is not alone\nthe simplicity of the daily fare that interests me here, but the\nnecessity that it shall be as direct as possible from the ground or the\nsea, and that it shall be undisguised and shall have meaning beyond the\nsatisfying of the appetite.\n\nI was interested in Tusser's \"Christmas husbandly fare,\" notwithstanding\nsome suggestion of gluttony in it and of oversupply. There is a certain\nvigor and good relish about it, and lack of ostentation, that seem to\nsuggest a lesson.\n\nIt was more than three centuries ago that native Thomas Tusser,\nmusician, chorister, and farmer, gave to the world his incomparable\n\"Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry.\" He covered the farm year and\nthe farm work as completely as Vergil had covered it more than fifteen\ncenturies before; and he left us sketches of the countryside of his day,\nand the ways of the good plain folk, and quaint bits of philosophy and\ncounsel. He celebrated the Christmas festival with much conviction, and\nin the homely way of the home folks, deriving his satisfactions from the\nthings that the land produces. His sketches are wholesome reading in\nthese days of foods transported from the ends of the earth, and\ncompounded by impersonal devices and condensed into packages that go\ninto every house alike.\n\nThomas Tusser would celebrate with \"things handsome to have, as they\nought to be had.\" His board would not be scant of provisions, for he\nseems not to have advised the simple life in the way of things good to\neat; but he chose good raw materials, and we can imagine that the \"good\nhusband and huswife\" gave these materials their best compliments and\nprepared them with diligence and skill. Not once does he suggest that\nthese materials be secured from the market, or that any imported labor\nbe employed in the preparation of them.\n\n    \"Good bread and good drink, a good fire in the hall,\n     Brawn, pudding, and souse, and good mustard withal.\"\n\nHere is the whole philosophy of the contented festival,--the fruit of\none's labor, the common genuine materials, and the cheer of the family\nfireside. The day is to be given over to the spirit of the celebration;\nevery common object will glow with a new consecration, and everything\nwill be good,--even the mustard will be good withal. What a contempt old\nTusser would have had for all the imported and fabricated condiments and\ntrivialities that now come to our tables in packages suggestive of\nmedicines and drugs! And how ridiculously would they have stood\nthemselves beside the brawn, pudding, and souse! A few plain\naccessories, every one stout and genuine, and in good quantity, must\naccompany the substantialities that one takes with a free hand directly\nfrom the land that one manages.\n\nIt surprises us that he had such a bountiful list from which to draw,\nand yet the kinds are not more than might be secured from any good land\nproperty, if one set about securing them:\n\n    \"Beef, mutton, and pork, shred pies of the best,\n     Pig, veal, goose, and capon, and turkey well drest,\n     Cheese, apples, and nuts, joly carols to hear,\n     As then in the country, is counted good cheer.\"\n\nIn these days we should draw less heavily on the meats, for in the three\ncenturies we have gained greatly in the vegetable foods. Tusser did not\nhave the potato. But nevertheless, these materials are of the very bone\nof the land. They grow up with the year and out of the conditions, and\nthey have all the days in them, the sunshine, the rain, the dew of\nmorning, the wind, the cold foggy nights, and the work of laborious\nhands. Every one of them means something to the person who raises them,\nand there is no impersonality in them. John's father drained the land\nwhen yet he was a boy; the hedges were set; long ago the place was laid\nout in its rotations; the old trees in the fields are a part of it;\nevery stall in the stables and every window-seat in the old house hold\nmemories; and John has grown up with these memories, and with these\nfields, and with the footpaths that lead out over brooks and amongst the\nherds of cattle. It is a part of his religion to keep the land well; and\nthese supplies at Christmas time are taken with a deep reverence for the\ngoodness that is in them, and with a pride in having produced them.\n\nAnd Thomas Tusser, good husbandman, rejoiced that these bounties cost no\ncash:\n\n    \"What cost to good husband, is any of this?\n     Good household provision only it is.\n     Of other the like, I do leave out a many\n     That costeth a husbandman never a penny.\"\n\nTo farm well; to provide well; to produce it oneself; to be independent\nof trade, so far as this is possible in the furnishing of the\ntable,--these are good elements in living. And in this day we are\nrapidly losing all this; many persons already have lost it; many have\nnever known the satisfaction of it. Most of us must live from the box\nand the bottle and the tin-can; we are even feeding our cattle from the\nfactory and the bag. The farmer now raises a few prime products to sell,\nand then he buys his foods in the markets under label and tag; and he\nknows not who produced the materials, and he soon comes not to care. No\nthought of the seasons, and of the men and women who labored, of the\nplace, of the kind of soil, of the special contribution of the native\nearth, come with the trademark or the brand. And so we all live\nmechanically, from shop to table, without contact, and irreverently.\n\nMay we not once in the year remember the earth in the food that we eat?\nMay we not in some way, even though we live in town, so organize our\nChristmas festival that the thought of the goodness of the land and its\nbounty shall be a conscious part of our celebration? May we not for once\nreduce to the very minimum the supply of manufactured and sophisticated\nthings, and come somewhere near, at least in spirit, to a \"Christmas\nhusbandly fare?\"\n\nYet, Thomas Tusser would not confine his husbandly fare to the Christmas\ntime. In another poem, he gives us \"The farmer's daily diet,\" in which\nthe sturdy products are still much the same, secured and prepared by\nthose who partake. All this may be little applicable literally in our\npresent living, and yet I think it is easily possible, as certainly it\nis very desirable, to develop a new attitude toward the table fare,\navoiding much unnecessary and insignificant household labor and lending\nan attitude of good morality to the daily sustenance.\n\nMuch of our eating and feasting is a vicious waste of time, and also of\nhuman energy that might be put to good uses. One can scarcely conceive\nhow such indirect and uncomfortable and expensive methods could have\ncome into use. Perhaps they originated with persons of quality in an\naristocratic society, when an abundance of servants must be trained to\nserve and when distinctions in eating were a part of the distinction in\nrank. But to have introduced these laborious and unintelligent methods\ninto hotels, where persons tarry for comfort and into homes that do not\nneed to maintain an extrinsic appearance, is a vain and ludicrous\nimitation. The numbers of courses, with more service than food, that one\noften meets at the table d'hote of the frequented hotels abroad, are\nmost exasperating to one who values time and has a serious purpose in\ntravel and a rightful care for the bodily apparatus. Here is the\nperformance--it was nothing more than a performance, consisting in\nrepeated changing of all the dishes, the removing of every fragment of\nedibles, and in passing very small separate parcels of food--that it was\nmy lot to endure on an otherwise happy day in a hotel that had little\nelse to distinguish it:\n\n  Course 1. Dry bread (no butter).\n                         Removal.\n\n  Course 2. Soup (nothing else).\n                         Removal.\n\n  Course 3. Fish (very economical), with a potato on the side.\n                         Removal.\n\n  Course 4. Veal, macaroni.\n                         Removal.\n\n  Course 5. Spoonful of green beans (nothing else).\n                         Removal.\n\n  Course 6. Beef and salad (fragmentary).\n                         Removal.\n\n  Course 7. Charlotte Russe, bit of cake.\n                         Removal.\n\n  Course 8. Fruit (slight).\n                         Removal.\n\n  Course 9. Morsel of cheese, one cracker.\n                         Removal.\n\n  Course 10. Coffee.\n                         Relief.\n\nThe traveler knows that this species of time-wasting is not unusual;\ncertainly the food is not unusual and does not merit such considerate\nattention, although it may profit by the magnification. All this\ncontributes nothing to human efficiency--quite the reverse--and\ncertainly nothing to the rightful gusto in the enjoyment of one's\nsubsistence. It is a ceremony. Such laborious uselessness is quite\nimmoral.\n\nI am afraid that our food habits very well represent how far we have\nmoved away from the essentials and how much we have misled ourselves as\nto the standards of excellence. I looked in a cookbook to learn how to\nserve potatoes: I found twenty-three recipes, every one of which was\napparently designed to disguise the fact that they were potatoes; and\nyet there is really nothing in a potato to be ashamed of. Of course,\nthis kind of deception is not peculiar to cookery. It is of the same\npiece as the stamping of the metal building coverings in forms to\nrepresent brick and stone, although everybody knows that they are not\nbrick and stone, rather than to make a design that shall express metal\nand thereby frankly tell the truth; of the same kind also as the casting\nof cement blocks to represent undressed rock, although every one is\naware of the deception, rather than to develop a form that will express\ncement blocks as brick expresses brick; of the same order as the\ninflating of good wholesome water by carbonic gas; and all the other\ndeceits in materials on which our common affairs are built. It is, of\ncourse, legitimate to present our foods in many forms that we may secure\nvariety even with scant and common materials; but danger may lie in any\nuntruthfulness with which we use the raw materials of life.\n\nSo cookery has come to be a process of concealment. Not only does it\nconceal the materials, but it also conceals the names of them in a\nridiculous nomenclature. Apparently, the higher the art of cookery, the\ngreater is the merit of complete concealment. I think that one reason\nwhy persons enjoy the simple cooking of farmers and sailors and other\nelemental folk, is because of its comparative lack of disguise, although\nthey may not be aware of this merit of it. We have so successfully\ndisguised our viands through so many years that it is not \"good form\" to\nmake inquiries: we may not smell the food, although the odor should be\none of the best and most rightful satisfactions, as it is in fruits and\nflowers. We may smell a parsnip or a potato when it grows in the field,\nbut not when it is cooked.\n\nWe add the extrinsic and meaningless odors of spices and flavorings,\nforgetting that odor no less than music hath occasions; each of the\nmaterials has its own odor that the discriminating cook will try to\nbring out in its best expression. Were we to be deprived of all these\nexotic seasonings, undoubtedly cookery would be the gainer in the end;\nnor could we so readily disguise materials that in themselves are not\nfit to eat. There is a reason why \"all foods taste alike,\" as we often\nhear it said of the cooking in public places.\n\nMoreover, we want everything that is out of season, necessitating great\nattention to the arts of preserving and requiring still further\nfabrication; and by this desire we also lessen the meaning of the\nseasons when they come in their natural sequence, bringing their\ntreasure of materials that are adapted to the time and to the place. We\ncan understand, then, why it so happens that we neglect the cookery of\nthe common foods, as seeming to be not quite worth the while, and expend\nourselves with so much effort on the accessories and the frills. I have\nbeen interested to observe some of the instruction in cooking,--how it\noften begins with little desserts, and fudge, and a variety of dib-dabs.\nThis is much like the instruction in manual training that begins with\nformal and meaningless model work or trivialities and neglects the\nissues of life. It is much like some of the teaching in agriculture not\nso many years ago, before we attacked very effectively the serious\nproblems of wheat and alfalfa and forests and markets. Mastery does not\nlie in these pieces of play work, nor does the best intellectual\ninterest on the part of the student reside in them.\n\nResult is that one finds the greatest difficulty in securing a really\ngood baked potato, a well-cooked steak, or a wholesome dish of\napple-sauce that is not strained and flavored beyond recognition. It is\nnearly impossible for one to secure an egg fried hard and yet very\ntender and that has not been \"turned\" or scorched on the edges,--this is\nquite the test of the skill of the good cook. The notion that a hard\nfried egg is dangerously indigestible is probably a fable of poor\ncookery. One can secure many sophisticated and disguised egg dishes, but\nI think skill in plainly cooking eggs is almost an unknown art, perhaps\na little-practised art.\n\nNow, it is on these simple and essential things that I would start my\ninstruction in cookery; and this not only for the gain to good eating\nbut also for the advantage of vigor and good morals. I am afraid that\nour cooking does not set a good example before the young three times\nevery day in the year; and how eager are the young and how amenable to\nsuggestion at these three blessed epochs every day in the year!\n\nSome unsympathetic reader will say that I am drawing a long bow; yet\nundoubtedly our cookery has prepared the public mind for the\nadulteration. Knowing the elaboration of many of the foods and fancy\ndishes, the use of flavoring and spice and other additions to disguise\nunwholesome materials, the addition of coloring matter to make things\nattractive, the mixtures, the elaborate designs and trimmings and\nconcoctions, and various deceptions, one wonders how far is the step\nfrom some of the cookery to some of the adulteration and whether these\nprocesses are really all of one piece. I will leave with my reader a\nparagraph assembled from a statement made by a food chemist but a few\nyears ago, to let him compare adulteration with what is regarded as\nlegitimate food preparation and note the essential similarity of many of\nthe processes. I do not mean to enter the discussion of food\nadulteration, and I do not know whether these sophistications are true\nat the present day; but the statement describes a situation in which we\nfound ourselves and indicates what had become a staggering infidelity in\nthe use of the good raw materials.\n\nHamburg steak often contains sodium sulphite; bologna sausage and\nsimilar meats until recently usually contained a large percentage of\nadded cereal. \"Pancake flour\" often contains little if any buckwheat;\nwheat flour is bleached with nitric oxide to improve its appearance.\nFancy French peas are colored with sulphate of copper. Bottled ketchup\nusually contains benzoate of soda as a preservative. Japanese tea is\ncolored with cyanide of potassium and iron. Prepared mustard usually\ncontains a large quantity of added starch and is colored with tumeric.\nGround coffee has recently been adulterated with roasted peas. So-called\nnon-alcoholic bottled beverages often contain alcohol or a\nhabit-forming drug and are usually colored with aniline. Candy is\ncommonly colored with aniline dye and often coated with paraffine to\nprevent evaporation. Cheap candies contain such substances as glue and\nsoapstone. The higher-priced kinds of molasses usually contain\nsulphites. Flavoring extracts seldom are made from pure products and\nusually are artificially colored. Jams are made of apple jelly with the\naddition of coloring matter and also of seeds to imitate berries from\nwhich they are supposed to be made; the cheap apple jelly is itself\noften imitated by a mixture of glucose, starch, aniline dye, and\nflavoring. Lard nearly always contains added tallow. Bakeries in large\ncities have used decomposed products, as decayed eggs. Cheap ice-cream\nis often made of gelatin, glue, and starch. Cottonseed-oil is sold for\nolive-oil. The poison saccharine is often used in place of sugar in\nprepared sweetened products.\n\nThe attentive reader of the public prints in the recent years can\ngreatly extend this humiliating recital if he choose. It is our habit to\nattach all the blame to the adulterators, and it is difficult to excuse\nthem; but we usually find that there are contributory causes and\ncertainly there must be reasons. Has our daily fare been honest?\n\n\n\n\n_The admiration of good materials_\n\n\nNot even yet am I done with this plain problem of the daily fare. The\nvery fact that it is daily--thrice daily--and that it enters so much\ninto the thought and effort of every one of us, makes it a subject of\nthe deepest concern from every point of view. The aspect of the case\nthat I am now to reassert is the effect of much of our food preparation\nin removing us from a knowledge of the good raw materials that come out\nof the abounding earth.\n\nLet us stop to admire an apple. I see a committee of the old worthies in\nsome fruit-show going slowly and discriminatingly among the plates of\nfruits, discussing the shapes and colors and sizes, catching the\nfragrance, debating the origins and the histories, and testing them with\nthe utmost precaution and deliberation; and I follow to hear their\njudgment.\n\nThis kind of apple is very perfect in spherical form, deeply cut at the\nstem, well ridged at the shallow crater, beautifully splashed and\nstreaked with carmine-red on a yellowish green under-color, finely\nflecked with dots, slightly russet on the shaded side, apparently a good\nkeeper; its texture is fine-grained and uniform, flavor mildly subacid,\nthe quality good to very good; if the tree is hardy and productive,\nthis variety is to be recommended to the amateur for further trial! The\nnext sample is somewhat elongated in form, rather below the average in\ncolor, the stem very long and well set and indicating a fruit that does\nnot readily drop in windstorms, the texture exceedingly melting but the\nflavor slightly lacking in character and therefore rendering it of\ndoubtful value for further test. Another sample lacks decidedly in\nquality, as judged by the specimens on the table, and the exhibitor is\nrespectfully recommended to withdraw it from future exhibitions; another\nkind has a very pronounced aromatic odor, which will commend it to\npersons desiring to grow a choice collection of interesting fruits;\nstill another is of good size, very firm and solid, of uniform red\ncolor, slightly oblate and therefore lending itself to easy packing,\nquality fair to good, and if the tree bears such uniform samples as\nthose shown on the table it apparently gives promise of some usefulness\nas a market sort. My older friends, if they have something of the\nfeeling of the pomologist, can construct the remainder of the picture.\n\nIn physical perfectness of form and texture and color, there is nothing\nin all the world that exceeds a well-grown fruit. Let it lie in the palm\nof your hand. Close your fingers slowly about it. Feel its firm or soft\nand modelled surface. Put it against your cheek, and inhale its\nfragrance. Trace its neutral under-colors, and follow its stripes and\nmark its dots. If an apple, trace the eye that lies in a moulded basin.\nNote its stem, how it stands firmly in its cavity, and let your\nimagination run back to the tree from which, when finally mature, it\nparted freely. This apple is not only the product of your labor, but it\nholds the essence of the year and it is in itself a thing of exquisite\nbeauty. There is no other rondure and no other fragrance like this.\n\nI am convinced that we need much to cultivate this appreciation of the\nphysical perfectness of the fruits that we grow. We cannot afford to\nlose this note from our lives, for this may contribute a good part of\nour satisfaction of being in the world. The discriminating appreciation\nthat one applies to a picture or a piece of sculpture may be equally\napplied to any fruit that grows on the commonest tree or bush in our\nfield or to any animal that stands on a green pasture. It is no doubt a\nmark of a well-tempered mind that it can understand the significance of\nthe forms in fruits and plants and animals and apply it in the work of\nthe day.\n\nI sometimes think that the rise of the culinary arts is banishing this\nfine old appreciation of fruits in their natural forms. There are so\nmany ways of canning and preserving and evaporating and extracting the\njuices, so many disguises and so much fabrication, that the fruit is\nlost in the process. The tin-can and the bottle seem to have put an\ninsuperable barrier between us and nature, and it is difficult for us to\nget back to a good munch of real apples under a tree or by the fireside.\nThe difficulty is all the greater in our congested city life where\norchards and trees are only a vacant memory or stories told to the\nyoung, and where the space in the larder is so small that apples must be\npurchased by the quart. The eating of good apples out of hand seems to\nbe almost a lost art. Only the most indestructible kinds, along with\nleather-skinned oranges and withered bananas, seem to be purchasable in\nthe market. The discriminating apple-eater in the Old World sends to a\ngrower for samples of the kinds that he grows; and after the inquirer\nhas tested them in the family, and discussed them, he orders his winter\nsupply. The American leaves the matter to the cook and she orders plain\napples; and she gets them.\n\nI wonder whether in time the perfection of fabrication will not reach\nsuch a point that some fruits will be known to the great public only by\nthe picture on the package or on the bottle. Every process that removes\nus one step farther from the earth is a distinct loss to the people, and\nyet we are rapidly coming into the habit of taking all things at second\nhand. My objection to the wine of the grape is not so much a question of\nabstinence as of the fact that I find no particular satisfaction in the\nshape and texture of a bottle.\n\nIf one has a sensitive appreciation of the beauty in form and color and\nmodelling of the common fruits, he will find his interest gradually\nextending to other products. Some time ago I visited Hood River Valley\nin company with a rugged potato-grower from the Rocky Mountains. We were\namazed at the wonderful scenery, and captivated by the beauty of the\nfruits. In one orchard the owner showed us with much satisfaction a\nbrace of apples of perfect form and glowing colors. When the grower had\nproperly expounded the marvels of Hood River apples, which he said were\nthe finest in the world, my friend thrust his hand into his pocket and\npulled out a potato, and said to the man: \"Why is not that just as\nhandsome as a Hood River apple?\" And sure enough it was. For twenty-five\nyears this grower had been raising and selecting the old Peachblow\npotato, until he had a form much more perfect than the old Peachblow\never was, with a uniform delicate pink skin, smooth surface, comely\nshape, and medium size, and with eyes very small and scarcely sunken;\nand my Hood River friend admitted that a potato as well as an apple may\nbe handsome and satisfying to the hand and to the eye, and well worth\ncarrying in one's pocket. But this was a high-bred potato, and not one\nof the common lot.\n\nThis episode of the potato allows me another opportunity to enforce my\ncontention that we lose the fruit or the vegetable in the processes of\ncookery. The customary practice of \"mashing\" potatoes takes all the\nindividuality out of the product, and the result is mostly so much\nstarch. There is an important dietary side to this. Cut a thin slice\nacross a potato and hold it to the light. Note the interior\nundifferentiated mass, and then the thick band of rind surrounding it.\nThe potato flavor and a large part of the nutriment lie in this\nexterior. We slice this part away and fry, boil, or otherwise fuss up\nthe remainder. When we mash it, we go still farther and break down the\npotato texture; and in the modern method we squeeze and strain it till\nwe eliminate every part of the potato, leaving only a pasty mass, which,\nin my estimation, is not fit to eat. The potato should be cooked with\nthe rind on, if it is a good potato, and if it is necessary to remove\nthe outer skin the process should be performed after the cooking. The\nmost toothsome part of the potato is in these outer portions, if the\ntuber is well grown and handled. We have so sophisticated the potato in\nthe modern disguised cookery that we often practically ruin it as an\narticle of food, and we have bred a race of people that sees nothing to\nadmire in a good and well-grown potato tuber.\n\nI now wish to take an excursion from the potato to the pumpkin. In all\nthe range of vegetable products, I doubt whether there is a more perfect\nexample of pleasing form, fine modelling, attractive texture and color,\nand more bracing odor, than in a well-grown and ripe field pumpkin.\nPlace a pumpkin on your table; run your fingers down its smooth grooves;\ntrace the furrows to the poles; take note of its form; absorb its rich\ncolor; get the tang of its fragrance. The roughness and ruggedness of\nits leaves, the sharp-angled stem strongly set, make a foil that a\nsculptor cannot improve. Then wonder how this marvellous thing was born\nout of your garden soil through the medium of one small strand of a\nsucculent stem.\n\nWe all recognize the appeal of a bouquet of flowers, but we are unaware\nthat we may have a bouquet of fruits. We have given little attention to\narranging them, or any study of the kinds that consort well together,\nnor have we receptacles in which effectively to display them. Yet,\napples and oranges and plums and grapes and nuts, and good melons and\ncucumbers and peppers and carrots and onions, may be arranged into the\nmost artistic and satisfying combinations.\n\nI would fall short of my obligation if I were to stop with the fruit of\nthe tree and say nothing about the tree or the plant itself. In our\nhaste for lawn trees of new kinds and from the uttermost parts, we\nforget that a fruit-tree is ornamental and that it provides acceptable\nshade. A full-grown apple-tree or pear-tree is one of the most\nindividual and picturesque of trees. The foliage is good, the blossoms\nas handsome as those of fancy imported things, the fruits always\ninteresting, and the tree is reliable. Nothing is more interesting than\nan orange tree, in the regions where it grows, with its shining and\nevergreen leaves and its continuing flowers and fruits. The practice of\nplanting apples and pears and sweet cherries, and other fruit and nut\ntrees, for shade and adornment is much to be commended in certain\nplaces.\n\nBut the point I wish specially to urge in this connection is the value\nof many kinds of fruit-trees in real landscape work. We think of these\ntrees as single or separate specimens, but they may be used with good\nresult in mass planting, when it is desired to produce a given effect in\na large area or in one division of a property. I do not know that any\none has worked out full plans for the combining of fruit-trees, nuts,\nand berry-bearing plants into good treatments, but it is much to be\ndesired that this shall be done. Any of you can picture a sweep of\ncountryside planted to these things that would be not only novel and\nstriking, but at the same time conformable to the best traditions of\nartistic rendering.\n\nI think it should be a fundamental purpose in our educational plans to\nacquaint the people with the common resources of the region, and\nparticularly with those materials on which we subsist. If this is\naccepted, then we cannot deprive our parks, highways, and school grounds\nof the trees that bear the staple fruits. It is worth while to have an\nintellectual interest in a fruit-tree. I know a fruit-grower who secures\nmany prizes for his apples and his pears; when he secures a blue ribbon,\nhe ties it on the tree that bore the fruit.\n\nThe admiration of a good domestic animal is much to be desired. It\ndevelops a most responsible attitude in the man or the woman. I have\nobserved a peculiar charm in the breeders of these wonderful animals, a\ncertain poise and masterfulness and breadth of sympathy. To admire a\ngood horse and to know just why he admires him is a great resource to\nany man, as also to feel the responsibility for the care and health of\nany flock or herd. Fowls, pigs, sheep on their pastures, cows, mules,\nall perfect of their kind, all sensitive, all of them marvellous in\ntheir forms and powers,--verily these are good to know.\n\nIf the raw materials grow out of the holy earth, then a man should have\npride in producing them, and also in handling them. As a man thinketh of\nhis materials, so doth he profit in the use of them. He builds them into\nhimself. There is a wide-spread feeling that in some way these materials\nreflect themselves in a man's bearing. One type of man grows out of the\nhandling of rocks, another out of the handling of fishes, another out of\nthe growing of the products from the good earth. All irreverence in the\nhandling of these materials that come out of the earth's bounty, and all\nwaste and poor workmanship, make for a low spiritual expression.\n\nThe farmer specially should be proud of his materials, he is so close to\nthe sources and so hard against the backgrounds. Moreover, he cannot\nconceal his materials. He cannot lock up his farm or disguise his crops.\nHe lives on his farm, and visibly with his products. The architect does\nnot live in the houses and temples he builds. The engineer does not live\non his bridge. The miner does not live in his mine. Even the sailor has\nhis home away from his ship. But the farmer cannot separate himself from\nhis works. Every bushel of buckwheat and every barrel of apples and\nevery bale of cotton bears his name; the beef that he takes to market,\nthe sheep that he herds on his pastures, the horse that he\ndrives,--these are his products and they carry his name. He should have\nthe same pride in these--his productions--as another who builds a\nmachine, or another who writes a book about them. The admiration of a\nfield of hay, of a cow producing milk, of a shapely and fragrant head of\ncabbage, is a great force for good.\n\nIt would mean much if we could celebrate the raw materials and the\nproducts. Particularly is it good to celebrate the yearly bounty. The\nPuritans recognized their immediate dependence on the products of the\nground, and their celebration was connected with religion. I should be\nsorry if our celebrations were to be wholly secular.\n\nWe have been much given to the display of fabricated materials,--of the\nproducts of looms, lathes, foundries, and many factories of skill. We\nalso exhibit the agricultural produce, but largely in a crass and rude\nway to display bulk and to win prizes. We now begin to arrange our\nexhibitions for color effect, comparison, and educational influence. But\nwe do not justly understand the natural products when we confine them to\nformal exhibitions. They must be incorporated into many celebrations,\nexpressing therein the earth's bounty and our appreciation of it. The\nusual and common products, domesticated and wild, should be gathered in\nthese occasions, and not for competition or for prize awards or even for\ndisplay, but for their intrinsic qualities. An apple day or an apple\nsabbath would teach the people to express their gratitude for apples.\nThe moral obligation to grow good apples, to handle them honestly, to\ntreat the soil and the trees fairly and reverently, could be developed\nas a living practical philosophy into the working-days of an\napple-growing people. The technical knowledge we now possess requires\nthe moral support of a stimulated public appreciation to make it a\nthoroughly effective force.\n\nMany of the products and crops lend themselves well to this kind of\nadmiration, and all of them should awaken gratitude and reverence.\nSermons and teaching may issue from them. Nor is it necessary that this\ngratitude be expressed only in collected materials, or that all\npreaching and all teaching shall be indoors. The best understanding of\nour relations to the earth will be possible when we learn how to apply\nour devotions in the open places.\n\n\n\n\n_The keeping of the beautiful earth_\n\n\nThe proper care-taking of the earth lies not alone in maintaining its\nfertility or in safeguarding its products. The lines of beauty that\nappeal to the eye and the charm that satisfies the five senses are in\nour keeping.\n\nThe natural landscape is always interesting and it is satisfying. The\nphysical universe is the source of art. We know no other form and color\nthan that which we see in nature or derive from it. If art is true to\nits theme, it is one expression of morals. If it is a moral obligation\nto express the art-sense in painting and sculpture and literature and\nmusic, so is it an equal obligation to express it in good landscape.\n\nOf the first importance is it that the race keep its artistic\nbackgrounds, and not alone for the few who may travel far and near and\nwho may pause deliberately, but also for those more numerous folk who\nmust remain with the daily toil and catch the far look only as they\nlabor. To put the best expression of any landscape into the\nconsciousness of one's day's work is more to be desired than much\nriches. When we complete our conquest, there will be no unseemly\nlandscapes.\n\nThe abundance of violated landscapes is proof that we have not yet\nmastered. The farmer does not have full command of his situation until\nthe landscape is a part of his farming. Farms may be units in\nwell-developed and pleasing landscapes, beautiful in their combinations\nwith other farms and appropriate to their setting as well as attractive\nin themselves.\n\nNo one has a moral right to contribute unsightly factory premises or a\nforbidding commercial establishment to any community. The lines of\nutility and efficiency ought also to be the lines of beauty; and it is\ndue every worker to have a good landscape to look upon, even though its\narea be very constricted. To produce bushels of wheat and marvels of\nmachinery, to maintain devastating military establishments, do not\ncomprise the sum of conquest. The backgrounds must be kept.\n\nIf moral strength comes from good and sufficient scenery, so does the\npreservation of it become a social duty. It is much more than a civic\nobligation. But the resources of the earth must be available to man for\nhis use and this necessarily means a modification of the original\nscenery. Some pieces and kinds of scenery are above all economic use and\nshould be kept wholly in the natural state. Much of it may yield to\nmodification if he takes good care to preserve its essential features.\nUnfortunately, the engineer seems not often to be trained in the values\nof scenery and he is likely to despoil a landscape or at least to leave\nit raw and unfinished.\n\nOn the other hand, there is unfortunately a feeling abroad that any\nmodification of a striking landscape is violation and despoliation; and\nunwarranted opposition, in some cases amounting almost to prudery,\nfollows any needful work of utilization. Undoubtedly the farmer and\nbuilder and promoter have been too unmindful of the effect of their\ninterference on scenery, and particularly in taking little care in the\ndisposition of wastes and in the healing of wounds; but a work either of\nfarming or of construction may add interest and even lines of beauty to\na landscape and endow it with the suggestion of human interest. If care\nwere taken in the construction of public and semi-public work to reshape\nthe banks into pleasing lines, to clean up, to care for, to plant, to\nerect structures of good proportions whether they cost much or little,\nand to give proper regard to the sensibilities of the communities, most\nof the present agitation against interference with natural scenery would\ndisappear. One has only to visit the factory districts, the vacation\nresorts, the tenement areas, the banks of streams and gorges, to look at\nthe faces of cliffs and at many engineering enterprises and at\nnumberless farmyards, to find examples of the disregard of men for the\nmaterials that they handle. It is as much our obligation to hold the\nscenery reverently as to handle the products reverently. Man found the\nearth looking well. Humanity began in a garden.\n\nThe keeping of the good earth depends on preservation rather than on\ndestruction. The office of the farmer and the planter is to produce\nrather than to destroy; whatever they destroy is to the end that they\nmay produce more abundantly; these persons are therefore natural\ncare-takers. If to this office we add the habit of good housekeeping, we\nshall have more than one-third of our population at once directly\npartaking in keeping the earth. It is one of the bitter ironies that\nfarmers should ever have been taken out of their place to wreak\nvengeance on the earth by means of military devastation. In the past,\nthis ravage has been small in amount because the engines of destruction\nwere weak, but with the perfecting of the modern enginery the havoc is\nawful and brutal. While we have to our credit the improvement of\nagriculture and other agencies of conservation, it is yet a fact that\nman has never been so destructive as now. He is able to turn the skill\nof his discovery to destructive ends (a subject that we have already\napproached from another point of view). The keeping of the earth is\ntherefore involved in the organization of society. Military power heads\ntoward destructiveness. Civil power heads toward conservation. The\nmilitary power may be constructive in times of peace, but its end, if it\nuses the tools it invents, is devastation and the inflicting of injury.\nWhen the civil power is subjugated to the military power, society is\nheaded toward calamity.\n\nTo keep and to waste are opposite processes. Not only are we able to\ndespoil the earth by sheer lust of ravage and by blighting the fields\nwith caverns of human slaughter, but we shoot away incredible supplies\nof copper and petroleum and other unrenewable materials that by every\nright and equity belong to our successors; and, moreover, we are to make\nthese successors pay for the destruction of their heritage. Day by day\nwe are mortgaging the future, depriving it of supplies that it may need,\nburdening the shoulders of generations yet unborn.\n\nMerely to make the earth productive and to keep it clean and to bear a\nreverent regard for its products, is the special prerogative of a good\nagriculture and a good citizenry founded thereon; this may seem at the\nmoment to be small and ineffective as against mad impersonal and\nlimitless havoc, but it carries the final healing; and while the land\nworker will bear much of the burden on his back he will also redeem the\nearth.\n\n\n\n\n_The tones of industry_\n\n\nOne of the clearest notes of our time is the recognition of the holiness\nof industry and the attempt to formulate the morals of it. We accept\nthis fact indirectly by the modern endeavor to give the laboring man his\ndue.\n\nThe handworker is more or less elemental, dealing directly with the\nmaterials. We begin to recognize these industries in literature, in\nsculpture, and in painting; but we do not yet very consciously or\neffectively translate them into music.\n\nIt is to be recognized, of course, that melody is emotional and dynamic\nnot imitative, that its power lies in suggestion rather than in direct\nrepresentation, and that its language is general; with all this I have\nnothing to do. Meunier has done much with his chisel to interpret the\nspirit of constructive labor and to develop its higher significance. His\nart is indeed concrete and static, and sculpture and music are not to be\ncompared; yet it raises the question whether there may be other bold\nextensions of art.\n\nThe primitive industries must have been mostly silent, when there were\nno iron tools, when fire felled the forest tree and hollowed the canoe,\nwhen the parts in construction were secured by thongs, and when the game\nwas caught in silent traps or by the swift noiseless arrow and spear.\nEven at the Stone Age the rude implements and the materials must have\nbeen mostly devoid of resonance. But now industry has become universal\nand complex, and it has also become noisy,--so noisy that we organize to\nprotect ourselves from becoming distraught.\n\nAnd yet a workshop, particularly if it works in metal, is replete with\ntones that are essentially musical. Workmen respond readily to unison.\nThere are melodies that arise from certain kinds of labor. Much of our\nlabor is rhythmic. In any factory driven by power, there is a\nfundamental rhythm and motion, tying all things together. I have often\nthought, standing at the threshold of a mill, that it might be possible\nsomewhere by careful forethought to eliminate the clatter and so to\norganize the work as to develop a better expression in labor. Very much\ndo we need to make industry vocal.\n\nIt is worth considering, also, whether it is possible to take over into\nmusic any of these sounds of industry in a new way, that they may be\ngiven meanings they do not now possess.\n\nAt all events, the poetic element in industry is capable of great\ndevelopment and of progressive interpretation; and poetry is scarcely to\nbe dissociated from sound. All good work well done is essentially poetic\nto the sensitive mind; and when the work is the rhythm of many men\nacting in unison, the poetry has voice.\n\n        The striking of the rivet\n        The purr of a drill\n        The crash of a steam-shovel\n        The plunge of a dredge\n        The buzz of a saw\n        The roll of belts and chains\n        The whirl of spindles\n        The hiss of steam\n        The tip-tap of valves\n        The undertone rumble of a mill\n        The silence intent of men at work\n        The talk of men going to their homes,--\n        These are all the notes of great symphonies.\n\nNor should I stop with the industries of commerce and manufacture. There\nare many possibilities in the sounds and voices that are known of\nfisherfolk and campers and foresters and farmers. Somehow we should be\nable to individualize these voices and to give them an artistic\nexpression in some kind of human composition. There are rich suggestions\nin the voices of the farmyard, the calls of wild creatures, the tones of\nfarm implements and machinery, the sounds of the elements, and\nparticularly in the relations of all these to the pauses, the silences,\nand the distances beyond.\n\nWhether it is possible to utilize any of these tones and voices\nartistically is not for a layman to say; but the layman may express the\nneed that he feels.\n\n\n\n\n_The threatened literature_\n\n\nA fear seems to be abroad that the inquisitiveness and exactness of\nscience will deprive literature of imagination and sympathy and will\ndestroy artistic expression; and it is said that we are in danger of\nlosing the devotional element in literature. If these apprehensions are\nwell founded, then do we have cause for alarm, seeing that literature is\nan immeasurable resource.\n\nGreat literature may be relatively independent of time and place, and\nthis is beyond discussion here; but if the standards of interpretative\nliterature are lowering it must be because the standards of life are\nlowering, for the attainment and the outlook of a people are bound to be\ndisplayed in its letters.\n\nPerhaps our difficulty lies in a change in methods and standards rather\nthan in essential qualities. We constantly acquire new material for\nliterary use. The riches of life are vaster and deeper than ever before.\nIt would be strange indeed if the new experience of the planet did not\nexpress itself in new literary form.\n\nWe are led astray by the fatal habit of making comparisons, contrasting\none epoch with another. There may be inflexible souls among the\ninvestigators who see little or nothing beyond the set of facts in a\nlittle field, but surely the greater number of scientific men are\npersons of keen imagination and of broad interest in all conquests.\nIndeed, a lively imagination is indispensable in persons of the best\nattainments in science; it is necessary only that the imagination be\nregulated and trained. Never has it been so true that fact is stranger\nthan fiction. Never have the flights of the poets been so evenly matched\nby the flights of science. All great engineers, chemists, physiologists,\nphysicists work in the realm of imagination, of imagination that\nprojects the unknown from the known. Almost do we think that the\nRoentgen ray, the wireless telegraphy, the analysis of the light of the\nstars, the serum control of disease are the product of what we might\ncall pure fancy. The very utilities and conquests of modern society are\nthe results of better imagination than the world has yet known. If it is\ntrue that the desire to measure and to analyze is now an established\ntrait, equally is it true that it directs the mind into far and untried\nreaches; and if we have not yet found this range of inspiration in what\nis called artistic literature, it must be because literary criticism has\nnot accepted the imagery of the modern world and is still looking for\nits art to the models of the past.\n\nThe models of the past are properly the standards for the performances\nof their time, but this does not constitute them the standards of all\ntime or of the present time. Perhaps the writing of language for the\nsake of writing it is losing its hold; but a new, clear, and forceful\nliterature appears. This new literature has its own criteria. It would\nbe violence to judge it only by standards of criticism founded on\nElizabethan writings. We do not descend into crude materialism because\nwe describe the materials of the cosmos; we do not eliminate imagination\nbecause we desire that it shall have meaning; we do not strip literature\nof artistic quality because it is true to the facts and the outlook of\nour own time.\n\nIt may be admitted that present literature is inadequate, and that we\nare still obliged to go to the former compositions for our highest\nartistic expressions. Very good. Let us hope that we shall never cease\nto want these older literatures. Let us hope that we shall never be\nsevered from our past. But perhaps the good judge in a coming\ngeneration, when the slow process of elimination has perfected its\ncriticism, will discover something very noble and even very artistic in\nthe abundant writing of our day. Certainly he will note the recovery\nfrom the first excess of reaction against the older orders, and he will\nbe aware that at this epoch man began anew to express his social sense\nin a large way, as a result of all his painstaking studies in science.\nEven if he should not discover the highest forms of literary expression,\nhe might find that here was the large promise of a new order. Possibly\nhe would discover major compositions of the excellence of which we\nourselves are not aware.\n\nIt is less than forty years since Darwin and less than fifty years since\nAgassiz. It is only twenty years since Pasteur. It is only a century and\na quarter since Franklin, fifty years since Faraday, less than\ntwenty-five since Tyndall. It is sixty years since Humboldt glorified\nthe earth with the range of his imagination. It is not so very far even\nif we go back to Newton and to Kepler. Within the span of a century we\ncount name after name of prophets who have set us on a new course. So\ncomplete has been the revolution that we lost our old bearings before we\nhad found the new. We have not yet worked out the new relationships, nor\nput into practice their moral obligations, nor have we grasped the\nfulness of our privileges. We have not yet made the new knowledge\nconsciously into a philosophy of life or incorporated it completely into\nworking attitudes of social equity. Therefore, not even now are we ripe\nfor the new literature.\n\nWe have gone far enough, however, to know that science is not\nunsympathetic and that it is not contemptuous of the unknown. By lens\nand prism and balance and line we measure minutely whatever we can\nsense; then with bared heads we look out to the great unknown and we\ncast our lines beyond the stars. There are no realms beyond which the\nprophecy of science would not go. It resolves the atom and it weighs the\nplanets.\n\nAmong the science men I have found as many poetic souls as among the\nliterary men, although they may not know so much poetry, and they are\nnot equally trained in literary expression; being free of the restraint\nof conventional criticism, they are likely to have a peculiarly keen and\nsympathetic projection. Close dissection long continued may not lead to\nfree artistic literary expression; this is as true of literary anatomy\nas of biological anatomy: but this does not destroy the freedom of other\nsouls, and it may afford good material for the artist.\n\nTwo kinds of popular writing are confused in the public mind, for there\nare two classes that express the findings of scientific inquiry. The\nprevailing product is that which issues from establishments and\ninstitutions. This is supervised, edited, and made to conform; it is the\nproduct of our perfected organizations and has all the hardness of its\norigin. The other literature is of a different breed. It is the\nexpression of personality. The one is a useful and necessary public\nliterature of record and advice; the other is a literature of outlook\nand inspiration. The latter is not to be expected from the institutions,\nfor it is naturally the literature of freedom.\n\nMy reader now knows my line of approach to the charge that literature is\nin danger of losing its element of devotion, and hereby lies the main\nreason for introducing this discussion into my little book. We may be\nlosing the old literary piety and the technical theology, because we are\nlosing the old theocratic outlook on creation. We also know that the\nfinal control of human welfare will not be governmental or military, and\nwe shall some day learn that it will not be economic as we now\nprevailingly use the word. We have long since forgotten that once it was\npatriarchal. We shall know the creator in the creation. We shall derive\nmore of our solaces from the creation and in the consciousness of our\nright relations to it. We shall be more fully aware that righteousness\ninheres in honest occupation. We shall find some bold and free way in\nwhich the human spirit may express itself.\n\n\n\n\n_The separate soul_\n\n\nMany times in this journey have we come against the importance of the\nindividual. We are to develop the man's social feeling at the same time\nthat we allow him to remain separate. We are to accomplish certain\nsocial results otherwise than by the process of thronging, which is so\nmuch a part of the philosophy of this anxious epoch; and therefore we\nmay pursue the subject still a little further.\n\nAny close and worth-while contact with the earth tends to make one\noriginal or at least detached in one's judgments and independent of\ngroup control. In proportion as society becomes organized and involved,\ndo we need the separate spirit and persons who are responsible beings on\ntheir own account. The independent judgment should be much furthered by\nstudies in the sciences that are founded on observation of native forms\nand conditions. And yet the gains of scientific study become so rigidly\norganized into great enterprises that the individual is likely to be\nlost in them.\n\nAs an example of what I mean, I mention John Muir, who has recently\npassed away, and who stood for a definite contribution to his\ngeneration. He could hardly have made this contribution if he had been\nattached to any of the great institutions or organizations or to big\nbusiness. He has left a personal impression and a remarkable literature\nthat has been very little influenced by group psychology. He is the\ninterpreter of mountains, forests, and glaciers.\n\nThere is one method of aggregation and social intercourse. There is\nanother method of isolation and separateness. Never in the open country\ndo I see a young man or woman at nightfall going down the highways and\nthe long fields but I think of the character that develops out of the\nloneliness, in the silence of vast surroundings, projected against the\nbackgrounds, and of the suggestions that must come from these situations\nas contrasted with those that arise from the babble of the crowds. There\nis hardiness in such training; there is independence, the taking of\none's own risk and no need of the protection of compensation-acts. There\nis no over-imposed director to fall back on. Physical recuperation is in\nthe situation. As against these fields, much of the habitual golf and\ntennis and other adventitious means of killing time and of making up\ndeficiencies is almost ludicrous.\n\nMany of our reformers fail because they express only a group psychology\nand do not have a living personal interpretation. Undoubtedly many\npersons who might have had a message of their own have lost it and have\nalso lost the opportunity to express it by belonging to too many clubs\nand by too continuous association with so-called kindred spirits, or by\ntaking too much post-graduate study. It is a great temptation to join\nmany clubs, but if one feels any stir of originality in himself, he\nshould be cautious how he joins.\n\nI may also recall the great example of Agassiz at Penikese. In his last\nyear, broken in health, feeling the message he still had for the people,\nhe opened the school on the little island off the coast of\nMassachusetts. It was a short school in one summer only, yet it has made\nan indelible impression on American education. It stimulates one to know\nthat the person who met the incoming students on the wharf was Agassiz\nhimself, not an assistant or an instructor. Out of the great number of\napplicants, he chose fifty whom he would teach. He wanted to send forth\nthese chosen persons with his message, apostles to carry the methods and\nthe way of approach. (When are we to have the Penikese for the rural\nbackgrounds?)\n\nSometime there will be many great unattached teachers, who will choose\ntheir own pupils because they want them and not merely because the\napplicants have satisfied certain arbitrary tests. The students may be\ngraduates of colleges or they may be others. They will pursue their\nwork not for credit or for any other reward. We shall yet come back to\nthe masters, and there will be teaching in the market-places.\n\nWe are now in the epoch of great organization not only in industrial\ndevelopments but also in educational and social enterprises, in\nreligious work, and in governmental activities. So completely is the\norganization proceeding in every direction, and so good is it, that one\nhabitually and properly desires to identify oneself with some form of\nassociated work. Almost in spite of oneself, one is caught up into the\nplan of things, and becomes part of a social, economic, or educational\nmechanism. No longer do we seek our educational institutions so much for\nthe purpose of attaching ourselves to a master as to pursue a course of\nstudy. No more do we sit at the feet of Gamaliel.\n\nIn government, the organization has recently taken the form of mechanism\nfor efficiency. We want government and all kinds of organization to be\nefficient and effective, but administrative efficiency may easily\nproceed at the expense of personality. Much of our public organization\nfor efficiency is essentially monarchic in its tendency. It is likely to\neliminate the most precious resource in human society, which is the\nfreedom of expression of the competent individual. We are piling\norganization on organization, one supervising and watching and\n\"investigating\" the other. The greater the number of the commissions,\ninvestigating committees, and the interlocking groups, the more complex\ndoes the whole process become and the more difficult is it for the\nperson to find himself. We can never successfully substitute bookkeeping\nfor men and women. We are more in need of personality than of\nadministrative regularity.\n\nThis is not a doctrine of laisser-faire or let-alone. The very\nconditions of modern society demand strong control and regulation and\nvigorous organization; but the danger is that we apply the controls\nuniformly and everywhere and eliminate the free action of the\nindividual, as if control were in itself a merit.\n\nIn some way we must protect the person from being submerged in the\nsystem. We need always to get back of the group to the individual. The\nperson is the reason for the group, although he is responsible to the\ngroup.\n\nIt is probably a great advantage to our democracy that our educational\ninstitutions are so completely organized, for by that means we are able\nto educate many more persons and to prepare them for the world with a\nclear and direct purpose in life. But this is not the whole of the\npublic educational process. Some of the most useful persons cannot\nexpress themselves in institutions. This is not the fault of the\ninstitutions. In the nature of their character, these persons are\nseparate. For the most part, they do not now have adequate means of\nself-expression or of contributing themselves to the public welfare.\n\nWhen we shall have completed the present necessity of consolidation,\ncentralization, and organization, society will begin to be conscious of\nthe separate souls, who in the nature of the case must stand by\nthemselves, and it will make use of them for the public good. Society\nwill endow persons, not on a basis of salary, and enable them thereby to\nteach in their own way and their own time. This will represent one of\nthe highest types of endowment by government and society.\n\nWe begin to approach this time by the support, through semi-public\nagencies, of persons to accomplish certain results or to undertake\nspecial pieces of work, particularly of research; but we have not yet\nattained the higher aim of endowing individuals to express themselves\npersonally. There are liberated personalities, rare and prophetic, who\nare consumed only in making a living but who should be given\nunreservedly to the people: the people are much in need.\n\nNever have we needed the separate soul so much as now.\n\n\n\n\n_The element of separateness in society_\n\n\nIf it is so important that we have these separate souls, then must we\ninquire where they may be found and particularly how we may insure the\nrequisite supply. Isolated separates appear here and there, in all the\nranges of human experiences; these cannot be provided or foretold; but\nwe shall need, in days to come, a group or a large class of persons, who\nin the nature of their occupation, situation, and training are\nrelatively independent and free. We need more than a limited number of\nstrong outstanding figures who rise to personal leadership. We must have\na body of unattached laborers and producers who are in sufficient\nnumbers to influence unexpressed public opinion and who will form a\nnatural corrective as against organization-men, habitual reformers, and\nextremists.\n\nIt is apparent that such a class must own productive property, be able\nto secure support by working for themselves, and produce supplies that\nare indispensable to society. Their individual interests must be greater\nand more insistent than their associative interests. They should be in\ndirect contact with native resources. This characterization describes\nthe farmer, and no other large or important group.\n\nWe have considered, on a former page, that we are not to look for the\nself-acting individuals among the workingmen as a class. They are\nrapidly partaking in an opposite development. They are controlled by\nassociative interests. Even under a profit-sharing system they are parts\nin a close concert.\n\nHow to strike the balance between the needful individualism and social\ncrystallization is probably the most difficult question before society.\nOf the great underlying classes of occupations, farming is the only one\nthat presents the individualistic side very strongly. If individualism\nis to be preserved anywhere, it must be preserved here. The tendency of\nour present-day discussion is to organize the farmers as other groups or\nmasses are organized. We are in danger here. Assuredly, the farmer needs\nbetter resources in association, but it is a nice question how far we\nshould go and how completely we should try to redirect him. Fortunately,\nthe holding of title to land and the separateness of farm habitations\nprevent solidification. If, on this individualism and without destroying\nit, we can develop a co-acting and co-operating activity, we shall\nundoubtedly be on the line of safety as well as on the line of promise.\nIt would be a pity to organize the farming people merely to secure them\ntheir \"rights.\" We ought soon to pass this epoch in civilization. There\nare no \"rights\" exclusive to any class. \"Rights\" are not possessions.\n\nI do not know where the element of separateness in society is to be\nderived unless it comes out of the earth.\n\nGiven sufficient organization to enable the farmer to express himself\nfully in his occupation and to secure protection, then we may well let\nthe matter rest until his place in society develops by the operation of\nnatural forces. We cannot allow the fundamental supplies from the common\nearth to be controlled by arbitrary class regulation. It would be a\nmisfortune if the farmer were to isolate himself by making \"demands\" on\nsociety. I hope that the farmer's obligation may be so sensitively\ndeveloped in him as to produce a better kind of mass-cohesion than we\nhave yet known.\n\n\n\n\n_The democratic basis in agriculture_\n\n\nAll these positions are capable of direct application in the\nincorporation of agriculture into a scheme of democracy. A brief\ntreatment of this subject I had developed for the present book; and this\ntreatment, with applications to particular situations now confronting\nus, I used recently in the vice-presidential address before the new\nSection M of the American Association for the Advancement of Science\n(published in _Science_, February 26, 1915, where the remainder of it\nmay be found). Some of the general points of view, modified from that\naddress, may be brought together here. The desirability of keeping a\nfree and unattached attitude in the people on the land may be expounded\nin many directions, but for my purpose I will confine the illustrations\nto organization in the field of education.\n\nThe agricultural situation is now much in the public mind. It is widely\ndiscussed in the press, which shows that it has news value. Much of this\nvalue is merely of superficial and temporary interest. Much of it\nrepresents a desire to try new remedies for old ills. Many of these\nremedies will not work. We must be prepared for some loss of public\ninterest in them as time goes on. We are now in a publicity stage of our\nrural development. It would seem that the news-gathering and some other\nagencies discover these movements after the work of many constructive\nspirits has set them going and has laid real foundations; and not these\nfoundations, but only detached items of passing interest, may be known\nof any large part of the public. I hope that we shall not be disturbed\nby this circumstance nor let it interfere with good work or with\nfundamental considerations, however much we may deplore the false\nexpectations that may result.\n\nWe are at the parting of the ways. For years without number--for years\nthat run into the centuries when men have slaughtered each other on many\nfields, thinking that they were on the fields of honor, when many awful\ndespotisms have ground men into the dust, the despotisms thinking\nthemselves divine--for all these years there have been men on the land\nwishing to see the light, trying to make mankind hear, hoping but never\nrealizing. They have been the pawns on the great battlefields, men taken\nout of the peasantries to be hurled against other men they did not know\nand for no rewards except further enslavement. They may even have been\ndeveloped to a high degree of manual or technical skill that they might\nthe better support governments to make conquests. They have been on the\nbottom, upholding the whole superstructure and pressed into the earth by\nthe weight of it. When the final history is written, the lot of the man\non the land will be the saddest chapter.\n\nBut in the nineteenth century, the man at the bottom began really to be\nrecognized politically. This recognition is of two kinds,--the use that\na government can make in its own interest of a highly efficient\nhusbandry, and the desire to give the husbandman full opportunity and\nfull justice. I hope that in these times the latter motive always\nprevails. It is the only course of safety.\n\nGreat public-service institutions have now been founded in the rural\nmovement. The United States Department of Agriculture has grown to be\none of the notable governmental establishments of the world, extending\nitself to a multitude of interests and operating with remarkable\neffectiveness. The chain of colleges of agriculture and experiment\nstations, generously co-operative between nation and State, is unlike\nany other development anywhere, meaning more, I think, for the future\nwelfare and peace of the people than any one of us yet foresees. There\nis the finest fraternalism, and yet without clannishness, between these\ngreat agencies, setting a good example in public service. And to these\nagencies we are to add the State departments of agriculture, the work of\nprivate endowments although yet in its infancy, the growing and very\ndesirable contact with the rural field of many institutions of learning.\nAll these agencies comprise a distinctly modern phase of public\nactivity.\n\nA new agency has been created in the agricultural extension act which\nwas signed by President Wilson on the 8th of May in 1914. The farmer is\nto find help at his own door. A new instrumentality in the world has now\nreceived the sanction of a whole people and we are just beginning to\norganize it. The organization must be extensive, and it ought also to be\nliberal. No such national plan on such a scale has ever been attempted;\nand it almost staggers one when one even partly comprehends the\ntremendous consequences that in all likelihood will come of it. The\nsignificance of it is not yet grasped by the great body of the people.\n\nNow, the problem is to relate all this public work to the development of\na democracy. I am not thinking so much of the development of a form of\ngovernment as of a real democratic expression on the part of the people.\nAgriculture is our basic industry. As we organize its affairs, so to a\ngreat degree shall we secure the results in society in general. It is\nvery important in our great experiment in democracy that we do not lose\nsight of the first principle in democracy, which is to let the control\nof policies and affairs rest directly back on the people.\n\nWe have developed the institutions on public funds to train the farmer\nand to give him voice. These institutions are of vast importance in the\nfounding of a people. The folk are to be developed in themselves rather\nthan by class legislation, or by favor of government, or by any attitude\nof benevolence from without.\n\nWhether there is any danger in the organization of our new nationalized\nextension work, and the other public rural agencies, I suppose not one\nof us knows. But for myself, I have apprehension of the tendency to make\nsome of the agricultural work into \"projects\" at Washington and\nelsewhere. If we are not careful, we shall not only too much centralize\nthe work, but we shall tie it up in perplexing red-tape, official\nobstacles, and bookkeeping. The merit of the projects themselves and the\nintentions of the officers concerned in them are not involved in what I\nsay; I speak only of the tendency of all government to formality and to\ncrystallization, to machine work and to armchair regulations; and even\nat the risk of a somewhat lower so-called \"efficiency,\" I should prefer\nfor such work as investigating and teaching in agriculture, a dispersion\nof the initiative and responsibility, letting the co-ordination and\nstandardizing arise very much from conference and very little from\narbitrary regulation.\n\nThe best project anywhere is a good man or woman working in a program,\nbut unhampered.\n\nIf it is important that the administration of agricultural work be not\novermuch centralized at Washington, it is equally true that it should\nnot be too much centralized in the States. I hear that persons who\nobject strongly to federal concentration may nevertheless decline to\ngive the counties and the communities in their own States the benefit of\nany useful starting-power and autonomy. In fact, I am inclined to think\nthat here at present lies one of our greatest dangers.\n\nA strong centralization within the State may be the most hurtful kind of\nconcentration, for it may more vitally affect the people at home. Here\nthe question, remember, is not the most efficient formal administration,\nbut the best results for the people. The farm-bureau work, for example,\ncan never produce the background results of which it is capable if it is\na strongly intrenched movement pushed out from one centre, as from the\ncollege of agriculture or other institution. The college may be the\nguiding force, but it should not remove responsibility from the people\nof the localities, or offer them a kind of co-operation that is only the\nprivilege of partaking in the college enterprises. I fear that some of\nour so-called co-operation in public work of many kinds is little more\nthan to allow the co-operator to approve what the official\nadministration has done.\n\nIn the course of our experience in democracy, we have developed many\nchecks against too great centralization. I hope that we may develop the\nchecks effectively in this new welfare work in agriculture, a desire\nthat I am aware is also strong with many of those who are concerned in\nthe planning of it.\n\nSome enterprises may be much centralized, whether in a democracy or\nelsewhere; an example is the postal service: this is on the business\nside of government. Some enterprises should be decentralized; an example\nis a good part of the agricultural service: this is on the educational\nside of government. It is the tendency to reduce all public work to\nuniformity; yet there is no virtue in uniformity. Its only value is as a\nmeans to an end.\n\nThus far, the rural movement has been wholesomely democratic. It has\nbeen my privilege for one-third of a century to have known rather\nclosely many of the men and women who have been instrumental in bringing\nthe rural problem to its present stage of advancement. They have been\npublic-minded, able, far-seeing men and women, and they have rendered an\nunmeasurable service. The rural movement has been brought to its present\nstate without any demand for special privilege, without bolstering by\nfactitious legislation, and to a remarkable degree without self-seeking.\nIt is based on a real regard for the welfare of all the people, rather\nthan for rural people exclusively.\n\nThrice or more in this book I have spoken as if not convinced that the\npresent insistence on \"efficiency\" in government is altogether sound.\nThat is exactly the impression I desire to convey. As the term is now\ncommonly applied, it is not a measure of good government.\n\nCertain phrases and certain sets of ideas gain dominance at certain\ntimes. Just now the idea of administrative efficiency is uppermost. It\nseems necessarily to be the controlling factor in the progress of any\nbusiness or any people. Certainly, a people should be efficient; but an\nefficient government may not mean an efficient people,--it may mean\nquite otherwise or even the reverse. The primary purpose of government\nin these days, and particularly in this country, is to educate and to\ndevelop all the people and to lead them to express themselves freely and\nto the full, and to partake politically. And this is what governments\nmay not do, and this is where they may fail even when their efficiency\nin administration is exact. A monarchic form may be executively more\nefficient than a democratic form; a despotic form may be more efficient\nthan either. The justification of a democratic form of government lies\nin the fact that it is a means of education.\n\nThe final test of government is not executive efficiency. Every\nmovement, every circumstance that takes starting-power and incentive\naway from the people, even though it makes for exacter administration,\nis to be challenged. It is specially to be deplored if this loss of\nstarting-power affects the persons who deal first-hand with the surface\nof the planet and with the products that come directly out of it.\n\nThere is a broad political significance to all this. Sooner or later the\npeople rebel against intrenched or bureaucratic groups. Many of you know\nhow they resist even strongly centralized departments of public\ninstruction, and how the effectiveness of such departments may be\njeopardized and much lessened by the very perfectness of their\norganization; and if they were to engage in a custom of extraneous forms\nof news-giving in the public press, the resentment would be the greater.\nIn our rural work we are in danger of developing a piece of machinery\nfounded on our fundamental industry; and if this ever comes about, we\nshall find the people organizing to resist it.\n\nThe reader will understand that in this discussion I assume the\nagricultural work to be systematically organized, both in nation and\nState; this is essential to good effort and to the accomplishing of\nresults: but we must take care that the formal organization does not\nget in the way of the good workers, hindering and repressing them and\nwasting their time.\n\nWe want governments to be economical and efficient with funds and in the\ncontrol of affairs; this also is assumed: but we must not overlook the\nlarger issues. In all this new rural effort, we should maintain the\nspirit of team-work and of co-action, and not make the mistake of\ndepending too much on the routine of centralized control.\n\nIn this country we are much criticised for the cost of government and\nfor the supposed control of affairs by monopoly. The cost is undoubtedly\ntoo great, but it is the price we pay for the satisfaction of using\ndemocratic forms. As to the other disability, let us consider that\nsociety lies between two dangers,--the danger of monopoly and the danger\nof bureaucracy. On the one side is the control of the necessities of\nlife by commercial organization. On the other side is the control of the\nnecessities of life, and even of life itself, by intrenched groups that\nostensibly represent the people and which it may be impossible to\ndislodge. Here are the Scylla and the Charybdis between which human\nsociety must pick its devious way.\n\nBoth are evil. Of the two, monopoly may be the lesser: it may be more\neasily brought under control; it tends to be more progressive; it\nextends less far; it may be the less hateful. They are only two\nexpressions of one thing, one possibly worse than the other. Probably\nthere are peoples who pride themselves on more or less complete escape\nfrom monopoly who are nevertheless suffering from the most deadening\nbureaucracy.\n\nAgriculture is in the foundation of the political, economic, and social\nstructure. If we cannot develop starting-power in the background people,\nwe cannot maintain it elsewhere. The greatness of all this rural work is\nto lie in the results and not in the methods that absorb so much of our\nenergy. If agriculture cannot be democratic, then there is no\ndemocracy.\n\n\n\n\n_The background spaces.--The forest_\n\n\n\"This is the forest primeval.\" These are the significant words of the\npoet in Evangeline. Perhaps more than any single utterance they have set\nthe American youth against the background of the forest.\n\nThe backgrounds are important. The life of every one of us is relative.\nWe miss our destiny when we miss or forget our backgrounds. We lose\nourselves. Men go off in vague heresies when they forget the conditions\nagainst which they live. Judgments become too refined and men tend to\nbecome merely disputatious and subtle.\n\nThe backgrounds are the great unoccupied spaces. They are the large\nenvironments in which we live but which we do not make. The backgrounds\nare the sky with its limitless reaches; the silences of the sea; the\ntundra in pallid arctic nights; the deserts with their prismatic colors;\nthe shores that gird the planet; the vast mountains that are beyond\nreach; the winds, which are the universal voice in nature; the\nsacredness of the night; the elemental simplicity of the open fields;\nand the solitude of the forest. These are the facts and situations that\nstand at our backs, to which we adjust our civilization, and by which we\nmeasure ourselves.\n\nThe great conquest of mankind is the conquest of his natural conditions.\nWe admire the man who overcomes: the sailor or navigator in hostile and\nunknown seas; the engineer who projects himself hard against the\nobstacles; the miner and the explorer; the builder; the farmer who\nameliorates the earth to man's use.\n\nBut even though we conquer or modify the physical conditions against\nwhich we are set, nevertheless the backgrounds will remain. I hope that\nwe may always say \"The forest primeval.\" I hope that some reaches of the\nsea may never be sailed, that some swamps may never be drained, that\nsome mountain peaks may never be scaled, that some forests may never be\nharvested. I hope that some knowledge may never be revealed.\n\nLook at your map of the globe. Note how few are the areas of great\ncongestion of population and of much human activity as compared with the\nvast and apparently empty spaces. How small are the spots that represent\nthe cities and what a little part of the earth are the political\ndivisions that are most in the minds of men! We are likely to think that\nall these outlying and thinly peopled places are the wastes. I suspect\nthat they contribute more to the race than we think. I am glad that\nthere are still some places of mystery, some reaches of hope, some\nthings far beyond us, some spaces to conjure up dreams. I am glad that\nthe earth is not all Iowa or Belgium or the Channel Islands. I am glad\nthat some of it is the hard hills of New England, some the heathered\nheights of Scotland, some the cold distances of Quebec, some of it the\nislands far off in little-traversed seas, and some of it also the\nunexplored domains that lie within eyesight of our own homes. It is well\nto know that these spaces exist, that there are places of escape. They\nadd much to the ambition of the race; they make for strength, for\ncourage, and for renewal.\n\nIn the cities I am always interested in the variety of the contents of\nthe store windows. Variously fabricated and disguised, these materials\ncome from the ends of the earth. They come from the shores of the seas,\nfrom the mines, from the land, from the forests, from the arctic, and\nfrom the tropic. They are from the backgrounds. The cities are great,\nbut how much greater are the forests and the sea!\n\nNo people should be forbidden the influence of the forest. No child\nshould grow up without a knowledge of the forest; and I mean a real\nforest and not a grove or village trees or a park. There are no forests\nin cities, however many trees there may be. As a city is much more than\na collection of houses, so is a forest much more than a collection of\ntrees. The forest has its own round of life, its characteristic\nattributes, its climate, and its inhabitants. When you enter a real\nforest you enter the solitudes, you are in the unexpressed distances.\nYou walk on the mould of years and perhaps of ages. There is no other\nwind like the wind of the forest; there is no odor like the odor of the\nforest; there is no solitude more complete; there is no song of a brook\nlike the song of a forest brook; there is no call of a bird like that of\na forest bird; there are no mysteries so deep and which seem yet to be\nwithin one's realization.\n\nWhile a forest is more than trees, yet the trees are the essential part\nof the forest; and no one ever really knows or understands a forest\nuntil he first understands a tree. There is no thing in nature finer and\nstronger than the bark of a tree; it is a thing in place, adapted to its\nends, perfect in its conformation, beautiful in its color and its form\nand the sweep of its contour; and every bark is peculiar to its species.\nI think that one never really likes a tree until he is impelled to\nembrace it with his arms and to run his fingers through the grooves of\nits bark.\n\nMan listens in the forest. He pauses in the forest. He finds himself. He\nloses himself in the town and even perhaps in the university. He may\nlose himself in business and in great affairs; but in the forest he is\none with a tree, he stands by himself and yet has consolation, and he\ncomes back to his own place in the scheme of things. We have almost\nforgotten to listen; so great and ceaseless is the racket that the\nlittle voices pass over our ears and we hear them not. I have asked\nperson after person if he knew the song of the chipping-sparrow, and\nmost of them are unaware that it has any song. We do not hear it in the\nblare of the city street, in railway travel, or when we are in a\nthunderous crowd. We hear it in the still places and when our ears are\nready to catch the smaller sounds. There is no music like the music of\nthe forest, and the better part of it is faint and far away or high in\nthe tops of trees.\n\nThe forest may be an asylum. \"The groves were God's first temples.\" We\nneed all our altars and more, but we need also the sanctuary of the\nforest. It is a poor people that has no forests. I prize the farms\nbecause they have forests. It is a poor political philosophy that has no\nforests. It is a poor nation that has no forests and no workers in wood.\n\nIn many places there are the forests. I think that we do not get the\nmost out of them. Certainly they have two uses: one for the products,\nand one for the human relief and the inspiration. I should like to see a\nmovement looking toward the better utilization of the forests humanly,\nas we use school buildings and church buildings and public halls. I wish\nthat we might take our friends to the forests as we also take them to\nsee the works of the masters. For this purpose, we should not go in\nlarge companies. We need sympathetic guidance. Parties of two and four\nmay go separately to the forests to walk and to sit and to be silent. I\nwould not forget the forest in the night, in the silence and the\nsimplicity of the darkness. Strangely few are the people who know a real\nforest at dark. Few are those who know the forest when the rain is\nfalling or when the snow covers the earth. Yet the forest is as real in\nall these moments as when the sun is at full and the weather is fair.\n\nI wish that we might know the forest intimately and sensitively as a\npart of our background. I think it would do much to keep us close to the\nverities and the essentials.\n\n\n\n\n_A forest background for a reformatory_\n\n\nSome years ago I presented to a board that was charged with establishing\nand maintaining a new State reformatory for wayward and delinquent boys\nan outline of a possible setting for the enterprise; and as this\nstatement really constitutes a practical application of some of the\nforegoing discussions, I present the larger part of it here. With\ndelinquents it is specially important to develop the sense of obligation\nand responsibility, and I fear that we are endeavoring to stimulate this\nsense too exclusively by means of direct governing and disciplinary\nmethods. The statement follows.\n\nI think that the activities in the proposed reformatory should be\nlargely agricultural and industrial. So far as possible the young men\nshould be put into direct contact with realities and with useful and\npractical work. An effort should be made to have all this work mean\nsomething to them and not to be merely make-believe. It is fairly\npossible to develop such a property and organization as will put them in\ntouch with real work rather than to force the necessity of setting tasks\nin order to keep them busy.\n\nAside from the manual labor part of it, the background of the\nreformatory should be such as will develop the feeling of responsibility\nin the workers. This means that they must come actually in contact with\nthe raw materials and with things as they grow. When a young man has a\npiece of wood or metal given to him in a shop, his whole responsibility\nis merely to make something out of this material; he has no\nresponsibility for the material itself, as he would have if he had been\nobliged to mine it or to grow it. One of the greatest advantages of a\nfarm training is that it develops a man's responsibility toward the\nmaterials with which he works. He is always brought face to face with\nthe problem of saving the fertility of the land, saving the crops,\nsaving the forests, and saving the live-stock. The idea of saving and\nsafeguarding these materials is only incidental to those who do not help\nto produce them.\n\nIt is important that the farm of this reformatory should be large enough\nso that all the young men may do some real pieces of work on it. Such a\nfarm is not to be commercial in the ordinary farming sense. Its primary\npurpose is to aid in a reformative or educational process. You should,\ntherefore, undertake such types of farming as will best serve those\nneeds and best meet the abilities of the inmates. A very highly\nspecialized farming, as the growing of truck-crops, would be quite\nimpracticable as a commercial enterprise because this kind of farming\ndemands the greatest skill and also because it requires a property very\neasily accessible to our great markets and, therefore, very expensive to\nprocure and difficult to find in large enough acreage for an institution\nof this size; and it is doubtful whether this type of farming would have\nthe best effect on the inmates. Of course, I should expect that the\ninstitution would try to grow its own vegetables, but it would probably\nbe unwise to make truck-gardening the backbone of the farming\nenterprise. I also feel that it would not be best to make it primarily a\ndairy farm or a fruit farm or a poultry farm, although all these things\nshould be well represented on the place and in sufficient extent to\nsupply the institution in whole or in part.\n\nThere should be such a farming enterprise as would give a very large and\nopen background, part of it practically wild, and which would allow for\nconsiderable freedom of action on the part of the inmates. You should\nhave operations perhaps somewhat in the rough and which would appeal to\nthe manly qualities of the young men. It seems to me that a forestry\nenterprise would possibly be the best as the main part of the farming\nscheme.\n\nIf the reformatory could have one thousand acres of forest, the area\nwould provide a great variety of conditions that the inmates would have\nto meet, it would give work in the building of roads and culverts and\ntrails, it would provide winter activity at a time when the other\nfarming enterprises are slack, it would bring the inmates directly in\ntouch with wild and native life, and it would also place them against\nthe natural resources in such a way as to make them feel their\nresponsibility for the objects and the supplies.\n\nPerhaps it will be impossible to secure one thousand acres of good\ntimber in a more or less continuous area. However, it might be possible\nto assemble a good number of contiguous farms in some of the hill\nregions so that one thousand acres of timber in various grades of\nmaturity might be secured. There would be open spaces which ought to be\nplanted, and this of itself would provide good work and supervision. The\ntrimming, felling, and other care of this forest would be continuous.\nThe forest should not be stripped, but merely the merchantable or ready\ntimber removed from year to year, and the domain kept in a growing and\nrecuperating condition. One thousand acres of forest, in which timber is\nfit to be cut, should produce an annual increase of two hundred thousand\nto three hundred thousand board feet, and this increase should not\nlessen as the years go on. This timber should be manufactured. I have\nnot looked into the question as to whether a market could be found for\nthe materials that would be made from this timber, but I should suppose\nthat a market could be as readily secured for this kind of manufacture\nas for any other. The educational and moral effect of seeing the\nmaterial grow, then caring for it, then harvesting it, and then\nmanufacturing it would be very great. One could follow the process from\nbeginning to end and feel a responsibility for it in every stage. I\nshould suppose that the manufacture would be of small work and not\nmerely the sawing of lumber. It might be well to determine whether there\nwould be market for chairs, cabinets, and other furniture, whip-stocks,\nor small material that could be used in the manufacture of novelties and\nother like articles. Possibly the reformatory could supply some of the\nstock to the prisons that are manufacturing furniture, although the\neducational and moral effects would be better if the inmates could see\nthe process from beginning to end.\n\nOf course, you would not limit the manufacturing activities of the\nreformatory to wood-working. You probably would be obliged to have other\nkinds of factories, but the wood-working shops ought to be part of the\nplan and I should hope a very important part.\n\nI have not made any careful study of this question, and do not know how\nfeasible these suggestions may be; but they appeal to me very strongly\non the educational and reformational end. These suggestions are made\nonly that they may be considered along with other suggestions, and if\nthey seem to be worth while, to have the question investigated.\n\nIf something like one thousand acres of land were secured for a forest,\nit would mean that the farm itself would be rather large. There ought to\nbe probably not less than two or three hundred acres of land that might\nbe used for grazing, gardens, and the ordinary farm operations that\nwould contribute to the support of the inmates of the institution. Of\ncourse, this arable land ought to be valley land or at least fairly\nlevel and accessible along good public highways. The forest land could\nbe more remote, running back on the hills. If the property could be so\nlocated that the forest would control the sources of important streams\nand springs, the results would be all the better. The young men should\nfeel their responsibility for creeks and ponds, and for the protection\nof wild life as well as for the crops that they raise.\n\nWhere the reformatory should be located is a matter that should receive\nvery careful attention. It is not alone the problem of finding a site\nthat is proper for a reformatory, but also the question of so placing it\nthat it will have some relation to State development and some\nconnection with the people's interests and desires. State institutions\nshould be so separated that the greatest number of people may see them\nor come into contact with them. I dislike the tendency to group the\nState institutions about certain populous centres. In these days of easy\ntransportation, the carrying problem is really of less importance than\ncertain less definite but none the less real relations to all the\npeople. There are certain great areas in the State of considerable\npopulation in which there are no State institutions, and in which the\npeople know nothing about such affairs beyond the local school and\nchurch. Perhaps at first blush the people of a locality might not relish\nthe idea of having a reformatory in their midst, but this feeling ought\nsoon to pass away; and, moreover, the people should be made to feel\ntheir responsibility for reformatories, asylums, and penitentiaries as\nwell as their responsibility for any other State institutions, and the\nfeeling should not be encouraged that such institutions should be put\nsomewhere else merely because one locality does not desire them.\n\nThe character of the property that is purchased will determine to a very\nlarge extent the character of the institution, and, therefore, the\nnature of the reformatory processes. This is more important than\ntransportation facilities. It is a more important question even than\nthat of the proper buildings, for buildings for these purposes have\nbeen studied by many experts and our ideas concerning them have been\nmore or less standardized and, moreover, buildings can be extended and\nmodified more easily than can the landed area. It seems to me that\nbefore you think actually of purchasing the land, you should arrive at a\nfairly definite conclusion as to what kind of a farming enterprise it is\ndesired to develop as a background for the institution; you could then\ndetermine as far as possible on principle in what general region the\ninstitution ought to be located; and then set out on a direct\nexploration to determine whether the proper kind and quantity of land\ncan be secured.\n\n\n\n\n_The background spaces.--The open fields_\n\n\nHere not long ago was the forest primeval. Here the trees sprouted, and\ngrew their centuries, and returned to the earth. Here the midsummer\nbrook ran all day long from the far-away places. Here the night-winds\nslept. Here havened the beasts and fowls when storms pursued them. Here\nthe leaves fell in the glory of the autumn, here other leaves burst\nforth in the miracle of spring, and here the pewee called in the summer.\nHere the Indian tracked his game.\n\nIt was not so very long ago. That old man's father remembers it. Then it\nwas a new and holy land, seemingly fresh from the hand of the creator.\nThe old man speaks of it as of a golden time, now far away and hallowed;\nhe speaks of it with an attitude of reverence. \"Ah yes,\" my father told\nme; and calmly with bared head he relates it, every incident so sacred\nthat not one hairbreadth must he deviate. The church and the master's\nschool and the forest,--these three are strong in his memory.\n\nYet these are not all. He remembers the homes cut in the dim wall of the\nforest. He recalls the farms full of stumps and heaps of logs and the\nox-teams on them, for these were in his boyhood. The ox-team was a\nnatural part of the slow-moving conquest in those rugged days. Roads\nbetook themselves into the forest, like great serpents devouring as they\nwent. And one day, behold! the forest was gone. Farm joined farm, the\nvillage grew, the old folk fell away, new people came whose names had to\nbe asked.\n\nAnd I thought me why these fields are not as hallowed as were the old\nforests. Here are the same knolls and hills. In this turf there may be\nstill the fibres of ancient trees. Here are the paths of the midsummer\nbrooks, but vocal now only in the freshets. Here are the winds. The\nautumn goes and the spring comes. The pewee calls in the groves. The\nfarmer and not the Indian tracks the plow.\n\nHere I look down on a little city. There is a great school in it. There\nare spires piercing the trees. In the distance are mills, and I see the\nsmoke of good accomplishment roll out over the hillside. It is a\nself-centred city, full of pride. Every mile-post praises it. Toward it\nall the roads lead. It tells itself to all the surrounding country. And\nyet I cannot but feel that these quiet fields and others like them have\nmade this city; but I am glad that the fields are not proud.\n\nOne day a boy and one day a girl will go down from these fields, and\nout into the thoroughways of life. They will go far, but these hills\nthey will still call home.\n\nFrom these uplands the waters flow down into the streams that move the\nmills and that float the ships. Loads of timber still go hence for the\nconstruction down below. Here go building-stones and sand and\ngravel,--gravel from the glaciers. Here goes the hay for ten thousand\nhorses. Here go the wheat, and here the apples, and the animals. Here\nare the votes that hold the people steady.\n\nSomewhere there is the background. Here is the background. Here things\nmove slowly. Trees grow slowly. The streams change little from year to\nyear, and yet they shape the surface of the earth in this hill country.\nIn yonder fence-row the catbird has built since I was a boy, and yet I\nhave wandered far and I have seen great changes in yonder city. The\nwell-sweep has gone but the well is still there: the wells are gone from\nthe city. The cows have changed in color, but still they are cows and\nyield their milk in season. The fields do not perish, but time eats away\nthe city. I think all these things must be good and very good or they\ncould not have persisted in all this change.\n\nIn the beginning! Yes, I know, it was holy then. The forces of eons\nshaped it: still was it holy. The forest came: still holy. Then came the\nopen fields.\n\n\n\n\n_The background spaces.--The ancestral sea_\n\n\nThe planet is not all land, and the sea is as holy as the soil. We speak\nof the \"waste of waters,\" and we still offer prayers for those who go\ndown to the sea in ships.\n\nSuperstition yet clings about the sea. The landsman thinks of the sea as\nbarren, and he regrets that it is not solid land on which he may grow\ngrass and cattle. And as one looks over the surface of the waters, with\nno visible object on the vast expanse and even the clouds lying\napparently dead and sterile, and when one considers that three-fourths\nof the earth's surface is similarly covered, one has the impression of\nutter waste and desolation, with no good thing abiding there for the\ncomfort and cheer of man.\n\nThe real inhabitants of the sea are beneath the surface and every part\nis tenanted, so completely tenanted that the ocean produces greater bulk\nof life, area for area, than does the solid land; and every atom of this\nlife is as keen to live and follows as completely the law of its\nexistence as does the life of the interiors of the continents. The vast\nmeadows of plankton and nekton, albeit largely of organisms microscopic,\nform a layer for hundreds of feet beneath the surface and on which the\ngreat herbivora feed; and on these animals the legions of the carnivora\nsubsist. Every vertical region has its life, peculiar to it, extending\neven to the bottoms of the depths in the world-slimes and the darkness;\nand in these deeps the falling remains of the upper realms, like gentle\nprimeval rains, afford a never-failing, never-ending source of food and\nmaintain the slow life in the bottoms. We think of the huge animals of\nthe sea when we think of mass, and it is true that the great whales are\nthe bulkiest creatures we know to have lived; yet it is the bacteria,\nthe desmids, the minute crustaceans, and many other diminutive forms\nthat everywhere populate the sea from the equator to the poles and\nprovide the vast background of the ocean life. In these gulfs of moving\nunseen forms nitrification proceeds, and the rounds of life go on\nunceasingly. The leviathan whale strains out these minute organisms from\nthe volumes of waters, and so full of them may be his maw that his\ncaptors remove the accumulation with spades. The rivers bring down their\nfreight of mud and organic matter, and supply food for the denizens of\nthe sea. The last remains of all these multitudes are laid down on the\nocean floors as organic oozes; and nobody knows what part the abysmal\nsoil may play in the economy of the plant in some future epoch.\n\nThe rains of the land come from the sea; the clouds come ultimately from\nthe sea; the trade-winds flow regularly from the sea; the temperatures\nof the land surface are controlled largely from the sea; the high lands\nare washed into the sea as into a basin; if all the continents were\nlevelled into the sea still would the sea envelop the planet about two\nmiles deep. Impurities find their way into the sea and are there\ndigested into the universal beneficence. We must reckon with the sea.\n\nIt is supposed that the first life on the earth came forth where the\nland and the waters join, from that eternal interplay of cosmic forces\nwhere the solid and the fluid, the mobile and the immobile, meet and\nmarry.\n\nVerily, the ancestral sea is the background of the planet. Its very\nvastness makes it significant. It shows no age. Its deeps have no doubt\nexisted from the solidification of the earth and they will probably\nremain when all works of man perish utterly.\n\nThe sea is the bosom of the earth's mysteries. Because man cannot set\nfoot on it, the sea remains beyond his power to modify, to handle, and\nto control. No breach that man may make but will immediately fill; no\nfleets of mighty ships go down but that the sea covers them in silence\nand knows them not; man may not hold converse with the monsters in the\ndeeps. The sea is beyond him, surpassing, elemental, and yet blessing\nhim with abundant benedictions.\n\nSo vast is the sea and so self-recuperating that man cannot sterilize\nit. He despoils none of its surface when he sails his ships. He does not\nannihilate the realms of plankton, lying layer on layer in its deluging,\nconsuming soil. It controls him mightily.\n\nThe seas and the shores have provided the trading ways of the peoples.\nThe ocean connects all lands, surrounds all lands. Until recent times\nthe great marts have been mostly on coasts or within easy water access\nof them. The polity of early settlements was largely the polity of the\nsea and the strand. The daring of the navigator was one of the first of\nthe heroic human qualities. Probably all dry land was once under the\nsea, and therefrom has it drawn much of its power.\n\nFrom earliest times the sea has yielded property common to all and free\nto whomever would take it,--the fish, the wrack, the drift, the salvage\nof ships. Pirates have roamed the sea for spoil and booty. When\ngovernment appropriates the wreckage of ships and the stranded derelict\nof the sea, the people may think it justifiable protection of their\nrights to secrete it. Smuggling is an old sea license. Laws and customs\nand old restraints lose their force and vanish on the sea; and freedom\nrises out of the sea.\n\nAnd so the ocean has contributed to the making of the outlook of the\nhuman family. The race would be a very different race had there been no\nsea stretching to the unknown, conjuring vague fears and stimulating\nhopes, bringing its freight, bearing tidings of far lands, sundering\ntraditions, rolling the waves of its elemental music, driving its rank\nsmells into the nostrils, putting its salt into the soul.","title":"The Holy Earth","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":37434}