We are to ask, then, not what are the present limitations of the country school, but what are these big vital problems which are of such vast concern as to claim the active attention of so many men in high authority. We are concerned to know what is the real function of the country school, and whether or not it is part of a conscious program for handling these larger issues, or whether the state has merely said: let there be a country school, and then sat quietly by with folded hands. This latter may still be entirely too true, but if so it is high time that the state should be taking the constructive side of its problems more seriously.
The country problem is one for all people, urban as well as rural, for in its last analysis the welfare of all rests flat down upon the land. That is not too broad a statement, for though other industries undoubtedly have a future in this country, yet we can not fail to see that it is America's broad and fertile acres that determine her responsibility among nations, as well as her future economic position. Whatever affects the occupation of farming, therefore, is of consequence to the rural situation in general.
A glance at the accompanying chart will impress one with at least one very important change that has taken place in the past century and a quarter.
When our nation was first established there was almost no city life at all, and even in 1800 only 4 per cent. of the people lived in cities of 8,000 inhabitants or over. By 1850 this had increased only to 12½ per cent., after which its increase is very rapid, till in 1910 almost half our total population lived in the city. At the rate of the past decade, the next census will show that here, in the greatest agricultural nation in the world, the few are feeding the many. This means over ninety million consumers, with only about forty-five million producers.
