These differences will have to be taken into account in considering the important question of ways and means. Both bodies will, I hope, appeal successfully to public-spirited philanthropists. The temporary body will need only temporary support; perhaps provision for a five-years' campaign would suffice. In the near future, local organisations would naturally defray the cost of the services rendered to them by the central body; but the Country Life Institute would need a permanent endowment. The man fitted for its chief control will not be found idle, but will have to be taken from other work. The scheme, as I have worked it out, will involve prolonged economic and social inquiry over a wide field. This would be conducted mostly by postgraduate students. From those who did this outside work with credit would be recruited the small staff which would be needed at the central office to get into the most accessible form the facts and opinions which are needed for the guidance of those who are doing practical work in the field of rural regeneration. My estimate of the amount required to do the work well is from forty to fifty thousand dollars a year, or say a capital sum of from a million to a million and a quarter dollars. Whether the project is worthy of such an expenditure, depends upon the question whether I have made good my case.
Let me summarise this case. I have tried to show that modern civilisation is one-sided to a dangerous degree--that it has concentrated itself in the towns and left the country derelict. This tendency is peculiar to the English-speaking communities, where the great industrial movement has had as its consequence the rural problem I have examined. If the townward tendency cannot be checked, it will ultimately bring about the decay of the towns themselves, and of our whole civilisation, for the towns draw their supply of population from the country. Moreover, the waste of natural resources, and possibly the alarming increase in the price of food, which have lately attracted so much attention in America, are largely due to the fact that those who cultivate the land do not intend to spend their lives upon it; and without a rehabilitation of country life there can be no success for the Conservation policy. Therefore, the Country Life movement deals with what is probably the most important problem before the English-speaking peoples at this time. Now the predominance of the towns which is depressing the country is based partly on a fuller application of modern physical science, partly on superior business organisation, partly on facilities for occupation and amusement; and if the balance is to be redressed, the country must be improved in all three ways. There must be better farming, better business, and better living. These three are equally necessary, but better business must come first. For farmers, the way to better living is coöperation, and what coöperation means is the chief thing the American farmer has to learn.