It might be worth while inquiring to what
extent the wisdom of a Solon, an Aristotle, a Rousseau, or an Alexander
Hamilton might be applied to the problem of the rural community. After
all, men are not so completely changed in character by their rural
environment that their social needs do not, to a large extent, coincide
with the needs of the townsman. They cannot be considered as creatures
of a different species. Yet statesmen who have devoted so much thought
to the constitution of empires and the organization of great cities, who
have studied their psychology, have almost always treated the rural
problem purely as an economic problem, as if agriculture was a business
only and not a life.
Our great nations and widespread empires arose in a haphazard fashion
out of city States and scattered tribal communities. The fusion of
these into larger entities, which could act jointly for offence or
defense, so much occupied the thoughts of their rulers that everything
else was subordinated to it. As a result, the details of our modern
civilizations are all wrong.
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