They are inseparable. The national idealism which will not go
out into the fields and deal with the fortunes of the working farmers is
false dealism. Our conception of a civilization must include, nay, must
begin with the life of the humblest, the life of the average man or
manual worker, for if we neglect them we will build in sand. The
neglected classes will wreck our civilization. The pioneers of a new
social order must think first of the average man in field or factory,
and so unite these and so inspire them that the noblest life will be
possible through their companionship. If you will not offer people the
noblest and best they will go in search of it. Unless the countryside
can offer to young men and women some satisfactory food for soul as well
as body, it will fail to attract or hold its population, and they will
go to the already overcrowded towns; and the lessening of rural
production will affect production in the cities and factories, and the
problem of the unemployed will get still keener. The problem is not
only an economic problem.
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