to the problems of the farm, and for securing the necessary knowledge of the actual conditions of life in the open country.  After long discussion a plan for a Country Life Commission was laid before me and approved.  The appointment of the Commission followed in August, 1908.  In the letter of appointment the reasons for creating the Commission were set forth as follows:  “I doubt if any other nation can bear comparison with our own in the amount of attention given by the Government, both Federal and State, to agricultural matters.  But practically the whole of this effort has hitherto been directed toward increasing the production of crops.  Our attention has been concentrated almost exclusively on getting better farming.  In the beginning this was unquestionably the right thing to do.  The farmer must first of all grow good crops in order to support himself and his family.  But when this has been secured, the effort for better farming should cease to stand alone, and should be accompanied by the effort for better business and better living on the farm.  It is at least as important that the farmer should get the largest possible return in money, comfort, and social advantages from the crops he grows, as that he should get the largest possible return in crops from the land he farms.  Agriculture is not the whole of country life.  The great rural interests are human interests, and good crops are of little value to the farmer unless they open the door to a good kind of life on the farm.”

The Commission on Country Life did work of capital importance.  By means of a widely circulated set of questions the Commission informed itself upon the status of country life throughout the Nation.  Its trip through the East, South, and West brought it into contact with large numbers of practical farmers and their wives, secured for the Commissioners a most valuable body of first-hand information, and laid the foundation for the remarkable awakening of interest in country life which has since taken place throughout the Nation.

One of the most illuminating—­and incidentally one of the most interesting and amusing—­series of answers sent to the Commission was from a farmer in Missouri.  He stated that he had a wife and 11 living children, he and his wife being each 52 years old; and that they owned 520 acres of land without any mortgage hanging over their heads.  He had himself done well, and his views as to why many of his neighbors had done less well are entitled to consideration.  These views are expressed in terse and vigorous English; they cannot always be quoted in full.  He states that the farm homes in his neighborhood are not as good as they should be because too many of them are encumbered by mortgages; that the schools do not train boys and girls satisfactorily for life on the farm, because they allow them to get an idea in their heads that city life is better, and that to remedy this practical farming should be taught.  To the question