rowds of the factory towns; others have
supplied unskilled labor to the cities; in not a few cases they have
gone to their destruction in the slums, where residues of decadent folk
finally disappear. The human material that was most susceptible to
alcohol has gone into the mills of the gods. When all is summed up, the
clearance at the bottom is not less significant than the loss at the top
of the social scale. Natural selection works as effectually in toning up
the species by weeding out the worst as 'natural selection reversed'
works for degeneracy through the removal of the best. This purgation
has been overlooked; whether it offsets the injury in the highest
stratum is a fair question, but obviously no man is wise enough to
answer it. The opinion may be hazarded that when the two influences are
compounded, it will be found that the average child has moved but a
little way up or down the scale. This is a local question to which there
are as many answers as communities. The net result of these changes is a
gain in homogeneousness; in the country town the dream of equality is
nearer realization to-day than ever before."[28]

It is the writer's belief that, allowing for local variation, this
statement is the best generalization of the condition throughout the
country. The rural population has been specialized. The country
community is finding its own kind of people. It has not yet, through
suitable institutions, learned to cultivate its problems and to train
its own leaders. That is precisely what will be accomplished through the
building up of the country community with which we are here concerned.
But already the country population is homogeneous and is selected with a
view to fitness for the environment of the rural community. As the city
is breeding its own stock, who are possessed with the problem of city
life and devoted to the interests of the city, so the country in the
shifting of modern populations is coming to have its own kind of people;
among whom the problems of the country community are beginning to be
discussed and the interests of the country community are being provided
for by suitable organizations.

The building of communities, therefore, will provide the positive
agencies requisite for the needs of the present population in the
country. The purpose of those who serve the country population shall be
the construction of suitable institutions by which country life shall be
made worth while. These insti