igation may be so sensitively
developed in him as to produce a better kind of mass-cohesion than we
have yet known.

_The democratic basis in agriculture_

All these positions are capable of direct application in the
incorporation of agriculture into a scheme of democracy. A brief
treatment of this subject I had developed for the present book; and this
treatment, with applications to particular situations now confronting
us, I used recently in the vice-presidential address before the new
Section M of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(published in _Science_, February 26, 1915, where the remainder of it
may be found). Some of the general points of view, modified from that
address, may be brought together here. The desirability of keeping a
free and unattached attitude in the people on the land may be expounded
in many directions, but for my purpose I will confine the illustrations
to organization in the field of education.

The agricultural situation is now much in the public mind. It is widely
discussed in the press, which shows that it has news value. Much of this
value is merely of superficial and temporary interest. Much of it
represents a desire to try new remedies for old ills. Many of these
remedies will not work. We must be prepared for some loss of public
interest in them as time goes on. We are now in a publicity stage of our
rural development. It would seem that the news-gathering and some other
agencies discover these movements after the work of many constructive
spirits has set them going and has laid real foundations; and not these
foundations, but only detached items of passing interest, may be known
of any large part of the public. I hope that we shall not be disturbed
by this circumstance nor let it interfere with good work or with
fundamental considerations, however much we may deplore the false
expectations that may result.

We are at the parting of the ways. For years without number--for years
that run into the centuries when men have slaughtered each other on many
fields, thinking that they were on the fields of honor, when many awful
despotisms have ground men into the dust, the despotisms thinking
themselves divine--for all these years there have been men on the land
wishing to see the light, trying to make mankind hear, hoping but never
realizing. They have been the pawns on the great battlefields, men taken
out of the peasantries to be hurled against other men th