he very valuable efforts that are already being put
forth to make the rural homes more efficient with reference to
sanitation, hygiene, and proper food. This instruction promises to
decrease much human suffering, discontent, and poverty. In some
respects such constructive service is more needed in the country than in
the city. Certainly, good results are already appearing as a result of
the efforts that institutions and people interested in the country have
put forth.

The rural family must be made to realize the consequential character of
childhood experience. The alienist especially has demonstrated the
significant influence of childhood upon adult motives and conduct.
Recent studies of human conduct have greatly magnified the importance of
early experience and have disclosed how often it is the first cause of
morbid thinking and anti-social actions. The conclusion is not to be
doubted--a still greater effort must be made to conserve human character
by a wiser control of the influences of childhood. One may discover for
himself how interested conscientious parents are in detailed
illustrations of childhood influence upon adult life and how impressed
they are with the seriousness of such facts. Rural families must be
taught more generally this impressive contribution of modern science.

A much greater effort must be made in many localities to lift from the
rural family the burden of the feeble-minded. The possible harm that may
be caused by a high-grade feeble-minded boy or girl in the country can
be appreciated only by one who has come in contact with such a problem.
The close contact, free association, and common interests of rural folk,
with the added difficulty of segregating one's child, even when the
menace of a feeble-minded associate is fully recognized, make the
presence of feeble-minded boys and girls in the country a more difficult
and more serious matter than is the case at present in the city. The
school and the state, that is, the state by means of the opportunity
provided by the schools, must take more effective measures to handle
this problem. Until this has been brought about by public education and
agitation, many rural families will be required to encounter serious
moral dangers and problems for which society is itself responsible.

The rural family needs to be taught to be more just and more generous in
regard to other families. The clannish spirit ought to pass, for it is
without excuse in these