d to the
troubles of our present small farmers.

Hitherto corporate operation has been mainly for the benefit of
stockholders. The cases where those whose labor creates dividends
get more than wages have been rare. "A living wage" has been the
ambition of labor itself: all profit beyond this is supposed to be
the right of capital. There is with some persons an unconscious
reluctance to share profits with labor lest the laborers become
independent, and thus reduce their number to an extent to raise the
labor market, so that it is difficult to get fair consideration of
any business proposition that promises better conditions for the
producer or independence for the laborer. This is undoubtedly short
sighted, as the higher intelligence of the people who have land
increases production and gives enlarged opportunities for the
profitable employment of money. However, if capitalists persist in
this narrow view, the money of the people when they learn and think,
can be applied to this purpose instead of being deposited in savings
banks, where much of it is used in increasing the wealth of those
who already have abundance.

The idea of "helping others to help themselves" finds a responsive
chord in the hearts of many wealthy people. But the question is, how
can all be helped? No business method by which this can be
accomplished has, as yet, been practically demonstrated.

In no field does corporate operation promise more for the betterment
of human conditions, for a higher standard of morals and of
education, or great certainty of profit for capital, than by
systematically aiding men to obtain farms.

Progress proceeds on the line of returns for expenditure. When a
man's economic condition permits, his first thought is to give his
children an education and a better chance in life than he had. Those
who extol the simple life as the ideal condition of happiness do not
mean that want and deprivation of necessities is the ideal
condition. If they did, they would put their children in that
condition to make them happy. Both extremes of wealth and of poverty
are burdens and retard mental and moral progress. The ideal
condition is to be found on a farm where the land is paid for and
ample means are at hand to supply the necessities for physical
demands, with leisure to learn and enjoy those pleasures of the mind
which come with knowledge of Nature's laws, and wisdom to live in
harmony with them, and in a measure comprehend the pu