ot assume that all questions of
wealth and welfare can be settled by rule. I hope to point out the actual
trend of facts, the universal principles sustained by the facts, and means
of most ready adjustment to circumstances in the evolutions of trade and
manufacture. The business sense of farmers is appealed to for the sake of
their own welfare. Several important questions of rural welfare have been
touched only suggestively because the limits of the volume could not admit
of fuller treatment.

My gratitude is offered especially to Professor Liberty H. Bailey, of
Cornell University, to whose suggestion and patient attention the
existence of this volume is due.

George T. Fairchild.

BEREA COLLEGE, KENTUCKY,
March 1, 1900.

INTRODUCTION. GENERAL WELFARE.

_Elements of welfare._--The welfare of communities, like that of
individuals, is made up of health, wealth, wisdom and virtue. If we can
say of any human being that lie is healthy, wealthy, wise and good, we are
sure of his satisfaction so far as it depends upon self. When a community
is made up of individuals kept in health and strength from birth to old
age, sustained with accumulated treasures, wise enough to use both
strength and wealth to advantage, and upright, just and kind in all human
relations, our ideals of welfare are met.

These are four different kinds of welfare, each of which is essential, and
only confusion of thought follows any attempt to treat them all as wealth,
however they may be intermingled and exchanged. Health is essential in
gaining a full measure of wealth and wisdom, and perhaps in maintaining
genuine character; but a healthy life gives no assurance of complete
welfare. The facts concerning health in a community make a distinct
subject of study for promotion of welfare, and we call it public hygiene.
The science of education deals with ways and means of securing public
wisdom. The science of government includes all facts relative to public
virtue. So the facts by which we know the nature and uses of accumulated
wealth in any community make a distinct study under the name economic
science; it deals with certain definite groups of facts. To call
everything good "wealth" and everything evil "ilth" adds nothing but
confusion to our thoughts.

_Mutual welfare._--Every human being in society is directly interested in
the study of wealth as related to his own and his neighbors' welfare. No
one can understand his relations to thos