the cities, while the health rate in the
country has not shown a corresponding rise. This is simply because the
country towns have not waked to the importance of these endeavors toward
betterment. The country may be the home of abounding physical vigor;
but many an unsanitary farmstead and many an unregenerated village is
still in a decidedly unmoral state of ill-health.

In this matter a recent investigation in New York State has aroused
serious apprehension. Statistics were made public showing that the death
rate in so-called rural districts was increasing as compared with that
of the large city, New York, the conclusion being that the country would
have to give up its world-old claim to being a supremely healthful place
to live.

If, however, we look into the matter more closely, we may find a ray of
hope. The investigation included under the word "rural" towns of over
eight thousand inhabitants, the division being no doubt made because of
the fact that the United States reports were, up to 1810, made on a like
basis, and other statistics could be more conveniently compared if these
were included. But the census of 1910 makes the word "rural" cover towns
and villages of 2500 and under, and what we understand by rural
conditions pertains to this smaller grouping. The larger grouping
includes a number of towns that are manufacturing in character, that
sometimes contain a large foreign element, that have the beginnings of
congestion without the open air to offset them, and that have
notoriously not followed in the steps of the larger cities in
sanitation. Thus these very unrural towns bring down the average.

We feel, then, that we have a right to take heart of grace and tell
ourselves that the open country is as good for health as it ever was.
Moreover, farm houses are rapidly acquiring the principal appliances for
sanitation. The wells are being looked out for and the pure condition of
the water supply being insured from contagion; and the level of
education in regard to sanitation is being rapidly lifted. At present,
the small towns and the larger villages are about on a par in regard to
indifference to the laws of health, and to the necessity for framing new
ones to meet new demands. But in the smaller villages and in the open
country the necessity is not so pressing because the congestion has not
been so immediate as to cause depression of the death rate there.

Therefore we may say that the girl who is born in