aged by the effects of
isolation to know either what is the trouble with her or even that
there is any definite thing the matter.

The lack of companionship is indeed a very real hardship; for
companionship is necessary to our growth as well as to our happiness.
The solitary girl on the remote farm or in the obsolescent village has
small share in this form of education and remains with her resources
undeveloped. For her natural and normal education she needs a great deal
of association with other young growing human beings; something
therefore must be devised to supply this need or the Country Girl will
not have the happy and well-rounded life on the farm that is her right.

One woman in giving reasons why she preferred the city said she would
"rather have folks than stumps!" Truly. Very few farms, however, consist
solely of what is represented by the expressive word "stumps"; and as
for "folks," it is possible to have in city life a plethora of social
contact so that leisure for thought, reading and study, or for any form
of self-development, is unknown. Besides there are "folks" and "folks";
and a neighborhood full of cousins and friends is an unsurpassed shelter
for the favorable growth of the young human being.

But ah! there is the very point. A neighborhood! If every Country Girl
had a neighborhood to grow up in, a group of homes about her to afford
her companionship, she could ask nothing better. But there are many
girls living on remote and lonely farms far away from any neighborly
environment; to such as these the isolation is a very real sorrow. It
falls as heavily upon the farmer's daughter as it does upon the farmer's
wife--even more heavily if possible, for she is generally led to realize
her need at a time when her social instincts are most insistent. To make
for the young woman in the farm home a life so interesting, so
fascinating, so full of purpose and of the possibilities of
self-expression, that the loss of "folks" will to some extent be made up
to her, and to give to her as much companionship as possible and the
effects of companionship through all known means that can be devised,
should be the object of an earnest and widespread effort.

A visit made to a country girl who lived at a farm that was on a steep
hillside in a lonely part of the world far from any town or village,
left a very deep impression. I was riding through that region with a
cousin on my way to the railroad twenty miles off.