¶But after all this has been said it remains true that the countryman—the man on the farm, more than any other of our citizens to-day, is called upon continually to exercise the qualities which we like to think of as typical of the United States throughout its history—the qualities of rugged independence, masterful resolution, and individual energy and resourcefulness. He works hard (for which no man is to be pitied), and often he lives hard (which may not be pleasant): but his life is passed in healthy surroundings, surroundings which tend to develop a fine type of citizenship. In the country moreover, the conditions are fortunately such as to allow a closer touch between man and man, than, too often, we find to be the case in the city. Men feel more vividly the underlying sense of brotherhood of community of interest. I do not mean by this that there are not plenty of problems connected with life in our rural districts. There are many problems; and great wisdom and earnest disinterestedness in effort are needed for their solution. ¶¶After all, we are one people, with the same fundamental characteristics, whether we live in the city or in the country, in the East or in the West, in the North or in the South. Each of us, unless he is contented to be a cumberer of the earth’s surface, must strive to do his life work with his whole heart. Each must remember that while he will be noxious to every one unless he first do his duty by himself, he must also strive ever to do his duty by his fellow. The problem of how to do these duties is acute everywhere. It is most acute in great cities, but it exists in the country too. A man to be a good citizen, must first be a good breadwinner, a good husband, a good father—I hope the father of many children; just as a woman’s first duty is to be a good housewife and mother. The business duties, the home duties, the duties to one’s family come first. The couple who bring up plenty of healthy children, who leave behind them many sons and daughters fitted in their turn to be good citizens, emphatically deserve well of the State. ¶But duty to one’s self and one’s family does not exclude duty to one’s neighbor. Each of us, rich or poor, can help his neighbor at times; and to do this he must be brought up in touch with him, into sympathy with him. Any effort is to be welcomed that brings people closer together, so as to secure a better understanding among those whose walks of life are in ordinary circumstances far apart.