Some enterprises may be much centralized, whether in a democracy or elsewhere; an example is the postal service: this is on the business side of government. Some enterprises should be decentralized; an example is a good part of the agricultural service: this is on the educational side of government. It is the tendency to reduce all public work to uniformity; yet there is no virtue in uniformity. Its only value is as a means to an end. Thus far, the rural movement has been wholesomely democratic. It has been my privilege for one-third of a century to have known rather closely many of the men and women who have been instrumental in bringing the rural problem to its present stage of advancement. They have been public-minded, able, far-seeing men and women, and they have rendered an unmeasurable service. The rural movement has been brought to its present state without any demand for special privilege, without bolstering by factitious legislation, and to a remarkable degree without self-seeking. It is based on a real regard for the welfare of all the people, rather than for rural people exclusively. Thrice or more in this book I have spoken as if not convinced that the present insistence on "efficiency" in government is altogether sound. That is exactly the impression I desire to convey. As the term is now commonly applied, it is not a measure of good government. Certain phrases and certain sets of ideas gain dominance at certain times. Just now the idea of administrative efficiency is uppermost. It seems necessarily to be the controlling factor in the progress of any business or any people. Certainly, a people should be efficient; but an efficient government may not mean an efficient people,--it may mean quite otherwise or even the reverse. The primary purpose of government in these days, and particularly in this country, is to educate and to develop all the people and to lead them to express themselves freely and to the full, and to partake politically. And this is what governments may not do, and this is where they may fail even when their efficiency in administration is exact. A monarchic form may be executively more efficient than a democratic form; a despotic form may be more efficient than either. The justification of a democratic form of government lies in the fact that it is a means of education. The final test of government is not executive efficiency. Every movement, every circumstance that takes starting-power and incentive away from the people, even though it makes for exacter administration, is to be challenged. It is specially to be deplored if this loss of starting-power affects the persons who deal first-hand with the surface of the planet and with the products that come directly out of it.