Americans, who are accustomed to rapid developments in public opinion, will hardly appreciate the impression made by the story I have just told upon the mind of an observer from old countries, where action does not tread upon the heels of thought. But surely an amazing thing has happened. In the life of one Administration a great idea seizes the mind of the American people. This leads to a stock-taking of natural resources and a searching of the national conscience. Then, suddenly, there emerges a quite new national policy. Conceived during the last Administration, when it brought Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Bryan on to the same platform, Conservation at once rose above party, and will be the accepted policy of all future Administrations. It has already secured almost Pan-American endorsement at its birthplace in Washington. The fathers of Conservation are now looking forward to a still larger sphere of influence for their offspring at an International Conference which it is hoped to assemble at the Hague. But it must be admitted that no such reception was accorded to Mr. Roosevelt's other policy, to which our attention must now be turned. The reasons for the comparative lack of interest in the problem of Rural Life are many and complex, but two of them may be noted in passing. Conservation calls for legislative and administrative action, and this always sets up a ferment in the political mind. The Rural Life idea, on the other hand, though it will demand some governmental assistance, must rely mainly upon voluntary effort. The methods necessary for its development, and their probable results, are also less obvious, and thus less easily appreciated by the public. Whatever the reason, while Conservation has rushed into the forefront of public interest and has won the status and dignity of a policy, the sister idea is still struggling for a platform, and its advocates must be content to see their efforts towards a higher and a better country life regarded as a movement. This estimate of the relative positions of these two ideas in the public mind will, I think, be borne out when we contrast the quiet initiation of the movement with the dramatic début of the policy. For all the officialism with which it was launched, President Roosevelt's Country Life Commission might as well have been appointed by some wealthy philanthropist who would, at least, have paid its members' travelling expenses,[1] and private initiation might also have spared us the ridicule which greeted the alleged proposal to "uplift" a body of citizens who were told that they were already adorning the heights of American civilisation. The names of the men who volunteered for this unpaid service should have been a sufficient guarantee that theirs was no fool's errand.[2]