"But it's got to come naturally; you can't pump interest into country living by legislation. I had to laugh the other day when I was reading a speech that Mr. John Morley made in Manchester, I think it was. Anyway, he was arguing for parish councils, and he said that this 'gregarious instinct' that makes country people flock into towns that are already overcrowded, is something that we ought to counteract by making country life more interesting, and he thought that parish councils would help to do that. Lord Salisbury got into him pretty well a short time after, when he said in a speech that he never had thought it was the duty of the government to provide amusement for the people, but if _he_ was making a suggestion in that line, he would like to recommend the circus. "There's another reason besides the keen competition in other kinds of business that makes me think that farming is going to be brought up to the others, and that is, that so many of the colleges are teaching scientific farming. You ain't going to see any very great result from this in a year, nor in ten years, for there's a pretty big field to work on. But when smart young fellows that are raised in the country, and other smart young fellows that see a good chance to make something at farming--when they all get a thorough training in scientific farming, and when they all get down to work, just as they would in some other highly developed form of production, you will see results. There won't be much in shiftless farming when the scientific kind pretty generally sets the pace. "I've read a good deal, of late years, about 'organized charities' in the cities, and it certainly does seem as if charity was a good deal more sensible than it used to be. It's hard to see how there can be any kind of serious destitution in the cities that ain't got some society to relieve it. And the rich in the cities do certainly spend a powerful lot of time and work and money in keeping up these charities and amusements for the poor; but I don't see any signs that the poor love the rich any more, nor that there's any less danger but that some day they'll rise up in war against society. "It seems to me that a good deal of all this time, and labor, and money, and a good deal more besides, might be better spent in providing that no child among the poor grows up without proper education, technical education in useful trades; especially, I think, in scientific farming.