Audiobook

City Homes on Country Lanes

William Ellsworth Smythe

I am an optimist. I believe the world is going to be a better world for our common humanity in the next decade — the next generation — the next century — than ever before in the long history of the race. And I believe the next passion of mankind will be for the soil — that there we shall "take occasion by the hand and make the bounds of freedom wider yet." But, if there is to be a transition in the life of the land — if new forms of industry and society are to emerge — then this will be due to the fact that the old life on the land has failed, is breaking down, and is doomed to pass away. That is what I believe to be true. In saying so, I sound no note of pessimism, but rather the note of hope, of confidence, of boundless faith in what the future is to bring forth. I know the land is to be the healing and the saving of the people — of our people and of all the peoples. There is no other refuge. But before we can build the new life we must clearly understand that the old life has failed, and why it has failed. Then we must proceed to discover the principles upon which the new and better life is to be founded. In doing so, must we not inevitably draw nearer to the Divine Purpose in making the goodly earth and setting man in the midst of it? And shall we not thereby evolve the Spiritual Man of the Soil, who, conscious of his partnership with God, enters at last into his true dominion? - Summary by Foreword