Situations and Problems of Older Rural Youth

Excerpts: Most of our studies of rural youth in recent years have concerned themselves with what rural youth think and want. This is important, but I am not going to spend much time discussing the data developed in numerous studies in that field. Other studies have thoroughly analyzed the ratio of rural youth to the remainder of the rural population and the ratio of rural youth to the total youth of the Nation. I shall use the results of these studies, but shall make only such use of the statistics developed in them as will set the task of wrestling with the problems which these statistics reveal. From almost every angle youth are the most important issue in American agriculture, first, because they are the greatest concern of farmers and their wives; second, because there are so many of them; and third, because we don't know what to do about them or for them. We are worried about agricultural surpluses, but our greatest surplus is rural youth. My whole text is stated in those first two sentences, and I shall spend the remainder of my time in expounding that text.