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+Project Gutenberg's The Farmer and His Community, by Dwight Sanderson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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+Title: The Farmer and His Community
+
+Author: Dwight Sanderson
+
+Release Date: August 19, 2009 [EBook #29733]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FARMER AND HIS COMMUNITY ***
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+
+  THE FARMER AND HIS COMMUNITY
+
+
+
+
+  BY
+
+  DWIGHT SANDERSON
+
+  PROFESSOR OF RURAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
+  CORNELL UNIVERSITY
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  NEW YORK
+  HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
+  HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.
+
+  PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
+  THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY
+  RAHWAY, N. J.
+
+
+
+
+EDITOR'S PREFACE
+
+
+In the "good old days" of early New England the people acted in
+communities. The original New England "towns" were true communities;
+that is, relatively small local groups of people, each group having its
+own institutions, like the church and the school, and largely managing
+its own affairs. Down through the years the town meeting has persisted,
+and even to-day the New England town is to a very large degree a small
+democracy. It does not, however, manage all its affairs in quite the
+same fashion that it did two hundred years ago.
+
+When the Western tide of settlement set in, people frequently went West
+in groups and occasionally whole communities moved, but the general rule
+was settlement by families on "family size" farms. The unit of our rural
+civilization, therefore, became the farm family. There were, of course,
+neighborhoods, and much neighborhood life. The local schools were really
+neighborhood schools. Churches multiplied in number even beyond the need
+for them. When farmers began to associate themselves together as in the
+Grange, they recognized the need of a strong local group larger than the
+neighborhood. A subordinate Grange for example is a community
+organization. Experience gradually demonstrated that if farmers wished
+to cooperate they must cooperate in local groups. Strong nation-wide
+organizations are clearly of great importance, but they can have little
+strength unless they are made up of active local bodies. Gradually, the
+community idea has spread over the country, in some cases springing up
+almost spontaneously, until to-day there is a very widespread belief
+among the farmers, as well as among the special students of rural
+affairs, that the organization and development of the local rural
+communities is the main task in conserving our American agriculture and
+country life. It is interesting to note that what is true in America is
+proving also to be true in other countries. In fact, the farm village
+life in Europe and even in such countries as China is taking on new
+activities, and it is being recognized that the improvement of these
+small units of society is one of the great needs of the age.
+
+Professor Sanderson, in this book, has attempted to indicate just what
+the community movement means to the farmers of America. He has brought
+to this task rather unusual preparation. In turn, a graduate of an
+agricultural college, a scientist of reputation, Director of an
+agricultural experiment station, Dean of a college of agriculture, he
+has had a wide, varied and successful experience in various states. He
+finally arrived at the conviction, however, that the most important
+field of work for him lay in dealing with the larger phases of country
+life, and he gave up administrative work for further preparation in the
+new field. In his position as Professor of Rural Organization in the
+College of Agriculture at Cornell University, he has been unusually
+successful, both as investigator and as teacher. He speaks as one who
+knows the farmers and not as an outsider, and also as a thorough
+student.
+
+This book therefore is sent out with a good deal of confidence. It deals
+with one of the most important of the rural topics that can be discussed
+these days. It points out fundamental principles and indicates practical
+steps in applying principles.
+
+  KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+In recent years we have heard a great deal about the rural community and
+rural community organization. All sorts of organizations dealing with
+rural life discuss these topics at their meetings, the agricultural
+press and the popular magazines encourage community development, and a
+number of books have recently appeared dealing with various phases of
+rural community life. The community idea is fairly well established as
+an essential of rural social organization.
+
+One might gain the impression that the community is a new discovery or
+social invention were he to read only the current discussions. It is,
+however, a form of social organization as old as agriculture itself, but
+which was very largely neglected in the settlement of the larger part of
+the United States. This new emphasis on the community is, therefore, but
+the revival in a new form of a very ancient mode of human association.
+The community becomes essential because the conditions of rural life
+have changed and rural people are again being forced to act together in
+locality groups to meet the needs of their common life.
+
+The author has attempted to define the rural community and to describe
+the new conditions which are determining its structure and shaping its
+functions, in the belief that an understanding of the nature of the
+rural community should aid those who are seeking to secure a better
+social adjustment of the countryside. It attempts to relate "The Farmer
+and His Community." The problems and methods of community organization
+have been discussed but incidentally, and the book is not designed as a
+handbook for community development. Its chief aim is to establish a
+point of view with regard to the rural community as an essential unit
+for rural social organization through a sociological analysis of the
+past history and present tendencies of the various forms of associations
+which seem necessary for a satisfying rural society. It is hoped that
+such an analysis presented in an untechnical manner may be of service to
+rural leaders who are working for the development of country life by
+giving them a better understanding of the nature of the community and
+therefore a firmer faith in its future and greater enthusiasm and
+loyalty in its service.
+
+The present volume is a brief summary of a more extended study of the
+rural community, not only in this country but in other lands and in
+other times, which is now in preparation for publication.
+
+  DWIGHT SANDERSON.
+
+CORNELL UNIVERSITY. _May, 1922._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER                                                      PAGE
+
+      I. THE RURAL COMMUNITY                             3
+
+     II. THE FARM HOME AND THE COMMUNITY                14
+
+    III. THE COMMUNITY'S PEOPLE AND HISTORY             29
+
+     IV. COMMUNICATION THE MEANS OF COMMUNITY LIFE      37
+
+      V. THE FARM AND THE VILLAGE                       46
+
+     VI. COMMUNITY ASPECTS OF THE FARM BUSINESS         58
+
+    VII. HOW MARKETS AFFECT RURAL COMMUNITIES           67
+
+   VIII. HOW COOPERATION STRENGTHENS THE COMMUNITY      77
+
+     IX. THE COMMUNITY'S EDUCATION                      91
+
+      X. THE COMMUNITY'S EDUCATION, CONTINUED; THE
+           EXTENSION MOVEMENT                          107
+
+     XI. THE COMMUNITY'S RELIGIOUS LIFE                121
+
+    XII. THE COMMUNITY'S HEALTH                        137
+
+   XIII. THE COMMUNITY'S PLAY AND RECREATION           153
+
+    XIV. ORGANIZATIONS OF THE RURAL COMMUNITY          169
+
+     XV. THE COMMUNITY'S DEPENDENT                     181
+
+    XVI. THE COMMUNITY'S GOVERNMENT                    196
+
+   XVII. COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION                        209
+
+  XVIII. COMMUNITY PLANNING                            222
+
+    XIX. COMMUNITY LOYALTY                             234
+
+         APPENDIX A                                    247
+
+
+
+
+THE FARMER AND HIS COMMUNITY
+
+
+
+
+"_The core of the community idea, then--as applied to rural life--is
+that we must make the community, as a unit, an entity, a thing, the
+point of departure of all our thinking about the rural problem, and, in
+its local application, the direct aim of all organized efforts for
+improvement or redirection. The building of real, local farm communities
+is perhaps the main task in erecting an adequate rural civilization.
+Here is the real goal of all rural effort, the inner kernel of a sane
+country-life movement, the moving slogan of the new campaign for rural
+progress that must be waged by the present generation._"--_Kenyon L.
+Butterfield, in "The Farmer and the New Day."_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE RURAL COMMUNITY
+
+
+No phase of the social progress of the Twentieth Century is more
+significant or promises a more far-reaching influence than the
+rediscovery of the _community_ as a fundamental social unit, and the
+beginnings of community consciousness throughout the United States. I
+say the "rediscovery" of the community, for ever since men forsook
+hunting and grazing as the chief means of subsistence and settled down
+to a permanent agriculture they have lived in communities.
+
+In ancient and medieval Europe, in China and India, and among primitive
+agricultural peoples throughout the world, the village community is
+recognized as the primary local unit of society. In medieval France the
+rural "_communaute_" was the local unit of government and social
+administration. Its people met from time to time at the village church
+in regular assemblies at which they elected their local officers,
+approved their accounts, arranged for the support of the church, the
+school, and local improvements. In most of France and throughout much of
+Europe the farm homes are still clustered in villages, from which the
+farm lands radiate. There the village is primarily a place of residence,
+and with the lands belonging to it forms the community.
+
+New England was settled in much the same manner, being divided into
+towns which still form the local units of government, and which for the
+most part are single communities, though here and there more than one
+center has sprung up within a town and secondary communities have
+developed. The New England town meeting has ever been lauded as the
+birthplace of representative democratic government in America, and in
+its original form it was a true community meeting, dealing not only with
+the political government, but considering all religious, educational,
+and social matters affecting the common life of the town.
+
+Although the New England tradition determined the form of local
+government in the areas settled by its people in the central and western
+states, the township was but an artificial town resulting from methods
+of the land surveys. The homesteader "took up" his land with but little
+thought of community relations. He traded at the nearest town; church
+was first held in the school-house and later churches were erected in
+the open country at convenient points; his children went to the district
+school; and his social life was chiefly in the neighboring homes. His
+life centered in the immediate neighborhood. As railroads covered the
+country, villages and town sprang up at frequent intervals, and
+gradually became the real centers of community life, but usually there
+was but little realization on the part of either village or farm people
+of their community interests. The farmer's attention was on the farm,
+the townsman's chief interest was his business, and not infrequently
+their interests were in conflict and they gave little thought to their
+real dependence on each other.
+
+In the South the plantation system of the landed aristocracy, which as
+long as it existed was quite self-sufficient, gave little encouragement
+to community development. The county was the most important unit of
+local government and the "carpet-baggers'" efforts at establishing local
+townships were repudiated with the ending of their regime. Only in
+recent years have conditions throughout the South, largely the result of
+increased immigration and the breaking up of large plantations, favored
+the development of local communities.
+
+In general, the American farmer has voted and taken his share in local
+politics and government, has attended his own church, has traded where
+most convenient or advantageous, has joined the nearest grange or lodge,
+and with his family has visited nearby friends and relatives and joined
+with them in social festivities; he has loyally supported these various
+interests, but until very recently, he has had little conception of the
+interrelations of these institutions in the life of the community or of
+the possible advantages of community development as such. But new wants
+and new problems have arisen which may only be met by the united action
+of all elements of both village and countryside. The automobile demands
+better roads and both farmer and businessman are interested to have them
+built so that the natural community centers may be most easily reached.
+Better schools, libraries, facilities for recreation and social life,
+organization for the improvement of agriculture and for the better
+marketing of farm products, are all community problems and force
+attention upon the community area to be served by these institutions. A
+consolidated school or a library cannot be maintained at every
+crossroads. Only by the support of all the people within a reasonable
+distance of a common center are better rural institutions possible.
+
+The trend of events was thus bringing about a recognition of the place
+of the community in the life of rural people, when the Great War
+hastened this process by many years. Liberty Loan, Red Cross, and other
+war "drives" were organized by communities which vied with each other in
+raising their quotas. A new sense of the unity of the community was
+brought about by the common loyalty to its boys in the nation's service.
+Having created state and county councils of defense, national leaders
+came to appreciate that the primary unit for effective organization for
+war purposes must be the community, and President Wilson wrote to the
+State Councils of Defense urging the organization of community councils.
+Thousands of these had been organized when the Armistice was declared,
+and although most of them were not continued, the importance of the
+local community was given national recognition and attention was
+directed to the need of the better organization of local forces for
+community progress.
+
+What, then, is the rural community? Is it a real entity or is it merely
+an idea or an ideal? Where is it and how can we recognize it?
+
+We are indebted to Professor C. J. Galpin, now in charge of the Farm
+Life Studies of the United States Department of Agriculture, for first
+developing a method for the location of the rural community. Professor
+Galpin[1] holds that the trading area tributary to any village is
+usually the chief factor in determining the community area. He
+determines the community area by starting from a business center and
+marking on a map those farm homes which trade mostly at that center. By
+drawing a line connecting those farm homes farthest from the center on
+all the roads radiating from it, the boundary of the trade area is
+described. In the same way the areas tributary to the church, the
+school, the bank, the milk station, the grange, etc., may be determined
+and mapped. The boundaries of these areas will be found to be by no
+means coincident, but it will usually be found that most of them center
+in one village or hamlet, and that the trade area is the most
+significant in determining the area tributary to this center. When the
+areas served by the chief institutions of adjacent centers are mapped,
+it is usually found that a composite line of the different boundary
+lines separating these centers will approximate the boundaries of the
+communities. A line which divides adjacent community areas so that most
+of the families either side of this line go most frequently to, or their
+chief interests are at, the center within that boundary, will be the
+boundary between the adjacent communities. Thus, from the standpoint of
+location, _a community is the local area tributary to the center of the
+common interests of its people._[2]
+
+As indicated above the business center may usually be taken as the base
+point or community center, from which to determine the boundaries of the
+community. However, in the older parts of the country or in hilly or
+mountainous regions, the trade or business center is not always the same
+as the center of the chief social activities of the people, and may not
+be the chief factor in determining the community center. Not
+infrequently a church, school and grange hall located close together may
+form the nucleus of a community which does its business at a railroad
+station village some distance away, possibly over a range of hills. The
+chief trading points cannot, therefore, be arbitrarily assumed as the
+base points for determining community areas, but those points at which
+the more important of the common interests of the people find expression
+should be considered as community centers. It is not simply a question
+of where the people go most often, but of where their chief interests
+focus.
+
+With this concept of a community it is obvious that the "center" of a
+community must be the base point for determining its area. It would seem
+that the community center is essential to the individuality of any
+community: The community "center" need not necessarily be at the
+geographical center of the community; indeed in many cases it is at or
+close to one of its boundaries, though in an open level country it will
+tend to approximate the center.
+
+The term "community center" is here used in a literal sense of being the
+center of the activities of the community. It should be distinguished
+from the "community-center idea" which refers to a building, whether it
+be a community house, school, church, or grange hall, as a "community
+center." Such a building in which the activities of the community are
+largely centered may be a community center in a very real sense, but in
+most cases these activities will be divided between church, school,
+grange hall, etc. No one of them can then be a center for the whole
+community, but taken together they constitute the center in which the
+chief interests of the community focus. Every community must necessarily
+have a more or less well defined community center; it may or may not
+have some one building in which the chief activities of the community
+have their headquarters. Such buildings, of whatever nature, may well be
+called community houses or social centers.
+
+Although attention has been directed to the area of the community, the
+community consists not of land or houses but of the people of this area.
+Its boundary merely gives a community identity, as does the roll of a
+company or the charter of a city. The community consists of the people
+within a local area; the land they occupy is but the physical basis of
+the community. The nature of the community will depend very largely upon
+whether its people live close together or at a distance. In the Rocky
+Mountain States many communities are but sparsely settled and may have a
+radius of forty or fifty miles and yet be true communities, while on the
+Atlantic seaboard a definite community with as many people may have a
+radius of not over a mile or two.
+
+Nor is the community a mere aggregation or association of the people of
+a given area. It is rather a corporate state of mind of those living in
+a local area, giving rise to their collective behavior. There cannot be
+a true community unless the people think and act together.
+
+The term "neighborhood" is very frequently used as synonymous with
+"community," and should be definitely distinguished. In the sense in
+which these terms are now coming to be technically employed, the
+neighborhood consists of but a group of houses fairly near each other.
+Frequently a neighborhood grew up around some one center, as a school,
+store, church, mill, or blacksmith shop, which in the course of time may
+have been abandoned, but the homes remained clustered together. Or the
+neighborhood may be merely six to a dozen homes near together on the
+same road or near a corner. The school district of the one-room country
+school is commonly a neighborhood, but as there are no other interests
+which bind the people together it cannot be considered a community.
+Likewise people associate in churches, granges, etc., but church
+parishes overlap, and the constituency of any one of these associations
+is not necessarily a community. Only when several of the chief human
+interests find satisfaction in the organizations and institutions which
+serve a fairly definite common local area tributary to them, do we have
+a true community. In many cases the neighborhood, particularly the
+school district, forms a desirable unit for certain purposes of social
+organization, and, indeed, in many cases it may be necessary to develop
+the neighborhood as a social unit before its people will actively
+associate themselves in community activities, but the neighborhood
+cannot function in the same way as the larger community which brings
+people together in several of their chief interests. The community can
+support institutions impossible in the neighborhood, such as a grange,
+lodge, library, various stores, etc. The community is more or less
+self-sufficing. A community may include a variable number of
+neighborhoods. The community is the smallest geographical unit of
+organized association of the chief human activities.
+
+Bringing together these various considerations concerning the nature of
+the rural community we may say that _a rural community consists of the
+people in a local area tributary to the center of their common
+interests_.
+
+Obviously the community thus defined has nothing to do with political
+areas or boundaries, for very commonly a community may lie in two or
+three townships or counties. That rural areas are actually divided into
+such communities and that the community is the primary unit of their
+social organization may best be tested by taking any given county or
+township and attempting to map its area into communities on the basis
+above described. In most of the northern and western states and
+throughout much of the South, most of the territory may be quite readily
+divided into communities. This has been demonstrated by the rural
+surveys of the Interchurch World Movement[3] and by the community maps
+made by County Farm Bureaus.
+
+A very large part of the South, however, has no natural community
+centers and in such sections it will be found very difficult if not
+impossible to define community areas. The store may be at the railroad
+station, the church in the open country, and the district or
+consolidated school at still another point. Some people go to one store
+or church and others to another. Under such conditions, no real
+community exists. Usually, any form of social organization is more or
+less difficult under such conditions, for the people are divided into
+different groups for different purposes and there is nothing which makes
+united activities possible. It seems probable that only to the extent
+that certain centers of social and economic life come to be recognized
+by the people, and community life is developed around them, will the
+most effective and satisfying social organization be possible.
+
+Recognition of the community as the primary unit for purposes of rural
+organization has now become quite general. Several mid-western states
+have passed legislation permitting school districts to combine into
+community districts for the support of consolidated schools or high
+schools, irrespective of township or county boundaries. The present
+tendency in the centralization of rural schools seems to be in the
+direction of locating them at the natural community centers. Rural
+churches are coming into a new sense of responsibility to the community
+and the community church is increasingly advocated. The American Red
+Cross in planning its peace-time program is recognizing the importance
+of the rural community as the local unit for its work. The County Farm
+Bureaus, working in cooperation with the state colleges of agriculture
+and the United States Department of Agriculture, very soon discovered
+the value of the community as the local unit of their organization, and
+carry on their work through community committees or community clubs.
+Possibly no other one movement has done so much to bring about the
+definite location of rural communities and their appreciation by rural
+people. A conference of national organizations engaged in social work in
+rural communities held in 1919 summed up the experience of a group of
+representative rural leaders in the statement: "In rural organization it
+is recognized that the local community constitutes the functional unit
+and the county or district the supervisory unit." In other words, it is
+the rural community which really "carries on," whatever the executive
+organization of the county or district may be.
+
+The strength of the rural community as a social group lies in two facts.
+First, it is not so large but that most of its people know each other.
+The size of the community in this regard does not depend so much upon
+the actual number of square miles involved as upon the number of its
+population. People may all be acquainted in a sparsely settled community
+covering a ten-mile radius, and there may be less acquaintance in a
+small community with a dense population. Secondly, the great majority of
+the people in the average rural community are dependent upon agriculture
+for their income, either directly or once-removed. These two facts make
+possible common interests and a social control through public opinion
+which is not possible in larger social units such as the county or city.
+Sir Horace Plunkett appreciates this when he says:
+
+      "Our ancient Irish records show little clans with a common
+      ownership of land hardly larger than a parish, but with all
+      the patriotic feeling of larger nations held with an
+      intensity rare in modern states. The history of these clans
+      and of very small nations like the ancient Greek states
+      shows that the _social feeling assumes its most binding and
+      powerful character where the community is large enough to
+      allow free play to the various interests of human life, but
+      is not so large that it becomes an abstraction to the
+      imagination_."[4]
+
+This inherent social strength of the rural community, the fact that the
+community is relatively permanent, and the appreciation that only
+through community effort may rural people realize their natural desire
+to enjoy some of the advantages of cities, force the conviction that the
+community must be the primary unit for the organization of rural
+progress. It is from this point of view that we shall discuss the
+community aspects of the various human interests of the farmer and the
+consequent relations of "The Farmer and His Community."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Galpin, C. J., "The Social Anatomy of an Agricultural Community."
+Research Bulletin 54, Agricultural Experiment Station of the University
+of Wisconsin, May, 1915; and also in his "Rural Life," Century Co., New
+York, 1920.
+
+[2] The following four pages are revised from the author's bulletin,
+"Locating the Rural Community," Cornell Reading Course for the Farm,
+Lesson 158.
+
+[3] See Reports of the Town and Country Department, Committee on Social
+and Religious Surveys, 111 Fifth Ave., New York, or Geo. H. Doran, New
+York.
+
+[4] "Rural Life Problem in the United States," p. 129. Italics mine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE FARM HOME AND THE COMMUNITY
+
+
+The American farmer thinks first of his own home; only recently has he
+commenced to appreciate that his and other homes form a community. In
+the "age of homespun" the pioneer subdued his new lands and built his
+home; the farm and the home were his and for them he lived. He bought
+but little and had but little to sell. Farms were largely
+self-supporting. Neighbors helped each other in numerous ways and as the
+country became more thickly settled neighborhood life grew apace. But
+there was little sense of relation to the larger community. Roads were
+bad and people were too widely scattered to come together except on
+special occasions. The family was the fundamental social unit and social
+life revolved around the family, or in the immediate neighborhood.
+
+But "times have changed." The farm is no longer largely self-supporting.
+It is now but a primary unit in a world-wide economic system, conducted
+with money as the basis of exchange and dominated by the interests of
+capital. Farm products are sold for cash and their value is determined
+by distant or world markets with which the farmer has no personal
+contact and of which he often has but little knowledge. Most of the
+goods consumed on the farm must be purchased. The marketing of his
+products and the purchasing of goods have given the farmer increasing
+contacts with the village and town centers and a broader knowledge of
+the world at large.
+
+During the past century modern ideas of transportation and the
+development of industries due to inventions and scientific discoveries
+have resulted in an enormous growth of city populations. The social life
+of the cities is increasingly dominated by the interests of the
+individual rather than those of the family, until the breaking down of
+urban family life has become a world-wide problem. The family is no
+longer the social unit of the city as it is in the country.
+
+Now farm people are by no means as isolated from town and city as is
+often imagined. Their brothers and sisters, sons and daughters have gone
+to make up the increasing urban populations. Through correspondence and
+visiting back and forth, through frequent trips to town, through the
+daily city newspapers, and through the general reading of magazines,
+farm people are in more or less close contact with the life and manners
+of the cities. Inasmuch as slightly over half of our people now live in
+towns or cities and only one-third live on farms, it is not surprising
+that urban ideals and values and the urban point of view tend more and
+more to dominate those of the countryside. There has been a natural
+tendency, therefore, for the association of country people to center in
+the country town and village, in the community center.
+
+Better transportation and the inability to maintain satisfactory
+institutions in the open country have made this process inevitable and
+it will do much to abolish the evils of rural isolation. The increasing
+difficulty of maintaining successful churches in the open country and
+the growth of the village church, the dissatisfaction with the one-room
+district school and the desire for consolidated schools and community
+high schools, are evidences of this tendency.
+
+The smaller size of the farm family has made it less self-sufficient
+socially than formerly, and the fact that fewer near relations live
+nearby and farms change hands more often has resulted in fewer
+neighborhood gatherings. The different members of the family tend to get
+together more with groups of their own age and sex coming from all parts
+of the community, and definite effort is made for the organization of
+such groups according to their various interests.
+
+Attention is directed to these tendencies because in our present
+emphasis on the relation of the farmer to his community and on community
+values, we must not lose sight of the fact that the family must ever be
+recognized as the primary social institution of rural life. Indeed, it
+may not be too much to claim that the largest value in the agricultural
+industry is in the possibility of the most satisfactory type of home
+life. The millionaire farmer is so rare as to be negligible, and
+although farmers as a class doubtless have as wholesome and satisfactory
+a living as they would in other pursuits, yet no one engages in farming
+as a means of easily acquiring large wealth. The highest rural values
+cannot be bought or sold.
+
+The mere fact that farming is practically the only remaining industry
+conducted on a family basis--which seems likely to continue--and that
+all members of the family have more or less of a share in the conduct
+and success of the farm, creates a family bond which does not ordinarily
+exist where the business or employment of the father and of other
+members of the family is dissociated from the home. Although the burden
+of the farm business on the home is often decried and there is obvious
+need of lightening the mother's work for the farm as much as possible,
+yet under the best of conditions there is on the farm a constant and
+intimate contact between the father and mother and children which is
+rarely found under other conditions.
+
+Primitive woman discovered the art of agriculture. At first, the men
+assisted the women in what time they could spare from hunting; but as
+game became scarce and the food supply grown from the soil was found to
+be more certain, agriculture became man's vocation. Permanent home life
+commenced with the development of agriculture. As he became a farmer,
+primitive man stayed at home with his wife and shared with her the
+nurture of the children. Before then the family had been _hers_, now it
+was _theirs_. The mere fact that the home and the business are both on
+the farm, that father is in the house several times a day and that the
+whole family are acquainted with his farm operations, will always give
+the farm home a superior solidarity, so long as the family lives on the
+farm. Though but few farm homes are ideal and some of them have but
+little that is attractive, yet nowhere are conditions so favorable for
+the enjoyment of all that is most precious in family life as in the
+better American farm homes.
+
+If this be true, that the chief value in agriculture is in the
+possibility of the most satisfactory home life, then community
+development should be considered primarily from the standpoint of its
+effect on the farm home, for the social strength of the country will be
+more largely determined by its homes than by its other social
+institutions. We should endeavor, therefore, to build up that type of
+community life which makes for better homes and stronger families. While
+seeking to afford superior advantages to individuals, all effort toward
+community improvement should recognize that the strength of the
+community is in its home life.
+
+The need of this point of view with regard to rural community
+organization has been very forcibly indicated by Mr. John R. Boardman,
+one of our keenest observers and interpreters of country life in his
+"Community Leadership." He says:
+
+      "At the heart of the rural situation is the rural family.
+      The social problems involved in home life in the rural
+      village and on the farm are of two kinds,--developmental and
+      protective. The social unit in the city is the individual.
+      Urban conditions have rapidly disintegrated the family as a
+      social unit. Grave dangers have resulted from this
+      interference with the unity of domestic life. The rural
+      family is in danger of meeting the same fate. It is now the
+      social unit in the rural social structure. Every effort must
+      be put forth to make this situation permanent. The major
+      problem is one of home conservation. Protection of the rural
+      family against social exploitation will demand increasing
+      attention. The development of social organization along
+      lines which interfere with the unity and solidarity of rural
+      family life must be approached with extreme caution and
+      tolerated only as they may be absolutely necessary. So far
+      as possible social organization must be built around the
+      rural family and give it every possible opportunity to act
+      as a family in the scheme of organization and activity. The
+      home as a social center must receive increased attention.
+      There is great danger, in the new interest which is being
+      aroused in rural social life, that the matter of social
+      organization be greatly overdone. The rural family will be
+      the one to suffer first and most severely as a result of
+      this craze for social organization."
+
+In support of this point of view it is interesting to note that the
+strongest rural institutions, the church, the grange, and the recently
+organized Farm Bureaus, are all organizations which have an interest for
+the whole family or for most of its members. With an increasing sense of
+social needs and responsibilities on the part of rural people, new
+organizations will be formed and various community activities must be
+undertaken, but if country people will remain true to their traditions
+and, with clear view of changing conditions, will seek to organize their
+community life as an association of farm and village _families_, they
+will create the most satisfying and enduring type of society. The
+community buildings now becoming so popular in rural communities are a
+good example of a family institution organized to furnish better
+recreation and social facilities for the whole family.
+
+Inasmuch as the home is its primary social institution, the rural
+community must give its first consideration to its relations to the home
+and how the home life may be strengthened, if the rural family is to
+withstand the influence of the disintegrating home life of the city. For
+the farm home is in a process of readjustment to modern conditions and
+the recognition of ideals and objectives of home-life by the community
+will be a powerful factor in their maintenance.
+
+The mother has ever occupied the central position in the home. Under
+modern conditions, as a result of her education and broader knowledge of
+life, through her more frequent contacts with town and city and through
+her wider reading, many a farm mother is coming to feel that her
+position is an anomalous one. In some cases she may be able to solve her
+own problems, but only a general change in public opinion concerning
+their position will bring a more acceptable status to farm women as a
+class.
+
+Some of the farm woman's problems arise from the increasing division of
+labor between her husband and herself and from the marketing of the farm
+products; these are the problems of her economic status. The peasant
+woman of medieval Europe or the wife of the American pioneer never
+worried that she did not receive a monthly allowance or a certain share
+of the farm income. She worked with her husband and family in raising
+the farm products and she shared in their consumption, for but
+relatively little was sold off the place. To-day, the wife of the farm
+owner does little work on the farm; its products are sold and much of
+the food and practically all of the clothing is purchased. She and her
+children contribute a considerable amount of the labor of the farm
+enterprise, and do all of the housework; but the husband does the
+selling and most of the buying, she often has but little share in the
+management of the family's finances, and rarely knows what she may count
+on for household expenses. She comes to feel that she is no longer a
+real partner, but a sort of housekeeper, though without salary or
+assured income. In over nine thousand farm homes studied in the northern
+and western states,[5] one-fourth of the women helped with the
+livestock, and one-fourth worked in the field an equivalent of 6.7 weeks
+a year, over half of them cared for the home gardens, and one-third of
+them kept the farm accounts. Over a third of them helped to milk,
+two-thirds washed the separators, and 88 percent washed the milk pails,
+60 percent made the butter and one-third sold the butter, but only 11
+percent had the spending of the money from its sale. Likewise 81 percent
+cared for the poultry, but only 22 percent had the poultry money for
+their own use and but 16 percent had the egg money. These figures do not
+give us a complete analysis of the household finances in relation to the
+amount contributed by farm women, but they are indicative of the general
+situation.
+
+It is because of these facts that farm women feel that a larger portion
+of the farm income should be spent in giving them better household
+conveniences, somewhat commensurate with the amount that is spent for
+improved farm machinery and barn conveniences. Only one-third of these
+farm homes had running water; and but one-fifth had a bath-tub with
+water and sewer connections; 85 percent had outdoor toilets. Improvement
+is in evidence, however, for two-thirds had water in the kitchen, 60
+percent had sink and drain, 57 percent had washing machines, and 95
+percent had sewing machines. It is not that she is merely seeking less
+work so that she may attend her club or go to the movies, that the farm
+mother desires better conveniences and shorter hours--her average
+working day is now 11.3 hours--but because she has new ideals of the
+nurture which she wishes to give her family and of what she might do for
+them had she the time and physical strength.
+
+As a result of the cooperative survey of 10,000 representative farm
+homes in 241 counties in the 33 northern and western states made by home
+demonstration agents and farm women, Miss Ward[6] gives some interesting
+"side-lights," which are as illuminating as the statistics:
+
+      "Women realize that no amount of scientific arrangement or
+      labor-saving appliances will of themselves make a home. It
+      is the woman's personal presence, influence, and care that
+      make the home. Housekeeping is a business as practical as
+      farming and with no romance in it; home making is a sacred
+      trust. A woman wants time salvaged from housekeeping to
+      create the right home atmosphere for her children and to so
+      enrich their home surroundings that they may gain their
+      ideals of beauty and their tastes for books and music not
+      from the shop windows, the movies, the billboards, or the
+      jazz band, but from the home environment.
+
+      "The farm woman knows that there is no one who can take her
+      place as teacher and companion of her children during their
+      early impressionable years and she craves more time for
+      their care. She feels the need of making the farm home an
+      inviting place for the young people of the family and their
+      friends and of promoting the recreational and educational
+      advantages of the neighborhood in order to cope with the
+      various forms of city allurements. She realizes that modern
+      conditions call for an even deeper realization and closer
+      contact between mother and child. The familiar term, 'God
+      could not be everywhere so He made mothers' has its modern
+      scientific application, as no amount of education and care
+      given to children in school or elsewhere outside the home
+      can take the place of mothering in the home. 'The home
+      exists for the child, hence the child's development should
+      have first consideration.'
+
+      "Farm women want to broaden their outlook and keep with the
+      advancement of their children 'not by courses of study but
+      by bringing progressive ideas, methods, and facilities into
+      the every day work and recreation of the home environment.'"
+
+"True enough," you say, "but these are problems of the individual home.
+What have they to do with the community?" Just this: The status of the
+farm woman is a matter determined more by custom than by individual
+achievement. It is difficult for any one woman, no matter how able or
+strong-minded, to maintain a status much in advance of that of her
+neighbors; but let the women of a community get together and discuss
+their problems and ideals and the group spirit strengthens each of them
+in the pursuit of the common ideals. It is such a desire for mutual
+support--even though they are not conscious of it--which has drawn farm
+women together into clubs and which has given such an impetus to the
+Home Bureaus, or women's departments of the county Farm Bureaus. Not
+only in women's organizations, but finally in community organizations of
+men and women, such as the Grange and the church, the social standards
+of the community receive the sanction of public opinion, than which
+there is no more powerful means of influencing family usages. The
+community as such, must give recognition to a new and better status of
+its farm women.
+
+If the rural home remains the primary social institution, it will be due
+to its intelligent effort at self-defense, and not to any inherent right
+which it has to such a position. Originally the family was but a
+biological group. Until modern times the agricultural family was chiefly
+an economic unit. Only with the isolation of the American farm, did the
+individual family assume the primary social position known to our
+fathers and grandfathers. Physical isolation and large families made the
+farm home the only possible social center. Isolation is largely passing,
+families are smaller, and organizations of all sorts and commercial
+amusements compete with the family. It is the use of leisure time which
+reveals the true loyalty of the family group. If there be nothing to
+attract them to the fireside, they will inevitably go elsewhere whenever
+possible. Hence, if it would have its foundations strong, the community
+must encourage the enrichment of home life, particularly, in the hours
+of leisure when life is most real. The family games after supper, the
+group around the piano singing old and modern songs, the reading aloud
+by one member of the circle, the cracking of nuts and the popping of
+corn, the picnic supper on the lawn, the tennis court or croquet ground,
+the home parties, the guests ever-welcome at meals, these are but items
+in a possible scorecard of the sociability of the home. We are giving
+much thought to all sorts of group activities, but how much attention
+have we given to systematically encouraging the social unit which has
+the largest possibilities, the family? Last summer my friend, Professor
+E. C. Lindeman, of the North Carolina College for Women, spent several
+weeks in becoming acquainted with rural Denmark under peculiarly
+favorable conditions. A statement in a letter from him regarding Danish
+home life is apropos in this connection:
+
+      "I observed that the country people find a great deal of
+      social expression within their own homes. The home life is
+      organized on a much higher plane than is common in America.
+      In addition, there is a larger content of cultural and
+      educational material within the family circle."
+
+In the same way the economic position, health, education, and all other
+phases of life of the family are the most potent influences both in the
+life of its members and of the community.
+
+The question arises, therefore, what is the community doing to
+strengthen the home? In recent years the new discipline of Home
+Economics has vigorously attacked the problems of diet, clothing, and
+household management, and has accomplished much. It is now concerning
+itself with health, child welfare, and even with child psychology and
+the family as an institution. Yet the home economics point of view is
+necessarily restricted to that of the institution which it serves, i.e.,
+the home; it has the same limitations, when pursued solely from the home
+standpoint, that farm management has as an interpretation of farming if
+not related to agricultural and general economics. We need a
+consideration of the problems of the home from the standpoint of other
+social institutions and with regard to its function in social
+organization. We need a clearer concept of the relation of the home to
+the community and to community associations and activities.
+
+The community institutions, the school, the church, and various
+organizations, have had too much of a tendency to compete with the home
+rather than to support and strengthen it. Thus the tendency of the
+school has been to demand a larger and larger portion of the child's
+time and to assume that because certain phases of education can be more
+economically given in the school, that, therefore, it should take over
+as much of the educational function of the home as is possible; a
+conclusion which is by no means valid. In the home project a new
+educational principle has been discovered, which has far-reaching
+significance: for in it the school and the home cooperate, the school
+outlining, standardizing, and interpreting, while the home furnishes
+supervision, advice, and encouragement. Thus, the home is stimulated to
+perform those educational functions in which it is superior, through a
+definite effort upon the part of the school to strengthen them. The same
+principle is being applied to education in hygiene. Why should not the
+church and Sunday school adopt similar methods and undertake a definite
+system of encouraging the home to give moral and religious education in
+an adequate fashion, rather than attempt to give homeopathic doses to
+children _en masse_? Why should not the church, or the school, or both,
+give parents instruction and inspiration as to how to educate their
+children in matters of sex, about which they are in the best position to
+gain their confidence? Should not our clubs and social organizations,
+for men and women, boys and girls, face the question, as to whether
+their aggregate activities are unduly competing with the home, and
+should they not give definite thought as to how they may assist and
+strengthen the basic institution of our social organization? If the home
+is the essential primary social institution, then its well-being should
+command the consideration of every institution of the community; for the
+function and objectives of the home cannot be determined solely by
+either its own ideals and purposes, or by the values established by the
+various special interest groups. The home and the community institutions
+are constantly in a process of adapting themselves to each other, and to
+the extent that each recognizes the function of the other and is willing
+to cooperate rather than to compete, is the highest success of each made
+possible.
+
+This problem of the relation of the home to the community is a
+relatively new one, and is largely the result of better means of
+communication which have enlarged the horizon of every farm home. When
+the life of the child was almost wholly within the home and the
+neighborhood, the parents gave themselves little concern about the
+influence or conditions of the larger community. But when her children
+go to a consolidated school and their school associates are unknown to
+her, when they attend the movies in the village, and when they read the
+local weekly or the city daily newspaper and the monthly magazines, so
+that they know what is going on throughout the world, then, if she be
+wise, a mother commences to realize that the community is having a
+growing influence in shaping their character and that however ideal the
+home may be, it is but a part of their lives. She commences to
+appreciate that she must have an understanding of the life and forces of
+the community so that she may use her influence toward making their
+social environment what it should be and so that she may be able to make
+the home so attractive that it will hold their primary interest and
+loyalty. Thus community problems of health, of education, of recreation
+and social life, and of religion become inter-related with those of the
+home. The successful homemaker can no longer concern herself solely with
+home-management, but must assume her share of responsibility in
+community-management, or "community housekeeping."
+
+With the new responsibilities of suffrage rural women are following the
+example of their city sisters in taking a larger interest in civic
+affairs and social legislation, and with a most wholesome influence on
+community life. There is, however, some danger that while the men are
+engaged with their business problems, these social problems will be too
+largely left to the women;[7] for without the sympathetic understanding
+and hearty cooperation of their husbands, rural women will find that
+their new social ideals will materialize but slowly. Here again, such
+family organizations as the Grange, the Church, and Farm and Home
+Bureau, in which community activities engage both men and women are
+peculiarly serviceable.
+
+An interesting example of how the family may function in community life
+is found in a small town in southern Michigan (Centerville) where the
+people have established a cooperative motion picture theater, to which
+the families buy season tickets, and where one may find whole families
+together enjoying the best pictures to the accompaniment of a community
+orchestra. This is also being accomplished in many community buildings.
+
+On the other hand the home need not abdicate all of its old-time
+functions as a social center. A few years ago in attending a rural
+community conference at the University of Illinois I was interested to
+hear a farm woman, a graduate of that university, tell how she and her
+neighbors had held amateur dramatic entertainments on their front
+verandas during the summer. The young people took the parts and the
+audience sat on the lawn, and thus many families were brought under the
+influence of the better homes who would not have thought of visiting
+them. When winter came on, these entertainments were continued in a
+slightly different manner, so that neighboring families were brought
+into contact without any tendency toward undue intimacy between families
+which would not associate otherwise. Family parties for young and old,
+should by no means be abandoned in favor of community parties, however
+satisfactory and attractive the latter may be.
+
+The social responsibility of the rural home must receive new
+recognition, for the day when we can live to ourselves in the enjoyment
+of a select group of personal friends is rapidly passing, if we are to
+have satisfactory social conditions. It is one of the bad effects of the
+increasing amount of tenancy in our best farming sections, and of the
+frequent changing of farm ownership, that the shifting of residence
+makes it difficult for the family to secure a satisfactory social
+position in the community life.
+
+In the last analysis, however, the largest contribution of the home to
+the community and the best means of solving the problem of its relation
+to community life, is in the development of the best social attitudes
+among its members toward each other and toward the life of the
+community; for all sound social organization is but an application of
+the relations of the family to the affairs of larger social groups, and
+unless attitudes of mutual aid, common responsibility, and voluntary
+loyalty, are maintained in the home, so that its relations form a norm
+for all other human groups, rural society will have lost the chief
+dynamic of social progress.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] From "The Farm Woman's Problems," Florence E. Ward. U. S. Dept. of
+Agriculture, Circular 148 (1920).
+
+[6] _Ibid._, pp. 14, 15.
+
+[7] Benjamin Kidd claims that this superior interest of women in race
+welfare is due to woman's cultural inheritance and that from the very
+nature of the division of labor between man and woman, man is less
+capable than woman of devoting himself to human welfare. "But the fact
+of the age which goes deeper than any other is that the male mind of the
+race as the result of the conditions out of which it has come, is by
+itself incapable of rendering this service to civilization. It is in the
+mind of woman that the winning peoples of the world will find the
+psychic center of Power in the future."--"The Science of Power," p.
+241.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE COMMUNITY'S PEOPLE AND HISTORY
+
+
+The community is composed of people in a certain area, but the community
+may be dead or it may be alive. The _life_ of the community is
+determined by the degree to which its people are able to act together
+for the best promotion of their common welfare. This ability to act
+together will obviously depend upon the extent to which the people have
+common aims and purposes. If the people of a community form distinct
+groups with diverse ideals and purposes, it will be much more difficult
+to secure that sympathy, tolerance, and understanding which are
+necessary for united action, than if they are more alike. Yet it is just
+such diversity of interests of different elements in the community which
+gives rise to community problems and which brings about an appreciation
+of the need of developing community life.
+
+It is necessary, therefore, to have some appreciation of how the
+characteristics of its population influence community life.
+
+In the first place, a community of people of different nationalities or
+races, or sometimes even of people from different states, find it much
+more difficult to secure a common loyalty than if they were of one
+stock. It is, of course, quite true that many an old community of a
+single stock is divided by family, religious or political feuds; yet
+usually there is more solidarity between people of common traditions and
+culture. The largest problem in the so-called "Americanization" of
+foreigners in rural communities is to get the natives to understand and
+appreciate the newcomers and to realize that the future of the community
+depends upon mutual respect and good will. Had we a little more of an
+historical perspective, we would remember that all of our ancestors were
+"foreigners" but a few generations back. In almost every part of the
+United States are communities in which alien groups form one of the
+chief obstacles to a better community life. Throughout the South, the
+most fundamental problem is that of a better understanding between the
+two races, and until some means of amicable adjustment is attempted,
+there is little prospect for the development of community life. In some
+of our best agricultural sections there have been successive waves of
+immigration of different nationalities. Thus in Dane County, Wisconsin,
+of which Madison--the state capital--is the county seat, Dr. J. H.
+Kolb[8] describes communities in which Germans, Norwegians, and Swiss
+have largely supplanted the original settlers from New England. In an
+interesting study of Americanization in a community in the Connecticut
+Valley of Massachusetts, John Daniels[9] has described how the French
+Canadians and Irish and then the Poles have taken up the land, and how
+good feeling between them and the native Yankees was gradually
+established. On the other hand, a nearby community in southern New York
+comes to mind, in which there is a colony of Bohemians, and another of
+Finns, which have been fairly successful in building up hill farms
+deserted by the descendants of the original settlers, and yet the
+community as a whole has done little toward making these people feel
+that they are a part of its life, although their industry is one of its
+largest economic assets. "America is the home of the free" and most of
+our people do desire a real democracy, but we seem to have assumed that
+it will develop spontaneously, and we have not appreciated that good
+will and common understanding require some means of acquaintance and
+exchange of ideas, and that the interests and desires of all the people
+in a community, young and old, must receive recognition. Unless we can
+establish democracy in our own local community, how can we expect it in
+the state or nation?
+
+A second factor in community life is the age of its people. How often do
+you find a community composed chiefly of elderly people which is
+progressive? In the more progressive communities are not the middle-aged
+and young married people in control? The younger people desire better
+advantages for themselves and particularly for their children, and so
+they stand for better schools, better churches, and better facilities
+for all phases of community life. It is largely for this reason, it
+seems to me, that older communities seem to have cycles of relative
+decline and progress, according to the proportion of older and younger
+people. It is to be hoped that in future generations the ability to
+"keep young" may become more common; indeed, this is one of the chief
+objectives of modern education.
+
+The density of population is also a determining factor with regard to
+many phases of community life, for it is obviously much easier to carry
+on many community activities where the people live fairly close together
+and not very far from the community center, than where the country is
+but sparsely settled. Even with automobiles and telephones, the distance
+between homes will have a large influence in determining the nature of
+community activities. One of the most difficult of our rural problems
+is how to bring to the people in sparsely settled regions the advantages
+which they rightly crave. It will be physically and economically
+impossible for them to have as good opportunities as sections which are
+more densely settled, but ways must be found whereby a larger degree of
+equality of opportunity is available to more thinly inhabited
+communities.
+
+Changes in population immediately affect community needs. Where
+immigration is increasing rapidly, institutions such as schools,
+churches, and stores are often inadequate, and there is every incentive
+toward the development of community spirit and united effort to meet the
+common needs. On the other hand, in the older sections decreasing
+populations make it impossible to maintain as many institutions as
+formerly. Many an eastern community has inherited two or three churches,
+which were once well filled, but which now merely serve to divide the
+community as none of them are able to operate successfully, though it is
+obvious that unless the people are more loyal to their common needs than
+to their differences that the community will be unable to survive.
+
+In relatively new communities, and often for several generations, the
+influence of the original settlement of the community may have a strong
+effect on its life. Thus where a new section is settled by acquaintances
+from an older community, by relatives, or those of one church, there is
+a bond between them from the beginning, but where land is settled by
+homesteaders from different sections, the process of establishing common
+ideals and purposes is a gradual one. Many a community in the middle
+west still bears the stamp of its original settlers. About in the center
+of West Virginia is the little community of French Creek which was
+settled by a few New England families a little over a hundred years
+ago. A recent study[10] of this community shows that it has had a
+powerful influence in the educational life of the whole state, and that
+its progressive spirit is largely traceable to "an ancestry of energetic
+people with high ideals which have been passed on by each generation."
+On the other hand, in many cases this influence is soon lost, due to
+some radical change in local conditions and the influx of new elements.
+
+Its history plays an exceedingly large role in advancing or retarding
+community development. History and tradition are the memory of the
+community; they bring to mind its past experiences. Common ancestors and
+common participation in important events in the past give a sense of
+identity and heighten community consciousness. Pride in the history of
+the community is like pride in a good family, and is a strong factor in
+maintaining the standards of its people. Of course the past may be one
+of which no one is proud and which they may prefer to forget, but this
+is a spur to new endeavor as it is to a family to attain a new status.
+
+Community life is likely to be at a low ebb where there is but little
+knowledge of, or interest in, the history of its past. I was recently
+impressed with this in visiting a small inland community, which was not
+without many events of interest in its earlier development. I failed,
+however, to find any connected records of the community's past or any of
+its people who know much of its history. So far as I could learn there
+had been few celebrations or community activities for many years and
+there was a general feeling that the community had been on the down
+grade and needed redirection. It seemed to me that one of the things
+which might arouse community loyalty in this instance would be for its
+people to clean up some of the old neighborhood cemeteries where many of
+the early pioneers lie buried, and which are now grown up and unkept.
+
+Then I think of another community where every few years on important
+anniversary events the history of an organization or of the community as
+a whole is related and often published in the local press. Its past has
+no more striking events than that of the locality last mentioned, but
+these people have pride in their community and their loyalty is renewed
+on these anniversary occasions.
+
+Miss Emily F. Hoag[11] has recently given a good picture of how the
+history of their community has been made to live in the hearts of the
+people of Belleville, New York, through their loyalty to the old Union
+Academy, and she has given a fine example of how a community may be
+brought to a realization of the contribution which it has made to the
+life of the state and nation.
+
+Only by a knowledge of the community's history can the nature and origin
+of the attitudes of its people be understood. A generation or two ago,
+perchance, there was a quarrel between two families which was carried
+into the school meeting, and to this day two factions have persisted.
+The attitudes of the people in many a progressive town may be directly
+traced to the influence of some outstanding leaders--a teacher,
+minister, or doctor, perhaps--long since gone to their reward. A village
+fire, the coming of a railroad or its deflection to a nearby town, a
+bank failure, a prohibition crusade, the establishment of a library are
+but a few examples of events which form crises in the life of every
+community and which have a far-reaching and subtle effect in moulding
+its character.
+
+The cultivation of a knowledge of its own history is, therefore, one of
+the first duties of a community which seeks to understand itself so that
+it may better direct its life. Every community should maintain a record
+of its history, and have some means of preserving important historical
+material. The New York legislature has recently passed an act
+authorizing any township or village board to appoint a local historian,
+without salary, and to furnish safe storage for historical records. One
+of the most progressive rural communities in the country is the Quaker
+settlement at Sandy Spring, Maryland,[12] whose first historian was
+appointed in 1863 and whose historian reads the record of the year at
+each annual meeting. These "Annals" form a most intimate account of the
+community's progress. The custom of some rural newspapers of publishing
+local history of the past year on New Year's Day serves much the same
+purpose.
+
+One of the best means of encouraging historical appreciation, and one
+which is very generally neglected, is the teaching of local history in
+the schools. Educators have learned that it is more pedagogical to
+commence instruction in geography with the local environment of the
+child, which it can know and understand, than to begin--as
+formerly--with the nebular hypothesis; but they are only commencing to
+appreciate that the same principle applies to the teaching of history.
+Is it not true that most children can glibly recite dates and events in
+the history of their own and foreign countries, of whose significance
+they have only a vague appreciation, but who never secure any real
+historical point of view or an appreciation of the importance of history
+because it has not been made concrete and intimate, as must be the case
+in considering local events? If national history is taught to develop
+patriotism, why should not local history be taught to inspire civic
+loyalty? Such a study of the efforts and sacrifices of former citizens
+would bring a new sense of obligation to be worthy of the heritage they
+have bequeathed, and would gradually establish an attitude of loyalty to
+the community which would be considered as essential to respectability
+as devotion to one's country. Indeed, how can one be truly loyal to a
+great country which is mostly unknown to him if he is not loyal to the
+people with whom he lives day by day in his home community?
+
+One of the best means of reviving interest in the community's past is
+through the production of an historical pageant, which is discussed on
+page 161; for as the people act together the events of the past, they
+gain a new realization of what they owe to the life of the community in
+bygone days, and come to appreciate that men come and men go but the
+community continues and perpetuates their influence for better or for
+worse.
+
+Socrates' injunction to "know thyself" is the epitome of wisdom for the
+community as it is for the individual. The first step in this process of
+self-acquaintance is to secure an accurate knowledge of the kinds of
+people which compose the community, and how its past is influencing its
+present.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[8] "Rural Primary Groups," a study of agricultural neighborhoods.
+Research Bulletin 51, Agr. Exp. Station of the University of Wisconsin,
+Madison, 1921.
+
+[9] "America via the Neighborhood," p. 419, D. Appleton & Co., 1920.
+
+[10] A. J. Dadisman, "French Creek as a Rural Community," Bulletin 176,
+Agricultural Experiment Station, West Virginia University, June, 1921.
+
+[11] "The National Influence of a Single Farm Community," Bulletin 984,
+United States Department of Agriculture, Dec., 1921.
+
+[12] See "A Rural Survey of Maryland," Dept. of Church and Country Life,
+Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., 1912;
+reprinted in part in N. L. Sims' "The Rural Community," p. 227, New
+York, Scribners, 1920.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+COMMUNICATION THE MEANS OF COMMUNITY LIFE
+
+
+We have seen that the real life of the community depends on common
+interests and the ability of its people to act together. This having
+things in common is the basis of all community and is achieved only
+through the exchange of ideas by various means of communication. Without
+communication there would be no community and no civilization. It is
+man's ability to communicate through spoken and written language that
+has made him _human_. Man is more than animal because he can exchange
+ideas with his fellows, and can profit by the experience of the race.
+This power of communication creates a new world for him in which he
+lives on a different plane from all other living things. The very words
+_community_ and _communication_, both derived from _communis_--common,
+indicate their relation to each other; _community_--the having in
+common, _communication_--the making common.[13]
+
+Until modern times practically all communication between the masses of
+the people was by word of mouth. The people of the old world lived
+together in villages which were largely self-dependent, and only the
+higher classes were educated to read and write. There was little
+opportunity for contact with the outside world, and the people felt
+little need of better means of communication. It has been frequently
+asserted that isolation has been the chief rural problem in America. The
+reason for the dissatisfaction with life on isolated farms is better
+appreciated when we remember that during all previous history men have
+lived together in close association and their whole mode of thought,
+customs, attitudes, and desires have been formed in the intimate life of
+compact groups. It is but natural, therefore, that life on the isolated
+farm with but few contacts with others than immediate neighbors should
+become irksome and that town and city have had a peculiar attraction for
+farm people.
+
+We cannot here examine the causes and history of the development of our
+modern means of communication, but we must recognize that it is due to
+them that rural community life as we are coming to know it in the United
+States is made possible. Without these newer facilities for more
+frequent association and exchange of ideas, rural life would still be
+confined to the small local neighborhood.
+
+At the same time, the railroad and trolley have abolished the isolation
+of the rural community and have made possible the diversion of local
+interests and loyalties to larger centers. Thus while communication aids
+the integration of the community it affords equal facilities for its
+disruption. Doubtless some of the smaller community centers will be
+unable to compete with the attraction of nearby larger centers, but
+there seems no good reason to believe that better communication will
+injure the best life of communities which are of sufficient size to
+support the institutions which will command local loyalty. This dual
+influence of means of communication on the internal and external
+relations of rural communities creates some of the chief problems of
+rural social organization, for the increase of means of communication in
+the past two or three generations has been more momentous and has had a
+more far-reaching effect on human relations than in all the previous
+centuries since the invention of writing.
+
+A brief survey of the more important of these new agencies will indicate
+how they affect the relations of the farmer to his community and to
+other communities. These may be considered under the two general heads
+of means of transportation, and means for the exchange of ideas.
+
+As long as transportation was by wagon and by boat, commerce was slow
+and expensive; each community was compelled to be largely
+self-dependent, and life was isolated to an extent that it is difficult
+for us to conceive. Anderson has well stated the situation when he says:
+
+      "Merchandise and produce that could not stand a freight of
+      fifteen dollars per ton could not be carried overland to a
+      consumer one hundred and fifty miles from the point of
+      production; as roads were, a distance of fifty miles from
+      the market often made industrial independence
+      expedient."[14]
+
+It was the steam railroad which made larger markets available, made
+possible the growth of our large cities and the opening up of new lands
+distant from markets. The railroad and manufacturing by power machinery
+put an end to the "age of homespun," and made it more profitable for the
+farmer to sell his products and to purchase his manufactured goods in
+exchange. The railroad, and the markets which it made available, changed
+the village center from a place of local barter to a shipping point and
+so tended to center the economic life of larger areas in the villages
+with railroad stations. Better local roads were necessary and business
+tended to become centralized in the village. The numerous wayside
+taverns along the main highways disappeared, as did the neighborhood
+mill and blacksmith shop. The railroad, more than any other one factor,
+has determined the location of our rural community centers.
+
+The electric railroad made the village centers more available to farm
+people and gave transportation facilities to many villages without
+railroads, but it also made it possible for the people of smaller
+communities to go to the larger centers for trading and other
+advantages. Trolleys have made it possible for many farm children to get
+to high school who could not otherwise have attended and have enabled
+those living near them to more easily get back and forth from the
+village centers for all phases of community life. On the whole, however,
+they have probably carried more traffic between communities, and it
+seems strange that they have not more generally been able to find a
+profit in hauling produce from the farms to the nearest markets or
+shipping stations.
+
+Of more importance to community life has been the development of good
+roads, a movement which did not get under way until the present century
+and which was chiefly due to the rural free mail delivery and the
+automobile. The change in rural life due to automotive vehicles can
+hardly be exaggerated. In our best agricultural states practically every
+farmer has his automobile. He can get to the community center as quickly
+as the business man or laborer gets to his work in the average city, and
+can go to the county seat or neighboring city as quickly as one can
+drive to the business section from the more distant parts of New York or
+Chicago. Auto-bus lines radiate from most of our small cities, and auto
+trucks not only bring freight from nearby wholesale centers, but are
+rapidly supplanting horses for hauling farm produce to the shipping
+station or market.
+
+As good roads have been due chiefly to state and county, and more
+recently to national aid, it is but natural that they should have been
+constructed where the traffic is heaviest connecting the main centers.
+What is now most needed to build up the local communities is a
+systematic development of the principal local roads radiating from the
+community centers.
+
+Good roads and automobiles have made possible a new sort of a local
+community, which could never have existed without them. Consider the
+present possibility of consolidated schools with auto-busses to haul the
+children; the numbers of automobiles which come in from the farms to
+every village center where there is a band concert or movie show; the
+ability to get in the "flivver" after supper and ride to a relative's or
+friend's on the other side of the town and be back for early bedtime;
+and one can perceive how the people in a community area are bound
+together and develop common interests in new advantages made possible by
+their ability to get together easily and quickly. How could the county
+agricultural agent or the visiting nurse cover a county as effectively
+as they now do without the automobile? The rural community can now enjoy
+the services of expert paid executives in many fields of work as diverse
+as a county commercial club secretary, a Boy Scout leader, a Sunday
+school executive, or county health officer, because the county has
+become a unit which can be covered as easily as a city and is large
+enough to support such a division of labor as no one community could
+enjoy. We shall have occasion to refer to many county organizations and
+agencies which not only build up the county and the county seat, but
+which strengthen the life of every community which they serve, and whose
+work is very largely possible because of good roads and automobiles.
+Where bad roads still exist many of these services must wait and less
+community life is possible.
+
+Nor does the home lose with the community advancement due to better
+transportation. Surely it is better to have the children living at home
+than boarding in the village while they attend high school; the doctor
+is secured more quickly and the visiting nurse is available; and the
+family can come and go as a family because less time is required and
+there is no waiting for the horses to feed, or to get rested.
+
+It is true of course that the automobile makes it possible for people to
+go to the larger towns and other village centers, and to visit their
+particular friends and relatives in neighboring communities, and thus
+seems to furnish means for breaking down and stratifying community life.
+These tendencies exist, but they will not seriously injure the community
+which has anything worth while for its people. Better transportation
+simply makes possible a more highly organized community life, and any
+complex organization is the more easily deranged; a complex machine or a
+high-bred animal is more susceptible to injury than a simple tool or
+scrub. Many ministers have railed against the automobile, while others
+have used it to fill their pews. We cannot get away from that oldest of
+paradoxes, first learned by Father Adam, that every new good has
+possibilities of evil. A certain type of mind has always enjoyed
+condemning every new invention as "of the Devil," and yet the world wags
+on and no one who knows them would go back to "the good old days."
+
+The automobile has brought new ideas both to the community and to the
+farm and home. Farmers and their wives are traveling by auto much more
+than they ever did by train, and it is impossible not to pick up new
+ideas. One of the most effective educational devices is the farm tour in
+which a group of Farm Bureau members travel from one farm to another
+studying the methods of farming, and the women have adopted the idea for
+an inspection of farm homes.
+
+To discuss all the effects of automotive vehicles--cycle, car, truck,
+bus, and tractor--on farm life would fill a book in itself: space
+forbids except for incidental mention in the following chapters.
+
+Turning to the mechanisms for the transmission of ideas, we appreciate
+the even more wonderful inventions which have brought the whole world to
+the farmer's door.
+
+A generation ago farmers went several miles to the nearest postoffice
+for their mail, and usually got it but two or three times a week. To-day
+over the greater part of the country it is delivered to them daily, and
+they can ship small packages by parcels post from their doors. This
+daily delivery has greatly widened the circulation of the daily
+newspapers and magazines of all sorts, and has given farm people a new
+knowledge and a livelier interest in city and world-wide affairs. The
+parcel post has made the mail-order business, but it is even more
+beneficial to the local merchant who can fill a telephone order and mail
+it to a customer for less expense than delivery costs in the city.
+Correspondence and advertising by farm people have greatly increased. It
+is true that the abolition of many rural postoffices has destroyed an
+old-time rendezvous, but farmers probably go to the community center
+more frequently than formerly. A more unfortunate feature of the rural
+delivery service is that it often gives the farmer a mail address at a
+postoffice of a community where he rarely goes, and fails to indicate
+the community in which he is located to one unacquainted with the local
+geography (see page 232).
+
+Even more important as an aid to community activities is the telephone.
+Visiting is now done more over the phone than in person, but
+conversation can be had with any one in the community at any time, and
+isolation is banished. The telephone has brought a larger protection to
+the farm home in calling the doctor, police, or fire assistance. The
+economic value of the phone soon became apparent for the distribution of
+market reports and weather forecasts or for ordering goods or repairs
+from town, and the marvelous wireless telephone will greatly extend
+these services. The Extension Service of the Kansas Agricultural College
+is installing a wireless outfit which will receive market and weather
+reports and will transmit them to the farm bureau offices at the county
+seats, where they may be relayed through the local telephones to every
+farmer. Thus world-wide conditions may be flashed to the farmer's
+fireside. Within the community the telephone has made possible a degree
+of organization hitherto impossible. Meetings are called, committees are
+assembled, or their business is done over the phone, so that both social
+and economic life are greatly stimulated.
+
+The farmer is sometimes chided for not having organized rural life more
+effectively. The simple reason is that he has not had the mechanisms
+whereby he could do so. With only mud roads and horses people could get
+together but infrequently, and arrangements had to be made when they
+were together. City life was better organized because people could get
+together more easily. To-day both time and space have been so largely
+overcome that communication in the country is almost as rapid as in the
+city and more effective organization is possible.
+
+Better transportation, mail, and telephone service have made available
+agencies for the communication of ideas, previously accessible only to
+the few or patronized so infrequently by those further away as to
+furnish too small a constituency for their successful maintenance. The
+free public library is a powerful educational agency, but many a
+community has been too small for its support. Now county library systems
+are being organized--thanks to automobiles--which give branch stations
+to every community (see p. 102). Lyceum courses of lectures and
+entertainments, chautauqua courses, public forums for the discussion of
+current problems, and last, but not least, the moving picture shows with
+their pictures of important events from all parts of the world and
+showing life from Central Africa to the Antipodes, all of these are
+agencies for bringing new ideas to the rural community, and are becoming
+increasingly common as better transportation makes it possible for the
+people to utilize them. The fact that these agencies must be located
+where they can serve the largest number of people, determines their
+location at the community centers and they are thus a large factor in
+unifying the community.
+
+Modern transportation has abolished the isolation of the farm and new
+means of communication have freed the spirit of the farmer and brought
+the world to his doors. Together they make possible so many
+satisfactions heretofore only available to the cities, as to quite
+revolutionize the whole aspect of rural life. They give a new position
+to the rural community and to the farmer's status in it.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] Community is derived from the Old English word _commonty_ which
+came to mean "the body of the common people, commons." Communication is
+from the Latin _communicare_, also derived from _communis_--common, and
+_ic_ (the formative of factitive verbs)--to make, or to make common.
+
+[14] "The Country Town," p. 20.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE FARM AND THE VILLAGE
+
+
+We have seen that an active community must focus its life at some
+center, and that this center is usually a village which has been
+established primarily for business purposes. The relation of the
+American village to the surrounding farms is historically unique and is
+largely due to the rapidity and ease with which large areas of the
+United States were settled after the advent of railroads. In the
+colonial period and the early days of the New West, every settlement was
+so isolated that it was obliged to be largely self-sufficient.
+Transportation was slow and uncertain and prohibitive for other than the
+necessities which could not be locally produced. Under these conditions
+the farmer and village business man were so inter-dependent that they
+were forced to consider each other's interests. But when settlement
+became safer and transportation easier the homesteaders took up their
+claims without relation to village connections; they traded where it was
+most convenient, and their social life centered largely in the immediate
+neighborhood and in the district school and country church. On the other
+hand the village was settled by men who came primarily for business. The
+spirit of the age was that of competition and they came primarily for
+profits. Their business came from the farms, but they felt little sense
+of obligation to them. Every village was a potential city in their eyes
+and its growth and the rise of real estate values was of more concern to
+them than the development of the community's basic industry of
+agriculture. The village craftsman and business man gets most of his
+living from the farms and it should be to his interest to give them the
+best of service, but more and more he has become primarily a business
+man or craftsman, coming to the village to "make money" and moving on
+when he sees better opportunities elsewhere. His business and craft
+affiliations link him to the centers of commercial and industrial life
+in the cities, and he is strongly inclined to take the city's point of
+view. Particularly has this been the case with the country banker who
+has so largely controlled the economic life of the village and
+countryside. Too often he has inevitably been more largely influenced by
+the interests of eastern capital and the mortgage owners than by the
+real needs of his local constituency.
+
+The result has been an increasing friction between the villages and the
+farms, and we have come to think of them as two separate groups or
+interests rather than as essential and inter-dependent parts of a social
+area--the community. The literature of country life and of rural
+sociology has very rightly recognized the existing situation, but many
+writers seem to accept the division between village and farm as
+inevitable, and even question whether there can be a rural community of
+the type herein described, rather than to recognize that this is but a
+necessary stage in the beginning of community life, due to the mode of
+settlement and temporary conditions.
+
+This friction between farmer and villager has been most acute in the
+Middle West and has found its extreme expression in the Non-partisan
+League Movement, which has engendered a degree of bitterness between the
+two factions which cannot be permanently maintained without serious
+injury to their common interests. This, however, is only an attempt of
+the farmers to secure redress through political control, and is but the
+political form of expression of a protest which is being more
+effectively made as an economic movement through cooperative buying and
+selling agencies, particularly strong in Kansas and Nebraska, but
+rapidly spreading throughout the country.
+
+Some rural leaders would have us believe that the interests of the
+village and the farm are fundamentally antagonistic and irreconcilable.
+They advocate that the consolidated school or high school be placed in
+the open country where it will be uncontaminated by the urban-mindedness
+of the village; that the grange is the farmers' organization and is
+sufficient for him and has no need of affiliating itself with the
+affairs of the village; that the farmers should develop their own
+cooperative stores and selling agencies so that they can be economically
+independent of the "parasitic" trader of the village. Such a naive point
+of view has a certain logical simplicity which is based on the
+presupposition that conflict is inevitable and that justice and equity
+can be secured only through dominance. The same line of reasoning finds
+no solution of the problem of capital and labor, or of the interests of
+producer as over against consumer, except in strong organization and
+eternal economic conflict. It is apparent that there is much
+justification for this view and that it seems in many cases to be a
+necessary stage in the adjustment of interests, but that it is either
+inevitable or a permanent necessity is controverted both by experience
+and by a more thorough analysis of the relationships involved.
+
+There is no gainsaying the fact that conflict has been one of the chief
+agencies of human progress in the past; but neither can it be disputed
+that cooperation, or mutual aid, has been of equal importance. Neither
+attitude can be conceived as primary or dominant; they have interacted
+throughout the history of mankind. Fundamentally, the problem of the
+relationship of these two phases of life is much the same as that of the
+nature and function of good and evil. The one cannot exist without the
+other, and both are relative terms. Our present thought on these
+problems has been too largely dominated by a wrong interpretation of the
+theory of the survival of the fittest as the primary force in human
+evolution. We have assumed, and the German militarists carried the
+doctrine to a logical conclusion, that this hypothesis gave the sanction
+of a biological law to a competitive struggle between men. But such an
+inference was explicitly denied by Charles Darwin,[15] and has no
+biological foundation. The struggle he described is between species and
+not between members of the same species. On the other hand, we find
+throughout nature that those species have been most successful which
+have developed the most effective means of mutual aid.[16] Thus our
+economic and political thought has been dominated for the past two or
+three generations with a blind worship of the dogma of unrestrained
+competition, which has no basis of proof either in biological or social
+science.
+
+When we examine what has gone on in the older sections of our country
+and project the present tendencies into the future, we get a different
+point of view, and come to see that only by an adjustment of the
+relations of the village and the farm to each other can the best life of
+both be secured. We shall have occasion in subsequent chapters to
+consider the social and political problems involved, but let us here
+discuss merely the economic relations, which have been the chief source
+of discord.
+
+In the first place if we examine the situation in the older parts of the
+country we find a much more cordial relation between village and country
+than farther west, and a greater sense of belonging to a community. The
+reasons for this cannot be discussed in detail, but a large factor is
+the increasing tendency to centralize institutions; school, church,
+grange, lodge, stores, etc.; in the village as the country becomes
+older, roads are better, and higher standards develop. Furthermore, the
+relative status of the farmer changes the situation. In the older parts
+of the country most of the capital needed to supply credit to farmers
+and their business organizations comes from within the locality, whereas
+in the newer sections they are dependent upon outside capital. In the
+older sections where land has become more valuable and wealth has
+accumulated, the farmer as well as the villager is a bank director, and
+the amount of capital which the farmer has invested in his business is
+often much greater than that of the village business man. When the
+farmer comes into town in his first-class automobile as frequently as he
+desires, he has a very different status from former days. The
+"banker-farmer" movement, which started as an effort of the banker to
+assist the farmer in better methods of production and marketing, has now
+become a "farmer-banker" movement in which the country banker has been
+forced to give new thought to the credit facilities of his patrons, and
+is already challenging the justice of the country's credit facilities
+being dominated by the large city banks which are chiefly interested in
+financing industry and commerce.
+
+There is no question that in many a rural town there are too many
+stores, as there are in the cities, that in many cases their service is
+very inefficient, and occasionally their prices are exorbitant, but
+several forces are already tending to remedy these evils where they
+occur, and improvement may be hastened by intelligent and constructive
+discussion. Thus exorbitant prices or poor service has made possible the
+large sales of the mail-order houses, but the total volume of their
+business in most localities is relatively small and their competition
+has probably been beneficial to the wide-awake merchant. For first-class
+merchants have been able to show that they can meet the mail-order
+prices if the customer is willing to pay cash, and the advertising of
+the mail-order houses has undoubtedly increased the wants of the average
+farm household. In a recent address Dr. C. J. Galpin has pointed out
+that one of the shortcomings of the average country merchant is that he
+has not studied the needs of his patrons and brought to their attention
+new inventions and the better grades of goods. He holds that the higher
+standard of living of city people is largely due to the fact that
+attractive goods and better equipment are constantly brought to their
+attention in the shop windows and by salesmen.
+
+The cooperative buying of farm supplies and machinery, which is now
+assuming such large proportions, is due not merely to an effort to
+secure lower prices, but to secure better goods. It is a notorious fact
+that for many years the farmer has had to buy inferior fertilizers and
+feeds from local dealers because they were all he could get. Both mixed
+feeds and fertilizers have been sold under certain brands on much the
+same principle as patent medicines, until the farmer has organized his
+own agencies to secure their manufacture in accordance with the best
+scientific formulas. This has been primarily due to a short-sighted
+policy on the part of manufacturers, but it has done greater injury to
+the retailer who, in general, has made little effort to learn the real
+needs of his trade and supply it with the best goods. The same has been
+true of seeds and agricultural machinery. As a result of this one of the
+chief claims of such a cooperative agency as the New York
+Grange-League-Federation Exchange is that it is able not only to sell at
+a lower price but to furnish the best quality. The wide-awake country
+merchant has been keen to appreciate these facts and wherever he has
+studied his trade and devoted himself to its interests he has built up a
+successful business. The "Country Gentleman" has done a real service in
+recently publishing a series of articles by A. B. MacDonald which have
+described the successes of a few of the outstanding "Big Country
+Merchants."
+
+The "chain store" has not as yet invaded the village, but it is rapidly
+gaining a foothold in the smaller cities and village merchants may as
+well prepare for its competition, for there seems no good reason why its
+greater buying power and superior organization should not enable it to
+undersell the local merchant if the customer is willing to pay cash. As
+yet all chain stores are on a cash basis and this would seem to prevent
+their gaining much of the business of the farmer who has depended on
+long time credit. But the cooperative stores, which do business only for
+cash, have solved the credit problem by establishing credit facilities
+whereby short-time loans may be made and a credit established against
+which purchases are charged. There is no question that both farmer and
+merchant would be better off if credit were carried by a financial
+institution. The farmer is being rapidly educated in business practices,
+and it will be surprising if some enterprising corporation does not
+establish a chain of village stores which will do a cash business, but
+which will arrange for separate credit on a strictly business basis. If
+one looks at the trend of business in the cities and towns during recent
+years, he cannot but come to the conviction that either country
+merchants will have to get together so as to pool their purchasing power
+and get the advantages of expert assistance in advertising, accounting,
+store arrangement, and other technical services which the chain store
+enjoys, or they will be forced to content themselves with the poorer and
+less profitable class of trade. I have seen no studies of the matter,
+but it would be interesting to know how large an amount of farmer trade
+is now enjoyed by the chain groceries in our larger towns. My own
+impression is that they are a much more serious competitor of the small
+country merchant than is the mail-order house. These are but a few of
+the forces which will bring better service from the village merchant.
+
+There are also ways in which farmers may secure better service without
+attempting to operate a cooperative store of their own or deserting the
+local merchants. Farm Bureau associations have in numerous cases made
+arrangements with a local dealer whereby he would handle their seeds,
+fertilizers, or spraying materials at a specified rate of profit, upon
+condition that they give him all their trade in these articles and place
+their orders in advance. This principle of collective buying through an
+established merchant at an agreed rate of profit has much to commend it,
+and is being utilized by the Grange-League-Federation Exchange in New
+York state to take care of its local business as far as possible. The
+fact is that the profits of a strictly cooperative store, after paying
+the salary of a competent manager and other costs of operation, which
+would make a very attractive income for a single merchant, do not make a
+dividend to each of its many patrons much more than a good rate of
+interest on the total cost of purchases. It may as well be recognized
+that unless there be a strong loyalty to the cooperative principle by a
+considerable group of patrons and unless there be peculiar need of a
+cooperative store that it is not a mechanism which will automatically
+secure much lower prices or superior service, for the success of the
+enterprise depends primarily on the manager and if he be competent, he
+must be paid sufficient to command not only his services but his loyalty
+and initiative. The cooperative store will find it good business to have
+a profit-sharing arrangement with its manager and employees, if it
+expects to secure the same service from them that may be secured from
+the better merchants. On the other hand, if by pooling their buying
+power a group of farmers can throw their business to one merchant in
+consideration of his selling at a specified profit, even if only for a
+particular line of goods, they get the advantage of their collective
+purchasing power and have none of the responsibility for maintaining the
+business. Although it is my belief that the cooperative principle is
+essentially sound and must ultimately dominate our business life, yet it
+will need to find means of giving larger incentive to its managers if it
+is to compete with the best individual business men. After all, what is
+wanted is to get business on a functional basis, and if this can be
+accomplished by means of collective buying through an established
+business which furnishes its own capital and management, the farmer is
+the gainer. The essential thing is that business be put on the basis of
+public service rather than private profit. When that principle is
+recognized as being the only sound basis of our economic system, then
+the methods of business organization will be determined by what
+experience shows to be most advantageous to the community, and it may
+well be that true "_cooperative competition_" between individual
+merchants and cooperative stores may exist side by side with advantage
+to all concerned.
+
+Another factor in rural community life is the increase of industrial
+establishments in villages and small towns. There can be no question
+that the centralization of industry in our large cities, which has
+proceeded so rapidly since the development of steam power, has now
+passed its maximum and that there will be a considerable
+decentralization of certain industries which can be operated profitably
+in small units. The metropolitan city has passed its maximum of
+economic efficiency for many phases of manufacturing, if economic
+efficiency is judged by its power to produce "well-being," rather than
+mere wealth. We have been obsessed with the glamour of the bigness of
+the modern city and we are but beginning to seriously question its real
+efficiency. The possibility of superior living conditions in a small
+town are now being recognized both by employer and laborer, and better
+transportation and the development of electric power lines make possible
+the organization of certain of our large industries in small units. As
+this process proceeds the business of the village and small town will no
+longer be chiefly dependent on agriculture and there will be a further
+need for accommodation of the different interests of the community. Here
+again, some see only loss to rural life; but if one examines the
+situation more thoroughly, mutual advantages are equally apparent. If
+the farmers are organized for cooperative selling, they will be
+benefited by the better local markets, which are the backbone of the
+agricultural economy of so prosperous a country as France. Certain local
+industries, whose production is of a seasonal nature, might so arrange
+their operation that some of their labor might be available to work on
+the neighboring farms during the rush season. Even more important would
+be the increased purchasing power of the community, making possible
+better stores and business and professional services of all sorts, and
+the increase of wealth which would make possible the support of better
+schools, churches, and social advantages of all sorts. It is, of course,
+true that the introduction of industry in not a few cases seems to have
+lowered the standards of community life, but this is by no means
+universal or inevitable.
+
+One of the unfortunate phases of the efforts of small communities to
+secure industrial plants is that they often secure establishments which
+are not adapted to local conditions or whose financial status is
+insecure, and the enterprise inevitably results in failure, with
+discouragement to all concerned. There is great need for county chambers
+of commerce or commercial clubs with skilled commercial executives as
+secretaries who can give the same expert service to the business life of
+the small rural communities that the cities now have. The business life
+of the community might profit as much from such a service as the farms
+have from the expert assistance afforded through the Farm Bureaus.[17]
+
+We have been considering the economic relations of the farm and the
+village as affecting community life, for they are at present the chief
+factor in creating community interest, as well as the leading cause of
+group friction. The rural community of to-day is primarily an economic
+unit, but in the future it seems probable that business will occupy a
+relatively less important place than the social activities of the
+community center. Not that there will necessarily be less business,
+although the widening of markets constantly tends to take business from
+the local centers, but that business will be more efficient and less
+competitive; business will not occupy so large a share of attention, but
+will take its rightful place as a means to an end, while the community
+will take more interest in those institutions which actively promote all
+phases of its higher life, of health, education, art, sociability, and
+religion.
+
+These social institutions will increase in relative importance and they
+must be located at the community center if they are to have a sufficient
+constituency to be efficient in their work and command the loyalty of
+rural people. Inasmuch as both farmer and villager are necessary for the
+adequate support of church, lodge, school, and other community
+organizations, they cannot be expected to work together in these
+activities if one is antagonistic to the other, or if the one is helping
+to put the other out of business. The farmer has had many grievances
+against the townsman, but the fault has not been entirely on one side,
+and only by mutual support and the recognition of their dependent
+interests can a satisfactory community life be maintained. The root of
+the whole trouble lies in the imaginary division of the community into
+town and country. With the realization that their common interests are
+essential and that their differences are due to lack of proper
+adjustment, many of these difficulties will be alleviated. It is my
+experience that in the most successful communities, the farmers speak of
+"our" town, they are proud of "our" bank, and "our" stores, school, and
+churches are the best in the region. Such loyalty is the best of
+evidence that the business men of the town have devoted themselves to
+supplying the farmers' needs, and that there is mutual understanding
+between them. Only by a common loyalty to mutual service can the true
+community exist.
+
+Farmers need the village and it should be to them "our town," of whose
+successes and improvements they are proud. As the villagers cannot exist
+without the farmers they should be interested in supporting every
+movement for the farmers' weal. As they have more frequent contacts with
+other centers and with cities, they will be the first to bring many new
+ideas and suggestions to the community, but they must realize that only
+as all elements of the community are agreed will any new movement be
+permanently successful. There must be loyalty to farm leaders as well as
+to those of the village. Indeed, the most successful rural communities
+are those in which all are one big community family whose institutional
+interests center in the village.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] See George Nasmyth, "Social Progress and the Darwinian Theory."
+
+[16] See P. Kropotkin, "Mutual Aid."
+
+[17] See L. H. Bailey, "The Place of the Village in the Country-Life
+Movement," York State Rural Problems, II, 148. Albany, N. Y., 1915.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COMMUNITY ASPECTS OF THE FARM BUSINESS
+
+
+In the days of the pioneer the farm business was hardly affected by
+community conditions. A general store where necessities could be
+purchased, a mill where grain could be ground, and a blacksmith shop
+were about the only necessary business agencies. The farm was largely
+self-sufficient and there was but little real community life. Nor was
+there much change in the next generation or two among the farmers who
+built substantial homes, supported their neighborhood churches and
+schools, and with the free labor of a good-sized family made a
+comfortable living. Their interests were chiefly in their families and
+neighbors, and questions of local government were about the only
+community bond. When new sections of the country were opened up by
+railroads and with the growth of cities farm lands increased rapidly in
+value, there was an era of speculative farming, which Dr. Warren H.
+Wilson has called the era of the "exploiter."[18] A farm was bought with
+an idea of its improvement and resale at a good profit, and many farmers
+moved from one section to another in search of new land which was both
+fertile and cheap.[19] The era of land speculation has by no means
+passed, as has been learned to their sorrow by many who bought farms at
+inflated prices during the World War, and whenever there is a sudden
+rise in land values, speculation will doubtless recur. On the other
+hand, as cheap lands become scarce, as the better lands become more
+valuable and the amount of capital required to equip and operate a farm
+in the better agricultural sections increases, there will be less
+tendency to be on the lookout for a profitable sale and the farm
+business will become more permanent because of the large effort and
+capital expended in the enterprise and the consequent attachment of the
+owner. A man with a considerable investment does not care to move
+frequently. Thus higher land values--inevitable with an increasing
+population--will favor a more permanent type of farming, conducted on
+scientific and business principles, of what Dr. Wilson calls the
+"husbandman" type. This type of farmer not only desires but requires
+better institutions of all sorts, which can only be maintained at a
+community center. Thus permanency of ownership of farm operators
+conduces to community development.
+
+Unfortunately, however, the rise of values of the best land seems to
+encourage tenancy rather than ownership, for tenancy is greatest and
+increases most on the best farm lands. The general economic aspects and
+the ultimate solution of the tenancy problem are national rather than
+local problems. The effect of tenancy as it now exists, with a frequent
+shifting from one community to another, is, however, a very serious
+community problem, for all observers agree that the maintenance of a
+satisfactory standard of community life is much more difficult where
+tenancy predominates.
+
+One important economic aspect of tenancy is that tenants, who are
+frequently moving, will less readily and effectively affiliate in
+cooperative enterprises, and we shall see that cooperative organizations
+have a large influence in promoting the solidarity of the rural
+community. This has been well brought out by one of our best students
+of the tenancy problem, Dr. C. L. Stewart, who says:
+
+      "Farming efficiency in the future, however, will probably
+      consist to a greater extent in the ability to increase net
+      profits through cooperative dealing with the market. The
+      efficiency test must, therefore, rule more strongly against
+      operators of the tenures, whose characteristics are opposed
+      to successful cooperative effort on their part.
+
+      "That tenants," he continues, "changing from farm to farm at
+      more or less short intervals, should generally be more
+      active and successful than owners in building up cooperative
+      organizations is hardly in the line of reason.... If in the
+      future, cooperation assumes forms requiring greater
+      permanency of membership in the societies, greater intimacy
+      of acquaintance among the members, or greater investment per
+      member, the tenants will doubtless find themselves
+      handicapped in their relation thereto."[20]
+
+The effect of a large percentage of tenants is even more serious upon
+the social side of community life. Those who have studied the problem
+are agreed that both schools and churches tend to be inferior in tenant
+communities. There is little "chance of development of deep friendships
+and associations which give vitality to church life" where a large
+proportion of the tenants are frequently moving, nor can they give as
+good financial support to the church as landowners. The frequent
+shifting of the tenant population creates a difficult problem for all
+the social life of the community, for it is impossible for a community
+to assimilate a considerable percentage of its population every year and
+to develop those strong ties of loyalty which are essential to real
+community life.
+
+Thus a reasonable permanency of residence of its population is
+essential to successful community life and this is largely determined by
+the economic situation of the farm business. And the importance of the
+effect of tenancy, or any other economic aspect of agriculture on the
+life of its people must be recognized as a fundamental consideration in
+determining rural policies. Well being _on_ the land and not wealth
+_from_ the land is the final goal of agriculture.
+
+Community life is also affected by the type of farming which is
+prevalent among its people. Modern agriculture is becoming specialized,
+and the crops grown are determined both by soil and climate and by the
+markets available. Fruit sections are due primarily to the former, while
+the regions producing market milk are determined chiefly by the latter
+factor. Now various types of farming make distinctly different demands
+upon the time of the farmer and so to a considerable extent they
+condition his social life. Dairying is probably the most confining sort
+of farming, and on the one-man farm there is little opportunity for
+getting away. "Haven't missed milking morning or night for six years,"
+one dairyman replied to me when asked if he ever had a vacation. The
+fruit grower, on the other hand, during the winter can take a few weeks
+to go South or visit relatives without injury to his business. In the
+South after the crops are "laid by" in midsummer is the season for
+camp-meetings, picnics, and "frolicking" in general. Not only does the
+fruit grower have more leisure than the dairyman, but population is
+denser in a fruit-growing or trucking community and hence the
+communities are smaller and more compact. Just what characteristics of
+community life may be attributed to these differences in vocation it
+would be difficult to say, for so far as I am aware no exact studies
+have compared several communities of each type, but that they exercise a
+large influence on community customs and the social attitudes of the
+people is patent to even a casual observer who passes from a dairy
+section to a fruit region, or from the northwestern grain belt to a
+region of general farming.[21]
+
+Specialization in agricultural production also affects community life in
+that its economic interests are unified both as regards production and
+marketing and as the income of most of its people comes from one or two
+products, their attention is focused upon them and a greater degree of
+solidarity results than where farming is more diversified and farmers
+are not so dependent on the sale of one or two crops. Specialization is
+chiefly due to advantages which it ensures in marketing, as will be
+indicated in the next chapter, and it is because there is less economic
+pressure to compel general farmers to market together and that they lack
+the solidarity developed by specialization, that cooperative selling
+associations have not generally succeeded in a general farming region
+when they have attempted to handle various farm products.
+
+Specialization in agriculture encourages further division of labor
+because there is a sufficient volume of work to pay for expert services.
+Thus dairy communities have developed cow-test associations, which
+employ one man to test the percent of butter-fat for each cow, to
+interpret their milk production records, and sometimes to advise them
+with regard to feeding. In fruit regions a considerable business is done
+in contract spraying. Threshing crews and threshing-rings have long been
+common. Custom plowing by tractor, and hauling of farm produce by motor
+truck are becoming common. It seems probable that such division of labor
+will increase as much as is practicable, but it finds very definite
+limitations in the agricultural industry, due to the very short season
+in which many operations can be performed and which thus gives short
+employment for any of the seasonal operations.
+
+Division of labor also involves increasing the manufacture or
+"processing" of agricultural products which is an asset to the community
+if performed locally as far as possible. Butter is no longer made in the
+home but at the creamery, and milk is prepared for the city market at
+the shipping station, or is sold to a local condensary, all of which
+employ more or less skilled labor. With crops which are perishable or
+bulky, "processing" must be performed locally. Thus canneries are
+located where the vegetables or fruits are grown. Although the selling
+of equipment for cooperative canning plants has been almost as much of a
+swindle as promoting cooperative creameries, yet large numbers of
+cooperative creameries exist where conditions for them are suitable, and
+there seems no inherent reason why cooperative canneries cannot be made
+successful when farmers have learned how to organize and to employ
+expert help.[22] In his delightful vision of the possibilities of a new
+Ireland, entitled "The National Being," George William Russell ("A.
+E."), holds out the hope that the increase of such local cooperative
+manufacture of agricultural products may be the means of furnishing an
+opportunity for the rural laborer to better his status.
+
+      "But what I hope for most," he says, "is first that the
+      natural evolution of the rural community, and the
+      concentration of individual manufacture, purchase, and sale
+      into communal enterprises, will lead to a very large
+      cooperative ownership of expensive machinery, which will
+      necessitate the communal employment of labor. If this takes
+      place, as I hope it will, the rural laborer, instead of
+      being a manual worker using primitive implements, will have
+      the status of a skilled mechanic employed permanently by a
+      cooperative community. He should be a member of the society
+      which employs him, and in the division of the profits
+      receive in proportion to his wage, as the farmers in
+      proportion to their trade."[23]
+
+To the extent that "processing" farm products is taken from the farm and
+performed at the community center, or that there is a division of labor,
+the local community is thereby strengthened, for its life is more highly
+organized; it is more inter-dependent.
+
+An interesting phase of the relation of the community to the farm
+business is in the protection of crops and animals from insect pests and
+diseases. If one man plants his wheat late enough to escape the Hessian
+fly his crop is benefited, but if all in a community do so the
+subsequent infection is greatly reduced with consequent advantage to
+all. The chief obstacle preventing the successful combating of the
+cotton boll weevil in the South has been the difficulty of securing
+united action in the necessary cultural measures for its control. Most
+striking results have been secured in the eradication of the Texas Fever
+Tick from large areas of the South, although this has been carried on
+using the county as a unit; for many purposes in the South the county is
+practically a community. Some of the best community work in this field
+has been in the West in poisoning ground squirrels and other injurious
+rodents and in rabbit drives. Although the poisoning campaigns are
+conducted over whole counties or several counties, they are organized by
+communities and their success is possible only because every one in the
+community does his part. Whenever the farmers of a community become
+convinced that they are unable to fight a pest or disease individually,
+but can do so if they act collectively so that a sufficiently large area
+is treated as to prevent immediate re-infection, a new community bond
+has been established. Whether these activities are carried on by
+communities of the exact nature previously defined (page 10) is
+immaterial. The significant fact is that their people are learning how
+to act together in the common defense, for it was the common defense
+which first compelled mankind to live in communities, and it is defense
+for one purpose or another which is ever compelling the people of a
+locality to act together.
+
+Farm management experts point out the practical value to the farmer of
+community experience with regard to methods of farm practice peculiarly
+adapted to local climate, soils, and markets. If one is going into
+dairying he can learn little from his neighbors if he locates in a fruit
+section, but in a dairy section he may constantly learn from the common
+experience. Dr. G. F. Warren says:
+
+      "There is so much to learn about farming in any community
+      that one man cannot hope to learn it alone. The experience
+      of the community is of the utmost value to every farmer.
+      Different men try out new varieties of crops, new machines,
+      different breeds of animals, different methods of raising
+      crops, different methods of building construction, different
+      ways of saving labor. Each man gets the experiences of all;
+      if a man is following a type of farming different from his
+      neighbors, he cannot hope to try all these things. He is not
+      likely to progress very rapidly."[24]
+
+These advantages occur if there be a true community; i.e., if through
+communication one may learn the experience of others, but in some cases
+the experience is of little value because it is not available.
+
+Finally farmers are coming to find it profitable to establish the
+reputation of a community for advertising purposes. So at the railroad
+station we are faced with the sign, "Kalamazoo, the home of celery." We
+know of "Kalamazoo, direct to you" stoves, but we had forgotten that it
+is one of the oldest and best celery-growing communities in the country.
+Thus increased specialization gives very real advertising values to a
+community which builds up a reputation for its products. But such a
+reputation is simply the recognition by the outside world of the
+character of the community. Thus ability to advertise itself is a very
+real index of its solidarity, and the desire to be able to gain
+advantage from advertising may become a real motive for activities of a
+community, as it does with many an individual. The ability to advertise
+but shows the economic value of the creation of a real community.
+
+Common interests in the farm business form the primary bond for the
+establishment of true rural communities, and the strongest of these
+common interests are those involved in the problems of marketing.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] See "The Evolution of the Country Community."
+
+[19] See Hamlin Garland, "A Son of the Middle Border."
+
+[20] Land Tenure in the United States with special reference to
+Illinois, University of Illinois, "Studies in the Social Sciences," Vol.
+V, No. 3, Sept., 1916, p. 124.
+
+[21] See John M. Gillette, "Constructive Rural Sociology" (1st Ed.),
+Chapter III.
+
+[22] For an excellent discussion of "Processing Farm Products," see
+Theodore Macklin, "Efficient Marketing for Agriculture," Macmillan, New
+York, 1921, Chap. VI.
+
+[23] "The National Being, Some Thoughts on Irish Polity," p. 57, Maunsel
+& Co., Dublin and London, 1916.
+
+[24] "Farm Management," p. 98, Macmillan & Co., New York, 1913.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+HOW MARKETS AFFECT RURAL COMMUNITIES
+
+
+We have already observed the influence of transportation and the growth
+of markets in revolutionizing the self-sufficient farming of the pioneer
+and the industrial self-dependency of the isolated community, but we
+must give further consideration to the influence of markets on rural
+community life, for the world is now facing problems of the readjustment
+of its whole economic system which necessitate a better understanding by
+the farmer of his dependence on markets and by urban populations of
+their dependence upon the raw materials produced by the farm, if the
+mechanism of our complex modern civilization is to be maintained. These
+relations involve the largest questions of the interdependence of
+industries and of national and international policy in relation thereto,
+and we can but call attention to some of the more fundamental principles
+involved. An understanding of some of the elementary principles of
+agricultural economy in relation to national and international economy
+by the masses of our farmers, but particularly by their local leaders,
+is essential to any permanent progress not only of agriculture, but of
+industry and commerce.
+
+Before the time of railroads when rural communities were isolated from
+the few cities situated on the seaboard and along the larger waterways,
+there was little incentive for the inland farmer to raise more than he
+needed for the use of his own family. As a result there was inefficient
+farming and a low standard of living.[25] Railroad transportation made
+it possible for the farmer to send his products to the existing markets
+and so made it an object for him to produce a surplus, but, more
+important, it also made possible the rapid growth of numerous industrial
+and commercial centers and so was directly responsible for the creation
+of new and growing markets. Steam power, the use of coal, and the
+economies of the factory system made it possible to manufacture in large
+city factories many articles previously produced in the farmer's home or
+in the village centers. Thus a division of labor was effected which was
+profitable to all parties; the growth of industrial populations gave the
+farmer a market for his produce, and in turn he was able to purchase
+from the city many goods previously unknown to the farm--fertilizers,
+agricultural machinery, factory-made clothing, furniture, and other
+factory products too numerous to mention. Furthermore, transportation
+and reasonably stable government made possible the growth of
+international commerce so that the markets of many staple farm products
+became practically world-wide and a division of labor arose between
+certain nations. England and Germany are dependent on other countries
+for a considerable part of their food supplies and raw materials, while
+certain agricultural countries depend on them for manufactured goods.
+
+The point which must ever be borne in mind in considering the relation
+of rural and urban communities is their interdependence; that the
+development both of modern industrial centers and of modern agriculture
+and the higher standards of living on American farms, have been due to
+an exchange of commodities and services which was mutually
+advantageous. Without the growth of markets our farms would still be
+self-sufficing, but they would lack the many comforts and cultural
+advantages which they now enjoy, and this rise in the farmer's standard
+of living has stimulated further growth of industry and so made better
+markets.
+
+These considerations are particularly pertinent at the present time of
+agricultural and business depression. The present position of American
+agriculture, and its lack of buying power in our markets, has been
+largely due to the fact that Europe has heretofore furnished an open
+market for our surplus agricultural products. To-day Europe is unable to
+purchase this surplus. The cause seems to be chiefly an economic
+paralysis resulting from the political interference by the tariff walls
+of newly-created states with the established economic relations of
+agricultural areas and manufacturing centers, and an unwillingness of
+the farmer to do business with a currency so debased that its value is
+highly problematical. So we see the great city of Vienna,[26] once one
+of the gayest and most brilliant capitals of Europe, now reduced to
+destitution, and the cities not only of Russia but of Germany being
+forced to revert to the ancient system of barter in order to secure
+adequate food.
+
+The ultimate dependence of all cities upon the farms and mines is to-day
+exemplified in Europe with such appalling tragedy, that even the smug
+isolation of the American farmer and the American business man is broken
+down, not only by human sympathy but by the necessity of a better
+adjustment of their own economic system to the world crisis from which
+they are unable to escape.
+
+This shift of control from the city to the country has been powerfully
+portrayed by Norman Angell:
+
+      "Moreover, the problem (of feeding Great Britain) is
+      affected by what is perhaps the most important economic
+      change in the world since the industrial revolution, namely
+      the alteration in the ratio of the exchange value of
+      manufacture and food--the shift over of advantage in
+      exchange from the side of the industrialist and manufacturer
+      to the side of the producer of food."[27]
+
+      "Before the War the towns of Europe were the luxurious and
+      opulent centers; the rural districts were comparatively
+      poor. To-day it is the cities of the continent that are
+      half-starved or famine-stricken, while the farms are
+      well-fed and relatively opulent. In Russia, Poland, Hungary,
+      Germany, Austria; the cities perish but the peasants for the
+      most part have a sufficiency. The cities are finding that
+      with the breakdown of the old stability--of the transport
+      and credit systems particularly--they cannot obtain food
+      from the farmers. This process which we now see at work on
+      the continent is in fact the reverse of our historical
+      development."[28]
+
+But although the farmer may have sufficient food for the time--though in
+Russia millions are starving, due in considerable measure to the
+economic and political chaos of the nation--yet if this reverse process
+should go on, rural civilization would be reduced to that of former
+generations, and its advance would be possible only when the industries
+which furnish its material basis were revived and confidence in the
+medium of exchange were again established. The city owes its existence
+to the farm, but without the city the farm would go back to the hoe and
+the sickle and the "age of homespun."
+
+I am not seeking to justify the modern city, for its economic and social
+weaknesses are ever increasingly apparent, but it is important that we
+fully realize the fact that rural progress has been chiefly due to the
+goods and services received in exchange from urban markets. We have
+already noted the tendency toward specialization in agriculture and its
+effect on the rural community, and that specialization has been chiefly
+due to markets. One of the chief factors in encouraging specialization
+in the growth of certain products by whole communities and sections is
+the fact that a larger volume of a given product ensures better
+marketing facilities and a better price to the producer as long as the
+supply is not in excess of the demand. Where there is a considerable
+volume of a certain product, buyers can meet their demands more easily
+and are attracted to it, whereas a small lot of howsoever good a product
+must seek a buyer. Freight rates are reduced, damage in transit is
+reduced, and better transportation is secured in carload and trainload
+than in small shipments. The middleman's charges are less if he is
+assured a considerable volume of business. Thus specialization makes
+possible a more effective system of marketing than is possible with
+indiscriminate production.
+
+Not only must there be sufficient volume of a given product, but it must
+be so standardized with regard to varieties, grade and quantities or
+packages that the reputation of the goods may be established in the
+market. In order to secure uniformity it has been found necessary to
+standardize varieties and to grow a few well-known varieties of a given
+product which are best adapted to local conditions and to the market,
+rather than a number of varieties, as might be feasible if they were all
+sold directly on the local market.
+
+Uniformity of grading and packing is also essential to establish a
+reputation on the market. A concern like the California Fruit Growers'
+Exchange cannot afford to spend half a million dollars a year in
+advertising unless it knows that its product will be as advertised, for
+advertising an unreliable product may secure temporary sales, but will
+hardly be a profitable investment, for the value of advertising an
+honest product is cumulative. To secure necessary uniformity of grading
+and packing it has been found necessary with almost all agricultural
+products to have the grading and packing done at a central establishment
+rather than on the farm. For even assuming the honesty and good intent
+of the farmer, the standards and skill of different farmers will vary to
+such an extent that uniformity is impossible. Uniformity of grade and
+package must be secured at some stage of the process of marketing before
+the goods are bought by the retailer. Until recently much of this
+service has been performed by the commission men at the central markets,
+who have taken what was shipped to them or what their agents purchased
+and graded it to meet the demands of the trade, and who, of course, had
+to charge for their services. It has been found more profitable with
+most products to have the grading and packing done as near to the farm
+as is possible to secure a sufficient volume of business for the
+enterprise. Thus we have local packing houses for fruits, potatoes,
+poultry products, grain elevators, etc., usually located at the point of
+primary shipment. These local plants, as well as local creameries,
+canneries, and other agricultural factories and storage plants, become
+community institutions as they meet the needs of the farmers within the
+areas tributary to the centers where they are located. It is true, of
+course, that many of these plants are located in the open country or at
+mere railroad stations, and that many of them draw their patronage from
+several communities; yet more commonly than otherwise they are located
+at village centers and serve the areas tributary to them. With the
+advent of good roads and motor trucks, the areas served by such
+establishments will tend to become larger, but there are many local
+circumstances which will tend to limit the process of centralization.
+Whether these plants are operated by private individuals, by stock
+companies, or by cooperative associations of the producers, they are
+essential to an effective marketing system and may greatly strengthen
+community life. If, however, there be two or three elevators in a little
+village, each operated for profit by a private owner, where all the
+business could be more economically handled by one concern and where the
+competition creates friction and suspicion, then like the rivalry
+between an excessive number of churches, they tend to divide the
+community.
+
+Students of marketing problems seem agreed that better marketing systems
+will benefit the farmer through greater efficiency which will reduce the
+costs of the process rather than through greater profits from higher
+prices, and that in many lines the largest improvement is possible in
+the grading, packing, and shipping from the local station. This being
+the case, it seems obvious that the solution of the marketing problem
+will increasingly depend upon community action.
+
+Better transportation and storage facilities tend to stabilize prices
+over large areas and to give the larger markets increasing advantage in
+bargaining for the farmer's products. Not that there is any concerted
+action upon the part of the buyers to take an undue advantage of the
+farmer, for there is usually keen competition between them, but
+inevitably the "centralization" of the buying power of the larger
+markets makes it possible for them to very largely determine the price,
+just as the large employers of labor can to a considerable extent
+determine the wages they will pay if labor is unorganized; for whenever
+there is a surplus the individual farmer must sell, while the buyer can,
+within limits, purchase where or from whom he chooses. Thus for the same
+reason that labor is forced to organize trade unions to maintain its
+wages and working conditions, farmers are forced to organize to market
+their products together and to bargain collectively for their price.
+This is the outstanding agricultural movement of the past decade and at
+the present time is so successfully challenging the established system
+of marketing as to command national attention. The success of such a
+movement depends primarily upon the solidarity and efficiency of the
+local units, so that collective bargaining requires the organization of
+the agricultural community into selling associations for its various
+products. The whole process encourages the economic organization of the
+rural community and heightens community consciousness through the effort
+of its members to defend their common economic interests.
+
+The method of collective selling may vary, but in practice the
+cooperative selling association has proven the most satisfactory and
+will be discussed in the following chapter.
+
+When the most successful farmers on the best land in Illinois lose
+twenty-five cents on every bushel of corn they raised, as was the case
+in 1921, and when it is easier for isolated farmers in Kansas to burn
+corn than to buy coal at the prices current, while at the same time
+millions of innocent women and children are starving in Europe, it seems
+evident that the complex system of marketing upon which modern industry
+and civilization has depended, is pretty well out of gear and that
+national and international questions must be wisely solved before it can
+again function. Yet in last analysis the solution of the complex
+problems of marketing rests not alone with international treaties, but
+with the farmers' selling associations of the rural communities. If we
+are to have a marketing system which is truly functional, which is built
+on the principle of the greatest service at the lowest cost, rather than
+on the principle now implicit in business of sufficient service to
+secure the maximum of profit which the traffic will bear, then it must
+be a cooperative system, the primary unit of which is the local
+cooperative association, whose success depends upon the loyalty of its
+members to the cooperative principle. So cooperation is a community
+problem.
+
+Nor can we expect marked progress in other phases of rural life as long
+as the economic question is acute. It is not true that economic
+prosperity in agriculture will of itself ensure the higher culture of
+the countryside; but it is true that so long as the farmer is compelled
+to devote all of his strength and time to making a competence for his
+family, that his attention must necessarily be fixed on economic ends
+and that he will have neither the means nor the time for those
+satisfactions of life which are possible to one with some leisure. Says
+"A.E.": "I believe the fading hold the heavens have over the world is
+due to the neglect of the economic basis of spiritual life. What
+profound spiritual life can there be when the social order almost forces
+men to battle with each other for the means of existence?"[29] For weal
+or woe the material existence of both farmer and townman throughout the
+civilized world is inextricably inter-dependent. If a better economic
+system is to arise it must come through the general understanding of
+these relations by the education of all parties and by a willingness to
+find satisfaction in the well-being of all rather than in the largest
+individual profit. Unless these attitudes can be established in the
+local community, how can we expect to secure harmony of interests among
+larger groups? Loyalty to the common good must first be developed in the
+local community among neighbors.
+
+In subsequent chapters we shall have occasion to consider various forces
+and methods for creating this spirit of community, and we shall see that
+whereas the higher culture of rural life awaits a better economic
+system, this spirit of loyalty which is essential for cooperative
+organizations may be developed through various forms of community
+activity.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] See Percy Wells Bidwell, "Rural Economy in New England at the
+Beginning of the Nineteenth Century." Trans. Comm. Acad. Arts and Sci.,
+Vol. 20, p. 253, 1916; and E. G. Nourse, "Agricultural Economics," p.
+65.
+
+[26] See the account of Mr. A. G. Gardiner, _Manchester Guardian_,
+Weekly Edition, Feb. 6, 1920, quoted by Norman Angell in "The Fruits of
+Victory," p. 27: "Suddenly all this elaborate structure of economic life
+was swept away. Vienna, instead of being the vital center of fifty
+millions of people, finds itself a derelict city, with a province of six
+millions. It is cut off from its coal supplies, from its food supplies,
+from its factories, from everything that means existence. It is
+enveloped by tariff walls."
+
+[27] "The Fruits of Victory," p. 12, New York, 1921.
+
+[28] _Ibid._, p. 14.
+
+[29] (George William Russell), "The National Being," p. 167.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+HOW COOPERATION STRENGTHENS THE COMMUNITY
+
+
+The greatest improvements in marketing are being effected through
+cooperation. We have indicated that willingness to work together for the
+common good and loyalty to this principle are essential for successful
+cooperative enterprises. As these same attitudes are the basis of
+community life, it seems obvious that to the extent that membership in
+cooperative associations becomes general throughout a community, the
+stronger will be the community life. Indeed, the very etymology of the
+two words, _cooperate_--to work together, and _community_--having in
+common, indicate that community activities are essentially a form of
+cooperation--of working together. Inasmuch as cooperative enterprises
+are rapidly increasing and that they must, therefore, exercise a
+powerful influence upon community life, it is necessary to gain a clear
+idea of just what is involved in the principle of cooperation and to
+what types of organization the term is applicable.
+
+In a general way there has always been a certain amount of cooperation
+between neighboring farmers in the exchange of work in barn-raisings,
+threshing, silo-filling, slaughtering, etc. Out of this have grown such
+cooperative organizations as threshing rings, and groups for the common
+ownership and use of all sorts of more expensive machinery, the
+cooperative ownership of sires, cow-test associations, and many other
+forms of organization for mutual aid in farm operations. All of these
+are cooperative associations in the common usage of the word
+cooperation, but in recent years the term has come to have a more
+technical meaning to denote a form of organization in contrast to the
+corporation or stock company, which has been the most prevalent type of
+business organization in recent years.
+
+The cooperative association differs from the corporation or stock
+company in three essentials. First, it is democratic in its control; all
+true cooperative organizations employ the principle of "one man, one
+vote," the influence of each member of the association being equal as
+far as the legal control of its administration is concerned. The
+individual members and not the amount of stock owned controls the policy
+of the association. Cooperation is democracy applied to business.
+Second, the cooperative association is organized to secure more
+efficient service rather than to exact profits. This is a point upon
+which there is much misunderstanding upon the part of those starting
+cooperative enterprises and which requires further explanation. Third,
+the earnings or savings of the association (commonly thought of as
+"profits") are distributed among the members or patrons of the
+association _pro rata_ according to the volume of the business which
+they have transacted with the association, so that although its control
+is democratic its benefits accrue according to the amount of financial
+interest involved. There are certain other principles of business
+procedure which have been found essential to the successful operation of
+different kinds of cooperative associations, but these three--individual
+voting, service rather than profits, and pro-rating the earnings--are
+fundamental to all truly cooperative associations, and it is to this
+combination of business methods to which the term cooperation has now
+come to be applied in a technical sense.
+
+Exclusive of associations formed for cooperation in the general sense of
+the term, i.e., for various purposes of farm operation as mentioned
+above, farmers' cooperative associations may be divided into three
+general groups: for buying, for selling, and for finance.
+
+Cooperative buying has been most successfully developed by industrial
+workers in towns and cities and is commonly known as "consumers'
+cooperation." Starting with a few poverty-stricken workers who pooled
+their meager savings so that they could buy at wholesale and share in
+the profits of the retailer, the Rochdale system has grown until the
+wholesale cooperative societies of England and Scotland are probably the
+largest general merchandising corporations in the world, doing a
+business of approximately a billion dollars a year.
+
+Cooperative buying of farm supplies, fertilizers, machinery, spraying
+materials, feeds, binder twine, etc., is one of the first forms of
+cooperative effort ordinarily undertaken by farmers' associations, and
+is carried on by numerous methods. In most cases the services rendered
+in the business management of such buying is at first largely on a
+voluntary basis or is but poorly paid. Only in a few sections of the
+country has the cooperative buying of agricultural supplies assumed a
+permanent or stable form of organization, and in those cases it is very
+frequently a department of a cooperative selling association, such as a
+fruit exchange. From an educational standpoint there is much to be said
+for commencing cooperation through organization for buying agricultural
+supplies, for through it farmers are trained in the principles of
+cooperation with the greatest possibility of advantage and the least
+risk of loss. There is little probability of loss in judicious
+cooperative purchases of carload lots with orders in hand, while in
+cooperative selling, unless marketing facilities are so bad as to force
+him to take the risk, the chance of loss is a serious consideration to
+the farmer. This point has been well stated by Edwin A. Pratt, a leader
+of agricultural organization in England, who says:
+
+      "Inquiry into the conditions under which organization of
+      agriculture has been successfully carried out in other
+      countries showed that a beginning had invariably been made
+      with the simplest form of combination for the joint purchase
+      of agricultural necessaries. In this way the advantages of
+      cooperation could be brought home to cultivators, who were
+      gradually educated in the theory and practice of combination
+      without having their suspicions aroused and their mutual
+      distrust stimulated by proposals that they should at once
+      alter their old conditions of trading in accordance with
+      that system of combination for transport or sale which
+      really constitutes not the beginning of agricultural
+      organization, but one of the most difficult and most
+      complicated of all its many phases."[30]
+
+One of the allurements of cooperative buying has been to at once
+establish a cooperative store for a general merchandising business. The
+history of such stores started by granges in the 70's and 80's is
+instructive in this connection. A few of them survive, but most of them
+were failures. Only after years of experience and education in
+cooperative purchasing and other cooperative enterprises have the aims
+and methods of operating cooperative stores been sufficiently
+appreciated by most rural communities to ensure their successful
+establishment. We have already considered (page 48) some of the
+considerations which should govern the attempt to compete with local
+merchants. Generally the successful operation of a cooperative store is
+more difficult for an average group of farmers to manage than the
+simpler forms of cooperative purchasing, or cooperative credit or
+selling associations.[31] Moreover, a cooperative store will seriously
+affect the solidarity of a small community unless a goodly majority,
+both from farm and village, are convinced of the necessity of competing
+with local retailers and will give the store their patronage. Except in
+the buying of agricultural supplies, which may be considered rather as
+the raw materials and equipment of the farm as a manufacturing business
+and which are therefore entitled to wholesale prices, consumers'
+cooperation as usually conducted through cooperative stores is not a
+distinctively agricultural problem, but is the same for the farmer as
+for the villager or industrial worker, and its desirability and
+limitations are determined by similar considerations.
+
+With the change to a commercial type of farming and with the higher
+price of land, the American farmer has had to make larger use of
+borrowed capital and his business has been seriously hampered by a lack
+of credit facilities to meet his needs. Probably in no field of
+cooperative effort have the benefits been more apparent than in that of
+the rural credit banks which are found throughout Europe and which have
+thoroughly demonstrated their usefulness. Attention has been called to
+the fact that our best farm lands are more and more operated by tenants,
+and that this is inimical to strong community life. One of the reasons
+for this tendency has been the inability to secure long-term loans on
+farm real estate by the man who has little capital of his own. As lands
+rose in value this became increasingly difficult. To meet this
+situation a commission representative of all sections of the United
+States visited various countries in Europe in the spring of 1913, and as
+a result of their report, in 1916 Congress finally enacted the Federal
+Farm Loan Act establishing a system of farm land banks. Under this
+system one-half of the value of a farm and buildings up to $10,000 may
+be borrowed and paid off under the amortization plan in from five to
+forty years at a low rate of interest. The details of the system do not
+concern our present discussion, but the essential feature of the system
+is the local land bank through which the loans are made and collected.
+The local land bank is strictly a cooperative society organized to
+secure long-term credit facilities for its members under the terms of
+the federal act through the regional land banks of which each local bank
+is a member. Like other cooperative associations, the area in which the
+local bank does business is not necessarily that of a community, it may
+be a whole county where there are but few members, or there may be more
+than one bank in a single community, but more commonly it is located at
+a village center and tends to become a community institution.
+
+Equally important for financing the current expenses of farming
+operations and to make possible the orderly marketing of crops, is the
+farmer's need for short-time credit. Our banking system has been
+developed to meet the needs of the business world, and the period for
+which loans can be made is too short to meet the needs of the farmer,
+who often requires credit for six months to a year. In some ten states
+legislation has been passed authorizing the formation of local credit
+associations, which are really local cooperative banks, but the number
+of credit associations established in rural communities has been
+insignificant, thirty-three out of a total of thirty-six being in North
+Carolina.[32] The tremendous losses suffered by American farmers during
+1921 and their inability to secure sufficient credit from their local
+banks has shown the necessity for better short-time credit facilities,
+and bills are now before Congress which will enable the local land banks
+to also handle short-time loans in cooperation with the Federal Reserve
+Banks. If this is done, the amount of business done by these local banks
+will be greatly increased and the cooperative principle in banking will
+be greatly strengthened.
+
+Cooperative selling associations have had a rapid growth in the United
+States during the past decade. In 1919 the federal Bureau of Markets
+estimated that agricultural products worth one and a half billions out
+of a total of nearly nineteen billion dollars sold from farms were
+marketed through cooperative associations, and the total has greatly
+increased since then. The California Fruit Growers' Exchange, probably
+the largest cooperative selling association, does a business of over
+$50,000,000 annually and has one of the most efficient distributing
+systems in the country.
+
+At the present time some very ambitious programs of national
+organizations for cooperative marketing are being started, such as the
+United States Grain Growers, Inc., which is modeled after the successful
+Canadian Grain Growers, Inc. One of the chief obstacles to all such
+plans of effectively organizing the marketing of various agricultural
+products is the fact that a strong central organization can be developed
+only by the federation of local associations whose members understand
+the purposes of the organization and are loyal to them. The history of
+all cooperative movements shows that those which have been permanently
+successful have arisen through the federation of strong local
+associations, and numerous failures of well-intentioned efforts at
+large-scale cooperative marketing have been due to the fact that
+numerous local associations cannot be organized by the parent
+association with any assurance that they will function effectively.
+
+The late G. Harold Powell, for many years the successful manager of the
+California Fruit Growers' Exchange, in his discussion of the
+fundamentals of cooperation emphasizes that cooperative associations
+must be born of a real need:
+
+      "Among farmers, who under existing conditions are already
+      prosperous, the need of business organization is not usually
+      felt, even though the costs of marketing and extravagant
+      profits of the middlemen or the railroads might be greatly
+      reduced. They must feel the pressure of need before they can
+      launch a successful business association. When the farmers
+      buy their supplies at reasonable prices, and sell their
+      products readily at a good profit, they do not feel the
+      necessity of organization. It has been the experience of the
+      past that they must feel the need of getting together to
+      meet a crisis in their affairs, and the realization of the
+      need must spring from within and not be forced upon them
+      from without by the enthusiasm of some opportunist who seeks
+      to unite the farmers on the principle that organization is a
+      good thing.... In short, if an organization is to be
+      successful, the investment of the farmer must be threatened
+      by existing social and economic conditions before he can
+      overcome his individualism sufficiently and can develop a
+      fraternal spirit strong enough to pull with his neighbors in
+      cooperative team work."[33]
+
+The tremendous losses suffered by American agriculture in 1921 furnish
+exactly such a crisis as Mr. Powell suggests, and have given the
+strongest impetus to the cooperative movement. But even when the
+necessity exists and is recognized it takes time to build up a strong
+cooperative association.
+
+The successful operation of a local cooperative association is a matter
+of slow growth, because it requires the education of the membership in
+the principles both of cooperation and of marketing, and what is equally
+essential, the development of a willingness to sometimes forego the
+advantage of larger profits by individual members in order to ensure the
+permanent success of the association. The local association has to learn
+how to conduct its business just as does the individual business man,
+and it has to compete with individuals and firms who are in business for
+profit and who have the advantage of experience in the existing
+marketing system and the financial backing of its business connections.
+In the attempt to create local selling associations rapidly so as to
+secure a sufficient volume of business to ensure the success of large
+marketing enterprises, there is always a tendency to encourage the local
+members to believe that they will secure a considerably larger share of
+the consumer's dollar, and when prices are not materially better than
+under the old system they readily become dissatisfied and withdraw. The
+best authorities and advocates of cooperative marketing insist that it
+will be successful only to the degree that it can become more efficient
+than the existing system and so effect savings and make legitimate
+earnings, but that there is little prospect for large "profits"; indeed,
+that the legitimate objective of cooperation is not profits, but
+savings. Professor Macklin summarizes the matter as follows:
+
+      "The true cooperative organization seeks to establish and
+      maintain a distributing system to provide adequately and
+      dependably at minimum cost the essential marketing services
+      of which the industry and its individual members have
+      constant and vital need. Its justification lies in rendering
+      these services at a lower cost and in bringing to farmers a
+      higher proportion of the consumer's dollar."[34]
+
+With the factors involved in successful cooperative selling associations
+we are not here concerned, except to insist upon the point that as the
+weakest link measures the strength of a chain, so the strength of the
+local association determines the strength or weakness of the central
+selling association. A joint stock company may afford more efficient
+management than a cooperative association, and unless the local
+membership is convinced of the superior equity and ultimate advantages
+of a strong cooperative system, there is little hope for the cooperative
+to compete with the stock company. Cooperation means working together,
+and its emphasis is more on duties and obligations than on rights and
+personal advantage. In cooperative enterprises the individual must be
+convinced that his best interest in the long run is bound up with the
+best interest of the whole membership, and unless he is sometimes
+willing to forego immediate personal advantage and unless he can learn
+how to work with others, sometimes without compensation or with less
+than he could secure otherwise, there is little chance for developing a
+strong organization. For cooperation is but democracy applied to certain
+phases of business, and, like democracy in politics or any other sphere
+of life, its highest sanction lies in belief and satisfaction in the
+collective well-being.
+
+It seems obvious, therefore, that those attitudes which are essential
+for cooperation are the same which encourage community life, and that
+where the cooperative spirit dominates, community activities will be
+strengthened. Whereas, on the contrary, in those localities where
+family, political, or personal feuds, jealousies and suspicions are
+rife, cooperative enterprises will be difficult and the community will
+be weak.
+
+That cooperation does develop those qualities which make for better
+communities is attested by all who have observed its effects. As a
+result of his long experience Sir Horace Plunkett says:
+
+      "It is here, in furnishing opportunity for the exercise of
+      education secured from the agricultural colleges, that the
+      educational value of cooperative societies comes in; they
+      act as agencies through which scientific teaching may become
+      actual practice, not in the uncertain future, but in the
+      living present. A cooperative association has a quality
+      which should commend it to the social reformer--the power of
+      evoking character; it brings to the front a new type of
+      local leader, not the best talker, but the man whose
+      knowledge enables him to make some solid contribution to the
+      welfare of the community."[35]
+
+So, likewise, a keen observer of Danish cooperation describes its
+influence in creating scientific and social attitudes:
+
+      "Among the indirect, but equally tangible results of
+      cooperation, I should be inclined to put the development of
+      mind and character among those by whom it is practised. The
+      peasant or little farmer, who is a member of one or more of
+      these societies, who helps to build up their success and
+      enjoy their benefits, acquires a new outlook. The jealousies
+      and suspicions which are in most countries so common among
+      those who live by the land fall from him. Feeling that he
+      has a voice in great affairs he acquires an added value and
+      a healthy importance in his own eyes. He knows also that in
+      his degree and according to his output he is on an equal
+      footing with the largest producer and proportionately is
+      doing as well. There is no longer any fear that because he
+      is a little man he will be browbeaten or forced to accept a
+      worse price for what he has to sell than does his rich and
+      powerful neighbor. The skilled minds which direct his
+      business work as zealously for him as for that important
+      neighbor."[36]
+
+It is interesting to note that the three highest authorities on the
+cooperative movement in Ireland all lay great stress on its importance
+as a means of community organization and value its social effects as
+highly as its economic benefits. Thus Sir Horace Plunkett says:
+
+      "Gradually the (cooperative) Society becomes the most
+      important institution in the district, the most important in
+      a social as well as an economic sense. The members feel a
+      pride in its material expansion. They accumulate large
+      profits, which in time become a sort of communal fund. In
+      some cases this is used for the erection of village halls
+      where social entertainments, concerts and dances are held,
+      lectures delivered and libraries stored. Finally, the
+      association assumes the character of a rural commune, where,
+      instead of the old basis of the commune, the joint ownership
+      of land, a new basis for union is found in the voluntary
+      communism of effort."[37]
+
+In the same vein Smith-Gordon and Staples in their account of the
+cooperative movement in Ireland, see it as the most important force for
+socialization because it makes the most immediate and practical appeal
+to men of all parties and sects and establishes a business system which
+develops the community attitude:
+
+      "The present individualist system which takes care of the
+      business interests of the farmer is a dividing and
+      disintegrating force. It tends to destroy the natural
+      associative character and to set each man against his
+      neighbor.... But as a member of a society with interests in
+      common with others, the individual consciously and
+      unconsciously develops the social virtues.... The society is
+      in miniature a community, and the community is but a part of
+      the larger social group."[38]
+
+George William Russell ("A.E."), the poet-prophet of Irish agriculture,
+bases his whole conception of a desirable polity for the Irish State
+upon cooperative communities, and considers cooperative societies as a
+prerequisite to rural organization. After describing the marked economic
+and social changes which have taken place in a typical Irish community
+as the result of cooperation, he says:
+
+      "I have tried to indicate the difference between a rural
+      population and a rural community, between a people loosely
+      knit together by the vague ties of a common latitude and
+      longitude, and people who are closely knit together in an
+      association and who form a true social organism, a true
+      rural community, where the general will can find expression
+      and society is malleable to the general will. I will assert
+      that there never can be any progress in rural districts or
+      any real prosperity without such farmers' organizations or
+      guilds. Wherever rural prosperity is reported in any country
+      inquire into it, and it will be found that it depends on
+      rural organization. Wherever there is rural decay, if it is
+      inquired into, it will be found that there was a rural
+      population but no rural community, no organization, no guild
+      to promote common interests and unite the countrymen in
+      defence of them."[39]
+
+The same observations might be made upon the effect of cooperative
+enterprises in solidifying rural communities in the United States. It
+seems doubtful whether cooperative associations in the United States
+will develop a general social program as they have done in Ireland,
+Belgium, and Russia. On account of a different social inheritance and
+account of our facility in forming and belonging to numerous
+organizations, it seems probable that we will limit our cooperative
+societies to strictly economic functions, and will use the increased
+income secured through them in other organizations for social purposes.
+
+Commercial farming is breaking down the old individualism of the farmer,
+for the exigencies of the economic situation are forcing him to market
+collectively through cooperative selling associations, and as he learns
+that his own best interests are bound up with those of the whole
+community, he becomes increasingly concerned for the common welfare; he
+commences to think in terms of "us" and "ours," instead of only "me" and
+"mine." The community becomes a reality to him.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[30] "Agricultural Organization," p. 99. London, P. S. King & Son, 1912.
+
+[31] See Clarence Poe, "How Farmers Cooperate," Chap. III, p. 37.
+"Cooperative buying is good; cooperative merchandising may or may not
+be." New York, Orange Judd Co., 1915.
+
+[32] V. N. Valgren and E. E. Engelbert, "The Credit Association as an
+Agency for Rural Short-time Credit." Department Circular 197, U. S.
+Dept. Agr., 1921.
+
+[33] "Cooperation in Agriculture," pp. 22, 23. New York, The Macmillan
+Co., 1913.
+
+[34] Theodore Macklin, "Efficient Marketing for Agriculture," p. 260.
+New York, Macmillan Co., 1921.
+
+[35] "The Country Life Problem in the United States," p. 123.
+
+[36] Harvey, "Denmark and the Danes," p. 146, quoted by F. C. Howe,
+"Denmark a Cooperative Commonwealth," p. 61.
+
+[37] _Ibid._, p. 128.
+
+[38] "Rural Reconstruction in Ireland; a Record of Cooperative
+Organizations." New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1919.
+
+[39] "The National Being," p. 39.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE COMMUNITY'S EDUCATION
+
+
+THE SCHOOL
+
+At its beginning the United States Government gave support to education
+by the allotment of public lands to the states as an endowment for
+public schools, and although the federal government has done but little
+since then for primary education, the support of education has become
+one of the chief concerns of state and local governments. In colonial
+times public schools were largely confined to New England. With the
+settlement of the Middle West district schools were established with the
+aid of the government land grants. But in the South conditions were not
+favorable for public schools until long after the Civil War, and only in
+the last generation or two has public education become firmly
+established.
+
+The district school, the famous "little red school-house" of the
+nineteenth century, was frequently the neighborhood center and the
+school district commonly formed a neighborhood area, particularly in
+hilly sections where its lines were adjusted by topography. A recent
+study of neighborhood areas in Otsego County, New York, shows that about
+half of them are identical with the school districts, chiefly on account
+of topography, while in Dane County, Wisconsin, more neighborhood areas
+are determined primarily by the school district than by any one
+factor.[40] Formerly the district school-house was quite frequently
+used for Sunday school or preaching services; spelling-bees and other
+entertainments were held from time to time; and political meetings and
+elections were commonly held there.
+
+Although the district school is still a neighborhood social center in
+many sections, its decadence commenced at the close of the nineteenth
+century, the change depending upon the general progress or isolation of
+the community, particularly as affected by transportation. Several
+factors have combined to make the district school unsatisfactory to the
+rural community of to-day. In the older parts of the country the
+population has so decreased that in many districts the maintenance of a
+school has become exceedingly expensive, it is difficult to secure
+competent teachers, and there are too few pupils to make the school
+attractive. The better educational advantages of town and city schools
+have caused much dissatisfaction upon the part of the better class of
+farmers who wish their children to have the best possible start in life,
+and many of those who can afford to do so have "moved to town" to
+educate their children, thus making a bad matter worse for the district
+school. As long as roads were poor the district school was the only one
+possible, but with better roads, automobiles and trolleys, the
+consolidation of schools has proceeded rapidly in the past decade,
+particularly in the prairie states.
+
+A modern school cannot be maintained at every other crossroads. Improved
+roads naturally radiate from the village center and hence it is the
+logical point for a consolidated school or high school. There are
+localities in isolated regions where it might be desirable to establish
+consolidated schools in the open country, but in most cases where there
+is a natural village center, the school should be located there and the
+school laws should make possible the organization of the consolidated
+school district regardless of township or county lines. Indeed
+legislation has already been enacted to this end in several states and
+forms one of the most important movements for strengthening the rural
+community. Here and there are to be found consolidated schools which
+have been placed in the open country at the center of a township because
+it was the point most easily agreed upon by all the patrons,
+particularly where the township is an administrative unit of the school
+system. In some cases somewhat successful efforts are being made to have
+such consolidated schools serve as social centers, but it is believed
+that in the long run community life will flow to its natural centers and
+that the seeming success of such social centers in the open country,
+unless the neighborhood be an isolated one, will tend to weaken the
+communities concerned. Usually a consolidated district of this sort will
+contain parts of two or three community areas and the location of the
+school at a point between them weakens the support of the community
+centers to that extent. Here we encounter one of the many ways in which
+our artificial unit of rural government--the township--interferes with
+community progress.[41]
+
+Formerly only the children of the upper classes who were preparing for
+college received a secondary education, but during the past generation
+there has been a rapid growth of public high schools which serve as the
+"people's colleges." At first these were found only in the cities and
+larger towns, but rural communities have demanded equal advantages and
+state and national legislation has aided them in the cost of
+maintenance. Federal aid for secondary education in vocational subjects,
+now available through the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, has encouraged the
+establishment of rural high schools and has greatly increased the number
+giving instruction in agriculture and home economics. Hundreds of rural
+high schools are now giving agricultural courses better than the
+agricultural colleges gave twenty-five years ago.
+
+Rural high schools with full four-year courses have been found mostly in
+the larger villages and towns, but the movement is now well under way to
+divide the period of secondary education into a junior and senior high
+school (the so-called "six-six" plan), and junior high schools,
+including the seventh to ninth grades, are being established in many
+smaller communities by simply adding a grade to the consolidated
+schools. The educational forces of the country, as expressed by
+statements of the U. S. Bureau of Education and the National Education
+Association, are now committed to the policy of consolidated rural
+schools wherever they are practicable and to the establishment of a
+sufficient number of high schools so that every rural child may attend
+high school and still be able to live at home. Obviously it is important
+from the standpoint of community development that the high schools
+should be placed at community centers and that where some of the
+communities are too small to support senior high schools that they
+should be located at a village which serves as a center of what, for
+want of a better term, we may call "the larger community" (see pages
+232-3).
+
+One of the reasons for consolidated schools is that the objectives of
+rural education are changing and that country people are demanding that
+their children be educated for country as well as for town life.
+Formerly the content and method of rural education was an imitation of
+that of the city and inevitably made industrial, commercial, and
+professional occupations the ideal of the pupil. The schools of New
+England have done an immense service to the rest of the country but they
+were an important factor in depopulating many a New England town. The
+introduction of nature study, agriculture, and home economics is
+becoming general in rural schools. Educators do not desire to train
+rural children solely for farm life, and thus to segregate a farm class,
+even were that possible, but they are attempting to give equal emphasis
+to the values of country life so that it may prove equally attractive to
+the best as well as to the less efficient rural youth.
+
+Furthermore the whole attitude of rural as well as urban education is
+changing from that of teaching individuals so as to equip them with
+intellectual tools for their personal advancement, to one of training
+future citizens who will attain their own best interests by useful
+service to the community. The curriculum and objectives of the school
+are rapidly becoming socialized, and as this process goes on the school
+will more and more become the most important single institution for
+creating community loyalty.
+
+The community school, particularly the high school, no longer confines
+itself to the instruction of its regular pupils; it is the educational
+center and headquarters of the community. With the assistance of the
+Extension Service of the agricultural colleges, rural high schools are
+holding one-week extension schools for farm men and women, and under the
+Smith-Hughes Act they are offering continuation short courses for the
+younger farmers. The progressive rural high school is taking a live
+interest in the one-room district schools which may be too far from the
+center for consolidation, and is seeking to interest their pupils in
+attending high schools through athletic meets, play festivals, and
+similar assemblages of all the schools of the community, which thus
+create a natural bond of interest and common enthusiasm. The principal
+of the high school at Oxford, N. Y., recently organized a
+public-speaking contest of representatives of all the country schools in
+his supervisory district, in connection with the annual play festival
+which he had established several years before. This proved to be a huge
+success and gave the boys and girls from the district schools new
+confidence in their ability of self-expression. One of the greatest
+needs which farmers' organizations are to-day feeling is their lack of
+leaders who can speak for them effectively at public gatherings and
+before legislative hearings in competition with men who make their
+living by talking. Such contests, particularly when the topics discussed
+deal with affairs of country life with which the children are acquainted
+and in which they are vitally interested, as was the case with the one
+at Oxford and to which much of its success was attributed, are therefore
+of great value and may well be substituted for the academic debates so
+often heard on subjects quite foreign to the child's life and beyond his
+real comprehension.
+
+In many places new school buildings are being constructed with an
+auditorium, which may be used as a gymnasium, library room, dining room,
+etc., so that they may serve as social centers for the community. Where
+the community is not large enough to afford a separate community house
+this is frequently the best and most economical means of meeting this
+need. This will be discussed further in considering community buildings.
+
+Numerous rural high schools are conducting lyceum and entertainment
+courses, and some are operating motion-picture shows on Saturday nights.
+Where no other organization is better adapted for taking the
+responsibility of furnishing high-class entertainment to the community,
+this is a useful service. School orchestras and bands, choruses, and
+dramatic clubs are also valuable additions to the community life.
+
+The successful community school will not center all of its activities in
+its own building, but it will take some of its talent to the country
+schools for local athletic and play contests, dramatic or musical
+entertainments, etc., and thus magnify the importance of the local
+school in the neighborhood, for only by acquiring a desire for these
+advantages will the people in the more isolated parts of the community
+come to interest themselves in the activities of the whole community at
+its village center.
+
+It is becoming more and more apparent that if the school is really to
+function as it should, that it must have the active interest and support
+of its patrons. It is not enough that they should assemble at the annual
+school meeting, elect school officials, vote taxes for its maintenance,
+and then leave its management to the school board and teachers. It is
+highly desirable that every encouragement should be given toward making
+teaching a life profession, but as teaching becomes professionalized it
+tends, like every other calling, to become more or less of a
+bureaucracy. It is essential that educational methods should be
+determined by and be in charge of educators who are trained for such
+service, but if they get the idea, as sometimes seems unfortunately the
+case, that it is the business of the people to supply funds for the
+support of the schools and then to leave their entire operation to the
+teachers and superintendents, they assume an attitude which is fatal to
+the life of the school, for no educational system, however ideal in
+theory, can be effective without the sympathetic understanding and
+cordial support of the majority of its patrons. It is for this reason
+that large emphasis is being placed by progressive educators on the
+organization of parent-teachers associations or school improvement
+leagues for the discussion of school problems by parents and teachers.
+In many cases the parent-teachers association forms one of the chief
+bonds of the country community and the State of Virginia has built up a
+remarkable system of community organization through its Cooperative
+Educational League with hundreds of local leagues which interest
+themselves in all phases of community life.
+
+The school is also coming to realize that although it is the institution
+specially created for the systematic education of the child, that much
+of his education is received outside the school and that certain phases
+of his education may be accomplished more effectively through the
+cooperation of the school with other institutions and agencies. Thus
+instead of seeking to absorb all of the time of the child and to give it
+all kinds of training within the school or as part of its curriculum,
+the school is commencing to develop methods for strengthening and
+coordinating the educational work of the home, the church, and of
+various organizations.
+
+The teaching of agriculture has been made vital and effective by the
+home project in which the boy comes to appreciate the value of the
+principles studied at school in connection with an agricultural
+enterprise in raising crops or livestock of his own on the home farm.
+This tends to enlist the interest of the parents, who contribute largely
+to the educational process. The same principle is being applied to a
+less extent in work in home economics, and the giving of school credit
+for various kinds of home work has established a community of interest
+between home and school. In the teaching of hygiene, and particularly
+with regard to sex hygiene, the school finds it difficult to establish
+those habits and attitudes which are as important as mere knowledge
+without the help and cooperation of the home. So, too, the medical
+inspection of school children, with the work of school nurses and
+clinics held at the school for children of pre-school age, stimulate the
+home to better health.
+
+Because of the separation of church and state in this country we have
+very largely neglected all effort toward religious education in our
+public schools, and even ethical training has been more or less of a
+secondary objective until very recently. A growing appreciation of the
+inadequacy of the ordinary Sunday school has led to a movement for
+giving systematic instruction and training in religious education under
+church auspices at a time set apart by the school and for which school
+credit is given when it meets reasonable educational standards. The
+week-day school of religion is still in an experimental stage. It has
+been established longest in cities, but is now being attempted in rural
+communities, and if sectarian dogmatism and jealousies can be submerged,
+there seems every reason to hope that this may be a most important
+feature of our educational system.
+
+So, too, the boys' and girls' clubs in agriculture and home economics,
+the boy and girl scouts, the campfires, the little mothers' leagues, the
+health crusades, the Y.M.C.A and Y.W.C.A., and other organizations for
+children and youth, have created new interest in certain aspects of
+school work and are a source of educational dynamic which progressive
+educators are utilizing as valuable allies.
+
+Thus in very many ways the school is adapting its methods to meet its
+responsibility for developing good citizens who are loyal to the welfare
+of the community, and the school principal is rightly expected to be a
+leader in community affairs in so far as they concern the participation
+and interests of the school.
+
+It is a far cry from the isolated one-room, box-type district school,
+with a young girl with no professional training teaching a dozen
+youngsters of all ages as best she can with little or no equipment, to
+the modern consolidated school or rural high school with all the
+intimate connections with the life of the whole community above
+described, but this difference measures one phase of the progress which
+has been made in recent years toward the integration of the rural
+community and depicts one of the most important forces involved in this
+process, whose influence is only commencing to be felt. How different
+will the life of rural communities be a generation or two hence when in
+most of them practically all of the parents and children will have had a
+high-school education, with all the broader contacts and outlook on life
+which that involves! We need only to study the influence of the Danish
+Folk High Schools[42] to visualize the outcome.
+
+
+THE PUBLIC LIBRARY
+
+The public library has possibilities as an educational institution
+exceeded only by those of the school. In many cases it is the
+intellectual center of the community, while in others the caricature of
+the library of Gopher Prairie in Sinclair Lewis' "Main Street," where
+one of the chief objects was to keep the books from being soiled or worn
+out, is not much overdrawn. Increasingly, however, the librarian is
+studying methods of salesmanship for increasing the local consumption of
+the products of the world's best minds in books and magazines, and is of
+inestimable service to all organizations whose members have occasion to
+study what human thought has contributed to the solution of their
+problems. The public library gives the means of further education to
+many a person deprived of academic privileges, who may realize the truth
+of Carlyle's saying: "The true University of these days is a Collection
+of Books."
+
+In many states public libraries are aided by state and local
+appropriations, particularly in New England and the states settled by
+New England stock, for it is to New England[43] that we are indebted for
+the public library as well as the public school. It is not, however,
+economically possible for every small community to support a permanent
+local library, and many of those established have a precarious existence
+and are maintained only through the devotion of public-spirited
+individuals. To meet the need of isolated neighborhoods a few county
+libraries, notably in Washington County, Maryland, and a few counties in
+Delaware and Minnesota, have made use of book-wagons which are
+accompanied by a librarian who makes a "rural free delivery" of books to
+each home and assists the families in their selection. It seems,
+however, that the chief value of the book-wagon is as a means of
+creating a desire for books, and that when this is created it will be
+much more economical to furnish them through branch stations at
+neighborhood or community centers. Systems of traveling libraries are
+also supported by many states and make it possible for the most isolated
+neighborhoods to secure the best of books. Unfortunately, however, the
+places which need them most do not always know of them nor will they
+take the initiative to secure them. They are of particular value for
+securing collections of books on special topics for the use of granges,
+churches, and study clubs of all sorts. But as the demand for traveling
+libraries grows, the administration of the system from the state library
+becomes a large undertaking and the need of better local libraries is
+realized.
+
+A system of "county libraries" has been developed in California, has
+spread to several other states, and is now being advocated by the
+American Library Association and by library leaders generally. Under the
+county system a central library is established at the county seat, with
+branches or loan stations at the different community centers, and with
+traveling collections for the more isolated neighborhoods. The larger
+centers which have local libraries continue to maintain them and simply
+serve as part of the system. Thus the library resources of the county
+are pooled and the farm people are given the same sort of service that a
+city library gives its people through its branches. The feature of
+interest from a community standpoint is that, although this is a county
+system, it recognizes the usefulness of local branches and makes
+possible a library service adapted to its needs for every small
+community, whereas separate libraries have heretofore been possible only
+in the larger centers.
+
+
+THE COUNTRY WEEKLY
+
+One of the most important educational agencies of the rural community is
+the oft-derided weekly newspaper. After a period of difficult
+competition with city dailies the surviving weeklies are becoming
+recognized as community institutions. Those which are succeeding are
+doing so by becoming the voice of the community and the means of its
+self-acquaintance. No agency may be more powerful in unifying or
+disrupting the life of the local community. This new concept of the
+country weekly has been well expressed by W. P. Kirkwood, of the
+University of Minnesota:
+
+      "Community building was a concept unknown to the editor of
+      thirty or forty years ago. To-day it is an accepted concept
+      of dynamic force, full of significance in most of the
+      country towns of America.
+
+      "Community service, as such a concept, is fast finding its
+      way into the country press--in the Middle West, at least. As
+      this ideal gains acceptance, giving definite direction to
+      newspaper effort for the upbuilding of communities, the
+      press gains an enlarged constituency with a truer conception
+      of the power and usefulness of the newspaper....
+
+      "Community service, community building, then, as a master
+      motive, establishes the country weekly newspaper publisher
+      securely in his position of leadership. It assures added
+      community prosperity and the local development of the finer
+      satisfactions of life in which he must share, and no other
+      agency can take this from him, neither the city daily,
+      coming in from a distance and concerned with the larger
+      affairs of the larger community, nor the school, nor the
+      church, nor any other."[44]
+
+In a bulletin on "The Country Weekly in New York State,"[45] Professor
+M. V. Atwood, of the New York State College of Agriculture and for
+several years a successful publisher, discusses the purposes and future
+of the country weekly. He holds that the country weekly is not, as often
+stated, and should not be a molder of public opinion, but should rather
+express and interpret the sentiment of its constituency.
+
+      "The country newspaper," he says, "is a service agency; it
+      is a community institution like the church, the school, the
+      library, and the farm and home bureau. It helps all these
+      institutions to do their work....
+
+      "If the country newspaper does not do much thought-molding
+      it does offer a medium for the dissemination of thought, for
+      the propagation of ideas of the people of the community. The
+      value of the newspaper to the community becomes especially
+      apparent when some local project is to be considered, like
+      the erection of a school, the building of good roads, or the
+      installation of a water system. For weeks the paper will
+      offer in the form of letters, the views of different people
+      of the community. The subject is thoroughly aired. Even if
+      the editor takes no sides in the matter, his paper has been
+      of inestimable service to the community."
+
+Indeed, as we shall see later, such a free discussion is a most
+essential step in all community activities, and the service of the
+newspaper is probably greater if it acts as a free and open forum for
+discussion rather than a partisan of either side. Of the news of the
+future, Professor Atwood says:
+
+      "Most of these papers will also be printing much more farm
+      news than they do to-day because as the publishers have
+      surveyed their fields they will have found the primary
+      interest of their readers is agricultural. There will be
+      some exceptions for some communities will have ceased to be
+      dominated by agriculture because of the coming of factories.
+      The real country weeklies will not become agricultural text
+      hooks; but the news of the farms, the improvements to farm
+      buildings, and the experiences of successful local farmers
+      will find much space in their columns.
+
+      "The community editor of the future is not going to worry
+      much about 'hot' news. He will realize that most of the
+      striking facts of any story have already been printed in the
+      neighboring city papers, but he will realize also that the
+      genuine community interest in the event has not been
+      glimpsed by the city editor, who is out of touch with the
+      local situation; around these community aspects the local
+      editor will weave his story."
+
+Possibly the best appreciation of the country weekly is a prose poem
+written by Professor Bristow Adams, editor of the New York State College
+of Agriculture, and presented at the first country newspaper conference
+held at that institution during Farmers Week 1920, entitled "I am the
+Country Weekly,"[46] and which vividly depicts its service as an agency
+for developing community consciousness:
+
+      "I am the Country Weekly.
+
+      "I am the friend of the family, the bringer of tidings from
+      other friends; I speak to the home in the evening light of
+      summers vine-clad porch or the glow of winters lamp.
+
+      "I help to make this evening hour; I record the great and
+      the small, the varied acts of the days and weeks that go to
+      make up life.
+
+      "I am for and of the home; I follow those who leave humble
+      beginnings; whether they go to greatness or to the gutter, I
+      take to them the thrill of old days, with wholesome
+      messages.
+
+      "I speak the language of the common man; my words are fitted
+      to his understanding. My congregation is larger than that of
+      any church in my town; my readers are more than those in the
+      school. Young and old alike find in me stimulation,
+      instruction, entertainment, inspiration, solace, comfort. I
+      am the chronicler of birth, and love and death--the three
+      great facts of man's existence.
+
+      "I bring together buyer and seller, to the benefit of both;
+      I am part of the market-place of the world. Into the home I
+      carry word of the goods which feed and clothe, and shelter,
+      and which minister to comfort, ease, health, and happiness.
+
+      "I am the word of the week, the history of the year, the
+      record of my community in the archives of state and nation.
+
+      "I am the exponent of the lives of my readers.
+
+      "I am the Country Weekly."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[40] Out of 185 neighborhood areas, 39 were chiefly due to the school
+district, the next most important influence being the church parish
+which determined the neighborhood in 33 cases. J. H. Kolb, "Rural
+Primary Groups." Research Bull. 51, Agr. Exp. Sta. of the Univ. of
+Wisconsin, p. 48.
+
+[41] The relation of the consolidated school to township and community
+lines is well shown in a study of the schools of Randolph County,
+Indiana, and Marshall County, Iowa, by Dr. A. W. Hayes, in his "Rural
+Community Organization" (Chap. VI, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1921). In
+Randolph County more of the schools are located in the open country
+while the more recent consolidations in Marshall County are located
+mostly at the village centers. Dr. Hayes recognizes the differences but
+he gives no facts which make possible a judgment as to the relative
+efficiency of the two methods from a community standpoint.
+
+[42] F. C. Howe, "Denmark a Cooperative Commonwealth." H. W. Foght,
+"Rural Denmark and its Schools."
+
+[43] "In Pease and Niles' 'Gazateer of Connecticut and Rhode Island'
+(1819) the social library is almost as regularly mentioned in the
+descriptions of the various towns as are the saw-mills, or the ministers
+and doctors."--Bidwell, "Rural Economy in New England," p. 347.
+
+[44] In the _Inland Printer_, February, 1920, quoted by Atwood, l. c.,
+p. 305.
+
+[45] "The Cornell Reading Course for the Farm," Lesson 155, March, 1920.
+See also his "The Country Newspaper and the Community," Chicago, A. C.
+McClurg & Co., 1922.
+
+[46] Quoted by Atwood, _l. c._, p. 314.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE COMMUNITY'S EDUCATION (CONTINUED)
+
+
+THE EXTENSION MOVEMENT
+
+The era of modern agriculture in the United States began with the
+passage of the Morrill Act by the Federal Congress in 1861. This made a
+grant of public land to each state to establish a college for
+instruction in agriculture and the mechanic arts, and it has been the
+influence of the "land-grant colleges," more than any other agency,
+which has been responsible for our agricultural advancement. In 1888 the
+Hatch Act made an annual federal appropriation to each of these colleges
+for the establishment of an agricultural experiment station, whose
+investigations, with those of the United States Department of
+Agriculture, have been largely responsible for the scientific basis of
+modern agriculture.
+
+From the beginning the agricultural colleges realized their obligation
+to bring the results of scientific investigations to the attention of
+farmers as well as to their own students, and their faculties spoke
+before meetings of state and county agricultural societies, granges, and
+farmers' institutes. In 1875 Michigan was the first state to make an
+appropriation to its State Board of Agriculture for conducting farmers'
+institutes, and in the next twenty-five years most of the states
+established systems of farmers' institutes either under their state
+boards or departments of agriculture or under the agricultural colleges,
+through which itinerant speakers addressed one or more meetings of
+farmers in each county every year. These institutes grew in popularity
+and led to separate meetings for farm women, and sometimes for children,
+and in some cases permanent county organizations were created for
+holding institutes with local speakers as well as for managing those
+furnished by the state. Farmers' institutes have performed an important
+service in the education of the rural community. Not only have they
+given instruction in methods of agriculture and in the problems of
+country life, but they have been an important means of bringing rural
+people together in a common cause; they are a community activity and
+strengthen the community bond. In many cases in isolated localities the
+annual farmers' institute has been one of the few occasions at which the
+people of the community get together, and has been looked forward to as
+a social event. Furthermore, it was through experience with farmers'
+institutes that the need of better means for bringing instruction to
+rural communities was appreciated and other methods were developed.
+
+It was but a few years after the establishment of the agricultural
+experiment stations under the Hatch Act of 1888, that the colleges
+commenced to realize that the results of their investigations would not
+be extensively utilized by farmers unless other means were employed than
+mere publication of reports and bulletins and addresses at farmers'
+institutes and agricultural meetings. These were good, but they were
+felt to be inadequate and it was evident that to secure the general
+adoption of new methods some means of more systematic instruction and of
+local demonstrations were necessary. The agricultural colleges came to
+feel that they should have definite departments with men who could
+devote their time to giving instruction to the people on the land. The
+first appropriation for agricultural extension work was made to Cornell
+University by the State of New York in 1894, but it was a decade later
+before the leading agricultural colleges had established departments of
+extension work. In general the early period of the extension movement
+was chiefly concerned with methods of agricultural production and had no
+definite program for the local organization of its work. This finally
+came about through the county agent movement.
+
+The county agent movement[47] had its origin in an effort to combat the
+ravages of the Mexican Cotton Boll Weevil as it swept through Texas and
+advanced eastward from 1900 to 1910. It was in 1903 that Dr. S. A. Knapp
+was commissioned by the Federal Secretary of Agriculture, James Wilson,
+to devise methods whereby the Texas farmers might be shown how they
+could grow cotton in spite of the weevil. He soon found that progressive
+farmers who were using the cultural methods which the entomologists had
+found to be successful for raising an early crop, were able to raise
+fairly good crops before injury became serious. He therefore employed
+practical farmers to go among their neighbors and get them to agree to
+give a fair trial to the methods advocated by the government, i.e., to
+demonstrate their practicability. Those making the trials were called
+"demonstrators" and their neighbors who came to follow their example in
+testing the new methods were called "cooperators" and were called
+together at the "demonstrator's" farm to see the results of his work and
+to receive instruction from the "demonstration agent" who supervised the
+work for the government. As this work was in charge of practical farmers
+more or less known locally, it appealed to the farmers as a
+common-sense method, the results spoke for themselves, and the demand
+for the work spread rapidly. Dr. Knapp found that the county was the
+best unit for the work of the supervising demonstration agent, and he
+soon came to be known as the county demonstration agent, which was later
+contracted to county agent or county agricultural agent. The whole
+movement came to be called "the farmers' cooperative demonstration
+work." Three new features in agricultural instruction of farmers were
+involved in this system; it was more or less cooperative on the part of
+a local group of farmers; it used the demonstration method of teaching,
+i.e., the farmer demonstrated to himself by his own trial; and a local
+county agent was employed for the supervision of the work. It soon
+became apparent that merely trying to circumvent the depredations of the
+boll weevil would not solve the problem and that instead of raising only
+cotton as a cash crop the farmer must diversify his crops so as to raise
+more of the foodstuffs consumed on the farm and to have other products
+for sale. This involved the application of the demonstration method to
+the growing of corn, legumes, hogs, etc., in short, it involved the
+whole field of farm management and agricultural practice. The work of
+the county agricultural agents was liberally supported by local business
+men, commercial clubs and railroads, and the General Education Board, as
+well as by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. In 1909 the Mississippi
+legislature passed the first act permitting counties to appropriate
+funds for this work, and this was followed by most of the southern
+states within a few years.
+
+The Report of President Roosevelt's Country Life Commission in 1909
+called attention to the need of a national system of agricultural
+extension work in charge of the agricultural colleges, and congressmen
+and agricultural leaders in the North who had observed the success of
+the county agent movement in the South commenced to feel that county
+agricultural agents might be equally valuable in the North as a means of
+local agricultural education. As a result, the first county agricultural
+agents in the North were appointed by the Office of Farm Management of
+the U. S. Department of Agriculture in 1910 and 1911. In 1912, 113 were
+employed in cooperation with the state agricultural colleges and local
+county organizations in the North and West. The success of the work of
+these agents and of the extension work of the agricultural colleges led
+to a general demand from the agricultural interests of the country for a
+federal appropriation to the agricultural colleges for establishing a
+system of extension work the chief feature of which would be the
+employment of county agricultural agents who would supervise field
+demonstrations by the farmers on their own farms. This resulted in the
+federal Smith-Lever Act of 1914, which made an annual appropriation to
+each land-grant college "to aid in diffusing among the people of the
+United States useful and practical information on agriculture and home
+economics and to encourage the application of the same ... through field
+demonstrations, publications, and otherwise, ... to persons not
+attending or resident at said college." This act is notable in that it
+established the most comprehensive national system of non-resident
+instruction in agriculture and home economics of any country, and
+recognized the necessity of de-centralizing this instruction by having
+it carried on by agents in the counties who could have immediate and
+continuous contact with individual farmers and groups of farmers.
+
+As the work of the county agents in the South grew more permanent they
+found that it was more efficient if they worked with and through local
+groups of farmers, and community agricultural clubs were quite widely
+organized, but no strong county federation was developed, except in West
+Virginia, where the local clubs formed a county organization which was
+called a Farm Bureau. The term Farm Bureau originated in Broome County,
+New York, in 1911, when the first county agent in that state was
+employed by the Binghamton Chamber of Commerce, the Lackawanna Railroad,
+and the U. S. Department of Agriculture. As the number of county agents
+rapidly increased in the northern states it soon became apparent that if
+their work was to be of the greatest service to the farmers for whose
+benefit they worked, that it should be supported and managed by the
+farmers themselves rather than by business interests. The Farm Bureau
+Association, composed of farmers throughout a county, soon came to be a
+prerequisite to the placing of an agricultural agent in a county, and
+with the passage of the Smith-Lever Act and of state legislation
+accepting its provisions and appropriating state funds contingent upon
+similar appropriations by the counties, this became the usual procedure.
+The county farm bureau association cooperates with the state college of
+agriculture and the U. S. Department of Agriculture in the employment of
+the county agent, and the annual membership fees together with county
+appropriations pay the expenses of the work other than salary. The
+affairs of the farm bureau association are in the hands of the usual
+officers and executive committee, who report to an annual meeting of the
+membership. Further than this the method of organization varies in
+different states. In most of the northern and western states there is a
+local committee in each community which arranges for the demonstrations
+and meetings to be held by the county agent, and there is no further
+organization of the local membership, but in a few states definite local
+organizations or community clubs with officers and regular meetings
+have developed. In either case, however, the unit of local organization
+and interest in the work of the farm bureau is usually the community,
+although its executive administration is on a county basis.
+
+As the extension work came under the local control of these
+organizations of farmers, the objectives of the work were more largely
+determined by the farmers' point of view. Whereas the original purpose
+had been to "extend" to the farmer the better methods of agriculture
+discovered by the experiment stations and the federal department of
+agriculture, the program of work came to be largely determined by the
+particular needs and problems of the local communities in a given
+county. The farmers conferred with the agent--their agent--and pointed
+out their greatest difficulties. The program of work was then a matter
+of determining what demonstrations and instruction could be arranged to
+meet these problems, under the direction of the county agent and with
+any assistance possible from the state agricultural college. With the
+rapid growth of Farm Bureaus,--for on June 30, 1918, there were 791 farm
+bureaus with approximately 290,000 members,--the movement became truly a
+farmers' movement rather than a mere "extension" of the work of the
+agricultural colleges, though the close affiliation with them
+constituted its strength and furnished its leadership.
+
+It so happened that almost as soon as the Smith-Lever Act became
+effective the world was plunged into war and marketing problems became
+more and more important. Whereas in the first decade of the county agent
+movement interest had been chiefly in better methods of production, it
+now rapidly shifted to include better methods of marketing and the
+development of cooperative selling associations, whose organization was
+assisted by the farm bureaus wherever they were needed and practicable.
+
+The entry of the United States into the World War greatly accelerated
+the farm bureau movement. "Food will win the war" was the slogan which
+challenged American agriculture. The number of county agents in the
+North and West increased from 542 to 1,133 within the year ending June
+30, 1918. It was the county agent system which formed the mechanism
+through which the federal government secured the whole-souled
+cooperation of the farmers of the United States under peculiarly trying
+conditions. The winter of 1917-18 was severe and seed corn was unusually
+poor. As a result, the available supply of sound seed corn in the spring
+of 1918 was the lowest on record in the face of the greatest need for a
+bumper crop. Had it not been for the remarkable organization developed
+through the county agents and the farm bureau system of the entire
+country, the corn crop of the great Corn Belt would have been far below
+normal. As it was, nearly a normal acreage was planted and an abundant
+harvest secured. The role which the agriculture of the United States
+played in the World War has never been adequately written or
+appreciated, but it was full of as much romance and heroism as were the
+industries which commanded the headlines of the press. Dr. Bradford
+Knapp, for many years in charge of the county agent work in the Southern
+States after the death of his father, its founder, has called attention
+to the fact that during the war "of the four great activities or
+industries in America, agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and
+transportation,--one alone--agriculture, stood the test, and that mainly
+because there was already in existence an organization extending from
+the United States Department of Agriculture through every state
+agricultural college ... to the counties and the farmers, by which
+information was rapidly disseminated and farmers were made aware of
+conditions of what must be done to win the war."
+
+It was inevitable that such an organization growing rapidly during a war
+should develop an unusual solidarity, and this was but strengthened by
+the difficulties which agriculture encountered with the cessation of
+hostilities. During the war several states had formed state federations
+of the county farm bureau associations and in November, 1919, a
+convention was called at Chicago for the formation of a national
+organization, which resulted in the formal organization of the American
+Farm Bureau Federation[48] in March, 1920, with 28 states represented,
+and a membership in county farm bureaus of 400,000. In the next two
+years the southern states, which previously had developed no strong
+county organizations, rapidly adopted the farm bureau idea, and when the
+American Farm Bureau Federation held its second annual meeting at
+Atlanta, Ga., in November, 1921, it included 35 states with a local
+membership of 967,279.
+
+I have dwelt at length upon the growth of the county agent and farm
+bureau movement, because there is probably no one agency which has done
+more in the last decade toward the integration of rural communities
+throughout the United States or which has had a larger educational
+influence on all aspects of country life. The farm bureau usually
+organizes its local work by communities and in large numbers of counties
+the community areas have been defined for the first time by the county
+agents. The value of this organization by communities was repeatedly
+shown during the war. For example, in New York State it was possible
+for the county agents to organize meetings on the Agricultural
+Mobilization Day called by the Governor on April 21, 1917, in 1,089
+communities, with an attendance of 85,075 persons, upon only a weeks
+notice. In several of the states which have encouraged community
+organizations, a very definite effort has been made to develop an
+all-round program of community improvement. Thus the West Virginia
+extension service has invented a community score card[49] with which
+several communities have scored themselves for three successive years in
+order to make an analysis of their social situation and to enable them
+to outline a program of work for the solution of their local problems.
+Several of the states are now employing specialists to assist the farm
+bureaus in their problems of community organization.
+
+The county organization of extension work has been unique in its
+educational methods; methods which have large significance for all
+movements for rural progress.
+
+First, its educational method is that of the demonstration carried out
+by farm people under the expert direction of paid county leaders in an
+effort to solve the immediate problems of the farm and the farm home. It
+builds on the experience, point of view, and interests of its pupils,
+who learn under the supervision of a teacher chosen by them, through a
+process which involves their making real experiments in finding the best
+solution of their problems. No class of people, here or elsewhere, has
+ever had opportunity for the training in the scientific attitude and
+point of view which American farmers may now receive, and on account of
+the nature and organization of their work they are steadily and surely,
+if not entirely consciously, adopting the method of science. The
+consequence of this movement in the social and political development of
+this country cannot be foretold, for the scientific attitude must
+finally be the basis of all true democracy.
+
+Secondly, the program of work--the subject matter of the educational
+method--is largely chosen by the people themselves, but with the help of
+experts employed by them to supervise its execution. Here we have an
+institution arising from the land, wholly democratic in spirit and
+polity, yet recognizing the services of experts and employing them for
+its own purposes. In the county farm bureaus, and the organizations to
+which they have given rise, there is developing a new use of science
+both in the educational methods and in the employment of scientifically
+trained leaders, in the service of and directed by a democracy--a
+democracy no longer provincial but of national scope in that there is
+real cooperation between the local community, the county, the state, and
+the nation.
+
+Lastly, the extension movement recognizes that only by the development
+and training of the largest amount of enthusiastic, voluntary, local
+leadership can its work have a foundation which will make it permanent.
+It thus recognizes an essential factor of all social organization, i.e.,
+the power of personal leadership in shaping the public opinion of the
+group, and it consciously undertakes the development of intelligent
+initiative as a means of social progress.
+
+When one has observed the feeble beginnings of this movement only a
+decade ago, and has witnessed its growth to the present nation-wide
+system, promoting plans for national organizations for cooperative
+marketing, he appreciates the power of science, education, and
+organization as new forces in the life of the rural community, whose
+future influence one would be rash to prophesy.
+
+This account would be misleading if it failed to indicate that the
+extension movement has given attention to the problems of the farm home,
+of the mother and the children, as well as to those of the farm
+business. In 1910, girls' canning clubs were started in the Southern
+States and young women were employed to supervise their work. Very soon
+the mothers became interested and before long home demonstration agents
+were appointed to work with the agricultural demonstration agents. In
+1916 home demonstration work was in progress in 420 counties in the
+South. A few home demonstration agents were employed by farm bureaus in
+the Northern States prior to 1917, but the additional funds appropriated
+by Congress for food conservation work during the war caused a rapid
+increase in their number and women's work in the North received its
+chief impetus during the war. The Smith-Lever Act specified that its
+funds should be used for extension work in home economics as well as in
+agriculture, but it was not until the farm bureaus commenced to employ
+home demonstration agents and to organize the women for their support
+that work with the farm home became established on a permanent basis. In
+most of the northern states the farm bureau is now organized on what is
+called the "family plan," that is, it includes in its program of work
+projects dealing with the farm for men, with the farm home for women,
+and with club work in agriculture and home economics for boys and girls.
+In many of the states a separate agent is employed for each of these
+lines of work and the women are organized in a separate department of
+the county farm bureau and have their own local farm women's clubs. In
+New York State the women's work has been further differentiated by
+organizing it as a County Home Bureau which with the Farm Bureau forms
+the County Farm and Home Bureau Association.
+
+During the war the home demonstration agents gave their attention to
+food conservations and clothing, but as a permanent program has
+developed the local clubs of farm women have shown a lively interest in
+problems of health, home management, care of children, education,
+recreation, and civics. They have found that the problems of the home
+cannot be solved without an effort to create better community conditions
+and "community housekeeping" has attracted an increasing interest. The
+present aims of the women's work have been aptly phrased in the Home
+Bureau Creed written by Dr. Ruby Green Smith, associate state leader of
+home demonstration agents in New York:
+
+      The Home Bureau Creed
+
+      "To maintain the highest ideals of home life; to count
+      children the most important of crops; to so mother them that
+      their bodies may be sound, their minds clear, their spirits
+      happy, and their characters generous:
+
+      "To place service above comfort; to let loyalty to high
+      purposes silence discordant note; to let neighborliness
+      supplant hatreds; to be discouraged never:
+
+      "To lose self in generous enthusiasms; to extend to the less
+      fortunate a helping hand; to believe one's community may
+      become the best of communities; and to cooperate with others
+      for the common ends of a more abundant home and community
+      life:
+
+      "This is the offer of the Home Bureau to the homemaker of
+      to-day."
+
+Nor should we fail to recognize the part which the boys' and girls' club
+work has had in the extension movement. Space will not permit any
+adequate account of its origin and growth, or of its methods and
+influence. No movement has done more to redirect and give dynamic to the
+rural school than has the club work; nor has any movement done more to
+train leadership among the coming generation on the farms. Commencing
+with corn clubs for the boys, canning clubs were soon organized for the
+girls, and later pig clubs, potato clubs, calf clubs, sewing clubs,
+cooking clubs, and clubs are now organized with various projects
+covering almost all phases of agriculture and home economics. These
+clubs may be called the Junior Farm Bureau, for in them farm children
+are receiving a training which will mean much for the future
+organization of country life. The public confidence in the work is shown
+by the fact that in 1920, 500 banks in the northern and western states
+loaned nearly $900,000 to club boys and girls for financing their
+projects.[50] As a result of the school exhibits of the products of the
+club work, many a community fair has been started, and as a result of
+club picnics and play days community picnics or festivals have become an
+annual event in many places and have brought better feeling and
+increased pride and loyalty to the community. In 1919, 464,979 boys and
+girls were enrolled in club work.
+
+Thus the extension movement started by the agricultural colleges and the
+United States Department of Agriculture has become a national movement
+of rural people, men, women, and children, whose strength is largely due
+to the fact that it has been the means of organizing the local
+communities and of bringing them together in county organizations, which
+with the aid of state and national funds and supervision, employ trained
+executives to stimulate and supervise the work of the local groups. It
+is a unique agency for the education and organization of rural life
+which is giving the American farmer a new position in the life of the
+nation.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[47] This movement can only be sketched in barest outline. It is fully
+and authoritatively discussed in another volume of this series by Prof.
+M. C. Burritt, entitled "The County Agent and the Farm Bureau." See also
+O. B. Martin, "The Demonstration Work." Boston, The Stratford Co.
+
+[48] For a full discussion of this movement, its objectives and
+accomplishments, see O. M. Kile, "The Farm Bureau Movement," Macmillan,
+New York, 1921.
+
+[49] Nat. T. Frame, "Lifting the Country Community." Circular 255,
+Extension Division, W. Va. University, 1921.
+
+[50] See "Status and Results of Boys' and Girls' Club Work, Northern and
+Western States," 1920. George E. Farell. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture,
+Department Circular 192.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE COMMUNITY'S RELIGIOUS LIFE
+
+
+From the earliest times and among all peoples the common religious life
+has formed one of the strongest bonds of the rural community. Several of
+the original thirteen colonies which formed the United States were
+settled by those seeking freedom to worship as they chose, and as their
+descendants migrated westward many of the new settlements were largely
+composed of the membership of some one church or those of a similar
+faith. Dr. Warren H. Wilson has called attention to the fact that the
+Mormons, the Pennsylvania Germans, and the Scotch Presbyterians are the
+most successful farmers and remain on the land because they have given a
+religious sanction to country life and have made the church the center
+of the life of the community, as it was in the medieval village
+community of Europe. Whatever attitude one may take toward their
+religious beliefs, all impartial observers are agreed that the Mormons
+have established the strongest agricultural communities and that they
+have discovered and applied to a high degree some of the most
+fundamental principles of social organization. Concerning them Dr.
+Wilson says:
+
+      "These exceptional farmers are organized in the interest of
+      agriculture. The Mormons represent this organization in the
+      highest degree. Perhaps no other so large or so powerful a
+      body of united farmers is found in the whole country. They
+      have approached the economic questions of farming with
+      determination to till the soil. They distrust city life and
+      condemn it. They teach their children and they discipline
+      themselves to love the country, to appreciate its
+      advantages and to recognize that their own welfare is bound
+      up in their success as farmers, and in the continuance of
+      their farming communities. This agricultural organization
+      centers in their country churches. They have turned the
+      force of religion into a community making power, and from
+      the highest to the lowest of their church officers the
+      Mormon people are devoted to agriculture as a mode of
+      living."[51]
+
+But although large numbers of communities throughout the United States
+were settled by people of one religious faith, and thus had the
+strongest bond of community, yet large areas were settled by scattered
+homesteaders belonging to different sects, and as time went on,
+newcomers came into the older communities and established churches of
+various denominations, so that throughout most of the country the
+churches have come to have more of a divisive than a unifying influence
+on community life.
+
+In our discussion of the religious life of the rural community we shall
+confine our attention to the protestant churches, because most of our
+rural people are protestants. It is true that in some sections, such as
+Louisiana and southern Maryland, and in many sections recently settled
+by Europeans, the people are mostly Roman Catholics; but in general the
+catholic church is strongest in the cities and towns and does not have
+strong rural parishes throughout the country. Throughout most of the
+United States the Methodist, Episcopal and Baptist denominations have by
+far the largest number of churches and membership, and their traditions
+and methods have largely shaped the religious life of our rural
+communities.
+
+During the century in which the United States west of the Alleghanies
+has been settled conditions have changed with such rapidity that the
+religious life is still largely dominated by its development during the
+days of early settlement and the present generation is faced with the
+problem of readjustment of its religious institutions to meet the
+present situation. In the days of the pioneer the circuit rider made his
+rounds over a large district, preaching at school houses and private
+homes and in the few country churches at intervals of one to three
+months. As the country became more thickly populated, country churches
+sprang up and several of them were joined together in the employment of
+a resident pastor with preaching at the larger churches every week and
+at the outlying stations once in two or three weeks. Doctrinal beliefs
+were strong and theological differences were frequently bitter. The
+preaching was practically the only service of the church, except for an
+annual "protracted meeting" or revival. The main emphasis was upon the
+personal salvation of the sinner. Sunday schools had not become a
+recognized feature of the church and but little thought was given to
+religious education and training by the church. The minister christened
+the babies, married the young people and buried the dead, but otherwise,
+with numerous preaching services, he was unable to do much pastoral
+work. A large proportion of the rural churches were located in the open
+country and like the district school were largely neighborhood churches,
+for bad roads and horse-drawn vehicles made it difficult for people to
+go over two or three miles. In many cases several churches were
+established in a single village or in nearby neighborhoods by different
+denominations and were largely supported by home-missionary aid
+contributed by the older churches in the East and the wealthier city
+parishes. Prior to the Civil War when most of our population was engaged
+in farming and before the exodus of the last half century to the towns
+and cities, most of the rural churches were fairly well attended, but
+with the recent decline in rural population, many of them, and
+particularly those in the open country, have faced the same situation as
+the district school in that there are now too few people to make
+possible the economic support of a pastor and church building.
+
+Furthermore, it must be recognized that the standards of rural people
+have changed as regards the church in the same way that they have
+concerning the school. When all of the people have had a common school
+education, many of them have had high school training, a few have been
+to college, and many of them now and then visit the larger churches of
+towns and cities, they are no longer satisfied with the occasional
+preaching of an uneducated man, however religious and earnest he may be.
+The Sunday school has become an established part of the work of the
+church and as people have appreciated the value of education in secular
+affairs, they have come to place more hope in the religious training of
+their children than in merely saving them by sudden conversion. The
+church is becoming more and more an institution for the training and
+expression of religious life rather than only a place for preaching.
+Moreover, the church now has to meet the competition of other
+institutions and interests which did not exist in the earlier days. The
+grange, the lodge, organizations of all sorts, moving pictures,
+athletics and automobiles, furnish means of association and command the
+interest and support of the people, where formerly there was only the
+church for the righteous and the tavern or the saloon for the convivial.
+
+All of these and other factors have conspired to weaken the relative
+influence of the church in our rural communities and the situation has
+become so serious in many sections that it has challenged the attention
+of denominational leaders. During the past fifteen years there have
+been a series of careful studies of the condition of the rural churches
+in various parts of the country. These studies have given indisputable
+evidence of the conditions responsible for the decline of the rural
+church and of the measures which must be taken if the religious life of
+the rural community is to be adequately fostered; and they have clearly
+shown that the problems of the rural church must be solved from the
+standpoint of meeting the religious needs of the rural community rather
+than that of the interests of the individual church. In the older parts
+of the country, and--alas--far too frequently in the newer sections, the
+most serious obstacle to the religious life of the community is an
+unnecessary number of churches, which divide its limited resources both
+of funds and leadership. Overchurching is more largely responsible for
+the decadence of the rural church than any one factor. Small
+congregations are unable to support a full time pastor, and where
+several of them are competing in a small community, it is deprived of
+the services of a resident minister. Preaching once in two weeks and
+practically no pastoral visitation are not conducive to the life of a
+church. The small church maintains its Sunday school with difficulty for
+there are too few of any one age for a satisfactory division of classes.
+Equally serious is the fact that the ablest men will not enter the
+ministry to devote themselves to what they regard as an unnecessary and
+unchristian competition.
+
+Tompkins County, where I live, is a fair average of rural New York. A
+recent survey shows that but eight of its twenty-eight rural communities
+have full time resident pastors, though there are ministers residing in
+twenty-five parishes who also serve other parishes nearby. Throughout
+the county there was one church for every 332 people, but the average
+village church had but 92 active members, and the average country
+church had but 32. The church membership has remained practically
+stationary for thirty years, while the attendance has decreased from 21
+percent of the rural population in 1890 to 14 percent in 1920. One
+community of 900 population had five churches, no one of which had a
+resident pastor or over 45 members, while two of them had but 11 members
+each and were closed. Six strictly rural communities in the southern
+part of the county have 16 churches, though none of these places can
+properly support more than one church with a resident pastor. After a
+careful study of the whole county, I am of the opinion that if at least
+one-third of the rural churches were abandoned or combined, the work of
+the church would be greatly strengthened. This county is cited because
+it is fairly typical; many worse have been reported in other surveys.
+
+Another handicap of the rural church is the frequent shift of ministers.
+In Tompkins County only 4 of the 57 churches have had the same pastor
+for ten years, 17 changed pastors three times in ten years and 17 of the
+pastors had been in their parishes one year or less. When a minister
+stays but a year or two, his parishioners tend to be only acquaintances
+and rarely does he really know them. A minister cannot become well
+enough acquainted with a new parish to do effective pastoral work in
+less than a year, and many ministers who have seemingly good programs of
+work fail to realize them because they attempt to force progress and to
+secure results more rapidly than is possible. One of the chief duties of
+the rural pastor is to train leadership. A church is no stronger than
+its permanent resident leadership. No matter how brilliant the work of
+the minister, if he has failed to develop local leadership, his work is
+soon dissipated when he leaves. Now leadership cannot be produced in a
+year or so and where it is most needed it requires several years to
+discover and develop it. Unfortunately much of this frequent shifting of
+rural pastors is directly due to ecclesiastical rule rather than to the
+needs of the local churches, though much of it results from meager
+salaries and sectarian rivalries which soon discourage a man who sees
+larger opportunities for service elsewhere.
+
+Numerous studies of the actual condition of the rural church in many
+parts of the country all show the futility of denominational competition
+in maintaining two or three churches where only one is needed or can be
+supported. Furthermore, the present generation of young married people
+who desire the best religious influences for their children are no
+longer much interested in the theological or ecclesiastical differences
+of the various denominations, and they refuse to support them or do so
+under protest and with an apathy which makes effective church work
+impossible. As a result, there has been a strong movement in recent
+years toward the consolidation of rural churches and for the
+establishment of what are called "community churches." Although much
+effort has been given toward getting denominational boards and leaders
+to form state federations for promoting inter-denominational comity, and
+although notable progress in this direction has been made in a few
+states, particularly in Maine and Vermont, yet the chief impetus to the
+community church movement has come from the people themselves, who have
+insisted upon a combination of the local churches often in spite of
+ecclesiastical indifference or opposition. The lack of coal in 1918
+induced many churches to hold their services together and in many cases
+gave an impetus to the idea of their permanent federation.
+
+The term community church has come to be applied to various forms of
+churches, but whatever its form, its fundamental purpose is the service
+of the community rather than the advancement of a particular
+denomination and it admits all Christian people to its fellowship, in
+contrast to the exclusiveness of the purely denominational church which
+insists upon the importance of particular theological beliefs or systems
+of church government.
+
+As the term is now used a "community church" may be a church definitely
+affiliated with some denomination, it may be a "federated" church, or a
+"union" church. The union church is unaffiliated with any religious
+denomination. If it be the only church in a community, it is then a
+community church, but if one or two others decline to unite, it is a
+_community church_ only in aspiration. It is this type of independent
+union church, to which the term community church is most commonly
+applied by the laity, and such community churches have increased rapidly
+in the past five years as a protest of the people against denominational
+competition and inefficiency. These independent community churches have
+now become so numerous in one or two states that they are holding state
+conventions. The question at once arises whether if they become
+affiliated in even the most nominal manner they will not soon constitute
+what will practically be another denomination and will fail to effect
+the growth of Christian unity which they desire. On the other hand,
+denominational leaders who are in entire sympathy with the abolishment
+of competition and the establishment of but one church in a rural
+community where only one is needed, point out that the union church
+loses the advantages of affiliation with a body of churches which have
+regional and national boards and agencies for giving them assistance and
+support in their work. The history not only of church but of all sorts
+of secular organizations, indicates that sooner or later local
+organizations with common aims and purposes tend to get together in
+conventions and to establish federations through which they may unite
+their resources in maintaining agencies to promote the common cause.
+Most organizations, whether religious or secular, need the stimulus of
+association with kindred organizations devoted to the same purposes and
+the help of expert supervision which can be secured only from state or
+national bodies.
+
+The "federated church" obviates this difficulty to a certain extent.
+Each of the federating churches maintains its own corporate identity and
+its affiliation with its own denomination, to which it sends its
+contributions for benevolences and denominational work. The federating
+churches form a joint organization for the employment of a minister and
+use the same building, or use two buildings in common--sometimes one for
+church and one for Sunday school services or social purposes,--and the
+church is a community church for all practical purposes. In the long run
+this usually results in a federated church finally affiliating with the
+denomination which is preferred by the large majority of its membership
+and which is least objectionable to the minority.
+
+Denominational leaders, on the other hand, hold that neither "union" or
+"federated" churches will be permanently satisfactory, but that the
+community church, though organized on the "federated" principle, should
+be definitely affiliated with some one denomination, and that a single
+denominational church which effectively serves the whole community may
+be truly a "community church."
+
+Whatever the outcome of this movement may be it has forced the
+recognition of the fact that the religious welfare of the rural
+community should be the first consideration and that denominational
+relations must be conceived as a means rather than an end, as has
+commonly been the case heretofore. When country people have learned the
+advantages of consolidated schools and of cooperation in marketing, and
+have developed the ability to work together in these and other phases of
+community life, they are no longer content to waste their energies in
+maintaining feeble churches, whose differences no longer command their
+loyalties, and they very naturally desire to bury their religious
+differences and to cooperate in the maintenance of a single church which
+will give that inspiration and dynamic to all the life of the community
+which can be furnished only through the religious motive. So in religion
+as in other phases of life, the community idea is replacing the older
+individualism.
+
+We have already noted the change of emphasis in the work of the church
+from that of merely holding a preaching service for the personal
+salvation of adults, to a greater reliance upon the power of religious
+education through the Sunday school and other organizations of young
+people. When Sunday schools were first started, a century or more ago,
+they were bitterly opposed by many of the more conservative church
+people. To-day they are a recognized part of all protestant churches,
+but oddly enough their advancement has been due more largely to the work
+of the laity than to that of the clergy, although there can be no
+question that church membership is most largely recruited from the
+Sunday schools. Thus in our survey of Tompkins County, New York, we
+found that out of 175 persons admitted to the rural churches on
+confession of faith, 61 of whom were adults and 114 children, 134 were
+previous members of the Sunday school.
+
+The rural Sunday school in the small church has the same difficulty as
+does the district school, in that it has too few scholars of
+approximately the same age to form classes of sufficient size to command
+their interest and enthusiasm. Likewise it is forced to depend upon
+untrained and frequently-changing teachers. Although there has been a
+marked advance in the grading and organization of Sunday schools and of
+the literature for their study, yet there is a growing conviction that a
+period of twenty minutes a week is inadequate to secure effective
+religious education. On the other hand, although the separation of
+church and state in this country prevents the giving of religious
+instruction in our public schools, educators have come to recognize its
+importance in the education of the child. As a result there is now a
+definite movement for the organization of week-day schools of religion.
+When these schools are conducted by trained teachers and their work is
+of an educational standard satisfactory to the public schools, the
+pupils are given credit for their work toward promotion in the public
+schools. The State of New York has enacted definite legislation
+permitting the schools to dismiss those pupils whose parents so desire,
+for a definite period each week when they may attend whatever school of
+religious instruction their parents may designate, and for which the
+public schools shall give credit when satisfactory as to educational
+methods. Such week-day schools of religious instruction have been
+carried on in some of our cities for several years, and at the present
+time are being introduced into rural communities in various sections of
+the country. Sometimes each church maintains its own school, but
+inasmuch as this movement is usually promoted by the inter-denominational
+Sunday school associations the tendency is to secure the cooperation of
+all the protestant churches in establishing one school for the community.
+This movement is still young, but if it makes the progress which now
+seems probable, it should be a powerful agency toward the elimination of
+weak churches. It makes possible the organization of graded classes of
+sufficient size so that a real group spirit and interest are created and
+the instruction can be given with the same pedagogical efficiency as in
+the public schools. Obviously the success of the movement will depend
+upon the degree to which it can command the support of the whole
+community and it will thus tend to strengthen community life.
+
+A new attitude toward the social life of its people is also having a
+large influence upon the program of many rural churches. Formerly
+religion was one thing and sociability was another, and the church felt
+no responsibility for the recreation of its people. Gradually church
+suppers and sociables became customary, but they were held either to
+raise money or as a means for attracting outsiders into the fold. In the
+days when money was scarce in the rural community it was often difficult
+to raise the pastor's salary. Much of his salary was paid in kind, and
+annual "donation parties" contributed a considerable share of his
+living. But as markets developed and farmers came to sell most of their
+products for cash, money became more plentiful and it became evident
+that no church can be maintained upon a sound business basis which does
+not make up an annual budget and raise it by the direct contributions of
+its people. Putting the finances of the church on a business basis has
+removed the need of church suppers for raising funds, but their social
+value has become so apparent that they are now held merely for the
+better acquaintance and enjoyment of the church people. In so far as the
+social life of the church has been consciously planned as a "bait" for
+outsiders to attract them into the church, it has, in the long run
+usually been ineffectual. Too often the motive has been so thinly veiled
+and the program of the social hour has been given such a religious
+atmosphere that outsiders very naturally take a defensive attitude, and
+although they may enjoy the occasion they are perfectly aware of its
+ulterior objective.
+
+Recently, however, the church has come to appreciate that play and
+recreation are a normal and necessary part of the life of its people and
+that it cannot abolish the saloon and condemn certain amusements without
+incurring a responsibility to provide, or to see that there is provided,
+satisfying facilities for recreation and sociability. In short, it is
+coming to recognize that a social program should be undertaken because
+it is a worthy service and a real need of the people and not as a mere
+means to other ends. Furthermore, where the church generously sponsors a
+social program which is enjoyed by all the people of the community,
+without thought of its being aimed at any proselyting, many of them come
+to take an increased interest in the strictly religious services and
+work of the church.
+
+So to-day many a rural church is holding community sings, its young
+people are staging amateur dramatic entertainments, its boys have a
+troop of boy scouts and the girls join the girl scouts or the camp-fire
+girls, baseball and basketball teams are formed from the Sunday school
+classes, the men have a club which meets once a month for the discussion
+of current topics and a supper, the women come together for sewing
+parties, and the whole people assemble for suppers and for the
+celebration of national holidays and festival occasions. In a small
+village in western New York the four Sunday schools have recently formed
+an athletic association which has erected a one-story gymnasium in which
+the boys can play basketball and all can find enjoyment.
+
+One of the handicaps of the average country church is that its building
+is not adapted to social purposes, although the newer buildings are
+being constructed with better facilities. Sometimes this need is being
+met by erecting a separate church house which is used for Sunday school
+and social purposes. Where there is more than one church it is
+frequently felt that one building may serve the needs of all and so in
+many communities the churches have united in the promotion of community
+buildings to serve as social centers for all the people. Thus in its
+social as well as in its educational program the church finds that a
+satisfactory social life cannot be secured through sectarian
+competition, but that by united effort the churches may meet the
+community needs.
+
+Although in the past the chief duty of the country minister was to
+preach on Sunday, yet those most beloved and most successful in building
+up strong churches have won the hearts of their people more largely
+through their pastoral work, through their personal acquaintance and
+influence on the lives of families and individuals. Although a broader
+educational and social program is needed in the rural church, there is
+an equal opportunity for a larger service through a new sort of pastoral
+work by the minister who can serve the community as a social worker.
+There is an impression that there is no need for so-called social work,
+for the expert assistance of the poor, the neglected, the delinquent,
+and the mentally defective, in most rural communities; that this may be
+necessary for the city slums, but that there are but few such people in
+the open country. But the recent work started during the war by the Home
+Service of the local chapters of the American Red Cross and the work of
+various child welfare and health organizations have shown that country
+people are not always aware of the needs of some of their not distant
+neighbors, and that there is a deal of service which might be given the
+more unfortunate members of the average rural community which they are
+not now receiving. The average rural community cannot support a paid
+social worker and needs but part of her time, while the county is
+usually too large an area for her to cover. Why should not the rural
+minister be qualified to do much of the family welfare work of his
+community, calling in outside expert assistance when needed? What better
+pastoral work could he do, and yet how many rural pastors are doing this
+sort of work in any intelligent sort of fashion, and how many families
+in need, outside of his own membership, would turn to the average rural
+minister for help? Dr. C. J. Galpin has well said of the rural minister
+that "he is the recognized community psychologist and sociologist." The
+trouble is that although he is often so recognized, he is usually an
+amateur rather than a professional. Obviously, as a doctor of souls, the
+village pastor should be the local "social worker" of every rural
+community, but if he is to so serve he must first be trained so that he
+can bring to bear a knowledge of social science upon the problems of the
+families with which he deals. An average rural community can hardly
+afford more than one pastor with such qualifications, and it is evident
+that he would need to give his whole time to one parish. Such a modern
+representative of the old "cure" of the medieval parish could give real
+spiritual service to many a rural family which the average rural church
+never reaches, and he would be a real father to his people.
+
+Finally, and most important, we must recognize that no other institution
+can take the place of the Christian church as a source of those ideals
+of life which give religious sanction to loyalty to the common good--to
+the community--rather than to self or particular interests. The ideals
+of its Founder who conceived the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood
+of man as the norm of human relationships, and who thought man's
+relation to man should be the expression of his loyalty to their common
+Father, will ever furnish the strongest spiritual dynamic for the best
+community life, for the whole community movement is but one means toward
+the realization of His ideal of the Kingdom of God on earth. Indeed so
+keen a mind as the late Professor Josiah Royce has interpreted the
+spirit of the early church and the ultimate aim of Christianity as that
+of "the beloved community."[52] Though it may require new equipment and
+new methods to meet the changed conditions of modern life, the mission
+of religion to interpret the highest values of life will ever make it
+the motive force of community life, the heart of the community. As Dr.
+E. DeS. Brunner has well said, "The aim of the country church movement
+is not to substitute anything for the Gospel. It is to assist in
+expressing the best religion of the ages in terms of the best spirit of
+the age."[53]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[51] "The Evolution of the Country Community," p. 63. Boston, The
+Pilgrim Press, 1912.
+
+[52] Cf. "The Problem of Christianity."
+
+[53] "The Country Church in the New World Order," p. 39.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE COMMUNITY'S HEALTH
+
+
+In the early days in which the country was but sparsely settled,
+sickness, except for epidemics of such diseases as smallpox and yellow
+fever, was regarded as an individual affair. In recent years
+bacteriology and medical science have revealed the causes of many
+diseases and the manner in which they are spread. With a denser
+population and with more frequent contacts as a result of better
+transportation, the possibility of contagion has very largely increased
+and we now appreciate that the health of the family--even of the rural
+family--cannot be maintained without attention to the health of the
+community as a whole. Good health has become a responsibility of the
+community.
+
+The rapid growth of cities in the last fifty years has forced them to
+take measures for the preservation of health, and public health
+administration has become a distinct branch of medical science. It is
+the health problems which have arisen in the congested sections of our
+large cities, and those which are due to a sedentary life or to
+unhealthful conditions of certain trades and industries, which have
+incited the discoveries of medical science and which have created a new
+attitude toward sanitation and hygiene among city people.
+
+There has been a distinct change with regard to the attitude of society
+toward health. A generation or two ago many people--particularly elderly
+females--were not ashamed of "enjoying poor health," and a delicate
+physique was regarded as rather incidental to the more highly cultured.
+To-day, although we sympathize with the afflicted, society places a
+premium upon a sound physique. The importance of physical exercise, of
+recreation and athletics for the development and maintenance of a sound
+body are now much more fully appreciated than they were fifty years ago.
+We are coming to understand that good health is largely due to habits of
+personal hygiene which must be instilled by the home and the school, and
+that without such habits the mere knowledge of sanitation and hygiene
+will not be generally applied. This new emphasis upon physical fitness
+has naturally received larger attention in the cities on account of the
+more unfavorable conditions of city life, while the new knowledge and
+appreciation of the value of health has not been so constantly forced
+upon the attention of rural people.
+
+Gradually we are coming to appreciate that we have an ethical
+responsibility for good health, and it is even receiving a religious
+sanction, for we have come to know that the cause of evil behavior may
+be due primarily to an unsound body rather than to a perverted soul. The
+church has ever ministered to the sick and has supported hospitals, but
+to-day it is commencing to advocate the prevention of disease through
+sanitation and hygiene, and to preach the religious duty of fostering
+health and preventing sickness.
+
+One of the principal factors in the farmer's relative indifference to
+health measures is the fact that he has become accustomed to think that
+an outdoor life and isolation from other people give him an ability to
+withstand sickness and he has rather gloried in his ability to throw off
+ordinary ailments and to withstand the physical hardship which his work
+often demands. He can see how health conditions may need attention in
+the city where people are crowded together, but he is not impressed that
+other causes make such diseases as typhoid and malaria much more
+prevalent in the open country, and that bad sanitation on a farm a mile
+away may cause sickness in his own family. American farmers have been
+educated on the nature and spread of disease by their experience with
+animal diseases, such as bovine tuberculosis, hog cholera, and Texas
+fever. If they can be interested to utilize this knowledge in the care
+of the health of their own families, and if they will provide health
+facilities for their own families equal to those which they feel
+necessary for their livestock, health conditions on the farm will show
+rapid improvement. It is not that the farmer is indifferent to the
+health of his family, but he has been _forced_ to have his herd tested
+for tuberculosis, and he faces the possibility of heavy losses if he
+does not have his hogs vaccinated for cholera, while he has not
+appreciated that by preventative agencies the better health of his wife
+and children may be insured and the cost of remedial treatment be
+greatly lessened.
+
+The purely economic aspects of sickness and disease have been a potent
+factor in the health movement, particularly in cities. The vast sums
+invested in life insurance have led progressive insurance companies into
+extensive campaigns for promoting public health so that their risks may
+be reduced. Vast quantities of the best health literature have been
+distributed by some of the industrial insurance companies and they have
+done much to demonstrate the value of public health nursing by employing
+nurses who visit their policy holders. The extension of the insurance
+method to health insurance, and the adoption of insurance by large
+corporations for their employees has furthered this general movement,
+and has revealed the tremendous economic losses due to preventable
+sickness and disease. The farmer has failed to appreciate the purely
+economic handicap under which he labors as a result of sickness and the
+lack of adequate medical service and efficient public health
+administration such as cities enjoy, because the cost of sickness is
+distributed and is borne by each family and he has no means of knowing
+the aggregate cost for the whole community. Were it possible for a rural
+community to secure and have brought to its attention the total economic
+loss due to sickness in a given year and the proportion which might be
+preventable with a reasonable expenditure for better health facilities,
+its people would doubtless become as interested in better health
+administration as does the employer in a large city industry, and the
+true economy of better health facilities would be apparent.
+
+Few concrete studies of the losses occasioned by sickness in rural
+communities have been made, but one of Dutchess County,[54] New York, in
+1915 well illustrates the conditions which would doubtless be found in
+many another rural county. This survey covered five districts of the
+county with an aggregate population of about 11,800--most of which was
+rural territory. 1,600 cases of serious illness were found to have
+occurred during the year. "Some 9,000 days were lost by men and women of
+working age (15 to 54 years). Children lost 13,700 school days. On the
+average this cost the community for each child at least 33 cents a day
+for which it received no return. These two items safely represent a
+money loss of $20,000 to $25,000." As a result of the study it was
+estimated that the total money loss occasioned by sickness in a year
+within the whole county would be at least $412,000. "Of the 1,600
+patients whose care has been analyzed in this report, 72 percent could
+have been cared for adequately in their own homes had there been
+available medical and nursing service. The remaining 28 percent (442
+patients) could not have been cared for adequately in their own homes
+... 24 percent of the patients secured no medical care. Many startling
+instances of unnecessary and indefensible suffering and misery were
+found.... Of the 113 women who went through childbirth in their homes,
+only one had the continuous care of a graduate nurse, and only 18 had
+any service whatever from graduate visiting nurses. 35 percent of the
+children born came into the world under unfit conditions and
+surroundings." Largely as a result of this study, Dutchess County now
+has an efficient county health association through which a number of
+public health nurses are employed, who visit all districts of the
+county.
+
+One of the most serious handicaps in maintaining the health of the rural
+community is its frequent lack of medical service. The number of doctors
+practising in the open country was always inadequate, but in recent
+years it has decreased until now many large sections are without any
+resident physician. The influenza epidemic of 1918, following the
+shortage of doctors during the war, revealed the plight of many a rural
+community without medical service. The higher standards now required by
+medical colleges and state licensing boards has resulted in a real
+shortage of physicians and the young men are not going into the country
+to practise. A recent study made by the New York State Department of
+Health showed that in 20 rural counties 88 percent of the physicians had
+been practising over 25 years and only 3 percent less than ten years.
+This means that most of the rural doctors in these counties have less
+than ten years more to practise and that there is no indication that
+their places will be filled by younger men. In Manitoba one rural
+municipality has employed a physician on full time, and a recent act of
+the New York legislature makes it possible for towns to employ
+physicians. It seems probable that country people will be forced to
+employ physicians on a salaried basis if they are to secure adequate
+medical service. This does not necessarily mean, however, that the
+physician will be employed by the local government. Industrial workers
+are now employing physicians on a salary and farmers' organizations are
+employing salaried veterinarians. Why cannot a local health association
+be formed to employ a physician, whose job it will be to keep its people
+well?
+
+Two factors prevent the larger use of physicians now available. Chief of
+these is the cost. Farmers handle relatively less actual money than
+townsmen, and their income is less frequent so that they have less on
+hand, while the cost of medical attendance is necessarily higher in the
+country. Fear of running up a bill deters many a farm woman from calling
+a doctor, when one call might prevent many more later on. The farm home
+tends to employ a physician only for serious sickness, rather than as a
+medical adviser who may forestall illness. Another difficulty is one of
+the physician's own making. The experience is far too common that in
+cases of immediate need when the family doctor cannot be located,
+doctors will refuse to attend a case on account of so-called
+"professional courtesy." It is time that public opinion be aroused so
+that such cases be brought to the attention of county medical societies
+with sufficient public opinion to force them to take suitable action.
+The ethics of every profession must be shaped to meet the needs of those
+it serves as well as the pocketbooks of its members.
+
+Lack of medical attendance is most serious for the farm mother during
+confinement, and the mortality of rural mothers during childbirth, as
+shown by the investigations of the U. S. Children's Bureau, is an
+indictment of our supposed civilization. When we learn that in a
+homesteading county in Montana there were 12.7 deaths of mothers per
+1,000 births, which is twice the rate for the United States as a whole,
+which is higher than that of fifteen foreign countries for which
+statistics were available in 1915, we face a condition which cannot be
+neglected. When we find that in Wisconsin this rate was but 6 per 1,000,
+and that 68 percent were attended by physicians, and in Kansas it was
+but 2.9 per thousand and 95 percent had physicians, while in Montana
+only 47 percent were attended, loss of life due to isolation and lack of
+medical care is apparent. In sparsely settled regions the solution of
+this problem seems to demand the provision of local maternity hospitals,
+for the difficulty is primarily one of isolation.
+
+Since medical science has shown that sparkling spring water may carry
+the deadly typhoid germ as a result of distant contamination, that wells
+are frequently contaminated by nearby privies or barn yards, that
+malaria is carried by mosquitoes, and that the house fly may carry
+typhoid fever and intestinal diseases of infants, we have come to
+appreciate that isolation and pure country air do not insure freedom
+from infection, and that sanitation is as important on the farm as in
+the city. Indeed the transmission of disease by flies is much easier on
+the farm, for too often the manure pile where they multiply is not far
+from the house, while in many a city the smaller number of horses and
+the cleaning of manure from the streets prevents their increase. The
+sanitation of the farm home thus becomes a very large factor in the
+health of the rural community. Surveys made by health officers in recent
+years have shown the general need of better sanitary provisions and also
+the possibility of the direct benefits secured from their improvement.
+In Indiana the State Board of Health surveyed nine typical rural
+counties taking only the homes on farms and in unincorporated villages.
+The average score of 6,124 rural homes in these nine counties was but
+56.2 percent, the average for individual counties varying from 43 to 61
+percent. In 1914, 1915, and 1916, the U. S. Public Health Service made
+sanitary surveys of 51,544 farm homes in 15 rural counties scattered
+throughout the United States, but mostly in the South. Its report[55]
+states that only 1.22 percent of these farm homes were equipped for a
+really sanitary disposal of human excreta, while in one county in
+Alabama less than 20 percent of the farm homes had toilets of any kind.
+"Sixty-eight percent of the water supply used for drinking or culinary
+purposes was obviously exposed to dangerous contamination from privy
+contents"; and only 32.88 percent of the houses were effectively
+screened against flies. A very considerable improvement in farm
+sanitation has resulted from the educational campaigns conducted during
+the past decade, but effective rural sanitation awaits the employment of
+public health officials who will convince the people of each local
+community of their individual responsibility for the health conditions
+on their own farms and of their common liability for the health of each
+other.
+
+With the above conditions in mind, let us now consider the agencies for
+health conservation in rural communities. We have already seen that the
+old-fashioned country doctor is rapidly disappearing. With better
+transportation now available it seems probable that physicians will live
+in the larger village centers, but with telephone communication and the
+automobile it should be possible to secure as prompt medical attendance.
+We may as well recognize that many a rural community is too small a unit
+to support a resident physician and that if satisfactory medical
+treatment is to be secured we shall have to have better hospital and
+clinical facilities so that the time of the physician can be economized
+and frequent attention can be given.
+
+Most rural townships have a local board of health and health officer,
+who is charged with reporting births and deaths and with the enforcement
+of quarantines against contagious diseases, but it is notorious that
+these local health officials are rarely efficient or take any leadership
+in the betterment of public health. Ordinarily the health officer
+receives little if any pay, and is a resident physician who is not
+inclined to antagonize his own clients when the enforcement of health
+regulations would meet their opposition. Students of rural health
+problems are now fairly agreed that the only means of securing efficient
+administration of public health regulations in rural communities is by
+the employment of a full time county health officer, working under a
+county board of health, who will have the same general duties as the
+health officers in our cities. Local health officers would be retained,
+but their work would be under the supervision of the county health
+officer and would have the benefit not only of his support and
+encouragement, but also of his superior technical training. If a county
+superintendent is necessary for our schools, a county health officer is
+equally necessary for the supervision of public health, and several
+states have enacted legislation requiring or permitting the employment
+of county health officers. The county is usually the best unit for rural
+health administration.[56] The county health officer would have
+laboratory facilities for the examination of drinking water, and samples
+of blood, urine, or sputum for the detection of disease, and would give
+direction for the taking of samples which might be sent to the
+laboratories of the state department of health for the examination of
+those specimens for which his laboratory was not equipped. He would
+have general supervision of the medical examination of school children.
+In numerous ways he would promote better means for health conservation,
+as can be done by one who has had special training for such work and who
+is giving his whole time and thought to its problems.
+
+Although the county health officer is necessary for the administration
+of the technical aspects of public health administration, the most
+important gains in the health of the rural community will come through
+the personal education of its people on matters of hygiene and
+sanitation. This is the field of public health nurses, and I believe
+that the records of their work in rural communities will show that they
+have done more for health education than any other one agency. A decade
+ago trained visiting nurses were practically unknown in rural
+communities. In 1914 the American Red Cross first organized its Town and
+Country Nursing Service and cooperated with a few rural communities in
+supervising the work of trained public health nurses, but relatively few
+places employed rural nurses prior to the war. The county tuberculosis
+societies also employed visiting nurses who worked throughout a whole
+county and whose work inevitably created a demand for visiting nurses
+for a more general service. The shortage of physicians during the war
+and the influenza epidemic of 1918 revealed the need for rural nurses
+and since the war the local chapters of the American Red Cross, which is
+devoting much of its attention to public health work, have employed
+hundreds of rural public health nurses.
+
+The success of school nurses in the cities has led to their employment
+in the smaller towns, and now county school nurses are being employed in
+individual counties in several states, and in other states school
+nurses are employed by townships or jointly by several rural school
+districts. Wisconsin and Ohio have recently enacted laws compelling
+every county to employ at least one public health nurse, and a dozen or
+more states have passed legislation making the employment of county or
+local nurses optional. Under whatever auspices they are employed, rural
+public health nurses have found that their most effective work may be
+done at first in connection with the schools. Medical examination of
+school children is now required in many states, but unless it is
+followed up by some one who will see the parents and encourage them to
+secure the necessary medical or dental treatment, the results of these
+examinations are often disappointing.
+
+A most interesting and instructive account of the work done by a county
+school nurse during the first year of her work in typical Minnesota
+county has been given by Miss Amalia M. Bengtson, superintendent of
+schools of Renville County:
+
+      "Renville County is prosperous; there are few poor people,
+      no child is underfed and no one wilfully neglected, yet our
+      tabulated report shows an appalling amount of physical
+      defectiveness. Out of our school population of six thousand
+      we examined five thousand children, and found four thousand
+      and ninety-five defective, testifying that 81 percent of the
+      children were defective. This seems almost unbelievable, and
+      yet it does not tell the whole story, for I could take you
+      to school after school where there was 100 percent
+      defectiveness, where we sent a notice to every parent in
+      that school. Yet, as I said before, Renville County is a
+      prosperous county, and we have every reason to believe that
+      conditions in Renville County to-day are the same as in
+      other counties where a health survey has been taken. The
+      percentages of the defectiveness found were: teeth, 55
+      percent; nose, 40 percent; throat, 66 percent; eyes, 22
+      percent; ears, 17 percent; malnutrition, 16 percent;
+      nervous disorder, 16 percent; neck glands, 14 percent; skin,
+      13 percent; and general appearance, 12 per cent."[57]
+
+      In reply to the question, "What of it? What good came of the
+      health survey?" Miss Bengtson says: "Our records show that
+      about one thousand of the children examined were taken to
+      see either a doctor or a dentist, or both, the first year.
+      Parents who at first opposed the work are fully convinced
+      that a county nurse should be a permanent worker among us
+      when they see how much their children have been benefited by
+      a little medical help.
+
+      "Besides examining the children, the nurse has been a great
+      factor in bringing about a general education for better
+      health. In our county to-day you are behind the times if you
+      do not know what adenoids are and the havoc bad tonsils can
+      bring; why eye strain is so prevalent and how to prevent it;
+      why teeth should be taken care of; why we should drink
+      plenty of water and eat the proper kind of food; what kind
+      of clothing is best to wear, and why we should not wear too
+      heavy and too much clothing while indoors (we have induced
+      some little boys to remove one coat and three sweaters while
+      in school); why we need to be clean, etc.
+
+      "Another great service the nurse rendered us was to bring
+      about a veritable epidemic of school-house improvement. She
+      proved that the physical condition of the school-house was
+      reflected in the physical condition of the children. For
+      example, a poorly lighted and badly ventilated school-house
+      always housed children with eye strain and nervous disorder,
+      and in a school-house having ill-fitting desks were children
+      of poor posture.
+
+      "During the summer of that first year the nurse was with us,
+      we conducted so-called 'baby clinics' in the county, one in
+      every township and one in each village. We urged the mothers
+      to bring their children below school age to the clinics, and
+      much the same kind of examination was given them as was
+      given the children of school age. We found that 60 percent
+      of the children of pre-school age were defective."
+
+This is but a sample of the work and experience of hundreds of rural
+nurses and shows how the nurse is a health teacher in the most effective
+manner, for she gets into the homes and gives personal help in bringing
+about better health. She uses the demonstration method in health work
+just as the home demonstration agent does with food, clothing, and home
+management. Furthermore, when the nurse is devoted to her work--and most
+nurses are or they would not stick to so hard a job--she becomes
+endeared to the people just as does the family doctor, for the help she
+gives in cases of sickness, accident, and childbirth, when she is of
+invaluable service to isolated homes who can secure no other help. A
+slip of a girl--though a well-trained nurse--who commenced work in a
+nearby community was introduced to her new work with two confinement
+cases and an accident case the first day, for none of which was a
+physician obtainable. The Red Cross Nurse in my own county has spent
+many a night in a farm home in order to get sufficiently acquainted with
+parents to induce them to allow her to have needed treatment given to
+their children, and when the parents come to realize the benefit which
+their children have received from operations on tonsils or adenoids, the
+fitting of glasses, and similar services, and appreciate the handicap
+which such defects would have been to them through life, the nurse has a
+warm place in their hearts and they eagerly support her work.
+
+One of the difficulties of the average country doctor is his lack of
+facilities for the expert diagnosis of disease and for the care of
+patients who need to be kept under observation and given supervised
+care. Medical science has become highly specialized. The human body is
+so complicated and wonderful a mechanism that we no longer can expect
+any one man to be expert on all its ailments. If one desires to secure
+the best medical service, he goes to a large city hospital or a
+sanitarium, where various specialists can be consulted and where
+laboratory facilities are available for their aid. In the average
+village or country town both specialists and laboratories are lacking
+and the physician is dependent on his own knowledge and resources. The
+well-trained physician who appreciates his own limitations and that he
+cannot give many of his more difficult cases the care they ought to
+have, sends those who can afford it to the nearest hospital, and does
+the best he can for the others, but he is keenly aware that he cannot
+always give them the treatment they should have and he envies his city
+colleague who can take his patients to specialists for examination.
+
+It is a fear of this professional isolation which causes the average
+young doctor to start his practice in the city where he has better
+facilities, and which is largely responsible for the small number of
+young doctors in rural counties. It is, of course, impossible to have a
+hospital in every hamlet, but it is possible to have a good hospital and
+laboratories at every county seat or small city center, so that there
+will be at least one such medical center in a county. Legislation has
+now been enacted in several states making it possible for counties to
+support a public hospital just as the larger cities have done for many
+years. Here clinics may be held from time to time, to which eminent
+specialists may be brought for the diagnosis of different cases, to the
+advantage of both patient and physician. It is quite impossible for a
+busy country doctor to maintain a private laboratory and to provide
+himself with all the expensive equipment for making examination and
+tests of blood, sputum, urine, for X-ray examinations, etc., but the
+hospital may have all this equipment at his service.
+
+One of the most important features of the domestic program of the
+American Red Cross is the promotion of so-called "Health Centers," a
+movement which is also sponsored by the American Medical Association and
+other national health organizations. Such a health center may include a
+hospital with well equipped laboratories and clinical facilities, or it
+may be nothing more than a room in a small village, equipped with scales
+for weighing children, with first aid kits for accident cases, and used
+for occasional clinics for the examination of babies and children of
+pre-school age and for classes in home nursing or first aid; but every
+community of any size should have some place which will be a
+headquarters for its local health Service, equipped as may be most
+practicable to meet its needs, according to the size of the community.
+
+Curiously enough the local physicians, who would be most helped by such
+improved health facilities and whose practice would be benefited by
+them, are often their chief opponents. The leaders in the medical world,
+who are keen for all practicable means of improving the public health,
+heartily support the "health center" movement.
+
+We are coming to the time when the maintenance of health will be
+regarded as a public function just as education is now provided for all
+the people and supported by them. That country people are alive to the
+need of better health facilities is shown by a resolution of the recent
+(February, 1922) Agricultural Conference called by President Harding at
+Washington. Its committee on farm population reported:
+
+      "The safeguarding of the health of the people in the open
+      country is a first consideration. Any program that looks
+      toward the proper safeguarding of health must include
+      adequate available facilities for the people in the open
+      country in the way of hospitals, clinics, laboratories,
+      dispensaries, nurses, physicians, and health officers. This
+      committee endorses the growing tendency through public
+      agencies to maintain the health of the people by means of
+      these facilities and agencies."
+
+The life of rural people in America is no longer threatened by the
+invasion of human foes, but it is constantly threatened by disease. It
+would seem that the first public concern would be for the maintenance of
+the health--the very life--of its people, but as yet we have given much
+less thought to health than to education. The New York State Department
+of Health has as its slogan: "Public health is purchasable. Within
+natural limitations any community can determine its own death rate."
+This is no longer theory, but can be demonstrated by official mortality
+statistics. The death rate has declined more rapidly in cities than in
+rural communities because the cities have given more adequate support to
+public health organization. The rural community has all the natural
+advantages in its favor and will ever have the most healthful
+environment, but it must recognize that if preventable disease--with all
+its attendant evils to the family and to the individual--is to be
+reduced, this can be accomplished only through education and public
+health agencies. Better health is a matter of the hygiene of the home
+and the individual, but it has also become a concern of the common
+life--a community problem.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[54] "A Study of Sickness in Dutchess County, New York." State Charities
+Aid Association, New York City.
+
+[55] L. L. Lumsden, "Rural Sanitation," U. S. Public Health Service.
+Public Health Bulletin No. 94, Oct., 1918.
+
+[56] See Dr. W. S. Rankin, "Report of Committee on Rural Health,"
+Proceedings Second National Country Life Conference, p. 93.
+
+[57] "An Adventure in Rural Health Service." Proceedings Second National
+Country Life Conference, p. 47.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE COMMUNITY'S PLAY AND RECREATION
+
+
+The people of most rural communities have an unsatisfied desire for more
+play, recreation, and sociable life. Opportunities for enjoyment seem
+more available in the towns and cities and are therefore a leading cause
+of the great exodus. Economic prosperity and good wages are not alone
+sufficient to keep people on farms and in villages if their income will
+not purchase the satisfactions they desire. To a certain extent many of
+these advantages of the town and city can be brought to the rural
+community, but only when country people come to appreciate and develop
+those forms of play and recreation which are possible and adapted to
+their conditions, and when they are willing to afford ample facilities
+and opportunity for the play of their children, will the lure of the
+city be checked. With such a changed attitude the rural community need
+have no fear of the competition of the city. It may not be able to have
+as fine commercial amusements, but it can have the best sort of play and
+recreation at small cost, for which the cities incur large expense.
+
+There is a peculiar need for a better understanding of the place of play
+and recreation in the open country at the present time. Formerly large
+families gave better opportunity for the children of one family to play
+together, and there were more children of similar ages at the district
+school of the neighborhood. To-day with farms farther apart and fewer
+children, farm children do not have sufficient opportunity to play
+together in groups. The better opportunity for group play and team
+games is one of the advantages of the consolidated school which has been
+too little appreciated.
+
+We have seen that one of the obvious necessities for the economic
+progress of agriculture is that its business be conducted on a
+cooperative basis. The chief obstacle to cooperation is the
+individualism of the farmer. The training of boys and girls in team
+games, in which they learn loyalty to the group and to subordinate
+themselves to the winning of the team, will do much to change this
+attitude. Boys who play baseball and basketball together, who are
+associated in boy scouts and agricultural clubs, will be much quicker to
+cooperate, for they grow up with an attitude of loyalty to the team
+group as well as to their own family.
+
+Again, the awkwardness and self-consciousness of the country youth in
+comparison with his city cousin is due to no inherent inferiority, for
+in a few years he often out-strips him, but it is the direct result of
+his lack of social contacts. Personality develops through social life,
+through the give and take of one personality with another, through
+imitation, and the acquirement of a natural ease of association with
+others. The country boy and girl who has had the advantage of
+association with larger groups in the consolidated school or high school
+tends to become quite the social equal of the city child.
+
+Heretofore many people, and particularly farm people, have regarded play
+and recreation for adults as more or less frivolous or unnecessary,
+while for children play has been used as an award for good conduct or
+hard work, but it has by no means been deemed a necessary phase of the
+child's life. If Johnnie does all his chores or if Mary washes the
+dishes and dusts the furniture faithfully, the opportunity for play is
+held up as a reward for services rendered; but that time for play and
+proper kinds of play are essential for a child's education has only
+recently been established by the students of child psychology and is
+not, as yet, generally appreciated either by parents or teachers.
+
+It is often said that this is the "age of the child," in that our
+civilization is more largely shaped by a desire to give our children the
+best possible advantages. We have come to appreciate, thanks to the
+insight of such philosophers as John Fiske,[58] that the advancement of
+the human race has been very largely due to the prolongation of the
+period of infancy. Ordinarily we think of play as an attribute of
+childhood, but as an incident rather than as a fundamental reason for
+the prolongation of childhood. Most modern students of child psychology,
+however, will take the view of Karl Gross,[59] an authority on the play
+of man and animals, who says: "Children do not play because they are
+young; they are young in order that they may play." Play is a normal
+process of the child's growth through spontaneous activity. Joseph Lee,
+the president of the Playground and Recreation Association of America,
+goes so far as to say: "Play is thus the essential part of education. It
+is nature's prescribed course. School is invaluable in forming the child
+to meet actual social opportunities and conditions. Without the school,
+he will not grow up to fit our institutions. Without play he will not
+grow up at all.[60]
+
+I do not mean that a child should have no responsibilities, for that is
+the misfortune of the city child, but it is important to recognize the
+truth of old adage that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,"
+which modern psychology has given a scientific basis. One of the most
+fundamental needs for the promotion of play in rural communities is to
+secure a new attitude toward it on the part of many parents. Too
+frequently--and alas, often from necessity--children are compelled to do
+too much farm labor. Agriculture is still a family industry, and very
+often on the poorer farms the older children seem to be considered
+chiefly as an economic asset. Overwork and little or no time to satisfy
+the innate tendency of children to play, inevitably produces a dislike
+of farm life and is one of the most obvious reasons why many of them
+leave the farm as soon as possible.
+
+Many parents have forgotten how to play and have lost the "feel" of it.
+It is important for them to play themselves in order to appreciate the
+needs of their children, and to have a real sympathy with them. Picnics,
+play festivals, and sociables, at which every one is compelled to "get
+into the game," are valuable for this purpose. Many a man recovers his
+youth in a picnic baseball game. Others have never had much play in
+their own lives and do not appreciate its value for the best development
+of their children. Play festivals or demonstrations and local athletic
+meets in which their children participate may appeal to their parental
+pride. Furthermore, when such play days are community affairs, they give
+the sanction of public opinion to the games played and to those
+participating in them. The play idea is popularized.
+
+_Play in the Home._--Although the small family does not furnish
+opportunity for group games, which are necessary for the satisfaction
+both of children and adults, yet the movement for better play facilities
+for the community should not overlook the fact that the home is the
+fundamental social institution of rural life and that play and
+recreation in the home are essential to its success and happiness. Home
+games bind the family together, and parents who play with their
+children find it much easier to secure and maintain their confidence.
+The community may well give attention to the encouragement of games and
+play in the homes as well as in the community gatherings. We need a
+definite movement on the part of pastors, teachers, and especially by
+such organizations as granges and farm and home bureaus for the
+promotion of play by young and old in the farm home.
+
+_Influence of the Automobile._--One of the values of the automobile is
+that by its use many a farmer has been given a new realization of the
+value of recreation. The new desire for recreation thus created is a
+great gain for farm life. There is no reason why the farmer and his
+family should not have as much enjoyment of life as town and city
+people, and if they cannot, then only the poorer class of people will
+remain on the farms. Occasionally one hears a commercial salesman or
+some city business man decrying the effect of automobiles on farmers,
+claiming that they are neglecting their work while chasing around the
+country having a good time. Doubtless in occasional instances this is as
+true of the farmer as it is of the townsman, but such farmers will soon
+come to their senses or get off the farm, and even were there a general
+tendency of this sort in some communities it must be regarded as the
+temporary excitement of a new experience. On the other hand, the
+breaking down of the old stolidity which dominated many a farmer who had
+become so accustomed to work day in and day out that he was hardly happy
+when he had a chance for recreation, and the creation of a wholesome
+desire for a larger experience and more association with others, is one
+of the largest gains in country life and will not only raise the
+standards of living, but will be a potent incentive for better
+agricultural methods. There can be no progress without a certain amount
+of dissatisfaction. Contentedness has its virtues, but it may
+degenerate into inertia and the death of all desire for better life.
+
+On the other hand, the automobile and trolley have made it possible for
+farm people to easily reach the towns and there attend movies and other
+commercial amusements and to take part in the social life of the town
+and city. This may weaken the social life of the rural community, and it
+also tends to make rural people imitate the forms of play, recreation,
+and social life of the city, which are not necessarily best suited to
+rural life. When rural people come to appreciate that those forms of
+play and recreation which are native or are adapted to the country have
+many advantages over those of their city cousins, and in many ways may
+have higher values and satisfactions, they will give more heed to
+developing those which are most suitable for their enjoyment. Because
+various kinds of expensive play apparatus are desirable for the small
+playground of the city, which is crowded with hundreds of children, is
+no reason why similar apparatus should be thought necessary for the
+school-yard of the rural school. Many of the present tendencies of
+recreation in cities are but revivals of rural customs which are
+receiving new recognition because they appeal to that which is innate in
+human nature. What is community singing but a variation of the
+old-fashioned singing school? Folk-dancing originated in the country as
+an expression of the activities of every-day life, and should be
+encouraged everywhere. Dramatics and pageantry are native to the
+countryside. The fair and festival are rural institutions.
+
+_Commercial Amusements; Moving Pictures._--A certain form of recreation
+may be secured through amusements which involve mere passive
+participation upon the part of the spectators, as in various
+entertainments, dramatics, etc. As long as those giving the
+entertainment are local people, friends or relatives, the audience takes
+a more or less sympathetic part in the performance and is not actuated
+solely by the desire to purchase pleasurable sensations as is the case
+with commercial amusements. I mean by commercial amusements those which
+are operated solely for profit, whose advantages the individual
+purchases for his own pleasure rather than with any idea of
+participating in a group activity. Commercial amusements have their
+place and may be of great benefit, but they are largely an
+individualistic form of enjoyment and tend to make the spectator
+increasingly dependent upon passive pleasurable sensations, and do not
+have the social value of those forms of play in which one actively
+participates as a member of a group.
+
+Although commercial amusements have these limitations, yet they have
+very real values which might be secured for many rural communities if
+they were operated on a cooperative basis by the people themselves
+rather than merely for profit by an individual. Motion pictures are now
+the most popular form of commercial amusement and have unlimited
+possibilities when operated for the good of the community rather than
+for profit alone. It is now possible to secure relatively cheap
+projection outfits and electric plants, so that many small communities
+are now operating their own motion picture shows. In many places this is
+one of the leading attractions at the community building and is a source
+of revenue for its maintenance. In such places the motion picture
+entertainment is becoming a sort of family affair, and when it can be so
+operated as to secure the attendance of the family as a group the
+objectionable features will soon disappear. Indeed, there is a
+well-organized effort on the part of certain motion picture firms to
+supply films for just this type of entertainments. Moreover, the
+picture show may possibly be supplemented with other features which will
+make a more attractive evening's entertainment, especially in small
+places where it is practicable to operate but one show during an
+evening. During the war community singing was tried at the opening and
+between reels in many movie houses with conspicuous success, and should
+be encouraged wherever suitable leadership can be secured. The speeches
+of the "four-minute" men were also an innovation which might well be
+tried further in a modified form. Would not a four-minute speech on some
+current topic by a live speaker, given in an uncontroversial manner, be
+a welcome feature of the movie show between reels, and an effective
+means of educating public opinion? The community orchestra or community
+band might well receive encouragement and financial aid by occasional
+programs at the community movies.
+
+_Dramatics and Pageantry._--In the last few years amateur dramatics have
+become increasingly popular in rural communities. The "little country
+theater" idea has caught the attention of rural people, and seems
+destined in one form or another to become a rural institution. Amateur
+dramatics are one of the most enjoyable and wholesome forms of
+recreation. The actors not only have a deal of fun as well as hard work,
+but real acting involves putting one's self into the part and gaining an
+understanding of various types of people and social situations which is
+a most liberal education. The audience, on the other hand, takes a
+particular interest in the acting of its children, friends, and
+relatives, and it enters into the spirit of the play much more fully
+than when seeing professional actors. The amateur dramatic club tends to
+become a community organization in which the people have a real pride
+and for which they develop a loyalty which affords it a peculiar
+opportunity and responsibility for portraying various problems and
+phases of life, giving not only enjoyment but a finer and deeper
+appreciation of human relationships.
+
+For special occasions the historical pageant is not only a most
+delightful entertainment but is one of the best means of arousing
+community pride and spirit. The pageant grips both actors and audience
+with a common loyalty to their forefathers. Such an historical picture
+of the development of a community brings to its people an appreciation
+of their common heritage and they come to a new realization of their
+present comforts and their responsibility for the community's future.
+All sorts and conditions of people will work together in a pageant and
+enjoy the association. Any rural community which really makes up its
+mind to do so can produce an historical pageant of its own, which will
+give new meaning and inspiration to the common life.[61]
+
+_Play in the School._--The school is commencing to realize the
+importance of play as a phase of education, but in many cases the
+one-room country school has too few children of the same age to make it
+possible for them to play together with much satisfaction. School
+consolidation is essential for better play. The grounds of most one-room
+schools are ill-adapted to play and it is not always practicable to have
+sufficient land attached to them for a suitable playground. It has been
+assumed that children know how to play, but such is by no means always
+the case. They have the desire to play, but if they have not had
+opportunity to play with others, the forms of their play may be very
+limited. Herein is the opportunity for supervision by the teacher, who
+may teach them new plays and games, may uphold the code of play, and may
+see that all have opportunity to participate. Obviously the teachers
+themselves need training for this which they have not had in the past.
+New York State has provided that any school district or combination of
+several school districts may employ a supervisor of physical training,
+towards whose salary the state will contribute half up to $600 per
+annum, who will assist the teachers in developing physical training and
+play in their schools. Similar plans are being adopted in other states.
+Maryland has a state-wide athletic league organized by counties. The
+children of each school are given physical tests, and recognition by
+buttons and medals is given for the attainment of definite standards of
+physical development and prowess, graduated according to age and sex.
+Athletic meets are held by the schools of each county, and the winners
+then compete in a state-wide meet.[62]
+
+In many parts of the country the schools of a community, township, or
+county are now holding play days or play festivals, with which is
+usually a picnic, at which children and parents from the whole
+countryside get together for a day of real recreation, and which have a
+large influence in winning the support of their patrons for the play
+activities fostered by the schools.[63]
+
+_Boys' and Girls' Organizations._--Probably a larger impetus to the best
+types of play for country boys and girls has been given by such
+organizations as the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young
+Women's Christian Association, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the
+Camp Fire Girls, and the Boys' and Girls' Clubs fostered by the
+extension departments of the state agricultural colleges and the U. S.
+Department of Agriculture, than by any other agencies. Each of these
+organizations has a program of children's activities involving both
+recreation and education, as well as a definite effort for character
+building. They are invaluable allies of the home, the school, and the
+church, for they are the boys' and girls' own organizations and meet
+their desire for group activities. Just which one or how many of them
+are needed in any one community is a local problem, and it is
+impracticable to here attempt any evaluation of their particular
+advantages. Suffice it to say that every rural community which can find
+suitable leadership should have such an organization of boys or girls,
+and will find the assistance of the state and national headquarters of
+these movements of the greatest help in the development of a local
+program of play and recreation.[64]
+
+_The Church and Play._--We have already noted (page 133) a changing
+attitude on the part of the rural church toward play and recreation.[65]
+In the past it has too often been simply a negative condemnation of the
+so-called "worldly amusements," with no effort to understand the normal
+cravings of human nature which they satisfy or to furnish any
+satisfactory substitute for them. It is true that socials of the older
+classes in the Sunday school and of the young people's societies have
+done much for the sociable life of the country, but very often they have
+failed to interest those who would be most benefited by them. Recently,
+however, church leaders are actively encouraging rural churches to
+develop such programs of play and recreation as may be necessary to meet
+the needs of their communities. The Sunday schools are organizing
+baseball teams and baseball leagues, and are promoting "through-the-week"
+activities of organized classes. A majority of the troops of Boy Scouts
+are affiliated with churches, and scouting is becoming a recognized means
+for the direction of the church's recreational work for boys.
+
+Just how far the rural church should go in affording facilities for play
+and recreation, is a local problem and it is difficult to generalize as
+to the duty of the church in this field. If there is but one church in
+the community, or there is a community church, and other agencies are
+lacking, it may be highly desirable for the church which has suitable
+rooms to equip one as a play room, or to establish a play ground for the
+children, or to organize a dramatic club. But where there is more than
+one church in a community, it is obviously difficult to organize
+recreational work on sectarian lines. In some instances the churches are
+pooling their interests in the support of a common recreational program.
+Some of those who most keenly feel the responsibility for the leadership
+of the church in this field, even go so far as to claim that on account
+of the moral values involved in the play of its people, play and
+recreation should be chiefly directed by and centered in the church.
+There is no question but that the church which does not give attention
+to this aspect of life and does not have some recreational and social
+features among its activities will fail to meet the needs of its people,
+but whether the church can compete with the school, the community
+building, and independent social organizations, or whether it should
+seek to do so, is hardly a debatable question. The play and recreational
+life of most rural communities inevitably crosses church lines, and it
+is well for the community that it does. People may differ on religion
+and yet enjoy playing together. So the church may lead and promote
+better means for play and recreation, but whenever it attempts
+domination or control it will prejudice its position and will be unable
+to accomplish its objective.
+
+_Community Buildings._--The larger appreciation of the importance of
+play and recreation in rural life has brought attention to the lack of
+physical equipment. Every rural community needs a playground large
+enough to include a good baseball diamond and a basketball court, and a
+building where indoor sports, gymnasium work and basketball games can be
+held.
+
+On account of the lack of such facilities many cities have bought
+playgrounds upon which have been erected special buildings containing
+gymnasiums, game and club rooms, and often a branch library, which have
+become known as "social centers." The "social center idea" has spread to
+the country, for which various forms of social centers have been
+advocated. Any building which is available for such purposes to the
+whole community--the school, church, or grange hall--may become a social
+center if suitable arrangements are made for its operation as such. The
+U. S. Bureau of Education has urged that every school shall be made a
+social center, and as far as this is possible, it is most desirable.
+What can be accomplished through the country school is well shown in the
+work of Mrs. Marie Turner Harvey in the Porter School at Kirksville,
+Missouri.[66] But the district school will, at best, be only the social
+center of a neighborhood, and in many cases its district is too small
+for successful play or social life. Furthermore, the average one-room
+school is ill-adapted in architecture or equipment for social purposes.
+The consolidated school or village high school may well be made a social
+center as far as it is possible for it to so function and new schools
+should be, and are being, constructed with this in view. The school
+building and the school playground are naturally the best places for
+centering the play activities of the children, especially where physical
+training or play supervisors are employed by the schools. It is a
+question, however, whether those over school age will use the school for
+social purposes as freely as some other building, unless the general
+policy and management of the use of the building for community purposes
+is in the hands of a community organization formed for that purpose.
+
+Where there is but one church in a community, which is practically a
+community church, the church building or church house may be utilized as
+a social center, and the erection of community buildings by such
+churches is now being advocated. In some cases such a community building
+attached to a church may be a means of meeting the need; but in other
+communities affiliation with the church may not be advantageous. Where
+there is more than one church, the churches may join in the operation of
+a community building, but in that case all of the churches must be
+included or it will not have the support of the whole community--it will
+not be a real _community_ building.
+
+Many grange buildings are now used but once in a fortnight or so for
+grange meetings, and remain idle the rest of the time. May it not be
+possible to devise some equitable and satisfactory arrangement whereby
+they may be made available for the constant use of all the people as
+community buildings and still reserve them to the grange for its use at
+such times as it desires? The average rural community cannot afford to
+tie up so much capital in buildings which are so infrequently used.
+
+In any event, the auspices under which a community building is to be
+operated and the possibility of securing the united support of the whole
+community for it are essential if it is to be permanently successful as
+a "community home."
+
+Because of the limitations of school, church, and grange hall, many
+communities are now planning to erect "community buildings"[67] in which
+all the "leisure-time activities" of the whole community may be
+centered. The community building will usually include an auditorium with
+stage for entertainments and dramatics, which is often used for a
+gymnasium or basketball, a kitchen and dining room, a game room,
+possibly a library room, and such other features as may be practicable.
+In older communities there are often more buildings than are being used.
+Unused churches may well be converted to community buildings with
+relatively small expense. The advent of prohibition and good roads has
+driven many village hotels out of business and their buildings are in
+some cases suitable for conversion into community buildings and may be
+purchased at much below cost. Some sort of organization must be the
+owner of a community building and assure its support, and it would seem
+that if the building is to be truly a community affair it should be
+operated by the community as such. In some states legislation has been
+passed permitting the township, or any voluntary tax district, to erect
+and operate a community building, and many such buildings are in
+successful operation. In other cases, it will be desirable to form some
+sort of community organization, which is open to all members of the
+community and which represents all of the organizations and interests
+which may use the building, for its erection and control.
+
+Thus rural play and recreation which formerly centered in the
+neighborhood, is now being organized on a community basis, and the
+increased interest in adequate facilities for play and recreation is, in
+last analysis, an effort of the rural community to defend its integrity
+against the lure of its people by the city. Just as in their economic
+life and in their educational system rural people are compelled to act
+together as a community if they are to compete with the advancing
+standards of the city, so play and recreation is also becoming a concern
+of the whole community.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[58] See his "The Meaning of Infancy."
+
+[59] "The Play of Man." Translated by Elizabeth L. Baldwin. New York,
+1901.
+
+[60] "Play in Education."
+
+[61] See Abigail F. Halsey, The Historical Pageant in the Rural
+Community. N. Y. State College of Agriculture, Cornell Extension
+Bulletin, 54. June, 1922.
+
+[62] See Official Handbook of the Public Athletic League, Baltimore, Md.
+Edited by William Burdick, M.D. Spalding Athletic Library, New York,
+American Sports Publishing Co.
+
+[63] See Galpin and Weisman, "Play Days in Rural Schools," Circular 118,
+Exten. Div. of the College of Agr., Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison.
+
+[64] National headquarters are as follows: Y. M. C. A., County Work, 347
+Madison Ave., New York; Y. W. C. A., Country Dept., 600 Lexington Ave.,
+New York; Boy Scouts of America, Fifth Ave. Bldg., New York; Girl
+Scouts, Inc., 189 Lexington Ave., New York; The Camp Fire Girls of
+America, 128 E. 28th St., New York; Boys' and Girls' Club Work (in
+agriculture and home economics), States Relations Service, U. S. Dept.
+of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., or the extension department of any
+state agricultural college.
+
+[65] The best discussion of this topic is Henry A. Atkinson's "The
+Church and the Peoples Play." Boston, Pilgrim Press, 1915.
+
+[66] See Evelyn Dewey, "New Schools for Old." New York.
+
+[67] See Farmers' Bulletins 825, 1173 and 1192, U. S. Department of
+Agriculture, by W. C. Nason, on Rural Community Buildings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ORGANIZATIONS OF THE RURAL COMMUNITY
+
+
+Throughout most of the United States the farmer's sense of belonging to
+a community is rather vague. The villager has a definite idea of the
+village because it has a boundary, he can see it, and in many cases it
+is incorporated; but in most cases, outside of New England at least, the
+villager and the farmer have not thought of themselves as belonging to
+the same community. Farmers do, however, belong to many organizations
+which meet in the village and more and more farmer and villager mingle
+in the associations devoted to various special interests. The farmer's
+loyalty has, therefore, been primarily to organizations rather than to
+the community as such, but as these different organizations have
+multiplied he has become increasingly aware that most of them, each in
+its own field, are devoted to the interests of the common good. Through
+the common interests of organizations in the life of all the people is
+arising a new conception of the community. As Professor E. C. Lindeman
+has well pointed out,[68] at the present time the community is more an
+association of groups than of individuals, and it is these groups and
+organizations which largely control community action. If we are to
+understand the relation of the farmer to his community, we can do so
+only by knowing the organizations and groups to which he belongs, for it
+is in them and through them that his loyalty to the community arises.
+
+_The Grange._--By all odds the strongest local organization of farmers
+throughout the northern and western states is the Grange, which is the
+local unit of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry. For half a century,
+from the time of its organization in 1868 until 1920, it had a larger
+influence upon national legislation than any other organization of
+farmers, and it was largely through its efforts that many of the more
+important acts for the benefit of agriculture were passed by
+Congress.[69] The growth in membership and number of local granges in
+recent years testifies that the grange meets a real need in farm life.
+Its maximum membership was in 1875 when 858,050 members were paying dues
+to the National Grange. From then it declined to 106,782 members in
+1889, but in the next thirty years it grew to approximately 700,000
+members in 1919. State Granges are now organized in thirty-three states
+and there are approximately 8,000 local or subordinate granges. In the
+earlier years of its history there were many granges in the South, but
+since the decline in the '80's there have been practically no granges
+south of Virginia and Missouri.
+
+Although the Grange is a secret order or fraternity, with a ritual
+similar to other fraternal orders, its membership is open to any one of
+good character, and the local granges frequently hold "open" meetings to
+which all the people of the community are invited. The strength of the
+Grange as a community organization is largely due to two factors: first,
+its broad program, and second, that it is a family organization. Both
+men and women are admitted to membership and in several states junior
+granges for the older children are numerous. Although the grange
+actively supports state and national legislation for the benefit of
+agriculture, it is strictly non-partisan in politics and is
+non-sectarian with regard to religion. In the earlier years it undertook
+to operate numerous cooperative enterprises, including many cooperative
+stores, and it was the failure of many of these which caused its sudden
+decline of membership in the late '70's. In recent years, although it
+has vigorously sponsored cooperation, it has favored independent
+cooperative organizations, having no organic connection with the grange,
+with the exception of grange insurance companies whose advantages are
+usually limited to grange members.
+
+Possibly the greatest service of the Grange is its educational and
+social work. The "lecturer's hour" is a feature of every meeting, and in
+this hour a program planned by the lecturer is given by members of the
+grange, or outside speakers are invited to address it on topics of
+interest. These programs include both discussion of educational topics
+having to do with all phases of agriculture, home life, and civic
+affairs, but also music, recitations and other entertaining features.
+Special social evenings and suppers are held at frequent intervals and
+the young people often enjoy an informal dance after the regular grange
+meeting. The local grange, more than any other organization, provides a
+forum for the discussion of the problems of agriculture and country
+life, and is thus a powerful agency for the creation of public opinion
+on any matters of community concern. The management of its business and
+the participation in the lecturer's programs furnish the best
+opportunity for the development of leadership and for training in public
+speaking, so that the local Grange has been the means of discovering and
+training much of our best rural leadership.
+
+For many years the attention of the Grange seemed to be directed chiefly
+toward the support of needed national legislation, but recently grange
+leaders have perceived that, like all such organizations, its permanent
+strength and influence depend more largely on the degree to which the
+local grange is a vital force in the life of its members and of its
+community. In a recent article on "The Future of the Grange," S. J.
+Lowell, Master of the National Grange, ably voices this point of view:
+
+      "The farm people of America are better informed on all the
+      great questions of the day; are pursuing better agricultural
+      methods; are demanding better roads, better schools, better
+      churches; are doing more effective teamwork for
+      forward-looking projects; and in consequence are more
+      valuable men and women and citizens because of the Grange
+      influence of the past and its presence in their life to-day.
+      Remove the Grange from America and there would be taken out
+      of our progress of a half century one of the largest
+      contributing factors.
+
+      "It will be setting up a declaration contrary to the belief
+      of some that exerting legislative influence, important as it
+      is, is not the most valuable function of the Grange; that
+      its cooperative activities, however they may have
+      flourished, will not loom largest in the grange program of
+      the future; that not even its efforts for state and national
+      reform will be recorded as its greatest service to its day
+      and generation. Rather we must estimate the Grange value of
+      the future by its quiet, steady, unfaltering efforts,
+      continued year after year, in thousands of local
+      communities--many of them far removed from the busy
+      activities of men--to bring the rural people together, to
+      teach them the fundamentals of cooperation, of efficiency,
+      of teamwork, of practical educational progress, and of the
+      value of a forward-looking rural program, into whose
+      accomplishments all the people of a locality may
+      conscientiously enter.... This view of Grange service to
+      rural America is apparent in the extent to which the
+      community-betterment program has been taken up by
+      subordinate granges in nearly every state. Though a secret
+      organization--a fraternity in fact as well as in name--the
+      Grange is more and more making of itself an overflowing
+      institution, seeking to render actual benefits to its
+      immediate home locality. Hundreds of live Granges this year
+      are carrying out some form of community improvement along a
+      great variety of directions."[70]
+
+He then goes on to give a brief glimpse of the variety of these
+community enterprises. In Massachusetts the State Grange has for several
+years had a committee which awards annual prizes for the best community
+improvement work done by the local granges, and this has stimulated a
+lively interest in community activities.
+
+Although the Grange is primarily a farmers' organization, yet where the
+local grange meets in the village, and particularly in the older states,
+a considerable number of the members are village people, so that the
+Grange represents the life of the whole community. On the other hand, in
+many neighborhoods which are at some distance from a village center, the
+Grange hall may be located in the open country, its membership is
+composed wholly of farmers, and it is solely a class organization. No
+studies are available to show the proportion of Granges which meet in
+villages or in the open country and the effect which this has upon the
+relation of the Grange to the community, but it may be safely asserted
+that, as is the case with the church and the school, the Grange tends to
+meet in village centers as a matter of convenience to the largest number
+of its members, and that, as indicated by Mr. Lowell, it is coming to
+recognize its responsibility for the general improvement of the
+community as a whole.
+
+_Other Farmers' Organizations._--Throughout the South and in Kansas and
+Nebraska the Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union is the leading
+farmers' organization, but it is chiefly devoted to cooperative business
+enterprises and does but little for the education or social life of its
+members, who are usually all men. The same may be said of the Society of
+Equity, which is strongest in Wisconsin, Kentucky, and South Dakota. In
+Michigan, although the Grange is strong, the Gleaners have a
+considerable membership.
+
+In many states, particularly where the grange is not well established,
+farmers' clubs have been organized. In some cases local conditions make
+clubs feasible where it would be difficult to enlist a large enough part
+of the community to make a grange equally successful. In some cases such
+clubs are open to farmers only; in others they include the whole family;
+while in recent years many farm women's clubs have been organized.
+Whether such clubs should be for the whole family, or for men or women
+only, is largely a local question depending upon the social usages and
+homogeneity of the population. In Wisconsin and Minnesota family clubs
+have been most successful. It is doubtful whether this would be equally
+true in the South. In the South such local clubs have been the local
+units of the extension work in agriculture and home economics. Where for
+any reason it is not possible to include the whole community in a club,
+several clubs may be organized, each including a congenial membership,
+as is now the case with women's clubs in cities, and these may then be
+federated for community purposes.
+
+_Lodges._--In most rural villages will be found one or more lodges of
+fraternal orders, such as the Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias,
+Maccabees, etc., with the corresponding orders of women's auxiliaries.
+The place and influence of lodges in the life of the rural community
+have been strangely neglected by students of country life, and we have
+no means of evaluating their place in the rural community. Not
+infrequently the regular meetings and special parties and banquets held
+by these orders form a large part of the social life of the village. In
+other cases the meetings are but poorly attended and the lodge is
+maintained chiefly for its insurance benefits. In some of the larger
+villages and towns the larger and more prosperous lodges have game rooms
+and reading rooms attached to their halls, so that they serve as club
+rooms for their membership. Usually the membership is more largely
+composed of village people, but a considerable number of farmers
+maintain their membership, even though they do not attend regularly, and
+in exceptional cases the membership is largely composed of farm people.
+It is obvious that the lodge as a secret order is devoted to the
+interests of its own membership and usually it has no definite program
+of work for the benefit of the whole community. Yet it must be
+recognized that the assistance rendered by the lodge to its members in
+sickness and to their families when in distress of any kind, is a
+considerable asset to the welfare of the community and is a powerful
+influence in promoting that spirit of brotherhood upon which all
+community life depends. Usually the lodges actively support and
+participate in any community activities in which they may appropriately
+take part, such as Memorial Day or Fourth of July celebrations,
+community Christmas trees and other festival occasions. The churches, or
+at least the ministers, sometimes feel that the social life of the
+lodges absorbs so much of the time and interest of their members as to
+prevent their activity in church work, which attitude has often obtained
+between the church and Grange, but it is a question whether this is not
+often due to the failure of the church to provide such activities as
+will command the loyalty of the people, and, on the other hand, not
+infrequently the leaders in lodge work are also most active in the
+churches. To the extent that the lodges seem self-centered and make no
+direct contribution to community improvement, this is doubtless due to
+the lack of any means whereby their support may be enlisted in a program
+of community betterment. The place of the lodge in the community is much
+like that of a fraternity in a college or university; its primary
+obligation is to its own membership, but when enlisted in any activity
+for the common welfare it furnishes one of the best means for developing
+the community spirit of its members, and its participation is a means of
+strengthening its own organization.
+
+_The Village Band._--A good village band is one of the most effective
+agencies for promoting community spirit and sociability. The village
+merchants have also found that it is an economic asset, and in many
+country towns they contribute liberally for its support. A band concert
+every Saturday night, or twice a week, never fails to bring a crowd of
+people to town and it is a common sight to see the streets lined with
+automobiles of farm people who have come in to enjoy the concert and
+incidentally to do a little shopping and chat with each other and their
+village friends. Although it may be called by the name of the village,
+it is usually a community band, for farm boys who can play an instrument
+are always welcome and frequently form a considerable part of the
+membership. The community comes to have a real pride in even a
+moderately good band, and on holiday celebrations and other festival
+occasions it is an invaluable asset to community spirit. A crowd will
+always follow a band, for it exercises a sort of group leadership for
+which there seems to be no substitute.
+
+In one small town in central New York the high school operates a moving
+picture show every Saturday evening, which is preceded by a band concert
+and part of the profits of the show goes to the support of the band.
+Thus the community finances and controls its own entertainment. Another
+small village in western New York had a fairly good band which had been
+playing in neighboring villages as the only means of securing an income,
+and was thus drawing trade of farmers from its own village to those
+where it played. The first enterprise of the community council which was
+formed there was to build a band stand and to see that the band was
+financed so that it played every Saturday night in the home town. In
+another case a community council was formed for the primary purpose of
+bringing the support of the whole community to a fine band which had
+struggled along for several years with little local appreciation.
+
+Community orchestras are of equal value for indoor entertainments and
+give opportunity for the talent of the young women as well as the men.
+The community chorus or choral club has often taken the place of the
+old-fashioned singing school. If a good director can be secured he will
+always discover more vocal ability than has been suspected, and the
+people of many a rural community have been surprised at the musical
+works they have been able to produce under competent leadership.
+
+The amount of music in a community and the public interest in its
+musical entertainments are among the most significant indices of its
+general culture and progressiveness. Where there is music there is life.
+
+_The Fire Company._--One of the "most ancient and honorable" of the
+organizations of the village is the volunteer fire company. The fire
+company makes an appeal to the spirit of adventure and heroism common to
+all red-blooded young men and furnishes something of Professor William
+James' "moral equivalent of war." Its drills, exhibits and competitions
+develop the finest type of team work among its members, while its
+parties, festivals and entertainments for raising money are always
+occasions of note in the social calendar of the community. In the older
+parts of the country the firemen very frequently have a building with
+clubrooms on the second floor, which form a rendezvous for its members.
+Not infrequently many of the nearby farm boys belong to the fire company
+and pay their dues for its support so that they may enjoy its social
+advantages, although they may rarely have opportunity to do much actual
+fire-fighting. In several cases community houses have been built with
+one corner of the first floor constructed to house the fire equipment.
+In one village I found that the fire company had taken over an old hall,
+where it had clubrooms and was holding moving picture entertainments
+every Saturday evening to finance the building.
+
+_The Women's Christian Temperance Union_ is by all odds the strongest
+non-sectarian organization of women in the rural communities of the
+United States. In the past it has been chiefly a reform organization and
+its persistent agitation was a large factor in the enactment of the
+Eighteenth Amendment to the federal constitution making prohibition
+national. Although prohibition is, as yet, by no means achieved, and
+there is still need of upholding and encouraging those charged with its
+enforcement, yet the primary purpose of the organization seems to be
+largely realized. In the past it has been chiefly a militant
+organization, although it has taken an active interest in problems of
+child welfare, education, recreation, social hygiene, and similar topics
+affecting home life. Its public speaking contests, picnics, suppers, and
+sociables have done much for the social life of many a rural community.
+If the fighting spirit of the past can be enlisted in a well-rounded
+program for social welfare in every community where there is a Union,
+this organization will continue to be a powerful factor in uniting the
+women in many a rural community.
+
+_The Cemetery Association._--Finally, the influence of the Cemetery
+Association as a community organization, should not be overlooked. The
+"Friendship Village Married Ladies' Cemetery Improvement Sodality,"
+which Miss Gale has made famous in her delightful stories of village
+life,[71] well illustrates the influences which have been started by
+many a cemetery association. Not infrequently the one thing which
+evinces some civic pride in an otherwise stagnant community is its
+well-kept cemetery. The condition of the cemetery is a good index of
+community spirit. When people neglect the resting place of their dead
+they are not apt to do much for the living. But once arouse a feeling of
+shame for such neglect and the effort to clean up and beautify the
+cemetery has often brought all elements of the community into a common
+loyalty as nothing else could do, and the satisfaction from such an
+achievement may sufficiently stir community pride as to encourage other
+enterprises.
+
+The cemetery itself has a not inconsiderable influence in bringing about
+the integration of the rural community. In early days every farm had its
+own burying lot. Nothing is more pathetic than the abandoned burying
+lots--often two or three of them--on many a New England farm. In many
+cases rural neighborhoods have had a local cemetery by the country
+church or district school. These, too, are increasingly neglected. On
+the other hand the village cemetery is more largely used merely because
+more assurance is felt in its permanent maintenance. It needs no
+argument from history or from the customs of other lands, to show that
+the people who bury their dead in the same place are bound together by
+the most sacred ties, and that the cemetery which serves the whole
+community is one of its primary bonds.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[68] "The Community," p. 119. New York, Association Press. 1921.
+
+[69] See T. C. Atkeson, "Semi-centennial History of the Grange." New
+York. Orange Judd Co.
+
+[70] In "The Country Gentleman." Oct. 8, 1921, p. 17.
+
+[71] Zona Gale, "Friendship Village"; "Friendship Village Love Stories";
+"Peace in Friendship Village." New York. Macmillan Co.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE COMMUNITY'S DEPENDENT
+
+
+The neighborliness and hospitality of farmers is proverbial in every
+land and clime. Throughout much of the old world where farmers still
+live in village communities the poverty or distress of any family is at
+once apparent and the more fortunate members of the village in one way
+or another give such assistance as is possible. The more primitive the
+people the more binding is this obligation for mutual aid, and one
+cannot but feel that our so-called advanced civilization has failed to
+develop as keen a sense of responsibility for the unfortunate. In rural
+America this is possibly due to the fact that our farms are scattered
+and the condition of needy families may not be noticed. The average
+rural community will usually inform an inquirer that it has practically
+no poverty and no need of a social worker. Yet investigation will almost
+always show that tucked away in some hollow, back on some hill, or even
+huddled near the outskirts of the village are a few unfortunate
+families, of whose needs the community is unaware. These families, for
+one reason or another are "disadvantaged," they do not commonly
+associate with others, they may be foreigners, or in some way they are
+"queer" and are more or less avoided, or possibly they are merely
+isolated and so are unknown. From the standpoint of the social welfare
+of the community such families, or individuals, have been called the
+"unadjusted"; they do not mix freely and are not up to the local
+standards of life. In short, such families or individuals are abnormal,
+and are a social liability of the community.
+
+These "disadvantaged" or "unadjusted" people may be roughly grouped into
+four classes: the dependent, the defective, the delinquent, and the
+neglected. In one sense they may all be called the "community's
+dependent," for they all require some sort of assistance from the
+community if their relationship to it is to be satisfactorily adjusted.
+
+_Poverty._--In a narrower sense the "dependent" are the poor; those who
+are unable to support themselves and who must be aided by the community
+if they are to exist. If this condition becomes chronic they are
+paupers; but in most cases their dependency is temporary and has been
+due to some unusual drain on the family's resources, such as, sickness,
+fire, crop failure, or inability to secure employment. There is a very
+natural aversion on the part of the latter class against becoming
+stigmatized as paupers and of having to secure public relief, of "being
+on the town"; whereas the habitual dependents have frequently lost all
+pride in their social status and are quite willing to continue to
+receive all the help they can secure. In both cases, if assistance is to
+be of permanent value, the problem is not only that of furnishing
+immediate relief in the form of food, clothing, or shelter, but of
+ascertaining the causes of the dependency and giving such assistance and
+sympathetic encouragement as will enable the family or individual to
+again become self-supporting and regain a normal status in the
+community. Obviously this is a delicate task which requires the best
+knowledge of human nature as well as genuine sympathy which will inspire
+confidence and faith, and in so far as possible is likely to be more
+effective if it can be done privately. On the other hand, a large
+proportion of the chronic dependency also involves mental or physical
+defectiveness or moral delinquency which cannot be remedied by the mere
+giving of alms. Much of the poor relief given by rural communities is
+practically wasted because of a failure to ascertain the real cause of
+poverty or by lack of knowledge or means for its treatment.
+
+_Defectives._--In most cases the care of "defectives" cannot be
+undertaken by the rural community itself, because they usually require
+the care of institutions which can only be supported by the county or
+state. Furthermore, a family is usually able to take care of one of its
+members who is so afflicted or will assume the burden of sending him to
+an institution, so that only in the case of dependent families does the
+responsibility rest on the community. There is, however, a duty on the
+part of the community to see that the afflicted are given necessary
+care, so that they may not have to go through life so handicapped that
+they are unable to be self-supporting and thus may become wholly
+dependent.
+
+The physically defective are largely cared for by state and county
+institutions. We have learned that the deaf and blind may become largely
+self-supporting if given the advantages of a specific type of education,
+for which the state maintains special schools. County and state
+hospitals provide for the care of those afflicted with tuberculosis and
+a beginning is being made in the provision of state hospitals for
+crippled children where they may receive necessary surgical and
+orthopedic treatment. Likewise the more helpless mental defectives, the
+insane, the imbeciles and idiots, are cared for in state institutions.
+
+One of the most serious menaces to the social health of the rural
+community is from those mental defectives who are able to care for
+themselves but who are mentally incapable of rearing a normal family and
+of conforming to the customary standards of morality. These
+"feeble-minded," are far too numerous in rural communities and their
+proper care and education has been neglected because they have been
+commonly regarded as merely "simple minded" or "foolish"; to be pitied,
+and the subject of many a jest, but entirely harmless. A large number of
+the feeble-minded are so nearly normal that they are considered merely
+shiftless or stupid. Nearly every rural community has one or more
+families, and not infrequently a small slum neighborhood, who are
+ne'er-do-wells, more or less delinquent and frequently requiring aid
+from the town. Thanks to modern psychology, we now know that many of
+these adults have the intelligence of only a seven or nine-year-old
+child and that they are incapable of further mental development.
+Furthermore, carefully conducted studies in the heredity of these
+families show that feeble-mindedness is congenital; that where both
+parents are feeble-minded all the offspring will be so afflicted; and
+that when one of the parents is sub-normal that some of the children
+will be feeble-minded and that those who appear normal may transmit the
+defect to their children. Psychological tests have now been developed so
+that adults with a mentality of nine or ten years or less may be
+definitely diagnosed as mentally deficient.
+
+It must be obvious that an adult with fully developed sexual desires but
+with the mind of a child is incapable of conforming his or her behavior
+to the standards of society and will be incapable of giving proper
+parental care to children. So a considerable percentage of our petty
+criminals, vagrants, prostitutes, and dependent are found to be
+feeble-minded. They are unstable, suggestible, easily victimized.
+
+The farm and the village have a considerable amount of routine work
+which can be done by these sub-normal people and they therefore have
+opportunity to maintain themselves and to multiply to better advantage
+than in the city where the competition of life is keener. Although they
+are best off in a rural environment, when unrestricted and unsegregated
+they are a constant menace to the community and often involve it in
+considerable expense. As soon as farmers become aware of what the
+feeble-minded are costing the community, how they endanger its moral and
+physical health, and that when unrestricted they continue to reproduce
+incapables and thus perpetuate the burden, they will demand that some
+practicable and reasonable measures be taken for their control. The
+difficulty is that at present in most states there is no method whereby
+the feeble-minded can be committed to state institutions or be otherwise
+segregated unless they are paupers or unless they go voluntarily, nor is
+there any means of preventing their marriage and reproduction. Dairy
+farmers have learned that it pays to weed out the "boarder" cows from
+their herds and that if they breed from a scrub sire they will have
+scrub stock; but if the boarder cow was also inclined to become vicious
+and to corrupt the habits of the rest of the herd and the farmer knew
+this trait to be hereditary, he would invariably send such a cow to the
+butcher. I believe that as soon as farmers appreciate the biological
+significance of feeble-mindedness they will insist upon reasonable
+legislation for its control.
+
+_Delinquency._--The third class of abnormal citizens are the
+delinquents, both adult and juvenile. Almost every rural community has a
+certain number of adults and children who, although not definitely
+criminal, are constantly committing various misdemeanors, are vicious,
+or incorrigible, and there are occasional rural communities and
+neighborhoods which are as true slums as are found in the cities.[72]
+Drunkenness was formerly the greatest cause of delinquency, and the
+tavern and saloon were responsible for the prohibition movement whose
+staunchest supporters were rural people. The bootlegger and the illicit
+still continue the illegal traffic in liquor, but where prohibition has
+been in force for some time liquor has ceased to be an important factor
+in delinquency.
+
+We have but few definite studies of delinquency in rural communities
+upon which to base any generalizations. One of the best of these is a
+study of the juvenile delinquents in 21 average rural communities in New
+York state, made under the auspices of the U. S. Children's Bureau in
+1917.[73] In these 21 communities 185 delinquent children were found, 41
+of whom were classed as "incorrigible," 68 were involved in sex
+offenses, and 75 had stolen, or were guilty of fraud. The number of boys
+guilty of incorrigibility and theft exceeded that of the girls by six to
+one, but among the older sex offenders 41 were girls and but 9 were
+boys. This study is of particular value in showing that almost every
+rural community, however prosperous and progressive it may be, has its
+problem of delinquency, and in its analysis of the responsibility of the
+home, the school, and the church, for wayward children.
+
+_The Neglected._--The fourth class which require the care of the
+community are the neglected. Although the aged occasionally require
+neighborly assistance, even though they have means for their
+necessities, most of the neglected are infants and children. Orphans and
+foundlings for whom homes must be found, children who are over-worked or
+abused, or who are living with dissolute parents, all of these must be
+given proper guardianship and a chance for healthful growth and
+education, or they are likely to become delinquent and thus become a
+permanent liability to society. It is true that in the country the home
+is at its best (see chapter II), but it is also unfortunately true that
+some of the most shameful and almost unbelievable cases of neglect and
+abuse of children are frequently found in out-of-the-way places in rural
+communities. Where compulsory school attendance laws are strictly
+enforced such cases may come to the attention of school officials, but
+in many instances no one seems responsible for discovering neglected
+children and ensuring their proper care. Most of the cities and larger
+towns have Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children whose
+agents investigate rural cases reported to them and bring them to the
+attention of the courts when necessary, but there is a need for some
+local agency in every rural community which will see that neglect is
+prevented or stopped.
+
+_Agencies for Rural Social Work._--When we examine the means for dealing
+with these "misfit" members of the rural community, we find that in most
+of our states there are few agencies either public or private, and that
+as a rule they are poorly adapted to render the service needed.
+
+For the care of the poor there is the township or county poor officer,
+and the county poor farm as a last resort. But the poor officer, however
+upright and well-intentioned he may be, usually conceives his job as one
+for doling out sufficient groceries, clothing, and fuel to keep a family
+alive, and of keeping the cost to the taxpayer as low as possible. He
+feels little responsibility for furnishing sufficient aid to give the
+family a fair chance to get on its feet or for advising them or bringing
+such influences into their lives as will ensure their rehabilitation. He
+is charged with a most difficult task for which he has had no
+experience or training, which he must handle with the greatest economy
+and for which he receives little compensation either in salary or public
+esteem. Very commonly his election is due to political strength rather
+than special personal fitness. The case of the poor is commonly regarded
+as a necessary evil to be handled with as little trouble as possible,
+rather than as an opportunity to give such help to the unfortunate that
+further assistance may be unnecessary and that they may become an asset
+to the community.
+
+Cases of delinquency involving only misdemeanors or minor offenses are
+tried before a justice of the peace or local magistrate. Usually these
+officials are men with no legal training and with little understanding
+of the causes of delinquency or of how delinquents should be treated in
+order to give them a fair chance to become normal citizens. The usual
+attitude is one of determining the offense and meting out just
+punishment for it. Furthermore, the local justice frequently avoids
+handling a case which may involve him in difficulties with his
+neighbors, unless he is forced to do so. Not infrequently juvenile
+offenders are sent to reformatories where they come into contact with
+worse characters and are hardened rather than reformed, whereas if they
+had been placed on probation under proper supervision and under
+satisfactory home conditions they might have lived decent lives.
+
+In most of our cities juvenile cases are now handled in special juvenile
+courts, which have shown the futility of the old methods of legal
+procedure in the treatment of juvenile offenders. In this court the
+judge is assisted by probation officers who are trained as social
+workers and who investigate the home conditions and other influences
+surrounding the child for the information of the judge, who then handles
+the case in whatever manner seems best in order to get at the facts and
+to bring the child to a real desire to "make good." The case is heard
+privately, without the ordinary rules of legal procedure, and the whole
+attitude of the court is more like that of a father than of the ordinary
+judge who inflicts punishment according to the gravity of the offense.
+It must be evident that one person handling numerous cases of this kind
+will soon gain an experience with them which will enable him to act more
+intelligently and with greater justice both to the offender and to the
+interests of society than can be done by a local official who may have
+but one or two such cases to handle during his whole term of office. In
+several states legislation has been passed creating juvenile courts in
+each county, which have jurisdiction over all juvenile cases and which
+can deal not only with the children but also with their parents or
+guardians. The general adoption of such a system seems to be the most
+important step in the intelligent treatment of juvenile delinquents in
+rural districts.
+
+Very often the first waywardness of a child is in truancy from school,
+which, if it cannot be handled by the teacher, is turned over to the
+local truant officer. In many cases the truant officer is appointed
+because of his availability for such work rather than his special
+competency, and the enforcement of the truancy law is handled in a most
+perfunctory manner, whereas an intelligent investigation of home
+conditions and an effort to gain the cooperation of the parents and the
+confidence and interest of the child are the only means of securing any
+real reform. In several cities truancy is in charge of what are known as
+"visiting teachers," who not only look after truants but visit the homes
+of those children who are not doing well in their school work, in order
+to determine whether home conditions are responsible and how they may be
+improved. Usually the country school teacher is more in touch with the
+homes of her pupils, but some of the more progressive rural counties are
+providing an assistant to the county superintendent of schools, who acts
+both in the capacity of truant officer and visiting teacher, assisting
+the local teacher in the more difficult cases which require a
+considerable amount of time to develop proper relations in the home. To
+be of most service such a person should not only have experience in
+school work but should have had the training of a social worker, so that
+she may understand the best means of dealing with the wayward child and
+with unfavorable home conditions. It seems probable that more may be
+done toward the prevention of delinquency through such social workers
+connected with the school system than by any other means.
+
+In many states there seems to be no definite system for the supervision
+of children for whom the state is responsible. They may be boarded or
+adopted by families or placed in institutions by any one of several
+local officials having jurisdiction, but none of them have the means of
+determining whether the children are being properly cared for, nor does
+the county or state provide any agency for this purpose. In several
+states the registration and supervision of such wards of the state is
+placed in the hands of a state child welfare board or a state department
+of charities or public welfare, but in other states the supervision of
+their welfare is wholly dependent upon private philanthropy. Experience
+has shown that where a trained social worker is employed to look up the
+relatives of such children and to assist in finding homes for them and
+in visiting the homes and institutions to which they are committed, a
+considerable saving in the cost of their maintenance to the county is
+frequently effected. In order that all of the care of children may be
+centralized under one county office which can employ competent persons
+for its work, several states have created county boards of child welfare
+which are charged with the whole responsibility for the care of
+dependent and neglected children, which is then taken entirely out of
+the hands of local officials. In a few states, county boards of public
+welfare have been created which have supervision not only of children
+but of all dependents, defectives, and neglected, and in some cases also
+have charge of the public health administration. The centralization of
+such authority in a county board which can employ executives who have
+had special training and experience for such work is not only good
+business, but it is the only method by which the state can
+satisfactorily fulfil its obligation to those who are dependent upon it.
+
+Usually the rural community has few if any private agencies or
+associations devoted to the assistance of its dependent. The churches
+and the lodges assist some of their own members. Here and there are
+isolated groups of King's Daughters or similar societies which devote
+themselves to the care of the poor and the sick, but they are
+comparatively rare in the country. The Society for the Prevention of
+Cruelty to Children often prosecutes rural cases, but it is usually a
+town or city organization and has practically no rural membership. Over
+the United States as a whole, the American Red Cross has probably done
+more to introduce the idea of social work into rural communities than
+any one agency. During the war the local chapters of the Red Cross were
+authorized to give assistance to soldiers' families in any way possible.
+This involved rural as well as town families, and the need of organized
+social work became apparent in thousands of rural communities. When
+peace was declared, the local chapters were authorized to extend the
+Civilian Relief work to civilian families in territory where there was
+no other organization doing welfare work, which meant practically all of
+the rural United States, providing the work was carried on by trained
+workers on a basis approved by the division headquarters. The family
+welfare work of the Red Cross was happily named "Home Service" and has
+been organized in many rural counties where its value has been
+repeatedly demonstrated. The work is directly in charge of a social
+worker employed by the county chapter but the local branch in each
+community is encouraged to form a Home Service Committee which looks
+after the local work as far as it is able, calls in the county worker
+when needed, and gives her all the assistance possible. Thus the work is
+localized and each community has a definite group of workers who feel
+responsible for looking after those needing the community's assistance
+and who are learning how to do this in an intelligent manner. No other
+agency organized on a national basis has attempted any systematic
+organization of social welfare work in local rural communities.
+
+_Social Education of Rural Opinion._--The primary need for the care of
+the dependent of the rural community is for a better understanding of
+their needs by its more intelligent and public-spirited people. It is a
+matter of social education. Social work so-called has had a rapid
+development in our cities to meet the situation caused by their sudden
+growth with large numbers of foreigners having different standards of
+living and unable to adjust themselves to strange conditions with
+congested districts where housing and sanitation is poor and with
+poverty due to unemployment, sickness, and with the many factors which
+result from the complexities of city life. The city slum first
+challenged the humanity of the better people and numerous philanthropic
+organizations grew up in an effort to give assistance to needy families
+and children. For the most part this work has been financed by the
+wealthy, has been carried on by social workers who have had special
+training for such service, and is commonly known as charity. What social
+work has been done in rural communities has been introduced by city
+organizations and has usually been fostered by organizations of as few
+of the more progressive people at the county seats and the larger towns
+or small cities which have worked out into the rural communities from
+these centers. Though the purposes and work of these organizations are
+excellent, they will never be able to effectively meet the needs of
+rural communities until their people appreciate the need for such work
+and actively support it.
+
+Much of this sort of work is regarded by rural people as "uplift" and
+without local interest and support has little permanent value. The
+average rural community has little use for charity in the ordinary sense
+of the word. If relief is needed within its borders, it will provide,
+but it fails to appreciate that more than relief is needed to prevent
+the recurrence of dependency, and that punishment will not correct or
+prevent delinquency. The fact is that at present country people have not
+seen the social situation in their own communities and so are not
+concerned with it. Most of them are of the opinion that the less
+government the better, and have not come to realize that an increasingly
+complex society--even in the rural community--makes it no longer
+possible for the farm family to live to itself, but that for
+self-preservation it must look to the social welfare of the whole
+community with which its life is bound up.
+
+The need, therefore, is for the education of rural people with regard to
+their social responsibilities, which must be largely accomplished
+through existing local rural organizations and local leadership. Any
+system of rural social work which is to be permanently successful must
+be one which is established by the people themselves from a realization
+of their needs, and progressively developed as they appreciate its
+worth. As Dean A. R. Mann recently said, "In dealing with rural affairs
+it has long been a common mistake to underrate the validity of the
+farmer's own judgment as to what is good for him." "Superimposed
+organizations are usually doomed to failure because they express the
+judgments of those without the community rather than those within whom
+they are intended to serve." "Ordinarily the most serviceable rural
+organizations will be built out of the materials of the community."[74]
+It is for this reason that the advance of rural social work will depend
+upon arousing an active interest in the welfare of the community's
+"disadvantaged" through discussion by such organizations as the church,
+the grange, the farm and home bureau, lodges, women's clubs, instruction
+in high schools, etc. The work of the public health nurse will reveal
+many family problems with which she is unable to deal and which demand
+the help of one experienced in social work, and the nurse will be of
+service in educating the community to the need of such work.
+
+It seems obvious that by itself the rural community is too small a unit
+to employ a social worker who is professionally trained for dealing with
+the more difficult social mal-adjustments, and that it must cooperate
+with other communities for the organization of such work on a county
+basis. Experience has shown that trained social workers actually save
+the county the cost of their salaries and expenses, without considering
+the greater efficiency and permanent value of the work done. The social
+worker has been well termed a "doctor of domestic difficulties." Every
+county and community needs such a doctor who is skilled in treating
+social disease, but one of her chief functions will be to act as an
+educational director in promoting the study of local social conditions
+by the existing organizations in every community and in discovering and
+training leadership for carrying out a constructive program as it is
+evolved. In some way there should be a volunteer committee or worker in
+each community associated with the county social worker to advise
+concerning policies and to carry on much of the local work under her
+supervision and training. For it must be recognized that the economic
+resources of rural communities are limited and that they cannot afford
+several social workers for different lines of effort, as is common in
+cities. But more important is the fact that social welfare depends more
+largely upon a proper understanding of its problems by the local
+community and a willingness to grapple with them intelligently and
+sympathetically, than upon the remedial treatment afforded through
+professional workers, courts, institutions and other public agencies.
+Social welfare is like health, for which sanitation and hygiene are more
+important than doctors and medicines.
+
+What is needed in the rural community is a transformation of the
+old-time family hospitality and neighborliness into a feeling of
+responsibility for the unfortunate within the community with whom there
+may not be immediate contact, but who nevertheless affect the moral and
+social life of all its people. It needs the spirit and devotion of the
+Good Samaritan on the part of the people, but it also needs the public
+health nurse and the social worker who, like the inn-keeper of the
+parable, can give adequate care to the unfortunate.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[72] See Charles E. Gibbons, "A Rural Slum Community." The American
+Child. February, 1922. pg. 343.
+
+[73] "Juvenile Delinquency in Rural New York." Kate Holladay Claghorn.
+U. S. Dept. of Labor, Children's Bureau. Publication No. 32. Washington.
+1918.
+
+[74] "Social Responsibilities of the Rural Community," p. 129. Cornell
+Extension Bulletin 39. Rural Community Conference Cornell Farmers' Week.
+1919.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE COMMUNITY'S GOVERNMENT
+
+
+Local self-government is a well-established tradition in the United
+States, but as far as the rural community is concerned it is more
+tradition than fact, for outside of New England the rural community has
+no legal or political status. In New England the townships were
+originally created as community units, for they were modelled after the
+European village community. The meeting house determined the site of the
+village where the farmers and craftsmen resided, and the boundaries of
+the township were coincident with the limits of their lands. The origin
+of the New England township has been well described by John Fiske in a
+famous chapter on this subject:[75]
+
+      "When people from England first came to dwell in the
+      Wilderness of Massachusetts Bay, they settled in groups upon
+      small irregular-shaped patches of land, which soon came to
+      be known as townships. There were several reasons why they
+      settled thus in small groups, instead of scattering about
+      over the country and carving out broad estates for
+      themselves. In the first place, their principal reason for
+      coming to New England was their dissatisfaction with the way
+      in which church affairs were managed in the old country.
+      They wished to bring about a reform in the church, in such
+      wise that members of a congregation should have more voice
+      than formerly in the church-government, and that the
+      minister of each congregation should be more independent
+      than formerly of the bishop and of the civil government....
+      Such a group of people, arriving on the coast of
+      Massachusetts, would naturally select some convenient
+      locality, where they might build their houses near together
+      and all go to the same church. This migration, therefore,
+      was a movement, not of individuals or of separate families,
+      but of church congregations, and it continued to be so as
+      the settlers made their way inland and westward....
+
+      "In the second place, the soil of New England was not
+      favorable to the cultivation of great quantities of staple
+      articles, such as rice or tobacco, so that there was nothing
+      to tempt people to undertake extensive plantations. Most of
+      the people lived on small farms, each family raising but
+      little more than enough food for its own support; and the
+      small size of the farms made it possible to have a good many
+      in a compact neighborhood. It appeared also that towns could
+      be more easily defended against the Indians than scattered
+      plantations;...
+
+      "Thus the early settlers of New England came to live in
+      townships. A township would consist of about as many farms
+      as could be disposed within convenient distance from the
+      meeting-house, where all the inhabitants, young and old,
+      gathered every Sunday, coming on horseback or afoot....
+      Around the meeting-house and common the dwellings gradually
+      clustered into a village, and after a while the tavern,
+      store and town-house made their appearance."
+
+When the Mormons settled Utah they established a very similar form of
+community government centering around the church. Elsewhere, with rare
+exceptions, throughout the North and West the township is the primary
+unit of local government, save for school administration, but it is by
+no means identical with a community. When the lands west of the
+Alleghanies were surveyed for settlement they were laid off in blocks
+six miles square, which were known as congressional townships, for
+Congress gave each township a square mile of land the proceeds of which
+should form a permanent school fund. In discussing the development of
+the township in Illinois, Dr. Albert Shaw writes:
+
+      "To give effect to this liberal provision, the state enacted
+      a law making the township a body corporate and politic for
+      school purposes and authorizing the inhabitants to elect
+      school officers and maintain free schools. Here, then, was a
+      rudiment of local government. As New England township life
+      grew up around the church, so western localism finds its
+      nucleus in the school system. What more natural than that
+      the county election district should be made to coincide with
+      the school township, with a school-house for the voting
+      place? or that justices of the peace, constables and road
+      supervisors and overseers of the poor, should have their
+      jurisdiction determined by the same township lines?"[76]
+
+Thus in many of the North-central States the township came to be the
+local unit of government for certain minor purposes, though in other
+states it is little more than an election district, and in none of them
+is there preserved the old town meeting which gave the New England
+township its fundamental democracy.
+
+Owing to the large plantations and the economic and social conditions
+prevailing throughout the South, it has had practically no units of
+government smaller than the county, other than incorporated villages.
+
+Until very recently our conception of society has been mostly in terms
+of political units, largely on account of the lack of any local unit
+which had social significance to rural people. In recent years, however,
+students of rural government have become aware of the artificiality and
+the anti-social character of the township unit. There may be two rival
+villages within a township, each competing for trade and the support of
+its associations, and striving for the political domination of the
+township, while some of the farmers in a far corner of the township may
+trade in a village in the next township. Or a village may be on a
+township line, which must be observed in all matters of government
+although there is no real division of interests between its people.
+
+Outside of New England villages were located at points of geographical
+advantage, or along through roads or railroads, primarily as business
+centers. There was no particular relation between the village and the
+farming area surrounding it. But as the village grew it often desired
+modern improvements such as water systems, pavements, street lights,
+etc., for which the farmers were unwilling to be taxed and which were
+thus prevented as long as the village was controlled by the township.
+This has led to most of the larger villages becoming incorporated, so
+that they may administer their own local government and tax themselves
+for such improvements as they desire. This separation of the village
+from the township has been inevitable where the farmers take no pride or
+interest in it, and has often been necessitated by their parsimony or
+conservatism. This is well illustrated by an incident related by
+Professor Herbert B. Adams:
+
+      "In my native town, Amherst, Mass., the villagers struggled
+      for years in town-meeting to secure some system of sewerage
+      for 'the center,' but the 'ends of the town' always voted
+      'no'. On one occasion, in order to allay suspicion of
+      extravagance, a leading villager moved that, whatever system
+      of sewerage be adopted, the surface water and rainfall be
+      allowed to take their natural course down-hill in the
+      ordinary gutters. The farmers sniffed danger in this wily
+      proposition and voted an overwhelming 'No.' Accordingly by
+      the local law of Amherst, water had to run uphill until the
+      next town-meeting! Such is the power of Democracy."[77]
+
+This separate incorporation of the village has been a large factor in
+making a distinction between villagers and farmers and preventing their
+recognition of their community interests. Not infrequently, however, it
+will be found that some of the more progressive villages are not
+incorporated and that they have the loyalty of the farmers. Numerous
+examples of unincorporated villages might be cited to show that where a
+spirit of pride in local village institutions has been developed among
+the farmers of the territory tributary to it, that village improvements
+not only are not impeded, but the community is much strengthened. This
+is more likely to be true, however, where the township boundary and the
+natural community area are practically the same.
+
+On the other hand, the progress of a rural community, i.e., a village
+and the territory tributary to it, often is prevented if it cannot
+command a majority of the votes in a township. In a nearby village is a
+town hall which might be used as a community house and be a social
+center for the whole community. But the borders of the township belong
+to other communities and do not come to the township center, and these
+people on the edge of the township very naturally take the position that
+if the village and neighboring people wish to use the town hall, let
+them rent it of the town, but why should the whole township be taxed for
+advantages which only half of it can enjoy. The same line of argument
+arises with regard to the location of schools, roads, libraries, and the
+districts for public health nurses. Unless the whole township can be
+equally well served, a community which forms but part of the township is
+unable to secure these advantages unless it can command a majority of
+the votes, or except as the village incorporates, and then it loses the
+support of the taxes from the farms of the community which share the
+benefits.
+
+As long as farm life was on the neighborhood basis, its interests
+largely centering in the district school and the country church, its
+roads maintained by the labor of its citizens under a local road
+supervisor, and trips to the village were made only once or twice a week
+for mail and supplies, farmers did not feel the need for a unit of local
+government other than the township. But when the church, the grange and
+the lodge are in the village, when they desire consolidated schools,
+libraries, and community houses, which are most convenient to all at the
+village center, and when they desire the improvement of local roads so
+that they will best connect with state and county roads, then the
+interests of the farmers and the villagers unite them in these common
+enterprises, and the community comes into conflict with the rest of the
+township if the township is composed of more than one community.
+
+On the other hand, it must be recognized that for many purposes the
+community, or even the township, is too small a unit to secure the
+greatest efficiency in administration of public agencies, and so there
+has been a distinct tendency toward the centralization of many functions
+of local government in county officials. Thus the county superintendent
+of schools is assuming more and more control over the local school
+system, the county supervision of roads is increasing, and we have shown
+(p. 145) the desirability of a county health administration, the need
+for county juvenile courts (p. 188), county boards for the
+administration of welfare work (p. 191), and a county library system.
+The county tends to become a rural municipality very similar in function
+and organization to the city, and the logical outcome seems to be the
+employment of a county manager under a commission or county council,
+which has already become possible in Maryland and California.[78] That
+this centralization makes possible a greater efficiency in
+administration can hardly be doubted, but that it tends to destroy the
+initiative and responsibility of the local community is equally
+apparent. With an over-centralization of administration, whether in the
+county or the state, the local community loses the very ties which have
+bound it together. The adjustment of the desires for efficiency and for
+local democracy is one of the unsolved problems of government.
+Experience shows clearly that the local community or township is too
+small a unit to secure efficient administration; but it is also evident
+that without some degree of local responsibility and control,
+centralized administration tends to become bureaucratic and the people
+are deprived of that participation in government which is essential for
+the life of a democracy.
+
+Thus the need for the local self-government of rural communities has
+become apparent to rural leaders. It is interesting to note that this is
+becoming appreciated in the South, where on account of social and
+economic conditions local government has been almost entirely lacking in
+the past, but where new conditions give rise to new desires which cannot
+be realized except through some means whereby a locality can be free to
+work out its own salvation. This point of view has been vigorously
+expressed by Dr. Clarence Poe, editor of the Progressive Farmer and a
+recognized leader of rural life in the South:
+
+      "The chief task of the man who would help develop a rich and
+      puissant rural civilization here in the South--the chief
+      task perhaps of the man who would make an agricultural
+      State like North Carolina the great commonwealth it ought to
+      be--is to develop the rural community."...
+
+      "Consider the fact that the country community is the only
+      social unit known to our civilization that is without
+      definite boundaries and without machinery for
+      self-expression and development--without form, and void, as
+      was chaos before creation."...
+
+      "But for the country community there is no organic means of
+      expression whatever. There is, of course, that shadowy and
+      futile geographical division known as the Township--but it
+      is laid off utterly without regard to human consideration,
+      and serves no purpose save as a means of defining voting
+      boundaries and limiting the spheres of constables and
+      sheriff's deputies--a mere ghostly phantom of a social
+      entity that we need not consider at all."[79]
+
+And he then goes on to show the advantages of the New England township.
+
+_Community School Districts._--The most significant beginning toward the
+creation of self-government for the rural community is in the laws which
+have been passed by several states permitting redistricting for the
+establishment of community high schools or consolidated schools,
+irrespective of township or county boundaries and according to the
+desire of the prospective patrons of the schools. Thus in 1919 Nebraska
+passed a state rural school redistricting law under which every county
+has a redistricting committee which determines what seem to be the
+natural boundaries of the district, which are then subject to petitions
+from the people for their alteration, and the whole plan is then
+submitted to a vote of the county. "The law does not explicitly state
+that the proposed districts must correspond to a natural community in
+the social sense; it only says that they must be very much larger than
+the old ones, approximately twenty-five square miles. The inevitable
+result, however, of opening the question and of freeing community choice
+from old political boundaries is to settle on new areas approaching
+social units with self-conscious community ties."[80] Kansas and
+Illinois have somewhat similar legislation and a community unit is
+proposed by the Committee of 21 which has recently conducted a survey of
+the rural school situation in the State of New York.
+
+_Community House Districts_.--Wisconsin has passed an act whereby the
+people of any local area may vote to erect and maintain a community
+house and may establish the boundaries of the area in which the citizens
+shall have the right to tax themselves for this purpose, and to elect
+trustees of the house, in much the same manner as community school
+districts are established. It seems probable that when a natural social
+area has thus been determined it will probably be the same for both
+school and community house, and that it might be the best unit for the
+support of such community agencies as a public library, or a
+public-health nurse, and thus a real community government might
+gradually arise and might ultimately displace the arbitrary township
+government, although the township might be retained for its original
+purpose of land registration.
+
+_Rural Community Incorporation_.--The most advanced step in giving the
+rural community self-government is An Act to Provide for the
+Incorporation of Rural Communities, passed by the legislature of North
+Carolina in 1919.[81] This act gives authority for the incorporation of
+rural communities including definite school districts, which may or may
+not include hamlets or village centers, but which must be at least two
+miles from any town or city of five thousand or more inhabitants. It
+gives such incorporated rural communities the general powers and
+privileges of an incorporated village, except that they cannot lose
+their identity as a part of the school and road systems of the county.
+Taxes may be levied for various public purposes, but they must be voted
+at an annual meeting at which a majority of the registered voters must
+be present, or be submitted to an election, and the amount of taxes and
+bonds are limited. Although about a dozen communities have incorporated
+under this act, but few of them seem to be actively functioning, due to
+various local causes. The act itself, however, is well conceived and is
+worthy of study by those interested in better rural government.
+
+Another method of accomplishing the same end is by a special act of
+incorporation for a particular community, as was passed by the
+Legislature of New Jersey for Plainsboro Township in 1919.
+
+Concerning the organization of this community, Hon. Alva Agee, State
+Secretary of Agriculture, writes:
+
+      "Every voter within its boundaries signed a petition to the
+      legislature for the creation of a new township embracing the
+      territory belonging to the community, and this was granted.
+      The community then met, made a declaration of its purposes
+      and adopted a constitution providing for control of all
+      township and community affairs. It is a return to direct
+      government by the people, and places responsibility upon
+      every individual. It is the old New England town-meeting
+      made effective. Patient study of every detail was given by
+      members of the community."[82]
+
+The declaration of purposes and constitution[83] are so unique that they
+should be studied by all interested in community government.
+
+      "A DECLARATION OF PURPOSES
+
+      "We, the residents of Plainsboro Township, New Jersey,
+      declare our purpose to accept all the duties of American
+      citizenship.
+
+      We are forming an association to secure all the benefits of
+      community life, and affirm the right of our community to
+      each one's best effort.
+
+      We support all individual rights just as far as their use
+      does not harm our fellows.
+
+      We agree that the public good is superior to any private
+      gain obtained at the expense of community welfare.
+
+      We recognize and acknowledge the gracious influences of
+      practical Christianity in community life.
+
+      We ask that our homes be guarded by right social conditions
+      throughout our community.
+
+      We declare the duty of the community to provide good
+      schools, means for community recreation, safe sanitary
+      conditions, improved highways, and encouragement to thrift
+      and home-ownership.
+
+      We purpose to make the neatness and attractiveness of our
+      homes and farms assets of distinct value to the township.
+
+      We agree to do our share in the creation of public sentiment
+      in support of all measures in the public interest.
+
+      We agree to put aside all partisan and sectarian relations
+      when dealing with community matters.
+
+      We state our conviction that the best rewards from this
+      organized effort lie before each one in a deepened interest
+      in others and in an increased ability to cooperate the one
+      with the other for the good of all.
+
+      We, the citizens of Plainsboro Township, incorporated by act
+      of the Legislature of the State of New Jersey, approved
+      April 1, 1919, and accepted by us on May 6, 1919, subscribe
+      to this declaration."
+
+If such a Declaration of Purposes were adopted by every rural community,
+and were taught the children as a civic oath of allegiance, would it not
+have more immediate effect on practical patriotism than even the
+Declaration of Independence, and what new meaning would be given to
+local government? Here is an example of rural civic spirit which, if it
+could become general throughout the rural communities of the United
+States, would remold the political and social organization of the whole
+country; for it provides both the mechanism and the spirit which are
+essential for making democracy a reality rather than an ideal.
+
+_Community Government and Democracy._--The local community is
+indispensable as the primary political unit for the maintenance of true
+democracy, both because it is small enough that there can be personal
+relations between its members, in which a real consensus of opinion can
+be formed, and also because only in it can the masses of mankind have
+any personal experience or participation in government. Unless the
+individual has a social consciousness of the community in which he
+lives, he can have but a feeble and hazy realization of larger social
+groups. Unless the community through its individuals is self-conscious,
+it cannot take its rightful place in the larger community of which it
+forms a part. If democracy does not obtain in the local community, the
+voice of such a community in the affairs of the county or state will be
+that of its self-chosen leaders. It is difficult to conceive how any
+real democracy can be secured in State or Nation where it does not
+obtain in their constituent communities. It is entirely possible to have
+a government democratic in form and theory, but actually a political or
+economic feudalism, supported by local chieftains who represent not the
+people, but themselves or some business or other special interests. The
+very life of true democracy is in the participation of individuals in
+the government of the local group and in the organization of the
+locality groups, so that there may be a fair discussion and expression
+by those who are bound together by common interests through some form of
+self-government for the rural community.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[75] "Civil Government in the United States," pp. 17, 18. Boston, 1890.
+
+[76] "Local Government in Illinois," p. 10. Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies
+in History and Political Science. Vol. I, No. 3, 1883.
+
+[77] Editor's note, p. 51. "Penn. Boroughs," by Wm. F. Holcomb. Johns
+Hopkins Univ. Stud. in History and Pol. Sc. Vol. IV, No. 4, 1886.
+
+[78] See E. H. Ryder, "Proposed Modifications and Recent Tendencies in
+Rural Government and Legislation," p. 112, Proc. 3d Natl. Country Life
+Conference.
+
+[79] "Why Not Local Self-Government for Rural Communities," pp. 4-48.
+North Carolina Club Year Book, 1917-1918. "County Government and County
+Affairs in North Carolina." The University of North Carolina Record. No.
+159. Oct., 1918. Chapel Hill, N. C.
+
+[80] H. Paul Douglas. "Recent Legislation Facilitating Rural Community
+Organization," p. 124, Proc. 3d Natl. Country Life Conference.
+
+[81] Public Laws of 1919, Reprinted as Appendix A, p. 116, of A. W.
+Hayes, "Rural Community Organization." Chicago, 1921.
+
+[82] "A Community Organization." National Stockman and Farmer. July 26,
+1919.
+
+[83] For the constitution see Appendix A, page 247.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION[84]
+
+
+From one standpoint the whole progress of civilization is but a process
+of social organization, the establishment of those relationships which
+best promote the largest measure of human welfare. In the previous
+chapters we have noted the various aspects and problems of rural life
+which have necessitated the community as a unit for social organization.
+As a result of the growing conviction that the conditions of rural life
+can be made satisfying only through the collective efforts of definite
+communities, there has arisen a widespread movement for the better
+organization of community interests and activities, which has come to be
+known as community organization. Although this movement is being
+encouraged by many agencies, its greatest significance and importance
+arises from the fact that, for the most part, community organization of
+many diverse types is springing up in rural communities throughout the
+country as a means of meeting their local needs. This spontaneity of the
+movement is the best evidence that changing conditions have brought
+about a real need for some better machinery for community development.
+
+In order to understand community organization so that we may
+intelligently encourage its development, it will be well to consider (1)
+the underlying causes, (2) the process of organization, and (3) the
+forms of organization.
+
+1. _Causes._--Usually the immediate cause of attempting community
+organization is the common desire to meet a need which cannot well be
+realized except through the united effort of the whole community.
+Improved roads are needed, a library or playground is desired, a Liberty
+Loan must be raised, a Fourth of July celebration or a pageant is to be
+undertaken, a band or baseball team needs financial support and
+patronage to prevent its disbanding, hard times or a fire make unusual
+aid necessary to certain families, an influenza epidemic compels a
+united effort for the care of the sick. In all such cases a citizens'
+committee is usually organized which represents various organizations
+and interests so that the support of all the elements in the community
+may be enlisted. When any common need is of such a magnitude or of such
+a nature that it is not within the field of any one organization or
+agency, then some form of at least temporary community organization is
+necessary. When some of these needs, such as a community house or a
+public health nurse, require permanent maintenance, and the cooperation
+of various organizations is essential for the success of the enterprise,
+then some permanent form of community organization becomes desirable. If
+a community organization is to be permanent and is to really function,
+there must be work for it to do which cannot or will not be done by
+existing agencies.
+
+A second cause for community organization arises from the increasing
+complexity of human relationships, even in a rural community. We have
+observed that in recent years there has been a rapid increase in the
+number of associations each of which is devoted to some one special
+interest. The life of simpler or more primitive communities is a unit
+with regard to all phases of their life, religion, government, and
+social affairs. Such was the township of colonial New England and many
+a community in the pioneer stage. But in modern times a multiplicity of
+voluntary associations have sprung up and have spread from one community
+to another. In many cases the members of such organizations become more
+loyal to them than to the community; organizations become self-centered
+and divisive rather than being devoted to the community good. Religion,
+government, economic life, and education have become more or less
+separate spheres of life, each having a code of its own, whereas human
+problems involve all of these aspects of life and cannot be successfully
+solved while there is conflict of standards between religion, business,
+government, and social life. Not infrequently more than one organization
+undertakes the same or similar work, or the demands of one clash with
+those of another, and social confusion arises. When this occurs in a
+large city between organizations which are supported by the wealthy or
+by different groups, each may go as far as its resources will permit;
+but in the rural community where organizations must be of the people and
+supported by all of them, such a situation cannot be tolerated for both
+funds and leadership are limited.
+
+Organizations arise to meet recognized human needs, but no one
+organization can meet all the needs of the whole community. Nor do all
+organizations appeal to all people. Men associate according to their
+special individual interests, some are more interested in religion and
+business, others in social life or athletics, or what not. As the
+organizations representing these interests become more and more
+specialized, each individual belongs to several organizations, whose
+interests sometimes conflict and members of a community are arrayed
+against each other. Thus an individual is sometimes involved in a
+divided loyalty between two groups, and finds himself with a conflict of
+purposes which lessens that personal unity which is essential for
+character and personal peace. The character of the individual is
+developed to the extent that he is able to resolve this conflict of his
+interests in one dominant purpose. So the welfare of the community can
+be secured only by a unity of purpose among its organizations in their
+loyalty to the common good. This tendency to form associations for
+special interests is shown in the following diagram:
+
+  FOR A SATISFYING}                   {ASSOCIATIONS AND
+  LIFE EVERY MAN  }     These needs   {ORGANIZATIONS REPRESENTING
+  NEEDS:          }     are met by    {SPECIAL
+                  }                   {INTERESTS OF THE
+                  }                   {COMMUNITY, such as
+
+  1. ECONOMIC PROSPERITY               Cooperative Marketing Assns.
+  --An Adequate Income                 Cooperative Buying Assns.
+                                       Commercial Clubs
+                                       Farm Loan Assns.
+
+  2. HEALTH                            Public health nurses
+  --Physical Fitness                   Local health officer
+                                       Local hospitals
+
+  3. EDUCATION                         Schools
+  --The Ability to Learn               Parent-Teacher's Assns.
+                                       Farm and Home Bureau
+                                       Boys' and Girls' Clubs
+                                       Public Library and Museum
+                                       Community Fairs
+
+  4. SOCIABILITY AND RECREATION        Lodges
+  --The Joy of Playing Together        Women's clubs; men's clubs
+                                       Scouts; Camp Fire Girls
+                                       Athletic Clubs and Assns.
+                                       Moving pictures and theatres
+                                       Public playground & gymnasium
+
+  5. ARTISTIC ENJOYMENT                Village Improvement Societies
+  --Appreciation of Beauty in          Community Choruses
+  Nature, Music, Art and Literature    Bands and Orchestras
+
+  6. RELIGIOUS LIFE                    Churches and church federations
+  --The Common Quest of the            Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A.
+  Highest Ideals                       Young People's Societies
+
+  7. FAMILY WELFARE                    Red Cross--Home Service
+  --Love of Family                     Child Welfare Bureaus and Child
+                                       Study Clubs
+
+  8. A PROGRESSIVE COMMUNITY           Some form of a Community
+  --A Desire for Opportunity           organization, bringing together
+  for All--i.e., Democracy             all the above.
+
+On the other hand we must recognize man's gregarious tendency, his
+desire for the support of public opinion, his craving of a feeling of
+"togetherness." The elation which comes to a people engaged in war or in
+meeting any common disaster comes chiefly from the satisfaction they
+experience in being united in a common cause and enjoying the sanction
+of their fellows without division among them. The individualistic
+philosophy of the more sophisticated may enable them to find
+satisfaction in more or less socially segregated groups under ordinary
+conditions, but when they face calamity, when the most fundamental and
+deepest issues of life are involved, then they enjoy association with
+those who surround them--they become "neighbors."
+
+This desire of men to associate in groups which represent their special
+interests, and their equal desire to be _en rapport_ with all their
+fellows with whom their life is associated in community life, is one of
+the paradoxes into which many of our basic human problems resolve, and
+furnishes one of the primary reasons for some form of community
+organization which will unify the increasing complexity of associations.
+
+A third underlying motive for community organization, which is just
+coming to receive recognition, is the need of defending the interests of
+the local community against the domination of national or state
+organizations, of maintaining a necessary degree of local autonomy. All
+organizations which become associated in state or national federations
+inevitably develop a central administration which tends to become more
+or less of a hierarchy or bureaucracy. The national organization seeks
+to achieve its special objects and to emphasize their supreme
+importance. It tries to secure efficiency of the local groups through
+standardization, and very naturally encourages their loyalty to the
+state or national aims and purposes. This tendency is more or less
+inevitable and is an inherent weakness of all large organizations which
+do not constantly place their emphasis on strengthening their local
+units and encouraging devotion to community service. But in many cases
+the larger organization has lost a true perspective of its relationship
+to its local units and of their primary duty to their local communities.
+The most flagrant instance of this principle is in the domination of
+local government by national political parties, whose policies have
+nothing whatever to do with local administration, but who maintain their
+"machines" so that an efficient organization is available for mobilizing
+the vote in state and national elections. The resulting reaction has
+given rise to citizen's tickets, commission government and city
+managers, and in the more progressive smaller communities a growing
+tendency to vote for the best man irrespective of party. Wherever a
+community votes independently of national party lines on local affairs,
+there will be found healthy local government. For the same general
+reasons we have observed the growth of the community church movement (p.
+127) as a protest against sectarian rivalries, the new emphasis of the
+master of the national grange (p. 172) on the community responsibilities
+of the grange as more important than its legislative activities, and the
+effort to prevent an over-centralization of school administration
+through the creation of community school districts under local control.
+A striking example of the reaction of local communities in self-defense
+against the demands for support from many organizations was the rapid
+spread of the "War Chest" movement among our cities during the war as a
+means of raising funds for various national organizations carrying on
+war work. Subsequently the same idea has given rise to the organization
+of "Community Chests" or "Community Funds" for financing various
+community and national welfare agencies, so as to ensure adequate
+support for those which are necessary, but to discourage a multiplicity
+of competing organizations, and to furnish a mechanism whereby the
+community may exercise some definite policy with regard to its social
+work.
+
+Such are some of the fundamental causes which have given rise to various
+experiments in community organization. They commenced about a decade
+ago, but increased slowly prior to the war. The war brought about a new
+realization of the community, as it was necessary to organize war
+activities, "war drives," etc., on a community basis. Under the National
+Council of Defense were organized State and County Councils of Defense
+and finally President Wilson issued a letter encouraging the
+organization of local Community Councils,[85] to bring together all
+organizations and interests of the community not only for war purposes
+but with a view to their future usefulness in times of peace. In this
+letter, President Wilson said:
+
+      "Your State, in extending the national defense organization
+      by the creation of community councils, is in my opinion
+      making an advance of vital significance. It will, I believe,
+      result when thoroughly carried out in welding the Nation
+      together as no nation of great size has been welded before.
+      It will build up from the bottom an understanding and
+      sympathy and unity of purpose and effort which will no doubt
+      have an immediate and decisive effect upon our great
+      undertaking. You will find it, I think, not so much a new
+      task as a unification of existing efforts, a fusion of
+      energies now too much scattered and at times somewhat
+      confused into one harmonious and effective power. It is only
+      by extending your organization to small communities that
+      every citizen of the State can be reached and touched with
+      the inspiration of the common cause."
+
+The organization of community councils was actively pushed by the
+National and State Councils of Defense, and thousands of them were
+organized. This was in the summer of 1918, but owing to the early
+declaration of the Armistice they had but little opportunity to become
+thoroughly established. As they had been created primarily for war
+purposes, most of them ceased to function with the cessation of
+hostilities, but the idea had taken root and the experience of common
+effort in war activities had brought about a new sense of the value of
+some sort of community organization.
+
+2. _The Process of Community Organization._--As corollaries of the
+motives for community organization which we have just discussed, there
+are certain fairly obvious principles concerning the process of
+organization which deserve emphasis.
+
+The first essential is to determine whether there are unsatisfied
+desires which cannot be met except by community action and whether they
+are sufficiently desired to command the united support of the community.
+Only as individuals and associations have common desires which cannot be
+satisfied without their united activity can community organization be
+effected. The mere logical desirability of coordination of effort,
+however rational it may appear, is too abstract an objective to inspire
+enduring devotion. The allaying of antagonisms between special interests
+makes no appeal to any of them until they are unable to achieve their
+ends without joint action. Therefore, the primary consideration in
+community organization is to determine what is the most important unmet
+need of the community which requires united action for its satisfaction,
+and to enlist all possible elements in the common enterprise.
+
+A community must be thoroughly convinced of the need of some definite
+form of community organization before it can succeed. Sudden enthusiasm
+due to the power of a persuasive speaker or a community meeting may
+result in the formation of a community organization, but unless a
+considerable proportion of the people representing various interests are
+firmly convinced of the need and are willing to pool their interests in
+community activities, such an organization will be like many a convert
+of a revival meeting, it will soon "backslide." To secure the
+recognition of the need for concerted action by all elements of the
+community will usually require time and education, and is a process
+which cannot be forced too rapidly--all education or learning involves
+time.
+
+Even when an outstanding need is apparent it may not always be possible
+to gain the support of a sufficient portion of the community to justify
+an immediate effort for its achievement. It may be necessary to first
+arouse good feeling and community spirit by some activity which, though
+relatively less important, will command more general interest and
+participation, and may pave the way for other enterprises. The first and
+essential step in community organization is to get the community to act
+together, for only through collective activity is community spirit and
+loyalty developed. It is for this reason that Old Home Weeks, family
+reunions, athletic or play festivals, baseball teams, picnics, pageants,
+dramatics, community fairs, community Chautauquas, holiday celebrations,
+and kindred events are often the best means for creating better
+community spirit.[86] It should be remembered that the objective of
+community organization is not _an_ organization, but the active
+cooperation of all the people and organizations of the community for the
+common welfare. The essential is common ideals and loyalties; the
+mechanism whereby these may be achieved is incidental.
+
+Until genuine local leadership is available, community organization will
+be impossible. It is true that often where the need for community
+activity is sufficiently great that the very necessity develops new
+leadership. Herein lies the value of beginning the process of community
+organization by some enterprise which enlists the enthusiastic support
+of the whole community, for in such activities new leadership is often
+developed.
+
+Any form of community organization which is to be permanent and
+effective must represent the actual life of the community, which is
+largely dominated by existing organizations. Most individuals are loyal
+to certain of these organizations and these loyalties are the social
+realities which must be recognized in any attempt to unite them in
+larger aims. Unless most of the leading organizations of a community can
+be affiliated for community progress, any so-called community
+organization will be but another organization. The League of Nations
+hardly represents the world community as long as the United States,
+Germany and Russia are not affiliated with it, nor would our federal
+government be representative of our national life if it were
+responsible only to the direct vote of the people and did not give
+recognition to the states as states. It is for this reason that
+community organization will proceed most efficiently where it is
+initiated by the joint effort of several of its leading associations,
+the churches, the grange, the farm and home bureau, the Red Cross, the
+business men's association, etc., for without their support a divided
+loyalty will persist.
+
+For the same reason, a community organization cannot be under the
+auspices of any one existing organization as a chamber of commerce or
+farm bureau. Both of these and others are community organizations, but
+they are for specific purposes. Proponents of both of these have
+advocated making them community-wide and all-embracing in their
+functions, but it needs but little reflection to show the impossibility
+of such a plan. To cite but one objection. The rural church is the most
+deeply-rooted and in many ways the most powerful of rural institutions.
+It can cooperate with these other organizations for community purposes,
+but neither of them can enter into the religious field. The same is true
+of lodges, schools, health organizations, government, etc. Community
+organizations, such as the Chamber of Commerce or Commercial Club, the
+Grange and the Farm Bureau for agriculture and homemaking, the Red Cross
+for its activities, Church Federations, and others should all be
+encouraged where needed, but although each of these has certain
+community functions, no one of them can do or can direct the work of
+another. The community organization must bring them together so as to
+best coordinate their work for the good of the community, not through
+the power of an organic federation, but through the influence of
+conference, good will and devotion to the common weal.
+
+3. _The Community Council._--Community organizations are, as yet, in an
+experimental stage and their formal constitutions or by-laws are of many
+different types.[87] The Community Council, as suggested by the National
+Council of Defense, has been adopted in many communities with various
+modifications to meet local conditions. A community council consists of
+one representative from each general organization which affiliates with
+it and of a variable number of members-at-large elected by the annual
+community meeting. All citizens are entitled to vote for the
+members-at-large. The usual officers may be elected by the community
+meeting, or, preferably, be chosen by the council itself. Thus the
+council represents both the existing organizations and the community as
+a whole. The council does not attempt any control over existing
+organizations, but merely provides a means for their voluntary
+cooperation and is an agency for promoting community activities. In many
+cases where there are a large number of organizations, and it is
+surprising how many are found in many average-sized rural communities,
+the council will be too large to be an effective working body.
+Furthermore, the members who represent various organizations may not
+always be the best persons to carry on the particular enterprises which
+the council desires to promote. The council may, under such
+circumstances, devote itself to the consideration of policies and
+enterprises, and may create committees of citizens who are best
+qualified and most interested in particular projects to have charge of
+their execution. Thus if the council decides to get back of a movement
+for a playground, a public health nurse, and a band, committees would be
+appointed to take charge of organizing each one of these enterprises.
+These committees should be selected so as to represent the various
+organizations most directly concerned with or interested in the
+particular project as far as possible, but they should be chosen
+primarily for their ability to produce results. Committees should be
+appointed only for those projects which the council decides to
+undertake, although one or two committees may be appointed merely to
+investigate suggested projects and to report their findings for further
+consideration. Where the council is large, and it is not practicable to
+have it meet more than once a quarter, it may be well to have its work
+carried on in the interims by an executive committee consisting of the
+officers and the chairmen of the committees.
+
+There can be no one best type of community organization adapted to the
+widely varying conditions of all sorts and sizes of rural communities;
+each community must have a form of organization adapted to its needs.
+The important thing is not the creation of another new organization in
+the community, but to afford the means for the better team play of those
+which already exist. The mechanism must therefore depend upon the
+character and stage of development of the community and will be modified
+from time to time as its experience, or that of similar community
+organizations, warrants.
+
+Finally let us remember that community organization is not an end in
+itself, but that it is merely a means whereby conditions in the
+community may be made such that every individual in it may have the best
+possible chance to develop his personality and to enjoy the fellowship
+of service in the common good. The aim of all social organization is
+personality, but personality is achieved and can find its own
+satisfaction only through fellowship. The ideal community but furnishes
+the social environment in which the human spirit realizes its highest
+values.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[84] Much of this chapter is a revision of parts of an article by the
+author entitled "Some Fundamentals of Rural Community Organization."
+Proceedings Third Natl. Country Life Conference, pp. 66-77.
+
+[85] See Elliott Dunlap Smith, Proceedings first National Country Life
+Conference, pp. 36-46 and Appendix C.
+
+[86] In this connection, Dr. N. L. Sims in his "The Rural Community" (p.
+640. New York. Scribners, 1920), has propounded a most interesting "Law
+of Rural Socialization":--"Cooperation in rural neighborhoods has its
+genesis in and development through those forms of association which,
+beginning on the basis of least cost, gradually rise through planes of
+increasing cost to the stage of greatest cost in effort demanded, and
+which give at the same time ever increasing and more enduring benefits
+and satisfactions to the group."
+
+[87] See pp. 74-5, "Some Fundamentals of Rural Community Organization."
+Proc. 3d National Country Life Conference; and, E. C. Lindeman, "The
+Community," Chap. X. New York, Association Press, 1921.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+COMMUNITY PLANNING
+
+
+So far we have been considering the community with regard to how its
+people associate, with community psychology and behavior. But we must
+not forget that the community has a physical basis. The buildings which
+house these associations at the community center, the church, the
+school, the grange hall, the stores, with the roads which radiate from
+it and the farmsteads which they serve, these are the structures which,
+with the natural topography of stream and hill, give material form to
+the community and condition its life.
+
+One of the chief difficulties in the development of rural communities in
+the United States is that, like Topsy, they have "just growed." Village
+centers have sprung up here and there and gradually the surrounding
+countryside becomes associated with them. As a result little
+consideration has been given to planning the community either for
+efficiency or attractiveness. Sinclair Lewis' description of Gopher
+Prairie in "Main Street" may be overdrawn and unjust to many a rural
+community, but it describes conditions which are so common that it has
+aroused the public conscience concerning the lack of civic spirit in
+rural communities.
+
+A community is much like an individual. The man who is slouchy and
+careless of his personal appearance is rarely a strong character. The
+community whose cemetery is neglected, whose school grounds are a mass
+of mud and the outhouses a disgrace, whose lawns are unkept, where
+ash-piles and neglected puddles fill the vacant lots, whose roads are
+tortuous and unimproved, whose farm houses are unpainted and whose
+barnyards are more prominent than the door-yards--such a community is
+usually weak. It has little pride in itself or desire for improvement.
+In the case of the man who is "down and out," if we wish to give him a
+new start, we encourage him to take a bath and a shave and we then
+furnish him clean clothes, so that looking more respectable he may act
+the part. Likewise in community improvement a "clean up day" is often
+one of the best means of starting a new pride among its people.
+
+But improving its looks will not remedy the more fundamental structural
+defects which frequently handicap the rural community. Utility as well
+as beauty is essential in community arrangement. If the community is to
+escape ugliness and inconvenience, it will sooner or later come to the
+time when it must definitely plan the arrangement of its streets and
+roads, its public buildings and its open spaces, so as to best serve all
+parts of the community. Community planning is as essential to
+satisfactory "community housekeeping" as the plan of a house is for the
+convenience of the home. An architect is needed to plan a home for the
+community, a community structure which is mechanically sound and
+efficient and withal both beautiful and comfortable, just as much as for
+designing a house. So the art of "town planning" is extending from the
+cities to the country and some of our landscape architects who love the
+countryside and appreciate its life and problems are giving their
+attention to rural community planning.[88]
+
+This is not the place to enter into any extended discussion of the art
+of community planning, but we may well consider a few principles which
+are essential for realizing the ideals of community development.
+
+As the community center is the nucleus of the community life, let us
+first consider the village plan.
+
+One enters the community at the railroad station or by a main road. It
+is, of course, impossible to prevent the property adjoining a railroad
+from being the least attractive, because it is the most undesirable for
+residence purposes; but it is entirely practicable to have a neat
+railroad station with well-kept surroundings. Some of our more
+progressive railroad companies have perceived that it is good business
+to make their stations and grounds attractive and most of them will be
+willing to meet the local people halfway in an effort to improve their
+appearance. In far too many cases the grounds of the railroad station
+and the adjoining properties are the most neglected spot in the village
+and give an unfavorable impression of the community. Certainly we would
+think a man queer who placed the back-door of his house to the street,
+but the railroad station is usually the back-door of the community
+instead of the main entrance as it should be. On the other hand, on
+alighting at a well-kept station, with a neat lawn, good walks and
+roads, which is not surrounded by the village rubbish heaps and
+dilapidated buildings, the newcomer feels that here is a place which
+invites further acquaintance, while the native has a sense of
+satisfaction rather than of apology.
+
+The same principles apply to main road entrances to the village. The
+automobile has greatly increased highway travel. Where a village places
+a sign at its entrance "Welcome to Smithville," and at its exit "Come
+Again," as is now frequently done, it not only makes a favorable
+impression on the tourist, but it gives the community a sense of
+identity. In New England these signs are frequently placed, at the
+township line rather than at the village boundary. In a few cases
+villages have erected dignified stone pillars or arches at the entrance
+points.
+
+The building of state roads between village centers has almost
+necessitated paving or hard roads in the village, for people resent
+traveling over a good road in the open country and then plowing through
+mud holes in a village. Not infrequently the streets of the incorporated
+village are much poorer than the state roads outside the village and
+although incorporation formerly enabled the village to do its own paving
+and make other public improvements, the unincorporated village now has
+the advantage of having its main roadways constructed as a part of state
+or county road systems at less expense to the villagers. In any event
+the paving of the principal streets of the village should be considered
+an obligation of the whole community, not only of the village but of the
+farm area surrounding it--_i.e._, the township, for on them the traffic
+of the whole community centers and in many cases the farmers of the
+community do more actual hauling over the village streets than do the
+people of the village. It is, of course, entirely proper, where state
+laws permit, to assess part of the cost of village pavements on the
+abutting property, but it is short-sighted economy for farmers to object
+to sharing in the cost of such improvements in their community centers.
+
+When we come to a consideration of the general plan or layout of the
+village, it is obvious that in older communities it is hardly
+practicable to make material changes. In the old New England villages a
+part of the original town common has often been preserved as a "common"
+or park in the center of the village with a broad expanse of lawn and
+stately shade trees, while newer communities have frequently been laid
+out around a central open square. Here is the flagpole and the Soldiers'
+Monument or other historic memorials, and possibly a fountain or
+watering trough, and sometimes a band stand. It is a place where
+open-air meetings of all sorts, band concerts and community singing, may
+be held. It is the modern substitute for the forum of the old Roman
+town. When one compares a village which is merely strung along a main
+roadway, or two crossroads, with one which has such a civic center, he
+cannot but feel that the latter has a physical structure which gives it
+an identity and a common interest which is lacking in the former and
+which must mean much in the maintenance of community pride and which
+must give much better opportunity for outdoor gatherings of all sorts.
+In planning a new community such a public square should be a central
+feature. Around it may be built the school, the town hall or community
+house, the churches, the library and other public buildings. If large
+enough it should include tennis courts and a playground. Where the main
+streets are already occupied with business blocks and residences, it may
+be possible to secure a square not far from the village center where a
+new school building or community house may be erected and which may
+include a playground, bandstand, and whatever features are desired, even
+if it is necessary to place it at the edge of the village. Wherever
+possible the playground should adjoin the school building or community
+house, or both. Either as a feature of the playground or adjoining it,
+there should be a baseball diamond and bleachers or grandstand. Such a
+civic center will be found to be a powerful factor in the maintenance of
+community pride and loyalty.[89]
+
+The growth of automobile touring has encouraged the provision of camping
+sites for tourists on the edge of the village. Wherever a suitable
+grove or other natural setting can be found nearby a village it should
+be reserved as a public picnic ground or park. A part of this might also
+be made available for a tourists' camp, and often it will be a good
+location for a ball diamond. There has recently been a steady growth of
+interest in community fairs and such a picnic ground or park might well
+be arranged with an open space adjoining it for fair and festival
+purposes.
+
+These general features and facilities of the village plan are not simply
+for the advantage or beautification of the village, but they benefit the
+life of the whole community and should be considered as features of the
+community's plant.
+
+When we leave the village center and survey the farming area of the
+community, the most fundamental feature of its structure is the road
+plan. In hilly regions the location of roads is necessarily largely
+determined by topography, but over most of the Middle West the roads
+were laid out on section lines at the time of the original surveys and
+their location has never been changed. One who has grown up in that
+section feels a sort of pride in the straight roads and looks askance at
+the crooked roads of the East, but as a matter of fact the latter are in
+many cases much better located as regards their utility, for they were
+laid out to reach certain centers by the most direct route. On the other
+hand, the location of the village centers of the Middle West was largely
+determined by the railroad stations, and the roads were located without
+regard to them. As a result it is almost always necessary to traverse
+two sides of a square in order to reach the community center. This
+means that such a route is forty percent longer from the corners of the
+community than it would be by a straight line. This was bad enough with
+dirt roads, and if all the roads could be hard-surfaced, the automobile
+would, of course, lessen the time required for travel. It is, however,
+economically impossible to improve all minor roads and with the high
+cost of macadam, concrete, brick, or other hard-surface, not only for
+original cost but for upkeep, it seems absurd to continue to build the
+main roads on rectangular lines rather than by the shortest route
+between the most-traveled points. The saving in cost of construction and
+maintenance would much more than pay for the cost of all land which it
+would be necessary to condemn for their right-of-way, and the saving in
+time and cost of transportation for the whole community would amount to
+a large sum every year. Far too little attention has been given by road
+engineers to community planning, and with the vast sums which are now
+being expended by the federal, state and county governments on permanent
+roads, it is of the utmost importance that this matter of road location
+with regard to directness of access to the community centers should
+receive much more careful study and better supervision by all the
+authorities concerned, not only with regard to topography, but with
+regard to the social and economic welfare of the areas concerned. The
+newer sections of the country, and particularly western Canada, have
+become aware of this lack of economy in road location and are giving it
+consideration. In a report on Rural Planning and Development prepared
+for the Canadian Commission on Conservation, Mr. Thomas Adams, the town
+planning adviser of the commission, has outlined several plans for the
+better location of roads so that they will radiate from the community
+center and has shown that it is entirely possible to retain rectangular
+farm plans with radial roads.[90] He summarizes his discussion of this
+matter as follows:
+
+      "The main points of contention in this chapter are:--That
+      the present system of surveying land for the purpose of
+      securing accurate boundaries to arbitrary divisions and
+      sub-divisions of land, while satisfactory for that purpose,
+      is not a method of planning land, but only a basis on which
+      to prepare planning and development schemes; that no
+      definite or stereotyped system of planning can be
+      satisfactory for general application; that all plans should
+      have regard to the physical and economic conditions of the
+      territory to which they apply and should be made for the
+      general purpose of securing healthy conditions, amenity,
+      convenience and economic use of the land; and that more
+      complete and adequate surveys and a comprehensive
+      classification of land is essential to secure successful and
+      permanent land settlement." (p. 71)
+
+Another feature of community planning which is coming to receive larger
+attention is the preservation of unusual geological and scenic features
+for the use of public. One of the scenic attractions most commonly
+neglected is the land along waterways. Sometimes the land on one side of
+a stream is occupied by a road, but in many cases it is private
+property. If reserved to the public many of these watercourses might be
+most attractive parkways. In many cases the control of waterways has
+been necessitated for the maintenance of the purity of the water supply
+and the advantage of having the adjoining land--usually more or less
+wooded--available for picnic parties has encouraged the extension of
+public control of waterways. Several states now have legislation
+permitting counties or towns to acquire such areas for park purposes,
+and the Province of Ontario and some other Canadian provinces require
+that a width of 66 feet be reserved around all lakes and rivers.
+
+In order to utilize the waste land of the watersheds and to protect the
+shores of reservoirs and streams which furnish public water supplies,
+many cities have reforested considerable areas, which will be maintained
+as public forests and will be cut as the timber becomes merchantable.
+This movement has called attention to the practicability of establishing
+town or community forests on cheap land unsuitable for tillage, as a
+source of income to the community. Communal forests have existed in
+Europe for many centuries, and at the present time form 22 percent of
+the forests in France. A movement has now commenced for the planting of
+town forests in this country,[91] and the better utilization of the
+community's waste land by planting it in timber should be considered a
+feature of community planning.
+
+The improvements effected in cities through city planning commissions,
+both with regard to street location for the better routing of traffic,
+and the laying out of parks and the location of public buildings, have
+been so apparent, that the idea has been taken up by rural communities
+and a few states have passed legislation for the creation of special
+agencies for rural community planning. Thus Massachusetts has for
+several years had a Town Planning Commission and in 1919 Wisconsin
+passed an act[92] creating a division on rural planning of the State
+Department of Agriculture, and creating rural planning committees in
+each county. In 1920 thirty-six counties had organized such committees
+under this law and had already accomplished much under its
+authority.[93] Some of the more progressive land companies which are
+colonizing new lands in northern Wisconsin are making definite community
+plans to encourage settlement,[94] and in California the State Land
+Settlement Board has done much to encourage better rural planning by the
+demonstrations which it has made in its farm colonies at Durham and
+Delhi.[95] The Extension Services of several of the State agricultural
+colleges have experts on landscape art who give assistance in the
+improvement of public grounds and in community planning.
+
+A system of numbering farms has recently been invented which is based
+upon the relations of farms to their community centers and which
+therefore makes necessary the definite location of rural community areas
+and their boundaries. This is known as the "Clock System" rural index
+and is now in use in four counties in New York State. The county map
+published in the directory shows the different communities outlined by
+heavily shaded lines and the farm numbers radiate from the community
+centers. On the map each community is divided as a spider's web into a
+number of small spaces by twelve dotted lines that extend from each
+village on the same radii as the hour-marks on the dial of a clock, and
+by concentric circles which are a mile apart from each community center.
+Each set of lines and circles extends to the community boundary, and the
+farm is given a number which shows the sector in which it is located
+with reference to the distance from the community center. In front of a
+farm will be found a number, usually just below the mail box, such as
+Alton 3-2-K. This indicates that the farm is in the direction of the 3
+o'clock mark on a clock, or east, of Alton; the second term, 2, shows
+that it is between two and three miles from Alton and the letter K
+enables one to locate the individual farm on the small area between the
+3 o'clock and 4 o'clock radial lines and the two and three mile circles.
+In the directory accompanying the map the names of all householders are
+arranged alphabetically and also serially by their numbers, so that the
+name of the householder at a certain number of his location on the map
+may be readily ascertained. This system not only makes necessary a
+definite determination of the center and boundary of every community,
+but the number itself relates the farm to its community. This is a
+matter of considerable importance, for since the abolishment of many
+rural postoffices the farmer's mail address may be on a rural route
+starting from some railroad station or larger town which he visits only
+occasionally, and has no reference to the community in which he lives.
+The system was invented by a Colorado farmer, Mr. J. B. Plato, who
+devised it so that it might be possible for buyers to find his farm. As
+he claims, such a number "puts the farmer on the map" and gives his home
+a definite location just as does the street number of the city
+house.[96]
+
+Finally, in any effort toward community planning it must be remembered
+that most rural communities are, in a way, but parts of what, for want
+of a better term, we may term larger communities. Not every small rural
+community can support a library building, a hospital, a high school, a
+moving picture theater, or a public health nurse. As has been pointed
+out in the previous chapters, these agencies can be maintained only at
+such centers as can command the support of several smaller communities.
+Obviously they will tend to be located at the larger towns, such as the
+county seats. Roads should be planned with regard to making these larger
+centers most readily available to their tributary territory. It would
+seem to be advantageous to the smaller communities to definitely relate
+themselves to one of these larger centers in the support of some of the
+more costly community services which they are unable to maintain, and an
+understanding should be developed between the smaller and larger
+centers, whereby the latter will not attempt to displace the former. The
+larger villages and towns must recognize that the smaller nearby
+communities are an economic and social asset and that the maintenance of
+their village centers is essential to successful community life. On the
+other hand, the smaller communities should recognize their own
+limitations and should utilize the advantages of the larger centers
+without jealousy of them. The county library system and the county
+hospital illustrate the advantages to be obtained through the larger
+community, but which are impossible without the support of the voters of
+the smaller subsidiary communities.
+
+With the growth of the community idea, and as communities become so
+organized that they have some mechanism for self-examination and
+self-expression, more study will be given to the physical structure of
+the community as essential for economy and utility, and more pride will
+be taken in making it beautiful and satisfying. Community planning is
+essential for the highest type of community development.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[88] For a most suggestive introduction to this whole field see Prof.
+Frank A. Waughs "Rural Improvement." New York, Orange Judd Co., 1914.
+
+[89] Many plans for ideal rural community centers have been published.
+Among them see N. Y. State College of Agriculture, Extension Circular
+No. 1, "A Plan for a Rural Community Center"; Peter A. Speek, "A Stake
+in the Land," Plate facing page 252; plans of Durham and Delhi,
+California, in reports of Calif. Land Settlement Board.
+
+One of the most comprehensive studies in rural community planning is
+"Town Planning for Small Communities," by Walpole (Mass.) Town Planning
+Committee. Edited by C. S. Bird.
+
+[90] Thomas Adams, "Rural Planning and Development." Canada Commission
+of Conservation, Ottawa, 1917, pp. 53-64, with illustrations.
+
+[91] Samuel T. Dana, "Forestry and Community Development." Bulletin 638,
+U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.
+
+A. B. Recknagel, "County, Town, and Village Forests." N. Y. State
+College of Agriculture, Cornell Reading Course for the Farm, Lesson 40,
+1913.
+
+John S. Everitt, "Working Plan for a Communal Forest for the Town of
+Ithaca, N. Y.," Cornell Univ. Agr. Exp. Station, Bulletin 404.
+
+[92] Chapter 693, Wis. Laws of 1919, Creating section 1458-11 of the
+Statutes.
+
+[93] See "The Survey," Dec. 25, 1920, p. 459.
+
+[94] See Peter A. Speek, "A Stake in the Land," p. 53. New York,
+Harpers, 1921.
+
+[95] See Elwood Mead, "Helping Men Own Farms." New York, Macmillan,
+1921.
+
+[96] The "clock system" is described in detail in the writer's bulletin,
+"Locating the Rural Community." Cornell Reading Course for the Farm,
+Lesson 158. Information concerning it may be secured from the American
+Rural Index Corporation, Ithaca, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+COMMUNITY LOYALTY
+
+
+Just as we know a man by his bodily presence, so we recognize a
+community by its location and its physical structure. Yet the man is
+more than a body and the community is more than its material basis; the
+real community consists of the men, women, and children living together
+in a restricted environment. Dr. R. E. Hieronymous has well expressed
+the most fundamental aspect of the community when he says that its
+people "are coming to act together in the chief concerns of life."[97]
+The life of the community consists of the common activities of its
+people. There can be no community where there is no devotion to a common
+cause. The cause may be now one thing, now another, it may be worthy or
+debasing, but in so far as the people of a locality are acting together
+in the support of various common causes they are living as a community.
+Just as the character of an individual is determined by his life
+purposes and the degree to which he conforms his behavior to them, so
+the highest type of community is that in which its people are
+consciously loyal to the common welfare and are "coming to act together"
+for the common good. Like the character of an individual, the community
+is in process of becoming; it necessarily exists on an unconscious
+basis, due to locality and heredity, but the strength of the community
+is measured by the degree to which its members become voluntarily loyal
+to common purposes.
+
+Outside of early New England the circumstances of settlement of the
+United States were not conducive to community development. Most of the
+country west of the Alleghanies was settled by individuals who secured
+their land from the federal government and whose prime allegiance was to
+the nation. The federal government was the outgrowth of a revolution for
+the right of self-government. Liberty and Freedom were its watchwords
+and the conditions of life of the pioneer settlers and their rapid
+spread over one of the richest natural areas in the world favored
+individual independence. It was the natural reaction from the previous
+domination of a feudal aristocracy. For over a century our national
+philosophy has been dominated by a doctrine of rights, and only recently
+have we come to perceive that if democracy is to function in a complex
+modern civilization, there must be an equal emphasis on duties. This is
+the significance of the present interest in instruction in citizenship
+in our schools.
+
+Most of us hardly appreciate how complete a reversal of the organization
+of rural life was involved in this sudden domination of individualism.
+Primitive agriculture was made possible by men associating in small
+village communities for defense and mutual aid. Their whole system of
+agriculture, until very modern times, was controlled and directed, not
+by the individual or family, but by the community. The typical peasant
+community of Russia or India was in many respects but an enlarged family
+and its economy and social control were based upon the customs of the
+family. Indeed, historically the community was the outgrowth of the
+enlarged family or clan. It is not surprising, therefore, that the
+peasant's first loyalty is to his community. The nation or state is far
+away and beyond his ken; his patriotism is for his home village. So Park
+and Miller in their discussion of immigrants' attitudes say: "The
+peasant did not know that he was a Pole; he even denied it. The lord was
+a Pole; he was a peasant. We have records showing that members of other
+immigrant groups realize first in America that they are members of a
+nationality: "I had never realized I was an Albanian until my brother
+came from America in 1909. He belonged to an Albanian society over
+here."[98]
+
+Prior to the last century the whole social organization of rural life in
+the Old World was built up around the community. The family, the
+community, and the state were the primary forms of human association.
+Obviously, therefore, when families dispersed over the new territory of
+the United States with no community ties and with but few contacts with
+the national government, there was a lack of that social organization to
+which the people had been accustomed and through which their whole mode
+of life, their customs and moral code had been built up. These forms of
+human association, the family, the community, the state, have been built
+up very slowly through centuries of human strife and suffering; they
+represent the experience of the race as to the best means of adjusting
+human relationships. Break down an essential feature of the structure of
+human society, as was done when American settlers abandoned community
+life, and men are compelled to find new methods of meeting their common
+needs and of maintaining standards of conduct essential for their common
+welfare. Had it not been for the influence of the school and the church,
+rural life over most of the United States would have inevitably
+degenerated, for wherever there is no form of associated control there
+humanity reverts to the level of the brute. Human life is what it is
+because for countless generations mankind has been learning how to
+adjust itself through association so that larger opportunity for the
+individual is secured through a larger measure of well being for all.
+
+The devotion of the American settler to his family eventually
+necessitated his association for advantages which could be secured only
+through collective action. When he had subdued the land and established
+his home, when he commenced to raise farm products for market rather
+than primarily for support of the family, when better communication gave
+more contacts with the town and city, the farm family developed new
+wants and interests which could only be satisfied through association
+with others. We have already indicated the processes whereby the
+economic situation, religious life, public education, the need of local
+government, and the desire for recreational facilities, are inevitably
+drawing the people of the countryside together at the natural centers
+into communities. The locality group is again recognized as essential
+for the best organization of rural life. But the new rural community is
+a voluntary group, it is not determined by common control of the land or
+by common subjection to a feudal lord as was the village community of
+the old world; its people are free to come and go where and when they
+will. The community can compel only through the power of public opinion
+and its success must depend upon the voluntary loyalty of its people.
+
+Thus the strength and the weakness of the community lies in the loyalty
+of its people. No community can permanently succeed whose people
+associate in it merely for the advantages which they may gain. There
+must be a genuine willingness to give as well as to receive, a real
+desire to do one's share for the common life. Human association cannot
+succeed on a basis of organized selfishness. The joy of family life
+arises from the fact that each member is devoted to all and is willing
+to sacrifice personal interests for the family; without such devotion
+and sacrifice the true home is impossible. Just because human nature has
+arisen through long ages of association, man finds no permanent
+satisfaction in pursuing his own selfish interest; his greatest joy is
+found in his devotion to others. All human association therefore depends
+upon loyalty and the higher and more complex the association, the more
+essential is the loyalty of its members. As Miss Follett has well said,
+"Loyalty means the consciousness of oneness, the full realization that
+we succeed or fail, live or die, are saved or damned, together. The only
+unity or community is one we have made of ourselves, by ourselves, for
+ourselves."[99]
+
+Here social science and religion agree upon the ultimate objectives of
+life. Professor Josiah Royce has shown[100] that the ideal of
+Christianity, the Kingdom of God, is but a universal community, what he
+calls the "beloved community," which is made possible through the
+loyalty of all to love and service. There is a fundamentally religious
+sanction to community loyalty and only an essentially religious motive
+will inspire men to sublimate personal interests in devotion to the
+community. Only through loyalty to the highest ideals of community life
+can the Kingdom of God be realized on earth. No conceivable cataclysm
+could make its existence possible without the voluntary allegiance of
+mankind, for the Kingdom of God is the kingdom of love; it can exist
+only as the minds and hearts of men are devoted to it. Nor can the
+community universal, the "beloved community," be achieved except each
+local community adjusts its own life to the highest social values. The
+community movement is but a means whereby the ideals of democracy and
+religion may be given concrete expression in a definite locality. Unless
+these ideals can be applied to local areas where it is possible to
+achieve some measure of common life, of community, there is little
+probability of their realization in the world at large.
+
+But these higher values of human life cannot be brought about by a mere
+process of organization. They require the dynamic of a religious
+conviction in the hearts of men. The Gospel and life of Jesus of
+Nazareth furnish the essential inspiration for that spirit of loyalty
+without which all organization is in vain. Professor E. C. Lindeman has
+ably expressed this in his discussion of the relation of the Community
+and Democracy:
+
+      "The most formidable foe of Democracy, however, is the
+      confidence which people place in schemes and plans and forms
+      of organization. What the social machinery of our day needs
+      is spiritual force to provide motive power. The modern
+      Community Movement will fail to give Democracy its practical
+      expression if it is not motivated by a spiritual dynamic.
+      Such a dynamic force was unloosed with the message and life
+      of Jesus of Nazareth. He lived his life on the basis of
+      certain basic democratic assumptions, and He scientifically
+      demonstrated those assumptions. In His eyes all individuals
+      were of value; through the social implications of His
+      message sin became democratic and the burden of all; in His
+      aspirations all humankind were included. He assumed that
+      Love would solve more problems than Hatred. He even assumed
+      that to have a human enemy was a social anomaly. And He
+      believed that religion was essentially a system of behavior
+      by which the individual need not be swallowed up in the
+      group, but by which the individual must find ultimate
+      satisfactions in spiritualizing the group."[101]
+
+Community loyalty will give rise to a true provincialism which will do
+much to give smaller communities a satisfactory status and to make them
+more independent in their standards and purposes. It is common to deride
+provincialism, but what we deprecate is the inability of the provincial
+to associate with the outside world, and the city man may be as
+"provincial" as the farmer from the back hills. True provincialism, on
+the other hand, is essential to the progress of civilization. The
+tendency of city life is toward imitation and reducing life to a dead
+level. Eccentricity may be objectionable, but without individuality of
+persons and communities life would be stupid and monotonous. There is
+probably no greater need for strengthening rural life than a community
+loyalty which will prevent the unthinking imitation of urban life and
+will take justifiable pride in local ideals and achievements. The need
+of a larger appreciation of the value of a true provincialism has been
+well described by Professor Royce in his essay on "Provincialism":
+
+      "Local spirit, local pride, provincial independence,
+      influence the individual man precisely because they appeal
+      to his imitative tendencies. But thereby they act so as to
+      render him more or less immune in presence of the more
+      trivial of the influences that, coming from without his
+      community, would otherwise be likely to reduce him to the
+      dead level of the customs of the whole nation. A country
+      district may seem to a stranger unduly crude in its ways;
+      but it does not become wiser in case, under the influence of
+      city newspapers and summer boarders, it begins to follow
+      city fashions merely for the sake of imitating. Other things
+      being equal, it is better in proportion as it remains
+      self-possessed,--proud of its own traditions, not unwilling
+      indeed to learn, but also quite ready to teach the stranger
+      its own wisdom. And in similar fashion provincial pride
+      helps the individual man to keep his self-respect even when
+      the vast forces that work toward industrial consolidation,
+      and toward the effacement of individual initiative, are
+      besetting the life at every turn. For a man is in large
+      measure what his social consciousness makes him. Give him
+      the local community that he loves and cherishes, that he is
+      proud to honor and to serve, make his ideal of that
+      community lofty,--give him faith in the dignity of his
+      province,--and you have given him a power to counteract the
+      levelling tendencies of modern civilization."[102]
+
+Community loyalty is largely dependent upon leadership. There is a
+reciprocal relation between loyalty and leadership; leaders inspire
+loyalty and loyalty incites leadership. Thus the amount of leadership in
+a community and the willingness of its people to assume leadership are
+good indices of community loyalty, and the willingness to work under
+leaders is its crucial test. The leader is essential to group activity.
+Without a leader group activity is difficult or impossible. If men are
+to act together effectively some one must be spokesman and director.
+
+Lack of leadership has ever been one of the chief handicaps of rural
+life as compared with that of the town and city, and with the growth of
+organization the need of rural leadership is increasingly apparent.
+Until very recently the vocation of agriculture has had but little call
+for leadership. Successful farming required strict attention to the work
+of the farm and leadership brought no pecuniary advantage to the farmer
+as it did to the business or professional man. Furthermore there seems
+to be an innate desire for equality among farmers and a disinclination
+to recognize one of their number as in any degree superior, which
+discourages the development of leadership among them. The town and city
+place a premium on leadership and a position of leadership gives a
+status which is coveted; but for the farmer any position of leadership
+is a burden or a public duty rather than an opportunity. For this reason
+the control of government, education, religion, and all the larger
+associations of life has been largely in the hands of urban leaders.
+This has been inevitable and the lack of representation of the farmers'
+interests has been incidental to the nature of his vocation.
+
+Whenever the need of adjustment to new conditions becomes sufficiently
+acute as to demand action for the preservation of interests of any group
+of men, the cause creates leadership; leaders either come forward or are
+drafted and the successful leaders survive through a process of natural
+selection and receive recognition and support. This is what is now
+occurring in American agriculture. New conditions have forced farmers to
+organize for cooperative marketing and are necessitating the better
+organization of the whole social life of rural communities for reasons
+which have been previously indicated. With better education and with
+more contacts with city life, farmers have come to appreciate that if
+they are to compete with other industries and if the rural community is
+to have a satisfactory standard of living, they must develop their own
+leadership and that those who are qualified for leadership cannot be
+expected to devote their time to the business interests of their fellows
+unless they are adequately compensated. On the other hand, there is
+gradually developing a new sense of responsibility for assuming
+_voluntary_ leadership in community activities, and a larger
+appreciation of the need of leadership and the duty of supporting it.
+
+One of the greatest benefits of the Extension Service and the Farm
+Bureau Movement is the definite effort to develop local leadership and
+the large measure in which this has been successful. The demonstration
+work and cooperative organizations produce a new type of leader, for he
+must be one who is successful in his own farm business and who
+understands the better methods of agricultural production and marketing
+if he is to be able to interest others in them and to wisely guide the
+policies of his group. The successful agricultural leader must first of
+all be a good farmer, for the basic ideal of his group is the best
+agricultural production. Not infrequently an unsuccessful farmer who is
+a good talker comes into prominence because he is willing to devote more
+time to public affairs, but he rarely attains a position of real
+leadership in his own community, for being unable to manage his own
+business he is unable to wisely direct that of the community.
+
+Unselfish leadership is the highest form of community loyalty and is
+essential for permanent community progress. There are obvious
+satisfactions in leadership, but the true leader must have a clear
+vision, a strong purpose, and intense faith in his people, if he is not
+to become discouraged by the lack of loyalty in others and their slow
+response to his ideals. For the true leader must always be thinking in
+advance of his community. It is his function to see what is needed for
+the common good and then to gradually convince the group, and he must be
+willing to withstand the criticism and rebuffs of those who are as yet
+unwilling to sacrifice temporary personal advantage for the common good.
+The real leader will not attempt to do everything himself but will
+constantly seek to discover leadership in others and to inspire them
+with his own enthusiasm and faith in their ability. Not infrequently
+this involves the supreme test of leadership, for the leader must be
+responsible for the failure of his helpers, and although he may feel
+that a given undertaking would be more certain of success were he to
+assume direct responsibility for it or place it in the hands of some one
+who has demonstrated his ability, yet because of his belief in the
+distribution of responsibility as essential for a strong community and
+because of his faith in the individual and in the undertaking, he takes
+the risk and lends his influence to the success of the other. The
+discovery and training of leadership is one of the chief concerns of the
+true leader. Witness the devotion of the Master to the chosen Twelve and
+his willingness to leave his whole cause in their hands.
+
+The willingness to assume leadership is the acid test of community
+loyalty, for only through the development of a maximum of leadership can
+the best life of the community be achieved. Every citizen has some
+ability which qualifies him to lead some group, however small it may be,
+or however humble the cause. Indeed the highest type of community is one
+in which there is a conscious direction of community purposes through a
+body of leadership which is divided among all its members, so that each
+feels responsible to the whole community for the success of his share of
+the common enterprise and has satisfaction in his contribution to the
+common achievement. In last analysis the success of the community rests
+upon the loyalty of its people as measured by their willingness to
+assume leadership in whatsoever capacity may best serve its interests.
+
+As the farm people of the United States have more contact with towns and
+cities and as through better education and means of communication they
+come into a larger participation in all the ranges of human culture,
+they come to realize that only through collective effort can they secure
+many of their new desires. Although many associations for special
+interests attract their allegiance, their attachment to a locality and
+their common relation to the existing center of social activities, give
+rise to a devotion to the community, for only through the united effort
+of all interests can they realize their highest desires. Loyalty to the
+family is broadened into loyalty to the community, which finds its
+incentive and dynamic in devotion to the family. The family becomes less
+self-sufficient, but through its wider associations in the community,
+the relations of the members of the family to each other assume new
+and--because they are more largely voluntary--higher values, and the
+family attains its highest development through the larger fulfilment of
+its members.[103]
+
+The farmer no longer glories in his isolation, or magnifies the virtues
+of independence, for new conditions require the cooperation of the whole
+community if farm life is to be made satisfying. Willingness and ability
+to work with others for the common good win social approval. Next to
+devotion to the family, loyalty to the community is essential for the
+realization of the best possibilities of rural life.
+
+          COMMUNITY SERVICE[104]
+
+    "Strong, that no human soul may pass
+      Its warm, encircling unity,
+    Wide, to enclose all creed, all class,
+      This shall we name, Community;
+
+    "Service shall be that all and each,
+      Aroused to know the common good,
+    Shall strive, and in the striving reach
+      A broader human brotherhood."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[97] "Balancing Country Life," p. 60. New York, Association Press, 1917.
+
+[98] "Old World Traits Transplanted," p. 145. New York, Harpers, 1921.
+
+[99] Mary P. Follett, "The New State," p. 59.
+
+[100] "The Problem of Christianity."
+
+[101] "The Community," p. 74. New York, Association Press, 1921.
+
+[102] Josiah Royce, "Race Questions and Other American Problems," p. 65.
+
+[103] For "through the process of limitation the family attains a
+completeness impossible before. Its members may not realize within it
+what is in truth the life of the family, for it now retains alone within
+its limits that principle of mutual affection of husband, wife, and
+children which alone is its _exclusive_ possession."--R. M. Maciver,
+"Community," 2 ed. p. 242. London, Macmillan & Co., 1920.
+
+[104] Sarah Collins Fernandis, Survey. February 8, 1919.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX A
+
+Constitution of Plainsboro Township, New Jersey.[105]
+
+
+CONSTITUTION
+
+
+ARTICLE 1.--NAME
+
+The name of the organization is the Community Association of Plainsboro
+Township.
+
+
+ARTICLE 2.--OBJECT
+
+The object of this Association is to carry out the Declaration of
+Purposes as subscribed to by the residents of Plainsboro Township, New
+Jersey.
+
+
+ARTICLE 3.--MEMBERSHIP
+
+Every resident of Plainsboro Township has the right to membership in
+this association and to participation in discussion at its meetings, and
+every citizen has a vote.
+
+
+ARTICLE 4.--COMMUNITY COUNCIL
+
+A council of seven members shall be elected to carry out the will of the
+community as expressed in open meetings and to act for the community in
+minor matters and all emergencies. But all decisions affecting the
+material welfare should be made in open meetings of the community.
+
+The council shall designate one of its members as president, another as
+secretary, and another as treasurer, and these persons shall serve
+respectively as community president, secretary and treasurer.
+
+The members elected at the first community meeting shall serve until
+their successors are elected at the first meeting in the month of
+January, and thereafter members shall be elected for one year and serve
+until their successors are elected.
+
+
+ARTICLE 5.--MEETINGS
+
+There shall be an annual meeting in the month of January, ten days'
+notice of the date being given by the council.
+
+At this meeting reports shall be made by all township officers of their
+respective duties.
+
+At this annual meeting, and at all other meetings when requested, the
+council shall make report of its proceedings.
+
+A regular community meeting shall be held at a date conforming to the
+law respecting the nomination of candidates for Township offices.
+
+Other meetings shall be held upon call of the council, or upon notice
+signed by ten citizens and posted at the usual place of meeting ten days
+prior to the date of meeting.
+
+Twenty voting members shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of
+business.
+
+
+ARTICLE 6.--DUTIES OF THE COUNCIL
+
+The council shall advise with all township officials in the performance
+of their duties. It shall determine and initiate matters concerning
+health, thrift, home ownership, community protection, village
+improvement, cooperation with outside organizations, and all other
+matters of community interest.
+
+It shall prepare and propose township and community budgets from time to
+time for consideration.
+
+It shall suggest a ticket for nominees for township offices, posting the
+same ten days prior to meeting of community when nomination shall be
+made.
+
+It shall also make provision for posting of nominations that may be made
+by groups of ten or more citizens.
+
+The council shall faithfully carry out the will of the community as
+determined in public meeting.
+
+
+ARTICLE 7.--DEFINING "CITIZENS"
+
+The word "citizen" and "citizens" as used in this constitution, shall be
+interpreted as referring to any person and persons who would have the
+right of suffrage if equal suffrage prevailed.
+
+
+ARTICLE 8.--AMENDMENTS
+
+This constitution may be amended at any community meeting by a
+three-fourths vote of the members present, provided an exact copy of the
+proposed amendment has been properly posted at the usual place of
+meeting ten days prior to the date of meeting.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[105] As given by Alva Agee in the National Stockman and Farmer, July
+26, 1919.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+  Adams, Bristow, 105
+
+  Adams, H. B., 199
+
+  Adams, Thos., 228
+
+  Advertising, community, 66
+
+  Age of community's people, 31
+
+  Agricultural colleges, 107;
+    extension, 108
+
+  Agriculture, goal of, 61;
+    in schools, 98-99
+
+  American Farm Bureau Federation, 115
+
+  Americanization, 30
+
+  Amusements, commercial, 158
+
+  Angell, Norman, 70
+
+  Associations and organizations, 212
+
+  Athletic leagues, 162
+
+  Atkeson, T. C., 170
+
+  Atkinson, H. A., 163
+
+  Atwood, M. V., 104
+
+  Automobile, influence of, 41, 50, 157
+
+
+  Bands, 176
+
+  Banker-farmer, 50
+
+  Belleville, N. Y., 34
+
+  Beloved community, 136
+
+  Bengtson, Amalia M., 147
+
+  Bidwell, P. W., 68
+
+  Boardman, John R., 17
+
+  Boys' and girls' clubs, 119, 163;
+    organizations, 162
+
+  Boy Scouts, 163
+
+  Brunner, E. DeS., 136
+
+  Burritt, M. C., 109
+
+  Butterfield, K. L., 2
+
+  Business, farm, community aspects, 58-66
+
+
+  Camp Fire Girls, 163
+
+  Capital, local, 50
+
+  Cemetery association, 179
+
+  Centralization of buying power, 73
+
+  Chamber of commerce, county, 56
+
+  Childhood, play and, 155
+
+  Child placing, 190;
+    welfare boards, 191
+
+  Church and health, 138;
+    play, 163;
+    recreation, 133;
+    federation, 127;
+    rural, 121-136;
+    social program of, 132
+
+  Cities, 54;
+    health, 137
+
+  City, effect of, on farm, 68-70;
+    vs. country, 70
+
+  Claghorn, Kate Holladay, 186
+
+  Clock System Rural Index, 231
+
+  Communication, 37-45
+
+  Community activities, 217;
+    association, Plainsboro Township, N. J., constitution, 247;
+    buildings, 165-167;
+    legislation for, 204;
+    center, 7
+
+  Community chests, 215;
+    churches, 127-129;
+    councils, 6, 215, 220;
+    defined, 7, 9, 10;
+    etymology, 37, 77;
+    experience, 65;
+    forests, 230;
+    incorporation, 204;
+    mapping, 6;
+    organization, 89, 209-221;
+    of extension service, 116;
+    people, 29-33;
+    planning, 222-233;
+    pride, 57, 223;
+    school districts, 203;
+    score card, 116;
+    service, 245;
+    vs. home, 24-25
+
+  Competition, dogma of, 49
+
+  Conflict and progress, 48
+
+  Collective bargaining, 74
+
+  Cooperation and community, 77-90;
+    business democracy, 86;
+    Danish, 87;
+    in farm operations, 77;
+    strengthens community, 87
+
+  Cooperative buying, 51, 79-81;
+    companies, essentials of, 78;
+    credit, 81;
+    educational League, 98;
+    manufacture, 63;
+    marketing, 74;
+    selling associations, 83;
+    stores, 53, 54, 80
+
+  County agent movement, 109;
+    boards of public welfare, 191;
+    health officer, 146;
+    library, 102;
+    manager, 202
+
+  Country church, 123;
+    life commission, 110;
+    weekly, 105
+
+
+  Dadisman, A. J., 33
+
+  Dane Co., Wisconsin, 30
+
+  Daniels, John, 30
+
+  Darwin, Charles, 49
+
+  Decentralization of industry, 54
+
+  Defectives, 183
+
+  Delinquency, 185-186
+
+  Democracy, 207, 239
+
+  Demonstration agent, 109;
+    method, 110
+
+  Denominational rivalry, 127
+
+  Dependent, 181-195
+
+  Dewey, Evelyn, 165
+
+  Disadvantaged, 181
+
+  Doctors, country, 141
+
+  Douglas, H. Paul, 204
+
+  Dramatics, 27, 160
+
+  Dutchess Co., N. Y., health survey, 140
+
+
+  Education, 91-105;
+    objectives of, 95;
+    religious, 99
+
+  Educational methods of extension work, 116
+
+  Exchange of goods, 68
+
+  Exploiter, 58
+
+  Extension movement, 107-120;
+    service, of schools, 95-96;
+    work, methods, 116
+
+
+  Family, 15;
+    life, 23
+
+  Farm bureau, 112-115
+
+  Farmers clubs, 174;
+    cooperative demonstration work, 110;
+    institutes, 107;
+    organizations, 170-174;
+    union, 174
+
+  Farming types, effect of, 61
+
+  Farm loan act, 82;
+    management, 65
+
+  Federated church, 129
+
+  Feeble-minded, 184
+
+  Fire companies, 177
+
+  Fiske, John, 155, 196
+
+  Fernandis, Sarah Collins, 245
+
+  Follett, M. P., 238
+
+  Frame, Nat T., 116
+
+  French Creek, W. Va., 32
+
+
+  Gale, Zona, 179
+
+  Galpin, C. J., 6, 135
+
+  Gibbons, C. E., 186
+
+  Gillette, J. M., 62
+
+  Girl Scouts, 163
+
+  Government, rural, 196-208, 214
+
+  Grange, 170;
+    buildings, 166
+
+  Grading in marketing, 71-72
+
+  Gross, Karl, 155
+
+
+  Halsey, Abigail F., 161
+
+  Harvey, Mrs. M. T., 165
+
+  Hatch Act, 107
+
+  Hayes, A. W., 93
+
+  Health centers, 151;
+    community, 137-152;
+    economics of, 139;
+    farmers attitude on, 138;
+    officials, 145;
+    surveys, 140, 143, 147
+
+  Hieronymous, R. E., 234
+
+  High schools, 94;
+    Danish, 100
+
+  History, community, 33;
+    local, 34-35
+
+  Hoag, Emily F., 34
+
+  Home bureau, 118
+
+  Home bureau creed, 119;
+    demonstration work, 118;
+    economics, 24;
+    farm, 14-28;
+    play in the, 156;
+    project, 25, 98-99
+
+  Hospitals, 149-150
+
+  Husbandman, 59
+
+
+  Industries in villages, 54
+
+  Insects, a community problem, 64
+
+
+  Justice of peace, 188
+
+  Juvenile courts, 188
+
+
+  Kidd, Benj., 27
+
+  Kile, O. M., 115
+
+  Kingdom of God, 135, 238
+
+  Kirkwood, W. P., 103
+
+  Knapp, S. A., 109
+
+  Kolb, J. H., 30, 91
+
+  Kropotkin, P., 49
+
+
+  Leadership, 117, 218, 241;
+    church, 126
+
+  Lee, Joseph, 155
+
+  Lewis, Sinclair, 101, 222
+
+  Library, 45;
+    public, 100
+
+  Lindeman, E. C., 169, 220, 239
+
+  Lodges, 174
+
+  Lowell, G. J., 172
+
+  Loyalty, community, 234-245
+
+  Lumsden, L. L., 144
+
+
+  Maciver, R. M., 245
+
+  Macklin, Th., 63, 85
+
+  Mann, A. R., 194
+
+  Markets, effect of, 67-76
+
+  Martin, O. B., 109
+
+  Maternal mortality, 142
+
+  Mormons, 121, 197
+
+  Morrill Act, 107
+
+  Moving pictures, 45, 158
+
+
+  Nason, W. C., 167
+
+  Nasmyth, George, 49
+
+  Nationalities, 29
+
+  Neglected, the, 186
+
+  Neighborhood areas, 91;
+    defined, 9;
+    social center, 92
+
+  Newspaper, country, 103-106
+
+  Nourse, E. G., 68
+
+  Numbering farms, 231
+
+  Nurses, rural, 147-149
+
+
+  Organization, rural, difficulty of, 44
+
+  Organizations of rural community, 169-180
+
+  Orchestras, 177
+
+  Overchurching, 125
+
+
+  Pageants, 36, 161
+
+  Parent-teachers associations, 97-98
+
+  Parks, 230
+
+  Park, R. E., and Miller, 236
+
+  Patrons of Husbandry, 170
+
+  Personality and play, 154
+
+  Physical education, 162
+
+  Plainsboro, N. J., incorporation, 205, 247
+
+  Play and recreation, 153-168;
+    festivals, 156
+
+  Plunkett, Sir Horace, 12, 87, 88
+
+  Poe, Clarence, 81, 202
+
+  Poor officer, 187
+
+  Population, changes, 32;
+    density of, 31
+
+  Postal service, 43
+
+  Poverty, 181, 182
+
+  Powell, G. Harold, 84
+
+  Pratt, Edwin A., 80
+
+  Provincialism, value of, 240
+
+  Public speaking contest, 96
+
+  Public welfare boards, 191
+
+
+  Race problems, 29, 30
+
+  Railroad, effect of, 39;
+    stations, 224
+
+  Rankin, W. S., 145
+
+  Recreation, 153-168;
+    church and, 133
+
+  Red Cross, 151;
+    home service, 134, 191-192;
+    nurse, 149
+
+  Religious life of the community, 121-136;
+    education, 99, 130
+
+  Renville Co., Minn., health survey, 147
+
+  Roads, 40, 225, 227
+
+  Rochdale system, 79
+
+  Rodent control by communities, 64
+
+  Royce, Josiah, 238, 240
+
+  Rural organization, 89;
+    planning committees, 230, 231
+
+  Russell, Geo. Wm. ("A.E."), 63, 75, 89
+
+  Ryder, E. H., 202
+
+
+  Sandy Spring, Md., 35
+
+  Sanitation, 143-144
+
+  School, 91-100;
+    consolidation, 93-95;
+    nurses, 147;
+    play in the, 161;
+    social center, 96, 165
+
+  Settlement of community, 38
+
+  Shaw, Albert, 197
+
+  Sims, N. L., 218
+
+  Smith-Gordon and Staples, 88
+
+  Smith-Hughes Act, 94
+
+  Smith-Lever Act, 111
+
+  Smith, Ruby Green, 119
+
+  Social center, 8;
+    organization, 209;
+    work, agencies for rural, 187;
+    of minister, 134
+
+  South, community in the, 4, 10
+
+  Specialization in agriculture, 61-63
+
+  Standardization in marketing, 71
+
+  Stewart, C. L., 60
+
+  Stores, country, 50-52
+
+  Sunday school, 123-124, 130-131
+
+
+  Telephone, 43
+
+  Tenancy, 59
+
+  Tompkins Co., N. Y., churches, 125
+
+  Town planning, 223
+
+  Township, 196
+
+  Transportation, effect of, 39, 67
+
+
+  Union church, 128
+
+
+  Values of rural life, 16, 17, 61
+
+  Vienna, 69
+
+  Village communities, 3, 235
+
+  Village and farm, 46-57
+
+  Village, incorporated, 199;
+    plan, 224;
+    square, 225
+
+  Visiting teacher, 189
+
+
+  Waugh, Frank A., 223
+
+  Warren, G. F., 65
+
+  Wilson, Warren H., 58, 121
+
+  Woman, farm, position of, 19-22
+
+  Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 178
+
+
+  Young Men's Christian Association, 162
+
+  Young Woman's Christian Association, 162
+
+
+
+
+THE FARMER'S BOOKSHELF
+
+Edited by
+
+KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD THE FARMER'S BOOKSHELF
+
+Edited by DR. KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD, President, Massachusetts College of
+Agriculture. Each $1.25, by mail, $1.35.
+
+The changing conditions and new problems in rural life are known in a
+general way through newspaper and magazine articles, but few books have
+appeared which show what a force the farmer is and will continue to be
+in national and international life. This series is to contain books by
+men who know the farmer as well as the subject; while written primarily
+for rural leaders and progressive farmers they are interesting also to
+anyone who wants to keep up with contemporary history.
+
+
+THE GRANGE MASTER AND THE GRANGE LECTURER
+
+By JENNIE BUELL
+
+An account of the origin and ideals of the Grange and of what this
+organization has done and is doing. It also gives practical suggestions
+for future development. Miss Buell had been active in the work of the
+Grange for 36 years. From 1890 to 1908 she was State Secretary of the
+Grange in Michigan, then lecturer until 1915, when she was again elected
+State Secretary.
+
+"We have never read a book on The Grange which contains more practical
+information. Every member should read this book, and we should like to
+have it read by town and city people, too."--_Rural New Yorker_.
+
+
+THE LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE FARMER
+
+By HAYES ROBBINS
+
+The labor question of factory and town crowds in upon the farm on every
+side--in the price of almost everything the farmer buys, in the freight
+he pays, in the higher wages and shorter hours he must bid against for
+help. This book gives us the labor movement as it actually is, and what
+it proposes, as it affects especially the farmer.
+
+For twenty years Mr. Robbins has been studying industrial problems. At
+one time he was connected with the New York Central Railroad, and in
+1905 he undertook organization of the Civic Federation of New England,
+devoted to the betterment of relations between employers and employees.
+During the war he assisted in the organization of the Committee on Labor
+Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense.
+
+
+THE COUNTY AGENT AND THE FARM BUREAU
+
+By MAURICE CHASE BURRITT, Vice-Director Extension Department, New York
+State College of Agriculture, Cornell University.
+
+Despite its prominence during the past few years, the county agent farm
+bureau movement is not fully understood or appreciated either by the
+general public or by farmers themselves. This book describes in detail
+the work of the county agent and farm bureau and gives an historical
+sketch of their development.
+
+
+THE FARMER AND HIS COMMUNITY
+
+By DWIGHT SANDERSON, Head of the Department of Rural Social Organization,
+New York College of Agriculture, Cornell University.
+
+The rapid spread of the rural community idea, due in part to the recent
+work of county agents and county farm bureaus, calls for a book which
+describes in plain terms just what this idea means and just how important
+it is in rural progress. This book does these two things in a way that
+promises to make it an important contribution to the farmers' thinking.
+
+
+THE AGRICULTURAL BLOC
+
+By HONORABLE ARTHUR CAPPER
+
+An authoritative review of the difficulties and economic changes that
+led to the present situation in the United States Senate and an account
+of the present program among agricultural leaders. Senator Capper is the
+recognized leader and proper spokesman of this movement.
+
+
+
+
+IN PRESS
+
+
+COUNTRY PLANNING
+
+By FRANK A. WAUGH, Head of the Division of Horticulture and Professor of
+Landscape Gardening, Massachusetts Agricultural College.
+
+Country Planning is not a fad involving the expenditure of sums of money
+for useless "frills" but is a practical means of getting better results
+with money that must be expended in such changes as disposition of lands,
+the location of roads, the furnishing of playgrounds, forests, and school
+grounds, etc. How these changes may be wisely directed is told in this
+book.
+
+
+
+
+IN PREPARATION
+
+
+OUR SOIL WEALTH
+
+By DR. J. G. LIPMAN, Director of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment
+Station.
+
+
+THE FARMER AND THE WORLD'S FOOD
+
+By A. E. CANCE
+
+
+THE FARM MOVEMENT IN CANADA
+
+By N. P. LAMBERT
+
+
+
+
+    +------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                            |
+    |                                                |
+    | Typographical errors corrected in the text:    |
+    |                                                |
+    | Page    8  necessarly changed to necessarily   |
+    | Page   48  parisitic changed to parasitic      |
+    | Page   52  enterprisng changed to enterprising |
+    | Page   85  considerbly changed to considerably |
+    | Page  183  hispitals changed to hospitals      |
+    | Page  214  dominaton changed to domination     |
+    | Page  251  Bengston changed to Bengtson        |
+    +------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Farmer and His Community, by Dwight Sanderson
+
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