Fairlie:Local Government in Counties, Towns, and Villages.Fiske:Civil Government in the United States, pages 34-95.Henderson:Social Elements, pages 292-317.Hart:Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities, pages 92-105.Cooley:Social Organization, pages 402-410.
Fairlie:Local Government in Counties, Towns, and Villages.
Fiske:Civil Government in the United States, pages 34-95.
Henderson:Social Elements, pages 292-317.
Hart:Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities, pages 92-105.
Cooley:Social Organization, pages 402-410.
151.Health and Beauty in the Community.—Rural government formerly limited its range of activity to political and economic concerns. The individualism of Americans resented the interference of government in other matters. If property was made secure and taxed judiciously for the maintenance of public institutions, the duty of government was accomplished. The individual man was prepared to assume all further responsibility for himself and family. Such matters as the health of a rural community and its æsthetic appearance were left to individual initiative and generally were neglected. On many occasions the housewife showed her sympathy and kindliness by nursing a sick neighbor, but the members of the community had little appreciation of the seriousness of contagion and infection, no knowledge of germs, and small thought of preventive measures. The appearance of their buildings and grounds was nobody's business but their own. They had no conception of the social obligation of each for all and of all for each. The result was an unnecessary amount of illness, especially of tuberculosis and typhoid fever, because of insanitary buildings and grounds, and a general air of shabbiness and neglect that pervaded many communities. It was not that the people lacked the æsthetic sense, but it had not been trained, and in the struggle for the subjugation of a new continent all such minor considerations must give way to the satisfaction of elemental wants.
Slowly it is becoming understood that health and beauty are matters that demand public attention and regulation. Good fortune and happiness are not purely economic and political concerns. Well-kept roads, clean and well-planned public buildings, sanitary farm structures, properly drainedfarm lands, and pure drinking water may not add to the number of bushels an acre, but they prolong life and add to its comfort and satisfaction.
When it seems no longer strange to bother about health conditions, it will be relatively easy to give attention to rural æsthetics. If a schoolhouse or a meeting-house is to be erected, it will give greater satisfaction to the community if the principles of good architecture are observed and the building is set in the midst of trees and shrubbery and well-kept lawn. With such an object-lesson, the people of the community will presently contrast their own property with that of the public, the imitative impulse will begin to work, and individuals will begin to make improvements as leisure permits. There are villages that are ugly scars on a landscape which nature intended should be beautiful. With misdirected energy, farmers have destroyed the wild beauty of the fence corners and roadsides, mowing down the weeds and clearing out the brush and vines in an effort to make practical improvements, while with curious oversight they have permitted the weeds to grow in the paths and the grass to lengthen in the yard. Many a farm in rural communities has untidy refuse heaps, tottering outbuildings, rusting machinery, and general litter that reveal the absence of all sense of beauty or even neatness, yet the farmer and his wife may be thrifty, hard-working people, and scrupulously particular indoors. Their minds have not been sensitized to outdoor beauty and hideousness. They forget that nature is æsthetic; they live in the midst of her beauty, but their eyes are dim and their ears are dull, and it is difficult to instruct them. Happily, recent years have brought with them a new sense of the possibilities of rural beauty. Children are learning to appreciate it in the surroundings of the schoolhouse and the tasteful decorations of its interior; their elders are buying lawn-mowers and painting their fences, and America may yet rival in attractiveness the fair countryside of old England.
152.Is the Town Healthier than the Country?—It has been commonly believed that country people are healthier than townspeople. Their life in the open, with plenty ofexercise and hard work, toughens fibre and strengthens the body to resist disease. It has also been supposed that the city, with its crowded quarters, vitiated air, and communicable diseases, has a much larger death-rate. It is true that city life is more dangerous to health than a country existence if no health precautions are taken, but city ordinances commonly regulate community health, while in the country there is greater license. Exposure gives birth to colds and coughs in the country; these are treated with inadequate home remedies, because physicians are inconveniently distant or expensive, and chronic diseases fasten themselves upon the individual. Ignorance of hygienic principles, absence of bathrooms, poor ventilation, unscreened doors and windows, and impure water and milk are among the causes of disease.
There is as much need of pure air, pure water, and pure food in the country as in the city, and the danger from disease is no less menacing. The farmer loses vitality through long hours of labor, and is susceptible to disease scarcely less than is the working man in town. And he is more at fault if he suffers, for there is room to build the home in a healthful location, where drainage is easy and pure air and sunshine are abundant; there is water without price for cleansing purposes, and sanitation is possible without excessive cost. In most cases it is lack of information that prevents a realization of perils that lurk, and every rural community should have instruction in hygiene from school-teacher, physician, or resident nurse.
153.Rural Health Preservers.—Three health preservers are needed in every rural community. These are the health official, the physician, and the nurse. There is need first of one whose business it shall be to inspect the sanitary conditions of public and private buildings, and to watch the health of the people, old and young. It matters little whether the official is under State or local authority, if he efficiently and fearlessly performs his duty. Constant vigilance alone can give security, and it is a small price to pay if the community is compelled to bear even the whole expense of such a health official. Community health isoften intrusted to the town fathers or a district board with little interest in the matter; on the other hand, the agent of a State board is not always a local resident, and is liable to overlook local conditions. It is desirable that the health official be an individual of good training, familiar with the locality, and with ample authority, for in this way only can safety be reasonably secure.
It is by no means impracticable to give a local physician the necessary official authority. He is equipped with information and skilled by experience to know bad conditions when he sees them and to appreciate their seriousness. Whether or not a physician is the official health protector of the community, a physician there should be who can be reached readily by those who need him, and who should be required to produce a certificate of thorough training in both medicine and surgery. If such a medical practitioner does not establish himself in the district voluntarily, the community might well afford to employ such a physician on a salary and make him responsible for the health of all. As civilization advances it will become increasingly the custom in the country as well as in the city to employ a physician to keep one's general health good, as now one employs a dentist to examine and preserve the teeth. Medical practice must continually become more preventive and less remedial. It may seem as if it were an unwarranted expansion of the social functions of a community that it should care for the health of individuals, but as the interdependence of individuals becomes increasingly understood, the community may be expected to extend its care for its own welfare.
154.The Village Nurse.—Alongside the physician belongs the village or rural nurse. Already there are many communities that are becoming accustomed to such a functionary, who visits the schools, examines the children, prescribes for their small ailments or recommends a visit to the physician, and who stands ready to perform the duties of a trained nurse at the bedside of any sufferer. The support of such a nurse is usually maintained by voluntary subscription, but there seems to be no good reason why sheshould not be appointed and paid by the organized community as a local official. She is as much needed as a road-surveyor, surely as valuable as hog-reeve or pound-keeper. It is a valid social principle, though rural observation does not always justify it, that human life is not only intrinsically more valuable to the individual or family than the life of an animal of the herd, but it is actually worth more to the community.
155.The Village Improvement Society.—To secure good health conditions, interested persons in the community may organize a health club. Its feasibility is well proved by the history of the village improvement society. There are two hundred such societies in Massachusetts alone, and the whole movement is organized nationally in the American Civic Federation. Their object is the toning up of the community by various methods that have proved practicable. They owe their organization to a few public-spirited individuals, to a woman's club, or sometimes to a church. Their membership is entirely voluntary, but local government may properly co-operate to accomplish a desired end. Expenses are met by voluntary contribution or by means of public entertainments, and its efforts are limited, of course, by the fatness of its purse. Examples of the useful public service that they perform are the demolition of unsightly buildings and the cleaning up of unkempt premises, the beautification of public structures and the building of better roads, the erection of drinking troughs or fountains, and the improvement of cemeteries. Besides such outdoor interests village improvement societies create public spirit, educate the community by means of high-class entertainments, art and nature exhibits, and public discussion of current questions of local interest. They stand back of community enterprises for recreation, fire protection, and other forms of social service, including such economic interests as co-operative buying and marketing and the extension of telephone or transportation service.
The initial impulse that sets in motion various forms of village improvement frequently comes from the summer visitor or from a teacher or minister who brings new ideasand a will to carry them into action. In certain sections of country, like the mountain region of northern New England, summer people are very numerous, through the weeks from June to October, and not a few of them revisit their favorite rural haunts for a briefer time in the winter. It is not to be expected that they are always a force for good. Sometimes they make country residents envious and dissatisfied. But it is not unusual that they give an intellectual stimulus to the young people and the women, compel the men to observe the proprieties of social intercourse, and encourage downcast leaders of church and neighborhood to renewed industry and hope. They demand multiplied comforts and conveniences, and expect attractive and healthful accommodations. Where they purchase and improve lands and buildings of their own they provide useful models to their less particular neighbors, and thus the leaven of a better type of living does its work in the neighborhood.
156.Principles of Organization.—The principles that lie at the basis of every organization for improvement are simple and practicable everywhere. They have been enumerated as a democratic spirit and organization, a wide interest in community affairs, and a perennial care for the well-being of all the people. Public spirit is the reason for its existence, and the same public spirit is the only force that can keep the organization alive. Every community in this democratic country has its fortunes in its own hands. If it is so permeated with individualism or inertia that it cannot awake to its duties and its privileges, it will perish in accordance with the law of the survival of the fittest; if, on the contrary, it adopts as its controlling principles those just mentioned, it will find increasing strength and profit for itself, because it keeps alive the spirit of co-operation and mutual help.
Hart:Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities, pages 66-82, 106-130.Gillette:Rural Sociology, pages 147-167.Harris:Health on the Farm.Farwell:Village Improvement, pages 47-53, Appendix.Waters:Village Nursing in the United States.
Hart:Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities, pages 66-82, 106-130.
Gillette:Rural Sociology, pages 147-167.
Harris:Health on the Farm.
Farwell:Village Improvement, pages 47-53, Appendix.
Waters:Village Nursing in the United States.
157.Social Disease and Its Causes.—Rural morals are a phase of the public health of the community. Immorality is a kind of social disease, for which the community needs to find a remedy. The amount of moral ill varies widely, but it can be increased by neglect or lessened by effort, as surely as can the amount of physical disease. Moral ill is due to the individual and to the community. The judgment of the individual may be warped, his moral consciousness defective, or his will weak. He may have low standards and ill-adjusted relationships. Selfishness may have blunted his sympathy. All these conditions contribute to the common vices of community life. But the individual is sometimes less to blame than the community. Much moral ill is a consequence of the imperfect functioning of the community. A man steals because he is hungry or cold, and the motive to escape pain is stronger than the motive to deal lawfully with his neighbor; but if the community saw to it that adequate provision was made for all economic need, and if moral instruction was not lacking, it would be unlikely to happen. Similar reasons may be found for other evils. It is as much the business of the community to keep the social atmosphere wholesome as it is to keep the air and water of its farms pure. It should provide moral training and moral exercise.
158.How Morals Develop.—Without attempting a thoroughly scientific definition of morals, we may call good morals those habitual acts which are in harmony with the best individual and social interests of the people of the community, and bad morals the absence of such habits. Of course the acts are the consequence of motives, and in the last analysis the question of morals is rooted in the field of psychology or religion; but the inner motive isrevealed in the outward act, and it is customary to speak of the act as moral or immoral. Moral standards are not unvarying. One race differs from another and one period of history differs from another. Primitive custom was the first standard, and was determined by what was good for the group, and the individual conformed to it from force of circumstances. If he was to remain a member of the group and enjoy its benefits he must be willing to sacrifice his selfish desires. His consciousness of the solidarity of the group deepens with experience, and his feelings of sympathy grow stronger, until impulsive altruism becomes a habit and eventually a fixed and purposeful patriotism. By and by religion throws about conduct its sanctions and interprets the meaning of morality. However imperfect may be the relations between good morals and pagan religions, Judaism and Christianity have combined religion with high moral ideals. The Hebrew prophets declared that God demanded justice, kindness, and mercy in human relations rather than acts of ceremony and sacrifice to himself, and Jesus made love to neighbor as fundamental to holiness as love to God. Such a religion becomes dynamic in producing moral deeds.
159.The Social Stimulus to Morality.—It is customary to think of the homely virtues of truthfulness, sobriety, thrift, and kindliness as individual obligations, but they are not wrought out in isolation. Isolation is never complete, and virtue is a social product. The farmer makes occasional visits to the country store, where he experiences social contacts; there is habitual association with individual workers on the farm or traders with whom the farmer carries on a business transaction. His personal contacts may not be helpful, and his wife may lack them almost altogether outside of the home; the result is often a tendency toward vice or degeneration, sometimes to insanity or suicide, but it is seldom that there are not helpful influences and relations available if the individual will put himself in the way of enjoying them. Good morals are dependent on right associations. Human beings need the stimulus of good society, otherwise the mind vegetates or broods uponreal or fancied wrongs until the moral nature is in danger of atrophy or warping. Family feuds develop, as among the Scotch highlanders or the mountain people in certain parts of the South. Lack of social sympathy increases as the interests become self-centred; out of this characteristic grow directly such evils as petty lawlessness, rowdyism, and crime. The country districts need the help of high-grade schools and proper places of recreation, of the Young Men's Christian Association or an association of like principles, and most of all of a virile church that will interpret moral obligation and furnish the power that is needed to move the will to right action.
160.Rural Vices.—The moral problems of the rural community do not differ greatly from those of the town. The most common rural vices are profanity, drunkenness, and sexual immorality. Profanity is often a habit rather than a defect in moral character, and is due sometimes to a narrow vocabulary. It is a mark of ignorance and boorishness. In many localities it is less common than it used to be. The average community life is wholesome. Not more than twenty per cent of American rural communities have really bad conditions in any way, according to the investigations made by the United States Rural Life Commission in 1908. Considering the monotony and hardships of rural life, it is much to the credit of the people that most communities are temperate and law-abiding. Intemperance is one of the most common evils; there is a longing for the stimulant of liquor, which appears in some cases in moderate drinking and in other cases in the habit of an occasional spree in a near-by town, when reason abdicates to appetite. Lumbermen and miners, whose work is especially hard and isolation from good society complete, have been notorious for their lapses into intemperance, but it is not a serious problem in three out of four communities the country over, and a wave of temperance sentiment has swept strongly over rural districts. Gambling is a diversion that appeals to those who have few mental and pecuniary resources as an offset to the daily monotony, but this habit is not typical of rural communities.
Investigations of the Rural Life Commission showed that sexual immorality prevails in ten to fifteen per cent of the rural communities, and they trace much of it to late evening drives and dances and unchaperoned calls, but on the whole the perversion of the sex instinct is less common than in the cities. The young are generally trained in moral principles, the religious sanctions are more strongly operative, and the conduct and character of every individual is constantly under the public eye. Young people in the country marry at an earlier age than in the city, and husband and wife are normally faithful. Crime in the country is peculiar to degenerate communities, elsewhere it is rare. Juvenile delinquency occurs, and there are not such helpful influences as the juvenile court of the city; on the other hand, most boys are in touch with home influences, feel the restraint of a law-abiding community, and know that lawbreaking is almost certain to be found out and punished.
161.Community Obligation.—Moral delinquency in the rural community lies in the failure to provide social stimulus to individual members. The farmer has as good reason to be ambitious for success and to feel pride in it as has the city merchant, but he has small local encouragement to develop better agriculture on his own farm. He has as much right to the benefits of association in toil and co-operation in effecting economies and disposing of his products as the employer or working man in town. He is equally entitled to good government, to wholesome recreation, to a suitable and efficient education, and to the spiritual leadership of a progressive church. Without the spur of community fellowship his life narrows and his abilities are not developed. With the help of community stimulus the individual may develop capacity for individual achievement and social leadership of as fine a quality as any urban centre can supply. It is well known that the strong men of the cities in business and the professions have come in large proportion from the country. If such qualities developed in the comparative isolation and discomfort of the past, it is a moral obligation of rural communities of thefuture to do even more to produce the brawn and brain of city leaders in days to come.
Wilson:The Evolution of the Country Community, pages 171-188.Anderson:The Country Town, pages 95-106.Dealey:Sociology, pages 146-165.Hart:Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities, pages 166-175.Hobhouse:Morals in Evolution, I, pages 364-375.Spencer:Data of Ethics, chapter 8.Report of Committee on Morals and Rural Conditions of the General Association of Congregational Churches of Massachusetts, 1908.
Wilson:The Evolution of the Country Community, pages 171-188.
Anderson:The Country Town, pages 95-106.
Dealey:Sociology, pages 146-165.
Hart:Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities, pages 166-175.
Hobhouse:Morals in Evolution, I, pages 364-375.
Spencer:Data of Ethics, chapter 8.
Report of Committee on Morals and Rural Conditions of the General Association of Congregational Churches of Massachusetts, 1908.
162.The Value of the Rural Church.—Of all the local institutions of the rural community, none is so discouraging and at the same time so potential for usefulness as the country church. It has had a noble past; it is passing through a dubious present; it should emerge into a great future. The church is the conserver of the highest ideals. Like every long-established institution, it is conservative in methods as well as in principles. It regards itself as the censor of conduct and the mentor of conscience, and it fills the rôle of critic as often as it holds out an encouraging hand to the weary and hard pressed in the struggle for existence and moral victory. It is the guide-post to another world, which it esteems more highly than this. Sometimes it puts more emphasis on creed than on conduct, on Sunday scrupulousness than on Monday scruple. But in spite of its failings and its frequent local decline, the church is the hope of rural America. It is notorious that the absence of a church means a distinctly lower type of community life, both morally and socially. Vice and crime flourish there. Property values tumble when the church dies and the minister moves away. Many residents rarely if ever enter the precincts of the meeting-house or contribute to the expense of its maintenance, yet they share in the benefits that it gives and would not willingly see it disappear when they realize the consequences. In the westward march of settlement the missionary kept pace with the pioneer, and the church on the frontier became the centre of every good influence. It is impossible to estimate the value of the rural church in the onrush of civilization. Religion has been the saving salt of humanity when it was in danger of spoiling. In the lumber and the mining camp,on the cattle-ranch and the prairie, the missionary has sweetened life with his ministry and given a tone to the life of the open and the wild that in value is past calculation.
163.The Church in Decline.—In the days when it seems declining, the strength of the rural church is worth preserving. There are hundreds of rural communities where the young people have gone to the town and population has steadily fallen behind. There are hundreds more where the people of a community have drawn wealth from the soil, and with a succession of good crops and high prices have accumulated enough to keep them comfortable, and then have sold or leased their property and moved into town. The purchasers or tenants who replaced them have been less able to contribute to church support or have been of a different faith or race, and the churches have found it difficult to survive. Doubtless some of these churches could be spared without great loss, for in the rush of real or expected settlement, certain localities became over-churched, but the spectacle of scores of abandoned churches in the Middle West has as doleful an appearance as abandoned farms in New England.
164.Is It Worth Preserving?—It would be a misfortune for the church to perish out of the rural districts, for it performs a religious function that no other institution performs. It cherishes the beliefs that have strengthened man through the ages and given him the upward look that betokens faith in his destiny and power in his life. It calls out the best that is in him to meet the tasks of every day. It ministers to him in times of greatest need. It teaches him how to relate himself to an Unseen Power and to the fellowship of human kind. The meeting-house is a community centre drawing to itself like a magnet family groups and individuals from miles around, overcoming their isolation and breaking into the daily monotony of their lives, and with its worship and its sermon awakening new thoughts and impulses for the enrichment of life. Nor does its ministry confine itself to things of the spirit. The weekly Sunday assembly provides opportunity for social intercourse, if no more than an exchange of greetings, andnow and then a sociable evening gathering or anniversary occasion brings an added social opportunity.
165.The Country Minister.—The faithful rural minister also carries the church to the people. His parish is broad, but he finds his way into the homes of his parishioners, acquaints himself with their characteristics and their needs, and fits his ministrations to them. Especially does he carry comfort to the sick and soothe the suffering and the dying. No other can quite fill his place; no other so builds himself into the hearts of the people. He may not be a great thinker or preach polished sermons; his hands may be rough and his clothes ill-fitting; but if he is a loyal friend and ministers to real spiritual need, he is saint and prophet to those whom he has brothered.
In the rural economy each public functionary is worthy or unworthy, according to his personal fidelity to his particular task. A poorly equipped board of government is not worth half the salary of the school-teacher. That official may not hold his place or gain the respect of his pupils unless he meets their needs of instruction with a degree of efficiency. But a public servant who fills full the channels of his usefulness is worth twice what he is likely to get as his stipulated wage. The community can well afford to look kindly upon a minister of that type, to encourage him in his efforts for the upbuilding of the community, and to contribute to an honorable stipend for his support.
166.The Problems.—The rural church has its problems and so has the rural minister. There are the indifferent people who are irreligious themselves and have no share in the activities of the religious institution. There are the insincere people who belong to the church but are not sympathetic in spirit or conduct. There are the cold-blooded people who gather weekly in the meeting-house but do not respond to intellectual or spiritual stimulus, and who chill the heart of the minister and soon quench his enthusiasm. It is not surprising if he is restless and changes location frequently, or if he becomes listless and apparently indifferent to the welfare of his flock, when he meets no response and himself enjoys no stimulus from his own kind.All these conditions constitute the spiritual problem. Beyond this there is the institutional problem. The church finds maintenance difficult, often impossible without outside assistance. Failing to minister to any purely community need except on special occasions, or to assume any responsibility of leadership in civic or social affairs, it does not receive the cordial support of the community to which as a social institution, conserving the highest interests, it is reasonably entitled. It must be remembered that in America there can be no established church supported by the State, as in England. The church is on a different footing in every community from that of the public school. It is therefore dependent on the good-will of the community and must cultivate that good-will if it is to succeed. Most rural churches have yet to become a vital force, not only energizing their own members, but reaching out also to the whole community, seeking not their own growth as their chief end, but by ministering to the community's needs, realizing a fuller, richer life of their own.
167.The Needs of the Church.—The rural church needs reorganization for efficiency, but changes must be gradual. A local church that is democratic in its form of organization, with no external oversight, is likely to need strengthening in administration; a church that intrusts control to a small board or is governed from the outside probably needs to get closer to the people, but differences in church government are of small practical consequence. It does not appear that it makes much difference in the success of a rural church whether its organization is Episcopal, Presbyterian, or Congregational. The machinery needs modernizing, whatever the pattern. It is a part of the task to be undertaken by every up-to-date country minister to consider possible improvements in the various departments of the church. It is as likely that the children are being as inefficiently taught in the Sunday-school as in the every-day school, that organizations and opportunities for the young people are as lacking as in the community at large, that discussions in the Bible class are as pointless as those in any local forum. It is more than likely that the churchis failing to make good in a given locality because it is depending on a few persons to carry on its activities, and these few do not co-operate well with one another or with other Christian people. The functions of the church are neither well understood nor properly performed. It has small assets in community good-will, and it is in no real sense a going concern.
168.The New Rural Church.—Here and there a church of a new type is meeting manfully these various needs. It has set itself first to answer the question whether the church is a real religious force in the community, and what method may best be used to energize the countryside more effectually for moral and religious ends. Old forms or times of worship have needed changing, or an innovating individual has taken a hand temporarily. Then it has faced the practical problem of religious education. Most churches maintain a Sunday-school and a Woman's Missionary or Aid Society. Certain of them have young people's organizations, and a few have organized men's classes or clubs. Each of these groups goes on its own independent course. There is no attempt to correlate the studies with which each concerns itself, and there is much waste of effort in holding group sessions that accomplish nothing. The new church directors simplify, correlate, and systematize all the educational work that is being attempted, improve courses of study and methods of teaching, and propose to all concerned the attainment of certain definite standards. In the third place, the new rural church adopts for itself a well-considered programme of community service. Its opportunity is unlimited, but its efforts are not worth much unless it approaches the subject intelligently, with a knowledge of local conditions, of its own resources, and of the methods that have been used successfully in other similar localities. Nothing less than these three tasks of investigation, education, and service belong to every church; toward this ideal is moving an increasing number of churches in the country.
Butterfield:The Country Church and the Rural Problem.Fiske:The Challenge of the Country.Wilson:The Church of the Open Country.Nesmith: Chapter on "The Rural Church" inSocial Ministry.Hart:Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities, pages 176-196.Report of Country Life Commission, 1908.
Butterfield:The Country Church and the Rural Problem.
Fiske:The Challenge of the Country.
Wilson:The Church of the Open Country.
Nesmith: Chapter on "The Rural Church" inSocial Ministry.
Hart:Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities, pages 176-196.
Report of Country Life Commission, 1908.
169.A New Type of Institution.—The rural community everywhere is in need of a new social institution. Those which exist have been individualistic in purpose and method and only incidentally have been socially constructive. The school has existed to make individuals efficient intellectually, that they might be able to struggle successfully for existence. The church has existed as a means to individual salvation from future ill. Social good has resulted from these institutions, but it has not been fundamental in their purpose. The new rural institution that is needed is a centre for community reconstruction. If the school or the church can adapt itself to the need, either may become such an institution; if not, there must be a new type.
It has often been said that the characteristic evil of rural life is the isolation of the people, but this must be understood to mean not merely an isolated location of farm dwellings but a lack of human fellowship. In the city the majority of people might as well live in isolated houses as far as acquaintance with neighbors is concerned, but they do not lack human fellowship because they have group connections elsewhere. In the country it is hardly possible to choose associates or institutional connections. There is one school prepared to receive the children of a certain age, and no other, unless they are conveyed to a distance at great inconvenience; the variety of suitable churches is not large. It is necessary to cultivate neighbors or to go without friendships. But rural social relations are not well lubricated. There are few common topics of conversation, except the weather, the crops, or a bit of gossip. There are few common interests about which discussion may centre. There is need of an institution that shall create and conserve such common interests.
170.A Community House.—The first task is to bring people together to a common gathering place, where perfect democracy will prevail, and where there may be unrestricted discussion. There is no objection to using the schoolhouse for the purpose, but ordinarily it is not adapted to the purposes of an assembly-room. The meeting-house may serve the purpose, but to many persons it seems a desecration of a sacred building, and except in the case of a single community church there is too much of the denominational flavor about it to make it an unrestricted forum. Ideally there should be a community house erected at a convenient location, and large enough to accommodate as many as might desire to assemble. It should be equipped for all the social uses to which it might be put. It should be paid for by the voluntary contributions of all the people, but title to the property should be in the hands of a board of trustees or associates who would be responsible for its maintenance and for the uses to which it would be put. These persons must be men and women of the town in whose judgment the people have full confidence. Regular expenses should be met by annual payments, as the Young Men's Christian Association is sustained in cities all over the country, and by occasional entertainments. A limited endowment fund would be helpful, but too large endowment tends to pauperize a local institution.
171.Intellectual Stimulus.—The second task is to put the community house to use. There are numerous ways by which this can be done, but the best are those that fit local need. Of all the needs the greatest is stimulus to thought. Ideally this should come from the pulpit of the rural church, but its stimulus is usually not strong, it is commonly confined to religious exhortation, and it reaches only a few. All the people of the community need to think seriously about their economic and social interests, and to be drawn out to express themselves on such subjects. The old-fashioned town meeting provided a channel for such discussion once a year. What is needed is a town-meeting extension through eight or nine months of the year. Thecommunity house offers an opportunity for such an extension. Under the initiative and guidance of one or two energetic local leaders, inspired by an occasional outside lecturer, such as can be obtained at small expense from agricultural colleges and other public agencies, almost any American community ought to carry on a forum of public discussion for weeks, taking up first the most urgent questions of community interest and passing on gradually to matters of broader concern.
172.Social Satisfaction.—As the adults of the community need intellectual stimulus, so the young people need social satisfactions. The salvation of the American rural community lies largely in the contentment of the young people, for without that quality of mind they leave the country for the town, or settle back in an unprogressive, unsocial state of sullen resignation. There must be opportunity for recreation. The community house should function for the entertainment of its constituency in ways that approve themselves to the associates in charge. But it is not so much entertainment that is wanted as an opportunity for sociability, occasions when all the youth of the community can meet for mutual acquaintance and the beginnings of courtship, and for the stimulus that comes from human association. If association and activity are characteristic of normal social life, it is unreasonable to suppose that rural young people will be contented to vegetate. If they cannot have legitimate opportunities to realize their impulse to associated activity, they will provide less satisfactory unconventional opportunities. One of the best means for promoting sociability and providing an outlet for youthful energy in concert has been found in the use of music. The old-fashioned singing-school filled a real need and its passing has left a distinct gap. Where musical gatherings have been revived experience has shown that they are a most effective stimulus to a new community consciousness. The country church choir has long been regarded as a useful social as well as religious institution, but the community chorus is far more effective. It is possible to uncover latent talent and to cultivate it sothat it will furnish more attractive entertainment for the people than that which is imported at far greater expense from outside. Among the foreigners who are finding their way into rural localities, there is sometimes discovered a musical ability that outranks the native, and no other method of approach to the immigrant is so easy as by giving his young people a place in the social activities of the community.
173.Continuation Schooling.—A further use for the community house is educational. The older education of the district school was defective, and the new education is not enjoyed by many a farmer's boy or girl, because they cannot be spared in the later years of youth for long schooling. An adaptation of the idea of continuation schools for rural young people so that they may apply the new sciences to country life is greatly to be desired. The local school principal or county superintendent or an extension teacher from a State institution may be found available as director, and it belongs to the community to provide the necessary funds. For older people some of the same courses are suitable, but they should be supplemented with lectures of all sorts. It has been demonstrated many times that popular lecturers can be secured at small expense in different parts of the country, especially in these days when there are so many agencies to push the new agricultural science, and other subjects over a wide range of interests will not fail to find exponents if a demand for them can be created.
174.Community Leadership.—In the last analysis the prime factor in the rural situation is the community leader. Institutions can do little for the enrichment of rural life if personality is wanting. It is the leader's energy that keeps the wheels of the machinery turning, his wisdom that gears their action to the needs of the community. It is desirable that the leader should spring from the community itself, acquainted with its needs and voicing its aspirations. But more communities get their leaders from outside and are often more willing to accept such a leader than if he came up out of their midst, for the proverb is often true that a prophet is without honor in his own country.
175.Qualities of Leadership.—Social leadership is dependent upon certain qualities in the person who leads and in those who are led. The attitude of the people of the community is fundamental. The stimulus that the leader applies must find response in their inner natures if his energy is to become socially effective. If there is not a latent capacity to action, no amount of stimulus will avail. It is safe to assume that there are few local communities in America that will fail to respond to the right kind of leadership, but certain qualities in the leader are essential for inspiration. It is not necessary that he should be country born, but it is essential that he love the country, appreciate its opportunities, and be conscious of its needs. He cannot hope to call out these qualities in the people if he does not himself possess them. And it must be a genuine love and appreciation that is in him, for only sincerity and perfect honesty can win men for long. It is essential that he have breadth of sympathy for all the interests of the people that he seeks for his own; he may not think lightly of farming or storekeeping, of education or recreation, of morals or religion. He must be devoted to the community, its servant as well as its leader, content to build himself into its life. It is not necessary that the leader should be a trained expert, a finished product of the schools, desirable as such equipment is, but it is essential that he know how to call out the best that is in others, to play upon their emotions, to appeal to their intellects, to energize their wills. He must not only understand their present mental processes, but he must have a vision of them when they have become transformed with new impulses and ambitions, and converted to new and nobler purposes. He needs an unquenchable enthusiasm, a gentle patience, an invincible, aggressive persistency, a contagious optimism that will carry him over every obstacle to ultimate victory. It is essential that he possess fertility of resource to adapt himself to circumstances, that he have power to call out action and executive ability to direct it. Most important of all is a magnetic personality such as belonged to the great chieftains of history who in war orpeace have been able to attract followers and to mould them in obedience to their own will.
176.Broad Opportunities.—A leader such as that described has an almost unlimited field of opportunity to mould social life. In the city the opportunity for leadership may seem to be larger, but few can dominate more than a small group. In the country the start may be slower and more discouraging, but the goal reaches out ahead. From better agriculture the leader may draw on the people to better social ideals, to a new appreciation of education and broad culture, to a truer understanding of ethics and religion. He may refashion institutions that may express the new in modern terms. But when this is accomplished his work is not done. He may reach out over the countryside and make his village a nucleus for wider progress through a whole county. Even then his influence is not spent. The rural communities in America are feeders of the cities; in them is the nursery of the men and women who are to become leaders in the larger circles of business and professional life, in journalism and literature, in religion and social reform. Many a rural teacher or pastor has built himself into the affections of a boy or a girl, incarnating for them the noblest ideals and stimulating them to achievement and service in an environment that he himself could never hope to fill and with a power of influence that he could never expect to wield. The avenues of opportunity are becoming more numerous. The teacher and the minister have advantages of leadership over the county Young Men's Christian Association secretary and the village nurse, but since personal qualities are the determining factors, no man or woman, whatever their position, can make good the claim without proving ability by actual achievement. Any man or woman who enters a particular community for the first time, or returns to it from college, may become a dynamo of blessing to it. There waits for such a leader the loyalty of the boys who may be won for noble manhood, of the girls who may become worthy mothers of a better generation of future citizens, of men and women for whom the glamour of youth has passedinto the sober reality of maturer years, but who are still capable of seeing visions of a richer life that they and their children may yet enjoy. There are ready to his hand the institutions that have played an important part, however inefficiently in rural life, the heritage of social custom and community character that have come down from the past, and the material environment that helps or hinders but does not control human relations and human deeds. These constitute the measure of his world; these are clay for the potter and instruments for his working; upon him is laid the responsibility of the product.