CHAPTER XVIII

[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":—"Coöperation 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.

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, whereash-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 wellconsider 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 frequentlyplaced, 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 historicmemorials, 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 thevillage. 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 asquare 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 retainrectangular 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 toacquire 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]creatinga 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 thesector 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 ruralcommunity 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.

[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.

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.

[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.

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 hasbeen 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 eachmember 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 meanswhereby 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 thatwork 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 statuswhich 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 coöperative 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 assumingvoluntaryleadership 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 andcoöperative 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 demonstratedhis 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 isbroadened 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 coöperation 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.

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