his
occupation, so as to extend his acquaintance with men; and secondly, how
to erect social institutions on the land adequate to reinforce his
individual personality so as to enable him to cope with his
perplexities.

Occasions must be created, plans must be made, to bring people together
in a wholesale manner so as to facilitate this interchange of community
acquaintance. Especially is it necessary for rural children to know many
more children. The one-room district school has proved its value in
making the children of the neighborhood acquainted with one another. One
of the large reasons for the consolidated and centralized school is the
increased size of territorial unit, with more children to know one
another and mingle together. Intervisiting of district schools--one
school, teachers and pupils, playing host to a half-dozen other schools,
with some regularity, using plays and games, children's readiest means
of getting acquainted--is a successful means of extending acquaintance
under good auspices.

If large-scale acquaintance--men with men, women with women, children
with children--in a rural community once becomes a fact, the initial
step will have been taken for assuring the rise of appropriate social
institutions on the land of that community.

5. The Subtler Effects of Isolation[109]

The mechanics of modern culture is complicated. The individual has
access to materials outside his group, from the world at large. His
consciousness is built up not only by word of mouth but by the printed
page. He may live as much in German books as in fireside conversation.
Much more mail is handled every day in the New York post-office than was
sent out by all the thirteen states in a year at the close of the
eighteenth century. But by reason of poverty, geographical isolation,
caste feeling, or "pathos," individuals, communities, and races may be
excluded from some of the stimulations and copies which enter into a
high grade of mind. The savage, the Negro, the peasant, the slum
dwellers, and the white woman are notable sufferers by exclusion.

Easy communication of ideas favors differentiation of a
rational and functional sort, as distinguished from the random
variations fostered by isolation. And it must be remembered
that any sort is rational and functional that really commends
itself to the human spirit. Even revolt from an ascendant type
is easier now than formerly because the rebel