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Title: The Farmer and His Community

Author: Dwight Sanderson

Release Date: August 19, 2009 [EBook #29733]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE FARMER AND HIS COMMUNITY

BY

DWIGHT SANDERSON

PROFESSOR OF RURAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
CORNELL UNIVERSITY

[Illustration]

NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY
RAHWAY, N. J.

EDITOR'S PREFACE

In the "good old days" of early New England the people acted in
communities. The original New England "towns" were true communities;
that is, relatively small local groups of people, each group having its
own institutions, like the church and the school, and largely managing
its own affairs. Down through the years the town meeting has persisted,
and even to-day the New England town is to a very large degree a small
democracy. It does not, however, manage all its affairs in quite the
same fashion that it did two hundred years ago.

When the Western tide of settlement set in, people frequently went West
in groups and occasionally whole communities moved, but the general rule
was settlement by families on "family size" farms. The unit of our rural
civilization, therefore, became the farm family. There were, of course,
neighborhoods, and much neighborhood life. The local schools were really
neighborhood schools. Churches multiplied in number even beyond the need
for them. When farmers began to associate themselves together as in the
Grange, they recognized the need of a strong local group larger than the
neighborhood. A subordinate Grange for example is a community
organization. Experience gradually demonstrated that if farmers wished
to cooperate