the
rural "_communaute_" was the local unit of government and social
administration. Its people met from time to time at the village church
in regular assemblies at which they elected their local officers,
approved their accounts, arranged for the support of the church, the
school, and local improvements. In most of France and throughout much of
Europe the farm homes are still clustered in villages, from which the
farm lands radiate. There the village is primarily a place of residence,
and with the lands belonging to it forms the community.

New England was settled in much the same manner, being divided into
towns which still form the local units of government, and which for the
most part are single communities, though here and there more than one
center has sprung up within a town and secondary communities have
developed. The New England town meeting has ever been lauded as the
birthplace of representative democratic government in America, and in
its original form it was a true community meeting, dealing not only with
the political government, but considering all religious, educational,
and social matters affecting the common life of the town.

Although the New England tradition determined the form of local
government in the areas settled by its people in the central and western
states, the township was but an artificial town resulting from methods
of the land surveys. The homesteader "took up" his land with but little
thought of community relations. He traded at the nearest town; church
was first held in the school-house and later churches were erected in
the open country at convenient points; his children went to the district
school; and his social life was chiefly in the neighboring homes. His
life centered in the immediate neighborhood. As railroads covered the
country, villages and town sprang up at frequent intervals, and
gradually became the real centers of community life, but usually there
was but little realization on the part of either village or farm people
of their community interests. The farmer's attention was on the farm,
the townsman's chief interest was his business, and not infrequently
their interests were in conflict and they gave little thought to their
real dependence on each other.

In the South the plantation system of the landed aristocracy, which as
long as it existed was quite self-sufficient, gave little encouragement
to community development. The county was the most important unit of
loc