ricts for public health nurses. Unless the whole township can be
equally well served, a community which forms but part of the township is
unable to secure these advantages unless it can command a majority of
the votes, or except as the village incorporates, and then it loses the
support of the taxes from the farms of the community which share the
benefits.

As long as farm life was on the neighborhood basis, its interests
largely centering in the district school and the country church, its
roads maintained by the labor of its citizens under a local road
supervisor, and trips to the village were made only once or twice a week
for mail and supplies, farmers did not feel the need for a unit of local
government other than the township. But when the church, the grange and
the lodge are in the village, when they desire consolidated schools,
libraries, and community houses, which are most convenient to all at the
village center, and when they desire the improvement of local roads so
that they will best connect with state and county roads, then the
interests of the farmers and the villagers unite them in these common
enterprises, and the community comes into conflict with the rest of the
township if the township is composed of more than one community.

On the other hand, it must be recognized that for many purposes the
community, or even the township, is too small a unit to secure the
greatest efficiency in administration of public agencies, and so there
has been a distinct tendency toward the centralization of many functions
of local government in county officials. Thus the county superintendent
of schools is assuming more and more control over the local school
system, the county supervision of roads is increasing, and we have shown
(p. 145) the desirability of a county health administration, the need
for county juvenile courts (p. 188), county boards for the
administration of welfare work (p. 191), and a county library system.
The county tends to become a rural municipality very similar in function
and organization to the city, and the logical outcome seems to be the
employment of a county manager under a commission or county council,
which has already become possible in Maryland and California.[78] That
this centralization makes possible a greater efficiency in
administration can hardly be doubted, but that it tends to destroy the
initiative and responsibility of the local community is equally
apparent. With an over-central