rd the
creation of self-government for the rural community is in the laws which
have been passed by several states permitting redistricting for the
establishment of community high schools or consolidated schools,
irrespective of township or county boundaries and according to the
desire of the prospective patrons of the schools. Thus in 1919 Nebraska
passed a state rural school redistricting law under which every county
has a redistricting committee which determines what seem to be the
natural boundaries of the district, which are then subject to petitions
from the people for their alteration, and the whole plan is then
submitted to a vote of the county. "The law does not explicitly state
that the proposed districts must correspond to a natural community in
the social sense; it only says that they must be very much larger than
the old ones, approximately twenty-five square miles. The inevitable
result, however, of opening the question and of freeing community choice
from old political boundaries is to settle on new areas approaching
social units with self-conscious community ties."[80] Kansas and
Illinois have somewhat similar legislation and a community unit is
proposed by the Committee of 21 which has recently conducted a survey of
the rural school situation in the State of New York.

_Community House Districts_.--Wisconsin has passed an act whereby the
people of any local area may vote to erect and maintain a community
house and may establish the boundaries of the area in which the citizens
shall have the right to tax themselves for this purpose, and to elect
trustees of the house, in much the same manner as community school
districts are established. It seems probable that when a natural social
area has thus been determined it will probably be the same for both
school and community house, and that it might be the best unit for the
support of such community agencies as a public library, or a
public-health nurse, and thus a real community government might
gradually arise and might ultimately displace the arbitrary township
government, although the township might be retained for its original
purpose of land registration.

_Rural Community Incorporation_.--The most advanced step in giving the
rural community self-government is An Act to Provide for the
Incorporation of Rural Communities, passed by the legislature of North
Carolina in 1919.[81] This act gives authority for the incorporation of
rural communities includin