, _communication_--the making common.[13]

Until modern times practically all communication between the masses of
the people was by word of mouth. The people of the old world lived
together in villages which were largely self-dependent, and only the
higher classes were educated to read and write. There was little
opportunity for contact with the outside world, and the people felt
little need of better means of communication. It has been frequently
asserted that isolation has been the chief rural problem in America. The
reason for the dissatisfaction with life on isolated farms is better
appreciated when we remember that during all previous history men have
lived together in close association and their whole mode of thought,
customs, attitudes, and desires have been formed in the intimate life of
compact groups. It is but natural, therefore, that life on the isolated
farm with but few contacts with others than immediate neighbors should
become irksome and that town and city have had a peculiar attraction for
farm people.

We cannot here examine the causes and history of the development of our
modern means of communication, but we must recognize that it is due to
them that rural community life as we are coming to know it in the United
States is made possible. Without these newer facilities for more
frequent association and exchange of ideas, rural life would still be
confined to the small local neighborhood.

At the same time, the railroad and trolley have abolished the isolation
of the rural community and have made possible the diversion of local
interests and loyalties to larger centers. Thus while communication aids
the integration of the community it affords equal facilities for its
disruption. Doubtless some of the smaller community centers will be
unable to compete with the attraction of nearby larger centers, but
there seems no good reason to believe that better communication will
injure the best life of communities which are of sufficient size to
support the institutions which will command local loyalty. This dual
influence of means of communication on the internal and external
relations of rural communities creates some of the chief problems of
rural social organization, for the increase of means of communication in
the past two or three generations has been more momentous and has had a
more far-reaching effect on human relations than in all the previous
centuries since the invention of writing.

A brief surv