V. THE FARM AND THE VILLAGE 46

VI. COMMUNITY ASPECTS OF THE FARM BUSINESS 58

VII. HOW MARKETS AFFECT RURAL COMMUNITIES 67

VIII. HOW COOPERATION STRENGTHENS THE COMMUNITY 77

IX. THE COMMUNITY'S EDUCATION 91

X. THE COMMUNITY'S EDUCATION, CONTINUED; THE
EXTENSION MOVEMENT 107

XI. THE COMMUNITY'S RELIGIOUS LIFE 121

XII. THE COMMUNITY'S HEALTH 137

XIII. THE COMMUNITY'S PLAY AND RECREATION 153

XIV. ORGANIZATIONS OF THE RURAL COMMUNITY 169

XV. THE COMMUNITY'S DEPENDENT 181

XVI. THE COMMUNITY'S GOVERNMENT 196

XVII. COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION 209

XVIII. COMMUNITY PLANNING 222

XIX. COMMUNITY LOYALTY 234

APPENDIX A 247

THE FARMER AND HIS COMMUNITY

"_The core of the community idea, then--as applied to rural life--is
that we must make the community, as a unit, an entity, a thing, the
point of departure of all our thinking about the rural problem, and, in
its local application, the direct aim of all organized efforts for
improvement or redirection. The building of real, local farm communities
is perhaps the main task in erecting an adequate rural civilization.
Here is the real goal of all rural effort, the inner kernel of a sane
country-life movement, the moving slogan of the new campaign for rural
progress that must be waged by the present generation._"--_Kenyon L.
Butterfield, in "The Farmer and the New Day."_

CHAPTER I

THE RURAL COMMUNITY

No phase of the social progress of the Twentieth Century is more
significant or promises a more far-reaching influence than the
rediscovery of the _community_ as a fundamental social unit, and the
beginnings of community consciousness throughout the United States. I
say the "rediscovery" of the community, for ever since men forsook
hunting and grazing as the chief means of subsistence and settled down
to a permanent agriculture they have lived in communities.

In ancient and medieval Europe, in China and India, and among primitive
agricultural peoples throughout the world, the village community is
recognized as the primary local unit of society. In medieval France