commons." Communication is
from the Latin _communicare_, also derived from _communis_--common, and
_ic_ (the formative of factitive verbs)--to make, or to make common.

[14] "The Country Town," p. 20.

CHAPTER V

THE FARM AND THE VILLAGE

We have seen that an active community must focus its life at some
center, and that this center is usually a village which has been
established primarily for business purposes. The relation of the
American village to the surrounding farms is historically unique and is
largely due to the rapidity and ease with which large areas of the
United States were settled after the advent of railroads. In the
colonial period and the early days of the New West, every settlement was
so isolated that it was obliged to be largely self-sufficient.
Transportation was slow and uncertain and prohibitive for other than the
necessities which could not be locally produced. Under these conditions
the farmer and village business man were so inter-dependent that they
were forced to consider each other's interests. But when settlement
became safer and transportation easier the homesteaders took up their
claims without relation to village connections; they traded where it was
most convenient, and their social life centered largely in the immediate
neighborhood and in the district school and country church. On the other
hand the village was settled by men who came primarily for business. The
spirit of the age was that of competition and they came primarily for
profits. Their business came from the farms, but they felt little sense
of obligation to them. Every village was a potential city in their eyes
and its growth and the rise of real estate values was of more concern to
them than the development of the community's basic industry of
agriculture. The village craftsman and business man gets most of his
living from the farms and it should be to his interest to give them the
best of service, but more and more he has become primarily a business
man or craftsman, coming to the village to "make money" and moving on
when he sees better opportunities elsewhere. His business and craft
affiliations link him to the centers of commercial and industrial life
in the cities, and he is strongly inclined to take the city's point of
view. Particularly has this been the case with the country banker who
has so largely controlled the economic life of the village and
countryside. Too often he has inevitably been more large