n is working for the destruction of the
simple, unified life of former days, and is introducing a certain
flavor of cosmopolitanism.

It is this growth of social consciousness in a single child,
multiplied by the number of children in the community, that
constitutes the process of social education. A community with no
dynamic influences impinging upon it reproduces itself in this way
generation after generation, and at best seems to maintain but a
static existence. In reality, few communities stand still. The
principle of change that is characteristic of social life is
continually working to build up or tear down the community structure
and to modify community functioning. The causes of change and their
methods of operation appear in the history of the rural community.

99. =Rural History.=--The history of the rural community falls into
two periods--first, when the village was necessary to the life of the
individual; second, when the individual pioneer pushed out into the
forest or prairie, and the village followed as a convenient social
institution. The community came into existence through the bond of
kinship. Every clan formed a village group with its own peculiar
customs. These were primitive, even among semi-civilized peoples.
Among the ancient Hebrews the village elders sat by the gate to
administer justice in the name of the clan; in China the old men still
bask on a log in the sun and pronounce judgment in neighborly gossip.
The village existed for sociability and safety. The mediaeval Germans
left about each village a broad strip of waste land called the mark,
and over this no stranger could come as a friend without sounding a
trumpet. Later the village was surrounded by a wall called a tun, and
by a transfer of terms the village frequently came to be called a
mark, or tun, later changed to town. Place names even in the United
States are often survivals of such a custom, as Charlestown or
Chilmark. The Indian village in colonial America was similarly
protected with a palisade, and village dogs heralded the approach of a
stranger, as they do still in the East.

100. =The Mediaeval Village.=--The peasant village of the Middle Ages
constitutes a distinct type of rural community. A consciousness of
mutual dependence between the owner of the land and the peasants who
were his serfs produced a feudal system in which the landlord
undertook to furnish protection and to permit the peasant to use
portions of his land