d to hard labor for long hours. There are seasons when
comparative inactivity renders life dull; there are individuals who
enjoy pensions or the income of inherited or accumulated funds, and so
are not compelled to resort to manual labor, and there are directors
of agricultural industry; there are always a shiftless few who are
lazy and poor; but these are only exceptions to the general rule of
active toil. Not all rural districts are agricultural. Some are
frontier settlements where lumbering or mining are the chief
interests. Even where agriculture prevails there are varieties such as
corn-raising or fruit-growing regions; there are communities that are
progressively making use of the latest results of scientific
agriculture, and communities that are almost as antique in their
methods as the ancient Hebrews. Also, even in homogeneous districts,
like those devoted to cotton-growing or tobacco-culture, there are
always individuals who choose or inherit an occupation that supplies a
special want to the community, such as carpenters, blacksmiths, and
masters of other crafts. Occupations indicate an attempt to gear
personal energies to the opportunities or requirements of a physical
or social environment.

All these occupations have more than economic value; they are
fundamental to social prosperity. It is self-evident that the
physician and the school-teacher render community service, but it is
not so clear that the farmer who keeps his house well painted and his
grounds in order, and who is improving his cattle and increasing the
yield of his fields and woodland by scientific methods, and who
organizes his neighbors for co-operative endeavor, is doing more than
an economic service. Yet it is by means of inspiration, information,
and co-operation that the community moves forward, and he who supplies
these is a social benefactor.

110. =Differentiation of Occupation.=--If community life is to
continue there must be the producers who farm or mine or manufacture;
in rural districts they are farmers, hired laborers, woodcutters,
threshers, and herdsmen. In the co-operation of village life there
must be the craftsmen and tradesmen who finish and distribute the
products that the others have secured, such as the miller, the
carpenter, the teamster, and the storekeeper. For comfort and peace in
the neighborhood there must be added the physician, the minister, the
school-teacher, the justice of the peace, and such public
functi