lectual stimulus to the young people and the women,
compel the men to observe the proprieties of social intercourse, and
encourage downcast leaders of church and neighborhood to renewed
industry and hope. They demand multiplied comforts and conveniences,
and expect attractive and healthful accommodations. Where they
purchase and improve lands and buildings of their own they provide
useful models to their less particular neighbors, and thus the leaven
of a better type of living does its work in the neighborhood.

156. =Principles of Organization.=--The principles that lie at the
basis of every organization for improvement are simple and practicable
everywhere. They have been enumerated as a democratic spirit and
organization, a wide interest in community affairs, and a perennial
care for the well-being of all the people. Public spirit is the reason
for its existence, and the same public spirit is the only force that
can keep the organization alive. Every community in this democratic
country has its fortunes in its own hands. If it is so permeated with
individualism or inertia that it cannot awake to its duties and its
privileges, it will perish in accordance with the law of the survival
of the fittest; if, on the contrary, it adopts as its controlling
principles those just mentioned, it will find increasing strength and
profit for itself, because it keeps alive the spirit of co-operation
and mutual help.

READING REFERENCES

HART: _Educational Resources of Village and Rural Communities_,
pages 66-82, 106-130.

GILLETTE: _Rural Sociology_, pages 147-167.

HARRIS: _Health on the Farm._

FARWELL: _Village Improvement_, pages 47-53, Appendix.

WATERS: _Village Nursing in the United States._

CHAPTER XXII

MORALS IN THE RURAL COMMUNITY

157. =Social Disease and Its Causes.=--Rural morals are a phase of the
public health of the community. Immorality is a kind of social
disease, for which the community needs to find a remedy. The amount of
moral ill varies widely, but it can be increased by neglect or
lessened by effort, as surely as can the amount of physical disease.
Moral ill is due to the individual and to the community. The judgment
of the individual may be warped, his moral consciousness defective, or
his will weak. He may have low standards and ill-adjusted
relationships. Selfishness may have blunted his sympathy. All these
conditions contribute to the common vices of community life