Community Civics and Rural Life Part 9

CHAPTER VI

WHAT IS OUR COMMUNITY?

ELEMENTS THAT MAKE A COMMUNITY

In the preceding chapters we have often spoken of "our community."

As a matter of fact, each of us is a member of a number of communities. It is time to consider just what they are

Every community, of course, consists of a GROUP OF PEOPLE who occupy a more or less DEFINITE LOCALITY. Much depends, in community life, upon the character of both the people and the locality they occupy. But the essential thing about a community is that the people who comprise it are WORKING TOGETHER (cooperating) under an ORGANIZATION (government) for the COMMON GOOD (common purposes).

LARGE AND SMALL COMMUNITIES

A neighborhood of farmers with their families may const.i.tute a community. In this case the area occupied may be extensive while the people are few in number. Or the community may be a city with a population very large in proportion to area it occupies. There are villages, towns, and small cities of varying sizes both as to population and area. Each state in our Union is a community and so is the nation itself because each is composed of a group of people (very large in these cases), occupying a definite territory (also large), and having a government through which the people are working for common ends. There is a world community, but it is, as yet, very imperfect. The nations and peoples that comprise it have been slow to recognize their common purposes and have so far failed to develop adequate means of cooperation, (See Chapter VIII.)

Is your cla.s.s a community? (Apply the definition given above.) What common interests does it have? Has it any government or laws?

Is your school a community? Apply the same tests as above.

Is your home a community? What are some of its common interests?

Are there laws in your family?

What are some of the things in which your family and your nearest neighbors have a common interest because of living close together?

Do your family and your neighbors work together to provide for these interests?

What are some of the things in which all the people of your city or village (or the one nearest to you) have a common interest, and which the city, or village, government helps to provide for?

INTERDEPENDENCE OF RURAL AND CITY COMMUNITIES

A community of farmers has interests of its own, largely centering around farming activities, or the social life of the local neighborhood. A few miles away is a village or city whose people also have their own peculiar interests, such as the lighting of the streets at night, or the building of a new high school, or the election of a mayor. Yet there are interests common to both the farming community and the city community. The city is dependent upon the country for its food supply, and the farmers are dependent upon the city for their market. Probably some of the farmers send their children to the city schools. Thus city and rural communities are bound together into a larger community with interests common to both.

In the early days of western settlement a community was founded in Illinois. It was an agricultural community, but in the midst of it a village grew, which in the course of time became a small city.

One of the first settlers was a young farmer with a mechanical turn of mind. He began experimenting to improve the methods of planting grain. The result was the invention of a corn planter, the manufacture of which became one of the chief industries of the growing city, employing hundreds of men and sending machines to all parts of the world. Another young farmer invented a better plow than those which had been in use, the manufacture of which became another of the city's industries. In those pioneer days each family usually made its own brooms, but one young man in this community earned his way through the local college by making brooms from corn raised on the college farm. The college cornfield disappeared in the course of time, but on one part of it there grew up a broom factory employing a large number of workmen. These city industries were thus literally "children of the soil," and the city's prosperity depended upon the agriculture of the surrounding region. On the other hand, the city provided the farmers with improved plows and corn planters, furnished them an immediate market for their products, supplied them with goods through its shops and stores, and gave education to hundreds of farmers' children in its schools and college.

NEED FOR RURAL AND CITY TEAMWORK

Sometimes jealousies and antagonisms arise between small neighboring communities, and especially between rural and city communities. This interferes with the progress of both communities, and of the larger community of which each is a part.

It may be proposed to build a township high school. It is natural that the several communities that comprise the township should each want it. But the interest of the entire township should be considered in determining the location of the school, and not merely the advantage of one local district as against others. It sometimes happens that the people of a city are exempted from taxation for county purposes outside of the city, although the benefits would be almost, if not quite as great, for the city as for the country. This sort of thing serves to set off city and country against each other instead of binding them together to their mutual advantage. The case of Christian County, Kentucky, described in Chapter III, is an excellent ill.u.s.tration of teamwork between city and country in the interest of the entire county, and of the results achieved by it.

SMALL COMMUNITIES UNITE IN LARGE ONES

In this chapter there are three maps of Dane County, Wisconsin, which show how small communities, both rural and urban, are united into a large community, the county. Map I shows the school districts and the townships which comprise the county. The city of Madison occupies the center, and small towns and villages are scattered here and there. The country school is the chief center of interest in each school district. Here and there through the county are high schools. Each of these is a center of a larger irregular area, including a number of school districts and parts of several townships as shown in map 2. Map 3 shows TRADE AREAS.

Trade and education are two of the chief interests that bind people into communities. But where these interests exist, there are likely to be other interests; the high school is likely to be a meeting place for social and recreational purposes.

The area and boundaries of a "farming" or "rural neighborhood"

community are usually rather indefinite and changeable, depending upon surface features and upon transportation conditions, or the length of the "day's haul." With improved roads and better means of transportation, larger areas and more people are included. A "neighborhood" or "trade area" with automobiles is much larger than one where horses or ox carts are used exclusively. The consolidated school with transportation provided for pupils expands the rural neighborhood community.

COMMON INTERESTS OF THE LARGER COMMUNITY

Each of the small dots on map 3 represents a farm home. If we select one of these dots and imagine ourselves members of the family that lives there, we shall see that we are members of a certain school district, of a certain township, of a community that has grown up around a trade center and a high school, and of course of the county as a whole. No matter in what school district we live, we have an interest in some matters in common with the people of all other school districts in the county. For example, there is a state university at Madison, and connected with it is a training school for teachers. The work done here influences the teaching in all the schools of the county, and indeed of the whole state. There is also an agricultural college at the state university which serves the farmers throughout the entire county and state. If we look closely at map 3, we shall see how highways and railroads center at Madison, which is the county seat of Dane County and the capital of the state of Wisconsin.

Just as the many small communities that make up a county are dependent upon one another, requiring organized cooperation for the county welfare, so all the counties of a state, and all the people who live in all the counties, are interdependent in many ways. The people of the city of Madison, for example, depend for their food supply upon the farmers not only of Dane County but of the entire state. The university at Madison serves not Dane County alone, but the people of all the counties of the state. The public schools of the state should be equally good in all counties and managed by a uniform plan. Roads and other means of transportation are a matter of concern to the entire state. And so the state is a community, organized with a government, to secure cooperation among all the people and all the smaller communities that compose it. In fact, a large part of the business of the governments of the local communities, such as city and county and township, is to administer the laws of the central state government.

In a similar manner, the forty-eight states of the Union, with all the counties and smaller communities of which they consist, comprise our great national community, of which we are all members.

COMMUNITIES IN THE LARGER COMMUNITIES

When we speak of "our community" we are likely to think at once of the small community immediately around us--our neighborhood, village, or city. Our citizenship in these local communities is extremely important, and will demand no small part of our attention. But it is equally important to be fully alive to our citizenship in the larger communities. This is true wherever we live; but there is a sense in which our national community is peculiarly important to those of us who live in rural communities.

The wants of people in cities are, as a rule, looked after more completely by their local governments than is the case in rural communities.

The people of rural communities, and especially farmers themselves, are directly served by the national government in a great variety of ways. In the next chapter we shall consider our nation as a community.

Show how the different cla.s.ses of your school are bound together by interests common to the entire school. Compare this union of cla.s.ses with the union of states into a nation. What const.i.tutes the government of your school?

Mention some things in which all the people of your county have a special interest. Are these things of equal interest to farmers and townspeople?

Do the farmers and townspeople of your county work well together, or are there conflicts between them? If there are conflicts, what are the causes?

Point out some ways in which the prosperity and welfare of the farmers of your locality depend upon a neighboring city or town.

Also some ways in which, the city or town depend upon the neighboring farmers.

If there is organized cooperation in your county, similar to that described on page 32, has it been brought about or encouraged by government, or solely by voluntary effort on the part of citizens?

If the government had anything to do with it, was it the county government, state government, or national government?

Has farmland increased or decreased in value in your locality since your father was a boy? Can you show a relation between this change in value of farmland and the growth of nearby towns or cities?

What industries in your town (or a neighboring town) are dependent upon farming for their raw materials? for the sale of their product?

What is the cotton gin? the spinning jenny? Show how these inventions were a benefit to agriculture. How did they promote the growth of cities?

Make a map of your school district. Do the people of this district cooperate in matters other than those pertaining to the school?

On a map of your county, show approximately the "trade area"

served by the "trade center" nearest you. For what other purposes besides trade do the farmers of this trade area come to the trade center?

On a map of your county, show the area from which pupils come to the high school nearest you.

On a map of your state, show the principle "railroad centers."

Show how these are the centers of larger trade areas corresponding to the small trade areas of your county. Show how the farmers and the residents of these railroad centers have common interests.

READINGS

Dunn, Arthur W., The Community and the Citizen, Chapters, i-iii.

Galpin, C. J., "The Social Anatomy of an Agricultural Community,"

Research Bulletin 34, Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.

Gillette, John M., Constructive Rural Sociology (Sturgis & Walton Co., New York), Chapter iv ("Types of Communities").