Part 9 (2/2)

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 towns.h.i.+p, 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 citizens.h.i.+p 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 citizens.h.i.+p 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”).

<script>