is no less essential. Organized work requires organized recreation.
Every community which has a systematic economy by which its residents
get their living is found to have a systematic though usually informal
and unrecognized provision for recreation. Somewhere in the bounds of
every working town in America is a playground. It is not the result of
"the playground movement," but of the play necessity in human nature.
The open lots where the town is not built up, the railroad yard, the
yard of a factory or the town common are used by common consent by the
young people and the working-people of the town as a playground.
The departure of many persons from country communities is due to the
lack of social life: and the fascination of the city for bright and
energetic young men and women is due to the variety of recreation and
interest which it provides to those who expect to work and are willing
to work. Regular work means regular play. This fact cannot be too well
learned by those who study the religious and moral life of modern men.
The need of play is as real as the need of food or of sleep.
This recreational life is highly ethical. The craving of the young and
of working-people for common places of recreation is a normal craving
due to the development of conscience as well as to weariness of body.
The exactions of modern labor create a craving for free and voluntary
movement. Those who are hired to work, and those who if they are
employers are bound to the routine of the desk or of the bench, seek to
breathe deeply the air of happy and self-expressive action. The result
is that play, especially team work, is highly moral. It is not only
personal and self-expressive, but it involves co-operation,
self-surrender, obedience and the correlation of one's own life with
other lives in a glorious complex of experiences, unexampled elsewhere
in modern life for their ethical value in developing adolescent minds in
the common humanities and moralities. The playground is an essential
field in the preparation of good citizens and it is not to be wondered
at that in country communities, where all provision of recreation is
difficult, and no public provision of playgrounds is thought of by those
in authority, that young people and working people, indeed all classes
of the population, tend to move away.
The religious attraction of the community has just as real a value for
the satisfaction of individual life as the economic or ethical or the
educational. "Mankind is incurably religious," and the life from birth
to death cannot be complete in average cases without religious
experience. Indeed the conscious testimony of men to the community's
religious value for them is greater than any of the others. Religious
experience is indeed a form of community conscience. To many men the
church and the community are one. We cannot within our definition grant
this; but the testimony to the religious character of the country
community is a classic in American thought. The early days of every
community are hopeful and optimistic. The tendency has been therefore
for each religious communion to establish its own church. These early
Protestant churches were expressions of the community sense on behalf of
these people. The average American can best think of the community in
terms of a church and a school. For building up the community,
therefore, the maintenance of religious institutions is essential.
We are concerned in these chapters most of all with the American
community in the country. Not because it is more important, but because
it is easier to understand and affords a better model for interpreting
other communities more complex and highly organized. In it one may see
the processes which affect the town and city communities; shifting of
population, economic changes, educational improvement or retrogression
and the processes of social life which express themselves in moral
conditions. The community is the field in which may be observed the
prosperity of the people as a whole. It is the local exhibit in which
the average man shows what has come to pass throughout the commonwealth
as a whole.
American rural communities have been under the influence of swift and
sudden changes during the years of railroad development. This is
exhibited in the country community very clearly. There almost all the
causes which are at work in the city are seen and their operation is
easier to observe and to measure than in a city community. It is the
general impression that the country community has suffered greatly
though the loss of population. This is probably due to the diminishing
agricultural activity of the country. Thirty-four counties in Ohio are
producing less than the same counties were producing before the Civil
War. It is natural that the population of these counties should be on
the whole smaller than at that time. But it is more probable that the
social, educational and moral life of the people of these counties who
stayed in the country is slacker and less vigorous than in 1860.
Sometimes the population of a community remains stationary but the
economic weakness expresses itself in a retarded social, ethical and
religious life.
There is high authority for the statement that the sifting of the
country community in recent years has on the whole improved it. Wilbert
L. Anderson says, "If this emigration of the best were the whole story,
it would be impossible to refute the charge of degeneracy. There is,
however, another aspect of the matter. The industrial revolution has put
a pressure upon rural life that is more important even than the
attraction of cities. That pressure has aggravated the severity of the
struggle for existence, and this grinding of the mill of evolution has
crushed the weaker strata of the population. Among those who have gone
are laborers and their families, the owners and occupants of the poorest
lands--the famous abandoned farms, and the weaklings and dependents.
Many of these have swollen the crowds of the factory towns; others have
supplied unskilled labor to the cities; in not a few cases they have
gone to their destruction in the slums, where residues of decadent folk
finally disappear. The human material that was most susceptible to
alcohol has gone into the mills of the gods. When all is summed up, the
clearance at the bottom is not less significant than the loss at the top
of the social scale. Natural selection works as effectually in toning up
the species by weeding out the worst as 'natural selection reversed'
works for degeneracy through the removal of the best. This purgation
has been overlooked; whether it offsets the injury in the highest
stratum is a fair question, but obviously no man is wise enough to
answer it. The opinion may be hazarded that when the two influences are
compounded, it will be found that the average child has moved but a
little way up or down the scale. This is a local question to which there
are as many answers as communities. The net result of these changes is a
gain in homogeneousness; in the country town the dream of equality is
nearer realization to-day than ever before."[28]
It is the writer's belief that, allowing for local variation, this
statement is the best generalization of the condition throughout the
country. The rural population has been specialized. The country
community is finding its own kind of people. It has not yet, through
suitable institutions, learned to cultivate its problems and to train
its own leaders. That is precisely what will be accomplished through the
building up of the country community with which we are here concerned.
But already the country population is homogeneous and is selected with a
view to fitness for the environment of the rural community. As the city
is breeding its own stock, who are possessed with the problem of city
life and devoted to the interests of the city, so the country in the
shifting of modern populations is coming to have its own kind of people;
among whom the problems of the country community are beginning to be
discussed and the interests of the country community are being provided
for by suitable organizations.
The building of communities, therefore, will provide the positive
agencies requisite for the needs of the present population in the
country. The purpose of those who serve the country population shall be
the construction of suitable institutions by which country life shall be
made worth while. These institutions must be economic, for the securing
of prosperity to country people, social institutions which shall build
up their moral character and life, educational institutions whereby the
problems of country life shall be understood in the light of all human
life, and religious institutions which shall crown the life of country
people with hope and animate the individual with the spirit of
self-sacrifice on behalf of all the people of the community and of the
world.
The church should be a community center. There may be other centers of
the community where other functions are assembled, but the church should
lift up her eyes to the horizon in which she lives and comprehend all
the people in her service and affection. This does not mean that they
shall all be members of that church. The community spirit is itself
growing. Frequently the country community has attained a unity which the
churches ignore. For the church to become a community center means that
it represents in itself the united life of the people. Whatever be
their common interest that interest dwells in the church.
In Hernando, Mississippi, the people are united. The interest of one is
the concern of all. Under the leadership of the families of old
land-owners the whole community responds to common impulses and is
organized under common ideals. No poor child of either a white or a
negro household is neglected or is overlooked. Yet in this community
churches have no federation and ministers have no regular means of
working together. A charity organization was recently formed in this
community as an organ by which the community should care for its poorer
members. This society was formed outside of the churches, no one of
which had the right to be a center for the community. It is true that
ministers and members of these churches were leaders in this community
enterprise, but the churches as organizations were not a part of it,
although its purposes are purely Christian.
Prof. Alva Agee insists that "The country church does not serve the
community's needs as the community sees those needs." His meaning is
that when a community enterprise is to be launched the promoter of it
finds it necessary in the country to avoid the churches, lest his
enterprise be entangled in their differences. He is embarrassed also by
their lack of a community spirit. Frequently the same persons who to the
church contribute no community spirit are in the community itself
leaders of common enterprises.
In contrast to these conditions the instance of Du Page Church at
Plainfield, Illinois, of which Rev. Matthew B. McNutt was recently the
minister, exhibits the power of a country church to make itself the
center of a whole community. This church, which in a year became famous
throughout the land, has earned its repute by ten years of devoted
service of its minister and the growing affection and union of its
people. The church serves so well the social needs of the community that
a social hall once popular has been closed and three granges in
succession have attempted to organize in the community and have failed.
Yet Du Page Church is passionately devotional and intensely missionary.
Its social life is but a legitimate expression of its community sense.
The minister and his people have had the power to see and to inspire a
common life among the people in the countryside.
This chapter has been intended as a definition of the country community.
Its radius is the team haul, because the horse has been the means of
transportation in the country. The community is the round of life in
which the individual in the country passes his days: it is his larger
home. The definition of this greater household of the country must be
flexible, but however it be defined, it is the characteristic unit of
social organization among country people. The map of the United States
outside the great cities is made up of little societies bordering
sharply upon one another, differing from one another socially and
religiously. These little societies are the proper fields in which the
life of the church and the school is lived. Of these small societies the
church and the school are the expressions. In church and school the
country community has its highest life.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 24: The author expresses his indebtedness for this definition
to Dr. Willet M. Hays of the Department of Agriculture at Washington.]
[Footnote 25: Quaker Hill, by Warren H. Wilson.]
[Footnote 26: Professor C. J. Galpin of University of Wisconsin has done
precise work of great value, in defining the country community, as it
centers in the village. See his pamphlet, "A Method of Making a Social
Survey of the Rural Community," a bulletin of the Agricultural
Experiment Station of the University of Wisconsin.]
[Footnote 27: "The American Rural School," by Harold W. Foght.]
[Footnote 28: "The Country Town," by Wilbert L. Anderson, D.D.]
VIII
THE MARGIN OF THE COMMUNITY
The change of ethical consciousness among church people in recent years
takes the form of a transference of interest from the individual to the
community. The literature of religious and ethical thought is full of
appeal to "serve the community." The working out of any religious or
ethical force in modern society is guided by the closely compacted and
highly organic character of present-day social life.
In the old times in America, which have so recently gone, men were of
one class; the community was homogeneous; universal acquaintance
prevailed.
The unit of value in American life until recent years was the successful
man, because we faced a continent unexplored. Unpossessed commercial
resources were before the people. The standard of the time of Horace
Greeley was the standard of individual success, of initial utility. The
town boasted of the man it had "turned out." The church measured its
value by the rich and benevolent farmer or merchant, and by the
individuals whose piety or literary success seemed to express the life
of the church. There was an opportunity for all, because crude
resources, numberless openings offered themselves to every one who had
character, industry and brains.
Within a decade the American people have become conscious that their
resources are numbered. The free lands of the West are assigned. The
tons of coal under the ground are estimated. The amount of timber, of
copper and of iron still unexploited is known, and public discussion is
centered upon the limits to the growth of the American population, and
the possibilities of more economical organization of life. We can no
longer waste as once we could. The problem is now a problem of economy.
Instead of the standards of a time of plenty we are confronted with
problems of bare subsistence.
In times of plenty, when resources are not yet exhausted, men's lives
diverge and the individual is the unit of thought and feeling. The
natural result of a time of plenty is the development and the endowment
of personality. But in times when a bare subsistence is the condition
with which many are confronted, men are drawn together and the community
becomes the unit of thought and feeling. Industry as it matures brings
men together. It becomes evident that they depend upon one another.
Men who in a time of plenty would seek an independent fortune, under
conditions of bare subsistence are contented to secure employment and to
become dependent upon others. The problems of subsistence open
opportunities for exploitation and the stronger become related to great
numbers of weaker members of the community. Thus men's lives are
intensified, and the conditions out of which thought and feeling arise
are social conditions rather than individual.
The country community under these circumstances rises into new
significance. In the early pioneer days the country community for a
similar reason was much in thought and feeling, because then men were
seeking a bare subsistence in the contest with nature. This
consciousness was lost as soon as the pioneer days were past and the
abundance of nature began to enrich mankind instead of antagonizing him.
Now, again, the country community has come into prominence because men
are confronted with a struggle to maintain an acceptable standard of
living.
In dealing with a social whole, to accomplish certain purposes one must
deal with it in social terms. Social service is not quantitative, but
qualitative. Ministry to a community is not uniformly applied to all the
members. In social service there is no such thing as equality of all the
population. The differing values of men in a social population are
determined, as other values are measured, by the working of the law of
diminishing returns.
Roughly stated, this law is that successive additions of any valued
thing bring ever diminished returns. The first quantity of anything is
of infinite value. For later increments the value is measurable, and
ever less with the increase. The application of this law in economics is
stated as follows by Professor John Bates Clark:
"Labor, as thus applied to land, is subject to a law of diminishing
returns. Put one man on a quarter section of land, containing prairie
and forest, and he will get a rich return. Two laborers on the same
ground will get less per man; three will get still less; and, if you
enlarge the force to ten, it may be that the last man will get wages
only."
"Modern studies of value, show that doses of consumer's goods, given in
a series to the same person have less and less utility per dose. The
final utility theory of value rests on the same principle as does the
theory of diminishing returns from agriculture; and this principle has a
far wider range of new applications."
"We have undertaken to generalize the law that is at the basis of the
theory of value. In reality, it is all-comprehensive. The first
generalization to be made consists in applying the law, not to single
articles, but to consumers' wealth in all its forms. The richer man
becomes, the less can his wealth do for him. Not only a series of goods
that are all alike, but a succession of units of wealth itself, with no
such limitation, on its forms, becomes less and less useful per unit.
Give to a man not coats, but 'dollars,' one after another, and the
utility of the last will still be less than that of any other. The
early dollars feed, clothe and shelter the man, but the last one finds
it hard to do anything for him."[29]
By this law successive deposits of immigrants and successive gains in
the American population are reducing the valuation of men for religious,
moral and educational use. The first man in any historic experience is
of infinite value. The first American, Columbus, will be famous forever,
but not because of any talents or enterprises of his. As a matter of
fact he blundered in discovering America and died ignorant of the feat
he had actually accomplished. But because he was the first white man on
a new continent he had infinite historical value. When the early
Europeans were increased to ten or to one thousand each of them entered
into fame, though men like John Smith were commonplace enough in their
performances. Their fame is measurable, but still great. When the number
of Americans was increased to eight millions everyone thought himself a
great citizen, the founder of a family and a potential millionaire.
Those were still the days of exceptional personality. The type of man in
those times was the landowner, the pioneer and the statesman. But now
there are ninety million Americans, all the valuable lands are assigned,
all the best positions are filled, every job is taken, and ten million
of the population are concerned about the problem of daily bread. These
ten million people are the marginal Americans. They are breadwinners,
and the breadwinner is the unit of value on whom the standard of
American social and religious life is measured. So far as there can be
an American type on whom policies in public life are measured, that type
is today the breadwinner. In the city the breadwinner is a working man
or an immigrant. In the country the marginal man is the tenant farmer;
or a working farmer, though he be the owner. The marginal man represents
the value of all men in the community.
The law of diminishing returns works in the factory for fixing the wages
in any scale which prevails throughout a level of pay. It is equally
efficient in leveling men in the community. The employer does not pay
the working man on any level of wages in accordance with the value of
the few brilliant, trusty or inventive men in that group, but he pays
each man just that wage which he must offer to the last man he hires.
The marginal man standardizes the wage. The religious values of men are
standardized not upon the brilliant or saintly or accomplished, not upon
the well-to-do members of the community, but upon the poor who are just
able to stand and maintain themselves in the life of that community.
The working of this law is not a matter of persuasion. It is the
inflexible condition with which religious and ethical institutions are
confronted. Churches should therefore estimate their policies by the
responses of the marginal people of the community. Religious standards
of value should be measured by final utility, not initial utility. The
complaint against the church today is reducible to this: that she
standardizes her ideals and her policies in accordance with the
prosperous and well-to-do. The eloquence and the character of her
ministers, the kind of music with which God is worshipped, the
comfortable pews, the carpets on the floor, are all of them unlike the
public hall which is supported by the dues of the poor. The taste
expressed in church matters is rather literary and aesthetic than
popular. The church which would appeal to the whole community must
standardize her work upon the poor man, and make her appeal to him.
This principle is not only scientifically correct, but it works out in
practise. A minister who came into a well organized country community,
where there were a few land-holders, many tenants and numbers of farm
lands, found that the only appeal by which the whole community could be
reached was an appeal directed to the marginal people in the community.
When he sought the tenant farmer, he secured with him the land-holder,
and when he went after the hired man on the farm, he secured the farmer
who employed him. When he gained the adherence of the boys and girls he
secured the support of their parents, and when he rendered service to
little children, he could safely rely upon the gratitude and loyalty of
their mothers and fathers.
This was the kind of work which Jesus did. He frankly made a selection
of the people to whom he should minister.[30] He knew no phrases about
all men being equal, and he made no profession of impartiality such as
today causes many ministers to loiter among the well-to-do, who care not
for them. Jesus said he had no time to spend with well people, because
he was sent to the sick. But the philosophy of his action was seen in
the fact that when he ministered to the sick he himself helped the well.
He "preached the gospel to the poor," but not because he had any
prejudice against the rich. By ministering to the poor he applied his
gospel to the margin of the community. That gospel has been of equal
value to the rich man, because the spiritual experiences of the poor are
the experience also of the rich. The modern minister who goes after rich
men specifically, or who goes after them with the same vigor with which
he seeks the poor, will receive but a grudging welcome. But if he
awakens the gratitude and support of the poor, he will find himself
sought by the rich, and sustained by their abundant gifts.