cts. It is so general that it
has been often assumed that there was something inherent in rural life
which made the countryman slow in mind as his own cattle. But this is
not so, as I think can be shown. There is no reason why as intense,
intellectual, and progressive a life should not be possible in the
country as in the towns. The real reason for the stagnation is that the
country population is not organized. We often hear the expression, "the
rural community," but where do we find rural communities? There are
rural populations, but that is altogether a different thing. The word
"community" implies an association of people having common interests and
common possessions, bound together by laws and regulations which express
these common interests and ideals, and define the relation of the
individual to the community. Our rural populations are no more closely
connected, for the most part, than the shifting sands on the seashore.
Their life is almost entirely individualistic. There are personal
friendships, of course, but few economic or social partnerships.
Everybody pursues his own occupation without regard to the occupation of
his neighbors. If a man emigrates it does not affect the occupation of
those who farm the land all about him. They go on ploughing and digging,
buying and selling, just as before. They suffer no perceptible economic
loss by the departure of half-a-dozen men from the district. A true
community would, of course, be affected by the loss of its members. A
co-operative society, if it loses a dozen members, the milk of their
cows, their orders for fertilizers, seeds, and feeding-stuffs, receives
serious injury to its prosperity. There is a minimum of trade below
which its business cannot fall without bringing about a complete
stoppage of its work and an inability to pay its employees. That is the
difference between a community and an unorganized population. In the
first the interests of the community make a conscious and direct appeal
to the individual, and the community, in its turn, rapidly develops an
interest in the welfare of the member. In the second, the interest of
the individual in the community is only sentimental, and as there is no
organization the community lets its units slip away or disappear without
comment or action. We had true rural communities in ancient Ireland,
though the organization was rather military than economic. But the
members of a clan had common interests. They owned the l