with whom there
may not be immediate contact, but who nevertheless affect the moral and
social life of all its people. It needs the spirit and devotion of the
Good Samaritan on the part of the people, but it also needs the public
health nurse and the social worker who, like the inn-keeper of the
parable, can give adequate care to the unfortunate.

FOOTNOTES:

[72] See Charles E. Gibbons, "A Rural Slum Community." The American
Child. February, 1922. pg. 343.

[73] "Juvenile Delinquency in Rural New York." Kate Holladay Claghorn.
U. S. Dept. of Labor, Children's Bureau. Publication No. 32. Washington.
1918.

[74] "Social Responsibilities of the Rural Community," p. 129. Cornell
Extension Bulletin 39. Rural Community Conference Cornell Farmers' Week.
1919.

CHAPTER XVI

THE COMMUNITY'S GOVERNMENT

Local self-government is a well-established tradition in the United
States, but as far as the rural community is concerned it is more
tradition than fact, for outside of New England the rural community has
no legal or political status. In New England the townships were
originally created as community units, for they were modelled after the
European village community. The meeting house determined the site of the
village where the farmers and craftsmen resided, and the boundaries of
the township were coincident with the limits of their lands. The origin
of the New England township has been well described by John Fiske in a
famous chapter on this subject:[75]

"When people from England first came to dwell in the
Wilderness of Massachusetts Bay, they settled in groups upon
small irregular-shaped patches of land, which soon came to
be known as townships. There were several reasons why they
settled thus in small groups, instead of scattering about
over the country and carving out broad estates for
themselves. In the first place, their principal reason for
coming to New England was their dissatisfaction with the way
in which church affairs were managed in the old country.
They wished to bring about a reform in the church, in such
wise that members of a congregation should have more voice
than formerly in the church-government, and that the
minister of each congregation should be more independent
than formerly of the bishop and of the civil government....
Such a group of people, arriving on the coast of
Massachusetts, wou