rious groups has a customary center for coming together. But owing
to the fact that each interest has grown largely without reference to
the others, their centers of activity have been determined largely by
conditions of local convenience. Now, these centers may have been well
adapted to the times when they were established, but as time has
passed shifts of population have come, road improvements have been
made, and new interests developed so that the traditional centers not
only tend to lessen community solidarity but also tend to prevent its
accomplishment. One of the first tasks of the community leader is to
make a study of his proposed field of activity for the purpose of
determining what are the present centers of group interests, what
changes have taken place in rural life conditions which make
reorganization and readjustment of centers desirable, and then, in
consultation with representatives of the community, to organize a
community plan toward ward which the entire community may work. City
planning has long been an accepted principle for service in the more
progressive larger centers. The time has come when plans for the most
efficient organization of village and open country communities should
be made. It is interesting to note that already in many sections of
the United States the movement toward community planning has made
considerable progress. It is now generally recognized that with rare
exceptions the village rather than an open country point is the normal
basis for such a plan. In accordance with this, movements are now
under way to displace the traditional township boundaries created as
political limits for government and to replace them by boundaries
conforming as closely as possible with those limits that careful
investigation indicates are now and probably will continue to be the
most representative of what the future limits of rural communities
will be. In like manner educational work is being reorganized to
include the community territory instead of the political areas
inherited from the methods of survey adopted under the ordinance of
1787. As this movement continues, doubtless farm bureaus, and even
religious agencies, will try to adapt themselves as far as possible to
the program of other agencies.

The breakdown of social life in the open country and the very
questionable forms it often takes in the villages has long been the
nightmare of the minister of the gospel who stands for a high ethica