Steiner, “On Becoming an American Citizen,” pp. 317-320.

Wilson, “To Newly-Made Citizens,” pp. 322-326.

CHAPTER VI

What is our community?

ELEMENTS THAT MAKE A COMMUNITY

In the preceding chapters we have often spoken of “our community.”  As a matter of fact, each of us is a member of a number of communities.  It is time to consider just what they are

Every community, of course, consists of a group of people who occupy a more or less definite locality.  Much depends, in community life, upon the character of both the people and the locality they occupy.  But the essential thing about a community is that the people who comprise it are working together (cooperating) under an organization (government) for the common good (common purposes).

LARGE AND SMALL COMMUNITIES

A neighborhood of farmers with their families may constitute a community.  In this case the area occupied may be extensive while the people are few in number.  Or the community may be a city with a population very large in proportion to area it occupies.  There are villages, towns, and small cities of varying sizes both as to population and area.  Each state in our Union is a community and so is the nation itself because each is composed of a group of people (very large in these cases), occupying a definite territory (also large), and having a government through which the people are working for common ends.  There is a world community, but it is, as yet, very imperfect.  The nations and peoples that comprise it have been slow to recognize their common purposes and have so far failed to develop adequate means of cooperation, (See Chapter viii.)

Is your class a community? (Apply the definition given above.) What common interests does it have?  Has it any government or laws?  Is your school a community?  Apply the same tests as above.

Is your home a community?  What are some of its common interests?  Are there laws in your family?

What are some of the things in which your family and your nearest neighbors have a common interest because of living close together?  Do your family and your neighbors work together to provide for these interests?

What are some of the things in which all the people of your city or village (or the one nearest to you) have a common interest, and which the city, or village, government helps to provide for?

INTERDEPENDENCE OF RURAL AND CITY COMMUNITIES