Community Civics and Rural Life | Page 2

into grades as low as
the grammar school. This has sometimes led to the description of
community civics as "elementary sociology." The Community and the
Citizen was perhaps the first "civics" textbook to include such
"sociological" material. So far as that book is concerned, at least, the

"sociological" material was included PRIMARILY to afford a
viewpoint from which the better to interpret GOVERNMENT AND
CITIZENSHIP. This point seems often to be missed, with the result
that in some schools we find a more or less vitalized "social study"
labelled "community civics," FOLLOWED BY a formal study of
government that shows no obvious, organic relation to the earlier study.
Whatever else "community civics" may accomplish, one of its foremost
aims should be TO MAKE GOVERNMENT, INCLUDING THAT OF
THE NATION, MEAN SOMETHING TO THE YOUNG CITIZEN. In
the present book the author has endeavored to keep this aim prominent
in the mind of the teacher. It is hoped that the organic relation of the
last few chapters, which deal explicitly with governmental mechanism
and operation, to the earlier chapters will be obvious.
The underlying, vitalizing features of community civics may be
summed up as:
1. THE DEMONSTRATION TO THE YOUNG CITIZEN, BY
REFERENCE TO HIS OWN OBSERVATION AND EXPERIENCE,
OF THE MEANING OF HIS COMMUNITY LIFE (LOCAL AND
NATIONAL), AND OF GOVERNMENT IN ITS RELATION TO
THAT LIFE;
2. THE CULTIVATION OF CERTAIN HABITS, IDEALS, AND
ATTITUDES ESSENTIAL TO EFFECTIVE PARTICIPATION IN
THAT LIFE THROUGH GOVERNMENT AND OTHERWISE.
The aim of the following text is to fix in the pupil's consciousness a few
essential ideas, which will help to determine his ideals and attitudes, by
a judicious USE of facts, which will thereby be more readily
remembered and understood. "The most important element of success
in community life ... is TEAM WORK; and team work depends, first of
all, UPON A COMMON PURPOSE". The controlling ideas throughout
the following chapters are:
1. The common purposes in our community life;
2. Our interdependence in attaining these common purposes;
3. The consequent necessity for cooperation (team work);
4. Government as a means of securing teamwork for the common good.
These ideas are set up in the first few chapters and exemplified in the
remaining chapters. They are easily grasped by young citizens when
DEMONSTRATED by reference to their own observation and

experience, which the text and the accompanying topics seek as far as
possible to compel. The last few chapters contain an analysis of our
governmental mechanism which seeks to answer the question, How far
does our government provide the organization, the leadership, and the
control over leadership necessary to secure the teamwork which the
preceding chapters have shown to be essential?
The present volume is larger than The Community and the Citizen. The
author believes that this is an advantage, especially for pupils in
communities where supplementary materials are not so easily available.
The increased length is due chiefly to the liberal incorporation of
concrete illustrative and explanatory matter. Young students need
larger textbooks, provided the additional matter clothes the skeleton
with living flesh.
Whether based on this textbook or some other, however, community
civics cannot be successfully taught if it is made primarily a textbook
study. The word "demonstration" has been used advisedly in the
paragraphs above as applied to the ideas to be taught. The text sets up
ideas, interprets and exemplifies them; but "demonstration" can be
made only as the pupils draw upon their own observation and
experience. Hence, numerous SUGGESTIVE topics are interspersed
throughout to divert attention from the text and to direct it to the
actualities of the pupils' experience. Even the topics should not be
followed literally in every case, but should be diversified to meet the
needs and opportunities of the occasion. But to "omit" such studies as
suggested by the topics is to negate the value of community civics.
The successful teacher will seek to extend the pupil's opportunity to
participate in group activities both within the school and in the
community outside, and will make the fullest possible use of such
activities both as a means of demonstrating the operation of the
fundamental principles of civic life, and as a means of cultivating
"habits, ideals, and attitudes." "Training for citizenship through
service" is an essential factor in community civics.
"Community civics" has now been quite definitely assigned to the
junior high school grades (see Report of Committee on Social Studies,
Bulletin, 1916, No. 28, U.S. Bureau of Education). While the tendency
is toward continuous civics instruction in all of these grades, practice
still varies greatly. The present text has been written in recognition of

this variation and is, in the author's judgment, adapt able to any of the
grades in question. If community civics is placed below the ninth grade,
however, the author would suggest its