298 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



complement and accomplice and victim of the first type. Many 

 instances of such partnerships will be seen in the case histories. 

 The obviously defective child is in the minority. 



What have community influences to do with producing juvenile 

 delinquency? First let us look at the general setting physical 

 and social. 



Within the bounds of our definition of "rural" the separate 

 communities studied had a considerable range of variation in 

 character. One type is the little country village the trading 

 center of a surrounding agricultural district. Its population is 

 made up mainly of the native-born white of native parentage 

 the old American stock and is decreasing rather than increas- 

 ing because its young men and women, as fast as they grow up, 

 are caught in the current flowing to the large towns and cities. 



Going out of the village center, and "on the hill" perhaps, 

 we come upon little aggregations of people, not big enough for 

 a village group nor yet wholly isolated on scattered farms. 

 Such aggregations may gather about some crossroads or straggle 

 along some secondary highway. Here the conditions described 

 for the village are in most respects exaggerated for the worse. 

 These little centers, too, are often the survival of better days, 

 and there has been an even greater drain on the population than 

 on that of the village. And this has resulted even more definitely 

 in a survival of the least fit. As a net result the little isolated 

 settlement is apt to be of a distinctly lower grade. There is 

 less intelligence and activity ; the social standard is lower. 



Still farther away from the center we come to the isolated farm 

 where many of our cases are found. This may be a good, pleas- 

 ant, decent home, but its owners are so far away from social 

 influences of any kind that they find it hard to take advantage 

 of them. On the other hand, the isolated dwelling may be a 

 tumble-down old shack to which have withdrawn a family group 

 too inefficient to maintain themselves in an organized commun- 

 ity, or too vicious to be tolerated there. Here we reach almost 

 the negation of social life. Practically all good influences are 

 wanting. This is such an extreme type, and the evil influences 

 so obvious, that it was thought undesirable to devote much time 

 to hunting out examples of it. It seemed better to lay emphasis 

 on the normal community, the "country village" that even yet 



