172 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



Only the community with life enough within it to pos- 

 sess a " divine discontent " with present conditions, no 

 matter how good they may be, is the community in 

 which one likes to reside. 



The Community Study. It may be worth while to 

 ask the farm bureau or agricultural college to send 

 specialists into the community for the purpose of help- 

 ing to map out a community program by studying rather 

 fully the resources, needs and possibilities of the com- 

 munity. If each community would do this, after a 

 time it would have a program covering all aspects of 

 community improvement based on full knowledge of 

 conditions. This is the ideal. Such a study would do 

 more than reveal conditions. It would inspire prog- 

 ress. Live people do not need much preaching. 

 Their best inspiration to improvement is a vision of 

 needs. Once a good farming community realized its 

 deficiencies as well as its resources, it would insist upon 

 a plan for improvement. Community study leads at 

 once to community-consciousness, a community pro- 

 gram and community effort. 



THE COMMUNITY PROGRAM 



When a community knows the main facts about itself, 

 it will develop a community policy and a community 

 program. The possession of a policy simply means 

 that the people of the community have decided the 

 direction in which and where they want to go; the 

 program consists of the successive steps that must be 

 taken in order to arrive. The community program 

 covers the whole field of the community problem, what 

 improvements are desirable and how they can be 

 brought about in farm production and management, in 

 farm business, and in community life. The program 



