ORGANIZING THE COMMUNITY 175 



gram; reviewing the program from time to time; and 

 finally subjects of general interest. This last need 

 leads us to recommend: 



The Community Forum. The community forum is 

 the gathering of the people of the community to listen 

 to and question a speaker who is supposed to have a 

 message about a matter of national or world-wide im- 

 portance. The forum takes the place of the old coun- 

 try lyceum. It is not a lecture club in which the orator 

 is expected or obliged to amuse or please the audience. 

 It is a discussion. There must be question and answer. 

 It is a great school of democracy when properly 

 handled. It can be developed as a part of a com- 

 munity council, although there is a recognized forum 

 organization in existence. In the country districts, 

 however, we do not want to multiply machinery, and 

 there is no good reason why the community council 

 could not make the community forum a regular part of 

 its service to the community. 



The Community Conference. The community con- 

 ference is simply one form of the community meeting 

 and in smaller communities will not be needed. 

 Ideally, the community meeting is a meeting where ab- 

 solutely everybody in the community comes to discuss 

 community problems; but in the well organized and 

 larger community, there is need for real and frequent 

 conferences of a comparatively small group concerning 

 fundamental plans meetings where a long look is 

 taken into the future and possibly where experts or spe- 

 cialists are called in to assist. Conferences will usually 

 be on specific improvements such as roads, health, dis- 

 posal of sewage, a farmers' exchange, community 

 breeding, etc. 



The Community Extension School. In many states 



