Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/837

 PROBLEM OF RURAL COMMUNITY

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proposed social action and endeavor. This can be no mere superficial program of church action along the lines of the tra- ditional ecclesiastical polity. One must dig deep into the roots of human life, and lay bare the laws, desires, and interests that prompt individual and community action. Only upon the basis. of the Eternal in human life can one found the superstructure of social and individual action.

It is said that every individual acts always in reference to six ends or desires with which he is naturally endowed. Thsse ends are health, wealth, sociability, knowledge, beauty, and Tightness. Upon this basis the sociologist makes two assump- tions :

The life of the individual is a process of achieving the self that is poten- tial in the interests which prompt the desires of health, wealth, knowledge, sociability, beauty, and Tightness ; society, or human associations, is a con- tinuous process of realizing a larger aggregate and better proportion of health, wealth, knowledge, sociability, beauty, and Tightness.

Life in the rural districts today is in a state of growing dis- content, because under present conditions it is impossible to satisfy those deep desires of the self and the community. The result is the tide of migration to the urban environment where these interests may be more successfully guaranteed. Denied the means of growth and activity, the weaker ones left behind lose interest in life, and stagnation and degeneration result. The end to be sought, then, in solving the problem of the rural community is a rational program for reform that will enable every individual to achieve his highest self potential in these sixfold desires ; and that will help every rural community to realize a larger aggregate and better proportion of these interests in which life, individual and social, finds its only satis- faction.

III.

Having this end of endeavor before us, let us again take up the problem to discover, if possible, its causal conditions and relations, and lay bare the social structure upon which it rests. These causal conditions naturally group themselves about the various interests of social activity.