the entire state. The university at Madison serves not Dane County
alone, but the people of all the counties of the state. The public
schools of the state should be equally good in all counties and
managed by a uniform plan. Roads and other means of transportation
are a matter of concern to the entire state. And so the state is a
community, organized with a government, to secure cooperation
among all the people and all the smaller communities that compose
it. In fact, a large part of the business of the governments of
the local communities, such as city and county and township, is to
administer the laws of the central state government.

In a similar manner, the forty-eight states of the Union, with all
the counties and smaller communities of which they consist,
comprise our great national community, of which we are all
members.

COMMUNITIES IN THE LARGER COMMUNITIES

When we speak of "our community" we are likely to think at once of
the small community immediately around us--our neighborhood,
village, or city. Our citizenship in these local communities is
extremely important, and will demand no small part of our
attention. But it is equally important to be fully alive to our
citizenship in the larger communities. This is true wherever we
live; but there is a sense in which our national community is
peculiarly important to those of us who live in rural communities.
The wants of people in cities are, as a rule, looked after more
completely by their local governments than is the case in rural
communities.