Finally, the exceptional populations present an exceptional victory over economic and natural forces. They abolish poverty within their own bounds. Every one of the communities just described turns the power of its common organization upon the problem of maintaining the lower margin of the community. They who are in danger of falling behind are sustained and carried on. None in these communities is permitted to fall into pauperism. The workingman without capital, whether he be in their meetings or only employed on their farms, is kept from want. The widow with her little house and one cow is insured against the loss of any feature of her small property. This seems to me to be the greatest triumph of these communities. It is the test, I am convinced, of their organizations and of their success. In this they demonstrate one of the greatest possibilities of country life. They show that in the open country it is possible for men to live without the suffering and degradation of poverty. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 17: History of American Presbyterianism, by R. E. Thompson.] [Footnote 18: An exception to this statement must be noted, in the Scotch settlements in Canada and Nova Scotia.] [Footnote 19: Professor John L. Gillin, in American Journal of Sociology, March, 1911.] [Footnote 20: Quaker Hill, by Warren H. Wilson.] VI GETTING A LIVING The core of a community must be economic. The main business of life is to get a living.[21] The reason for existence of any community is found in the living which it supplies its residents. Men are attracted to a community by the increases in their living furnished by that community. The first element in the getting of a living is the securing of daily bread, shelter, clothing and the satisfaction of physical needs. It is a mistake to think of the community as beginning in religious institutions--narrowly understood--or in social gatherings or in educational service. The initial human experience is the finding of food. But the getting of a living is a long process. A living is more than bread, and a roof and a coat. In quest of a living men go from the country to the town and from the town to the city. They migrate from the small city to the large. In each of these moves they secure a further element in their living. Each of these communities is characterized by the increase which it contributes to the living of its citizens, but in every community the initial experience is the securing of daily bread, shelter, clothing and material economic gains. Whatever is done, therefore, for the community in a service to all the people must have initial concern with the purely economic welfare of the people. Sir Horace Plunkett's book, "The Rural Life Problem of the United States," develops this principle very clearly. He shows that in the Country Life Movement in Ireland it was necessary to go into the very heart of the people's aspirations, and organize their economic needs.