RURAL SOCIOLOGY AND THE FOLK SOCIETY.

In the September 1941, issue of "Rural Sociology," Professor Heberle applied Tönnies' well-known contrasting concepts gemeinsehaft and geseilsehaft, to North American rural communities and suggested that consideration of such communities in the light of these concepts will clarify problems and advance knowledge. The reference made by Professor Brunner to anthropological materials provides one who has some familiarity with such materials with an excuse for entering into the discussion. The comparative study of societies tends to become a reality on the level of intensive empirical study of particular communities. The societies of the world are ranged, under the eye of the student, in a single continuum. The rural sociologists occupy the strategic center of this continuum. The anthropologist may make a contribution toward the development of understanding of society by formulating the ideal society which, according to the guidance of these antithetical concepts, lies at one hand of the bipolar continuum. Within the ideal folk society its members are bound by religious and kinship ties and there is no place for the motive of commercial gain.