New Britain herald., 1927-01-28
RAPID INCREASE IN VILLAGE POPULATION

 the country" Now comes statistical information that this classification is erroneous; that heretofore the vil- lages have been entirely overlooked. The villages, far from deteriorating. degenerating or growing less in im- portance, show a record of univer- sal growth that will surprise observ- CTS who have been concentrating their gaze upon the growth of the cities.
 Villages are places of from 250 to 2500 population. From 1900 to 1920 their population has increased AS per cent. The population increase of the nation as whole during that pe- riod increased 39 per cent. Villages are increasing and adding to their population in excess of the country as whole. The statistics are given in detail in American Village Studies," by c. Luther Fry, who in behalf of the Institute of Social and Religious Research, spent years in compiling this unique compilation of little known and suspected facts.
 The villages are growing two and a half times faster than the popula- tion of the open country. One person out of every eight of our entire population lives in village. 'Villages are worth investi- gating," Dr. Fry declares, mot only because so little is known about them, but also because
 they are steadily becoming an ever larger element of the na-
 tion's rural population. Indeed,
 they are growing so rapidly that
 the question arises whether considerable part of the exodus
 from the open country is not to
 the village rather than to the city,"
 The conclusion is inevitable that the people in the villages, forming such large element in our social fabric. possess real significance in our life today. That they are sig nificant stabilizing factor MT. Fry gladly comedies. Men who have won independence in industry and trade are largely represented in village life, and they are more predominant ly native white than in the cities. Home owning is more frequent in the villages; retired farmers are plentiful; clergymen are numerous; small manufacturing and sometimes large manufacturing abounds and is more itlportant in the villages the country over than trade!
 Powerful politically, the villages are uniformly conservative in their outlook. Dr. Stewart A. Rice, who made study of Wisconsin and Min nesota election returns did much to rectify the assumption that political radicalism ran rampant in the west outside of the large cities. He show cd conclusively that the radicalism existed primarily in the open spaces, but that the returns from the will lages nearly balanced it. By training and disposition the village dwellers are in no hurry to upset political status quo in favor of new and un- proved idea in politics or economies. As a rule their fortunes are tied up with the status quo.
 The upshot of Dr. Fry's conclu- sions is that ''on the whole the diff ferences between village and open country are more striking than the differences between the villages and the cities. Tn other words, the people not followers of the political, social and economic conceptions of those living in the open cuntry, particular ly in the west and south, where the greatest growth in villages is regis tered. They are Class to themselves and in future must be so regarded, instead of being conveniently thrown in with folk living in the open places. ....
 Most of rural America is becom- ing vilagized-in population, habits of thought and in ways of earning livelihood. The widely current belief that in the future most of the popu- lation will live in cities is thorough ly upset by the statistics so careful
 
 lation living in the open spaces in the future, but as many, if not more, will live in the villages as in the cities.
 In many respects the millions liv- ing in the villages have an ideal ex-
 
 convenicnces of the cities and few of the inconvenience. They likewise are devoid of the inconvenience of the open country Their stabilizing influence upon the nation as whole will be most gratifying.
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