FOR INVESTIGATION 1. What are some of the ways in which you are wasteful? 2. What are some ways of preventing waste in your household? 3. Investigate some factory or business establishment to find out how waste is avoided. 4: Visit a gas factory and find out what by-products of value result from the manufacture of gas. 5. What other industries do you know in which there are useful byproducts? 6. What are some of the ways in which men save by investment? Show how each of these methods of investment benefits the community. 7. Mention some ways in which waste occurs in the government of your community. How would you suggest that these wastes be avoided? REFERENCES "The Problem of Waste," Independent, 55: 1324. "A Century of Waste," Independent, 52: 2400. "The Utilization of Wastes," Engineering Magazine, 26: 118. "The Wastes of a Great City," Scribner's Magazine, 34: 387. Goodrich, "The Economic Disposal of a Town's Retuse." STANFORD LIGRA CHAPTER XIV HOW THE COMMUNITY AIDS THE CITIZEN IN TRANS- communi You will recall that in seeking a site for the community described in the first chapter, the exploring committee was to notice whether there were roads or canals near Community by. The very nature of a community implies life implies that there must be communication, for without cation it there could be no way of acting together. One of the obstacles in the way of united action among the thirteen American colonies was the absence of good roads connecting them. The trip from New York to Boston in those times required six days. A traveler tells us of spending a month in making the journey from New York to Washington at a little later time. Under such conditions it is not strange that it was difficult to develop a spirit of union among the colonies. tion In the early part of the last century it cost $125 to haul a ton of goods from Philadelphia to Pittsburg by wagon, the only means of transportation. It cost $2.50 Cost of to carry a bushel of salt three hundred miles. transportaWheat could not profitably be transported by wagon more than one hundred and fifty miles, because it could not be sold at a price to cover the cost of transportation. When the cost of transportation was so great, the commonest articles of household use to-day were luxuries which the people could not afford. The cause of all this was excessively bad roads. The food supply of the nation comes from the farms. The raw materials for manufacture come from the farms, roads Importance the forest, and the mines. The comfort of living of country for all of us, in the city as well as in the country, depends in a great degree on the ease with which these raw products can be brought from the country districts. It is said that ninety-five per cent of every load by train, steamship, or express, must be carted over a highway. The country roads are the foundation of our transportation system. And yet they have been given comparatively little attention, and America is far behind many other civilized countries in the construction and preservation of roads. Geography and good roads The character of the land has great importance in determining good or bad roads. In the fertile prairies of the West, although the land is almost as level as a floor, the roads often become impassable in wet weather. Where there are hills, the cost of hauling is twice as much as in a level country, because only half as much can be hauled in each load. The effect of the character of the land on roadways seems not to have been fully considered in America. Many of our roads run straight over hills, or through swamp land, which adds both to the difficulties of transportation and to the expense of keeping the roads in repair. methods of The methods of road building and repairing in the United States have been wasteful of the people's money. Wasteful Not only has little care been exercised, frequently, in the location of the roads, but road making their construction and repair have been left to the farmers in the neighborhood. In Indiana, for example, each township trustee levies an annual tax on the property of the farmers for the purpose of road improvement. This tax may be worked out by the farmers. |