Survival, humanity's common purpose is found in the everyday and natural processes of the community.

Theses characteristics, more transparent in our view of ancient villages are not as readily observed in modern neighborhoods and communities.

The city neighborhood and small town public school brings the community together through our interest in our children and their futures. Beyond this centralizing element of common purpose, of community operated schools, the notion of commonality is splattered in every direction.

It is not until the time comes when our parents need us, or we are the ones who need our children's care and community attention that we realize that our common purpose goes beyond the mere institutions designed for our children as operated today. 

Unless the last portion of human life is to become an organized and conscious process of deterioration, a more factory-like system, it is in our common purpose to bring comfort and care to those who were once the ones to bring comfort and care to their children and grandchildren.

The life span of the ancients was comparatively short and therefore the last stages of aging not lengthy in nature. The common purpose was more readily fulfilled, given those conditions of life.  Knowledge of this human condition is not available and therefore not known to us today. 

Today, longevity, mobility and all the other factors that contribute to the general non-community factors of our settlements, present us with a need for a totally new and conscious arrangement.

Perhaps the solution is reflected in the most obvious of our available systems, the institution of the neighborhood or small town public school and perhaps primarily within the function of the high school.  The path to be taken is for us to determine today.   

*Title of Lisbeth B. Schorr's book on Families and Neighborhoods.