When people have common purposes and are dependent upon one
another in accomplishing them, there must be COOPERATION, which is
another name for "teamwork." A team of horses that does not pull
together can not haul a heavy load. A baseball team, though
composed of good players, will seldom win games unless its
teamwork is good. A few soldiers may easily disperse a large mob
because they have teamwork, while a mob usually does not. This
principle of "pulling together," "teamwork," or "cooperation," is
of the greatest importance in community life. There can be no real
community life without it.

SIMPLE TYPES OF COOPERATION

In the early days there were "barn raisings," when neighbors came
together to help one of their number to "raise" his barn; and all
the men of a pioneer community contributed their labor in building
the community church or schoolhouse. This was a simple form of
cooperation. It may be seen now at threshing time, when
neighboring farmers combine to thresh the grain of each, the same
group of men and the same threshing machine doing the work for
all. The United States Department of Agriculture reports that:

In a group of 14 farmers situated in a community in one of the
best farming regions in the corn belt, ... it was found that 5 men
out of the 14 failed to get all their corn planted by the last
week in May. They had worked as hard and as steadily at that
operation as had their neighbors, but they were delayed by one
cause or another, such as lack of labor or teams, or were handling
a larger acreage than their equipment would allow them to handle
satisfactorily. In this same community were 3 men who completed