In cities there are almost innumerable organizations by which
groups of people cooperate for one purpose or another. Men in the
same line of business or in the same profession organize to
promote their common interests. There are boards of trade,
chambers of commerce, merchants' and manufacturers' associations.
Lawyers have their bar associations, physicians their medical
associations. There are associations of teachers, and work men in
the various trades have their unions. Besides such business and
professional organizations, there are clubs and associations of
all sorts for men, for women, and even for children, some of them
educational, some social or recreational, some philanthropic, some
religious. Where there are so many people interested in the same
thing, where it is easy for them to meet together, and where
competent leadership is forthcoming, it is quite the usual thing
to organize for united action.

COOPERATION IN RURAL COMMUNITIES

In agricultural communities cooperation has developed more slowly.
Farmers have been too isolated from one another to make
organization easy, they have not fully realized its advantages,
and they have lacked leadership. This has been an obstacle to the
fullest development of community life. The most backward
communities are those where there is the least cooperation. In
such communities "the farmer works single-handed, getting no
strength from joint action or combined effort."

But all this is changing. Organizations like the fruit growers'
associations are becoming common and are proving their value. The