Give illustrations of such teamwork among boys and girls.
Give illustrations of the failure of enterprises in which you have been interested because of a lack of teamwork.
Why is it an advantage for the farmers to use one threshing machine for all the threshing of the neighborhood instead of each farmer having his own machine?
ORGANIZED COOPERATION AND LEADERSHIP
As communities grow and the people become more dependent upon one another, and especially when it becomes hard to see how one thing that happens may affect others, as shown in Chapter II, cooperation becomes more difficult, but it becomes even more necessary. It needs to be ORGANIZED, and it needs LEADERSHIP. The experience of fruit growers in California affords a good illustration of this. When they acted independently of one another, they often had difficulty in disposing of their product to advantage. Sometimes it rotted on the ground. As individuals they did not have the means of learning where the best markets were. They had to make their own terms separately with the railroads for transportation and since they shipped in small quantities, they paid high freight rates. They had no adequate means of storing fruit while it was awaiting shipment. They were dependent upon commission merchants in the cities for such prices as they could get, which were often practically nothing at all.
These and other difficulties that made fruit growing unprofitable were overcome by the organization of fruit growers' associations, in which each grower may become a member by purchasing shares of stock. The members elect from their number a BOARD OF DIRECTORS, who in turn appoint a BUSINESS MANAGER who gives his entire attention to the association's business. The association has central offices and storage and packing houses.
The manager keeps in close touch with market conditions,—where the demand for fruit is greatest, the kinds of fruit wanted, the best prices paid. He contracts for the sale of fruit at fair prices. Shipping in large quantities, he gets the advantage of low rates on fast freight trains with refrigerator cars. Uniform methods of packing fruit are adopted, sometimes the fruit being packed at the central packing house. Information is distributed as to the best methods of growing fruit, the best varieties to grow, and so on. On the other hand, supplies and provisions are bought in large quantities, securing the best quality at the lowest prices.
VOLUNTARY COOPERATION IN CITIES
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.