Are there any organizations of farmers in your community similar to those in the list in the last paragraph above?  Make a list of them.  What are their purposes?  What are their advantages?  What obstacles have they encountered?  Are all the farmers in the community members?  If not, why?  Describe their plans of organization—­membership, officers, management, etc. (Discuss these questions at home and report results.)

Is there any organization of businessmen, or of workmen, in your town or neighboring town?  If so, ascertain what advantages it seeks.

Show how an ordinary store, or a bank, or a grain elevator, is a means by which people cooperate.

Are there any boys’ or girls’ clubs in your community?  Show how such clubs require and secure cooperation.  How is leadership provided?

If there is a parents’ association connected with your school, show how it brings about cooperation among its members in the interest of the school.

Make a list of all the organizations you can think of in your community (such as clubs, societies, associations).  Opposite the name of each write the chief purposes for which it exists.

Write the six great wants across the top of a page, as suggested in the fifth topic on page 6, and arrange the list of organizations suggested in the last question above in the proper columns according to the wants they provide for.

Discuss the importance of leadership in school activities.  What are the qualities that make a good leader?

Who are some of the leaders in your community, both men and women?

THE FARM BUREAU

At the close of 1916 there were nearly three hundred “farm bureaus” in the northern and western states with a membership of nearly 100,000.  A farm bureau is an organization to secure cooperation throughout an entire county for the promotion of agricultural interests.  The members elect an executive committee to manage the affairs of the bureau.  In each of the small communities of which the county is made up, there is a “community committee.”  The chairmen of the several community committees constitute a county agricultural council.  The chairmen and members of the various committees are chosen because of their interest in special lines of work and their fitness to direct such work.  Various other organizations in the county, such as the fair association, breeders’ associations, the Grange, the schools, and others, are represented in the committees of the bureau, the purpose being to secure teamwork among them, as well as among the different communities of the county and among the individual farmers.  The bureau also cooperates with the state and national governments in employing a county agricultural agent, who is the bureau’s adviser, or leader.  In short, the farm bureau represents the county working together in an organized way and under leadership for the improvement of community life.