It was once the usual practice, as it still is in some localities, for each farmer to give a certain number of days each year to work on the roads.  Now, in the most progressive communities, the roads are better and more uniformly built and kept in better repair because they are placed by the community in charge of skilled roadmakers paid for by taxation.  But whether the farmer contributes money or labor, or both, cooperation is planned and directed by the government. (See Chapter XVII.)

IN HEALTH PROTECTION

In Benjamin Franklin’s time, each householder in Philadelphia swept the pavement in front of his home if he wanted it kept clean.  Franklin, who was a splendid example of good citizenship in that he was always looking for opportunities to improve his community, tells what happened: 

One day I found a poor industrious man, who was willing to undertake keeping the pavement clean by sweeping it twice a week, carrying off the dirt from before all the neighbors’ doors, for the sum of sixpence per month to be paid by each house.  I then wrote and printed a paper setting forth the advantages to the neighborhood that might be obtained by this small expense. ...  I sent one of these papers to each house, and in a day or two went around to see who would subscribe an agreement to pay these sixpences; it was unanimously signed, and for a time well executed.  This raised a general desire to have all the streets paved, and made the people more willing to submit to a tax for that purpose.

This was community cooperation under simple conditions.  A hundred years later, the one and a half million people living in Philadelphia were just as truly cooperating to keep their city clean by means of more than 1200 miles of sewers for which they had paid nearly 35 millions of dollars, and by means of a department of highways and street-cleaning which employed a contractor to clean the streets and to remove all ashes and garbage at an annual cost of more than a million and a half dollars.  This is all under the direction of the city government.

IN STATE AND NATIONAL AFFAIRS

What is true of our local boards of education, road supervisors, fire and street-cleaning departments, and other departments of our local governments, is also true of state and national governments.  We shall not stop for illustrations of this now, because they will be numerous in later chapters. (See, for example, Chapter xii.)

Is there a government in your home?  If so, prove whether or not it is a means by which the members of the family cooperate.

Describe the government of your school and show how it secures cooperation.

If you can get a copy of Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, find in it further instances in which he improved the cooperation of his community, as for fire protection and street lighting.