Show how street lights in town represent community cooperation.  For what purpose is this form of cooperation?

Give additional illustrations to prove that government in your community is a means of cooperation.

In what ways can you cooperate with the school board or trustees of your community, and thus with the community itself, for better schools?

GOVERNMENT TO HELP AND NOT TO REPRESS

A number of boys whose lives were spent mostly in the city streets were once asked what the word “government” suggested to them.  Some of them at once answered, “The policeman!” And when they were asked “Why?” they replied, “He arrests people,” “He makes us keep off the grass in the parks,” “He drives us off when we play ball in vacant lots.”  These answers represent a common idea about government, that it is something over us to restrict our freedom.  Government does restrict the freedom of individuals at times; but one of the best illustrations of its real purpose is the traffic policeman in cities.  He stands at the crossing of busy streets, regulating the movement of people and vehicles in such a way as to insure the safety of all and to keep the intersecting streams of traffic moving smoothly and with as little interruption as possible.  Now and then he leaves his post to help a child or an aged person or a cripple across the street; or answers the inquiries of a stranger.  If now and then he arrests a driver, it is because the latter disregards the rights or welfare of others.

LAWS AS SIGNALS OF COOPERATION

In small or thinly settled communities there may be no traffic policeman; but there may be signs at the intersection of highways to guide travelers, or warnings such as “Dangerous Curve!” or “School:  Drive Slowly!” Such signs are usually posted by state or local authorities in accordance with law.  And even where there are no signs, the laws themselves are supposed to regulate traffic.  Some one has compared the laws in our country to the signals given to a football team by the quarterback.  These signals are agreed upon in advance by the team, and tell each player not only what he himself, but also what every other player, is to do, and thus team work is secured.  And so our laws are said to be “signals of cooperation,” just as much as the sign “Drive Slowly,” or as when the traffic policeman holds up his hand or blows his whistle.

LAWS AS RULES OF THE GAME

Laws, however, are more than “signals” of cooperation; they are also rules by which cooperation is secured—­“rules of the game.”  Wherever people are dependent upon one another and work together there must be rules of conduct.  One kind of rules consists of what we call “etiquette” or “good manners.”  We have doubtless all observed how much better an athletic contest moves along, or even the ordinary