Excerpt from The Effective Board

From Tocqueville in the 1830's to the most recent exchange student, discerning foreign observers have commented on the American capacity for voluntary association. Early generations of Americans associated themselves for mutual protection and mutual aid. Volunteer fire departments, corn-husking bees, and barn raisings demonstrated the values of co-operative effort, and lecture series, literary, and library societies developed as a response to the desire for self-improvement. At a later date, hospital dispensaries, orphanages, and relief societies were the responses to illness and poverty. Today American society is characterized by a bewildering variety of voluntary associations aimed at social improvement. The purposes range from the trivial to the profound. Their importance ranges from the negligible to the significant in impact. In their totality, they are responsible for a great part of the color, vigor, and strength of American society.

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