[Extracts from the Proceedings of the Seventh Conference of Registrars 

 of Co-operative Societies, 1913.] 



CO-OPERATIVE BANKS AND POPULAR EDUCATION. 



MR. CROSTHWAITE presented the following paper for the considera- 

 tion of the Conference : 



" The worth of a co-operative society," it has been shrewdly 

 observed, "is the worth of its members." "Worth/' from the 

 co-operative point of view, is of two kinds, moral and material. 

 Now the worth of a new society formed from the poor and illiterate 

 classes and with such we are generally confronted in the Central 

 Provinces is crude in quality and doubtful in quantity. Of potential 

 worth there is probably much, of actual worth little. It is the aim 

 of the co-operative movement to develop this actual worth by means 

 of patient and persistent training. To this end every possible means of 

 broadening the minds and widening the outlook of co-operators must 

 be employed. " No co-operation," says MR. WOLFF/* " can flourish 

 without education. We may choose our own methods according to Ihe 

 circumstances of each case. The great point is that education as such, 

 education as a main item, education in co-operation, in the mechanical 

 services entering into its practice, and education in agricultural 

 craftlore, should be placed prominently in the programmes of co- 

 operation, in the very forefront." 



Certain European co-operative experts whom I have met do not, 

 I am certain, understand how very backward rural India is as 

 compared with even the least advanced of the European countries. As 

 MR. MONTAGU has so well expressed it, we have in India the fifth and 

 the twentieth centuries side by side. And there i s far more of the 

 fifth than the twentieth century to be seen in the picture which a 

 Registrar has to study. I am not, however, one of those who hold 

 that education must precede co-operation. On the contrary, I am 

 convinced, after nine years' experience as an organizer of co-operative 

 societies in India, that the desire for " education" I use the term* 7 ' in 

 its broadest sense is awakened in a most effective and practical 

 manner by the influence of simple co-operative credit societies. 



* " Co-operation in Agriculture," page 346, 



