CHAPTER V 

 PERSONAL AND SOCIAL CONTACTS 



IT is undoubtedly one of the handicaps of any large organi- 

 zation that it tends to minimize personal contacts and to 

 substitute mere machinery for them. On the other hand, 

 it is a quality of good leadership that it makes much of 

 personal contacts. How to maintain a proper balance so 

 as to retain the value of the personal relation and leader- 

 ship and at the same time secure the benefit from organized 

 or concerted action, is a problem which calls for the best 

 skill of the county agent. 



A LIMITING FACTOR 



Probably nothing can take the place of the personal 

 influence of one individual upon another as a means of 

 securing desirable reactions. If it were possible to do 

 extension teaching directly by personal contact between 

 instructor and farmer, this would be ideal. But the time, 

 money and men available will not permit the reaching of 

 a sufficient number of persons to justify this. Therefore, 

 the personal relation must be approximated or reduced to 

 the minimum consistent with a proper balance and the effi- 

 cient use of funds. 



But there is still another side to the personal contact 

 method. Especially when contacts originate as individual 

 requests, the work done is likely to be of a miscellaneous 

 character and often trifling as well. Under such circum- 

 stances, the net result at the end of a season may not be as 



ill 



