might be clouded and corrupted with false glosses of deceivers; to the
end that learning may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers,
in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavours;" it was
therefore ordered that every township containing fifty families or
householders should forthwith set up a school in which children might
be taught to read and write, and that every township containing one
hundred families or householders should set up a school in which
boys might be fitted for entering Harvard College. Even before this
statute, several towns, as for instance Roxbury and Dedham, had begun
to appropriate money for free schools; and these were the beginnings
of a system of public education which has come to be adopted
throughout the United States.

[Sidenote: School committees.]
The school committee exercises powers of such a character as to make
it a body of great importance. The term of service of the members is
three years, one third being chosen annually. The number of members
must therefore be some multiple of three. The slow change in the
membership of the board insures that a large proportion of the members
shall always be familiar with the duties of the place. The school
committee must visit all the public schools at least once a month, and
make a report to the town every year. It is for them to decide what
text-books are to be used. They examine candidates for the position
of teacher and issue certificates to those whom they select. The
certificate is issued in duplicate, and one copy is handed to the
selectmen as a warrant that the teacher is entitled to receive a
salary. Teachers are appointed for a term of one year, but where their
work is satisfactory the appointments are usually renewed year after
year. A recent act in Massachusetts _permits_ the appointment of
teachers to serve during good behaviour, but few boards have as yet
availed themselves of this law. If the amount of work to be done seems
to require it, the committee appoints a superintendent of schools. He
is a sort of lieutenant of the school committee, and under its general
direction carries on the detailed work of supervision.

Other town officers are the surveyors of highways, who are responsible
for keeping the roads and bridges in repair; field-drivers and
pound-keepers; fence-viewers; surveyors of lumber, measurers of wood,
and sealers of weights and measures.

[Sidenote: Field-drivers and pound keepers.]
The field-driver takes stray animals to the pound, and then notifies
their owner; or if he does not know who is the owner he posts a
description of the animals in some such place as the village store
or tavern, or has it published in the nearest country newspaper.
Meanwhile the strays are duly fed by the pound-keeper, who does not
let them out of his custody until all expenses have been paid.

[Sidenote: Fence-viewers.]
If the owners of contiguous farms, gardens, or fields get into a
dispute about their partition fences or walls, they may apply to
one of the fence-viewers, of whom each town has at least two. The
fence-viewer decides the matter, and charges a small fee for his
services. Where it is necessary he may order suitable walls or fences
to be built.

[Sidenote: Other officers.]
The surveyors of lumber measure and mark lumber offered for sale.
The measurers of wood do the same for firewood. The sealers test the
correctness of weights and measures used in trade, and tradesmen
are not allowed to use weights and measures that have not been thus
officially examined and sealed. Measurers and sealers may be appointed
by the selectmen.

Such are the officers always to be found in the Massachusetts town,
except where the duties of some of them are discharged by the
selectmen. Of these officers, the selectmen, town-clerk, treasurer,
constable, school committee, and assessors must be elected by ballot
at the annual town-meeting.

[Sidenote: Calling the town-meeting.]
When this meeting is to be called the selectmen issue a warrant for
the purpose, specifying the time and place of meeting and the nature
of the business to be transacted. The constable posts copies of the
warrant in divers conspicuous places not less than a week before the
time appointed. Then, after making a note upon the warrant that he has
duly served it, he hands it over to the town-clerk. On the appointed
day, when the people have assembled, the town-clerk calls the meeting
to order and reads the warrant. The meeting then proceeds to choose by
ballot its presiding officer, or "moderator," and business goes on
in accordance with parliamentary customs pretty generally recognized
among all people who speak English.

[Sidenote: Town, country, and state taxes.]
At this meeting the amount of money to be raised by taxation for town
purposes is determined. But, as we shall see, every inhabitant of a
town lives not only under a town government, but also under a county
government and a state government, and all these governments have to
be supported by taxation. In Massachusetts the state and the county
make use of the machinery of the town government in order to assess
and collect their taxes. The total amounts to be raised are equitably
divided among the several towns and cities, so that each town pays its
proportionate share. Each year, therefore, the town assessors know
that a certain amount of money must be raised from the taxpayers of
their town,--partly for the town, partly for the county, partly for
the state,--and for the general convenience they usually assess it
upon the taxpayers all at once. The amounts raised for the state and
county are usually very much smaller than the amount raised for
the town. As these amounts are all raised in the town and by town
officers, we shall find it convenient to sum up in this place what we
have to say about the way in which taxes are raised. Bear in mind that
we are still considering the New England system, and our illustration
is taken from the practice in Massachusetts. But the general
principles of taxation are so similar in the different states that,
although we may now and then have to point to differences of detail,
we shall not need to go over the whole subject again. We have now to
observe how and upon whom the taxes are assessed.

[Sidenote: Poll-tax.]
They are assessed partly upon persons, but chiefly upon property, and
property is divisible into real estate and personal estate. The tax
assessed upon persons is called the poll-tax, and cannot exceed the
sum of two dollars upon every male citizen over twenty years old. In
cases of extreme poverty the assessors may remit the poll-tax.

[Sidenote: Real-estate taxes.]
As to real estate, there are in every town some lands and buildings
which, for reasons of public policy, are exempted from paying taxes;
as, for example, churches, graveyards, and tombs; many charitable
institutions, including universities and colleges; and public
buildings which belong to the state or to the United States. All lands
and buildings, except such as are exempt by law, must pay taxes.

[Sidenote: Taxes on personal property.]
Personal property includes pretty much everything that one can own
except lands and buildings,--pretty much everything that can be moved
or carried about from one place to another. It thus includes ready
money, stocks and bonds, ships and wagons, furniture, pictures, and
books. It also includes the amount of debts due to a person in excess
of the amount that he owes; also the income from his employment,
whether in the shape of profits from business or a fixed salary.

Some personal property is exempted from taxation; as, for example,
household furniture to the amount of $1,000 in value, and income
from employment to the extent of $2,000. The obvious intent of this
exemption is to prevent taxation from bearing too hard upon persons
of small means; and for a similar reason the tools of farmers and
mechanics are exempted.[2]

[Footnote 2: United States bonds are also especially exempted from
taxation.]

[Sidenote: When and where taxes are assessed.]
The date at which property is annually reckoned for assessment is in
Massachusetts the first day of May. The poll-tax is assessed upon each
person in the town or city where he has his legal habitation on that
day; and as a general rule the taxes upon his personal property are
assessed to him in the same place. But taxes upon lands or buildings
are assessed in the city or town where they are situated, and to the
person, wherever he lives, who is the owner of them on the first day
of May. Thus a man who lives in the Berkshire mountains, say for
example in the town of Lanesborough, will pay his poll-tax to that
town. For his personal property, whether it he bonds of a railroad in
Colorado, or shares in a bank in New York, or costly pictures in his
house at Lanesborough, he will likewise pay taxes to Lanesborough. So
for the house in which he lives, and the land upon which it stands, he
pays taxes to that same town. But if he owns at the same time a house
in Boston, he pays taxes for it to Boston, and if he owns a block of
shops in Chicago he pays taxes for the same to Chicago. It is very apt
to be the case that the rate of taxation is higher in large cities
than in villages; and accordingly it often happens that wealthy
inhabitants of cities, who own houses in some country town, move into
them before the first of May, and otherwise comport themselves as
legal residents of the country town, in order that their personal
property may be assessed there rather than in the city.


[Sidenote: Tax lists.]
About the first of May the assessors call upon the inhabitants of
their town to render a true statement as to their property. The most
approved form is for the assessors to send by mail to each taxable
inhabitant a printed list of questions, with blank spaces which he is
to fill with written answers. The questions relate to every kind
of property, and when the person addressed returns the list to the
assessors he must make oath that to the best of his knowledge and
belief his answers are true. He thus becomes liable to the penalties
for perjury if he can be proved to have sworn falsely. A reasonable
time--usually six or eight weeks--is allowed for the list to be
returned to the assessors. If any one fails to return his list by the
specified time, the assessors must make their own estimate of the
probable amount of his property. If their estimate is too high, he may
petition the assessors to have the error corrected, but in many cases
it may prove troublesome to effect this.

[Sidenote: Cheating the government.]
Observe here an important difference between the imposition of taxes
upon real estate and upon personal property. Houses and lands cannot
run away or be tucked out of sight. Their value, too, is something
of which the assessors can very likely judge as well as the owner.
Deception is therefore extremely difficult, and taxation for real
estate is pretty fairly distributed among the different owners. With
regard to personal estate it is very different. It is comparatively
easy to conceal one's ownership of some kinds of personal property, or
to understate one's income. Hence the temptation to lessen the burden
of the tax bill by making false statements is considerable, and
doubtless a good deal of deception is practised. There are many people
who are too honest to cheat individuals, but still consider it a
venial sin to cheat the government.

[Sidenote: The rate of taxation.]
After the assessors have obtained all their returns they can calculate
the total value of the taxable property in the town; and knowing the
amount of the tax to be raised, it is easy to calculate the rate at
which the tax is to be assessed. In most parts of the United States a
rate of one and a half per cent, or $15 tax on each $1,000 worth of
property, would be regarded as moderate; three per cent would be
regarded as excessively high. At the lower of these rates a man worth
$50,000 would pay $750 for his yearly taxes. The annual income of
$50,000, invested on good security, is hardly more than $2,500.
Obviously $750 is a large sum to subtract from such an income.

[Sidenote: Undervaluation.]
[Sidenote: The burden of taxation.]
In point of fact, however, the tax is seldom quite as heavy as
this. It is not easy to tell exactly how much a man is worth, and
accordingly assessors, not wishing to be too disagreeable in the
discharge of their duties, have naturally fallen into a way of giving
the lower valuation the benefit of the doubt, until in many places a
custom has grown up of regularly undervaluing property for purposes of
taxation. Very much as liquid measures have gradually shrunk until
it takes five quart bottles to hold a gallon, so there has been a
shrinkage of valuations until it has become common to tax a man for
only three fourths or perhaps two thirds of what his property is
worth in the market. This makes the rate higher, to be sure, but
the individual taxpayer nevertheless seems to feel relieved by it.
Allowing for this undervaluation, we may say that a man worth $50,000
commonly pays not less than $500 for his yearly taxes, or about one
fifth of the annual income of the property. We thus begin to see what
a heavy burden taxes are, and how essential to good government it is
that citizens should know what their money goes for, and should be
able to exert some effective control over the public expenditures.
Where the rate of taxation in a town rises to a very high point, such
as two and a half or three per cent, the prosperity of the town is apt
to be seriously crippled. Traders and manufacturers move away to other
towns, or those who would otherwise come to the town in question stay
away, because they cannot afford to use up all their profits in paying
taxes. If such a state of things is long kept up, the spirit of
enterprise is weakened, the place shows signs of untidiness and want
of thrift, and neighbouring towns, once perhaps far behind it in
growth, by and by shoot ahead of it and take away its business.

[Sidenote: The "magic fund" delusion.]
Within its proper sphere, government by town-meeting is the form of
government most effectively under watch and control. Everything is
done in the full daylight of publicity. The specific objects for which
public money is to be appropriated are discussed in the presence of
everybody, and any one who disapproves of any of these objects, or of
the way in which it is proposed to obtain it, has an opportunity to
declare his opinions. Under this form of government people are not
so liable to bewildering delusions as under other forms. I refer
especially to the delusion that "the Government" is a sort of
mysterious power, possessed of a magic inexhaustible fund of wealth,
and able to do all manner of things for the benefit of "the People."
Some such notion as this, more often implied than expressed, is very
common, and it is inexpressibly dear to demagogues. It is the prolific
root from which springs that luxuriant crop of humbug upon which
political tricksters thrive as pigs fatten upon corn. In point of
fact no such government, armed with a magic fund of its own, has ever
existed upon the earth. No government has ever yet used any money
for public purposes which it did not first take from its own
people,--unless when it may have plundered it from some other people
in victorious warfare.

The inhabitant of a New England town is perpetually reminded that "the
Government" is "the People." Although he may think loosely about
the government of his state or the still more remote government at
Washington, he is kept pretty close to the facts where local affairs
are concerned, and in this there is a political training of no small
value.

[Sidenote: Educational value of the town-meeting.]
In the kind of discussion which it provokes, in the necessity of facing
argument with argument and of keeping one's temper under control, the
town-meeting is the best political training school in existence. Its
educational value is far higher than that of the newspaper, which, in
spite of its many merits as a diffuser of information, is very apt to do
its best to bemuddle and sophisticate plain facts. The period when
town-meetings ware most important from the wide scope of their
transactions was the period of earnest and sometimes stormy discussion
that ushered in our Revolutionary war. Country towns were then of more
importance relatively than now; one country town--Boston--was at the
same time a great political centre; and its meetings were presided over
and addressed by men of commanding ability, among whom Samuel Adams,
"the man of the town-meeting," was foremost[3]. In those days
great principles of government were discussed with a wealth of knowledge
and stated with masterly skill in town-meeting.

[Footnote 3: The phrase is Professor Hosmer's: see his _Samuel Adams, the
Man of the Town Meeting_, in "Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies," vol. II. no.
iv.; also his _Samuel Adams_, in "American Statesmen" series; Boston,
1885.]

[Sidenote: By-laws.]
The town-meeting is to a very limited extent a legislative body; it can
make sundry regulations for the management of its local affairs. Such
regulations are known by a very ancient name, "by-laws." _By_ is an Old
Norse word meaning "town," and it appears in the names of such towns as
_Derby_ and _Whitby_ in the part of England overrun by the Danes in the
ninth and tenth centuries. By-laws are town laws[4].

[Footnote 4: In modern usage the roles and regulations of clubs, learned
societies, and other associations, are also called by-laws.]

[Sidenote: Power and responsibility.]
In the selectmen and various special officers the town has an
executive department; and here let us observe that, while these
officials are kept strictly accountable to the people, they are
entrusted with very considerable authority. Things are not so arranged
that an officer can plead that he has failed in his duty from lack of
power. There is ample power, joined with complete responsibility. This
is especially to be noticed in the case of the selectmen. They must
often be called upon to exercise a wide discretion in what they do,
yet this excites no serious popular distrust or jealousy. The annual
election affords an easy means of dropping an unsatisfactory officer.
But in practice nothing has been more common than for the same persons
to be reelected as selectmen or constables or town-clerks for year
after year, as long as they are able or willing to serve. The notion
that there is anything peculiarly American or democratic in what
is known as "rotation in office" is therefore not sustained by the
practice of the New England town, which is the most complete democracy
in the world. It is the most perfect exhibition of what President
Lincoln called "government of the people by the people and for the
people."


QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. What reason exists for beginning the study of government with that of
the New England township?

2. Give the origin of the township in New England according to the
following analysis:--

a. Settlement in groups.
b. The chief reason for coming to New England.
c. The leaders of the groups.
d. The favouring action of the Massachusetts government.
e. Small farms.
f. Defence against the Indians.
g. The limits of a township.
h. The village within the township.

3. What was the social standing of the first settlers?

4. What training had they received in self-government?

5. Who do the governing in a New England township?

6. Give an account of the town-meeting in accordance with the following
analysis:--

a. The name of the meeting.
b. The time for holding it.
c. The place for holding it.
d. The persons who take part in it.
e. The sort of business done in it.

7. Give an account of the selectmen:--

a. Their number.
b. The reason for an odd number.
c. Their duties.

8. When public schools were established by Massachusetts in 1647, what
reasons were assigned for the law?


9. What classes or grades of schools were then established?

10. What are the duties of the Massachusetts school committee?

11. What is the term of service of teachers in that state?

12. What are the duties of the following officers?--

a. Field-drivers.
b. Pound-keepers.
c. Fence-viewers.
d. Surveyors of lumber.
e. Measurers of wood.
f. Sealers of weights and measures.

13. What are the duties of the following officers?--

a. The town-clerk.
b. The treasurer.
c. Constables.
d. Assessors.
e. Overseers of the poor.

14. Describe a warrant for a town-meeting.

15. For what other purposes than those of the town are taxes raised?

16. Explain the following:--

a. The poll-tax.
b. The tax on personal property,
c. The tax on real estate.

17. What kinds of real estate are exempted from taxation, and why?

18. What kinds of personal property are exempted, and why?

19. Where must the several kinds of taxes be assessed and paid?
Illustrate.

20. If a person changes his residence from one town in the state to
another before May 1, what consequences about taxes might follow?

21. How do the assessors ascertain the property for which one should be
taxed?

22. What difficulties beset the taxation of personal property?

23. Mention a common practice in assigning values to property.
What is the effect on the tax-rate? Illustrate.

24. How do high taxes operate as a burden?

25. Describe a delusion from which people who directly govern
themselves are practically free.

26. What is the educational value of the town-meeting?

27. What are by-laws? Explain the phrase.

28. What of the power and responsibility of selectmen?


Section 2. _Origin of the Township_.

[Sidenote: Town-meetings in Greece and Rome.]
It was said above that government by town-meeting is in principle the
oldest form of government known in the world. The student of ancient
history is familiar with the _comitia_ of the Romans and the
_ecclesia_ of the Greeks. These were popular assemblies, held in
those soft climates in the open air, usually in the market-place,--the
Roman _forum_, the Greek _agora_. The government carried on
in them was a more or less qualified democracy. In the palmy days of
Athens it was a pure democracy. The assemblies which in the Athenian
market-place declared war against Syracuse, or condemned Socrates to
death, were quite like New England town-meetings, except that they
exercised greater powers because there was no state government above
them.

[Sidenote: Clans.]
The principle of the town-meeting, however, is older than Athens or
Rome. Long before streets were built or fields fenced in, men wandered
about the earth hunting for food in family parties, somewhat as lions
do in South Africa. Such family groups were what we call _clans_,
and so far as is known they were the earliest form in which civil
society appeared on the earth. Among all wandering or partially
settled tribes the clan is to be found, and there are ample
opportunities for studying it among our Indians in North America. The
clan usually has a chief or head-man, useful mainly as a leader in
wartime; its civil government, crude and disorderly enough, is in
principle a pure democracy.

[Sidenote: The _mark_ and the _tun_.]
When our ancestors first became acquainted with American Indians, the
most advanced tribes lived partly by hunting and fishing, but partly
also by raising Indian corn and pumpkins. They had begun to live in
wigwams grouped together in small villages and surrounded by strong rows
of palisades for defence. Now what these red men were doing our own
fair-haired ancestors in northern and central Europe had been doing some
twenty centuries earlier. The Scandinavians and Germans, when first
known in history, had made considerable progress in exchanging a
wandering for a settled mode of life. When the clan, instead of moving
from place to place, fixed upon some spot for a permanent residence, a
village grew up there, surrounded by a belt of waste land, or somewhat
later by a stockaded wall. The belt of land was called a _mark_, and the
wall was called a _tun_.[5] Afterwards the enclosed space came to be
known sometimes as the _mark_, sometimes as the _tun_ or _town_. In
England the latter name prevailed. The inhabitants of a mark or town
were a stationary clan. It was customary to call them by the clan name,
as for example "the Beorings" or "the Crossings;" then the town would be
called _Barrington_, "town of the Beorings," or _Cressingham_,
"home of the Cressings." Town names of this sort, with which the map of
England is thickly studded, point us back to a time when the town was
supposed to be the stationary home of a clan.

[Footnote 1: Pronounced "toon."]

[Sidenote: The Old English township.]
[Sidenote: The manor.]
The Old English town had its _tungemot_, or town-meeting, in
which "by-laws" were made and other important business transacted.
The principal officers were the "reeve" or head-man, the "beadle" or
messenger, and the "tithing-man" or petty constable. These officers
seem at first to have been elected by the people, but after a while,
as great lordships grew up, usurping jurisdiction over the land, the
lord's steward and bailiff came to supersede the reeve and beadle.
After the Norman Conquest the townships, thus brought under the sway
of great lords, came to be generally known by the French name of
manors or "dwelling places." Much might be said about this change, but
here it is enough for us to bear in mind that a manor was essentially
a township in which the chief executive officers were directly
responsible to the lord rather than to the people. It would be
wrong, however, to suppose that the manors entirely lost their
self-government. Even the ancient town-meeting survived in them, in a
fragmentary way, in several interesting assemblies, of which the most
interesting were the _court leet_, for the election of certain
officers and the trial of petty offences, and the _court baron_,
which was much like a town-meeting.

[Sidenote: The parish.]
Still more of the old self-government would doubtless have survived
in the institutions of the manor if it had not been provided for in
another way. The _parish_ was older than the manor. After the
English had been converted to Christianity local churches were
gradually set up all over the country, and districts called parishes
were assigned for the ministrations of the priests. Now a parish
generally coincided in area with a township, or sometimes with a group
of two or three townships. In the old heathen times each town seems to
have had its sacred place or shrine consecrated to some local deity,
and it was a favourite policy with the Roman missionary priests to
purify the old shrine and turn it into a church. In this way the
township at the same time naturally became the parish.

[Sidenote: Township, manor, and parish.]
[Sidenote: The vestry-meeting.]
As we find it in later times, both before and since the founding of
English colonies in North America, the township in England is likely
to be both a manor and a parish. For some purposes it is the one, for
some purposes it is the other. The townsfolk may be regarded as a
group of tenants of the lord's manor, or as a group of parishioners of
the local church. In the latter aspect the parish retained much of the
self-government of the ancient town. The business with which the lord
was entitled to meddle was strictly limited, and all other business
was transacted in the "vestry-meeting," which was practically the old
town-meeting under a new name. In the course of the thirteenth century
we find that the parish had acquired the right of taxing itself for
church purposes. Money needed for the church was supplied in the
form of "church-rates" voted by the ratepayers themselves in the
vestry-meeting, so called because it was originally held in a room of
the church in which vestments were kept.

[Sidenote: Parish officers.]
The officers of the parish were the constable, the parish and vestry
clerks,[6] the beadle,[7] the "waywardens" or surveyors of highways,
the "haywards" or fence-viewers, the "common drivers," the collectors
of taxes, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century overseers of
the poor were added. There were also churchwardens, usually two for
each, parish. Their duties were primarily to take care of the church
property, assess the rates, and call the vestry-meetings. They also
acted as overseers of the poor, and thus in several ways remind one of
the selectmen of New England. The parish officers were all elected by
the ratepayers assembled in vestry-meeting, except the common driver
and hayward, who were elected by the same ratepayers assembled in
court leet. Besides electing parish officers and granting the rates,
the vestry-meeting could enact by-laws; and all ratepayers had an
equal voice in its deliberations.

[Footnote 6: Of these two officers the vestry clerk is the counterpart
of the New England town-clerk.]

[Footnote 7: Originally a messenger or crier, the beadle came to
assume some of the functions of the tithing-man or petty constable,
such as keeping order in church, punishing petty offenders, waiting on
the clergyman, etc. In New England towns there were formerly officers
called tithing-men, who kept order in church, arrested tipplers,
loafers, and Sabbath-breakers, etc.]


[Sidenote: The transition from England to New England.]
During the last two centuries the constitution of the English parish
has undergone some modifications which need not here concern us. The
Puritans who settled in New England had grown up under such parish
government as is here described, and they were used to hearing the
parish called, on some occasions and for some purposes, a township. If
we remember now that the earliest New England towns were founded
by church congregations, led by their pastors, we can see how town
government in New England originated. It was simply the English
parish government brought into a new country and adapted to the new
situation. Part of this new situation consisted in the fact that the
lords of the manor were left behind. There was no longer any occasion
to distinguish between the township as a manor and the township as a
parish; and so, as the three names had all lived on together, side by
side, in England, it was now the oldest and most generally descriptive
name, "township," that survived, and has come into use throughout a
great part of the United States. The townsfolk went on making by-laws,
voting supplies of public money, and electing their magistrates in
America, after the fashion with which they had for ages been familiar
in England. Some of their offices and customs were of hoary antiquity.
If age gives respectability, the office of constable may vie with that
of king; and if the annual town-meeting is usually held in the month
of March, it is because in days of old, long before Magna Charta was
thought of, the rules and regulations for the village husbandry were
discussed and adopted in time for the spring planting.

[Sidenote: Building up states.]
To complete our sketch of the origin of the New England town, one
point should here be briefly mentioned in anticipation of what will
have to be said hereafter; but it is a point of so much importance
that we need not mind a little repetition in stating it.


[Sidenote: Representation.]
We have seen what a great part taxation plays in the business of
government, and we shall presently have to treat of county, state, and
federal governments, all of them wider in their sphere than the town
government. In the course of history, as nations have gradually been
built up, these wider governments have been apt to absorb or supplant
and crush the narrower governments, such as the parish or township;
and this process has too often been destructive to political freedom.
Such a result is, of course, disastrous to everybody; and if it were
unavoidable, it would be better that great national governments need
never be formed. But it is not unavoidable. There is one way of
escaping it, and that is to give the little government of the town
some real share in making up the great government of the state. That
is not an easy thing to do, as is shown by the fact that most peoples
have failed in the attempt. The people who speak the English language
have been the most successful, and the device by which they have
overcome the difficulty is REPRESENTATION. The town sends to the wider
government a delegation of persons who can _represent_ the town
and its people. They can speak for the town, and have a voice in the
framing of laws and imposition of taxes by the wider government.

[Sidenote: Shire-motes.]
[Sidenote: Earl Simon's Parliament.]
In English townships there has been from time immemorial a system of
representation. Long before Alfred's time there were "shire-motes," or
what were afterwards called county meetings, and to these each town
sent its reeve and "four discreet men" as _representatives_. Thus
to a certain extent the wishes of the townsfolk could be brought to
bear upon county affairs. By and by this method was applied on a much
wider scale. It was applied to the whole kingdom, so that the people
of all its towns and parishes succeeded in securing a representation
of their interests in an elective national council or House of
Commons. This great work was accomplished in the thirteenth century by
Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and was completed by Edward
I. Simon's parliament, the first in which the Commons were fully
represented, was assembled in 1265; and the date of Edward's
parliament, which has been called the Model Parliament, was 1295.
These dates have as much interest for Americans as for Englishmen,
because they mark the first definite establishment of that grand
system of representative government which we are still carrying on
at our various state capitals and at Washington. For its humble
beginnings we have to look back to the "reeve and four" sent by the
ancient townships to the county meetings.

[Sidenote: Township as unit of representation.]
The English township or parish was thus at an early period the "unit
of representation" in the government of the county. It was also a
district for the assessment and collection of the national taxes; in
each parish the assessment was made by a board of assessors chosen by
popular vote. These essential points reappear in the early history of
New England. The township was not only a self-governing body, but
it was the "unit of representation" in the colonial legislature,
or "General Court;" and the assessment of taxes, whether for town
purposes or for state purposes, was made by assessors elected by the
townsfolk. In its beginnings and fundamentals our political liberty
did not originate upon American soil, but was brought hither by
our forefathers the first settlers. They brought their political
institutions with them as naturally as they brought their language and
their social customs.

[Sidenote: The Russian village community; not represented in the
national government.]
Observe now that the township is to be regarded in two lights. It must
be considered not only in itself, but as part of a greater whole.
We began by describing it as a self-governing body, but in order to
complete our sketch we were obliged to speak of it as a body which
has a share in the government of the state and the nation. The latter
aspect is as important as the former. If the people of a town had only
the power of managing their local affairs, without the power of taking
part in the management of national affairs, their political freedom
would be far from complete. In Russia, for example, the larger part of
the vast population is resident in village communities which have to a
considerable extent the power of managing their local affairs. Such
a village community is called a _mir_, and like the English
township it is lineally descended from the stationary clan. The people
of the Russian _mir_ hold meetings in which they elect sundry
local officers, distribute the burden of local taxation, make
regulations concerning local husbandry and police, and transact other
business which need not here concern us. But they have no share in the
national government, and are obliged to obey laws which they have
no voice in making, and pay taxes assessed upon them without their
consent; and accordingly we say with truth that the Russian people do
not possess political freedom. One reason for this has doubtless
been that in times past the Russian territory was the great frontier
battle-ground between civilized Europe and the wild hordes of western
Asia, and the people who lived for ages on that turbulent frontier
were subjected to altogether too much conquest. They have tasted too
little of civil government and too much of military government,--a
pennyworth of wholesome bread to an intolerable deal of sack. The
early English, in their snug little corner of the world, belted by
salt sea, were able to develop their civil government with less
destructive interference. They made a sound and healthful beginning
when they made the township the "unit of representation" for the
county. Then the township, besides managing its own affairs, began to
take part in the management of wider affairs.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.


SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS AND DIRECTIONS.

1. Obtain the following documents:--

a. A town warrant.
b. A town report.
c. A tax bill, a permit, a certificate, or any town paper that
has or may have an official signature.
d. A report of the school committee.

If you live in a city, send to the clerk of a neighbouring town for a
warrant, inclosing a stamp for the reply. City documents will answer
most of the purposes of this exercise.