No man can sit
on a camp-stool and by any amount of tugging at that camp-stool lift
himself over a fence. Whatever is given comes from somewhere,
and whatever is given by governments comes from the people. This
reservation of one square mile in every township for purposes of
education has already most profoundly influenced the development of
local government in our western states, and in the near future its
effects are likely to become still deeper and wider. To mark out a
township on the map may mean very little, but when once you create in
that township some institution that needs to be cared for, you have
made a long stride toward inaugurating township government. When
a state, as for instance Illinois, grows up after the method just
described, what can be more natural than for it to make the township a
body corporate for school purposes, and to authorize its inhabitants
to elect school officers and tax themselves, so far as may be
necessary, for the support of the schools? But the school-house,
in the centre of the township, is soon found to be useful for many
purposes. It is convenient to go there to vote for state officers or
for congressmen and president, and so the school township becomes an
election district.
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