Having once established such a centre, it is almost
inevitable that it should sooner or later be made to serve sundry
other purposes, and become an area for the election of constables,
justices of the peace, highway surveyors, and overseers of the poor.
In this way a vigorous township government tends to grow up about the
school-house as a nucleus, somewhat as in early New England it grew up
about the church.
[Sidenote: At first the county system prevailed.]
This tendency may be observed in almost all the western states and
territories, even to the Pacific coast. When the western country was
first settled, representative county government prevailed almost
everywhere. This was partly because the earliest settlers of the West
came in much greater numbers from the middle and southern states than
from New England. It was also partly because, so long as the country
was thinly settled, the number of people in a township was very small,
and it was not easy to have a government smaller than that of the
county. It was something, however, that the little squares on the
map, by grouping which the counties were made, were already called
townships.
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