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. 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. There is much in a name. It was still more important that
these townships were only six miles square; for that made it sure
that, in due course of time, when population should have become dense
enough, they would be convenient areas for establishing township
government.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. What feature is conspicuous in the westward movement of population
in the United States?

2. What looseness characterized early surveys in Kentucky?

3. What led to the passage of the land ordinance of 1785?

4. Give the leading features of the government survey of western
lands:--_a_. The principal meridians.
b. The range lines,
c. The base lines.
d. The township lines.

5. Illustrate the application of the system in the case of a town.

6. Contrast in shape western