of compulsory
schooling varies from the classic twelve weeks in the winter, as in
old New England, to substantially the full academic year. Textile and
other manual training schools exist in some States, but have generally
evoked the opposition of organized labor, and are more usually
created by private endowment. The tendency of civil service reform
legislation, furthermore, has been to require a certain minimum of
education, though it may be feared that the forecast of De Tocqueville
remains justified; our national educational weakness is our failure to
provide for a "serious higher instruction."

The great question of taxation we may only mention here by way of
exclusion. It is naturally a matter for treatment by itself. The
reader will remember (see chapter VII) that nearly all the States have
now inheritance taxes besides direct property taxes, and many of them
have income taxes and, in the South particularly, license taxes, or
taxes upon trades or callings. They all tax corporations, nearly
always by an excise tax on the franchise or stock, distinct from the
property tax or the tax upon earnings. In both corporation taxes and
inheritance taxes they are likely to find themselves in conflict with
the Federal government, or at least to have duplicate systems taxing
the same subjects, as, indeed, already considerable injustice is
caused by inheritance taxes imposed in full in each State upon the
stock of corporations lying in more than one State. In such cases the
tax should, of course, be proportionate.

The principle of graded taxation in the matter of incomes and
succession taxes has been very generally adopted, not as yet in any
direct property tax, except that a small amount of property, one
hundred dollars or five hundred dollars, is usually exempt.

The principle of imposing taxation not for revenue, but for some
ulterior or ethical purpose, such as the destruction of swollen
fortunes, is liable to constitutional objection in this country,
though the courts may not look behind the tax to the motive, unless
the latter is expressed upon the face. For this reason, the present
corporation tax, on its surface, is imposed solely for the purpose of
raising revenue, though in debate in Congress it was advocated
mainly for the object of bringing large corporations under Federal
examination and control.

The last matter relating to taxation, that of bounties, we have
discussed in chapter VII also. State aid bonds, o