terprising
young men to "go West." Many a tract thus bought for fifty dollars has
turned out to be a soil upon which princely fortunes have grown. A
tract of forty acres represents to-day in Chicago or Minneapolis an
amount of wealth difficult for the imagination to grasp.

[Sidenote: The reservation for public schools.]
[Sidenote: In this reservation there were the germs of township
government.]
But in each of these townships there was at least one section which
was set apart for a special purpose. This was usually the sixteenth
section, nearly in the centre of the township; and sometimes the
thirty-sixth section, in the southeast corner, was also reserved.
These reservations were for the support of public schools. Whatever
money was earned, by selling the land or otherwise, in these sections,
was to be devoted to school purposes. This was a most remarkable
provision. No other nation has ever made a gift for schools on so
magnificent a scale. We have good reason for taking pride in such a
liberal provision. But we ought not to forget that all national
gifts really involve taxation, and this is no exception to the rule,
although in this case it is not a taking of money, but a keeping of it
back. The national government says to the local government, whatever
revenues may come from that section of 640 acres, be they great or
small, be it a spot in a rural grazing district, or a spot in some
crowded city, are not to go into the pockets of individual men and
women, but are to be reserved for public purposes. This is a case of
disguised taxation, and may serve to remind us of what was said some
time ago, that a government _cannot_ give anything without in one
way or another depriving individuals of its equivalent. 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