[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 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.