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 townships and counties with corresponding divisions in Massachusetts and Virginia. 7. Contrast them in convenience and in picturesqueness. 8. What had the convenience of the government system to do with the settlement of the West? 9. What were the divisions of the township, and what disposition was made of them? 10. What important reservations were made in the townships? 11. Show how these reservations involved a kind of taxation. 12. What profound influence has the reservation for schools exerted upon local government? 13. Why did the county system prevail at first? Section 3. _The Representative Township-County System in the West_.