Each county is subdivided into districts, of no uniform shape or size, though usually four, five, or six miles long and broad. By an impropriety, too fast rooted ever to be eradicated, these are called _towns_; which word is never understood here in its English sense, as opposed to _country_, and meaning an assemblage of houses, but always as signifying one of the _districts_ I have mentioned. Protesting against its lawfulness, I shall yet use it now in the New England sense. Each town is a sort of republic. Its people, in full town meeting, elect a representative, or representatives, in the legislature, _selectmen_, (nearly equivalent to common-council-men) assessor, and collector; decide how the poor shall be kept, schools organized, or roads altered or repaired, and what amount shall be raised by taxes for these and other purposes. A town meeting is held statedly, in the spring, for elections; and two or three others, whenever ten voters request it of the selectmen, in writing. At deliberative meetings, a chairman (here called "Moderator,") is chosen by the assembly; great decorum prevails, and earnest debates arise. The town, as a corporate person, is liable for any damage sustained through neglect to keep a road in repair; and damages have frequently been recovered. It is obliged by law, to support schools enough to educate all its children in the manner prescribed. It is bound to maintain its own poor. And the near interest, the direct agency which every citizen has in the performance of these duties, cause them to be attended to with an exactness and an efficacy which a government less _local_, never would attain. This is the very system which it was the leading wish of Mr. Jefferson's life to see established in Virginia.[1] No one can see its admirable effects without owning that wish to have been one of the wisest which his wise and patriotic mind ever cherished. Such an organization is not only a nursery of statesmen,--it diffuses among the multitude habits of reflection and of action about public affairs,--makes them feel often and sensibly, the dignity of self-government,--and fits them better and better for the exalted task. It is, morally, what a _well disciplined_ militia would be physically. Not the wretched militia that, by our own disgraceful neglect, has now become our own scorn, but that which our forefathers recommended to us as a main "bulwark of our liberties," and "the best defence of a free state." [Footnote 1: See his letters to Kercheval, in 1816.]