The desirable citizen; elementary lessons in law, government and citizenship

Front matter

DESIRABLE CITIZEN

GREENWOOD

Copyright^

Contents

PAGE

Introduction 11

I. Kinds of Government 15

Chapter I Kinds Of Governments

Governments have been classified by writers from the earliest times, according to where the source of power resides. Some nations not far advanced in civilization have an absolute monarch at the head of affairs. Such a government is a despotism ; others again, are governed by a king, queen, emperor, or czar, such governments being called a monarchy, while others, like the United States, France, Switzerland and Mexico, have a chief executive known as the president, and are classed as Republics. But it must not be inferred that because people live in a Republic that, by virtue of this fact, they always are a freer people than those living under a constitutional monarchy.

In Republics the supreme source of power is vested in the people collectively, and every citizen who votes has a voice in selecting candidates for office, and in this act he exercises the attributes of a sovereign, which is one of the highest privileges of citizenship.

THE FAMILY

Obviously the first and simplest form of government is that of the Family. The word is from the Latin, familia, which includes the household, not excepting the servants. In its modern comprehensive use it is applied to all the persons living together in one house and under the same head or management ; but in its more limited sense, it signifies the father, the mother and the children. No specific number of persons is required to constitute a family, or that they should eat at the house, or that they be employed in or about the house. The husband is legally regarded as the head of the family, and is the person who controls, supervises, or manages the affairs of the house.

Parents are in duty bound to govern their children. All rational beings are subject to governmental control, and it is in the home that the child should first learn those habits of obedience which are subsequently to be exercised with reference to the community and to the nation. The parents may give their child all the advantages that wealth, learning, travel, and good society can bestow, but if he has not been taught obedience and self-control, they will probably live to see their fondest hopes blasted and their child become a reproach and a shame to their name. But parental government should be reasonable and intelligently administered. It should never be one of blind impulse or furious passion, but it should be even, mild, and firm. It should always take into consideration the welfare of the child in general rather than his whims and caprice. When prohibition is necessary it should prohibit, and grant indulgence only when it is safe. To govern well, the peculiarities of the child should be considered and the hidden springs of his nature touched so as to secure responsive action that terminates in prompt and cheerful obedience.

Home government ought to be steady and uniform. The parent who can not govern himself will fail in parental control. Severity one day and undue laxity the next, punishing and caressing alternately, fail to secure either respect or obedience. Filial obedience should be secured and maintained.

The family is an institution peculiar, distinct, and complete within itself, having its own laws, rules, regulations, rights, duties and responsibilities. It is peculiarly a fitting station for other objects and other institutions to which

KINDS OF GOVERNMENT 17

it is very closely connected. One of the chief ends for which it exists in a civilized community is the training and preparation for the duties that the child will eventually perform in respect to himself, to society, to the state and to the Creator. As has been previously stated, duties are reciprocal. The parent is responsible for the maintenance and education of his child, and later the child owes duties to its parents. It is the plain duty of the parent to provide for the physical wants of his offspring and to educate them, child is helpless, inexperienced, and needs the care and protection of its parents. Deprived of this care and protection of its parents. Deprived of this care and protectection it must inevitably perish, unless the law interferes and appoints a guardian, or some kind person comes in and adopts it. Xo outsider naturally can discharge this trust with the same parental feelings as the father and mother ought to have for their own children, and this trust ought not to pass over to another except in case of death, or disability to discharge this sacred duty. The manner in which this duty should be performed depends upon the cirsumstances and condition in life of the parents during the minority of the child. In the eye of the law the parent has done his duty when he has made the best possible provision for his child that his ability and circumstances will permit. It is his duty to instill into the mind of his offspring such simple habits of frugality, industry, honesty, self-reliance, truthfulness, and purity of mind and body as will cause the child to become an honor to his parents and a useful, independent, self-supporting citizen.

Some writers have compared the family circle to a miniature state, and from this comparison it has been argued that the state expects the family to do its duty. Governments have generally entrusted to parents the administration of their home affairs and are very reluctant to interfere with home rule, except in cases of gross abuse or neglect of parents to provide for the child's nurture and training. Parents are supposed to have some knowledge of the laws of nature and of the dangers to which a child may be exposed, and of which the child may be profoundly ignorant, owing to its limited experience. The parents should teach the child lessons that may be learned through experience, but are not transmitted from parent to child. The parents must watch over the health of the child, and guard it from disease and moral contamination. His sleep, games, diet, clothing, and hours of study must all be supervised, in order that his body and mind may develop symmetrically and harmoniously. Parental government is for the benefit of the child, — not for the gain of the parent. Whatever the parent does for the child ought to be done wisely and well, and it should be done at the right time and in the right way. Parents ought to teach their children to know the right and to cheerfully do the right. The authority exercised by the parent should vary, owing to the needs and the age of the child. What would be suitable for a child of six or ten, might be entirely wrong for one of fifteen or eighteen. As independent thought and personal responsibility are involved, the parental authority should be relaxed to fit the conditions as the child grows in knowledge and wisdom. The object is to fit the child for selfgovernment under law, and this aim should be set before the child as it approaches maturity. It is in the home, too, that the parents take cognizance of the caprice of the child and endeavor to fashion its actions in accordance with the law of the state. Where parental government is not enforced, or is lax, or uneven, and the lessons of obedience and self-control are not learned, submission to legally constituted authority is spurned, and the child goes forth

KINDS OF GOVERNMENT into society as an unregulated, erratic citizen, a menace to the state and an enemy to himself.

FIVE IMPORTANT INSTITUTIONS

There are five distinct institutions that lie at the foundation of the civilization we have reached, namely, the home, the church, the school, the society in which one lives, and the state or nation.

The school is an institution, organized and maintained at public expense, for the protection of the citizens of the state and to perpetuate the state and its institutions. The public school is a gradual development from the original or parish school. The modern state undertook the education of its youth because the church and private benefactions could not educate all the children and fit them for intelligent citizenship. Schools are organized on a broader base than is the home and for more specific purposes. School government differs in many respects from home government, and yet they have many features in common, as a little reflection will show.

In the states and territories of our country each state and territory enacts its own school laws through its legislature. Of course where there is not a law-making power, the government (as with the Indian tribes and in Alaska), administers the educational affairs. But in general there is no national system of education in the United States. By statute or special act of the legislature, each state administers its local school affairs through local boards or school committees, whose duties are defined by law. These local boards, by the authority invested in them, make all needful rules and regulations governing their school district. They are usually elected by the people in the district to carry forward the school interests of their community. In a sense, they constitute a legislative body, prescribing what

20 THE DESIBABLE CITIZEN

is to be done and prohibiting what ought not to be done. The duties of boards of education in cities, towns and villages, can be learned by an examination of the general school laws, special acts and charters, under which each board exercises its functions.

The Teacher. The teacher occupies a unique position as the preserver of the conduct of each pupil on his way to or from the school, and while in the school house or on or about the school premises. The courts have usually held that the teacher's authority extends over the pupil from the time he leaves home till he returns home. On his way to or from school he is as much under the teacher's authority as if he were in the school house during school hours. The teacher is regarded as being in the place of the parent while the pupil is absent from the parental roof. In the state of Massachusetts one of the courts held that the bad conduct of two pupils on Saturday, when the school was not in session, was detrimental to the state and that the teacher was justified in whipping the boys on the following Monday.

School Government. School government may be defined in its practical application, as the art of so directing the affairs of a school as to maintain a systematic method of instruction, and to induce orderly conduct and efficiency in studies, and to lead the pupils into habits of self-control and self-directed work. It is the wise adjustment of the learner to the educational forces and instrumentalities which act upon him and to which he reacts in response. The chief function of the teacher is to stimulate the pupils to self -exertion, self-assertion, under law, and into habits of self-knowledge and self-confidence. All true government comes from within. It is not the overpowering pressure from an external force organized as the state that compels obedience, but the feeling within that prompts to right

KINDS OF GOVEENMENT 21

action. School government, as a formative power, operates under the most favorable conditions when the home and school authorities work together. If the home influences are exerted against the teacher, and the Board of Education, the school is helpless to aid the child. The home is the child's social center during the infantile period, but the school widens the child's experience when he begins to form associations beyond the family circle. In the school he is ushered into another world in which he is only one actor among others. Others have claims equal to his own, and he soon learns, or ought to learn, to depend on himself if he takes equal rank with others in their studies and games. The school should level artificial distinctions by teaching each one the nobility of honest effort. It is in the school that the child as a participator comes in contact w4th the state as an institution which he yet but dimly realizes, even when his attention is called to the fact. He hears something about the teacher's authority, and less of the power of the board.

The Child's View Enlarges. To clear the learner's ideas, the teacher and parents, either or both, may drop a sentence every now and then, telling how schools are organized in a state, sites purchased, houses built and furnished, books and apparatus supplied, teachers employed, fuel and water supplied, taxes levied and collected each year, and state, county and township funds apportioned, in order to conduct a school. The matter is brought directly home to the pupil when he learns that his parents have to pay their part of the school tax for his education, and that he has as much right as any other child in the state to attend the public school. Here, too, he may learn the lesson that a government founded on majority action must depend upon an intelligent and virtuous citizenship, and that he, in tim*e, will become one of the independent political units. Thus, as he grows in knowledge, the child's horizon enlarges from that of the home, to the school, the township, county, state and nation.

The child in attendance at school is expected to obey all needful rules and regulations, to prepare his lessons promptly and neatly as his teacher may direct, and to be pure and chaste in speech and conduct.; to be polite and kind to his teacher, to the pupils attending school, and to persons that he meets in going to or in returning from school. It is incumbent on the teacher to teach morality in school as much as it is to teach language, geography or arithmetic, and it is probably best taught by example and incidentally. Conduct has reference to behavior in general as opposed to misbehavior. Of recent years business men generally ask, when a boy or a young man applies for a position, for testimonials as to his class-standing and behavior in school. Particularly is this true in towns and cities. Good conduct in school may be very far-reaching in one's life work. Government is designed to teach and consolidate in one's character those habits of industry, honesty, truthfulness, neatness, correctness, and faithfulness, that set the upright and reliable man off from the untrustworthy one. The pupil should keep in mind that the government of a school is a part of the school work, a part of the school itself. The school is an institution as much so as the state, though in a modified form, and inasmuch as the pupil must live an institutional life, he is, through the medium of the school, fitting himself to become a participator in that fuller sphere of activity which is opening for him. It is the feeling of responsibility that makes the pupil consider his own actions, and this is the foundation of self-control.

KINDS OF GOVERNMENT 23

What is family government, and what does it include? What is the difference between a child and the hired man or woman? How should they be treated? Give three reasons why parents are bound to govern their children. What are habits? What is the difference between obedience and self-control? How would you define li Blind Impulse M ? Give two reasons why home government should be steady and uniform. Does your mind work evenly or in a jerky manner? How should it work? Should a child ever be taken away from its parents? Give three reasons for the separation. By what signs would you say that a boy or girl should govern himself or herself? What do you understand by the expression "he has the big head"? How distinguish between a despotism, a monarchy, a limited monarchy, a republic, anarchy? Where does the supreme power in our country reside? What is the difference between a candidate and an officer? Give the derivation of the words " heredity " and " environment. ' ?

How are public schools maintained? If the board of education does not make the rules of the school, who should make them? Give two reasons for your answer. If two boys engage in a fight at school, and a jury of six pupils, after hearing all the evidence, decides both ought to be whipped, say, six good strokes each by the principal, ought the parents of the disobedient boys object to the punishment? Why? When a mother comes to the school arid tells the teacher that "Johnie" is a very peculiar boy, and it will not do for the teacher or pupils to cross him, what do you think is the matter with Johnie? If you were his teacher or his mother, what would you do to Johnie? If a schoolhouse burns, how is a new one built, and how is it paid for? Has a boy a right to break in a schoolhouse door to get his books that are left in his desk? How large a site should a country district school have? How should the grounds be taken care of? What part would you plant in trees? in flowers? in grain and grasses? How much would you leave for playgrounds for the girls and the boys? What books ought to be in the school library?

Chapter II A Study Op The Township

The pupil in school has learned from hearing his parents and neighbors talk, if not otherwise, that they are interested in school, town, tow r nship, county, state and national affairs. He hears men and measures discussed, policies recommended, and some condemned. About him, if he lives in the country, he sees some officials, such as members of the board of education, constables, justices of the peace, often called "Esquires," township trustees, and occasionally some of the higher county officials. During the excitement of political campaigns, he hears very much said about the election of congressmen, candidates for governor, and for president of the United States. But he comes in contact most directly with the man who delivers the mail, and he learns not to meddle with the mail boxes. Should he live in a town or city, the officials that he knows most about are policemen, and these are the ones that he usually watches most closely whenever he is engaged in mischief. He soon recognizes some men as public officials and others that are called citizens, and he associates authority with those that stand for the power and dignity of the state.

In the school he learned the lesson of submission, and that he had to adjust himself to a group of others who were also attending school. This process of adjustment is not completed in school, because life is a continual adjustment to new conditions daily. An orderly world confronts him

A STUDY OF THE TOWNSHIP 25

on every side, in which people go about their business with regularity. The power of self-regulation that he learned and observed in school is carried over into that larger sphere in which the community lives and works. This continual adjustment fits him for citizenship.

Units — A Sketch. Institutions begin to find a place in his- thinking : the school district is a unit of that larger district, the township, which may contain several school districts, and the township is a unit of a larger type, several of which constitute the county, and again the county is a type of another set of units forming the state. In the county may be cities, towns and villages, each governed by laws which may agree in some respects and differ in others. At first it is rather confusing for a beginner to understand how the management of these different units can be carried on and not interfere with one another. He becomes aware that he lives in a world of reality, in which manners and customs are pretty well fixed, and they appear to have been in their present condition for a long time. It is the object of the present work to explain how some of these things have come to be as they are. Just here let us remember that all the governments of the earth have some plan of administration to reach all the people through its officials who keep in operation the business of the nation, state, county, school district, and municipality, if there be one. Civilized states or nations have in operation the best and most effective agencies for preserving order, protecting persons and property, levying and collecting taxes and disbursing the same, consistent with the greatest amount of liberty under law for each individual citizen. In ancient times the state was not organized and its affairs administered as is done at the present. Only a few hundred years ago in Europe there were no states as there are to-day.

The people paid the taxes assessed, and the state troubled itself little beyond that.

SKETCH OF THE TOWNSHIP

Each nation of Europe generally divided its territory into small political divisions corresponding to the Township in the United States. If one takes a good map of one of the states of the United States, he will see that it is divided into counties, except in Louisiana, where these subdivisions are called parishes. The counties are divided into smaller subdivisions called Townships, or Towns. It is interesting to learn how we came to have the words "Town" and "Township," since these are undoubtedly the oldest forms of government under which we live. "Town" is from the Anglo-Saxon "tun," or "toon," an inclosure, a garden inclosed by a hedge, or a collection of houses inclosed by a wall. "Township" is derived from "tunscipe," signifying the village and the country surrounding the village or town. In New England the first local civil governments were the towns, antedating the counties, and from which the counties were formed ; but in the newer states, when an organic law is first enacted for the government of the whole territory, and a constitution is framed and legally adopted, the counties precede the organization of the townships. The word township in the United States is used in two different ways, in one as a political unit, and in the other it has reference to the method of dividing the public lands under the rectangular system of surveying, established by the government in 1796, dividing the territory surveyed into townships six miles square, and these into sections one mile square.

In New England and in New York, towns are the political units of territory into which each state is divided, and correspond politically to the parishes and hundreds in Eng-

A STUDY OF THE TOWNSHIP o;

land, but are invested with greater local powers of selfgovernment. In Delaware the counties are divided into hundreds. In some of the states these small units are called the Election Precincts; in Georgia, the Militia District; in Louisiana, the Police Jury Ward; in Maryland and Wyoming, the Election District ; in Tennessee, the Civil District: in Texas, the Justice's Precinct: and in Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa. Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri. Montana. Xew Jersey, the Carolinas, Ohio. Pennsylvania. Nebraska, and the Dakotas. they are called the Township.

Local Affairs of the Township

Under our form of Government each state manages its local affairs in its own way, without interference from the general government. There is no uniformity in the judicial system of the different states of the United States. Each state, through its legislature, enacts its own laws pertaining to schools, the organization of school districts, the names and the size of the counties, but the people of each county, through their county judges, township trustees, or other officials, divide the counties into municipal townships, and at special or general elections elect such township and county officials as are designated by law to conduct the business of the township or county. These officers are usually justices of the peace, constables, assessors, collectors of taxes, road overseers, township clerks, and such other officers as the statutes prescribe. In theory, government is designed to protect the person and property of everyone, and those small civil divisions are intended to bring justice within easy reach of the humblest citizen, as well as of the most influential. Through the instrumentality of the township justice of the peace and the constable, both being civil officers, criminals can be the more readily apprehended and tried, at least so far as to establish the fact of their probable guilt or innocence; also civil suits in which the value does not exceed a certain amount, may be tried in Justices' Courts, and these petty courts, which are not usually courts of record, relieve the higher courts of many trivial cases that would otherwise come before them. Usually each township has one or more voting places in it, most frequently at the school house or in some building in the village or town, if there be one in the township.

The duties of the township officers are executive and judicial. School boards, however, can make all needful rules and regulations for the government of the pupils who attend school, and in a sense they legislate. But the general duties otherwise performed are executive and judicial, as has been stated.

The Citizens of the Township

The citizens are the persons living in the township, and it includes all of them. They constitute the township. After the township is legally organized they elect the officers, yet in some of the states, some of the officers are appointed by the county court, particularly road overseers, and in case of a vacancy in other offices, these are filled in like manner till the next general election. All matters of detail are provided for by statute in each state. Each citizen is interested in the selection of good local officers, in feeling that his person and property are secure, and that he is really sure of enjoying the fruits of his own labors, and when he has been away from home and returns that his family and his effects shall be in as good a condition as when he left them. Where a breach of the peace is committed, every citizen feels that the dignity of the community has been outraged, and that he

A STUDY OF THE TOWNSHIP 29

is interested in having the offender brought to a speedy trial. Lawlessness will bring any community into bad repute, and the self-respecting citizens will use their influence severally and collectively to keep the reputation of their community above reproach.

Each state prescribes the qualification of voters, and the right to vote carries with it the corresponding duty to vote; that is, to participate in the affairs of the state and of the nation. The privilege of voting is conferred as a method of safety to the individual and the nation. Of late years much complaint has arisen among certain classes of citizens that a large number of good citizens abstain from taking any part in the selection of candidates for the various offices, and from voting at the elections, and they believe that some kind of a penalty should be imposed on such citizens for their non-participation in public affairs. To vote is the expression of the will of the voter, whether the act is by ballot or by the voice. A voter is an elector who votes — an elector in the exercise of this privilege. The qualifications for voting are not uniform in all the states, but they are similar and are usually the following: Citizenship by birth or naturalization, residence in the state and voting precinct* for a given period, registration, twenty-one years of age. freedom from infamy, etc. Some states have passed laws allowing women to vote, and there appears to be a growing sentiment in this direction in many states.

Officers of the Township and Their Duties

It is necessary to give a fuller account of the Township Officers and their duties than was sketched in the preceding chapter. In the rural communities these officials come more closely in contact with the people than any other class of county officials. The municipal township is not necessarily of the same area as the congressional township, a subdivision six miles square established by the government surveyors. The townships of a county are given names. Township organization offers the simplest method of levying, collecting, and disbursing local taxes.

These officials are justices of the peace, constables, trustees, treasurer, assessor, clerk, road-overseer, and overseer of the poor. Some of the states unite two of these offices into one, as the township clerk or the trustee may discharge the duty also of looking after the poor. These officers enumerated are necessary under the regularly organized township organization, but some of the states not having such an organization, have only justices of the peace and constables as township officers. All these officers are elected by the voters of the township at a general election held for that purpose. Usually they are elected for one year, but some of the officers, such as justices of the peace and constables, may be elected for two years, or in certain cases, for four years. In a township most frequently there are two justices of the peace, and sometimes more, owing to the size and population of the township.

Justices of the Peace. The office of Justice of the Peace is an inheritance from our English ancestors. It is an honorable and responsible office. Some of our very best men have acted in that capacity. Thomas Jefferson, after having served as president of the United States, was elected justice of the peace by his fellow citizens of Monticello, Virginia. This office he filled with dignity and impartiality. The citizens in selecting candidates for justices of the peace choose men of integrity and intelligence. He is the judicial officer of the township, and his court is not regarded as a court of record, yet he keeps