6o8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to make tliein public. Tlie sphere for disagreement has, however, 

 within recent years greatly narrowed. One of the most clear and 

 comprehensive of illustrations on this topic, given by the Supreme 

 Court of Michigan (People vs. Township, 20 Michigan, 452), 

 through Justice Thomas M. Cooley, was as follows : 



In respect to " certain things of absolute necessity to civilized society," 

 the State is precluded either by express constitutional provisions or by neces- 

 sary implications, from providing for at all, and which are thus left v^holly 

 to the fostering care of private enterprise and private liberality. We con- 

 cede, for instance, that religion is essential, and that without it we should 

 degenerate to barbarism and brutality; yet we prohibit the State from bur 

 dening the citizen with its support, and we content ourselves with recog- 

 nizing and protecting its observance on similar grounds. Certain profes- 

 sions and occupations in life are also essential, but we have no authority to 

 employ the public money to induce persons to enter them. The necessity 

 may be pressing and to supply it may be in a certain sense to accomplish 

 a public purpose, but it is not a purpose for which the power of taxation 

 may be employed. The public necessity for an educated, skillful physician 

 in some particular locality may be great and pressing, yet, if the people 

 should be taxed to hire one to locate there, the common voice would ex- 

 claim that the public moneys were being devoted to a i^rivate purpose. 

 The opening of a new street in a city or village may be of trifling impor- 

 tance as compared with the location within it of some new business or 

 manufacture ; but while the right to pay out the public funds for the one 

 would be unquestionable, the other by common consent is classified as a 

 private interest which the public can aid as individuals, if they see fit, 

 while they are not permitted to employ the machinery of government to 

 that end. Indeed, the opening of a new street in the outskirts of a city is 

 generally very much more a matter of private interest than of public con- 

 cern ; yet, even in a case where the public authorities did not regard the 

 street as of sufficient importance to induce their taking the necessary action 

 to secure it, it would not be doubted that the moment they should consent 

 to so accept it as a gift, the street would at once become a public object and 

 purpose upon which the public funds might be expended with no more re 

 straints upon the action of the authorities in that particular thau if it were 

 the most prominent and essential thoroughfare in the city. 



By common consent, also, a large portion of the most urgent needs of 

 society are relegated exclusively to the law of demand and supply. It is 

 tliis in its natural operation and without the interference of the Govern- 

 ment that gives us the proper proportion to tillers of the soil, artisans, 

 manufacturers, merchants, and professional men, and that determines when 

 and where they shall give to society the benefit of their particular services. 

 However great the need in the direction of any particular calling, the in- 

 terference of Government is not tolerated, because, though it might be sup 

 plying a public want, it is considered as invading the domain that belongs 

 exclusively to private inclination and enterprise. V/e perceive, therefore, 

 that the term '^^ public jJurj^ose,''^ as employed to denote the objects for which 

 taxes may be levied, has no relation to the urgency of the public need or to 

 the extent of the public benefit which is to follow. It is, on the other 

 hand, merely a term of classification to distiyxguish the objects for which, 



