ROADS AND ROAD-MAKING. 555 



Now, if this mode of management affected only the town which adopted and persisted 

 in it, the evil would be of comparatively small consequence; but the main roads through a 

 town are often great thoroughfares between other important points, so that the whole com 

 munity suffers, to a greater or less extent, for the want of an efficient head to do the thinking 

 and the planning for the roads in such a town. 



The worst feature of the whole is, that no amount of ability or faithfulness displayed in 

 the performance of the duties of a surveyor will insure his continuance in office over one 

 year. If he does his duty by making a good road, he will be quite sure to lose the position. 

 All his experience, study, and observation will be lost to the public when another takes his 

 turn to undo what the former has done, and begins his apprenticeship at the expense of the 

 public, and of the condition of the road itself. In other occupations, an apprenticeship, often 

 of some years, used to be thought requisite to authorize a man to set up business; but a sur 

 veyor, the moment he is chosen, is presumed to be fit to direct works which often require 

 much scientific attainment, great skill, and intelligence. 



Besides, the hasty appointment of surveyors, and the assignment of districts to each, 

 with a specific amount of money to spend, leads to another kind of wastefulness. Some dis 

 tricts may have money to spare from the want of any knowledge or inclination to put it into 

 permanent improvements, while others have too little. In one district, teams will often be 

 standing idle with a surplus of men, while, perhaps, in another there is a want of both. 

 How can you expect any harmony of action with twenty or thirty men to do the work of 

 one first-class, competent superintendent ? 



And again, that part of the present plan recognized by the law by which the taxes are 

 or may be worked out, is altogether out of date. It is unsound in principle, as Gillespie says, 

 wasteful in practice, and altogether unsatisfactory in its results; a remnant of the times of 

 feudal vassalage, when the tenure of land required the farmer to make the roads passable for 

 the troops of the lord of the manor. And how absurd it appears, on a moment s reflection. 

 Men who may be skillful enough in their own occupations are taken for the performance of 

 work of which oftentimes they know absolutely nothing. A good plowman is not necessarily 

 a good watchmaker, and yet to build a good road requires more thought, more skill, more 

 scientific knowledge than to make a good watch, for the latter is an operation chiefly mechan 

 ical, while the former often demands the highest engineering attainment, and to spend money 

 with the greatest degree of economy, even in repairing a common road, requires much judg 

 ment, knowledge of materials, and practical experience in using and applying them. And 

 yet the law presumes that every man is competent to build a road I 



Is it any wonder that there is a universal complaint of its utter inefficiency ? Is it any 

 wonder that we have to wade through mud and mire in the spring and through dust in the 

 summer, stumbling over rocks, with the endless wear and tear of carriages, horses and teams, 

 and that we suffer the discomforts and annoyances which traveling over such roads implies ? 

 These are only a few of the defects of the system, yet many others might be enumerated in 

 this connection. 



Now, how shall they be remedied or removed ? It would seem that the change ought 

 to be radical, that the medicine could hardly be too strong to meet so serious a case of disease; 

 but lest the general sentiment of the community should not be found educated up to such a 

 treatment, we will allude to one, or two milder, half-way measures at first, which would clearly 

 be an improvement upon the present state of things, and then say what seems to us to be 

 required to effect a complete change in the present system. 



At first the law might require that the whole supervision of roads should be vested in the 

 board of selectmen, who should be obliged to appoint a thoroughly competent superintendent, 

 who should hold his office for a term of years, not less than three, and perhaps not more thau 

 five, subject to removal only for good cause shown, to whom should be committed the entire 



