“FREE BURGHS” IX THE EXITED STATES 
121 
stitiiting a monograph in itself, and yet the existence of cities 
independent of county control and of county taxes is denied in 
certain histories and works on civil government used in high 
schools, colleges, and universities. 
In many states the administration of the public schools is 
largely through municipalities charged with that work and super- 
imposed upon areas occupied by other municipalities charged 
with other interests. There is a very general tendency to charter 
school districts independent of the town in the north or of the 
county at the south. In some states this method of enabling a 
community to do what the larger unit of which it has been part 
is not ready to do bids fair to increase. This form of legislation 
is more common in the west and south than in the northeast. 
The forms which these educational municipalities assume are 
numerous, and the complications produced are often intricate. 
I'he complications are probably most intricate in those states 
formed of the public domain which have township organization, 
a modified form of the town government of New England. It 
will be most convenient to limit illustration to the organizations 
which possess taxing powers, disregarding subdivisions made 
simply for details of administration of a larger unit, like a vot- 
ing ])recinct as a division of a county without taxing power. 
National, state, and county taxes bear upon property-owners 
throughout the country, with the exception of county taxes in St. 
Louis, Baltimore, and cities of Virginia, as already explained. 
The national taxes are so largely collected on goods in bulk before 
their distribution that most consumers either d© not recognize 
them or persuade themselves that somebody else pays them. 
Below the county tax come the multitudes of variations. The 
congre.ssional township of the land survey, six miles square, in 
its simplest organization became a school township — a })lan en- 
couraged by the grant to the state of a section or of two sections 
or square miles in a townshi|) for school purposes. This school 
corporation is often subdivided into districts, each with its ta.x- 
ing })Ower. There are instances of superimposed incorporation 
of the town as a high-school district with taxing power, 'rnrn- 
ing from school administration, we find the same area made a 
civil townsliip, with care of roads, the poor, and other subjects. 
V'ithin this tf)wnship may grow up a compact body of po])ula- 
tion to be chartered as a village, a town, or a (dty, according to 
circumstances, with taxing ])ower for police and other purposes. 
In some instances, like Springfield, Illinois, these units will as- 
