FOREST TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES 285 
better unit for the administration of public health. The township 
has been used as an election district, as a magisterial district, and as a 
convenient area for recording vital statistics, but there is no need to 
retain the township for any of these purposes. 
In fully a third of the States the assessment of property is delegated 
to township officers. Experience has amply demonstrated that this 
is a thoroughly bad arrangement. Rarely do township assessors 
possess the qualifications to perform this important work with scien- 
tific precision. At best the system invites inequalities, since local 
assessors use different standards of value and are influenced more or 
less by local sympathies and prejudices. This necessitates elaborate 
schemes of equalization and review, with all their difficulties and 
dangers. It is pointed out in another section of this report that tax 
authorities are practically unanimous in their condemnation of town- 
ship assessment. They favor either a county assessment under close 
State supervision or an outright State assessment. The abolition of 
townships in the States where they still exist would remove an obstacle 
in the way of the attainment of one or the other of these methods. 
In several States, county and State, as well as township taxes, are 
collected by township collectors. The fact that in other States 
taxes are collected by a county official, frequently the county treas- 
urer, indicates that townships and township offices do not need to be 
retained for this purpose. In fact such studies as have been made 
indicate that the county is a more economical and efficient unit of 
collection than the township (126). 
Students of government are quite generally agreed that the perpetu- 
ation of township government anywhere outside of New England is 
unnecessary and undesirable. After an extensive study of rural tax 
problems, the Ohio joint legislative committee on economy and 
taxation recommended (151, p. 254) ‘‘the immediate abolition of the 
township and the transfer of its remaining functions to the county”’, 
and Compton (117, p. 24), after an investigation of conditions in 
New York, is just as emphatic in urging its abolition. 
The Wisconsin Tax Commission, in its 1924 report (58) says: 
The cost of maintaining a town with its roads and schools is often out of pro- 
portion to its assessed valuation, $30,000 being not uncommon. When this tax 
has to be raised from a valuation of $500,000 it means a 6 percent rate. The 
hardship of this State situation cannot be relieved so long as the practice continues 
of creating new towns and villages of small area and poor territory without 
reference to their resources for maintaining a separate government. 
SCHOOL DISTRICTS 
The typical unit of public-school administration and support in the 
United States is the neighborhood tributary to and served by a single 
school. Thus a school district served by a 1-room school is commonly 
an area of only 6 or 8 square miles. Some States have literally thou- 
sands of these small districts. There are, for instance, about 10,000 in 
New York, 10,000 in Illinois, 7,700 in Missouri, and 6,900 in Michigan. 
These districts not only have considerable autonomy in school affairs, 
but have been, and to a very large extent still remain, the unit of 
taxation for school support. Of every $100 raised for public schools 
in the United States in 1926, $15.90 came from the State, $10.90 from 
the county, and $73.20 from local district funds (158, p. 96). Insome 
States the primary taxing unit is the town or township; i in a few it is 
