FOREST TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES 627 
impérfect. A full readjustment has been hampered by the per- 
petuation of township governments and a multiplicity of tiny school 
districts, these units often being kept alive through the stimulus of 
State aid. Nevertheless a reallocation of governmental functions 
need not wait for a change in political structure. Indeed, it may be 
that one way to bring about the abolition of superfluous govern- 
ments is to shear them of their powers. In some regions the town- 
ship has already been greatly weakened by this process. 
In allocating the functions of government three factors should be 
considered: (1) The scope of the benefit; (2) the ability to support; and 
(3) economy and efficiency of administration. 
A function which was once properly local may now be otherwise 
because of a change in the character of the service. This is well 
illustrated in the case of roads. They were once primarily neighbor- 
hood institutions, used for horse-and-buggy travel, and maintained 
largely by free labor. Later they came to be maintained through 
taxation, the local roads by township or district taxes, the farm-to- 
market roads by county taxes. Then, since the development of auto- 
mobile travel, the State has aided the local units in the support of the 
more important highways or has developed asystem of State highways 
the cost of which is borne entirely by the State. The reallocation of 
burden has, however, lagged behind the need. In many States there 
are still township and local road districts. These small units are ill- 
equipped to administer and support even the short, tributary roads 
which have been left in their jurisdiction. The average county is 
none too large to serve as the primary road district. Few roads are of 
such purely local benefit as not to justify county-wide support. ‘The 
construction and maintenance of primary roads, serving intercounty 
and interstate traffic should be exclusively a State obligation, with 
possibly some Federal aid. The granting of State aid for local roads 
to be locally expended and the joint support of primary roads locally 
administered are arrangements of doubtful merit. The better plan 
would seem to be full State support and State administration of at 
least all the main-traveled roads and possibly of all the roads. 
In the case of schools, the problem is not so much one of distribu- 
tion of function as one of allocation of cost. The responsibility for 
tural education is not so exclusively local that its cost should be 
primarily upon the rural communities. Even the benefits of rural 
education are widely diffused by the migration of young people from 
the farm to the cities. The principal unit of support should cease to 
be the local district and become the county, with the State assuming 
a much larger share of the total cost than is now generally the case. 
Except to provide unusual facilities there would seem to be no need 
for a local district tax, all normal expenditures being met from the 
State and county funds. 
It has been demonstrated that a population of about 60,000 is the 
minimum for an efficient health unit. After certain needed consoli- 
dations, most counties would contain a population as great as this, 
and thus the county appears to be the proper unit to cooperate with 
the State in public-health activities. 
The care of most dependent classes has already been assumed by 
the State. This is proper, for the smaller jurisdictions are not in a 
position to provide modern specialized institutions. Poor relief has 
remained largely a local function, but even in this field some States 
