Common schools are said to be the engine of popular liberty. I think we had some of the most un-commonly common schools, at Puddleford, that could be found anywhere under the wings of the American eagle. Our system was, of course, the same as that of all other townships in the state, but its administration was not in all respects what it should be. Our schools were managed by Puddlefordians, and they were responsible only for the talent which had been given them. Every citizen knows that our government is a piece of mechanism, made up of wheels within wheels, and while these wheels are in one sense totally independent, and stand still or turn as they are moved or let alone, yet they may indirectly affect the whole. In other words, our government is like a cluster of Chinese balls, curiously wrought within, and detached from each other, and yet it is, after all, but one ball. There is something beautiful in the construction and operation of this piece of machinery. A school district is one machine, a township another, a county another, and a state another—all independent organizations, yet every community must work its own organization. They are not operated afar off by some great central power, over the heads of the people; but they are worked by the people themselves, for themselves.
However clumsily the work may be performed at first, practice makes perfect, and men become the masters, as well as the administrators of their own laws.
We had an annual school district meeting in the village of Puddleford—and there were many others in the country at the same time—for the township was cut up into several districts, and I never attended one that did not end in a "row," to use a western classical expression. The business of these meetings was all prescribed by statute, and it amounted to settling and allowing the accounts of the board for the last school year, voting contingent fund for the next, determining whether a school should be taught by a male or a female teacher, and for how many months, and the election of new officers.
The last meeting I attended, Longbow was in the chair by virtue of his office as president of the school district board. Being organized, the clerk of the board presented his account for contingent expenses, and Longbow wished to know "if the meetin' would pass 'em."
Turtle "wanted to hear 'em read."
Longbow said "the only account they had was in their head."
Turtle said "that warn't 'cordin' to the staterts."
Longbow said "he'd risk that—his word was as good as anybody's writin', or any statert."
Turtle said "he'd hear what they was, but 'twarn't right, and for his part, he didn't b'lieve the board know'd what they'd been about for the last six months."
Longbow raised his green shade from his blind eye, rose on his feet, looked down very ferociously upon Turtle, stamped his foot, and informed Ike "that this was an org'nized meetin', and he mustn't reflect on-ter the officers of the de-strict; 'twas criminal!"