5. Who pays for the education that young people receive in the public schools?
6. How much has your local government done toward furnishing things that are not merely conveniences? How do you justify expenditures for these purposes?
7. Does the management of local government excite as much interest among the citizens as it should?
8. In what ways are students directly interested in having efficient local governments?
CHAPTER II.
COUNTY GOVERNMENT.
Why There Are Counties.—If the local organizations discussed in Chapter I could attend to all the interests that citizens have in common, then government would be a much simpler matter than it is. But just as almost every citizen has business and social relations outside of the neighborhood in which he lives, so different communities must have political relations with each other if they are to live in harmony. (For this and other reasons, which we shall learn presently, county governments are established. Their organization and functions correspond quite closely to those of the towns, villages, and smaller cities.)
Important County Officers.—The local governments cannot undertake alone the preservation of order or the protection of citizens against criminals. We have, consequently, an important officer, the sheriff, who with his deputies has power to make arrests. There is also the judicial side of county governments, seen in the court, with its judge. In this court another county officer, called the district or State's attorney, prosecutes persons who are accused of crime; i.e., he finds evidence of the prisoner's guilt and causes this evidence to be given by witnesses at the trial.