[Sidenote:  woman suffrage.] Dr. Edward Bemis, who in a profoundly interesting essay[13] has called attention to this function of the school district as a stage in the evolution of the township, remarks also upon the fact that “it is in the local government of the school district that woman suffrage is being tried.”  In several states women may vote for school committees, or may be elected to school committees, or to sundry administrative school offices.  At present (1894) there are not less than twenty-one states in which women have school suffrage.  In Colorado and Wyoming women have full suffrage, voting at municipal, state, and national elections.  In Kansas they have municipal suffrage, and a constitutional amendment granting them full suffrage is now awaiting ratification.  In England, it may be observed, unmarried women and widows who pay taxes vote not only on school matters, but generally in the local elections of vestries, boroughs, and poor-law unions.  In the new Parish Councils Bill this municipal suffrage is extended to married women.  In the Isle of Man women vote for members of Parliament.  In Australia they have long had municipal suffrage, and in 1893 they were endowed with full rights of suffrage in New Zealand.

[Footnote 13:  Local Government in Michigan and the Northwest, J.H.U.  Studies, I., v.]

The historical reason why the suffrage has so generally been restricted to men is perhaps to be sought in the conditions under which voting originated.  In primeval times voting was probably adopted as a substitute for fighting.  The smaller and presumably weaker party yielded to the larger without an actual trial of physical strength; heads were counted instead of being broken.  Accordingly it was only the warriors who became voters.  The restriction of political activity to men has also probably been emphasized by the fact that all the higher civilizations have passed through a well-defined patriarchal stage of society in which each household was represented by its oldest warrior.  From present indications it would seem that under the conditions of modern industrial society the arrangements that have so long subsisted are likely to be very essentially altered.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1.  Describe the origin and development of the town-meeting in Michigan.

2.  Describe the settling of southern Illinois.

3.  Describe the settling of northern Illinois.

4.  What difference in thought and feeling existed between these sections?

5.  What systems of local government came into rivalry in Illinois, and why?

6.  What compromise between them was put into the state constitution?

7.  Which system, the town or the county, has shown the greater vitality, and why?

8.  What obstacles has the town system to work against?

9.  Show how the principle of local option in government has been applied in Missouri, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Dakota.