Mayor can waste your father's money and a dishonest committee can use the town's money for itself. When money is wasted in bad streets that have to be mended too often, or for poor books that do not educate the children, your father and mother do not get what they paid for.

The citizens can choose a good government for themselves, if they will. When there is a poor government, in a republic, it is the citizens' fault. A poor monarchy is not the citizens' fault, but a poor republic is.

A citizen of a republic should be ashamed to find fault with his government. If he thinks it is bad, he should join with other men who think as he does, and choose men he believes are honest and able.

As American children let us make up our minds that when we grow up we will take part in all our town business. And we will learn all we can now to make us wise and clever then.

We must remember that the little Town Government is the beginning of the great system of government that ends at Washington. Only by a wise beginning can we have a perfect system.

A

VI

LL the choosing of men and committees is done

by voting, by the "ballot." We hear a great deal about the "ballot box," and the "power of the vote." The vote is the most powerful thing in a republic, because the votes choose the men who govern us.

The kind of voting we do in the United States is very simple. On voting days we have all seen our fathers and mothers going to the different voting

places to cast their ballot. Some of the places are schools, but some are funny little buildings, like a portable garage, set up in the street.

When your father goes in to the voting place he finds a kind of little gate by a desk. A man sits at the desk and a police officer stands by the gate. One or two other men also stand there.

The man at the desk, who is called the "election clerk," marks your father's name and address in his book. Then your father takes a ballot from one of the men and goes through the gate into the room. Along the wall are booths like a telephone booth. He goes into one of these, and there he unfolds his ballot, where no one can see him.

The ballot is a slip of paper with names printed on it. The names are those to be voted on for office. Your father marks the names he wants to choose, he folds the ballot so that the names do not show, and comes back to the clerk. He hands the folded ballot to one of the election officers and the officer drops it into the ballot box. The clerk marks your father's name in his book. This is called recording his vote.

Now your father has done his part as a citizen to choose the representatives that make a Republican Government.

This way of voting was first planned out and used in Australia, and is called the "Australian Ballot." It is also sometimes called the "direct, secret vote." It is planned so that no one can meddle with a man's vote.

After the voting is done, the ballots are counted by a committee. The names of the men which are on the most ballots are elected. Those men have been chosen for the Government.

We can see, in a republic, that the men who govern are the men that the most people want. It is what we call a majority rule. "Majority" only means the greater number.

The country gets what the greater number wants. If there are two men trying to be Mayor, and one of them is a man who believes in concrete roads, while the other wants cheaper roads, the majority of the people decide whether they will have concrete roads or not. If the majority of people want cheap roads they will vote for the second man, and he will be elected. If the majority want concrete roads they will vote for the first, and he will be elected. The majority rules.

It is fair that the greatest number should decide, and it gives us a good kind of government. But since

the majority rule, the Government cannot be any better than the majority of the people are. So we can see it is most important that the majority of the people shall be sensible and honest.

The kind of men we have in our neighborhood decides the kind of representative we send to the Government. If we have educated men, clean and sensible and honest, we shall choose a good representative. If we have ignorant men, who drink and live foolish lives, they will choose a dishonest man, and he will do poor work. This is worth remembering.

America has public schools for all the children, so they may grow up to be clean, sensible, and honest; then the majority will be good citizens, not bad: good rulers, not bad. The American public school is the sound beginning of happiness, success, and service. It gives us all a chance to learn the things that make us rich and wise and good. Let us be loyal and diligent in it.