A list of your county officers and their duties.

The sentiment in your county with regard to the efficiency of your county government.  Is the sentiment justified?

Recognized defects in your county government.

The long (or short) ballot in your county.

Extent to which the people of your county study the reports of your county government (consult at home and with older friends).

What do you find of interest in your county reports?

Are reports of your county published in the newspapers?  Do you understand them?  Ask your father to explain them to you.

Extent to which your county board exercises control over other county officers.

Extent to which the farmers of your county interest themselves in politics.

Whether or not the experience of the officer quoted on page 410 could be duplicated in your state.

The fee system in your county.

How and why public officers “are just what the people make them.”

The meaning of Jefferson’s remark that “public education and the subdivision of counties into wards are the two hooks upon which republican government must hang”.

The feasibility of a “county club” in your county similar to those in North Carolina.

The balance between county government and township government in your county.

State control of your county government—­too much, or too little?  Explain.

Difference between a charter and a constitution.

Number of incorporated towns and cities in your county.

Cooperation (or friction) between urban and rural districts in your county.

Organization of village, borough, or town government in your county.

Difference between the “town” as referred to in the last part of this chapter and the “town” as described in the first part.

Services in incorporated towns and villages in your county that are not performed by the county or township governments for rural residents.

How a village or town is incorporated in your state.

Town manager form of government in your state.  Its advantages.

READINGS

State Constitution.

County Government and County Affairs in North Carolina, North
Carolina Club Year Book 1917-1918 (The University of North
Carolina Record, Extension Series No 30, Chapel Hill, N.C. ).

County Government, annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, Vol XLVII, May, 1913. (36th and Woodland Ave,
Philadelphia.)

Publications of the New York Short Ballot Association, 381 Fourth
Ave, New York City.

Fairlie, J.A., Local Government in Counties, Towns, and Villages (The Century Co.).

Mobilizing the Rural Community, by E.L.  Morgan, Extension Bulletin No. 23, Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Mass.