government takes your money and seems to make no return to you
individually; but it is supposed to return to you the value of it in
the shape of well-paved streets, good schools, efficient protection
against criminals, and so forth.

[Sidenote: What is government?]
In giving this brief preliminary definition of taxes and taxation, we
have already begun to speak of "the government" of the town or city
in which you live. We shall presently have to speak of other
"governments,"--as the government of your state and the government of
the United States; and we shall now and then have occasion to allude
to the governments of other countries in which the people are free,
as, for example, England; and of some countries in which the people
are not free, as, for example, Russia. It is desirable, therefore,
that we should here at the start make sure what we mean by
"government," in order that we may have a clear idea of what we are
talking about.

[Sidenote: The "ship of state."]
Our verb "to govern" is an Old French word, one of the great host of
French words which became a part of the English language between the
eleventh and fourteenth centuries, when so much French was spoken in
England. The French word was _gouverner_, and its oldest form was
the Latin _gubernare_, a word which the Romans borrowed from
the Greek, and meant originally "to steer the ship." Hence it very
naturally came to mean "to guide," "to direct," "to command." The
comparison between governing and steering was a happy one. To govern
is not to command as a master commands a slave, but it is to issue
orders and give directions for the common good; for the interests of
the man at the helm are the same as those of the people in the ship.