a fundamental national law, for distributing the various functions
of governmental power among selected servants, for appointing
representatives according to population or property, and for holding
all trustees responsible at reasonable intervals to the nation itself.

Thus government was involved, fold within fold, in successive and
concentric municipal layers. The States-General were the outer husk,
of which the separate town-council was the kernel or bulb. Yet the
number of these executive and legislative boards was so large, and the
whole population comparatively so slender, as to cause the original
inconveniences from so incomplete a system to be rather theoretic than
practical. In point of fact, almost as large a variety of individuals
served the State as would perhaps have been the case under a more
philosophically arranged democracy. The difficulty was rather in
obtaining a candidate for the post than in distributing the posts
among candidates.

Men were occupied with their own affairs. In proportion to their
numbers, they were more productive of wealth than any other nation then
existing. An excellent reason why the people were so, well governed, so
productive, and so enterprising, was the simple fact that they were an
educated people. There was hardly a Netherlander--man, woman, or child--
that could not read and write. The school was the common property of the
people, paid for among the municipal expenses. In the cities, as well as
in the rural districts, there were not only common schools but classical
schools. In the burgher families it was rare to find boys who had not
been taught Latin, or girls unacquainted with French. Capacity to write
and speak several modern languages was very common, and there were many
individuals in every city, neither professors nor pedants, who had made
remarkable progress in science and classical literature. The position,