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 along drawn out contest was going on to settle these questions between the old districts, this new system should be held in abeyance. Moreover, there would be no reason for making the organization of the school township, and its right to carry on the school system, depend upon the determination of a matter, the prior settlement of which was not essential to the corporate existence of the school township and the administration of the school law. Settlement must inevitably come. Should those charged with the duty of making it fail to obey the law, mandamus would set them in motion. The nature of their decision could not be dictated by any court; but they could be compelled to make some decision. The discharge of this duty, whether voluntary or under compulsion, can as well go on after as before the school township becomes liable for the district debts and is authorized to carry on the schools. The township is by the statute made liable for these bonds. It is the formal party against which judgment may be recovered. When execution in the form of mandamus to compel a levy of taxes is applied for, the court will observe the decision of the board of adjustment in the apportionment of the burden. If no settlement has at that time been voluntarily reached, the court in a separate proceeding will compel the performance of this duty specially enjoined by law, and when such adjustment is consummated the writ of mandamus to compel the levy of a tax to pay the judgment must observe and follow this adjustment in the apportioning of the tax among the several old districts of the new township. The statute is not clear. The question is by no means free from doubts. If the eye is riveted on § 136 alone there is much force in the defendant’s position. But we must scan the whole act to find out its spirit, and in the light of that spirit we must interpret § 136. We can discover a good reason for keeping these districts alive, after the organization of the school township, for the special purpose of adjustment of equities. We believe it would be highly inconvenient to preserve their existence thereafter for general school purposes, and that such was not the intention of the law making