It is the responsibility for a government to provide its people with their fundamental needs and promote a cohesive society. Needs such as food, clothing, shelter, safety, health-care and education, are all essential to a society as they are the foundation for a nation. "It was certainly by means of education that a nation came into being" (Roy, 32). Here one can see the particular and crucial role that education plays in the creation of a nation. In Gabrielle Roy's, Where Nests the Water Hen the government fulfils it obligation to is people by providing and education to its people. It does this by providing education to everyone and everywhere, providing a good method of educating and providing education for free.
Education should be provided to everyone, and therefore is an obligation of the government to provide. In Where Nests the Water Hen, the government does exactly this when Luzina receives a letter from the government saying, "It had decreed compulsory schooling before there were enough schools for all the children or roads for them to reach what schools were there."(Roy, 31). This quote demonstrates the government's realization of how essential education is. One can see the government's realization of this importance due to the fact that schooling was made compulsory even before the development of roads and actual physical schooling institutions. The government in this book also is non-discriminatory and provides education to all cultures. This is seen when Roy describes the school on the reserve for the natives (Roy, 29).The government not only provides education but also shows a keen interest in providing it. This is seen when Luzina reads a letter she received from the government, "In this second paragraph in this letter, the government made it clear to Luzina that she had not been wrong in supposing it very much interested in education."(Roy, 32). Thus one can see the importance that education plays because of the effort that the government puts in education and the amount of interest it has for it.