In a number of instances the officers at the head of the different branches of city administration sometimes organized as boards, also were made elective.

This unconcentrated organization proved to be unsuited to the rather complex problems of city government. Two remedies were applied. In the first place, in the belief that local self-government in cities had broken down, provision was made for the appointment by the State Governor of certain city officers. In the second place the power was given to the city mayor elected by the people to appoint city officers.

The organization of most American cities has been influenced by most of these methods of solving the problems connected with the organization of city government. We usually find a council which has merely deliberative or legislative powers, whose members are elected by the city voters. We find, as well, a mayor who is also elected by the city voters, but we usually find that a number of other city offices are filled in the same way. But the tendency almost everywhere is toward a return to the old concentrated form of organization in which most city powers are given to some one authority. This tendency is particularly characteristic of what has come to be known as the "commission form" of city government, which has recently attained great popularity as a form of government for the smaller cities and those of medium size. This form of city government provides for a commission, usually of five members, who are elected by the people of the city. Meeting together as a commission, they take formal action in carrying on the work of the city. Individually each member of the commission has under his immediate direction a branch of the city administration.

This greater concentration in the municipal organization permits of the employment of the professional expert, and as a matter of fact more and more expert professional officers are now being appointed in American cities.

There is, finally, one other respect in which American local government may be distinguished from the English system and, indeed, from every other European system of local government outside of Switzerland. In many states provision is made for the direct decision by the people of a local district of questions of local policy. The oldest instance of this direct participation of the people in the work of local government is to be found in the New England towns. Here all the voters of the town meet together several called the "town meeting." At this meeting, in addition to electing town officers, they decide what amounts of money shall be raised by taxation and spent the coming year for the various town services, such as roads, schools, the care of the poor, and so on.

times a year in what is

In many of the states where there are no town meetings provision is made for submitting to the voters of the local districts, sometimes even to the voters of the cities, questions affecting the welfare of the districts, such as the question whether the district shall borrow money for some specific purpose. This practice has come to be known as the referendum.

The present tendency would seem to be in the direction of the extension of the use of the referendum, which is often at the present time to be found in connection with the commission form of city government. The town meeting and the referendum have the effect of increasing the popular self-government character

which the American system of local government has taken on from the almost universal use of popular election as a means of filling local offices. In probably no other country in the world has the attempt been made to vest in the people of the local districts-that is, in the governed so much power of determining by whom they shall be governed and of deciding important questions of local policy.

That the English, and particularly the American system of local government does, by its self-government popular character, do much, through the experience which the people gain in the management of local affairs, to train them for the wider sphere of state constitutional government cannot be denied. That the American system, by reason of its ultra-popular character, loses a great deal in administrative efficiency is, however, just as true.

XXV

THE LOCAL INSTITUTIONS OF CONTINENTAL EUROPE

THE existing local institutions of continental Europe

may be said to find their origin in the administrative system established by Napoleon for the first French Republic in 1800. Of course German local institutions owe much to distinctly German tradition and custom, while Italian and Spanish local institutions in the same way find many of their roots in a local past. At the same time it is none the less true that Napoleon's administrative system of 1800 has had an enormous influence on continental Europe.

The system of Napoleon would almost seem to have been the result of a conscious attempt to follow the Roman administrative system, over whose main features we have already glanced. The leading idea in it was extreme centralization. The country was divided into districts called departments; these were in their turn composed of what were called wards (arrondissements). Each ward contained a certain number of municipalities (communes), which made no distinction between the open country or rural portions and the thickly populated or urban portions. At the head of the department was placed an officer with the old Roman name of prefect. At the head of the ward was an under-prefect, and at the head of the municipality was a mayor. By the

side of each of these officers was placed a council. These councils were called respectively the general council, the ward council (conseil d'arrondissement), and the municipal council. All the officers mentioned, together with the members of all the councils, were appointed by the central government and could be removed by it. Not one was elected by the people of the local districts.

The principal officers in this system, that is the prefects and under-prefects, were professional expert officers who made the performance of official duties their career. They devoted their entire time to their work, and received a compensation large enough to permit them to live without resorting to other means of livelihood.

Under this system, particularly during the time it was subject to the energetic direction of Napoleon, France developed great administrative efficiency. This was due, however, not merely to the general system. This system was, it is true, simple, and under it official responsibility was clearly defined. But the French made provision as well for certain technical services, such as the engineers of bridges and roads, which had charge of the public works of the country. The officers in these services received a splendid technical education at schools established by the government for their education, which have taken high rank among the technical schools of the European world.

While the officers in these services all had to possess technical qualifications in order to obtain their positions, there were no formal technical or even intellectual qualifications required of the prefects and the under-prefects. The excellence of the service which these officers ren