force. Except that it is subject to the State, it occupies a position not unlike that of the free city of the Middle Ages; or, more correctly, it may be likened to the cities of Hamburg and Bremen in the German Empire to-day.

734. The City Constitution. This is its charter, which is conferred upon the city by the State Legislature. Most frequently, at least in the case of large cities, the charter is a special act or acts enacted in the usual manner; but sometimes, and particularly in small cities, it is simply some general provisions of the law or constitution that apply to all cases answering to a general description. In either case the Legislature establishes the principal features of a city government, and declares its duties and responsibilities.

735. The City Legislature. -This is usually called the city council. More frequently it consists of two chambers, the board of aldermen and the common council; but in many small cities, as well as in New York, Brooklyn, Chicago, and San Francisco, it consists of the common council alone. The acts of this legislature are generally known as the city ordinances. The council levies the local taxes and makes the local appropriations, and ordinarily has more or less to do with the executive administration.

736. The City Executive.-The city executive is the mayor. His relations to the council and to the city are very like the relations of the Governor to the Legislature and the State. He communicates information relative to city affairs in messages, nominates officers, signs or vetoes ordinances, looks after the due execution of the city laws, and commonly has more or less control of the police. The mayor's powers and duties are far more numerous and important in some cities than in others.

737. City Departments.-A large amount of the administrative business is usually transacted through bureaus, executive departments, or boards. Mention may be made of the departments of finance, police, streets, public buildings, water-supply, improvements, education, and

the infirmary. These departments are sometimes administered by salaried officers, sometimes by committees of the council, while sometimes such officers and council committees act together.

738. The City Judiciary.-The most characteristic feature of the city judicial system, as such, is the court having jurisdiction of minor criminal offenses. This is sometimes held by the mayor himself, but more frequently, at least where the mayor has large administrative duties to perform, there is a special judge called the city or police judge. The ordinary justices' courts may also be mentioned. Occasionally a city has a complete system of courts, lacking only a court of final resort, but as a rule cities have, with the exception of the police court, the same courts as the county in which they are situated.

739. Municipal Reform.—The great increase in the number of American cities, and the rapid growth of many of them, have been attended by much inefficiency and corruption in city government. Numerous, but as a rule not very successful, attempts have been made to reform these abuses. Perhaps the best known of these plans is that called the Federal Plan, which was put in operation in Philadelphia in 1887. This plan vests all legislative power in the council, and all executive power in the mayor and the heads of certain departments appointed by the mayor with the consent of the council. The mayor also has the veto power. The great argument urged in behalf of this system is that it centers power and responsibility in a few persons.

740. France and the United States.-Attention has often been drawn to the contrast in respect to local government presented by France, on the one hand, and the United States, on the other. France is divided into departments, arrondissements, cantons, and communes, all administrative divisions. The department and the commune are the most important. Each of these has its own council or legislature elected by universal suffrage; but these bodies have few powers to begin with, and they are limited, first by the local executives, and secondly by the national administration. The prefects and the mayors are dependent upon the central authority rather than upon the people. The result is that local self-government is unknown. While France is a republic, Mr. Fiske well remarks that, "as contrasted with American methods and institu

tions, it is difficult to call it anything else than a highly centralized despotism."

741. Local Government and Centralization.-These definitions are quoted by Mr. Fiske from Mr. Toulmin Smith:

"Local self-government is that system of government under which the greatest number of minds, knowing the most, and having the fullest opportunities of knowing it, about the special matter in hand, and having the greatest interest in its well-working, have the management of it or control over it."

"Centralization is that system of government under which the smallest number of minds, and those knowing it the least, and having the fewest opportunities of knowing it, about the special matter in hand, and having the smallest interest in its well-working, have the management of it or control over it."

CHAPTER LVI.

STATE EDUCATION.

REFERENCES.

Bureau of Education, Contributions to American Educational History, edited by Herbert B. Adams (a valuable series of monographs devoted to education in the different States); Boone, Education in the United States; Hough, Constitutional Provisions in regard to Education in the several States of the American Union (a bulletin published by the Bureau of Education, 1875); Bureau of Education, Report of Commissioner for 1868, I., Education a National Interest; Donaldson, The Public Domain, etc.; Knight, History and Management of Land Grants for Education in the Northwest Territory; Ten Brook, American State Universities and the University of Michigan.

742. No National School System.-The provision of education is not included among the powers delegated to the National Government. The Constitution does not contain the words education and schools, and hence its adoption left the whole subject where it had already been, in the hands of the States, save as Congress might, from time to time, under the general welfare clause, indirectly render them assistance.

743. The State Systems.-Some of the States already had systems of public schools in 1787, which they have extended and improved. The other States have organized them, and every State in the Union now has a system of schools more or less perfect. These systems are all provided for, or are at least recognized, in the State constitutions, and are fully elaborated in school laws.

I. THE SCHOOL PROVISION.

744. Common Schools. The studies prescribed by the State laws or constitutions are called the legal studies. They differ somewhat in different States, but the so-called common branches of English study are found in all the

States. The minimum time that the schools must be in session, which is prescribed by law, ranges from four to seven months in the year. Many of the States have enacted laws making a certain amount of education or school attendance compulsory.

745. High Schools. All the States make provision for the creation and support of high-schools, but only Massachusetts makes them compulsory. In that State these schools must be open ten months in the year, exclusive of vacations, and be taught for the benefit of all the inhabitants of the town. The high schools, or the best of them, serve the double purpose of fitting for college and giving a preparation for life more extended than that furnished by the common schools.

746. Normal Schools.-Massachusetts founded the first State Normal School, in 1839. There are in this country now 140 public normal schools, State and local, with 35,000 students, and 6,000 graduates a year. Some of the State schools are managed by the State boards of Education, and some by special boards of trustees. The city schools are managed by the local boards of education that create and maintain them. The special object of the State schools is the professional education of teachers for the schools of the State; of the local schools, similar education for local teachers.

Pedagogical professorships exist in some of the State Universities as in those of Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and in Cornell University.

747. State Universities.-Congress has given Ohio three townships of land, Florida and Wisconsin four each, Minnesota three and a half, and the other public-land States two each for the creation and support of universities. The State Universities of these States were founded in whole or in part with funds derived from these sources, and they are to-day largely supported in the same way. Still,