making early provision for teaching agriculture in the new high schools.

So I hope it is quite clear to you that I had a professional object in coming to the Southern States. I wanted to learn what had been going on in the legislatures and in the organization and development of universities, colleges, and secondary schools. I have observed with the greatest satisfaction that there has been a great development in elementary instruction and a great deal of improvement. For instance, the lengthening of the period during which the elementary schools are conducted, the better instruction for the negroes, and also the getting of the ignorant whites into the schools. That seems to me to be one of the greatest needs of the Southern country-to diminish the number of white illiterates.

Then, I had another object in coming to the South. President Kilgo has just said something about true citizenship being a subject of instruction in our institutions of learning all over the country. I think it is a profound truth that if professional teachers and leaders of American education were asked to state the object of their labors and their lives they would very generally answer, good American citizenship. For, indeed, the security of free institutions and the promotion of liberty among mankind is the ultimate end of republican education as Americans understand it.

Now the graduates of Harvard University are expected to belong to the liberal portion of the party or denomination of which they are members. I once heard the question asked of the President of the University, Dr. James Walker, by an indignant graduate of Harvard, "What does it mean that the graduates of Harvard University distribute themselves among all the parties and among all the denominations? They are found even in the Democratic party"-the speaker was a Republican-"they are found in the Unitarian church, and in the Catholic church, and in the Jewish church." Dr. Walker replied: "They do go into all sorts of parties and denominations, but Harvard University expects them all to belong to the liberal portion of each party or denomination." That remains true to this day, and Harvard expects her sons to show a willingness,—yes, a determination, to contribute to the uplifting of whatever community they may enter, and to its progress towards good government and social well-being. The Uni

versity expects its children not only to have an ideal of good government, but to advance society towards that ideal; and our men today very commonly recognize that obligation.

Now, in that sense I have been a faithful graduate of Harvard for a good many years; and I have tried, so far as in me lay, and as opportunity offered, to do something to help the masses of men to understand what good citizenship is, and what its fruits should be. I have therefore for many years been interested in two great struggles going on in our country. One is, the struggle between capital and labor, a formidable field of conflict where the blind lead the blind, a field in which the situation has grown a little better during the last two years. The other field is municipal government. For some years past I have taken part in the discussion going on in Massachusetts about the evils of municipal government, the sources of those evils, and the remedies for them. One of my reasons for doing that was that I wanted to set an example, so far as I could, of the kind of work that Harvard University expects of her sons wherever they live. In prosecuting that inquiry, and in discussing the question at home, I found it necessary to acquaint myself with the new city charters which have been issued by legislatures in Texas, Iowa, and Massachusetts; and then I wanted to get more than a reading knowledge of those charters. So I have been to Texas, and have seen the men administering the new governments there, and have been getting their point of view, and the results of their experience; and I never spent a more interesting fortnight in my life than I lately spent in Texas at Dallas, Austin, Houston, and Galveston. I dare say that you will be interested in hearing very briefly some of the things I learned there.

Having been involved in the discussions of the problems of niunicipal government I have encountered the objections to the new forms of municipal government. A very common objection to the charter of Galveston, for example, is that it is a catastrophe government. It has been in operation only eight years, and it is said that in a little while the bosses will learn how to get possession of the commission government. It is only a question of time. There is no use to talk about getting better forms of government. The difficulty, it is urged, is with the suffrage, and with the professional politicians that control the suffrage. So I was very

much interested in inquiring into the continuity of the work at Galveston. There is a longer experience of commission government in Texas than anywhere else. Although we have three new charters in Massachusetts, not one has been in operation more than two years. But in Galveston the new charter has been in operation eight years, and I must say that the results there are extraordinarily favorable. The pecuniary results are remarkable. What the city of Galveston has accomplished in eight years under a commission of five men is little short of marvelous. Seven thousand persons were killed in the storm, a large part of the city had been destroyed, there had been a large exodus from the city, and the city had no credit. The bonds of the city now sell nearly at par, they have built a great sea wall, raised the whole surface of the city four or five feet, and brought in a good water supply from a point thirty miles distant; their streets are paved, and they have the usual supplies of gas, electric lights, and street

cars.

Now, as to continuity in the membership of the commission,-the citizens have kept every man steadily serving on that commission, except that the first mayor died, and was replaced by another respected citizen. That is the only change in the commission for eight years. The people have been so supremely content that there has never been any question of change.

Cross to Houston for a moment. There they have not had quite such an experience of continuity, because one member elected at first has been replaced at a second election, and one other member, though his continued service was much desired by his colleagues, was replaced by the popular vote. As to pecuniary results in Houston, they actually reduced the tax rate without altering the valuation. They then built four large brick school houses out of the city's annual receipts; they paved streets at a great rate in the outskirts of the city in order that the extension of the city might be favorably made; and this paving is being continued in every direction. The city sets the curb stones, paves the streets, and puts in the sewers; and asks nothing whatever of the abutters except that each shall build a granolithic sidewalk in front of his premises. I doubt if streets can be constructed and sewered here by the government on those terms without calling on citizens for contributions. I asked members of the commission

how it was possible to meet such heavy expenses, and the reply was, "We save so much on the former expenditures of the city." I asked what they meant by saving, and they said that they thought they got as much now for fifty cents of expenditure as the city had formerly got for one dollar. That means, of course, that they made the money of the city go very much farther.

The pecuniary results at Houston are the most striking among the Texan cities outside of Galveston. But there has been a similar experience at Dallas. The city is growing rapidly, and all the municipal work seems to be done with economy. The people are so well satisfied that when it came time to have another election of the commission, no available citizen would run against the commission, and all five members are therefore to be re-elected for a second term.

Now in Iowa the situation has been somewhat different, because there a general law was adopted by the legislature applicable to any city of over twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Two cities have procured charters under that general law. The law is different in one quite important respect from the laws that have given the charters to Texan cities. It was said that the commission government deprived the people of their just powers, that it was a very undemocratic method, the whole control of the city being put into the hands of five men for a term of years, the commonest term being two years. Where was the control by the people? To meet this objection the Iowa law provided that there should be a power reserved to the people to procure the reference to popular vote of any city ordinance adopted by the commission which a quarter part of the voters objected to, and they added the "recall" giving the power to a quarter part of the voters to compel the putting to popular vote of the question, "Shall this member of the commission be rejected, shall his commission be recalled?" That is a rather formidable popular power. They limited it somewhat, by providing that the member attacked should be one of the candidates to succeed himself so that he might procure a vindication instead of a condemnation; and they also limited it by saying that such efforts should not be made more than once in six months. Another power was given to the popular vote-that of initiating a new ordinance which the commission had refused to adopt. These provisions certainly

give to the popular vote powers that it has never had anywhere else in our country. When combined, these three powers are a great addition to the possible effects of the popular vote. I was in Des Moines last April. They had adopted a new charter, and had just held the first election of a commission. The slate of the committee which had promoted the adoption of commission government had been defeated. They had put up a slate which consisted only of "silk-stockings," and the voters had preferred another slate. I talked with three out of the five men elected, and they agreed that the result did not mean at all that the people distrusted the new form of government. It only meant that they did not want a commission of five "silk-stockings."

Chelsea, a city of Massachusetts, was swept by fire about a year ago. It had suffered from the old-fashioned form of government with incompetent membership; so a committee of citizens asked the legislature for a commission form of government to conduct efficiently and honestly the process of reconstruction, and the legislature granted their request, all five members being appointed by the governor. One man goes out each year, and each man's successor is to be elected by the people of Chelsea. In five years, therefore, the commission will be elective. All these commission governments are elected at large. Stimulated by the result in Chelsea, other cities asked for commission government,—one a shoe city, Haverhill, the other the fishing city of Gloucester. The voters were asked in these two places whether they would have such a charter, when the legislature had granted it. Both cities adopted the commission government. There we have an experience of something more than a year.

What then can be said with regard to this new form of city government now established in three States? We cannot say of it that it is a proved and durable success. Texas has the longest experience, and Galveston has the longest experience among her cities. But we can say that so far the experiment is universally successful. We may say then that it is an interesting experiment in city government, and encouraging from this point of view, that it seems to offer universal suffrage a good chance to select the right kind of men to govern. These commissions have given cities business-like government. I believe there is no exception to that rule. They have all done that, and they have been composed