ward, not any subordinate interest, but the whole city. At the head of the city was a paid burgomaster, and about him a small body of councilors, paid and unpaid; only those officials being paid who were really obliged to devote themselves to their official duties as a profession.

The burgomaster was elected by the representatives of the people and confirmed by an authority representing the nation; but the chief burgomaster in sundry great towns was selected by the king out of three named by the city representatives. Various features in the development of this system are worthy of note. Take as a concrete example the recent history of Berlin. Again and again, when the chief burgomastership of that city, perhaps the best governed in the world, has become vacant, those elected and submitted to the king for approval have been men who have distinguished themselves in the administration of other cities, some of these far from the capital. It has been my good fortune to know two of the chief burgomasters of Berlin thus selected; both were eminent, and one of them, who became and remained a very influential member of the Imperial Parliament, especially so. The tenure of the chief burgomaster is virtually during good behavior, with a good salary, a suitable residence, a high position, and a retiring pension, the man thus chosen, first by the electors and finally by the emperor, being expected to give himself entirely to the welfare of the city; this is his whole business, into which he is to put the expectations and ambitions of his life. The result of this system is seen to-day in the magnificent development of that great capital: everything carefully thought out; everything managed on business principles; and all the affairs of the city conducted, with the aid of the burgher councils, quietly and with an efficiency and economy such as in American cities is rarely, if ever, seen.

The official terms of citizen functionaries under the legislation of Stein were

generally long, varying from six years to twelve, the rule being continuance in office during good behavior. Generally speaking, every citizen was liable to serve in unpaid offices for six years, though he might, for sufficient reason, secure permission to retire after a service of three years. State officials, ecclesiastics, university professors, schoolmasters, and practicing physicians were largely excused from active state duties; but any other citizens refusing to serve might be punished by loss of citizenship and by fine.

On the 19th of November, 1808, Stein's plan became a law. One feature in it which strikes us in these days as absurd, and which has in the main disappeared, is that by which Jews, Mennonites, and soldiers were classed with criminals as unfit for citizenship; but there is another feature which, while it may seem surprising, is well worth close study, especially by any one taking an interest in American politics.

To be a burgher in Prussia, one must, as a rule, have a definite and tangible interest in the community. Here was a principle running through the whole theory and practice of city government in Europe, ancient, mediæval and modern: a city was considered a corporation, — a corporation which had business to conduct and property to administer. This theory is widespread among civilized nations to-day, a distinction being made between what may be called the civil right to enjoy protection in the natural rights of man and the political right to take part in general public affairs, on one side, and, on the other, what may be called municipal right, the right to take active part in administering city property and determining city policy. As to the latter right, it was generally felt that the people exercising it should have some evident" stake" in the corporation whose affairs they were called upon to control or administer. We in America have tried the opposite system fully. We have applied universal suffrage to the

whole administration of our city corporations, and the result, in most of our cities, has been, not merely disheartening, but debasing. Least of all can we be satisfied with its results in our large seaport towns, with their great influx of people whose whole life has unfitted them to exercise public duties, and who have had no training or even experience of a kind calculated to fit them. The distinction recognized in Stein's system, between men having a direct tangible interest in the town, and the proletariat, has deep roots in human history; and a better system than that which now exists in the majority of our American cities seems never likely to come in until some account is taken of this distinction, founded in the history of liberty-loving peoples and based on an idea of justice; the idea that while civil liberty, which implies protection in natural rights, must be guaranteed to every citizen, and political liberty, the right to take part in the general political government, shall be as widely diffused as possible, municipal liberty, the right to exercise some effective initiative and control in municipal affairs, which are principally practical business affairs, shall be in the hands of those who have a direct, tangible interest or valuable experience in such affairs. A perfectly just and even liberal compromise between political and civil liberties on the one hand and municipal liberties on the other, would seem to be given by a fundamental law requiring in all our cities above a certain size that a mayor and board of aldermen, each of them representing the whole city, be chosen by universal suffrage, but that a board of control, whose affirmative vote shall be necessary in all financial appropriations, all questions relating to the management of public property, and all grants of franchises, be elected by the direct taxpayers.

The system proposed by Stein was met as we should expect. The nobles and the old school of officials denounced it as radical, and even as savoring of Jacobinism. Moreover, there was considerable disap

pointment in its first workings. People of the towns showed at first no desire to go into it; they had become listless and indifferent, and preferred to go on in the old way; the new system, also, at first increased expenditure. But Stein carried it through, and, as time went on, it began to produce the effects which he had expected: the town populations began to take an interest in national affairs; began to think upon them; began, a generation later, to take efficient part in a Prussian parliament; and, a generation later still, in a parliament of the German Empire. The municipal system of Prussia and of Germany has, indeed, been largely developed to meet new needs since Stein's time, but its cornerstone, then as now, is the right of the people to think and act upon their own local interests.

It is worthy of note that, while this idea was thus taking shape in reformatory statutes thought out by the great German statesman, one of the greatest of American statesmen was dwelling upon it and urging it in our own country. For it had deeply impressed Thomas Jefferson. In his latter days he often dwelt upon the popular vigor of New England in dealing with questions internal and external as compared with the apparent indifference of the Southern States, and he attributed this vigor to the New England. town meetings, declaring that in the struggles between Democrats and Federalists he had felt the ground shake beneath his feet when the town meetings of New England had opposed him, and that the county assemblies of Virginia gave no compensating strength.1

It has been urged that a part, always large and sometimes controlling, in the great reforms which began the regeneration of Prussia and, indeed, of Germany,

1 See, especially, Jefferson's reference to this in a letter to John Adams, in his later correspondence. For a clear and thorough account of city government and administration in Prussia and in Germany generally, see Albert Shaw: Municipal Government in Continental Europe, chapter v; a book which every dweller in an American city should read.

was taken by Stein's sometime friend, sometime enemy, Hardenberg. This is certainly true. Hardenberg, with his longer service and his diplomatic nature, had opportunities which Stein, with his uncompromising zeal, had not. While Hardenberg had, perhaps, a stronger belief in freedom of trade and manufactures, it was Stein's energy, fearlessness, and skill, and, above all, the weight of his character, which embodied the fundamental reforms in laws and forced them upon an unwilling sovereign and an indifferent people.

While pressing forward these great reforms needed to start Prussia upon a better career, Stein dealt no less thoughtfully with a vast multitude of petty abuses. These were largely feudal survivals, of the sort which had driven the French peasantry mad twenty years before; but instead of proceeding against them with fire and sword, after the Celtic manner, he studied each carefully and dealt with it rationally. There was no wild plunge into chaos and night, but each evil survival was dealt with upon its demerits.1

But Stein and his compeers saw that something vastly more general and powerful was needed than reforms in detail, and hence it was that there now began a better era in Prussian, and indeed in German education. Into the whole system of national instruction a new spirit now entered; slowly, at first, but doubtless all the more powerfully. Occupied though Stein was in a different field, one feels his influence in all this movement. In the great spoliation at Tilsit, the old Prussian University of Halle, founded a hundred years before by Thomasius, which had given so many strong men to the Prussian state, was lost. But this calamity was the harbinger of a great gain. Thoughtful men began to plan a university for Berlin. Strong men began to be secured for its professorships. The rule that a univer

1 For the remedies administered to a large number of these abuses, see Pertz, as above, vol. ii., pp. 142 and following.

sity is made, not by bricks and mortar, but by teachers, was fully recognized. Stein had, indeed, the instinct, so strong in America, against sending undergraduates into large cities for their education; but he recognized the importance of a new educational centre to send fresh and vigorous life through the renewed educational system, and his activity did much to inspire this great movement. which was destined to work miracles, not only throughout Prussia, but throughout Európe.2

It will presently be seen that to carry out all these great reformatory efforts Stein had but little more than a year in office. Could he have had more time, he would doubtless have created a national parliament. But, as we shall see, fate was against him; the struggle with Napoleon and the reaction after the Napoleonic downfall caused the creation of representative bodies to be long deferred. Still, when at last they were created, they had a basis of political experience for which they were mainly indebted to him. It has been my fortune to be present during discussions in the principal parliaments now existing: the British, the French, the Italian, the German, as well as our own; and as regards quiet, thorough, sober discussion, free from the trickery of partisans and the oratory of demagogues, the parliaments of the Prussian kingdom and of the German empire have seemed to me among the very foremost; my belief is that they have before them a great future, and all the more so because their roots draw vigorous life from principles of self-government which were called into action by Stein.

2 For a very thoughtful comparison of the merits of Stein and Hardenberg, see Zorn: Im Neuen Reich, pp. 216 and following. For Stein's relations to the educational movement in Prussia, see Pertz, vol. ii, pp. 162 and following; also Kuno Francke: Social Forces in German Literature. For probably the best that has ever been written regarding the relations of university life to patriotism, see Paulsen: Die Deutschen Universitäten, book iv.

ROSE, unquiet over her useless mission to Electra, sought out Peter where he sat in the sun, his mind swaying in its constant rhythm between his happy work and his charming dreams. He left the garden chair and came forward to her, struck by the pathos of her face, and a little irritated, too, because MacLeod's death was a sorrow past, and it seemed unfortunate, at least, that there should be so much melancholy in bright weather.

"Electra is going abroad, you know," she said.

Peter turned with her and they paced along the grass. Rose went on, "She was much impressed by my

father."

"I know."

"She belongs to the Brotherhood now."

Peter nodded, his mind still with Osmond, but cheering a little in the consciousness of her graceful presence.

"Peter!" she stopped, and laid a finger on his sleeve. "Say something to her! She is going over there to work, to throw herself into that movement. She might as well jump into the Seine."

"Yes," said Peter musingly. "Yes, of course! I'll go see her. I'll go at once." She assented eagerly. She seemed to hurry him away; and not knowing quite what he was to do when he got there, he found himself, obedient but unprepared, at the other house, before Electra. She was agreeably welcoming. Peter had ceased even to remind her of young love, chiefly because it was a part of her dignity to put the incomplete dream aside. When she was forced to remember, sometimes by a word of grandmother's, it

gave her an irritated sense of having once been cheek to cheek with something unworthy of her. But this morning Peter meant nothing whatever. A larger bulk had blotted him out. He plunged,

at once.

"I am going to Paris, too, Electra. We shall meet there."

She smiled at him with a fine remote

ness.

"Perhaps," she said. Then a wave of her old distaste came over her and she asked, with the indifference that veils forbidden feeling,

"Are you going together?" "Together?"

"Yes. Are you going with Rose MacLeod ?"

Peter frowned.

"We have not mentioned it," he said. Their coming to America together had seemed most natural, but some intonation of her tone made the implication odious. Seeing his look, she said, not giving him time to answer,

"You will help me with the Brotherhood. I must get in touch with it by every possible means."

The color came into his face. He looked half ashamed, half wondering.

"I can't account for it," he returned, "but - Electra, I shan't have time for those things any more."

"Not have time- for that!

son, not because the indignation stirred him. Peter hardly knew how he felt about Markham MacLeod. He scarcely thought of him at all, save as Rose recalled him. As to the Brotherhood, now that this great persuasive force was gone, Peter could view it dispassionately, and it did not move him. It was like waves heard a long way off, the waves of a sea he once had sailed, but from which he had escaped to this upland meadow where the light was good. Only when Rose, possessed by the remembrance of Ivan Gorof's vision, had gone home and told him about it, had he felt the flare of that old enthusiasm to be in the surge of the general life, but chiefly then because she had chanced to use the phrase "shining armor," and he saw a knight pricking through a glade, with sunlight dappling between leaves, and knew it would be good to paint. There was nothing to say to Electra, because, as Rose had told him, she could listen to nothing but the Brotherhood, and wakened only to MacLeod. It was not that she refused other challenges; but her face grew mystical and he knew her mind was afar from him. He got up to go. "In Paris, then, Electra," he said awkwardly.

Her brows contracted. She remembered the other tryst that was to have been, and could not answer.

"You will let me know where you are. I shall find you," Peter said, as he went down the steps, "at once."

But as he walked away, he knew it would have to be some incredible chance to bring them together. There was no room for him.

Electra sat there, her feet together, her hands in her lap, like a carven image, and held herself still in her dream of fantasy. She hardly knew where she was in these days. This was not the world as she had known it. Bound beyond bound of possibility lay over its horizon. There had been her former world, full of disappointments, lacking in opportunities for picturesque morals,

and Markham MacLeod had walked into it, and turned on a light under which the whole place glittered. He had caused things to be forever different. One such illumination made all things possible. She felt like an adventurer setting sail. There in the room where he had talked to her, she sat and thought of him and even felt him near. The great stories flashed out before her, as if she turned page after page. Dante - how many

times did he see Beatrice? She must look it up. But once would be enough, once for souls to recognize each other and then be forever faithful. At a step in the hall she recalled herself. It seemed as if everybody interrupted her in her passionate musings. This was Madam Fulton, and Electra remembered she had something to say to her.

Madam Fulton looked very tired and irked in some way, as if she found the daily burden hard to bear. Electra rose, and waited scrupulously for her to sit.

"Billy Stark comes back to-morrow,” said Madam Fulton. She took a chair, and laid her head back wearily.

"When does he sail?"

"Next week. You go Wednesday. He goes Saturday."

Electra dared not remind her of that wild threat of marrying Billy Stark and sailing with him. Her grandmother looked a pathetically old woman, and such fantasy seemed to have withdrawn into its own place.

"Grandmother," she began delicately. She had a fear of disturbing something frail that might fall to pieces of its own weakness.

"Well."

"Shall you stay on here?" Madam Fulton roused herself.

"No," she said. "I am going to Bessie Grant's. She'll help me pull myself together, and in the fall I shall move back to town."

Electra came awake to her pathetic look.

"You are not feeling well, grandmother," she said solicitously.