BY FRANK H. HODDER.

In political science, things near at hand and always with us are slighted, while remote and obscure questions are made the subject of most careful investigation. Taxation is a notable illustration of this fact. There is no act of government which so directly and intimately concerns the whole people, and yet it would be difficult to name one which has received so little careful study. In English there is not a single systematic and comprehensive work on the subject. Similarly with municipal government. With the present distribution of population this department of government controls more than one-fourth of our whole people in all their most important political relations. There is still no systematic treatise on the subject, but public interest has been aroused, and a large number of lectures, articles in periodicals and scientific journals has been printed in recent years. It is a hopeful sign that municipal government is beginning to receive careful attention in colleges. For the purpose of assisting college study of the subject, a list of such literature as could be found was printed some time ago. As it has been found useful in several institutions, it has seemed worth while to extend it and bring it down to date. The study of municipal government at home is very properly preceded by a summary of local government generally and by a glance at municipal government abroad. The order of the references is as follows:

I. INTRODUCTORY.

1. LOCAL GOVERNMENT GENERALLY.

Short accounts of the systems of local government of the principal countries of continental Europe are given in the Cobden Club Essays: Local Government and Taxation, London, 1875, edited by J. W. Probyn. See also F. Béchard’s De L’administration de la France, 2 vols. Paris, 1851, with appendix on municipal organization in Europe.

The best short description of English local government is M. D. Chalmers’s Local Government, “English Citizen” Series, London, 1883. See also Local Administration, “Imperial Parliament” Series, London, 1887, by Wm. Rathbone, Albert Pell and F. C. Montague. For still shorter account read chapter 15 of May’s Constitutional History and article on “Local Government in England” by F. J. Goodnow in the Political Science Quarterly, December, 1887, vol. 2, pp. 338-65, and an article by the same writer on “The Local Government Bill” in the Political Science Quarterly, June, 1888, vol. 3, pp. 311-333. Supplement Chalmers with Cobden Club Essays: Local Government and Taxation in the United Kingdom, London, 1882, edited by J. W. Probyn. The most exhaustive work on English local offices is Rudolph Gneist’s Self-Government: Communalverfassung u. Verwaltungsgerichte in England, untranslated, 3d ed., 1876. For full bibliography see Gomme’s Literature of Local Institutions, London, 1886.

The best short outline of local government in the United States is an article by S. A. Galpin on “Minor Political Divisions of the United States,” in Gen. F. A Walker’s Statistical Atlas of the United States. The papers on the local institutions of several of the States in the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science are especially valuable. Chas. M. Andrews has articles on Connecticut towns in the Johns Hopkins Studies, vol. 7, and in the Annals of the American Academy of Political Science, October, 1890, vol. 1, pp. 165-91. Especially important is Prof. Geo. E. Howard’s Local Constitutional History of the United States, vol. 1.: “The Development of the Township, Hundred and Shire,” printed as an extra volume in this series. John Fiske’s lecture on “The Town Meeting,” delivered at the Royal Institution, was printed in Harper’s Magazine, vol. 70, pp. 265-272, and in his American Political Ideas, N. Y., 1885. A different view of the present importance of local institutions is taken by Prof. S. N. Patten in an article on the “Decay of State and Local Government,” in the first number of the Annals of the American Academy of Political Science. For comparison of American and foreign methods, read R. P. Porter’s article “Local Government: at Home and Abroad,” Princeton Review, July, 1879, n. s. vol. 4, p. 172, and reprinted separately. See two articles on “Local Government in Prussia,” by F. J. Goodnow in the Political Science Quarterly, December, 1889, vol. 4, pp. 648-66, and March, 1890, vol. 5, pp. 124-58. For further reference on local self-government see W. F. Foster’s Monthly Reference Lists, vol. 2, pp. 23-29, and his pamphlet of References on Political and Economic Topics, p. 24.

For Canada, see J. G. Bourinot’s “Local Government in Canada: an historical study,” in Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada for 1886, vol. 4., sec. 2, pp. 42-70; printed separately by the publishers, and reprinted, with a letter on the municipal system of Ontario, in the 5th series of the Johns Hopkins Studies. A paper on “The Ontario Township,” by J. M. McEvoy, printed in 1889, forms No. 1 of the Toronto University Studies in Political Science.