426 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION 



century, and French urban life has, accordingly, developed under 

 orderly forms with a system elastic enough to meet changes, and in 

 accordance with the genius of modern French life. 



Prussia was hardly less fortunate in the opening part of the last 

 century in its great administrative reformers, who created a system 

 for provincial, municipal, and local government that in the main 

 has stood the test of time and has served for the exigencies of a 

 wholly unforeseen growth of industry, population, and urban life. 

 Saxony and the other German states, meanwhile, had also provided 

 themselves with reformed systems of municipal and local govern- 

 ment, different in details, but in a general way similar to the system 

 of Prussia. Belgium, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and the Latinic 

 countries in general, followed sooner or later the model of France in 

 shaping for themselves uniform codes of administrative law for the 

 organization of local and municipal corporations. Austria and the 

 eastern part of Europe have more generally followed the German 

 model. 



The keynote of the German system is to be found in a very highly 

 organized, well-trained, non-political, permanent civil service. Every 

 department of municipal administration is in the hands of expert 

 functionaries, each man holding his place as a life career. At the 

 head of the municipality is the burgomaster, himself the most highly 

 trained administrative functionary of all. His position is wholly 

 different from that of the non-salaried English citizen, who holds 

 temporarily the honorary rank of Lord Mayor. 



In like manner, the headship of the police department, of the legal 

 department, of the education department, and of the various serv- 

 ices concerned with the supply of water, the maintenance of the 

 streets,' the sewer system, the public cleansing, the administration 

 of the health services, and so on, is vested in a permanent profes- 

 sional expert administrator under whom are many other permanent 

 and specially trained experts, who hold their places for life on condi- 

 tion of efficiency and good behavior. 



The burgomaster and the head officials of the principal depart- 

 ments constitute a body known as the council of magistrates. The 

 citizenship of the community is represented in another body known 

 as the Gemeindesrath, or common council. This council is popularly 

 elected, and is a body of great authority. It sits in one chamber, but 

 is elected upon a plan which recognizes the large taxpayers as en- 

 titled to much more consideration than those who pay small taxes. 

 With the development of democracy, these property distinctions will 

 probably be modified and in the course of time they may be abolished. 



Meanwhile, however, admission to the trained civil service is open 

 upon merit to the very humblest, and promotion in the civil and 

 municipal services also goes without favor upon merit. The selection 



