396 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and allow a wide diversity in methods, it must maintain a general 

 supervisory control over these subjects. In other words, the city govern- 

 ment is not only an organ for the satisfaction of loeal needs, but an 

 agent of the state for the performance of state functions. The doctrine 

 of home rule recognizes this. It renders to the city the things that are 

 the city's, and to the state the things that are the state's. 



So defined — and it has been so defined by the states which have 

 written it into their fundamental law — the principle of municipal home 

 rule may be regarded as the first step in the direction of a responsible 

 and efficient city government. Wherever it has been put into the consti- 

 tution of a state a larger municipal vision has been created and a new 

 brand of municipal administration has appeared. Thus it is a signif- 

 icant fact that many of the most advanced forms of city government 

 hare grown up in the cities which have enjoyed constitutional home 

 rule. Given the right to determine its own destiny, the city becomes 

 the hope, instead of the despair, of democracy. And the test which 

 democracy receives will be a fair one. 



