5. Consider the suggestions about the study of town government
(pp. 43, 44), and act upon such of them as are applicable
to city government.

6. What is the general impression about the purity of your city
government? (Consult several citizens and report what you find out.)

7. What important caution should be observed about vague rumours of
inefficiency or corruption?

8. What are the evidences of a sound financial condition in a city?

9. Is the financial condition of your city sound?

10. When debts are incurred, are provisions made at the same time for
meeting them when due?

11. What are "sinking funds"?

12. What wants has a city that a town is free from?

13. Describe your system of public water works, making an analysis of
important points that may be presented.

14. Do the same for your park system or any other system that involves a
long time for its completion as well as a great outlay.

15. Are the principles of civil service reform recognized in your city?
If so, to what extent? Do they need to be extended further?

16. Describe the parties that contended for the supremacy in your last
city election and tell what questions were at issue between them.

17. What great corporations exact an influence in your city affairs? Is
such influence bad because it is great? What is a possible danger from
such influence?

18. In view of the vast number and range of city interests, what is the
most that the average citizen can reasonably be asked to know and to do
about them? What things is it indispensable for him to know and to do is
he is to contribute to good government?

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

Section 1. DIRECT AND INDIRECT GOVERNMENT.--The transition from
direct to indirect government, as illustrated in the gradual
development of a township into a city, may be profitably studied in
Quincy's _Municipal History of Boston_, Boston, 1852; and in
Winsor's _Memorial History of Boston_, vol. iii. pp. 189-302,
Boston, 1881.

Section 2. ORIGIN OF ENGLISH BOROUGHS AND CITIES.--See Loftie's
_History of London_, 2 vols., London, 1883; Toulmin Smith's
_English Gilds_, with Introduction by Lujo Brentano, London,
1870; and the histories of the English Constitution, especially those
of Gneist, Stubbs, Taswell-Langmead, and Hannis Taylor.

Section 3. GOVERNMENT OF CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES.--_J.H.U. Studies_,
III., xi.-xii., J.A. Porter, _The City of Washington_; IV., iv., W.P.
Holcomb, _Pennsylvania Borough