tration.

The smallest civil division in France is the _commune_, which may
be either rural or urban. The commune has a municipal council which
elects a mayor; but when once elected the mayor becomes directly
responsible to the prefect of the department, and through him to the
minister of the interior. If these greater officers do not like what
the mayor does, they can overrule his acts or even suspend him from
office; or upon their complaint the President of the Republic can
remove him.

[Sidenote: In France whether it is nominally a despotic empire or a
republic at the top, there is scarcely any self-government at the
bottom. Hence government there rests on an insecure foundation.]
Thus in France people do not manage their own affairs, but they are
managed for them by a hierarchy of officials with its head at Paris.
This system was devised by the Constituent Assembly in 1790 and
wrought into completeness by Napoleon in 1800. The men who devised
it in 1790 actually supposed that they were inaugurating a system or
political freedom(!), and unquestionably it was a vast improvement
upon the wretched system which it supplanted; but as contrasted with
American methods and institutions, it is difficult to call it anything
else than a highly centralized despotism. It has gone on without
essential change through all the revolutions which have overtaken
France since 1800. The people have from time to time overthrown an
unpopular government at Paris, but they have never assumed the direct
control of their own affairs.

Hence it is commonly remarked that while the general intelligence
of the French people is very high, their intelligence in political
matters is, comparatively speaking, very low. Some persons try to
explain this by a reference to peculiarities of race. But if we
Americans were to set about giving to the state governments things
to do that had better be done by counties and towns, and giving the
federal government things to do that had better be done by the states,
it would not take many generations to dull the keen edge of our
political capacity. We should lose it as inevitably as the most
consummate of pianists will lose his facility if he stops practising.
It is therefore a fact of cardinal importance that in the United
States the local governments of township, county, and city are left to
administer themselves instead of being administered by a great bureau
with its head at the state capital. In a political