Excerpt from Municipal Charters: A Discussion of the Essentials of a City Charter, With Forms or Models for Adoption This book is mainly the outcome of a course of instruction given in the Department of Government at Harvard University during the academic year 1911 - 12. It is now printed with some additions, explanations and alternative suggestions as the first volume in a series of publications dealing with the general subject of municipal government. The attention of the reader is particularly directed to the fact that the author's object has been to prepare a practical handbook of municipal legislation with special emphasis on administrative provisions, and that he regards the political mechanism of the city government as of relatively minor consequence. The author would also call attention to the fact that both the administrative and the political features of the charters submitted in this book are, with few exceptions, based upon his own experience, official or professional, during the past thirty years. Acknowledgment should be made of the author's indebtedness to Mr. Edwin A. Cottrell, Assistant in Government at the University, for his cooperation in the preparation of this book. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.