There has been much criticism of American legislatures and of the character of laws which they annually produce, but until quite recently little or nothing has been done to remedy the conditions thus criticised. The criticism has been and still is largely destructive, not constructive. A view quite generally held is that we have entirely too much legislation and in order to remedy this, it has been urged that we should have less frequent sessions of the legislature and that these sessions should be limited as to time. An argument advanced against limiting the sessions, that should have considerable weight, however, is that such a limitation would make it practically impossible to secure well considered laws. A careful examination of the statutes of the several States would, no doubt, demonstrate the fact that a short session instead of decreasing the number of laws has actually been the cause of increasing them. The reason for this is that sufficient time is not given to discover the defects of and the objections to many bills which would otherwise be defeated, if time were given for investigation and consideration. Certainly an examination of the laws of Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Illinois and other States which have no limit on the length of the legislative session shows a smaller output of laws than is the case with many of the States which have limited the legislative session to sixty or ninety days.

The establishment of a legislative reference bureau for a political party creates many problems distinct from those arising in state and municipal reference work. In both are found the immediate purpose of improvement in legislative methods and the ultimate purpose of service to the state. But in organization and operation of a party bureau many difficulties must be encountered and results produced for which there are few helpful precedents.

We have before us the college course in government for undergraduates, the great majority of whom are going into business or the learned professions, and will have no other opportunity to get, through systematic study, the right attitude toward the State. Our problem is a severely practical one. We are seeking results in the form of good citizenship; and good citizenship is mainly a matter of the heart rather than of the head. It is far more a matter of impulse than of knowledge. Given a body of honest, patriotic, sober citizens and the rest will take care of itself. Switzerland is said to have self-government, yet few of its citizens have had a course in college which deals with government.

It is a significant fact in the history of political instruction that the American Political Science Association and the National Municipal League should be making a simultaneous effort to investigate the content, method, and proportion of such instruction, with a view to offering definite and helpful suggestions to teachers of the subject. And that at the same time the National Educational Association, through its committee on social studies, unwilling to wait for further data, has begun to sketch out for the secondary school a program of economic and civic instruction combined that shall mark a radical departure from the formal textbook course in government. Dr. Haines will tell you of your own committee's work, and Mr. Dunn of that of the Municipal League's committee, for the two are now coöperating. I shall avail myself of the National Educational Association preliminary report as a point of departure for this paper.

The counties of Essex and Hudson, New Jersey, measured by population, are two of the largest political units of their kind in the country.

These counties are not only almost exclusively of an urban character; they have become practically continuous urban communities.

The physical unity of Essex County, however, is more real than the social. Underneath the common interests of each of the several localities is a strong local spirit, due largely to individuality of interest. Some of them are almost exclusively residential and suburban, tributary not to the large city of Newark, but to New York. The cities of Newark and Jersey City have all the varied characteristics of a metropolis. They have an independent reason for existence in their manufacturing interests, and what usually goes with such interests, a large foreign population.