Education of Municipal Employees and Managers.-As a result of the initiative of Director Cooke of the Department of Public Works in Philadelphia, 152 of its employees have been enrolled in night schools for additional instruction. Similar efforts have been made in New York in conjunction with New York University. The faculty of the University of Michigan has arranged for graduate work in municipal administration in the larger sense. The plan is to give the degree of master of arts or science in municipal administration. The minimum requirement will be one year of residence at the university after graduation, together with at least three months of field work, preferably with some bureau of municipal research. The course covers municipal administration in the narrow sense, municipal accounting, city planning, law courses having to do with municipal corporations, public-service corporations, public investments, public health, and descriptive courses having to do with municipal engineering problems, water supply, light, sewage disposal, etc.

Municipal Courts.-The National Municipal League has a committee on municipal courts which in conjunction with the American Judicature Society is preparing a model municipal court act. The programme adopts the principle that all the tribunals of a city should be branches or divisions of a single unified court. It is then possible for that court to create such branches as may be needed from time to time and to provide an administrative organization which will prevent these branches from conflicting, which will conserve judicial energy, and enable every unit of the entire department of justice to work efficiently.

employees, should be exercised through action of the entire court, thus dignifying the trial judge and making him more directly responsible for the duties he must perform. There are many lesser duties, particularly in the administrative field, which are best performed directly by an individual responsible head of the court, who may be known as chief justice or presiding judge. The chief justice should be empowered to establish branch courts and direct the judges and other agents so that they shall do the work for which they are best fitted. The proposed model municipal court organization, with its numerous branches and assignments of judges by a chief justice, permits each judge to be chosen for that field of law to which he is best fitted by experience or talent and keeps him there long enough to make him expert. The chief justice should also make dockets and assign cases, thus distributing the work equitably and utilizing his force of judges for the largest output of the highest standard.

New York Board of Inebriety.-In 1911, under authority of an act of 1910, New York City established a Board of Inebriety to maintain a hospital and industrial colony for inebriates. The board consists of seven members, five unpaid members (at least two of whom must be physicians and two clergymen) appointed by the mayor, with the commissioners of charities and corrections ex officio. The first annual report of this Board (for the year 1913) describes the situation and purchase of a site of 750 acres in Orange County, and the plans for buildings, which are to be on the cottage system. There is also included a report on the agricultural development of the property. As soon as the necessary buildings are erected, the colony will be inaugurated. This is the first American municipal institution for the care and treatment of inebriates. Massachusetts has a state institution for this purpose; Pennsylvania has established a commission to organize a similar institution; and Connecticut and Minnesota have passed laws on the subject.

Height, Size and Arrangement of Buildings of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of the City of New York, Dec. 23, 1913. Report of the Police Pension Fund of the City of New York, 1913. (Submitted to the Aldermanic Committee on Police Investigation by the Bureau of Municipal Research, New York.) ROSENSTIRN, Julius. "Our Nation's Health Endangered by Poisonous Infection Through the Social Malady. The Protective Work of the Municipal Clinic of San Francisco and Its Fight for Existence." (San Francisco, 1913.) ROWNTREE, B. Seebohm, and PIGOU, A. C.-Lectures on Housing. (Manchester, University Press.)

SHURTLEFF, Flavel, and OLMSTED, Frederick Law.-Carrying Out the City Plan. (New York, Survey Associates,

Inc.)

SULLIVAN, J. W.-Markets for the People: The Consumers' Park. (New York, Macmillan Co.)

THOMPSON, Robert Ellis.-The History of the Dwelling House and Its Future. (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co.) WALTON, John M.-"Manual of Accounting, Reporting and Business Procedure of the City of Philadelphia." (Issued by John M. Walton, City Comptroller, 1913.)

ZMRHAL, J. J.—A Primer of Civics. Designed for the Guidance of the Immigrant. Polish edition. (Issued by the Colonial Dames of Illinois, 1914.)

ALASKA

Economic Conditions. During the year Alaska has received in Congress and in the press unusual attention. This has been due to the aggressive policy of the Administration and, particularly, of the Secretary of the Interior, in urging legislation looking to the conservative development of the resources of Alaska. These efforts have encouraged the people making their homes in Alaska and have attracted to the territory new settlers. The white population is estimated at 39,000, an increase of 3,000 over the estimate of 1913.

Congressional Legislation. In addition to general legislation affecting Alaska in common with the United States, Congress passed two bills of importance to the territory. The first was the railroad legislation, to which reference was made in the YEAR BOOK for 1913 (p. 235) "to authorize the President of the United States to locate, construct and operate railroads in the Territory of Alaska," approved March 12. This Act authorizes the expenditure of not to exceed $35,000,000, and makes an initial appropriation of $1,000,000. The work of locating these roads is now under way. (See also I, American History; and XXI, Civil Engineering.)

and corporations to whom leases may be made and the quantities of land which may be leased in each case are definitely set forth in the Act. It is not unlikely that the long hoped-for development as a result of this Act will be delayed pending action under the law authorizing the Government to construct railroads in the territory. (See also I, American History; X, Public Lands; and XVIII, Mineral Industries.)

Local Legislation.-A number of laws passed at the last session of the Alaska legislature have been inoperative, due in some instances to the fact that in passing them the legislature exceeded its powers, among these being the revenue laws. In other instances no appropriations were made for their enforcement, and the failure of the revenue laws added to the difficulty of enforcing those laws where appropriations had been made.

An Act passed by the territorial legislature providing for the forma tion of banking corporations and the regulation of banks in Alaska became operative on July 28 and for the first time in its history the banks of the territory other than national banks are under territorial inspection and control.

The powers conferred on the legislature by the organic act passed by Congress in 1912 are extremely limited, and President Wilson and the Governor of Alaska recommend that Alaska be given a full territorial form of government.