Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/278

 MARK TWAIN

The active ceremonies of the evening closed with the speeches of welcome delivered by two students and the replies made by Professors Virchow and Helmholtz.

Virchow has long been a member of the city gov ernment of Berlin. He works as hard for the city as does any other Berlin alderman, and gets the same pay nothing. I don t know that we in America could venture to ask our most illustrious citizen to serve in a board of aldermen, and if we might venture it I am not positively sure that we could elect him. But here the municipal system is such that the best men in the city consider it an honor to serve gratis as aldermen, and the people have the good sense to prefer these men and to elect them year after year. As a result Berlin is a thoroughly well-governed city. It is a free city; its affairs are not meddled with by the state ; they are managed^ by its own citizens, and after methods of their own devising.

�� �