The reorganisation of the Prussian military system and the emancipation of the peasant, though promoted by Stein's accession to power, did not originate in Stein himself; the distinctive work of Stein was a great scheme of political reform. Had Stein remained longer in power, he would have given to Prussia at least the beginnings of constitutional government. Events drove him from office when but a small part of his project was carried into effect; but the project itself was great and comprehensive. He designed to give Prussia a Parliament, and to establish a system of self-government in its towns and country districts. Stein had visited England in his youth. The history and the literature of England interested him beyond those of any other country; and he had learnt from England that the partnership of the nation in the work of government, so far from weakening authority, animates it with a force which no despotic system can long preserve. Almost every important State-paper written by Stein denounces the apathy of the civil population of Prussia, and attributes it to their exclusion from all exercise of public duties. He declared that the nation must be raised from its torpor by the establishment of representative government and the creation of free local institutions in town and country. Stein was no friend of democracy. Like every other Prussian statesman he took for granted the exercise of a vigorous monarchical power at the centre of the State; but around the permanent executive he desired to gather the Council of the Nation, checking at least the caprices of Cabinet-rule, and making the opinion of the people felt by the monarch. Stein's Parliament would have been a far weaker body than the English House of Commons, but it was at least not intended to be a mockery, like those legislative bodies which Napoleon and his clients erected as the disguise of despotism. The transaction of local business in the towns and country districts, which had hitherto belonged to officials of the Crown, Stein desired to transfer in part to bodies elected by the inhabitants themselves. The functions allotted to the new municipal bodies illustrated the modest and cautious nature of Stein's attempt in the direction of self-government, including no more than the care of the poor, the superintendence of schools, and the maintenance of streets and public buildings. Finance remained partly, police wholly, in the hands of the central Government. Equally limited were the powers which Stein proposed to entrust to the district councils elected by the rural population. In comparison with the self-government of England or America, the self-government which Stein would have introduced into Prussia was of the most elementary character; yet his policy stood out in striking contrast to that which in every client-state of Napoleon was now crushing out the last elements of local independence under a rigid official centralisation. [Municipal reform alone carried out.]