We have now considered individually and separately, in the course of their development, the different elements which, when combined and modified by the various changes described, contributed to form the solid foundation upon which the fabric of the future independent life of the cities was to be built. We have been dealing exclusively with institutions, and the manner in which their growth has been accomplished. For it is in the institutional life of a people, and in the change and development it undergoes, that are to be found those elements which form the basis for all future changes, whether simply in the form of its government or in the structure of its social system. If once a clear picture is gained of the structural parts which form the institutional framework of any particular development, and a truthful presentation of these forming principles is proved and established, a detailed account of the material expression of them is a matter of secondary importance. I have not, in this paper, attempted to describe the actual condition of any particular municipality, or even presented a picture which could represent the material existence of the cities as a whole. Such a picture would only be a necessary part of a study of institutions when the city itself was the unit to be investigated, and not of one whose chief object is to prove that the city as such had no constitutional existence, but simply formed a part of another institutional unit. When we reach a period in which the city stands out as an object of study in itself, and when we do not have to trace its history only by learning that of other institutions which included and overshadowed it, then the practical life of the people within its walls becomes of the greatest importance, even to the smallest detail of civic law or city custom; and then, and not till then, begins what could properly be called a study of municipal institutions.