the special mission to Japan outlined by Viscount Goto.
This he accepted, and sailed immediately.

The unusual honour and opportunity for international
service that came to Dr. Beard and to the Bureau of
Municipal Research was the direct outgrowth of Dr.
Beard's work in Tokyo in the winter and spring im-
mediately preceding the earthquake. In this work he
applied to Japanese conditions the governmental research
methods and the administrative principles developed dur-
ing the past fifteen years by the Bureau of Municipal
Research. This study of Japanese municipal government
was undertaken at the request of Viscount Goto, who
was then Mayor of Tokyo. It was therefore natural for
Viscount Goto to turn to Dr. Beard and to the New York
Bureau of Municipal Research in this crisis.

This survey of Tokyo was in the hands of the pub-
lisher at the time of the Japanese disaster. Before sail-
ing Dr. Beard ordered to have publication held up in
the thought that the usefulness of the report was at an
end because of changed conditions. Requests for copies
of this survey from official sources in Japan indicate
that those in a position to know feel differently. Ameri-
cans interested in municipal government and public ad-
ministration will share this view. Dr. Beard's survey is
therefore published now in his absence without those
changes which he himself would make were he here.
Slight editorial changes have been made, but the work
itself is as it was left before the great disaster.

The earthquake and fire destroyed many of the physical
features of Tokyo described in the following pages. The
disaster has wiped out as well many of the physical
obstacles which have stood in the way of the realisation
of the plans for city betterment. It is destined also to
clear the field of old prejudices and entrenched practices

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