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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



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POLITICS AND MORALS. 



IN many States of the Union the 

 school laws provide for compul- 

 sory education in what is called 

 "temperance." How far the educa- 

 tion supplied under this head some- 

 times is from being based on strict 

 scientific principles was well shown 

 some time ago by an able contrib- 

 utor to this magazine. It is a ques- 

 tion, however, whether if even the 

 instruction in "temperance" was all 

 it ought to be from a scientific point 

 of view, it is as much needed as other 

 instruction for which no legal pro- 

 vision is made; we mean especially 

 instruction in the everyday duties of 

 citizenship. 



According to prevalent ideas in 

 this country, a people is free when it 

 has adopted a popular form of gov- 

 ernment, and done away with every- 

 thing having the appearance or 

 savor of monarchy or aristocracy. 

 Thus the Venezuelans are to be con- 

 .sidered a free people because their 

 government is, in form, republican ; 

 and the inhabitants of British Guiana 

 not free, or at least not so free, because 

 they are connected with the mon- 

 archy of Great Britain. In the early 

 stages of the Venezuelan difficulty 

 we heard not a little about the Amer- 

 ican system of government and 

 American political ideas as opposed 

 to the European system and Euro- 

 pean ideas. In the imagination of 

 many, Venezuela stood for freedom 

 and England for tyranny ; and the 

 interests of civilization were held to 

 demand that the free power should 

 be strengthened and the power rep- 

 i-esentative of tyranny checked. To 

 be sure, there was a country to the 

 north of us, also connected with the 

 British Empire, in which a reason- 



able degree of freedom seemed to 

 exist. Still, that was not the right 

 way of being free ; the right way 

 was to have your government re- 

 publican in name as well as in es- 

 sence, and above all to enjoy the 

 vicissitudes of periodical elections 

 for the chief magistracy. This 

 Venezuela had done, and therefore 

 Venezuela was a true home of or- 

 thodox freedom. 



Happily, the Venezuelan diffi- 

 culty is a difficulty no more as be- 

 tween the United States and Eng- 

 land; but the underlying political 

 ideas which tended to embitter feel- 

 ing, and did so dangerously embitter 

 it, on this side are deserving of 

 study. Why has the overthrow of 

 autocratic government provoked so 

 much popular enthusiasm from the 

 days of Harmodius and Aristogeiton 

 down to our own times ? Because 

 the autocrat has been conceived of 

 and often rightly as a man who 

 used his power for his own selfish 

 ends. The tyrant of popular imagi- 

 nation is a man who takes the taxes 

 of the poor to spend upon his luxu- 

 ries and vices; and the tyrant in his- 

 tory has not infrequently filled pre- 

 cisely this unworthy role. The 

 advantage, then, to be gained from 

 dethroning tyrants is that the power 

 and resources of government then 

 become available for the uses of the 

 state. A viituous tyrant would be 

 one who used all his power in an 

 unselfish manner for the benefit of 

 his subjects ; but when in the course 

 of events even the virtuous tyrant 

 becomes an impossibility, what is to 

 be done with the power he formerly 

 exercised ? It passes over to the 

 people ; now what is going to be 

 done with it ? Here we come to the 



