554 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



liking, does not seem, broadly speak- 

 ing, to be in anybody's thoughts. 

 The politicians ignore it entirely in 

 all their calculations. Side by side, 

 therefore, with the pictures drawn 

 in the " temperance " lesson of the 

 reeling, brawling inebriate, it would 

 be well, we tliink, to place a picture 

 of the citizen who, boasting that he 

 belongs to a free State, yet holds his 

 vote in fee for some trumpery office, 

 and openly threatens to betray causes 

 on which at times he grows eloquent 

 if his private demands are not met. 

 It is not always for himself person- 

 ally that the free and enlightened 

 elector wants an office. It may be 

 for his brother, his father-in-law, his 

 nephew, or his business partner; but 

 whatever it is that he wants, or for 

 whomsoever he wants it, he makes 

 no scruple about using his franchise 

 and such political influence as he 

 possesses in order to compass his 

 ends. Often the demands that are 

 made are flagrantly unjust; some- 

 times they involve wasteful expendi- 

 ture of public money; but none the 

 less are they pressed by men who 

 exult, as we have said, in the free- 

 dom of our institutions, and look 

 with mingled pity and contempt 

 upon communities that are content 

 to dwell under the baneful shadow 

 of some monarchical form of govern- 

 ment. A splendid text-book could 

 be made for the instruction of Ameri- 

 can youth if some prominent states- 

 man would make a selection from 

 his correspondence with olBce-seek- 

 ers and wire-pullers, with tariff- 

 mongei'S and contract jobbers. We 

 say this matter is more pressing 

 far more pressing than instruction 

 in temperance, for the reason that if 

 the youth leaves school unwarned 

 and unfortified against the abuses of 

 politics, he will almost at once find 

 himself in an atmosphere in which 

 conscience in regard to such matters 

 is wholly ignored; he will be caught 



in the wheel work of the political 

 machine and will become, while yet 

 a youth, a political machinist him- 

 self. 



The question as to how a low tone 

 of political morality acts upon the 

 general morals of the community is 

 one on which we can not enter to- 

 day. What we wish to insist on is 

 that there is a crying need for ex- 

 plaining to the youth of the country 

 not so much the technical details of 

 our system of government though 

 every boy and girl leaving school 

 should have correct general ideas on 

 that subject as the true principles 

 which should govern political action 

 here and everywhere, and the par- 

 ticular abuses, dangers, and diseases 

 to which our own political system 

 is exposed. Above all, the simple 

 principle should be inculcated that 

 political power can never be properly 

 regarded as a private possession. 



THE RACIAL OEOGBAPHT OF EUROPE. 



It may savor of undue presump- 

 tion to assert that the English lan- 

 guage is the proper medium through 

 which the anthropological history of 

 Europe should first find expression. 

 At first it would seem that the con- 

 tinental nations were most compe- 

 tent to unravel their own past his- 

 tory. This is indeed true, so far as 

 each by itself is concerned. But when 

 the task of combining them into a 

 continental whole arises, the tables 

 are turned. In no other department 

 of science has political jealousy and 

 hatred worked to greater harm than 

 in anthropology; for Euroi>e is di- 

 vided into two armed camps one 

 led by the French, the other domi- 

 nated by German influence. Their 

 methods of work, their terminology, 

 their conclusions, are all conflicting. 

 Each claims priority, and each has 

 a racial history of Europe which is 

 suited to its own pui^pose. Hence 



