66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the accusers of themselves and of cautious justice. Whether his state- 

 craft has on the whole been correct is a political question, out of place 

 here. No doubt there are those who would try to punish him for 

 deviations from the public policy they have desired by opposing him 

 for a non-political post. With such animosity I shall not contend. 

 We kaow that in the vast range of remote appointments Mr. Eoosevelt's 

 selection of men for places not the highest has often been bad. We 

 know that near home, in his cabinet and otherwise, he has surrounded 

 himself with some of the most capable. His desire and his enthusiasm 

 for men of power, his absolute freedom from the jealousy that would 

 surround itself with lesser and merely instrumental men, his generous 

 friendship and laudation, are for our present interest amongst the traits 

 that promise most. 



The chief trait, that on which we have already dwelt, is perhaps best 

 characterized in Walter Bagehot's remarks on Mr. Gladstone as a public 

 speaker : 



A man must not only know what to say, he must have a vehement longing 

 to get up and say it. Many persons, rather sceptical persons especially, do not 

 feel this in the least. They see before them an audience — a miscellaneous col- 

 lection of odd-looking men — but they feel no wish to convince them of anything. 

 " Are not they very well as they are ? They believe what they have been brought 

 up to believe." " Confirm every man in his own manner of conceiving," said one 

 great sage. " A savage among savages is very well," remarked another. You 

 may easily take away one creed and then not be able to implant another. 

 " You may succeed in unfitting men for their own purposes without fitting them 

 for your purposes " — thus thinks the cui bono sceptic. Another kind of sceptic 

 is distrustful, and speaks thus: "I know / can't convince these people; if I 

 could, perhaps I would, but I can't. Only look at them! They have all kinds 

 of crotchets in their heads. There is a wooden-faced man in spectacles. How 

 can you convince a wooden-faced man in spectacles? And see that other man 

 with a narrow forehead and compressed lips — is it any use talking to him? 

 It is of no use; do not hope that mere arguments will impair the preposses- 

 sions of nature and the steady convictions of years." Mr. Gladstone would not 

 feel these sceptical arguments. He would get up to speak. He has the didactic 

 impulse. He has the " courage of his ideas." He will convince the audience. 

 He knows an argument which will be effective, he has one for one and another 

 for another; he has an enthusiasm which he feels will rouse the apathetic, a 

 demonstration which he thinks must convert the incredulous, an illustration 

 which he hopes will drive his meaning even into the heads of the stolid. At any 

 rate, he will try. He has a nature, as Coleridge might have said, towards his 

 audience. He is sure, if they only knew what he knows, they would feel as he 

 feels, and believe as he believes. And by this he conquers. This living faith, 

 this enthusiasm, this confidence, call ic as we will, is an extreme power in 

 human affairs. One croyant, said the Frenchman, is a greater power than fifty 

 incr^dules. 



This quality is far from the only quality required in an educational 

 leader ; but circumstances conspire to give it value in a college. Some- 



