EDITOR'S TABLE. 



125 



delightful society for one another; 

 but, from the wider sociological 

 standpoint, what function are they 

 going to fulfill? Will they in any 

 powerful and eilective manner help 

 to sustain and strengthen the ideality 

 of less favored classes ; or will they 

 live their lives apart, each in his own 

 little "palace of art" constructed by 

 the spirit of self-love and exclusive- 

 ness? If they can be counted on to 

 do the former, then the millions are 

 most wisely expended; but if the 

 latter is to be the outcome, then, be- 

 yond all doubt, the millions might 

 have been better applied. We be- 

 lieve in natural differentiations, but 

 not in artificially created distinc- 

 tions; and unless our highly edu- 

 cated class can accept and discharge 

 some social ministry that will have 

 the effect of communicating to others 

 some share in what they have ob- 

 tained themselves, it seems to us that 

 this vast expenditure of money for 

 higher education may lead to social 

 results of a rather undesirable kind. 

 The university graduate, as we have 

 seen, is cutting a very poor figure in 

 politics. The politicians by profes- 

 sion will not let him do otherwise; 

 and he seems to have no power what- 

 ever of appealing to or influencing 

 the people against the politicians. 

 The reason why he is thus powerless 

 admitting, what x^erhaps there is 

 no reason to admit in some cases, 

 that he has any ideal of his own 

 above the common is that the life 

 of the people is almost untouched by 

 any kind of ideality, and that the 

 popular habit of mind is opposed to 

 the recognition of any leadership 

 based upon superiority of mental or 

 moral endowment. We are thus 

 led to the unwelcome conclusion 

 that there is but little diffusion of 

 culture in any true sense among the 

 people, and that it is the general lack 

 of it, and the absence of any interest 

 in larger questions, which give to 



our politics that character of dreari- 

 ness and pettiness, not to mention a 

 constant tendency to corruption, 

 which all careful observers have 

 noted. 



One careful observer has lately 

 consigned his observations to the 

 pages of the Atlantic Monthly ; we 

 refer to the article contributed to the 

 March number of that periodical by 

 Mr. Francis C. Lowell, under the title 

 of Legislative Shortcomings. It is 

 of the Massachusetts Legislature, in 

 which he had two years' experience, 

 that Mr. Lowell speaks. "The first 

 object," he says, of a member elected 

 thereto, " is to secure the passage, or 

 more rarely the defeat, of some legis- 

 lative measure of only local impor- 

 tance. . . . Occasionally, but not 

 often, this measure is an iniquitous 

 job. Usually the member has no 

 pecuniary interest in it, and often it 

 is little more than a matter of legis- 

 lative routine. Even when it is un- 

 wise, it is frequently nothing worse 

 than a piece of legislative f ussiness ; 

 or perhaps it was devised to meet 

 some local demand, and is objection- 

 able only on account of the bad pre- 

 cedent it establishes; such, for ex- 

 ample, as acts to enable a particular 

 town to subsidize a steamboat or a 

 variety show for the convenience or 

 amusement of its summer visitors. 

 ... If the member's pet measure is 

 not a local matter, but an act of gen- 

 eral importance, he runs the risk of 

 being deemed a crank. If he should 

 strenuously seek the passage of sev- 

 eral measures, really important, he 

 would be thought wholly devoid of 

 common sense, and his influence 

 would soon disappear." Then, in 

 order to get his own little bill passed, 

 the member, Mr. Lowell tells us, has 

 to trade his vote that is to say, he 

 must vote for other men's bills, be 

 they good or bad, if he wishes them 

 to vote for his. If he should fail to 

 do this, ''his constituents, without 



