EDUCATIONAL ENDOWMENTS. 545 



perhaps it is just as well that none was attempted, for it is greatly to 

 be feared that none is possible. It is worth instancing, however, as ex- 

 hibiting the sanctimonious pomp and official carelessness of the au- 

 thor's style of writing and thinking. 



But our next quotation is more interesting still : "Take compul- 

 sory education. The compulsion is a power which gradually lifts [a] 

 people above its own ethical plain " (sic). 



I confess that this last sentence reminded me of certain Canadian 

 rustics who were gulled into believing that a man could lift himself 

 into the air by pulling at his boot-straps. The parallelism is perfect, 

 and in each case the implied denial of the persistence of force seems 

 altogether naive and unconscious. This passage is especially worth 

 instancing, because it shows the weak point in all Mr. Ely's social- 

 istic ideas. His constant assumption is, that governments can coerce 

 the people can expend force upon them without itself being sup- 

 plied with force by the people. The Government (if written with a 

 capital letter) can support the people," whether the people " support 

 the Government " or not. Now, everybody knows the fact to be, that 

 no machine requires so much " pressure " to keep it going as a gov- 

 ernment agency. Public clamor has to reach a very high key before 

 great measures are passed ; endless log-rolling has to be resorted to 

 before the best claim can be passed upon, or the bill most obviously 

 good be enacted. And probably it is fortunate that this is so, for oth- 

 erwise we should be even more inundated than at present with foolish 

 legislation. But the point for our present notice is, that our Legisla- 

 tures and executive agencies are inefficient machines requiring a vast 

 amount of power for a given product, and that, too, of poor quality. 

 This is not an accident, but is necessarily so. Legislative and execu- 

 tive bodies are unevolved in character, unspecialized by long disci- 

 pline for the work they have to do ; and this must continue to be so. 

 And Mr. Ely ignores the commonest facts of daily experience as well 

 as the highest generalization of science in the above quotation and in 

 his whole theory of society, so far as he can be said to have one. 



Were it worth while, we might continue quotations of this charac- 

 ter ad nauseam. " Let us remember," he says, in the same Introduc- 

 tion, " that every hope of a permanent reform in industrial and social 

 life must be illusory unless it has a firm foundation in a lasting state 

 reformation." Let the reader observe the connotation of the terms 

 " industrial and social." Does this mean that Congress is to give a 

 "foundation" (whatever that may signify) for every social and indus- 

 trial improvement ? Congress, which can not even manage the tariff 

 or the currency ? In Mr. Ely's papers on railroads lately published in 

 " Harper's," it appears that the State (with the big S) is to "reform " 

 that branch of industry. But discussion is useless. Mr. Ely's ex- 

 pressions are so loose, and his papers ignore the commonest facts to 

 such an extent, that argument is impossible. 



VOL. XXXI. 35 



