EDITOR'S TABLE. 



411 



sincere utterance. The art they most 

 sedulously cultivate is that of hedging 

 on all important practical questions ; 

 so that they may be left free to take 

 whatever course the shifting winds of 

 public opinion, or the varying exigen- 

 cies of personal interest, may require. 

 We do not read their speeches for the 

 purpose of knowing what they think, 

 but for the purpose simply of ascer- 

 taining what, at the moment, they con- 

 sider it safe and politic to say. So 

 thoroughly do certain journals recog- 

 nize that theoretical convictions have 

 nothing to do with politics, that they 

 scarcely hesitate to erect into a prin- 

 ciple that politics should be regarded 

 mainly as a scramble for the offices. 

 One of these the other day express- 

 ly and most seriously commended the 

 President for having (as was alleged) 

 appointed a cousin of his wife's to a 

 lucrative consulship, the doctrine laid 

 down being that "to the victors be- 

 long the spoils," and that the Presi- 

 dent did the right thing in providing 

 for his own relatives and friends. Such 

 open cynicism is better, perhaps, than 

 a pharisaical and insincere profession 

 of higher principles ; but, with such an 

 illustration of political skepticism at 

 hand, we need not go abroad for in- 

 stances. 



In the second place, the altogether 

 undue reliance placed in these days, 

 upon state action for the promotion of 

 the general welfare tends to produce 

 political skepticism through the disap- 

 pointment that it is certain to produce. 

 An agency of apparently irresistible 

 force is set in motion, and when it fails 

 to yield the results expected of it, men 

 are apt to conclude that those results 

 are unattainable by any means, and 

 they become discouraged. They forget 

 that the only force the state can dis- 

 pose of is, in the last resort, physical 

 force, and that physical force may not 

 be what is wanted for the ends in view. 

 The state can make laws, and to a cer- 

 tain extent can enforce them, or, at 



least, exact penalties for their infrac- 

 tion ; but the state can not produce 

 right dispositions in the minds of its 

 citizens. The state can organize schools 

 and assume complete control of educa- 

 tion, but it can neither give an integral 

 education, nor can it infuse a right 

 spirit into the system that it adminis- 

 ters. It can not do the former, on ac- 

 count of the great diversity of opinions 

 existing throughout the community on 

 various fundamental questions; it can 

 not do the latter, partly because it can 

 not do the former, and partly because 

 political considerations of a low order 

 are constantly intruding into public- 

 school management. The state can 

 undertake great works, but it can not 

 make great men, or make men great ; 

 and after it has controlled for a certain 

 length of time of any special sphere of 

 action, we may look there with con- 

 fidence for conspicuous examples of 

 inertness and incapacity. Another evil 

 is that the vast apparent power of the 

 state leads to the cherishing of ex- 

 travagant hopes and expectations. Men 

 would not expect great reforms in a 

 year or two if they did not count on 

 legislation doing wonders for them. In 

 spite of multiplied proofs to the con- 

 trary, they think that, if they can only 

 get a law passed, all the rest will follow 

 of itself. And so, as in the State of 

 Maine, they get a law passed, and then 

 spend forty years in tinkering at it, in 

 the vain effort to find out why it won't 

 work, or why it works in a direction 

 opposite to what they intended. 



The remedies, therefore, for politi- 

 cal skepticism are obvious. Let us, in 

 the first place, abate the excesses of 

 the party system, and for the future, 

 instead of striving to keep all great 

 public questions " out of politics," let 

 us try to get them into politics; and 

 then let us deal with them with an eye 

 to the greatest good of the nation at 

 large. No doubt there will be differ- 

 ences of opinion as to what is best to 

 do ; but, the more there is of honest 



