138 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



It early appeared that the great majority were whole heartedly 

 determined that autocracy should end, that there was to be no more 

 one man rule — of course, it was recognized that the President had 

 more power than that old tyrant George III ever pretended to, but 

 while it is excellent to have a giant's strength, it is not the thing to use 

 it like a giant; and so, as it was no longer good form to temper autoc- 

 racy with assassination, at least in America, they thought it wise 

 not to appoint any one likely to kick over the traces and try to play 

 the strong man. What kind of a man to get? 



Believing with Dryden that 



"By education most have been misled/' . 



remembering that Tommy Wilson was a real nice boy before he went 

 to College and Stevie Cleveland was modest, if not meek, before he 

 studied for the Bar, they determined that no highbrow should occupy 

 the White House, not cne darned College President or lawyer — these 

 were too sot, too determined to have their own way, too pig-headed to 

 admit of proper steering. This cut out Champ Clark on both counts 

 as well as certain well-known men who, though politicians, are still 

 lawyers. I mean such men as Elihu Root, William Howard Taft, 

 George Wickersham. I am not quite so sure of Selden Spencer, in 

 whom the Spencer perhaps predominates rather than the Selden, or of 

 Henry Cabot Lodge, but then his middle name entitled him in the 

 land of the Bean and the Cod to familiar converse with the Highest, 

 and that had been found fatal by the experience of Germany. W^hat 

 more education does a President want anyway than just to read and 

 write? And while Dogberry may have been a little astray when he 

 thought "to write and read comes by nature," he was infinitely right 

 in his noble precept "for your writing and reading, let that appear 

 when there is no need of such vanity." This type -writing craze, 

 this cacoethes scrihendi epistolarum magn-arum doctarum eruditarumque 

 had to come to an end, especially in the existing scarcity of paper; 

 the ordinary individual should have some chance of getting writing 

 material. 



Accordingly a man of limited education was a desideratum, and 

 the more limited the education, within limits of course, the better. 

 No stubborn, stiff-necked, intellectually proud man, but an easy- 

 going man and a pliable, one who would do as he was told by his 

 betters at the other end of the Avenue — that must be the aim. 



Having decided the kind of a man to be chosen other con- 

 siderations arose. That blamed South, which had never forgotten 

 its former ascendencv, which could not be weaned from its self- 



