162 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



To make any artificial effort — whether compulsory- 

 through the State or voluntary through " Waif and 

 Stray Societies " — to raise "street arabs" from their 

 natural position to higher social or civic rungs would, 

 if even it could be successful in a sense, simply result 

 in swarming the ranks of the Middle Classes with a 

 larger number of unculturable Philistines of the 

 " gramophone order." We do not by such means 

 save the street arab ; we do not convert him ; we 

 simply lower the general civic standard and the degree 

 of culture of a higher social class by diluting it with 

 grosser waters. We have only to recall a certain 

 notorious and uncultured politician and the general 

 run of his platform companions, and to carefully con- 

 sider their speech and other performances, in order to 

 perceive how little contact with " decent people " can 

 influence inborn uncouthness, and to instinctively recog- 

 nise how grave is the danger to the continued social 

 stabihty and refinement of the social class into which 

 these persons have been intruded, by the incited 

 passions of Democracy. Just as dead and worthless 

 leaves, through no merit of their own, are elevated by 

 the Autumn winds, so under a democratic regime, in 

 which from the very nature of things the voice of the 

 uncultured masses is most heard, the politicians who 

 are most successful in arousing the acclamations of the 

 mob are not the men of culture, but the men of inborn 

 uliginous and zanic instincts. Not even years of 

 contact with cultured men, either in the House of 

 Commons or in social life, serves to convert the 

 uncouth buffoon into anything else than what he was 



