64 Colleges and Public Life 



men who are graduates of our universities. Their 

 education gives them no right to feel the least 

 superiority over any of their fellow-citizens; but 

 it certainly ought to make them feel that they should 

 stand foremost in the honorable effort to serve the 

 whole public by doing their duty as Americans in 

 the body politic. This obligation very possibly rests 

 even more heavily upon the men of means; but of 

 this it is not necessary now to speak. The men 

 of mere wealth never can have and never should 

 have the capacity for doing good work that is pos- 

 sessed by the men of exceptional mental training; 

 but that they may become both a laughing-stock 

 and a menace to the community is made unpleas- 

 antly apparent by that portion of the New York 

 business and social world which is most in evidence 

 in the newspapers. 



To the great body of men who have had excep- 

 tional advantages in the way of educational facili- 

 ties we have a right, then, to look for good service 

 to the State. The service may be rendered in many 

 different ways. In a reasonable number of cases, 

 the man may himself rise to high political position. 

 That men actually do so rise is shown by the num- 

 ber of graduates of Harvard, Yale, and our other 

 universities who are now taking a prominent part 

 in public life. These cases must necessarily, how- 

 ever, form but a small part of the whole. The 

 enormous majority of our educated men have to 

 make their own living, and are obliged to take up 

 careers in which they must work heart and soul 



