72 Colleges and Public Life 



the value of their writings lay in the fact that they 

 knew by actual work and association what practical 

 politics meant. They had helped to shape the po- 

 litical thought of the country, and to do its legis- 

 lative and executive work, and so they were in a 

 condition to speak understandingly about it. For 

 similar reasons, Mr. Bryce's "American Common- 

 wealth" has a value possessed by no other book of 

 the kind, largely because Mr. Bryce is himself an 

 active member of Parliament, a man of good stand- 

 ing and some leadership in his own party, and a 

 practical politician. In the same way, a life o.f 

 Washington by Cabot Lodge, a sketch of Lincoln 

 by Carl Schurz, a biography of Pitt by Lord Rose- 

 bery, have an added value because of the writers' 

 own work in politics. 



It is always a pity to see men fritter away their 

 energies on any pointless scheme; and, unfortu- 

 nately, a good many of our educated people when 

 they come to deal with politics do just such fritter- 

 ing. Take, for instance, the queer freak of argu- 

 ing in favor of establishing what its advocates are 

 pleased to call "responsible government" in our 

 institutions, or, in other words, of grafting certain 

 features of the English parliamentary system upon 

 our own Presidential and Congressional system. 

 This agitation was too largely deficient in body to 

 enable it to last, and it has now, I think, died away ; 

 but at one time quite a number of our men who 

 spoke of themselves as students of political history 

 were engaged in treating this scheme as something 



