Colleges and Public Life 73 



serious. Few men who had ever taken an active 

 part in politics, or who had studied politics in the 

 way that a doctor is expected to study surgery and 

 medicine, so much as gave it a thought; but very 

 intelligent men did, just because they were misdi- 

 recting their energies, and were wholly ignorant that 

 they ought to know practically about a problem be- 

 fore they attempted its solution. The English, or 

 so-called "responsible," theory of parliamentary 

 government is one entirely incompatible with our 

 own governmental institutions. It could not be 

 put into operation here save by absolutely sweeping 

 away the United States Constitution. Incidentally, 

 I may say it would be to the last degree undesir- 

 able, if it were practicable. But this is not the point 

 upon which I wish to dwell ; the point is that it was 

 wholly impracticable to put it into operation, and 

 that an agitation favoring this kind of government 

 was from its nature unintelligent. The people who 

 wrote about it wasted their time, whereas they could 

 have spent it to great advantage had they seriously 

 studied our institutions and sought to devise prac- 

 ticable and desirable methods of increasing and cen- 

 tring genuine responsibility for all thinking men 

 agree that there is an undoubted need for a change 

 in this direction. 



But of course much of the best work that has 

 been done in the field of political study has been 

 done by men who were not active politicians, though 

 they were careful and painstaking students of the 

 phenomena of politics. The back numbers of our 

 4 VOL. I. 



