SERVICES THAT SOCIETY NEEDS 303 



press, the one and the other of which are committed to 

 foregone party conclusions. 



I am not forgetting that the good sense of the Town 

 Council of Glasgow and the generosity of some of its 

 citizens have led them, in our own University, to endow 

 in part one lectureship, whose emoluments are not much 

 less than those of a man-cook or a head-butler. Something 

 can be accomplished even with these small means. A 

 beginning can be made to deal with social phenomena in 

 the serene, passionless spirit, and with the impersonal de- 

 votion and severity and purity of method which we apply 

 to the investigation of natural objects. 



But I look forward to the time when Glasgow, nay, when 

 the country as a whole, shall do much more to raise the 

 level of knowledge of the nature of the State and of the 

 laws of its true advance. You will yet purify the wells of 

 citizenship by enlightening the minds^of the citizens. You 



will first teach your teachers. And I venture to say that 



the time will come when there shall be no college or 

 secondary school in the land where something is not done, 

 amongst the rudiments of many subjects, to give to the 

 future citizen a glimpse of the vast powers that move in 

 our social life and of the nobleness of its service. 



Or has the critic who fears the growing power of the 

 masses any wiser strategy to recommend? For my part^ 

 I do not believe there is any short cut to this great end of 

 forming the ''public opinion," which will rule us whether 

 we shall educate it or not. It is a long way round ; but 

 the longest way round in some matters is the shortest way 

 home. 



Here, then, perhaps, is a service to society which some 

 of you may, directly or indirectly, desire to perform. 



