May 29, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



773 



England still are. The charter of Yale 

 College was issued in 1701 to ten clergy- 

 men, and provided that their successors 

 should always be clergymen. 



At the birth of our nation, the emphasis 

 turned from purposes to persons, under the 

 compelling force of two causes: the parity 

 of our voting citizens, and the conditions 

 of a new national life. 



From the beginning of the new union 

 one man was as good as another at the 

 polls. Every vote cast was given the same 

 weight. It followed that the recognition 

 of the likenesses of men became dominant, 

 and the recognition of their differences ob- 

 scured. Leading men came to be thought 

 of as like exponents of the sense and effi- 

 ciency of the community. The acknowl- 

 edgement of competence took the form of 

 an acknowledgment of general competence. 

 We of the United States have been nurtured 

 in the belief that a man who has distin- 

 guished himself in any one direction will 

 also distinguish himself in any other. 



Our early national experience confirmed 

 the belief at every turn. Pioneer condi- 

 tions bring out the all-round man. The 

 solid citizen in a new community is called 

 on to be at once a farmer for sustenance, a 

 manufacturer for clothing, a builder for 

 shelter and a soldier for defence; often 

 also a lawyer for justice, a doctor for the 

 body, an educator for the mind or a teacher 

 for the soul. The nascent civilization of 

 the United States had its Leonardo da 

 Vinci in Benjamin Franklin. Nor has our 

 later progress yet thoroughly dislodged the 

 ideal of the all-round American, fit for any 

 task. The subjugation of a continent is in 

 the main a business matter, and an able 

 man may learn a business in all its 

 branches. The practise of naming any ca- 

 pable person for any office has maintained 

 itself among us because surpassing excel- 

 lence has not for the most part been essen- 



tial. We have fought successful wars with 

 citizen soldiery and grown great in peace 

 with practical men as intellectual guides. 

 To Amiel our democracy announced an era 

 of mediocrity ; Schopenhauer called us a na- 

 tion of plebeians ; an Austrian royal visitor 

 missed among us the sense of personality — 

 the perception of that delicate but real dif- 

 ferentiation that makes each man himself 

 and no one else. This is the mark left on 

 the society of the United States by our day 

 of small things. 



That day is now past ; and it behooves us 

 to examine the foundations of the emphasis 

 which our methods of assigning responsi- 

 bility impose upon persons instead of upon 

 purposes, upon general repute instead of 

 special fitness. When examined, our 

 course proves an aberration from that of 

 colonial times learned in Europe. We must 

 go back upon history ; but only to go on to 

 a new social ideal which shall square at 

 once with our political creed and our exist- 

 ing national conditions. 



First, as to our political creed. The 

 parity of voters obscures, but also implies 

 the difference of men 's capacity. In affirm- 

 ing that persons of a certain sex and reach- 

 ing certain mental, moral and economical 

 standards should be counted alike in the 

 process of government, it presupposes 

 others who do not possess these qualifica- 

 tions and are not to be counted at all. The 

 conception of the equal distribution of ca- 

 pacity among men is negatived by the po- 

 litical device itself which fostered it. 



It may be asked: What then becomes of 

 the belief that men are created equal? If 

 that renowned assertion does not mean that 

 one man is as good as another, that all per- 

 sons would show like capacity with like op- 

 portunity, what does it mean? Something 

 totally different. Did it claim that every 

 babe newborn might under favorable cir- 

 cumstances become what any other may, it 



