than to appeal to the intelligent vote by raising the standard of those platforms and promises. But if the intelligent men are also independent, the chances are that it will be more necessary to bid for the intelligent vote than for the corrupt vote. The leaders will have every incentive to do better instead of doing worse. The man who, having sense enough to find out what is right, does not take the trouble to do it, or does not have the courage to act on his convictions, is throwing away an influence which is absolutely necessary for the promotion of good politics.

But the American citizen has a yet broader duty than this. It is not enough to vote rightly on certain specific issues, or to enforce right ideas on certain specific questions of politics and morals. We must get our minds themselves into a judicial attitude. Under the American Constitution the people of our country are encouraged to judge of facts, to take charge of the enforcement of the law, and to select leaders of the kind that they admire. The final test of our ability as a nation rests on the power of our people to judge of evidence quietly; to accept the operations of law, even when it works to their own hurt; to get ideals of success of the kind that will preserve the nation instead of those which will destroy it. Every man who publishes a newspaper which appeals to the emotions rather than to the intelligence of its readers, and to a less extent every man who lightly believes the statements that he finds in such a newspaper, attacks our political life at a most vulnerable point. Every man, whether a member of the majority or of the minority, who regards the law as an enactment to promote one set of private institutions at the expense of another, or who coöperates in the passage and administration of laws in this spirit, makes himself responsible for the dangers of growing contempt of law. Every man who admires a public officer for success in serving himself rather than for success in serving otherswho respects the man for getting the office rather than for deserving the office-shows himself to that extent unfit to be a member of a self-governing nation, and by influence and example diminishes the capacity of the nation as a whole for selfgovernment. These are the fundamental points of political

ethics-these the fundamental issues in all questions of public morals.

For the great political question before us is not whether this or that party shall be kept in power, or whether one law or another shall be passed. The question is rather whether our ~ present system of government shall stand. The history of the world shows that freedom is a very precarious possession, which a nation cannot continue to enjoy for many centuries unless it uses it with exceptional wisdom. If people will employ liberty as a means of substituting self-control for external control, they can continue to have it. If they try to make it a pretext for getting rid of all control except that which is furnished by their own desires and whims and wishes, it is taken away by force of circumstances. The Athenian democracy, when it was composed of men trained in the habits of self-command, furnished a magnificent instance of what freedom can do in government and in morals, in art and in literature. But the children and grandchildren of the men who made Athens great could not endure the discipline which their fathers voluntarily accepted. By defiance of the law and by the pursuit of individual selfishness they brought the state to its fall. The Roman freedom lasted longer than the Athenian, because the Romans had been trained in a sterner discipline, and had a respect for law which stood them in good stead for generations. But when freedom became a pretext for selfishness, Rome in its turn fell, first under the tyranny of the emperors, and later under the yoke of the barbarian.

I am no pessimist. I do not see anything which warrants the fear that we shall repeat in the near future the experience of Athens or Rome-unless it be the mistaken complacency of those optimists who think that we can repeat the mistakes of Athens and Rome without incurring the penalties. But the danger is great enough to make it worth while to impress upon every citizen the duty of inculcating respect for law, even when→ that law hurts him. It is the underlying spirit of philosophical selfishness which is the chief element of danger-the theory that if each man does what he really wants to do, things will

all go well. Every nation that has accepted this philosophy has begun to ride to its own destruction. I do not know what is the solution of the divorce problem. I wish I did. But I do know that the worst thing about divorce at present is that so many people regard marriage as a thing to be made and unmade for purely selfish reasons; and when this conception fully takes root, the days of a nation are numbered. I do not know what is the means of doing away with lynch law. I wish I did. But I do know that the most serious aspect of all the lynchings of which we hear, North or South, is the evidence of weakened authority of legal procedure, when brought face to face with the preconceptions and passions of the crowd. When any nation looks upon law as a thing which the individual may use when it suits him and evade or defy when it does not suit him, that nation is losing the main bulwarks of social order. To any man, whatever his position in the state, it has become the paramount political duty to defend the sacredness of law, not only against the active assaults which threaten to overthrow it, but against the more subtle and dangerous attacks of a selfish philosophy which works to undermine it. He must regard, and must persuade others to regard, liberty and the privileges which go with it as trusts to be used only in the public interest, and in behalf of the nation as a whole.

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION AND PRACTICE IN WRITING

1. What do you understand to be your duty as a citizen with respect to government, local, state, and national? 2. "To be indifferent to the evils in the body politic is only one remove from being indifferent to the sins in one's own life.” Discuss. 3. Why should much be expected of the college graduate in the political life of the nation? 4. How are you informing yourself of the public questions and problems of the day, local and general. 5. Name some of the urgent political and social questions that must be settled by legislation and concerning which you should be informed? 6. Select one of these questions and inform yourself upon it. Make an oral or written report about it,

APPENDICES

LIST OF ESSAY SUBJECTS

As a further aid in passing from the reading and discussion of the selections given in the body of this book to the writing of compositions in connection with them, the following list of essay subjects is included. It gives some titles which have been well handled in the past and which may prove available or may suggest other subjects. In assigning these subjects, the objects were to stimulate the student's thinking, to encourage his independent judgment, and occasionally to lead him away into a field of interesting research. As far as possible, application of a topic should be made to the student's personal experience or to the individual college.

Some instructors might prefer to have all the selections of a division of this book read before the composition writing is done. In this case, this list will afford a convenient means of finding subjects. Instructors who prefer to have the writing follow each selection will find that the groupings of subjects indicated by the Roman numerals will afford a ready guide to their connection with the selections, in a given division of the book. The last group of essay subjects under each division, however, is more general in character and does not relate to any specific selection.

PURPOSE OF THE COLLEGE

I. What I Hope to Get from College. Motives for Going to College. Recent Critics of Our Colleges. The Requisites for Success in College. The Average Man's Estimate of the Value of College Education. What is a College? What is a University?

II. Newman's Idea of Liberal Knowledge. Newman's Ideals and the Education of the Twentieth Century. Is Over-education Possible?

III. The Distinction between Cultural and Other Studies. The Liberal College distinguished from Professional and Technical Institutions. Ought the College Course to be Shortened? College before Business or Not? Should a Liberal Education Precede the Professional Course?

IV. Why our Ideals of Culture are Changing. Matthew Arnold's Ideal of Culture Compared with President Eliot's. Some Famous Definitions of Culture. Vocational Aspects of the College Curriculum. Should Manual Training be a Part of the College Curriculum?

V. Extent of College Education in the United States. Are there Too Many Colleges? Reasons for the Growth of My College. A Brief Account of the Development of the American College. State Universities, their Rise and Development. Social Conditions in the Early American Colleges. Service of the Early American College to the Nation.

THE COLLEGE CURRICULUM

I. Huxley's Distinction between Science and Art. A Classification of the Curriculum into Sciences and Arts. The Essential Subjects of Education, What are They?

II. The Practical vs. the Cultural Value of Science. Advantages of Laboratory Work in Science. The Difference between Inductive and Deductive Sciences. The True Purpose of Scientific Education. III. What can Literature do for Me? The Value of the Study of the Classical Literature. The Contribution of Greece to the Modern World.

IV. The True Office of Art. The Distinction between Fine Arts and Useful Arts. Should a Novel Teach Something?

V. The Curriculum of the Early American College. Are too Many Courses Offered by the Modern College?

CHOICE OF COURSES

I. Is my College a "College of Freedom" or a "College of Discipline"? Advantages and Disadvantages of the "College of Freedom."

II. The Elective System at my College. Principles that should Govern in the Choice of Electives. Should One Study only What interests Him? Studies Most Needed by a Lawyer (or other professional man).

III. The Dangers of Specialization. The Advantages of Specialization. Is Specialization begun too Early?

IV. My Course of Study. Should Woman's Education be the Same as Man's? The Value of the Study of Latin (or any other subject). Should the A.B. be the only Degree given by a College?

INTELLECTUAL IDEALS

I. Independence in One's Thinking. The Preservation of Individuality in College. Academic Freedom of Thought. Freedom of Speech in a Democracy.