The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1873-07-24
The Duty Of the Scholar in Politics.

/ wish, under favor Of your patience, TO
depart a little from the accepted custom
of the occasion. l venture 10 ask you,
on this high day Of the Amherst year, to
abandon scholastic themes for the hour
and pass TO the broader plane of public
affairs 1t is at once the weakness Of our
form of government, and the shame Of
our intelligent classes, that the dema-
gogue at the outset, has the advantage,
and the Office seekers mainly give the inn
pulse to political movements. 1t is bad
impulse. They are bad set who give it,
and not much better set who, in Cen
gress and especially IN State Legislatures
and small elective Offices IN great cities,
constitute the average outcome. The fas-
tidious father, who wants his college bred
son to keep out OF politics, Is altogether
right if he means by politics only this
vulgar struggle by vulgar men through
vulgar means for petty Offices and pleth-
ORC but questionable gains. Looking
only at such agencies and such results,
we may well marvel at the national pros
perity, and fall back in our bewilderment
upon Heinrich Heine's witty addition Of
Boccacio's wicked epigram for an explain
alton: The same fact may be offered IN
support Of a republic as of religIon-it
exists IN spite of Its Minister'S Yet,
where is the government that does better2
Where Is the government that does so
well? And no matter whether it does
well or ill-paint our politics as black as
you will-all the more say you make it
the duty of better men, IN their own in
terest, to enter in and take possession.
What 1 wish, then, first OF all. to insist
upon Is the essential worth, nobility, pri-
macy indeed of the liberal pursuit OF poll
tics. 1t IS simply the highest, the most
dignifed, the most important of all earth
ly objects Of human study. Next to the
relation of man to his maker, there is
nothing so deserving his best attention as
his relation to his felIoW-men. The well
fare of the community is always more i'm
portant than the welfare any individual,
or number Of individuals; and the well
fare of the community is the highest OBJ
Ject of the science Of politics. The course
and current OF men IN masses-that Is the
most exalted of human studies, and that
is the study Of the politician. To help
individuals IS the business of the learned
professions. To do the same for commu-
mites Is the business of politics. To aid
IN developing a single career may task
the best efforts of teacher. To shape
the policy of nation, to fix the fate of
as the heavens are high above the
earth? Make the actual politician as de-
spicable as you may, but the business of
politics remains the highest of human
concerns. There Is a special reason why
IN our country and time it should
more than ever command the best abili-
ties of our best men. The reason, IN a
word, IS that the age of the sentimental In
politics has passed. We have ceased to
conduct campaigns on fine feelings. Nat
urally the sentimentalists die hard. They
have had an easy and powerful sway over
the nAtlonal feeling, and they do not sur
render 1t without struggle. 1t was a
great principle on which they rode into
public esteem. Ever since they have
been hunting for hobbies which they
might try to persuade the public were
great principles too: The great orator of
the antislavery epoch, the greatest popu-
lar orator indeed Of our time-and l say
this who grew up under the spell ofThom-
as CorWln and watched IN later days the
star Int logic OF Henry Winter Davis-has
been Aounderlng IN such Serbonian bogs
ever since Appomatox left him stranded
IN bosLon With his vocation gone. ana
yet our politics seem to me to offer more
now than ever before to fascinats the in
teileet and tax the best culture of the
time. On questions that involve learn
lng and study the better educated may
lead; where an honest conscience is suf-
hclent they VIII lead themselves, and lead
as for fifteen years they did lead, their
leaders. Nowadays the would be leaders
are bewailing the lack of "great issues"
They seem 10 me to mistake the case.
The issues are greater than ever, only
now they demand thought instead Of
feeling. 1t Is no longer. a case for inspir-
ing sentiment about the God-givea right
OF the black man to the free air of heaven;
1t IS the knottier problem of keeping the
free black man from stealing the State of
South Carolina bankrupt, or from uniting
with his interiors among the white men
transiently resident In Louisiana to fan
into fresh flames the hates of the civil
war and thus ruin the material prosper.
ty of the State. The black mans right
to his chlld-thztwas a claim it needed
no ghost from college walls to enforce;
the Congo as legislator-there is a prob
lem totax the coming Cayour or Bismarck
OF our country-a problem indeed, that
might well demand for its solution some
new Plato, or Bacon, or sMontesquieu.
You know Carlyle's analysis of represen-
tatlve government: ''If, of ten men, nine
are recognized as fools, which is a common
calculation, how IN the name Of wonder
Will you ever get a ballot-box to grind
you out wisdom from the votes of these
ten nenY' OF course the superficial an
swer to this extravaganza is, Educate
educate the other nine" Mr.. Herbert
Spencer has a better answer. and it is one
that deserves special note In a considera-
Of H.
scholars: "Those who elaborate new truths
and teach them to their fellows are nova
days the real rulers, the unacknowledged
legislators, the virtual kings. When the
dicta of the thinker cannot Get established
In law until after long battle of opin-
ion-when they have to prove their fit
ness for the time by conquering time
we have guarantee that no great chan
ges which are ill-corsidered or premature
can be broug BIT about" There, then is
our hope. With the scholars of the land
rests the real control of its democratic rep
resentative government. If the thinkers
are doing their duty they are the real
rulers. And their rule is pre-eminently
safe, because they never attain till in the
battle of opinion they have fairly won it.
bat they fail in their high place and are
! false to the country that claims their best
services, as well as their own interests.
if they keep daintily out of the actual
strife. Their place is in the market and
the court with Aleibiades quite as much
as under the plane trees with Socrates.
To all this two objections are sure to be
urged. One will deny that in the high
sense there is class of scholars in Amer
lea. The other will question whether
in a country where the most ignorant
prIdes himself on being as good as you or
little better, there can be any chance
for scholars to exert legitimate influence.
''The finding of your able man." says Car
lyle, sis the business, well or ill-accom-
plished, of all social procedure whatever,
IN this world" The power and real rule
of the able man is to-day as absolute as
ever "The tools to him that can use
them"-more and more as civilization
grows complex, that becomes the inexor-
able, unvarying rule Of every successful
business IN life. Only the character Of
the able man has changed. Carlyle found
| him generally a soldier Now he is never
such; or, if by chances nero soldier drifts
into an able mans place, he is an ana.
chronism. But year by year, in business
in law, in politics, m all our intellectual