New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-07-10

could revar charm the Latin Quarter make what
contribution TO literature he would. he could never
cain the suffrage of tho Academy. While the pre-
vailing parties in our own country were Pio
Cressive and radical. the temper OIL our
Colleges was 70 the last degree
five. IA orr potics settled into the cohseINa,uNo
tack fresh wind began to blow ABOUT uo Goit t
seats and literary men at last furnlsneu f
for the splendid movement thne 49, iNation iTbe
the statute-b0Ok, and made MS Tree Nt,ioit' I
yery freedom of literary pursuits SAWS pnl3ssopn
zeal observer leads men to question lno &
of the ruling power, and thus desp0tisn anu aeno
racy alike find enemies among the hlghli gll.ou ~
those who live under their sway N9 inei'n ~ ali
vice than this can be rendered my nassionless
things for Nation TO dread - that pasaloniJIo3
unchanginp calm, which for cycles has Drooueu
over and stited tho East, Inc sentence
with which fine next great st0ry-teller VINO lQnoWeu
Macanlav in his incnrsions upon English History,
has concluded his splendid WORK ntly aIu WoiSnt5
teaches the same lesson. Inc worst legacy, says
Mr. Froude rs his conclusion OF the Whoie lhaifi,
(which nrinces or statesmen could bcqueath to their
country would be the resolution OF all ts perpieA-
ties the establishment, once and forever OF a
finished system, which would neither require nor
tolerate improvement" While the scholars OF
land do their duty, such system VIII be cIcaIS1'
Wise unrest will always be their chief trail; we
may set il down as, within certain needtul ana
obvious limitations, the very foremost Junction Oh
the scholar in politics, TO oppose the Established.
And the next is like unto it. Always in free
government we may expect parties, III theit horlai
state TO stand to each other somewhat IN the rela-
ton described by Mr., Emerson as existing between
the Democratic and Wing parties, both now happily
extinct The one he SAID haG tS a Is ba Gaug 5g
some new name. and with new WatChWOrds, lne
old Conservative party, dreadlng change, gathering
to itself the responsibility OF experience anu stahu
ing and success having in its ranks most OF the men
whom the country has proved on the questions
of Yesterday, and therefore, by that hating con-
sentative logic which is 80 natural on one slde so
lust and yet so often deusiye, prefers to trust on
the wholly different questions of to-day ana tonOr
row. Always again, we shall have the party Oh re-
vOltfrom these philosophers OF yesteluays5 party
that disputes the Established tnat demands change'
that insists upon new measures forneW emergencies
that refuses to recognize the rule oil the past as the
necessary rule for them IL rs the pity tndt saHhgls
to itself all the restless, all the eNtrayagan az the
crack-brained all the men with h0DDies, ana mis-
sOns and spheres Here. too. as OF OLD unto David
gather themselves every one that IL IN distress every
one that is in debt, every one that ~ diScontented
And so have again, Just as IN the ola Deuociauc
DAVIS lust as in the old Free Soil days Just rs III the
old Republican days, before kepuOhcahlSn TOO IN
its turn became powerful and conservative the
disreputable party of cOnglomerate material
repulsive appearance, and splendid posSlOllties,
the perpetual antagonist of conservatism, tho
perpetual party of tomorrow. Need say where III
seems to me the American scholar belongs lie mas
too rarely been found there as yet. Mt. Bnghts
Cave of Adulam has not seemed an inviting retreat
for the shy scholastic reCluse or Tor the Wel-nuT-
tured favOrte of Academic audiences But Mr. Bright
and our scholars have alike forgotten theiT history
The disreputable Adullamites came TO rule Israel!
As for the scholar, the laws OF ms intellectual ne
yelOpment may be trusted to fix ms place, ITee
thought is necessarily aggressive ana clltcal, INC
scholar like the healthy, rcd-blOOded young man, Is
an inherent an inevitable, a Necessary Rtdlca III
is his business to reverse the eplgram oil Emerson
and put the best men and the best canse together
And so we may set down, as second function on
the American scholar IN politics, an iHbAecIHai teld
erSkip Of the Radicals
We do not have 80 many great men AZ Formerly IN
public life. De IOCqueYle explains the undtnlaOlo
fact-far more conspicuous now, indeed than In his
timely what he calls " the eyer-ncreaslng despot-
ism of the majority in the United states" MS
of Tho inrTtNr he
lutte and irresistible that must give up his rights
as a citizen. and almost abjure his qualities as a
man if no intends to stray from the track which 1t
prescribes." The declaration Is extravagant; yet
who that has seenthe OSTaclsn OF our best men, 10r
views wherein they were only IN advance OF their
times, will doubt that the tyranny OF party ana the
intolerance of Independent opinion among political
associates constitute az once one OF the most
alarming symptoms of our politics, ana one OF
the evils of our society TO be most stTenuously
resisted. We defy those who put what we think
into fine phrases we anathematlze those who,
thinking the opposite put 1t into equally nne
phrases and we cruelty those whom we have
dcifed when they presume to disagree with us. Is
il needfu on New-England soil, TO look Tar Tor an
illustrations The great ew-England Senator,
whose fame is national honor, as ms Work Is the
national heritage, and who, as foremost example
of American scholarship applied to American poll
tics may fairly count on generous regard from an
audience like this-whatever Its partisan predIlec-
tions-who here needs to be reminded of what
befel him, when, without stain on his charac-
ter or change in his principles no came to honest
ucated and the party he had helped to Greater Or
take an earlier shame and one that comes nearer to
a New-England College. Who here has forgotten
how the very party which had hailed him Prophet,
turned to rend the first judicial officer of the nation,
because neither degrading his high place by apol-
oges, nor yieldngto partisan demands he maniully
did his duty in q great State trial He never did
higher duty. No citizen can do higher duty
than to resist the majority, when he believes
it wrong-to assert tho night Of individual judg-
ment and maintain it to cherish liberty of thought
and speech and action, against the tyranny of his
own or any party. Till that tyranny-yearly grow
ing burdensOme as the main object OF an old party
becomes more and more the retention or the regain
ing Of power instead of the success of the fresh,
vivid principles on which new parties are always
organized-tll that tyranny is in some measure
broken, we shall get few questions considered on
their merits and fail, as we are failing, to bring
the strongest men into the service of the State
Here then is another task IN our Politics,
for which the scholar is peculiarly
fitted by the liberahty and independ-
ence to which he has been trained and we may set
il down as another of the functions whose discharge
have the right to expect at his hands 10 resist The
tyranny Of party and the utOierdHoeof political OpiuOn
and to maintain actual freedom az WeH as theoretical
liberty of thought.
A great difference between the man Of culture
and the man without it, is that the first knows the
other side great curse OF our present politics
is that your heated partisan never does. lie cannot
understand how there should be any other side. 1t
seems to him disOyal TO have any other side He is
always in doubt about the final salvation of the man
who takes the other side. We have good warrant
to expect from the scholar freedom from prejudice
an open hospitality to new ideas and habitua mod
Grafton of thought and feeng-in "A word, what Mr.
Whipple has felicitOusly called a temper neither
stupidity conservative nor Indignantly radical, that
shall make il among the most valuable of his func-
tons 10 bring into our politics the element they now
sadly need: Candid confederation Of erery question
is individual merits Fairness TO daGg0EisI5 and
,giIIn0ness aiUdys 10 hear the other eide ----..
--TcihaDs it is only the ideal scholar, whom no
Dartmouth or Yale, or Harvard has yet graduated,
who will faithfully discharge these various functions
in our politics frankly confess that, all along as
/ have been enumerating the details of his work,
there kept rising to my ears the moan of the Irish
tenant about his grass land. THAT bit o. meadow
he said, docs MT turn out much as L expected -
and always knew it would ntP But if he fails, il
ment can afford"-it is a scholarly New nglander,
i'll lost TO ew-England politics. who gives us the