Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-02-26
THE DEARrH OF GREAT MEN.

u ohOAb lAulC ehSO buC ~ bttON Iidh al
article under the above head, and it has
elected several replies from persons who
think they can explain why it is that the
aforesaid dearth exists. One of these cor
respondents ascribes it to the leveling in
tiuence of the common school system, and
thinks that Sin the disappearance of great
"men from public life we see the legiti-
innate tirst-fruits of the system" After
commenting upon the methods pursued in
these schools, and endeavoring to show that
they allow for no exceptional developments
of genius, the writer observes "When
we consider that, with few exceptions,
all the most promising boys in America
are being trained and having their char.
''acters formed In such Schools can we
wonder that but very few ever attain to
anything above mediocrity, and need we
90 longer inquire, Why are great men
"' disappearing from public life p" We
cannot regard this as an adequate explana-
ton of the phenomenon under considera-
ton. In the first place we do not think
that the public schools train or form
the characters OF those who pass through
them. On the contrary, we believe
that they fail precisely at this
point. In the second place they do not,
as rule, operate to retard development,
because with rare exceptions the methods
of taxation are loose and clumsy. The
real difficulty with the schools is that the
education they furnish is not sufficiently
practical, but they are certainly capable of
standing a comparison in that respect with
any of the private schools or colleges
through which the great men of previous
generations passed. In fact if great men
were among US we do not believe that the
public schools would have any appreciate
effect in hindering their development. But
| there are several other agencies which do
have the effect of driving our best intelli-
gences into new fields of activity. Politics
have been barred to the higher class of
minds by the adoption of the spoils system.
No great men can exist under that
political condition, and so we find
that we have ceased to possess any states
men, and that ''bosses have taken
their places. Public life has in fact been
degraded, and it is no longer even reason
able to look for great men in that direction.
Again, it. must be realized that it
takes great deal more to make
| great man now than it did half century
ago The standard of popular intelligence
has been raised by the immense increase in
the means of communication and enlght-
eminent. All the world knows every day
whatever has happened everywhere. Every
public measure is analysed, dissected,
turned inside out, by the press, as soon as
it is proposed. Public libraries and cheap
books have put the means of information
within the reach of all. The rapid extern
sion of the sphere of human knowledge has
made it impossible for any man to possess
encyclopedia learning. The most clear
and strong intellects must now be content
to master but some one branch of knowl-
edge. In Science, in Literature, in Art,
the opportunities for success have been di-
minished by increasing demands upon
scholars. The democratic movement has
in short tended to eliminate great
men by bringing a large proper
ton of the masses up to the in
tellectual level of those who formerly
lowered above the crowd. And it must
further be realized that the ablest men of
the present day are not to be found in the
occupations which make the most show
and attract the greatest share of popular at
tention. They find scope for their abili-
ties in the organization and management
of great industrial enterprises, in bridging
continents with railroads, in controlling
vast financial operations, In working out
schemes of colossal magnitude for the com
bination of great interests. 1t is among
these men that we must look for those
evidences of special genius and force of
cnaIdcIeI WHICH aie NO ionSSi ooseIFeu III
politics, and which have thus far not been
developed in American literature or art
1t is always where the freest play for their
capacities is to be found that we must look
for the really great men of generation,
for the environment determines the
expansion and maturity Of these choice
spirits, as surely as it does the growth and
progress of the commonest Ounce society
harbors.