Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-04-04
PLACES OF TRUST.
TITUS MUNsoN coAN, M. D., ON THE
PROPER QUALIFICATIONS.
Another of the Series Of Letters for Young
Citizens-Praotice and Theory Combined
Secure the Best Results-Advantage of

| Secure the Best Results-Advantages of
Higher Education.
| WRITTEN FOB THE DIsPArcH.l
My friend, Mr.. A. s. Hewitt, is reported
to have said: eff had been politer man
than am, might have been President of
the United States"
| Whether the story is true or not, it raises
an interesting point. Is politeness, then, a
qualification for place Of public trust?-
for public trust, suppose. is what is meant
| by the question announced. For attaining
place it certainly is. If we change the
word and call it tact, we shall have one of
the most important qualifications for retain
ing public place-the point may be dis
missed without further consideration as
being incontrovertible. In every subject
there are number of evident or admitted
truths which one need not spend long in dis
cussing; they are old acquaintances whom
we nod to familiarly as we pass, we speak
their name and let them go. So in naming
the qualifications for places of trust, it is
enough TO name honesty, ability and tact.
Honesty as q matter OF course, and with 1t
as much tact as we can get. An honest
| man without ability or an able man with
| out principle, is equally misplaced and
equally dangerous. And a man who has no
tact will not win his place, or having got it,
will not hold it long even if he be both
honest and able.
So much for the commonplaces OF the SUBJ
ject. Ny readers. think, will agree with
me so far. The real discussion begins when
we come to consider the different kinds of
ability that may be in questionable variety
of intellectual qualifications for public
duties. And the controversy turns mainly
upon the question between the technically
educated man and the man of practical ex-
perIence; between the fair competition of
those qualified by education for places of
trust on the one hand, and on the other the
rougAer natural selection or example of the
practical man in politics.
Not a Very Satisfactory Doctrine.
Some philosopher says 'the fools are
right in the long rum" This is to say that
in practice the rougher methods usually
prevail in the domain of politics. But this
is not very satisfactory doctrine. What
does it mean? 1t means that things have
their own way-general forces rather than
individual ideas, and that any fne-spun re-
forms are not viable. The average sense
or nonsense-not the refined intelligence, is
what rules our politics.
Well, this is undoubtedly true for the
most part, and in the deep sense it is newt
able-like everything else. 1t is especially
true in a democracy like our own that things
have their own way, and follow the will of
the rough shod. In politics at least genius
Is mainly an afflir of energy.
But is this sufficient theory of fitness
for public life? Need we drive at practice
so utterly and exclusively as to leave all
theory out OF sight? From the dusty arena
OF the practical man cannot we recapture
some breathing ground for intelligence?
Here we come to the parting of the ways
between those who debate the qualifications
for places of trust-between those, in word,
who think that experience is all, and those
who argue that general intelligence, even
high culture, are desirable qualifications. 1t
is the old debate between theory and prac-
tice.
From the time when sailors first went
down to the sea to the twelfth century, the
art OF beating a ship to windward was un-
known. One had to sail with the wind or
not at all. Ships and fleets waited in
definitely for favoring wind; the lack of it
was one of the many causes that delayed
that ruler of men, Ulysses, on his homeward
way from Troy. BY and by, we may sup
pose, came theorists who argued that 1T was
possible to sail against the wind-men who
were first laughed at and then prosecuted;
and when at last their invention was
adopted, the old navigators unanimously 1
said, 1--WE all knew it before" This, as we
know, is the experience of every man or
community who lets ideas run ahead of
practice, as opposed to the plan of going
ahead at any rate, and picking up such
ideas as one can in going. Both methods
have their advantages and disadvantages;
each one indeed completes the other. But
in our time and civilization there is no dam
.+lo H. ho fa1
The danger Is that our public men will not
be sufficiently prepared from the intellectual
side to cope with the practical.
Advantages Of Higher Education.
I would advocate, then, among the main
qualification for public office, not only the
training by experience but also the intel
lectual training that comes of good college
course or from continued private study.
The man who has these, is by no means
under compulsion to turn out Solon.
What is SO rare. under any regime, as
wise ruler? But the man who has studied
and reflected Is far likelier to direct wisely
the flow of forces around him than if he
comes among them blinded by the dust of
passion, prejudice and controversy. The
forces OF politics exist for themselves; they
dominate and absorb all but the men who !
have both natural power and wise training.
To question stated in such general terms
as the present, it is hard to give any specific |
and definite answer. 1t is not question to
be answered in phrase. If theoretical"
man in the ordinary sense is not the right |
man for place of trust, neither is a merely |
"practicaP' man. Of good theory and OF |
good practice we cannot have too much. |
Jefferson was a fine type of public man;
full OF ideas, full of energy, he made him. |
self instantly and permanently effective. A |
frn inc rrbo
brought the widest culture of the time and |
the highest power OF thought to his great |
position, both by natural endowment and by |
education he had the highest gifts. We re- |
quire both at the hands of our rulers. The |
more of natural force, the more fruitful ex-
perience, the better. Nihil humani me |
alienum should be the motto of the public |
man. |
In honesty, energy. tact; in the highest |
education, both special and general, and in |
the widest experience, are the sufficient |
IL l. L.