Morning journal and courier., 1891-03-20
Requisites for Leadership Among
 Men.

Among the most forcible and striking
 ture at Yale's Osborn hall, by Professor Woodrow Wilson, formerly of Yale, now of Princeton, were the following: Those only are leaders of men who lead in &C., ton. Indeed in sense it belongs as just ly to those who lead in silent thought; but those who lead in action stand nearer to the mass of men. Men who write have style and proportion; men who act must
 neglect proportion and strike out lines of
 action. Only very gross and rough sub
 stance can make au impression on the null titude They can better grasp simple half truth than many sided whole truth. Ask some careful author to address mass
 meeting, and he will shrink from it. even from having his views express ed by another. He wished men to go
 to his written works. Such preferences,
 of course, greatly diminish the scope of
 his influence, but he has a more select au
 dience. The public leader on the other
 hand lack the keen discrimination of the
 author. He can not write fiction. The
 imagination of other minds is impossible
 for him. Browning could not have been
 statesman any more than Disraei could
 write novel. DisraelIs characters are
 mere puppets, subject to his wishes like
 the people whom he governed. A leader
 of men need not know individual
 character, but must know the
 character of the mass. The scientist is the
 man of imagination, the mechanic is the
 leader of men. The opinion of experts is
 that locomotive engineers need not and
 should not be good mechanics, for then
 instead of attending to present needs they
 woold be thinking over some mechanical
 yhf> iy,Ii .
 not always know masses. Edmund Burke is an excellent example of this. How noble figure, how large minded man; yet how intellectual! In his speeches on America,
 which he read with wonder, he emptied the house. His power was literary. He
 was a leader of men. It is better to have read than to have heard him. Men are not led by being told what they do not know. Persuasion is not informa- ton. If you would be leader of men you must lead your generation-it will do you no good to be praised afterward. Golden
 was right in saying that we must appeal to the peoples sympathies in their unal- loved simplicity. Golden, by following this principal, became 8 leader second to none, though he was nothing of a literary man. If oratory was business and not an art, says Jnstin Mccarthy, Golden was one of the greatest of orators As in bat tie, so in public speaking, it is not the fancy of figures, but the strong, speedy thrust of speech that is effective.
 When we are angry with men now we charge them with subserving public opin- ion, instead of with forming it. But the cept so far as they have imparted their ideas to the many. Leaders must inter pret the public thought-while at the same time we would carefully distinguish be- tween public thought and the impulsive thoughtless move which the public are apt to make. In the words of Burke, 'sTo follow, not to form the general opinion is the function of legislation" And there is wide difference between the demagogue and the statesman. The demagogue seeks self interests; the statesman obtains the permanent purposes of the people. Gull ture, it is true, is the best cure for anar- chy; but anarchy is swifter than her rival
 But leadership does not always wear this garb. Sometimes "cause" arises; a few men who appear to defy public opin- ion, and to convert it by blows. But no cause is born out of time. These men who | stood alone have merely been the first to awake to consciousness: they do not ob- | serve the times and circumstances, but | are produced by them. In religion, such | men as oI. bernaru, CalV1n ana 0aVOnerO- la, stand out as striking examples of men who seemed to triumph by accusation, but ] really did by love. Voltaire, too, was the | very spirit of France and of his age.
 What study is this of leadership! | How, as we look about us, can we but be | filled with awe, seeing the many functions | of social life, fulfilled by the scientist, the poet, toiIers in the earth, promoters of | commerce, vast things that dominate, small things that count-amidst them all | the leader, combining all these into progress. Shall we wonder if he shall be | open to all mon, ready for the moods of l all! But let him be ready to do what his psopls nssd.