The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1896-06-05

lifting urgency OF the greater and bet
ter man. Professor Seeley insists that
culture is the larger half Of politics"
Culture inventS the new ways and
measures and urges to their adoption;
it sets the commanding example.
1t is bad thing for the state when
it is no longer guided by it's best and
most competent minds: when it is no
longer informed with ideal forces and
no more feels the vital touch of men
who are educated in intellect and in
taste: who are adequate in thought
and deed, broad in judgment and
ethical in spirit; who interpret princi-
pies, fOresee consequences, believe in
a better welfare and work intellect
gently to bring it about. When the
state is no longer guided by such men,
it is in pOrtentiuS condition and
must blunder on guided by ignorance
and lnefficiency and be subject to the
designs of the cunning and of the I'M
Scrupulous. Its laws will then be
made and administered by men dis
tinguished for their inadeQuacy, for
the size of their pockets and the
enormity of their greeds. The Senate
will then be only a club of rapacious
! men-a communism of pelf-and the
caucus will meet only to do the bid
ding Of commercial combines and con-
ScienceleSS plutOcrats. Then the ma
tiOn will be in ruins and the common
welfare impossible. 1t is the func-
tiOn of culture to put itself to the
trouble of seeing to it that the people
tittest to choose do the choosing: that
the chosen are the tittest to make and
| to administer the laws, and that the
governmental work to be done reQuir-
ing governmental ability and skill, is
undertaken and done by men having
such integrity, ability and skill
The culture of our times should re-
gard it as it's vocation to work out
those political problems that are now
so nebulouS, so confusing and so irri-
tating to the minds of our people,
Whoever has lucid and coherent
thoughts concerning this matter, has
at his command the sources of reach
ing Unreasonable welfares.
We have need that culture should
solye the problem of how to govern
our towns and cities so as to keep
them orderly, patriotic and sanitary,
while foreign immigration pOurS into
them like food, while the socialist
with his bitterness and dynamite,
hides in our garrets and cellars, and
the constituencies politician with his
cOrrupting schemes and Doodle walks
the corridors of our hotels and turks
in our halls of legislation.
| We are now in a condition as peo-
| pie when our men OF culture should
| insist that class in civicS be formed
in every High school, and that a
college of higher politics should be es-
tabliShed in every state university
throughout the land. Our men
of culture should exert themselves in
such way as to makS it more and
, more impossible every year. for any
man to hold legislative or important
administrative office who has not pass
ed a creditable examination in the
principles of civil government. Be-
cause a man knows how to fatten
pork, or manage kennel, or run a
saloon, it does not follow that he is
competent to act as police judge, or
as school commissioner, nor that he is
in the least qualified to enact, or to
administer those laws that shall con-
tribute to the intellectual, the ethical
and commercial welfare of whole
vast nation. The farmer employs an
expert to administer to the sick calf,
and then votes into state and national
office, man utterly ignorant of the
nations ailments and utterly made
equate to the needs of the common
wealth.
Our culture should exert itself in
such way as to cause a better archl-
lecture in town and country. A
square box with four square holes in
it is not thing to be called home.
! A bay-window, yard, front or side,
with shrubbery and flowers, a door
bell and bathroom are the signs and
necessities of civilized life and of a
healthy and growing manhood.
There is little use in preaching the
sermon on the mount to people with
out bathroom.
Our culture should urgently insist
that better roads and streets be made:
that our railroads shall be managed in
a manner more careful of the rights of
the poor and of the lives of the PEG.
pie. AS now conducted they main
and kill nearly 10000 people annually.
Our culture should seek to effect a
| better ornamentation of public
grounds and buildings. Government
state aud municipal buildings should
be made beautiful as well as conven-
lent. An historic statute in pub
lie square is a sort of free univer-
sity A monument is public eX-
ample. 1t reminds the passers-by that
there are great men who do great
deeds for the common welfare. Peo-
pie may not have time to read; they
are forced to see the statue and to
have the thoughts and feelings it
suggests.
We have need that our culture
should make a more lucid and win
some statement of the principles
that are at the foundation of our re-
! ligious and political faiths and that
underlie our Institutions
Large numbers of our young peo-
pie go forth from our schools and
colleges every year whose hearts are
turned wholly to the first chances in
the markets and to the first prizes
in the caucus; they have no more
any thought of serving the common
welfare. In this they are false to
themselves and fraudulent towards
the public.
/ The best education for an American
citizen is the education that gradu-
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