The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1907-02-23

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In;en} Which lead merely to that ili-
|tellcctual conccit which makes n
mani Iii democratic community like
ours .lrold himself aloof from his fel-
Ilows Tand pride himself upon the
weakness which he mistakes for
lsrpcrcilious strength. Small Is the
use OF those educated men who In
after life meet no one but them
selves, and gather in parlors TO dis
cuss wrong conditions which they
do not understand and TO advocate
remedies which have the prime de-
feet of being unworkable. The
judgment on practical affairs. pol
itical. and social, of educated men
who keep aloof from the conditions
of practical life, is apt to be value
less to those other men who do real
ly wage effective war against the
forces of baseness and of evil. From
the political standpoint, education is
a harm and not a benefit to the
men whom It serves as an excuse for
refusing to mingle with their fell
lcws and for standing aloof from the
broad sweep of our national life In
q curiously impotent spirit Of fancied
superiority. The political wrong
headedness of such men is quite as
great as that of wholly uleducated
men; and no people could be less
Trustworthy as critics and advisors.
The educated nan who seeks to con-
sole himself for his own lack OF the
robust qualities necessary to bring
success in American politics by
moaning over the degencracy of the
times instead OF trying to better
them by railing at the men who 40
the actual work Of political life In
stead of trying himself to do the
work. is poor craturc, and. 50 lar
a. his feeble powers avail, is
damage and not help to the coun-
try. You may come far sdort OF
this disagreeablc standard aud still
b. rather useless member OF So
,icty. Your education, your cultiva-
ton will not help you If you make
the mistake of thinking that 1t Is
substitute for instead of an addition
to those qualities which in the
struggle of life bring success TO the
ordinary man without your advant-
ages. Your college training confers
no privilege upon you save as tested
by the use you make of 1t. 1t puts
upon YOU the obligation 10 show
yourselves better able to do certain
things than your fellows who have
not had your advantages. If 1t has
served merely to make you believe
that you are TO be excused from
effort in after life, that you are to
be excused from contact with the
actual worldsof men and events. then
Il will prove Il curse and mol
blessing. II on the other hand.
you treat your education as n weap-
omsthe more in your hands, weap-
OF to fit you to do better in the
hard struggle of effort, and not as
eXcusing You in any way from TAX
iue pait in practical fashion in that
struggle, then 1t will be benefit to
you.
Let each of you college men re-
member in after life that in the
fundamentals he is very much like
his fellows who have not been to
college, and that If he is to achieve
results. instead Of confining him
self exclusively 10 disparagement
of other men who have achieved
them, he must manage to come to
some kind of working afreement with
times of course when 1t may be the
highest duty of n citizen TO stand
alone or practically alone. But II
this Is mans normal attitude
Ii normally he Is unable to work
ia combination with Il considerable
body of his fellows 1t is safe to
set him down as unfit for useful
service in democracy. In popular
government results worth having
can only bcyachieved by men who
combine worthy ideals with prac-
tical good sense; who are resoutc
TO accomplish good purposes, but
who can accommodate themselves to
the give and take necessary where
work has to be done, as almost all
important work must necessarily be
done, by combination. Moreover,
remember that normally the prime
object of political life should be TO
achieve results and not merely TO is
sue manifestos-saye of course where
tho iSSuance OF sllcL ulanifnslns hnIns