Chapter I: Part 1

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RIVERSIDE ESSAYS

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Riverside Essays

Edited by Ada L. F. Snell

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HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO

The Riverside Literature Series

PROMOTING
GOOD CITIZENSHIP

BY
JAMES BRYCE

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY ADA L. F. SNELL

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

R. L. S. 227

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION vii

INDOLENCE 1

HOW TO OVERCOME THE OBSTACLES TO GOOD
CITIZENSHIP 26

The two essays by Mr. James Bryce included in this volume are
reprinted by permission of Yale University from Mr. Bryce’s
lectures on the Dodge Foundation, published in book form by the
Yale University Press under the title of _The Hindrances to Good
Citizenship_.

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Bryce has for a long time been a man of international prominence. His wide influence is undoubtedly due to many causes, but it may, in general, be traced to two characteristics: Mr. Bryce is a humanist who sympathetically watches the progress of nations and the guiding of governments; he is also a historian. In his biographical study of John Richard Green he has skillfully analyzed the aptitudes of the historian, and in so doing has pointedly, if unwittingly, described himself. Accuracy, he says,--a desire for the exact truth,--keen observation, sound judgment, imagination, and, following inevitably from these, command of literary exposition, are the powers which a historian needs. Each of these qualities Mr. Bryce himself possesses in large measure. It is his historical power, enabling him to observe and record the significant phases and events of human life, plus his sympathetic interest in its present-day manifestations which explain, in some degree, his singularly eminent position as an authority on matters pertaining to human institutions in various countries.

Mr. Bryce was born in northern Ireland in 1838, of Scotch-Irish parents; and he combines in his nature the stalwart intellectual propensities of the Scot and the artistic attributes of the Celt. He was educated at the University of Glasgow, and later went to Oxford where he won many honors. After finishing his collegiate work he was admitted to the bar and practiced law in London until 1882. At the age of thirty-two he was appointed Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford. Up to this point his life had been almost exclusively that of a student and a scholar; and already at this time he was recognized as a man of remarkable historical ability. The year 1880 marked a change in his life. He presented himself to the workingmen of Tower Hamlets, London, as a candidate for a seat in the House of Commons. Mr. Stead tells us that Mr. Bryce, in this first campaign, addressed his open-air audiences somewhat after the manner of a professor lecturing in a classroom; he succeeded, nevertheless, in getting himself elected, and for over twenty-five years thereafter was a member of Parliament. During these years he held various responsible offices having to do with home and foreign administrative work. The practical results of his political influence were advancement in public education, the securing of more extensive parks and open country spaces for the pleasure of the poorer classes, and the furtherance of international peace. In 1907, Mr. Bryce was appointed ambassador to the United States, which office he resigned in 1913 to carry on literary work.

Mr. Bryce’s knowledge is the result not only of university training and experience in public life, but also of varied reading. He has read art, science, history, and has always been an interested student of poetry. In speaking once to Americans of Swinburne, he suddenly paused and asked, “Who are writing your songs and stirring your heart,--or isn’t your heart being stirred? Nothing is more important than that each generation and each land should have its poets. Each oncoming tide of life, each age, requires and needs men of lofty thought who shall dream and sing for it, who shall gather up its tendencies and formulate its ideals and voice its spirit, proclaiming its duties and awakening its enthusiasm, through the high authority of the poet and the art of his verse.” How extensively Mr. Bryce has read the poets, both ancient and modern, one perceives from the references and allusions in his _Studies in Contemporary Biography_.

The most important source of Mr. Bryce’s knowledge, the one which has furnished the material for nearly all his books, has been his first-hand observation and study of many countries. When still a young man he wandered alone over Mount Ararat, since the native guides refused to follow him to the unknown wilds of that lonely peak. He visited the Ottoman Empire in 1876, and, as a result of his investigations there, became an advocate of the Bulgarian cause; in fact it was his speeches on the Eastern Question which first made him prominent politically. Mr. Bryce has traveled also in Iceland; he was in Africa just previous to the Boer War; he has been all over South America; and he knows the United States as few Americans know it. He has studied these countries with great faithfulness, observing keenly every phase of the political and social life. An interesting sample of his method of gathering information is found in the chapter on “The Position of Women” in _The American Commonwealth_. When traveling in the West he noticed that all of the women seemed so very well dressed that apparently none could be the wife or daughter of a workingman; but close observation dispelled this illusion. Idling in a bookstore one day in Oregon, he noticed a woman who was asking for a certain magazine. After her departure he asked the salesman who she was, and found that she was the wife of a workman, and the magazine a Paris fashion journal. “This,” says Mr. Bryce, “set me to observing female dress more closely, and it turned out to be perfectly true that the women in these little towns were following the Parisian fashions very closely, and were, in fact, ahead of the majority of English ladies belonging to the professional and mercantile classes.” Thus no detail, however trivial, escapes him; the pleasant and unpleasant phases of our American life, our manners, clothes, scenery have all been noted and reckoned with in the statement of tendencies and conclusions.

As a parliamentarian Mr. Bryce is said to have been direct, honest, and always illuminating. His ability to command attention was due not to any great oratorical gift, but rather to his scholarly view of any matter under debate. Mr. Justin McCarthy reports that the members of the House who might be dining, smoking, or reading in the rooms assigned for these purposes, would, when the news was passed around that Mr. Bryce was speaking, leave these pleasant diversions, and betake themselves with great speed to the debating chamber. “I have many a time,” he says, “heard Conservative members murmur, in tones not altogether expressing absolute satisfaction at the disturbing information, ‘Bryce is up--I must go in and hear what he has to say.’ ... Everybody knows that when he speaks it is because he has something to say which ought to be spoken and therefore ought to be heard.” Mr. Bryce was able to command attention also because of his reputation as a courageous nonpartisan. He never advocated a measure or policy for mere party reasons or for personal aggrandizement. Not infrequently he has fought bravely with the minority of his own party, and has at times suffered bitter attacks, as when he remained resolutely pro-Boer during the rampant jingoism of the South African War. But however widely political enemies might differ from him, they respected his sincerity and his luminous view of governmental problems. It is further characteristic of Mr. Bryce’s public life that he never, in his desire for the welfare of his own country, lost sight of what is due other nations. In practice as well as in precept he upheld the doctrine that “patriotism consists not in waving a flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.”

Mr. Bryce’s books deal, for the most part, with historical subjects and present-day governments. _The Holy Roman Empire_, written when he was only twenty-four years old, is still regarded by able historians as an accurate and authoritative work; and, in the judgment of literary critics, it is written with so much charm of style that it is destined to become an English classic. All of the books which have to do with foreign nations are characterized by a tactful, faithful, and above all a truthful, handling. It was _The American Commonwealth_ which made the citizens of the United States regard Mr. Bryce as a friend of the Republic; but he is not so regarded because he has always stroked the gleaming pinions of the American eagle. Although he does seem to share the hope universally cherished by Americans that we shall, in spite of grave national defects, “win out” in the end, he has nevertheless, in direct and unadorned statements, pointed out our faults. As an example of his characteristic straightforwardness of speech, take the following sentence: “America has little occasion to think of foreign affairs, but some of her domestic difficulties are such as to demand that careful observation and unbroken reflection which neither her executive magistrates, nor her legislatures, nor any leading class among her people now give.” Mr. Bryce has never ceased to insist that America suffers from lack of honest, courageous leadership in dealing with such problems as municipal evils and the insidious influence of “vested interests.” Our heedlessness and indifference to public matters is our national sin, but Mr. Bryce foresees a cure for our defects in the increasing zeal with which the younger generation is assuming the public burden; but how great must be its zeal and how steady its purpose if anything is to be accomplished, one is made poignantly aware by reading the account of the Tammany Ring in _The American Commonwealth_.

When a man of Mr. Bryce’s ability and experience points out definitely the chief obstacles to good citizenship and furthermore indicates the means by which these may be overcome, one may be as sure that he will say something which should be heeded as were the members of the House when he was a parliamentarian. In 1909, Mr. Bryce gave at Yale University a series of lectures which were later published by the Yale University Press under the title _Hindrances to Good Citizenship_. The main obstacles to good citizenship are defined as indolence, private self-interest, and party spirit.

The first lecture, “Indolence,” brings to mind the chapter in _The American Commonwealth_ on “The War Against Bossdom,” with its vigorous concluding words, “In America, as everywhere else in the world, the commonwealth suffers more often from apathy or shortsightedness in the upper classes, who ought to lead, than from ignorance or recklessness in the humbler classes, who generally are ready to follow when wisely led.”

In the second lecture, “Private Self-Interest,” Mr. Bryce states the causes which produce a body of citizens who care more about their own advancement than about the welfare of the country. The most important of these causes are tariff issues, appropriations of public money for local interests, governmental contracts, public officeholding,--all representing “the insidious power of money which knows how to play upon the self-interest of voters and legislators, polluting at its source the spring of Civic Duty.”

The third lecture considers party spirit as a hindrance to citizenship. Mr. Bryce acknowledges the practical necessity for parties in the management of popular governments, and also the perplexing difficulties of a party leader who must decide between conscience and party. There is nevertheless but one course open to him: he must follow his conscience; only he must carefully distinguish between conscience and angular independence which is lacking in common sense and in willingness to defer to others in unimportant matters. For the average man the question is a simple one; relieved of the burdens of party leadership, he should follow his intelligence rather than his party. A large number of independent voters secures most effectively the right administration of public business.

The last lecture in the series, “How to Overcome the Obstacles to Good Citizenship,” suggests various means by which a more satisfactory body of citizens may be secured. In method and style this lecture is illustrative of the author’s peculiar strength in exposition.

Mr. Bryce’s writings are remarkable for the lucid organization of a wealth of detail into significant principles and sound conclusions; for vividness in the presentation of whatever pertains to humanity, and for gracious, winning English. One finds always in his work simplicity in the unfolding of material which has been carefully gathered and calmly judged. There is perfect clarity in the handling of a mass of detail, and such skillful subordination of it and masterly emphasis of important principles that the reader easily catches the bearing on the central thought of every illustration or description. There is also in the writing a solidity and firmness, a bracing stalwartness--qualities which are the result of the writer’s own sturdy nature. But this is not all. The author’s almost novelistic power of seeing persons and things makes his writing as vivid as a story; even his most abstract propositions are tangible and real. And the material is, moreover, so sympathetically and earnestly treated that it is at times lifted above mere pedestrian exposition and becomes warm with the feeling of the writer. The everyday words and unadorned sentences, infused with the spirit of the one who writes, become potent to stir slumbering ideals. Suddenly over the level way of mere intellectual matters falls a dreamy light, a Celtic graciousness of manner; and the reader no longer journeys along a mere brown path, but sees the familiar scenes of the way idealized by the touch of poetry. The value of skillful exposition as an asset for leadership, or for the accomplishment of any other purpose, Mr. Bryce fully appreciates. A command of language is a power possessed by nearly every one of the men, eminent in the nineteenth century, whom Mr. Bryce describes in his _Studies in Contemporary Biography_. By means of it Mr. John Richard Green wrote the most brilliant history of modern times; through the stirring editorials of the _Nation_, Mr. Godkin was able to arouse an indifferent American public to a more earnest consideration of the national welfare; and it was Mr. Gladstone’s gift of “noble utterance” which more than any other talent enabled him for many years to hold an authoritative political position. Mr. Bryce’s own rare power as a writer of vigorous, persuasive English is one of the qualities which has made him in a certain sense a citizen of the world with an almost world-wide influence.

However helpful Mr. Bryce’s method may be for the student who is attempting to understand and master the technique of successful English, it is the subject-matter which is primarily of importance. It is valuable for the student since it may serve to stimulate the investigation and expression of certain questions connected with the administration of public matters in his own town or city; and it may also suggest the explanation and judgment of measures proposed to secure better government, such as the Referendum. But the essential worth of the material lies in the fact that it is a tonic for relaxed vigilance in public affairs. It would be well to require every citizen of the United States to read in school days _The American Commonwealth_; one ventures to say that there would be, as a result, a steady advancement in the right understanding and fulfillment of civic duties; but even a limited acquaintance with Mr. Bryce should serve to define in clearer terms the elements of a sane and effective patriotism. And Mr. Bryce’s own life, unfalteringly and resolutely devoted to a just administration of governments, together with its unfailing graciousness in the most trying situations, furnishes an invigorating example of the truly successful statesman.

ADA L. F. SNELL.

Promoting Good Citizenship

INDOLENCE

Dr. Samuel Johnson, being once asked how he came to have made a blunder in his famous English Dictionary, is reported to have answered, “Ignorance, Sir, sheer ignorance.” Whoever has grown old enough to look back over the wasted opportunities of life--and we all of us waste more opportunities than we use--will be apt to ascribe most of his blunders to sheer indolence. Sometimes one has omitted to learn what it was needful to learn in order to proceed to action; sometimes one has shrunk from the painful effort required to reflect and decide on one’s course, leaving it to Fortune to settle what Will ought to have settled; sometimes one has, from mere self-indulgent sluggishness, let the happy moment slip.

The difference between men who succeed and men who fail is not so much as we commonly suppose due to differences in intellectual capacity. The difference which counts for most is that between activity and slackness; between the man who, observing alertly and reflecting incessantly, anticipates contingencies before they occur, and the lazy, easy-going, slowly-moving man who is roused with difficulty, will not trouble himself to look ahead, and so being taken unprepared loses or misuses the opportunities that lead to fortune. If it be true that everywhere, though perhaps less here than in European countries, energy is the exception rather than the rule, we need not wonder that men show in the discharge of civic duty the defects which they show in their own affairs. No doubt public affairs demand only a small part of their time. But the spring of self-interest is not strong where public affairs are concerned. The need for activity is not continuously present. A duty shared with many others seems less of a personal duty. If a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand other citizens are as much bound to speak, vote, or act as each one of us is, the sense of obligation becomes to each of us weak. Still weaker does it become when one perceives the neglect of others to do their duty. The need for the good citizen’s action, no doubt, becomes then all the greater. But it is only the best sort of citizen that feels it to be greater. The Average Man judges himself by the average standard and does not see why he should take more trouble than his neighbours. Thus we arrive at a result summed up in the terrible dictum, which reveals the basic fault of democracy, “What is Everybody’s business is Nobody’s business.”

Of indolence, indifference, apathy, in general, no more need be said. It is a sin that easily besets us all. We might suppose that where public affairs are concerned it would decrease under the influence of education and the press. But several general causes have tended to increase it in our own generation, despite the increasing strength of the appeal which civic duty makes to men who are, or if they cared might be, better informed about public affairs than were their fathers.

The first of these causes is that manners have grown gentler and passions less angry. A chief duty of the good citizen is to be angry when anger is called for, and to express his anger by deeds, to attack the bad citizen in office, or otherwise in power, to expose his dishonesty, to eject him from office, to brand him with an ignominy which will prevent his returning to any post of trust. In former days indignation flamed higher, and there was little tenderness for offenders. Jehu smote the prophets of Baal. Bad ministers--and no doubt sometimes good ministers also--were in England beheaded on Tower Hill. Everywhere punishment came quicker and was more severe, though to be sure it was often too harsh. Nowadays the arm of justice is often arrested by an indulgence which forgets that the true aim of punishment is the protection of the community. The very safeguards with which our slower and more careful procedure has surrounded trials and investigations, proper as such safeguards are for the security of the innocent, have often so delayed the march of justice that when a conviction has at last been obtained, the offence has begun to be forgotten and the offender escapes with a trifling penalty, or with none. This is an illustration of the principle that as righteous indignation is a valuable motive power in politics, the decline in it means a decline either in the standard of virtue or in the standard of zeal, possibly in both.

Another cause may be found in the fact that the enormous growth of modern states has made the share in government of the individual citizen seem infinitesimally small. In an average Greek republic, he was one of from two to ten thousand voters. In England or France to-day he is one of many millions. The chance that his vote will make any difference to the result is so slender that it appears to him negligible. We are proud, and justly proud, of having adapted free government to areas far vaster than were formerly thought capable of receiving free institutions. It was hoped that the patriotism of the citizen would expand with the magnitude of the State. But this did not happen in Rome, the greatest of ancient republics. Can we say that it has happened in the modern world? Few of us realize that though our own share may be smaller our responsibility increases with the power our State exerts. The late Professor Henry Sidgwick once travelled from Davos in the easternmost corner of Switzerland to the town of Cambridge in England and back again to deliver his vote against Home Rule at the general election of 1886, though he knew that his own side would have a majority in the constituency. Those who knew applauded, his opponents included, but I fear that few of us followed this shining example of civic virtue.

Thirdly, the highest, because the most difficult, duty of a citizen is to fight valiantly for his convictions when he is in a minority. The smaller the minority, and the more unpopular it is, and the more violent are the attacks upon it, so much the louder is the call of duty to defend one’s opinions. To withstand the “ardor civium prava iubentium”--to face “the multitude hasting to do evil”--this is the note and the test of genuine virtue and courage. Now this is, or seems to be, a more formidable task the vaster the community becomes. It is harder to make your voice heard against the roar of ocean than against the whistling squall that sweeps down over a mountain lake.

Lastly, there has been within the last century a great accession to our knowledge of nature, a more widely diffused and developed interest in literature and art as well as in science. This development, in itself fraught with laudable means of enjoyment, has had the unforeseen yet natural result of reducing the interest in public affairs among the educated classes, while the ardour with which competitions in physical strength and skill are followed has in like manner diverted the thoughts and attention of the less educated--and indeed, not of them alone but of many also in a class from whom better things might have been expected. Politics, in fact, have nowadays to strive against more rival subjects attracting men’s eyes and minds than they had before scientific discovery and art, and above all, athletic sports, came to fill newspapers and magazines.

But so far from being less important than they were, politics are growing in every country more important the wider the sphere of governmental action becomes. Nevertheless, even in England, which is perhaps slightly less addicted to this new passion for looking on at and reading about athletic competitions than are North America and Australia, a cricket or football match or a horse-race seems, if one may judge by the eager throngs that snatch the evening newspapers, to excite more interest in the middle as well as in the richer and in the upper section of the poorer classes than does any political event.

How to overcome these adverse tendencies is a question which I reserve till the last of these lectures. Meantime, let us look at some of the forms in which indifference to the obligations of citizenship reveals itself.

The first duty of the citizen used to be to fight, and to fight not merely against foes from another State, but against those also who, within his own State, were trying to overturn the Constitution or resist the laws. It is a duty still incumbent on us all, though the existence of soldiers and a police force calls us to it less frequently. The omission to take up arms in a civil strife was a grave offence in the republics of antiquity, where revolutions were frequent, as they are to-day in some of the states of Latin America. When respectable people stayed at home instead of taking sword and spear to drive out the adherents of an adventurer trying to make himself Tyrant, they gave the adventurer his chance: and in any case their abstention tended to prolong a civil war which would end sooner when it was seen which way the bulk of the people inclined. There was accordingly a law in some of the Greek republics that every citizen must take one side or the other in an insurrection. If he did not, he was liable to punishment. I have not heard of any one being indicted in England or the United States for failing to discharge his legal duty to join in the hue and cry after a thief, or to rally to the sheriff when he calls upon the _posse comitatus_ to support him in maintaining law and order. But possibly an indictment would still lie; and in England we have within recent times enrolled bodies of special constables from the civil population to aid in maintaining public tranquillity.

More peaceful times have substituted for the duty of fighting the duty of voting. But even in small communities the latter duty has been often neglected. In Athens the magistrates used to send round the Scythian bowmen, who acted as their police, to scour the streets with a rope coloured with vermilion, and drag towards the Pnyx (the place of assembly), citizens who preferred to lounge or to mind what they called their own business, as if ruling the State was not their business. So in modern Switzerland some cantons have enacted laws fining those who, without reasonable excuse, neglect to vote.[1] This is the more remarkable because the Swiss have a good record in the matter of voting, better, I think, than any other European people. Such a law witnesses not to exceptional negligence but to an exceptionally high standard of duty. In Britain we sometimes bring to the polls at a parliamentary election eighty, or even more than eighty, per cent of our registered electors, which is pretty good when it is remembered that the register may have been made up eleven months earlier, so that many electors are sure to have moved elsewhere. At elections for local authorities a much smaller proportion vote; and I fancy, though I have no figures at hand, that in France, Belgium, and still more in Italy the percentage voting at all sorts of elections is less than in Switzerland or in Britain. The number who vote does not perfectly measure the personal sense of duty among electors, because an efficient party organization may, like the Scythian bowmen, sweep voters who do not care but who can be either driven to the polls or paid to go. Unless it is money that takes the voters there, it is well that they should go; for it helps to form the habit.

[1] This example has, I believe, been followed in Belgium.

Another form of civic apathy is the reluctance to undertake civic functions. In England this is not discoverable in any want of candidates for Parliament. They abound, though sometimes the fittest men prefer ease or business success to public life. But seats upon local authorities and especially upon municipal councils and district councils, seldom attract the best ability of the local community. In English and Scottish cities the leading commercial, financial, and professional men do not often appear as candidates, leaving the work to persons who are not indeed incompetent, being usually intelligent business men, but whose education and talents are sometimes below the level of the functions which these bodies discharge. No great harm has followed, because our city councillors are almost always honest. Local public opinion is vigilant and exacting, so a high standard of probity is maintained. But municipalities have latterly embarked on so many kinds of new work, and the revenues of the greater cities have so grown, that not merely business capacity and experience, but a large grasp of economic principles is required. This is no less true here in America, yet I gather that here it is found even more difficult than in Europe to secure the presence of able administrators in city councils.

A man engaged in a large business who takes up municipal work may doubtless find that he is making a pecuniary sacrifice. But if he has already an income sufficient for his comfort, may it not be his best way of serving his fellow-men?

Many such men do serve as governors or trustees of educational or other public institutions which make nearly as great a demand on their time as the membership of a public body would. Others, in Europe, if less frequently here, give to amusement much more of their leisure than the needs of recreation and health require. This is often due rather to thoughtlessness than to a conscious indifference to the call of duty.

Some of your political reformers have dwelt on the difficulties which party organizations, specially powerful in the United States, place in the way of educated and public-spirited men seeking to enter politics. There may be truth in this as regards the lower districts of the larger cities, but one can scarcely think it generally true even of the cities. More frequently it is alleged that the work of local politics is disagreeable, bringing a man into contact with vulgar people and exposing him to misrepresentation and abuse.

This is an excuse for abstention which ought never to be heard in a democratic country. If politics are anywhere vulgar, they ought not to be suffered to remain vulgar, as they will remain if the better educated citizens keep aloof. They involve the highest interests of the nation or the city. The way in which they are handled is a lesson to the people either in honesty or in knavery. The best element in a community cannot afford to let its interests be the sport of self-seekers or rogues. Moreover, the loss by maladministration or robbery, large as it may sometimes be, is a less serious evil than is the damage to public morals. If those who have the manners and speak the language of educated men refuse to enter practical politics, they must cease to complain of a want of refinement in politics. In reality, good manners are the best way in which to meet rudeness; and he who is too thin-skinned to disregard abuse confesses his own want of manliness. The mass of the people, even those who are neither educated nor fastidious, know honesty when they see it, and discount such abuse. When a man is firm and upright, nothing better braces him up and fits him to serve his country than to be attacked on the platform or in the press for faults he has not committed. It puts him on his mettle. It toughens his fibre. It gives him self-control and teaches him how to do right in the way which is least exposed to misrepresentation. It nerves his courage for the far more difficult trials which come when friends as well as opponents censure him because honour and obedience to his conscience have required him to take an unpopular line and speak unwelcome truths. A little persecution for righteousness’ sake is a wholesome thing.

The deficient sense of civic duty, though most frequently noted in the form of a neglect to vote, is really more general and serious in the neglect to think. Were it possible to have statistics to show what percentage of those who vote reflect upon the vote they have to give, there would in no country be found a large percentage. Yet what is the worth of a vote except as the expression of a considered opinion? The act of marking a ballot is nothing unless the mark carries with it a judgment, the preference of a good candidate to a bad one, the approval of one policy offered the people, the rejection of another. The citizen owes it to the community to inform himself about the questions submitted for his decision, and weigh the arguments on each side; or if the issue be one rather of persons than of policies, to learn all he can regarding the merits of the candidates offered to his choice.

How many voters really trouble themselves to do this? One in five? One in ten? One in twenty?

It may be asked, How can they do it? What means have they of studying public questions and reaching just conclusions? If the means are wanting, can we blame them if they do not think? If they feel they do not understand, can we blame them if they do not vote? In every free country the suffrage is now so wide that the great majority of the voters have to labour for their daily bread. In most European countries many are imperfectly educated. In the rural districts they read with difficulty, see either no newspaper or one which helps them but little, lead isolated lives in which there are scanty opportunities for learning what passes, so that the best they can do seems to be to ask advice from the priest, or the village schoolmaster, or take advice from their landlord or their employer. In the northern parts of the United States and also in Canada, the native population has indeed received a fair instruction, and reads newspapers; but the mass of voters is swelled by a crowd of recent immigrants, most of whom cannot read English and know nothing of your institutions.

Broadly speaking, in modern countries ruled by universal suffrage the Average Citizen has not the means of adequately discharging the function which the constitution throws upon him of following, examining, and judging those problems of statesmanship which the ever-growing range of government administration and the ever-increasing complexity of our civilization set before him as a voter to whom issues of policy are submitted.

As things stand, he votes, when he votes, not from knowledge, but as his party or his favourite newspaper bids him, or according to his predilection for some particular leader. Unless it be held that every man has a natural and indefeasible right to a share in the government of the country in which he resides, the ground for giving that share would seem to be the competence of the recipient and the belief that his sharing will promote the general welfare. So one may almost say that the theory of universal suffrage assumes that the Average Citizen is an active, instructed, intelligent ruler of his country.[2] The facts contradict this assumption.

[2] It may no doubt be argued that even if he is not competent,
it is better he should be within than without the voting
class. But this was not the ground generally taken by those
who brought in universal suffrage.

Does this mean that widely extended suffrage is a failure, and that the Average Man is not a competent citizen in a democracy?

This question brings us to reflect on another branch of civic duty not yet mentioned. Besides the civic duties already described of Fighting, Voting, and Thinking, there is another duty. It is the duty of Mutual Help, the duty incumbent on those who possess, through their knowledge and intelligence, the capacity of Instruction and Persuasion to advise and to guide their less competent fellow-citizens. No sensible man ought ever to have supposed that under such conditions as large modern communities present, the bulk of the citizens could vote wisely from their own private knowledge and intelligence. Even in small cities, such as was Sicyon in the days of Aratus, or Boston in the days of James Otis, the Average Man needed the help of his more educated and wiser neighbours. While communities remained small, it was easy to get this help. But now the swift and vast growth of states and cities has changed everything. Private talk counts for less when the richer citizens dwell apart from the poorer; their opportunities of meeting are fewer, and there is less friendliness, if also less dependence, in the relation of the employed to the employer. Public meetings do not give nearly all that the Average Man needs, not to add that being got together to present one set of facts and arguments and deliberately to ignore the other, they do not put him in a fair position to judge. Besides, the men who most need instruction are usually those who least come to meetings to receive it.

To fill this void the newspapers have arisen,--organs purporting to supply the materials required for the formation of political opinion. Whatever the services of the newspaper in other respects, it has the inevitable defect of superseding, with most of those who read it, the exercise of independent thought. The newspaper--I speak generally, for there are some brilliant exceptions--is, in Europe even more than here, almost always partisan in its views, often partisan in its selection of facts or at least in its way of stating them. Presenting one side of a case, addressing chiefly those who are already adherents of that side, putting a colour on the events it reports,--it serves up to the reader ideas, perhaps only mere phrases or catchwords, which confirm him in his prepossessions, and by its daily iteration makes him take them for truths. Seldom has he the leisure, still more seldom the impulse or the patience, to scrutinize these ideas for himself and form his own judgment. He is glad to be relieved of the necessity for thinking, because thinking is hard work. Indolence again! The habit of mind that is formed by hasty reading, and especially by the reading of newspapers and magazines in which the matter, excellent as parts of it often are, is so multifarious that one topic diverts attention from the others, tends to a general dissipation and distraction of thought. It is a habit which tells upon us all and makes continuous reflection and a critical or logical treatment of the subjects deserving reflection more irksome to us in the full sunlight of to-day than it was to those whom we call our benighted ancestors.

This is only one form of that supersession of the practice of thinking by the vice commonly called “the reading habit” which is profoundly affecting the intellectual life of our time. Yet as steady thinking was never really common even among the educated, the difference from earlier days is not so correctly described by saying that people think less than formerly, as by noting that while people read more, and while far more people read, the ratio of thinking to reading does not increase either in the individual or in the mass, and may possibly be decreasing. Intelligence and independence of thought have not grown in proportion to the diffusion of knowledge. The number of persons who both read and vote is in England and France more than twenty times as great as it was seventy years ago. The percentage of those who reflect before they vote has not kept pace either with popular education or with the extension of the suffrage.

The persons who constitute that percentage are, and must for the reasons already given continue for some time to be, only a fraction, in some countries a small fraction, of the voting population. But the fraction might be made much larger than it is. The citizens who stand above their fellows in knowledge and mental power ought to set an example, not only by themselves thinking more and thinking harder about public affairs than most of them do, but also by exerting themselves to stimulate and aid their less instructed or more listless neighbours. The voter, it is said, should be independent. Yes. But independence does not mean isolation. He must not commit his personal responsibility to the keeping of another. Yes. But personal responsibility does not mean the vain conceit of knowledge and judgment where knowledge is wanting and judgment is untrained.

Just as his religion throws upon every Christian the duty of loving his neighbour and giving practical expression to his love by helping his neighbour, succouring him in the hour of need, trying to rescue him from sin, seeking to guide his steps into the way of peace, so civic duty requires each of us to raise the level of citizenship not merely by ourselves voting and bearing a share in political agitation, but by trying to diffuse among our fellow-citizens whose opportunities have been less favourable, the knowledge and the fairness of mind and the habit of grappling with political questions which a democratic government must demand even from the Average Man. Democracy, they say, is based on Equality. But in no form of government is leadership so essential. A multitude without intelligent, responsible leaders whom it respects and follows is a crowd ready to become the prey of any self-seeking knave. Nor is it true that because men value equality they reject eminence. They are always glad to be led if some one, eschewing pretension and condescension, speaking to them with respect, but also with that authority which knowledge and capacity imply, will point out the path and give them the lead for which they are looking. To do this has now, in our great cities, become more difficult than it used to be, because men of different classes and different occupations do not know one another as well as they once did, and economic conflicts have made workingmen suspicious. But there are those in our English and Scottish cities who do it successfully, and I have never heard that it is resented. It is largely a matter of tact, and of knowing how to express that genuine sense of human fellowship which is commoner in the richer class than the constraint and shyness that are supposed to beset Englishmen sometimes allow to appear.

If you and we, both here and in Britain, are less active than we should be in this and other forms of civic work, the fault lies in our not caring enough for our country. It is easy to wave a flag, to cheer an eminent statesman, to exult in some achievement by land or sea. But our imaginations are too dull to realize either the grandeur of the State in its splendid opportunities for promoting the welfare of the masses, or the fact that the nobility of the State lies in its being the true child, the true exponent, of the enlightened will of a right-minded and law-abiding people. Absorbed in business or pleasure, we think too little of what our membership in a free nation means for the happiness of our poorer fellow-citizens. The eloquent voice of a patriotic reformer sometimes breaks our slumber. But the daily round of business and pleasure soon again fills the mind, and public duty fades into the background of life. This dulness of imagination and the mere indolence which makes us neglect to stop and think, are a chief cause of that indifference which chokes the growth of civic duty. It is because a great University like this is the place where the imagination of young men may best be quickened by the divine fire, because the sons of a great University are those who may best carry with them into after life the inspiration which history and philosophy and poetry have kindled within its venerable walls, that I have ventured to dwell here on the special duty which those who enjoy these privileges owe to their brethren, partners in the citizenship of a great republic.

HOW TO OVERCOME THE OBSTACLES TO GOOD CITIZENSHIP

In the preceding three lectures[3] the chief hindrances to the discharge of civic duty have been considered. Let us now go on to inquire what can be done to remove these hindrances by grappling with those faults or weaknesses in the citizen to which they are due. When symptoms have been examined, one looks about for remedies.

[3] The two lectures reprinted in this volume are the first
and last of a series of four given by Mr. Bryce at Yale
University.

We have seen that of the three causes assigned, Indolence, Selfish Personal Interest, and Party Spirit, the first is the most common, the second the most noxious, the third the most excusable, yet also the most subtle, and perhaps the most likely to affect the class which takes the lead in politics and is incessantly employed upon its daily work. Whether the influence of these causes, or of any of them, is increasing with that more complete democratization of government which we see going on in Europe, is a question that cannot yet be answered. Fifty years may be needed before it can be answered, for new tendencies both for good and for evil are constantly emerging and affecting one another in unpredictable ways.

The remedies that may be applied to any defects in the working of governments are some of them Mechanical, some of them Ethical. By Mechanical remedies I understand those which consist in improving the structure or the customs and working devices of government, i. e., the laws and the institutions or political methods, by Ethical those which affect the character and spirit of the people. If you want to get more work and better work done in any industry, you may either improve the machinery, or the implements, by which the work is done, or else improve the strength and skill of the men who run the machinery and use the tools. In doing the former, you sometimes do the latter also, for when the workman has finer tools, he is led on to attempt more difficult work, and thus not only does his own skill become more perfect, but his interest in the work is likely to be increased.

Although in politics by far the most real and lasting progress may be expected from raising the intelligence and virtue of the citizens, still improvements in the machinery of government must not be undervalued. To take away from bad men the means and opportunities by which they may work evil, to furnish good men with means and opportunities which make it easier for them to prevent or overcome evil, is to render a great service. And as laws which breathe a high spirit help to educate the whole community, so does the presence of opportunities for reform stimulate and invigorate the best citizens in their efforts after better things.

I will enumerate briefly some of the remedies that may be classed as Mechanical because they consist in alterations of institutions or methods.

Two of these need only a few passing words, because they are so sweeping as to involve the whole fabric of government, and therefore too large to be discussed here.

One is propounded by those thinkers whom, to distinguish them from the persons who announce themselves as enemies of all society, we may call the Philosophical Anarchists, thinkers who are entitled to respectful consideration because their doctrine represents a protest that needs to be made against the conception of an all-engulfing State in which individual initiative and self-guided development might be merged and lost. They desire to get rid of the defects of government by getting rid of government itself; that is to say, by leaving men entirely alone without any coercive control, trusting to their natural good impulses to restrain them from harming one another. In such a state of things there would be no Citizenship, properly so called, but only the isolation of families, or perhaps of individuals--for it is not quite clear how far the family is expected to remain in the Anarchist paradise--an isolation more or less qualified by brotherly love. We are so far at present from a prospect of reaching the conditions needed for such an amelioration that it is enough to note this view and pass on.

A second and diametrically opposite cure for the evils of existing society comes from those who are commonly termed Socialists or Collectivists. It consists in so widely enlarging the functions of government as to commit to it not merely all the work it now performs of defending the country, maintaining order, enacting laws, and enforcing justice between man and man, but also the further work of producing and distributing all commodities, allotting to each man his proper labour and proper remuneration, or possibly, instead of giving any pecuniary remuneration, providing each man with what he needs for life. Under this régime two of the hindrances to good citizenship would be much reduced. There ought to be less indifference to politics when everybody’s interest in the management of public concerns had been immensely increased by the fact that he found himself dependent on the public officials for everything. Nobody could plead that he was occupied by his own private business, because his private business would have vanished. So also selfish personal interest in making gains out of government must needs disappear when private property itself had ceased to exist. Whether, however, self-interest might not still find means of influencing public administration in ways beneficial to individual cupidity, and whether personal selfishness might not be even more dangerous, under such conditions, in proportion to the extended range and power of government,--this is another question which cannot be discussed till some definite scheme for the allotment of work and of remuneration (if any) shall have been propounded. Party Spirit would evidently, in a Collectivistic State, pass into new forms. It might, however, become more potent than ever before. But that again would depend on the kind of scheme for the reshaping of economic society that had been adopted.

We may pass from these suggestions for the extinction, or reconstruction on new lines, of the existing social and political system to certain minor devices for improving the structure and methods of government which have been put forward as likely to help the citizen to discharge his duties more efficiently.

One of these is the system of Proportional Representation. It is argued that if electoral areas were created with more than two members each, and if each elector was either allowed to vote for a number of candidates less than the number to be chosen, or was allowed to concentrate all his votes upon one candidate, or more, according to the number to be chosen, two good results would follow. The will of the electors would be more adequately and exactly expressed, because the minority, or possibly more than one minority, as well as the majority, would have everywhere its representative. The zeal of the electors would be stimulated, because in each district a section of opinion not large enough to have a chance of winning an election, if there were but one member, and accordingly now apathetic, because without hope, would then be roused to organize itself and to take a warmer interest in public affairs. The Proportional system is, therefore, advocated as one of those improvements in machinery which would react upon the people by quickening the pulses of public life. Some experiments have already been made in this direction. Those tried in England did not win general approval and have been dropped. That which is still in operation in the State of Illinois has not, if my informants are right, given much satisfaction. But the plan is said to work well both in Belgium and in some of the cantons of Switzerland; so one may hope that further experiments will be attempted. It deserves your careful study, but it is too complicated and opens too many side issues to be further discussed now and here.[4]

[4] Since the above was written a Royal Commission has been
appointed in Britain to examine divers questions relating
to elections, and is investigating this, among other plans.