Few political men are able to rise above themselves, to escape from being self-centred, to view themselves with a critical eye. And, as most people belong to some party or other, the party spirit prevails in Parliament, identifying the interests of party—that is to say of a few individuals and sometimes of a single individual—with the interests of the whole community. Thus Parliaments represent parties, coteries, and strong and influential—I will not say “leading”—personalities, rather than the nation, the people, the masses.
Political Education.
As a cure for the evil of political anthropomorphism, democracy demands the political education of citizens and electors. I say education, not erudition, and certainly not a one-sided and exclusive school education. Needful as are schooling and schools, they alone cannot bestow understanding, talent or political sense. A strong and healthy brain is better than a school certificate. Often have I protested against what I call “schoolmaster politics.” I mean the schoolmaster spirit in priests and officials as well as in professors and teachers; for all who have to deal with the young, or with obedient, dependent, unresisting folk, tend too frequently to be absolutist, self-willed, cranky and childish when they become members of parliament and Ministers or attain public office and dignity. One of the weightiest democratic problems is the relationship of the academically-educated class to parties which, like the Socialists and Agrarians, represent the economic and class interests of great masses. It is in high degree the problem of the middle classes and of liberalism.
The so-called intelligentsia, the product of secondary schools and universities, which represents science, philosophy and general culture, is not organized as a class. Nevertheless it plays an important political part, particularly through the publicists in its ranks; and though the intelligentsia as a whole has not always been in the public eye, because its activity is educational rather than political, its leading members have everywhere made a stand against absolutism and theocracy. In the universities, at least, most of its members are apt to be conservative and to grow accustomed to a quiet, regular life.
In all democratic countries, and not least in the republics that have succeeded to monarchical or aristocratic systems, leading positions are now being taken in politics and in the public services by men devoid of higher education. How to
