::.
 
 LIBRARY | 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 /f)
 
 DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL 
 GROWTH IN AMERICA 
 
 FOUR LECTURES 
 
 BY 
 
 BERNARD MOSES, PH.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 NEW YORK & LONDON 
 IfciUcfcerbocfcer press 
 
 i8g8
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1898 
 
 BY 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 
 
 fmlchetbocter prese, Hew
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY . 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 
 36 
 
 78 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 PRESERVATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT 103 
 
 INDEX 
 
 125
 
 DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL 
 GROWTH IN AMERICA. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 
 
 THE occupation of the American con- 
 tinent by Europeans has part of its 
 significance in the fact that it provided 
 conditions for an unprecedented extension 
 of democracy. In the presence of the wil- 
 derness and uncultivated tribes, the con- 
 ventionalities of an old and complex society 
 were wanting, and a new social growth be- 
 gan, with few of the hampering influences 
 of artificial restrictions and distinctions. 
 Never before, within historic times, had 
 there been offered to man such an ample 
 field of escape from the conventional forms
 
 2 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 of established society, by which individuals 
 are kept bound in their places of inferiority 
 and superiority. In the unsettled regions 
 of America there was the widest freedom 
 from the restraints of civilization. There 
 was ample room for millions to take essen- 
 tially similar places. Under these circum- 
 stances, men necessarily and inevitably 
 drifted towards the enjoyment of common 
 rights and privileges, and the law in the 
 course of time recognized and confirmed 
 the fact. 
 
 Through the discovery of America and 
 its subsequent occupation by Europeans, 
 large scope was given to a modified form of 
 political practice ; and the new phenomena 
 of political life have given a new basis for 
 scientific inductions. The idea of equality 
 under the law, which we recognize as one of 
 the results of the new social conditions, has 
 entered as a conspicuous feature into recent 
 political discussion. In fact, all the im- 
 portant inductions drawn from the phe- 
 nomena of colonial life on this continent, 
 constituting, as they do, a noteworthy addi- 
 tion to our general knowledge of politics,
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 3 
 
 must be set down among the consequences 
 of westward migration. The discovery 
 and settlement of America have, moreover, 
 enabled us to study society in the actual 
 process of formation. We have seen men 
 build communities, and by slow degrees 
 organize a body politic. First, in this pro- 
 cess, came the creation of an agency or 
 institution to do certain work which the 
 society wished done ; then the union of 
 these several agencies or institutions into 
 a system, and this system we have seen fit 
 to call a state. 
 
 This point of view has been of vast im- 
 portance in revealing the state as an organ- 
 ized part of the nation ; or as an instrument 
 of human creation designed to accomplish 
 the common work of society. Seeing the 
 state grow up, little by little, as one insti- 
 tution after another was organized to per- 
 form some part of the increasing social 
 work, there has been derived the well- 
 founded conclusion that the origin of the 
 state and the source of political authority 
 are not to be looked for in the inscrutable 
 mind of Providence, but in the instincts
 
 4 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 and intelligence of the nation itself. We 
 have seen the state develop in this new 
 world without an external initiative. We 
 have consequently been led to set aside the 
 vague mediaeval idea of a Divine origin 
 of political authority, and have emphasized 
 the truth which has been made clear by 
 American experience, that the state is a 
 body of institutions, not only of human 
 origin, but also of worldly purposes. 
 
 The subjection of America to civilized 
 peoples has contributed to some phases of 
 general popular advancement. This is 
 suggested by the fact that the course of 
 progress is along the geographical course 
 of migration ; and the reason of this is not 
 far to seek. The men who move on over 
 the frontier, who give their lives to build- 
 ing a new society in a new field, are not 
 the drones, the ineffectives, or those who 
 feel that their work is finished. Such as 
 these are left behind. The new community, 
 therefore, begins its career with the mini- 
 mum of conservatism and the maximum of 
 force ; and, except as it becomes entangled 
 in the qualities of the barbarians, it is in a
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 5 
 
 better condition to run the course of civili- 
 zation than was its antecedent society. 
 
 Our English ancestors generally kept 
 themselves in this condition. In coloni- 
 zing America they were uncompromising. 
 They moved steadily and irresistibly for- 
 ward, and their advance was marked by 
 the disappearance of the uncultivated abo- 
 rigines. The Spaniards, on the other hand, 
 wherever they met the Indians of America, 
 were willing to descend from their Eu- 
 ropean standard of civilization and affili- 
 ate with them on a lower plane. They 
 compromised with them both physically 
 and spiritually. The English policy has 
 tended to the ultimate extermination of 
 the barbarians ; but the Indians who have 
 survived contact with the Spaniards have 
 become constituent parts of the new na- 
 tions. The important question involved in 
 these facts is not the question of the preser- 
 vation or disappearance of a people, but 
 the progress of civilization. It is, therefore, ' 
 a matter of grave concern whether a nation 
 in colonizing preserves its stock unmixed 
 with lower elements, or, becoming united
 
 6 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 with barbarians, leaves a posterity less 
 effective than would have been descendants 
 of unadulterated blood. In the one case, 
 the colony is able to take up the work of 
 civilization at the point to which it had 
 been advanced by the parent nation. In 
 the other case, the colony finds itself en- 
 dowed with more or less of the taint and 
 bias of barbarism, and is thus outranked 
 by colonies of the higher race, which have 
 remained true to themselves. The com- 
 munity which is descended from a union of 
 Europeans and Indians has naturally more 
 or less of an inclination towards the 
 thoughts and life of its Indian ancestors, 
 and is thus compelled to go over a certain 
 part of the path of progress which the 
 European has already trod, and which has 
 led him to his present position of enlighten- 
 ment. It is obliged, by a slow and labori- 
 ous process of cultivation, to eliminate or 
 overcome the influence of the element that 
 makes for degeneracy ; and, until this is 
 accomplished, its facility of movement 
 along the way of civilization is impeded, 
 and it is consequently outrun by com-
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 7 
 
 munities that have been careful to with- 
 hold themselves from barbarian contamina- 
 tion. 
 
 The English were induced to hold aloof 
 
 o 
 
 from the barbarian by that quality in them 
 which we may call their race-respect ; and 
 through this it has been possible for them 
 to spread their colonies to the four quarters 
 of the world, with no departure anywhere 
 from the social standard of the parent stock. 
 And the preservation of this standard was 
 rendered easy by keeping the way to the 
 colonies constantly open to the emigration of 
 both men and women from the mother coun- 
 try. The Spaniards, on the other hand, by 
 the provisions of law, prohibited unmarried ,J 
 women from emigrating to their colonies, 
 and thus made inevitable the rise of a 
 mixed race, whose strain of barbarism ren- 
 dered it incompetent to participate in the 
 leadership of the world's civilization. For 
 the advantage possessed by the people of 
 the United States, in being able to start on 
 a course of national progress without a 
 handicap, they are indebted largely to the 
 wise discretion of their colonial ancestors,
 
 8 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 who were enabled to preserve the purity 
 of the blood of their descendants. 
 
 Whether the determinations of these 
 ancestors were consciously taken or were 
 the result of a strong national instinct, in 
 either case the important aspect of their 
 action was its relation to the future ; in 
 fact, the questions which demand the most 
 profound and careful consideration of any 
 generation are not questions concerning 
 the past, but questions whose significance 
 is only seen by reference to the future. 
 And in contemplating our national future 
 we are not disposed to set for ourselves 
 limits. As a nation we have attained rank 
 and power and some measure of self-confi- 
 dence ; the blood of youthful health flows 
 in our veins, and under the spell of our own 
 imposing nationality we sometimes think 
 that we have solved the secret of national 
 immortality. And this thought is more 
 than a passing fancy ; it is woven into the 
 texture of our being. It abides in our 
 national life and character as an ever-pres- 
 ent instinct. For, as it is difficult for the 
 individual man to live constantly in the
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 9 
 
 presence of the idea of his dissolution and 
 the extinction of his personality, so is it 
 difficult for a nation to hold in perpetual 
 contemplation the thought that its national 
 life and formal organization are doomed to 
 perish. The impression of the multitude 
 is that the law of national life, to which 
 there has been no exception, is not to apply 
 to this nation, but is to be set aside in 
 our behalf. But intelligence, enlightened 
 by the records of the past, traverses in- 
 stinctive impressions, and leads to the con- 
 clusion that while this nation continues to 
 be progressive, it will be subject to the 
 common fate of organized humanity, as 
 revealed in the institutional transforma- 
 tions of earlier nations. 
 
 The rise of the English colonies in Amer- 
 ica to the position of an independent nation 
 and the subsequent development and con- 
 duct of this nation constitute an important 
 part of the history of democracy. The 
 establishment of this republic was an em- 
 phatic announcement of certain principles 
 which appear destined to abide, although 
 in the process of social growth the forms
 
 10 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 of political organization may change. In 
 view of the necessary relation between a 
 certain form of society and its proper form 
 of government, a modification of the politi- 
 cal organization may be expected as an in- 
 evitable accompaniment of the changes 
 which society undergoes in passing from 
 the simple to the complex form. Under 
 this principle, which, since Montesquieu, 
 has been one of the axioms of political sci- 
 ence, we expect a democratic government 
 wherever we find a democratic form of so- 
 ciety, or wherever there is a near approach 
 to equality of material conditions. Under 
 this principle, on the other hand, we ex- 
 pect that, in a society where great inequal- 
 ity of material conditions prevails, the 
 government maintained will be neither 
 democratic in form nor democratic in spirit. 
 In Switzerland, some cantons, on account 
 of their natural circumstances, have been 
 unfavorable to the development of great 
 wealth, and the inhabitants have, therefore, 
 remained in essentially similar conditions ; 
 they have touched neither the extreme of 
 poverty nor the extreme of riches. Such
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. II 
 
 cantons have continued to be democratic 
 cantons. They have produced no large 
 cities, but have continued to be peopled by 
 small farmers or peasant proprietors. They 
 have retained the democratic spirit and the 
 democratic form of political organization. 
 In other cantons of more abundant natural 
 resources large cities have arisen, and soci- 
 ety has passed to an advanced stage of dif- 
 ferentiation. Marked inequalities of ma- 
 terial conditions have appeared, and these 
 cantons have not grown to be democracies, 
 but have become aristocracies, both as to 
 the forms of the society and the forms of 
 government. 
 
 The more or less extensive manifestation 
 of the democratic spirit in the institutions 
 of every political society existing on this 
 side of the Atlantic is the distinguishing 
 characteristic of the history of this conti- 
 nent. In searching for the causes of this 
 appearance we cannot satisfactorily attrib- 
 ute it to national peculiarities that have 
 been passed on to the colonies, for the mem- 
 bers of the colonies were derived from 
 many nations ; and whether coming from
 
 12 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 liberal England or absolutist Spain, they 
 have shown a decided preference for the 
 principles and practices of democracy. We 
 cannot attribute it to a conscious determi- 
 nation, for over the vast area of the conti- 
 nent, with nations of unlike inheritance, we 
 cannot reasonably presume uniformity of 
 conscious purpose. We cannot, moreover, 
 attribute it to any intelligent force, for the 
 general features of national and continental 
 life are not determined consciously, but by 
 the action of forces which lie outside of the 
 human will. The universal prevalence of 
 democracy in America must, therefore, be 
 referred in large measure to that equality 
 of material conditions into which men are 
 forced by the circumstances of frontier life. 
 In an old society persons are maintained in 
 relations of inequality as a consequence of 
 social differentiation, supported by the di- 
 rect provisions of law and the decrees of 
 custom. But under the conditions which 
 prevail where a wilderness is taken for civ- 
 ilization, and where the cultivation of the 
 soil is the almost universal occupation, law 
 is in its incipient stages, custom is silent,
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 13 
 
 and the restraining influence of social con- 
 ventionalities is wanting. Under these 
 conditions pretensions to superiority are 
 seldom made, and if made would find little 
 recognition. 
 
 The universal presence of the democratic 
 spirit in American society finds an explana- 
 tion in the suggestions already made con- 
 cerning the conditions under which democ- 
 racy appears, and in the further fact that 
 these conditions are the inevitable accom- 
 paniment of certain stages of colonial life. 
 If these conditions and their influence are 
 more marked in the English than in the 
 Spanish colonies, the difference is due to 
 the greater freedom from external govern- 
 mental control which the English colonies 
 enjoyed. These colonies were practically 
 free, and took character from their environ- 
 ment. The English colonists generally ac- 
 quired whatever amounts of land they could 
 cultivate, and each in the cultivation of his 
 land found himself essentially in the same 
 position with respect to wealth, and living 
 essentially the same kind of life, as his neigh- 
 bor. When the necessity of organizing and
 
 14 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 carrying on a local government presented 
 itself, the obligation fell equally upon all 
 members of the colony, and the govern- 
 ment which arose was a democracy by vir- 
 tue of the material equality in which the 
 colonists lived. The forces which made the 
 English colonies in America democratic 
 were thus the same forces that developed 
 and have maintained democracy in the 
 forest cantons of Switzerland. 
 
 If the Spanish colonists have had a some- 
 what different history in this regard, it is 
 because of the close relation that was main- 
 tained between them and the authorities 
 of the mother countiy. From the founda- 
 tion of the first Spanish settlements on this 
 continent till the beginning of their strug- 
 gle for independence, the king of Spain 
 held a strong hand over his American 
 subjects. Every important feature of their 
 life was prescribed by authority emanating 
 from him. The movements of goods and 
 the movements of persons were subject to 
 a most arbitrary and far-reaching restric- 
 tion. The political organization, from the 
 lowest municipal corporation to the vice-
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 15 
 
 royalty, was planned and constructed in 
 Europe in accordance with European ideas, 
 and the higher offices, almost without ex- 
 ception, were filled with persons of Euro- 
 pean birth and European education. To 
 furnish an additional force to counteract 
 the natural tendencies to democracy in 
 Spanish America, the privileges and pres- 
 tige of nobility were extended to conspicu- 
 ous colonists. In view of these artificial 
 restrictions and imported conventionalities, 
 the native forces of colonial life worked 
 slowly and against great odds. But when 
 the war for the emancipation of Spanish 
 America was ended, it was clearly seen 
 that the forces which make for democracy 
 had not been subdued, but that even dur- 
 ing the domination of the Spanish king 
 they had so far moulded the life of the 
 Spanish colonists that after emancipation 
 had been achieved no independent govern- 
 ment was possible which did not rest on, 
 and give ample recognition to, the demo- 
 cratic principle. Even the strong anti- 
 democratic preferences of the great leaders, 
 who had enjoyed a most extraordinary
 
 1 6 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 popularity during the- war, were inade- 
 quate to check or turn aside the current 
 of democratic sentiment. 
 
 The English colonies furnished the best 
 example of democracy in America, largely 
 because they were to a greater extent than 
 any other colonies moulded by local influ- 
 ences. The English government made 
 little or no effort to restrain them by 
 imposing upon them the legal and conven- 
 tional forms and relations that had come 
 into existence in an old and complex 
 society. And they found themselves, more- 
 over, under circumstances that favored the 
 ownership and cultivation of land on a 
 small scale, thus permitting each settler to 
 become a proprietor and the peer of his 
 neighbor ; while in the Spanish settlements 
 the system of encomiendas provided for in- 
 equality from the beginning, and thus set 
 up a barrier that had to be broken down 
 to make way for democratic progress. 
 
 The equality of material conditions pre- 
 sented by the colonial life of America has 
 not only given a democratic basis to the 
 republics of this continent, but it has
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. I/ 
 
 indirectly moved parts of other nations to 
 undertake to establish democratic institu- 
 tions ; and this attempt has sometimes been 
 made where the conditions did not favor 
 the maintenance of such institutions. 
 France may maintain a republic, or a gov- 
 ernment in which the highest offices are 
 filled by election, but in the presence of 
 existing inequalities of material conditions 
 it is not to be expected that the govern- 
 ment will exhibit many characteristics of 
 democracy. If a democratic government 
 were set up in a nation as far advanced 
 in social development as France, it would 
 indicate that the nation as a whole had 
 fallen under the dominion of a class, that 
 the large unprivileged body of the inhabi- 
 tants whose individual possessions are 
 essentially equal had assumed control. It 
 would not, however, mean the establish- 
 ment of a permanent national government. 
 The movement in favor of democracy in 
 the last two hundred and fifty years is to 
 be regarded as a movement primarily 
 American. The great European nations 
 have felt its influence, but their social con-
 
 1 8 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 ditions have prevented them from realiz- 
 ing its ideal. An illustration of one of 
 the phases of the influence which the con- 
 ditions of this continent have exerted upon 
 European nations may be seen when we 
 consider the movement for political emanci- 
 pation which filled the last quarter of the 
 eighteenth and the first quarter of the nine- 
 teenth century. It was a movement of 
 three episodes. It began with the steps 
 that led the English colonies to assert 
 their freedom from a non-resident govern- 
 ment, it was continued in the French 
 Revolution, and ended with the achieve- 
 ment of Spanish- American independence. 
 Its French phase was an attempt to realize 
 in an old and highly differentiated society 
 the democratic ideas that were born of 
 colonial conditions. So completely was 
 France dependent upon America in this 
 matter that Professor Ritchie has felt 
 justified in affirming that " every article 
 of the French revolutionary creed had been 
 already formulated and often in less care- 
 fully guarded phraseology by the emanci- 
 pated i Anglo-Saxons ' on the American
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. ig 
 
 side of the Atlantic." To realize the bor- 
 rowed ideas of this creed and make them 
 permanently applicable required that the 
 society of France should be turned back 
 from its natural drift, and by artificial 
 means made to assume the characteristics 
 of a simpler form. And herein lay the 
 insurmountable difficulty of establishing 
 democracy in France. 
 
 In proceeding to take account of the 
 prospects of democracy, we find a reason- 
 able starting-point in the acceptance of the 
 propositions already considered : (1) That 
 a given form of society tends to secure 
 for itself a certain proper form of govern- 
 ment ; (2) That the circumstances which 
 produce an essential equality of material 
 conditions tend also to produce, among 
 the inhabitants, equality of political rights 
 and power, and thus a democratic form of 
 government. From this point of view 
 light is thrown on the problem in hand 
 by the facts of normal social growth. If 
 we find in a certain early stage of civiliza- 
 tion an essential equality of material con- 
 ditions, we do not find either similarity
 
 2O DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 of tastes or equality of mental endow- 
 ments; and because of the inequality of 
 intellectual power, the diversity of aims, 
 and the desire of the majority of men to 
 improve their circumstances, society, under 
 favorable opportunities, moves away from 
 its condition of democratic equality. With 
 no restrictions placed on the movements of 
 the individual members of such a society, 
 the fittest in the several lines of activity 
 acquire positions of advantage, and the 
 less fit fall behind or are crowded to the 
 wall. Thus every step forward from the 
 simplicity and equality of the early agri- 
 cultural stage towards the complexity of 
 highly developed society is marked by an 
 increasing inequality of material condi- 
 tions. In some cases this result is furthered 
 by the action of the government, either 
 directly by grants of property or privileges, 
 or indirectly by such legislation as tends 
 to produce among the persons affected 
 diversity of advantage. But this discrimi- 
 nating activity of government is not neces- 
 sary to the end ; essentially the same result 
 will be achieved by the forces inherent in
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 21 
 
 an individualistic society. In a word, the 
 natural growth of society under the forces 
 resident in the unlike powers of the indi- 
 vidual members is towards various kinds of 
 inequality, and especially towards inequal- 
 ity of material possessions. If in some re- 
 gions this end has not been reached, if a given 
 society has retained its primitive simplicity 
 and equality, explanation of the perma- 
 nence of this equality will be found in the 
 lack of social progress due to isolation, or 
 to a lack of those natural resources which 
 permit social differentiation. Perhaps in 
 those parts of the United States where the 
 conditions of the frontier have been left 
 behind, society has had as nearly a normal 
 growth as in any country. There have 
 been abundant natural resources, a rapidly 
 increasing population, favoring the widest 
 division of employments, and comparative- 
 ly little direct governmental interference 
 in behalf of inequality. In these places 
 the result of social growth has been to. 
 increase the inequality of material con-f 
 ditions, and this is clearly the normal 
 result of social growth under the influence
 
 22 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 of merely inherent forces. Whenever the 
 government or any external force interferes 
 to give an artificial advantage to certain 
 persons, the effect will be only to acceler- 
 ate this movement. But in the presence 
 of this tendency there arises from time to 
 time a strong protest which takes the form 
 of a proposal to return to earlier equality ; 
 yet all conscious attempts to accomplish 
 this have hitherto been without important 
 results. We are led, therefore, to regard 
 the movement from equality of material 
 conditions to inequality of material con- 
 ditions as a characteristic feature of prog- 
 ress under freedom, particularly as it 
 appears in industrial society. 
 
 Under the earlier characteristic social 
 order of monarchy, inequality of posses- 
 sions was sometimes directly furthered by 
 extensive grants of property from the 
 crown, and by special exemptions from 
 pecuniary burdens which fell upon the 
 bulk of the citizens. But in the character- 
 istic life of the modern industrial nations 
 this means of promoting inequality of ma- 
 terial conditions has been almost entirely
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 2$ 
 
 discarded ; yet unrestricted competition 
 in the presence of all the modern artificial 
 appliances for production is producing a 
 similar result. The opportunity here offered 
 to a person of extraordinary energy and 
 foresight to combine in behalf of his 
 private interests the modern means of pro- 
 duction, gives to superior ability an advan- 
 tage not enjoyed under any other form 
 of society. Unequal powers in the pres- 
 ence of common opportunities for gaining 
 wealth give as a result unequal possessions. 
 Thus, whether the government interferes 
 in behalf of individuals, or simply stands 
 for order, the outcome of industrial devel- 
 opment, with respect to possessions or 
 material conditions, will be essentially the 
 same in both cases, and that an increasing 
 inequality. 
 
 Under this movement, and by the very 
 nature of their differentiating affairs, and 
 the varying magnitudes of their industrial 
 and commercial interests, men are drawn 
 towards different forms of life and activity ; 
 and thus, as a result of free social progress, 
 society, in the course of time, inevitably
 
 24 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 becomes marked by classes, becomes un- 
 democratic, and this in spite of the non- 
 recognition of these classes by law. 
 
 If, as here indicated, the democratic 
 form of society disappears under normal 
 social development, we have only to apply 
 the already accepted principle concerning 
 the relation of the form of society to the 
 form of government, in order to make 
 clear the proposition that the passing of 
 democratic society means the passing of 
 the democratic element in government. 
 The process, however, is neither rapid nor 
 uniform in all parts of a given country. 
 Every stage in the progress already made 
 in the United States is represented in the 
 present by some part of our society. The 
 two extremes, the beginning and the present 
 culmination of the movement, are repre- 
 sented by the agricultural frontier and by 
 the large cities. This frontier is not merely 
 the region where the wave of westward 
 migration breaks on the shore of barbar- 
 ism, but it is also found in the interior of 
 older states ; the isolated rural parishes of 
 Missouri or Indiana have to-day the essen-
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 2$ 
 
 tial qualities of frontier life. The influ- 
 ences that made for democracy in the 
 colonial days survive here, and here lie 
 the basis and hope for the continuance 
 of democracy in America. In the cities, 
 however, which stand for an advanced 
 stage of social development, there is the 
 widest departure from the condition of 
 material equality. The gulf which sepa- 
 rates social classes becomes wider, and the 
 undemocratic spirit of the great city be- 
 comes every year intensified. Every year, 
 moreover, its domination of the rural dis- 
 tricts becomes more complete. With 
 the relative fall of rural independence, 
 and the growing subjection of the country 
 population to the ideals and purposes of 
 the city, we behold the decline of the con- 
 ditions and the forces that have given to 
 this nation its democratic character, and 
 thus furnished the basis of its institutions. 
 In this view the present flight from the 
 country to the city appears of vast impor- 
 tance. For the individual, it means the 
 gratification of new wants, but it does not 
 mean that in the gratification of these
 
 26 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 wants a higher life is necessarily realized, 
 or a clearer prospect opened to posterity. 
 It means a renunciation of the dignified 
 independence of one who tills his own 
 soil ; and indicates a willingness on the 
 part of an increasing number of persons 
 to be dependent on undertakings initiated 
 by others. It means, for the strong few, 
 wealth, power, and a fuller experience ; 
 it means, for the weak many, lives burned 
 out by an electric current they are unable 
 to bear. 
 
 With respect to the nation, it means a 
 more than proportionate growth of that 
 part whose circumstances are unfavorable 
 to the development or maintenance of the 
 democratic spirit. This movement is sig- 
 nificant, moreover, on account of the fact 
 that this popular tide has hitherto been 
 seen to run in only one direction. There 
 is nowhere a record of a popular migra- 
 tion from the great city to the country, in 
 which is revealed a disposition, on the part 
 of the persons migrating, to take up the 
 genuine life of the country. When it is 
 remembered, therefore, that not many gen-
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 27 
 
 erations may be maintained in high effi- 
 ciency under continuous life in the great 
 city, it will be seen that any change in the 
 population which builds up the city and 
 depletes the country not only makes the 
 continued reign of democracy impossible, 
 but even threatens the existence of civili- 
 zation itself. And so far as may be seen 
 from our present point of view the princi- 
 pal forces that have produced the recent 
 striking growth of large cities are perma- 
 nent forces. One of these is found in the 
 growing sensitiveness of the whole body of 
 the people under the influences that are in- 
 ducing a higher degree of popular enlight- 
 enment. Through this, the loneliness of 
 existence in the country is made to appear 
 oppressive, and the gregarious and excit- 
 ing life of the city extremely desirable. 
 As it is impossible for the ordinary man, 
 who has been bred under the pleasurable 
 irritations of the city, to go with satisfac- 
 tion to the silent and dull life of the coun- 
 try, so is it impossible for the countryman 
 to remain contented after his imagination 
 has been awakened by frequent communi-
 
 28 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 cation with the city. This attitude of the 
 dwellers in the country towards the city is 
 not likely to pass away in a society grow- 
 ing from simplicity to complexity, but is 
 likely to be confirmed and emphasized by 
 the further development of rapid transpor- 
 tation. As soon as the dwellers in the 
 country have been made to feel the intel- 
 lectual wants of the age, they are bound 
 to become conscious that these wants can 
 be satisfied only at the great centres of 
 population. In the same direction operates 
 the force of material interests. The exten- 
 sion of the means of rapid and cheap trans- 
 portation has tended to make the cities 
 distributing points for the products of the 
 country, and thus the cheapest place for 
 the retailed purchase of such products. 
 By this the cost of food, the great ob- 
 stacle to living in large cities, has been 
 reduced, making way for the attractions 
 of city life to become effective. It may 
 thus be seen that the influences which con- 
 tribute to the enlightenment and elevation 
 of the country people, and lead them to 
 seek their temporal advantage, at the same
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 29 
 
 time tend to induce them to desert their 
 ancient conditions, and to cause the rural 
 districts to lose that character which has 
 made them the promoters of democracy. 
 
 Although the recent extension of the 
 power exercised by the people in some of 
 the European nations, appears to be a 
 movement towards democracy, it is never- 
 theless not to be regarded as a counter move- 
 ment to the tendency already observed ; 
 it is only the result of the abolition of 
 privileges previously granted and upheld 
 by tbe government. As long as these 
 privileges are maintained, social growth 
 proceeds along artificial lines, and the 
 forces of free competition are more or 
 less checked by hereditary advantages or 
 disadvantages. The maintenance of legal 
 privileges has, therefore, preserved an arti- 
 ficial inequality, which, in so far as it has 
 been supported by these privileges, tends 
 to disappear when they are removed. As 
 soon as the arbitrary interference of gov- 
 ernment ceases, the nations concerned 
 become subject to the forces of free indus- 
 trial life. The apparent drift towards
 
 30 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 equality and democracy, on the removal 
 of governmental privileges, is, therefore, 
 only a temporary movement. That no 
 real democracy is about to be attained in 
 these nations becomes evident when it is 
 remembered that they have entered the 
 industrial stage of civilization, and are, 
 therefore, subject to the forces already con- 
 sidered, which make for inequality, and 
 lead away from democracy. European 
 society, therefore, presents two phases of 
 the transition movement. It is slowly 
 setting aside legal privileges, and is already 
 far on the course of economic differentia- 
 tion. The English colonists in America 
 stood in contrast with existing European 
 society in that they were rid of legal dis- 
 tinctions before they had made any impor- 
 tant industrial progress, when, in fact, 
 their equality of material conditions made 
 democracy possible. It is not possible for 
 these conditions to appear in Europe, and 
 there is consequently no ground for the ex- 
 pectation that the great nations of Europe 
 will become democratic. 
 
 Under the forces of normal develop-
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 31 
 
 ment, society grows away from the demo- 
 cratic ideal, and consequently away from 
 that condition in which the democratic 
 element appears as a conspicuous and 
 effective power in the government. This 
 conclusion appears true in its application 
 although the nation in question may have 
 accepted the Christian doctrine of the 
 brotherhood of man, or although the indi- 
 vidual members of the nation may seem 
 to have found in the existing government 
 the realization of their political ideals. 
 Devotion to these ideals has been mani- 
 fested in many ages and in many countries, 
 yet stability of forms is not a striking 
 feature of general political history. Change 
 has been the rule, except in isolation, or 
 when the physical means of social develop- 
 ment have been wanting. In this respect, 
 democratic states have shared the common 
 destiny. Our belief that for our country 
 we have reached a final form of political 
 organization, is no more significant than 
 similar beliefs entertained by other nations. 
 Other nations have hoped for the per- 
 petual preservation of their social forms
 
 32 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 with hopes as well grounded as those 
 entertained by Americans; yet they have 
 seen the spirit of their institutions depart, 
 and the historian has finally noted the 
 fact that the ancient institutions have 
 been superseded by others. 
 
 In view of the dependence of democracy 
 on transitory material conditions, and the 
 absence here of conspicuous obstacles to 
 change, America appears to be drifting 
 towards a state of society less democratic 
 than that of the present. In cases of such 
 a transition the departure of the democratic 
 spirit is not immediately followed by the 
 overthrow of democratic institutions. This 
 is abundantly illustrated in political his- 
 tory. While Mexico, in her actual admin- 
 istration, is as completely a monarchy as 
 Spain, she retains all the constitutional 
 forms that were created to give expression 
 to the spirit of democracy. Rosas, of the 
 Argentine Republic, found it unnecessary 
 to change the law, or to modify the condi- 
 tions of universal suffrage, in order to 
 maintain absolute rule. Whenever, in the 
 normal growth of society, it becomes neces-
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 33 
 
 sary for the government to adapt itself to 
 the modified character of the nation, this 
 is not necessarily accomplished by a sudden 
 revolution, or by any process attracting 
 popular attention. Gradually, and by an 
 almost imperceptible movement, one de- 
 partment or element in a government as- 
 sumes functions not originally accorded to 
 it by law, but which are later confirmed 
 by law ; and thus while the governmental 
 form changes, the ideas of the people change 
 also. The Roman Republic grew into the 
 Empire, in spite of the strong devotion to 
 republicanism which the people had pre- 
 viously manifested ; and because they had 
 gradually accepted new ideals, there was 
 no more popular dissatisfaction with au- 
 thority under the later than under the 
 earlier form. Such a transition is in some 
 sense characteristic of the change through 
 which a growing society passes in develop- 
 ing along the line of least resistance. 
 
 In so far, therefore, as the extreme demo- 
 cratic form of administration involves the 
 maximum of governmental friction, will 
 there appear a tendency to depart from it
 
 34 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 as the business of government becomes 
 difficult, by reason of the great variety and 
 technical character of the practical prob- 
 lems, or as the need for prompt and decisive 
 action becomes imperative. The proper 
 conduct of military affairs, whether under 
 republican or monarchical rule, demands 
 such action ; consequently the army of a 
 democratic state has essentially the same 
 organization as the army of a monarchical 
 state ; and this organization is determined 
 by the conditions and purposes of military 
 life, by the social disposition to proceed by 
 the course of greatest institutional efficiency. 
 Furthermore, in its essential nature a great 
 city in America does not differ materially 
 from a great city in Europe. There may 
 be certain artificial or accidental differ- 
 ences, but as a social product one is like 
 the other. They stand for the same things 
 in the history of progress ; and if one form 
 of administration is found to be better than 
 all others in one country, it is to be expected 
 that rational progress will lead to the ac- 
 ceptance of this form in other countries. 
 If the method of municipal administration
 
 A FUNDAMENTAL TENDENCY. 
 
 35 
 
 by a strong centralization of power is found 
 to be most effective in England, France, 
 and Germany, there is no reason for sup- 
 posing that a different method for a similar 
 body will be most effective in America.
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 
 
 OROMINENT accompaniments of the 
 fundamental tendency in the growth 
 of our society are the discontent of labor- 
 ers, the conflicts with their employers, and 
 the extravagant expectations which many 
 persons entertain concerning socialism. This 
 discontent is not, however, an indication 
 that the lot of the people is exceptionally 
 hard. In the United States there is no 
 want of unrest and agitation, but, taking 
 everything into consideration, the bulk of 
 this nation enjoys a degree of material 
 well-being not attained elsewhere. No 
 other laud furnishes the laborers more 
 nearly an adequate reward for their efforts 
 than this. The persistent complaints and 
 even the reports of serious strife, which 
 are heard here, are not evidence of an op- 
 36
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 37 
 
 pressed or degraded condition of the la- 
 borers ; they point rather to the fact that 
 the laborers have become so far emancipated 
 from their earlier lot as to be able to direct 
 their attention to a better state, and strug- 
 gle for its attainment. The workman in 
 Mexico or Egypt, on the other hand, who 
 dares not look up from his task lest he 
 miss his scanty daily sustenance, makes 
 little noise or contention in the world. He 
 is absorbed in his immediate work, and his 
 actual plans do not reach much beyond 
 his meagre supper and the following rest 
 of the night. In general, it may be said 
 that the sounds of discontent come not from 
 those countries where the laborers are still 
 least prosperous and feel most the heavy 
 hand of their employers, but from the 
 countries of the most advanced civilization, 
 where the industrial classes have attained 
 the most favorable standing. Under the 
 hard conditions of the least favored nations, 
 with few rewards and no prospects, the 
 laborer sees nothing before him to stimu- 
 late him to revolt against his fate. But 
 when in the course of time his circum-
 
 38 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 stances have become more favorable and 
 he is able to look about him and before 
 him, he catches glimpses of a condition 
 which he would strive to attain. Then it 
 is that discontent with his lot appears ; and 
 this discontent will last as long as he sees 
 before him some better state yet unattained 
 but attainable. From this point of view 
 the progress of the bulk of a nation illus- 
 trates the general progress of social enlight- 
 enment. With every step forward, whether 
 in the case of an individual, or of a class, 
 or of society at large, there are revealed at- 
 tractive positions still further on ; and it is 
 the view of these that arouses discontent 
 with the present ; it is the view of these 
 more attractive positions yet unattained 
 that makes the world move. The upward 
 movement in the progress of society is not 
 towards completer contentment, but to- 
 wards more perfect activity. 
 
 If one would know the condition of the 
 majority of the people of the progressive 
 nations at the close of this restless century, 
 he must cast a glance over their history ; 
 and when he does this he will find that
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 39 
 
 they have risen from dependent and servile 
 positions to be both independent and free. 
 In the very early phases of society they 
 were essentially slaves, and in all respects 
 were subject to the will of masters. Here 
 the clearly recognized relation was that of 
 inferior and superior. The first step which 
 the workman took upward from this lowest 
 position was to the status of a mediaeval 
 serf. Yet even after this change one in- 
 dustrial class held a position of recognized 
 superiority over the other, and felt itself 
 charged with the protection of the persons 
 below it; while these, in turn, acknowl- 
 edged their subordination and dependence. 
 From this position the laborer in modern 
 times has moved forward over two impor- 
 tant stages. By the first advance he be- 
 came a free man under an individual 
 personal employer ; by the second he became 
 the subject of an industrial or commercial 
 corporation. 
 
 At first, under the complete superiority 
 of the master, the slave was immediately 
 dependent on his superior, not only for his 
 daily food and clothing, but also for the
 
 4O DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 privilege of life. Later the master's power 
 to impose the extreme penalty on his slaves 
 fell away, and was taken up in the power 
 of the political sovereign ; and thus, one by 
 one, the acknowledged prerogatives of the 
 master or employer were cut off, until in 
 the beginning of this century, in the more 
 enlightened states of the world, the work- 
 man stood as a free man in relation to the 
 employer for whom he worked. But the 
 relation between them still continued to be 
 a personal one. The workmen relied some- 
 what on the good-will of their superior, 
 and the employer acknowledged still a cer- 
 tain moral obligation to hold towards his 
 workmen a kind of paternal attitude, an 
 attitude implying something more than 
 merely the pecuniary obligation of a spe- 
 cific contract. 
 
 The second stage in the modern progress 
 of the working classes carries us over im- 
 portant phases of the great industrial and 
 commercial revolution of our times. The 
 most significant feature of this revolution, 
 with reference to the relation of employee 
 to employer, is the transition from personal
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 41 
 
 to corporate industry. The introduction of 
 the machinery which followed the idea of 
 using steam as a motor, gave beginning to 
 this transition. It produced important new 
 industries, and also made it profitable to 
 aggregate existing industries into large es- 
 tablishments ; in other words, it gave a de- 
 cided advantage to production on a large 
 scale. But this involved greater risks than 
 any individual person was willing to as- 
 sume ; it involved, moreover, greater accu- 
 mulations of capital than single private 
 persons could furnish. Commercial and 
 industrial corporations became, therefore, 
 in one sense necessary. They became ne- 
 cessary as a means, where the end was the 
 greatest possible economic advantage in 
 production. The superior profits of busi- 
 ness on a large scale was the force which 
 called them into existence ; and they have 
 already in large measure occupied the field. 
 The old industrial and* commercial organi- 
 zation is giving way to a new organization, 
 in which the personal employer disappears 
 and the laborers find themselves in new 
 and strange relations. They find themselves
 
 42 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 under an employer whose personality is 
 unknown, and with whom it is impossible 
 for them to establish relations of personal 
 sympathy. 
 
 With every year, in the course of this 
 revolution, the individual owner and em- 
 ployer of capital is becoming relatively a 
 less important factor in the industrial 
 world. He is supplanted by corporations. 
 But the change is in no sense the result of 
 a conspiracy of the few against the welfare 
 of the many. The corporation has come into 
 prominence in obedience to an economic 
 law. It has come into prominence in accord- 
 ance with the law that capital will seek 
 that form of investment under which it 
 will encounter a minimum of resistance 
 and a maximum of gain. In view of the 
 inability of individual capitalists to under- 
 take single-handed many of the great indus- 
 trial enterprises demanded by the conditions 
 of modern life, and carry them on on the 
 most economical scale, the corporation has 
 risen as an economic expedient, and it is 
 supported by the most permanent forces 
 recognized in the economic activity of soci-
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 43 
 
 ety. And it is noticeable that whenever a 
 hitherto stagnant nation, like Mexico or Ja- 
 
 O 7 
 
 pan, enters into the list of industrially pro- 
 gressive nations, the first conspicuous sign 
 of the change is the formation of commer- 
 cial and industrial corporations. It be- 
 comes clear to such a nation very early 
 that the means and methods here involved 
 are necessary to enable it to maintain suc- 
 cessful rivalry with other nations. And 
 the other side of the proposition is equally 
 clear : that no nation can abandon corpora- 
 tions as a part of its commercial and indus- 
 trial organization without losing its rank 
 among the nations. A government might, 
 indeed, withdraw its support from corpora- 
 tions, and exert its influence directly to dis- 
 courage their formation, but such action 
 would not bring back the reign of individ- 
 ualism. It would simply help to turn the 
 affairs of that nation over to the control of 
 foreign corporations. Spain has done less 
 than most other Western nations to encour- 
 age the formation of industrial and com- 
 mercial corporations, and, as a consequence, 
 her railways, her mines, her street-car lines,
 
 44 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 and her municipal water-works are largely 
 in the hands of French and English corpo- 
 rations, and through these interests the 
 Spanish nation has become hopelessly tribu- 
 tary to the foreigner. 
 
 But the transition from individual indus- 
 try to the dominance of the ordinary cor- 
 poration is only one phase of the economic 
 progress in which we are involved. An- 
 other phase is seen in the movement through 
 which the earlier corporations are becom- 
 ing absorbed in the larger organizations or 
 trusts. The forces that have made the cor- 
 porations supplant the individual employ- 
 ers are the same forces that are carrying us 
 from the dominance of the ordinary corpo- 
 ration to the dominance of the trust. They 
 are the essentially constant forces of eco- 
 nomic development. All the new insti- 
 tutions that arise in the course of social 
 growth are not the result of new social 
 forces, but of old forces finding, through 
 / new circumstances, new expressions. The 
 economic motive that underlies individual 
 industry is the same motive that has led to 
 the formation and maintenance of indus-
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 45 
 
 trial and commercial corporations. By 
 this, corporations have come into existence, 
 and, in large measure, superseded individ- 
 ual enterprise ; and the same motive is op- 
 erating through the changed circumstances 
 of the present to make the trusts supersede 
 the ordinary corporation. The forces that 
 have produced the trust are thus among 
 the constant economic forces of society; 
 and the trust, or a corporation occupying 
 the field which the trust proposed to oc- 
 cupy, will, therefore, abide till the changed 
 social circumstances make some other organ- 
 ization more profitable for the holders of 
 capital. 
 
 But it is urged, in objection, that under 
 the influence of the comprehensive corpo- 
 ration, or trust, the small corporation goes 
 to the wall. This fact is too evident to be 
 denied ; but it is like other familiar facts 
 to which we have long since ceased to ob- 
 ject. The introduction of the labor-saving 
 method or machine drives many individual 
 laborers to the wall ; but we consider the 
 millions who are benefited by the cheap- 
 ened products as contrasted with the com-
 
 46 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 paratively few who are thrown out of 
 employment, and we refuse to go back to 
 the old method or to destroy our new ma- 
 chines. The corporation, or the trust, is a 
 new device ; it is a capital-saving device ; 
 it sets aside the small individual capitalist, 
 but it gives the consumer the possibility 
 of cheaper wares, and the interests of the 
 consumer constitute the proper end of eco- 
 nomic activity. The trust, moreover, often 
 sets aside both the individual capitalist and 
 the small corporation ; and it does this be- 
 cause it is an economical device ; because 
 it is able to supply the consumers at less 
 expense than was possible under the old 
 order of things. Because it is economical 
 we refuse to seek to abolish it ; and we re- 
 fuse to abolish it on the same grounds that 
 we refuse to abolish the power-loom and a 
 thousand other devices whose practical intro- 
 duction has, from time to time, set aside large 
 numbers of laborers and small employers. 
 But the objection to corporations, or 
 trusts, although entertained by a different 
 class of persons, is not greatly unlike the 
 objections that at various times have given
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 47 
 
 rise to machine-breaking mobs. These ob- 
 jections have been intensified by the stub- 
 born and defiant attitude which the trust 
 and corporations have assumed towards 
 the government. But this is not to be 
 charged against the trusts or the corpora- 
 tions, but against the government. We 
 hold the government to account for its 
 failure to govern. The significant fact of 
 this great social transformation is, that a 
 new kind of person has appeared on the 
 scene a powerful, corporate person, not 
 contemplated in our early social organiza- 
 tion. States are organized in the expecta- 
 tion that certain individual persons will 
 resist the government as long as they are 
 persuaded they can do it with impunity ; 
 and there is no reason for a different pre- 
 sumption with respect to trusts or corpora- 
 tions. The main difference, as it appears in 
 this country, is, that the individual, in his 
 opposition, has encountered a government 
 able to subdue him ; but, on the other 
 hand, the government which has been able 
 to control the individual person has shown 
 itself, in a large measure, incompetent to
 
 48 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 compel obedience on the part of the great 
 corporation. 
 
 At every turn, certain individual citi- 
 zens appear resisting the authority of the 
 state, yet this fact does not provoke a gen- 
 eral denunciation of citizens as such, or 
 cause a demand that they be abolished. 
 What we request in case of the disobedi- 
 ence of the individual citizen is, that the 
 power of the government shall be mag- 
 nified and asserted till the citizen shall 
 be subdued. What we have reason to re- 
 quest, in case corporations or trusts refuse 
 to comply with the laws, is, not the aboli- 
 tion of all trusts and corporations, but 
 that the power of the government be mag- 
 nified and asserted till all corporations and 
 trusts shall yield obedience to both the 
 letter and the spirit of the law. If it is 
 affirmed that this cannot be done without 
 bringing about a centralization of power 
 that will do violence to our institutions, 
 by this affirmation is proclaimed the in- 
 competency of our government to perform 
 the work required of it under the condi- 
 tions of modern life.
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 49 
 
 The trusts have come into existence 
 through the operation of permanent eco- 
 nomic forces, and, therefore, appear to be 
 permanently established, or at least estab- 
 lished till some other great social revolu- 
 tion shall provide conditions in which the 
 economic forces of society shall work out 
 a new economic organization. But this ,.J * 
 state of things is so remote that it may be 
 left out of the calculation ; and our pres- 
 ent problem concerning trusts and corpora- 
 tions becomes simply a political problem. 
 It is not an economical, but a governmental 
 question that faces us. It is a question of 
 so increasing our national administrative 
 power that the government under which 
 we live may be competent to control effec- 
 tively the powerful artificial persons whose 
 recent rise has transformed modern soci- 
 ety. We stand, therefore, where we are 
 apparently obliged to choose between a 
 government largely influenced by trusts 
 and corporations and a government strong 
 enough to hold individual and corporate 
 interests in a just and even balance. 
 
 In the light of recent experience, we
 
 5O DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 seem to be brought face to face with two 
 alternative propositions. The first is, that 
 if corporations and trusts control the gov- 
 ernment, there will necessarily arise a 
 modification of our present political sys- 
 tem. The second is, that if the govern- 
 ment becomes sufficiently strong and its 
 power sufficiently centralized to control 
 the corporations, we shall also have de- 
 parted from our ancient ideal. If, there- 
 fore, the problem of the trusts has any 
 serious aspect, it is its political aspect. 
 For economically they fulfil the condi- 
 tions sought in economic progress. They 
 work in the line of new inventions and 
 increased efficiency of labor. They tend 
 to reduce the cost of production, and thus 
 make it easier for the millions to satisfy 
 their ever-recurring and increasing wants. 
 If. therefore, some of our fellow-citizens 
 offer vigorous objections to corporations 
 or trusts, their objections must rest on 
 other than economic grounds. It may, 
 perhaps, be objected to trusts either that 
 they are sometimes in the position to ap- 
 ply the principle of monopoly, or that
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 51 
 
 they are supposed to involve a class of 
 persons whom it is thought politically ex- 
 pedient to oppose. If opposition is based 
 on their exercise of certain powers given 
 by monopoly, this opposition should reach 
 all cases of such exercise. It should 
 reach the unions of laborers as well as the 
 unions of capitalists ; for when a union of 
 laborers refuses to allow laborers to work 
 for certain specially designated persons, 
 the action is not greatly different in prin- 
 ciple from the refusal of a corporation of 
 coal dealers to sell coal to certain desig- 
 nated retailers. If, on the other hand, the 
 opposition is raised as a demagogical appeal 
 to one class against another class, it should 
 be borne in mind that he who makes such 
 an appeal, is undermining the founda- 
 tion on which this government rests, and 
 thus, as a conspirator against the common 
 weal, is deserving of the denunciations of 
 his fellow-citizens and the brand of public 
 infamy. 
 
 The consequences of the loss of the an- 
 cient personal relation with their employers 
 were in the first place, to remove from the
 
 52 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 laborers the sense of a somewhat humiliat- 
 ing subjection to a personal superior, which 
 had hitherto existed and which still sur- 
 vives in the case of menial servants. The 
 employees of corporations have become 
 more widely distinguished from the menial 
 servants of individual masters than were 
 the workmen under the old order of things. 
 They have become parts of important so- 
 cial organizations. 
 
 A second consequence of the change 
 from individual to corporate industry is 
 the development of combination and or- 
 ganization in each of the two parties in- 
 volved in production, namely, those who 
 furnish the capital, and those who furnish 
 the labor. The fact of combination among 
 laborers indicates that they have at last 
 come to understand that they must look to 
 themselves for the maintenance of their 
 cause, and not to the good intentions of a 
 superior. The combination of laborers at- 
 tains a certain purpose in preparing them 
 to stand as a unit over against their united 
 employers, and thus to bring the questions 
 at issue between the parties to a settlement
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 53 
 
 by conflict, as at present all the more im- 
 portant social questions are settled. 
 
 The immediate end of the agitation in 
 which the laborers of to-day are engaged, 
 is the preparation of the laborers as a class 
 for conflict with employers as a class, in 
 order that through this struggle there may 
 result a satisfactoiy division of the pro- 
 ducts of industry. How large the portion 
 of either party should be may not be de- 
 termined independently, under the present 
 industrial order, by either the laborers or 
 the employers. And herein lies the prin- 
 cipal unsolved problem of economics, which 
 is, to find some formula and some practical 
 means for distributing the results of pro- 
 duction in a manner satisfactory to all the 
 agents concerned. At present, we know 
 no method but that of conflict by which 
 the gross product may be properly distrib- 
 uted among the agents co-operating in 
 production. As we already know, the 
 good-will of employers is no longer con- 
 sidered adequate to this end, and no third 
 party has the knowledge necessary to draw 
 the line of distribution. We are, therefore,
 
 54 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 driven to rely upon a free and independ- 
 ent contest between the parties concerned ; 
 and in this we adopt a method that has 
 been conspicuously employed in determin- 
 ing also political questions. 
 
 Our present method of determining im- 
 portant social relations by conflict, repre- 
 sents the widest possible departure from 
 mediaeval practice, and stands as the latest 
 achievement which has been made in this 
 direction by enlightened nations. But it 
 cannot be regarded as necessarily the ulti- 
 mate method of determining private rela- 
 tions, any more than the holding of vast 
 armies, as in modern Europe, is the ulti- 
 mate method of maintaining proper inter- 
 national relations. Within the field of 
 industry, however, the application of the 
 principle of conflict is practically univer- 
 sal ; and in politics, the advance from 
 absolutism to democracy shows a move- 
 ment towards a condition in which politi- 
 cal determinations are reached by a similar 
 resort to conflict. 
 
 If, now, we compare a society, in which 
 conclusions are reached through conflict,
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 55 
 
 with one in which all social relations were 
 determined by the independent decision of 
 a permanent superior, we shall find that a 
 new feature of social organization has ap- 
 peared in the world. Under this later 
 order, persons seeking what they feel to be 
 their due, refuse to trust their affairs in 
 the hands of a superior. They decline to 
 accept a superior's sense of duty, as it has 
 hitherto appeared, as a sufficient guarantee. 
 On the contrary, they hold that the history 
 of trusts betrayed, of class oppressed by 
 class, warrants the conclusion that the un- 
 aided sense of duty has been inadequate to 
 determine and preserve among them their 
 proper relations. Laborers do not believe 
 that their employers will accord to them 
 their deserts, unless some other force than 
 the sense of duty is made to operate on the 
 minds of the employers. The members of 
 a body politic, by centuries of painful ex- 
 perience, have come to the conclusion, that 
 a personal political superior, independent 
 of those in subjection to him, needs some 
 other guiding force than duty to keep his 
 action consistently advantageous to the
 
 56 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 subjects. In the field of economical and 
 political relations, we see the inadequacy 
 of the sense of duty to produce results 
 sometimes expected of it ; and thus while 
 generations have been dreaming of an age 
 of peace, when the lion would unselfishly 
 look out for the interests of the lamb, the 
 actual progress of society has been marked 
 by a more and more extensive application 
 of some form of conflict. 
 
 And here we reach a critical point. If 
 the division of the total product of industry 
 between the laborers and the owners of 
 capital must be determined by some form 
 of conflict, it is of the highest importance 
 for the laborers to know what form is the 
 most expedient. Speaking very generally, 
 recent economic history shows us two forms. 
 Under the first there is the completest 
 combination of laborers possible, followed 
 by attempts to persuade the employers, and 
 finally withdrawal from work. The effec- 
 tiveness of this method clearly depends upon 
 the comprehensiveness of the combination, 
 the binding force of the agreement, and the 
 prevention of the importation of workmen.
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. $? 
 
 The other method of engaging in the 
 conflict is to form somewhat exclusive as- 
 sociations, no special effort being made to 
 make the organizations comprehensive of 
 all the laborers in the field, and then to 
 rely upon force to prevent persons not in 
 these associations from taking positions 
 abandoned by laborers on strike. No one 
 in sympathy with the great body of work- 
 ers, who has followed the history of antago- 
 nisms that have resulted in class wars, can 
 but feel grave anxiety in view of the grow- 
 ing disposition to let physical force play a 
 part in the conflict between laborers and 
 their employers. They are solicitous not 
 because they see, in existing forms of so- 
 ciety, any other means than conflict for 
 settling these questions, nor because they 
 allow the consideration of the few lives 
 that may be lost to overbalance a great 
 good, but because they are convinced that 
 by the use of illegal force the desired end 
 cannot be reached. The great achievements 
 in behalf of the working classes, in behalf 
 of the great body of the people, are likely 
 to be won in the future, as they have been
 
 58 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 won in the past, through bloodless conflict. 
 Through a long course of centuries, the 
 common people of England struggled for 
 economical advantages and for positions of 
 power against an arbitrary king and an 
 overbearing aristocracy, and yet their effect- 
 ive weapons, the weapons by which their 
 victory was won, were never the weapons 
 of death. The armed efforts of Wat Tyler 
 and Jack Cade hindered rather than helped 
 the political and social amelioration of the 
 people. 
 
 The common people of England have 
 won their cause by closing the conflict be- 
 fore it reached the phase of military force. 
 And in the French Revolution, practically 
 all that was gained for the people was 
 gained before a drop of blood had been 
 spilt. The history of the world brings us 
 this conclusion, that whenever one class 
 in society raises its arm to strike down 
 another class, by that very act it casts away 
 its liberties. In the Roman republic there 
 were grave social questions on which the 
 classes were divided, and when finally they 
 grew impatient and attempted to reach a
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 59 
 
 solution by force, or to settle their differ- 
 ences under arms, the fact of victory was 
 of no importance to either party ; the lib- 
 erties of both parties disappeared in the 
 social war. It was, in fact, the leader of 
 the triumphant popular party, the friend of 
 the people, who laid the foundations of the 
 Roman Empire, in which popular rights 
 were lost, and the ancient valor and virtue 
 of the Roman citizen disappeared from the 
 state. Thus it might be in the American 
 republic ; and it is for this reason that 
 every lover of his country and its liberties, 
 is filled with apprehension at any sign of 
 an approaching war of classes. In a coun- 
 try where one part is closely bound to 
 other parts by important economic inter- 
 ests there is no ground of fear that in class 
 contentions order may permanently disap- 
 pear ; for this will be maintained, though 
 liberty perish. By magnifying class antag- 
 onism, we prepare the way for the domina- 
 tion of a few ; by carrying this antagonism 
 to an extreme, we prepare for the domina- 
 tion of one. 
 
 This does not mean, however, that we look
 
 60 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 to a condition of social rest and quiet as 
 the ideal of society. On the contrary, we 
 hold that strong internal movement, the 
 vigorous action and counteraction of ele- 
 ments, the rivalry of classes, and the 
 determined ambition of individuals are 
 characteristic of healthy social life. It is 
 not enough that an individual or a class is 
 conscious of his rights ; it is not enough 
 that the various social elements have once 
 rested in equilibrium ; it is not enough that 
 the laborers to-day are satisfied with their 
 hire, or the employers with their profits ; 
 every revolving year brings new conditions 
 and the possible necessity of a new adjust- 
 ment. With no all-wise and all-powerful 
 social arbiter possible, who may fix by de- 
 cree the relations of persons and classes, 
 there has appeared, down to the present, 
 no way to the solution we seek, except 
 through the action and counteraction of 
 clashing elements. There may result tur- 
 moil and confusion, the uproar of social 
 rivalry and conflict, and yet, even under the 
 dominance of this principle, we may expect 
 a better order and a more exalted social life.
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 6 1 
 
 Yet now and then in the history of the 
 world and often when progress is most 
 rapid men become impatient and dis- 
 trustful of the means by which advances 
 have hitherto been made. Something of 
 this is manifest in the socialistic demands 
 made by certain groups of laborers. They 
 consider that the competitive order, with 
 its varying appeals to conflict, has been 
 tried and found wanting. They look with 
 marvellous optimism to a centralization of 
 industrial activity under socialistic control. 
 It may be true that as society grows more 
 and more complex, its drift is inevitably 
 towards such centralization ; yet it does not 
 necessarily follow that such a drift carries 
 it on to positions more and more desirable 
 for the individual workers. To determine 
 some of the characteristic features of a 
 society growing towards more complete 
 socialistic centralization, and the position 
 of the laborer as a member of this society, 
 we start from the familiar fact of the sepa- 
 ration of employments. The multiplica- 
 tion of employments is to such an extent 
 a characteristic feature of developing so-
 
 62 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 ciety that it becomes in some sense a means 
 of measuring social progress. In the ad- 
 vance of civilization in the past, there has 
 been a movement from general to special 
 work, and there is no indication in the 
 present that this tendency has reached its 
 possible limit. On the other hand, there 
 is abundant ground for the expectation that 
 the separation of trades will be carried in 
 the future very far beyond its present con- 
 dition. The forces which have produced 
 results already observed are as powerful 
 now as they ever were. If the makers of 
 machines have been supplanted by the 
 makers of parts of machines, it is clearly 
 because there is an economic advantage in 
 the latter method ; and as long as this 
 advantage may be had by this means, we 
 may expect that this process of separating 
 trades into minor trades will continue. 
 
 Perhaps the most important consequence 
 of this movement is the fact that by this 
 increasing division of labor, and the neces- 
 sary co-operation among the separate pro- 
 ducers, there is brought about a more 
 
 7 O 
 
 complete unity of society, a more per-
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 63 
 
 feet harmony and consolidation of inter- 
 ests. For the great body of the produ- 
 cers of a community or a nation work in 
 vain unless each finds his surplus product 
 demanded by others. In other words, a 
 community, or a nation, in which there is a 
 distribution of many trades among many 
 persons, appears from one point of view as 
 a great co-operative association, the end of 
 its activity being the greatest possible 
 accumulation of the means of satisfaction. 
 Every step forward in the division of em- 
 ployments is necessarily followed by a 
 closer union and completer co-operation of 
 the members of the community in which 
 this division is made. With the extension 
 of this separation of trades, the individual 
 worker becomes more and more interested 
 in the ability and success of the workers 
 in other special lines, for without their 
 product his product is useless. This is 
 true not merely of the narrow special 
 trades, but applies also to the great depart- 
 ments of human effort. The growth of 
 society is simply another name for increas- 
 ing interdependence among the persons
 
 64 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 who compose it. In very low stages of 
 civilization, the individual man may be 
 taken as the unit, for with his hunting 
 weapons he is practically self-sufficing. 
 But in the highest stages, the individual 
 or the group of individuals engaged in a 
 single industry cannot be regarded as a 
 self-sufficing unit, for each is an element in 
 a great scheme of co-operation. Therefore, 
 through specialization of work, and the 
 division of employments into separate 
 trades, communities and nations grow into 
 more and more perfectly organized bodies, 
 and the economic interests of the individu- 
 als come to be more and more bound up in 
 the economic welfare of the whole. 
 
 If we turn to the facts and tendencies 
 of government we shall find another illus- 
 tration of increasing specialization and 
 co-operation. Properly conceived, the gov- 
 ernment of a state is a great co-operative 
 association in which the citizens are mem- 
 bers. One of its simplest forms may be 
 found in an ancient canton of Switzerland 
 or a mining camp of California. Govern- 
 mental action appeared in these cases when
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 65 
 
 there arose some task to be performed, in 
 which all, or a large part of the members 
 of the canton or the camp, were either 
 equally or in some measure interested. If 
 a road was needed, some person was au- 
 thorized by the camp or the canton to have 
 it built, and to collect money to pay for 
 the work done. After the completion of 
 the undertaking, the person who had been 
 charged with it, resumed his place in the 
 ranks of the community, and returned to 
 his private affairs. This person while act- 
 ing for the community was the government. 
 The difference between this government 
 and that of a modern state is that the one 
 is exceedingly simple, while the other is 
 complex. In one, the public business is 
 not sufficient to keep the agent of the com- 
 munity constantly employed, while in the 
 other, not only one but many are kept in 
 constant service. The progress from the 
 simple government with few officers and 
 little public work, to the government with 
 many officers and much public work is 
 by a process of division of labor, on the 
 one hand, and on the other hand, by the
 
 66 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 encroachment of the government upon fields 
 earlier regarded as the sphere of individual 
 activity. This encroachment indicates two 
 things : 1. That men have an increasing 
 faith in the efficiency of the government 
 as an agent. 2. That they are finding more 
 and more things which they can do advan- 
 tageously through co-operation. 
 
 Whether we consider the extension of 
 the division of employments on the eco- 
 nomic or the political side of society, in 
 either case it is attended by an enlarge- 
 ment of the field of co-operation, and the 
 motive is always the desire for advantage. 
 
 This indicates that in the normally devel- 
 oping society there is a movement towards 
 a condition akin to that contemplated in 
 the socialistic ideal. The separation of 
 trades and the co-operation of workers give 
 a community a compact economic organiza- 
 tion and unity; and the multiplication of 
 political offices, in the course of develop- 
 ment from the simple to the complex 
 state, points to the enlargement of govern- 
 mental functions, and a consequent larger 
 control of economic interests, thus realizing,
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 6/ 
 
 at least in some measure, the fundamental 
 expectation of the great body of the nation, 
 that in progressive society the government 
 is to have an increasing part in conducting 
 practical affairs. 
 
 The error in calculation begins when 
 those who have become dissatisfied with 
 the determinations of a personal superior, 
 and the outcome of competitive conflict, 
 expect that governmental control will ren- 
 der them the peculiar satisfactions which 
 they seek, with no possibility of failure. 
 This expectation is in no sense a logical 
 conclusion from the data in hand. It is a 
 case of interpreting a social movement 
 according to desires and not according 
 to reason. It is attaching consequences 
 to an observed social change without 
 taking account of the possibilities and 
 impossibilities of the case, or without 
 checking expectations respecting the im- 
 mediate future by the known tendencies 
 of the past and the present. Those who 
 entertain these expectations derive them 
 from a picture of life which has been im- 
 pressed upon their minds by the fancy, and
 
 68 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 has been accepted without an attempt to 
 confirm it by the facts of such socialistic 
 progress as has already been made in certain 
 departments of public activity. With re- 
 spect to the immediate future, conclusions 
 drawn from the facts and tendencies of 
 socialistic centralization, where this has 
 been realized, are likely to be reliable for 
 the following reasons. In the first place, 
 certain departments which are now organ- 
 ized on a socialistic basis in certain existing 
 states, are so independent, so completely 
 non-competing with respect to other de- 
 partments that their organization would 
 not be greatly changed if the socialistic 
 form of management were extended to all 
 departments. In the second place, if there 
 are forces in society as at present consti- 
 tuted which are making its organization 
 socialistic, in other words, bringing it to a 
 more complete solidarity, and subjecting 
 all its interests to a more perfect control 
 through a central authority, it does not 
 appear reasonable that society is to be car- 
 ried on towards this ideal by these forces, 
 and then at some undetermined point sud-
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 69 
 
 denly be turned over to the operation of 
 other and different forces. This is not the 
 manner in which society grows. The forces 
 which carry a social policy on to victory are 
 the same forces that will be operative in up- 
 holding and directing this policy after its 
 victory has been won ; they are the forces on 
 which it must rely in the period of its dom- 
 ination. Therefore, in so far as there are 
 actual socialistic tendencies observable in 
 existing society, they furnish our best inti- 
 mations of the characteristics of a society 
 extensively realizing socialistic principles. 
 And already in certain places the move- 
 ment has gone far enough to enable us to 
 estimate some of the results. In some 
 European states, the army, the schools, the 
 post and the telegraph, certain railroads, 
 the manufacture and distribution of to- 
 bacco and spirituous liquors are subject to 
 the socialistic form of management, but in 
 these instances there is not revealed a wide 
 departure from the principles and practices 
 involved in the management of the affairs 
 
 O 
 
 of great corporations. In fact, the methods 
 of the successful management of a depart-
 
 7O DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 raent of business are prescribed by the 
 nature of the business itself. If we may 
 judge from the socialistic practice as exem- 
 plified in the German army, or in the 
 German educational system, or in the state 
 railroads in Germany, socialism is not likely 
 to gratify any expectations of those who 
 are looking for an easy way up to impor- 
 tant places. The nature of the place fixes 
 the conditions of holding it, which must 
 be met ; and whether the filling of it is in 
 the hands of the centralized authority of 
 the state, or in the hands of a corporation, 
 or in the hands of a private person, the 
 essential features of these conditions must 
 be complied with. Even under a social- 
 istic state organized by universal suffrage, 
 the care and the use of the locomotives 
 employed by the state could not be turned 
 over to persons whose previous experience 
 with railroads had been confined to grading 
 the track. The nature of places fixes the 
 qualifications which must be met by those 
 who would fill them ; and this applies to 
 all the occupations to which men aspire, 
 and it is more emphatically true where the
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. /I 
 
 separation of trades and professions has 
 been carried to a great length, as in the 
 more advanced phases of society. 
 
 It may be affirmed, moreover, that the 
 expectation that social equality will be 
 realized under socialism is likely to prove 
 a delusive hope ; for, down to the present, 
 aniono; all the instances of socialistic or- 
 
 O 
 
 ganization there is no prominent indica- 
 tion that the forces which are making for 
 socialism are at the same time making for 
 equality of social condition. Germany has 
 more conspicuous socialistic features than 
 most of the other nations, yet thus far the 
 practical socialism of Germany has not 
 been attended by any marked progress 
 towards this form of equality. There are, 
 indeed, certain considerations which indi- 
 cate that under socialism differences of 
 rank and standing would be emphasized. 
 When, as in existing society, men are free 
 to own and manage private capital, or to 
 take place under the government, or to 
 serve private corporations, there are many 
 ways open to them to secure social rec- 
 ognition. One expects it on account of
 
 72 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 his official position, another for his achieve- 
 ments as a captain of industry, another for 
 his inherited fortune which permits him 
 to live without engaging in business ; but 
 under socialism, with no private capital, 
 there would still remain the desire for 
 distinction, and nearly all persons would 
 be driven to claim recognition on account 
 of the positions held by them under the 
 authority of the state. The number of 
 these positions would, of course, be greatly 
 increased, but practically the whole popu- 
 lation would become competitors for them. 
 The whole population would become com- 
 petitors for office ; and it goes without 
 saying that nowhere else are the lines of 
 social precedence so strictly drawn as in 
 official life. 
 
 Moreover, in the progress already made 
 towards socialism there is revealed no tend- 
 ency to make authority less exacting, or 
 discipline, under this authority, less rigid 
 than at present. The large increase of pub- 
 lic departments, and the multiplication of 
 public duties, would bring the economico- 
 political body into such a condition that it
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 73 
 
 could be maintained only through the most 
 thorough organization and the most rigid 
 discipline ; and this would be true whether 
 the authority was of a democratic or a 
 monarchical origin ; for it is of the nature 
 of such a body, once constituted, to exercise 
 those powers which are necessary for its 
 preservation, provided they are within its 
 reach. Confirmation of this is found in 
 every line of our socialistic experience. 
 Who would have freedom from discipline, 
 and the easy condition which arises from 
 lax social organization, should look away 
 from socialism. The promised land for 
 such persons as these lies not at the cul- 
 mination of socialistic tendencies, but in 
 the individualistic past, when the bonds 
 of social organization were not closely 
 drawn, and when the individual had to 
 consult little else than his personal ca- 
 price. Under socialism, in which would 
 be realized the completest division of em- 
 ployments and the most perfect co-operation 
 of the members of society, each person 
 would be obliged to keep pace with those 
 of his own rank. Even now, while yet far
 
 74 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 from the socialistic ideal, any man who 
 takes and holds a place in the present com- 
 pact industrial organization is obliged to 
 time his movements with the general 
 movement. This condition of things finds 
 an illustration in three men swinging their 
 hammers at the same time to forge a single 
 bar of iron. The rapidity of each man's 
 stroke must keep time with the blows of 
 the others. Under the complete co-opera- 
 tion of socialism, each man would be ex- 
 pected to swing his hammer in time with 
 his fellows. But, under existing circum- 
 stances, there are those who fail to keep up 
 their parts, and are obliged to yield their 
 places to the merciless strength of youth ; 
 and if tendencies thus far observed furnish 
 a reliable basis for a conclusion, the condi- 
 tions of completed socialism would not be 
 greatly different. 
 
 The tendencies manifest in social develop- 
 ment and the conduct of existing society, 
 with respect to those who fall by the way, 
 or whose defective powers are inadequate 
 to their proper support and guidance, in- 
 dicate that the public organization, under
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 75 
 
 whatever change the future may bring to 
 it, will continue to recognize, as it recog- 
 nizes now, the necessity of furnishing main- 
 tenance in certain cases without expecting 
 return service. And in existing conditions, 
 or in the conditions of the past, there is no 
 indication that such support will be ren- 
 dered without arranging the claimants into 
 classes, as they are arranged now as the 
 paupers, the adult and helpless blind, the 
 idiots, and the insane. But there is no 
 tendency yet observable in the advance 
 towards socialism to break down the dis- 
 tinction between those who contribute to 
 the national wealth and those who would 
 merely draw from it. 
 
 The considerations here advanced only 
 furnish hints as to what might be reason- 
 ably expected in case social development 
 should proceed along lines hitherto fol- 
 lowed, but they are sufficient to indicate 
 that by reason of the increasing complexity 
 of society, the various elements are becom- 
 ing more and more interdependent ; that the 
 principle of co-operation is becoming more 
 and more extensively realized ; and that as
 
 76 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 a necessary consequence of the extension of 
 co-operation the functions of the social or- 
 ganization are becoming enlarged. These 
 considerations indicate, moreover, that un- 
 der a new social order, even if it shall be 
 socialistic, those who expect a kind of ma- 
 terial millenium, in which will be provided 
 an easy way to positions of power and 
 abundant means of personal satisfaction, are 
 doomed to be disappointed. There is no 
 evidence that their expectations will be re- 
 alized. Even should it be true that we are 
 drifting towards a condition of society in 
 which something answering to the social- 
 istic ideal will be attained, it, nevertheless, 
 does not appear that under that order the 
 sharp rivalry for position will be avoided, or 
 that equality of conditions will be achieved 
 and maintained ; and there is no indication 
 in the history of the past that society will 
 ever establish itself permanently in such a 
 form that the struggle for life will cease, 
 and that it will not discriminate against the 
 vicious, the defective, and the indolent, and 
 in favor of the virtuous, the industrious, and 
 the efficient.
 
 CONFLICT AND SOCIALISM. 77 
 
 From the nature and movement of so- 
 ciety in the past, it may be reasonably con- 
 cluded that whatever wishes are entertained 
 respecting socialism, however strong may 
 be the desires of individuals to see the 
 democratic body of the people control the 
 economic and political affairs of the nation, 
 with an authority in which all shall have 
 equal shares, there still remains the stub- 
 born and unavoidable fact that public 
 management which will be effective in 
 
 O 
 
 maintaining order and the conditions of 
 social progress, will presume the concentra- 
 tion of administrative power and the neces- 
 sary surrender of certain individual desires 
 to the common interest, and that, too, 
 whether the ultimate authority is conceived 
 of as residing in the whole body of the 
 people or in a small number.
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCEACY. 
 
 IN the process of organizing laborers and 
 setting them in opposition to employ- 
 ers, the fundamental tendency towards 
 inequality already considered is strength- 
 ened and confirmed ; and the growth 
 towards unity and compactness of organ- 
 ization, which points towards the realiza- 
 tion of some phases of the socialistic ideal, 
 does not appear to set aside this tendency. 
 There are, however, forces in progressive 
 society, which seem to counteract the 
 movement towards inequality, and in some 
 measure help to preserve the basis of 
 democracy. These forces do not tend 
 to put down persons who have become 
 prominent, but contribute opportunities 
 for all to rise. To put down the conspic- 
 uous has never been a prominent aim of 
 
 78
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY, 79 
 
 democracy as it has appeared in this 
 country. The spirit of our society has 
 not demanded that the successful shall be 
 overthrown: rather that the accumulated 
 wealth and the accumulated wisdom 
 of the nation shall be so used as to 
 provide opportunities for the advance- 
 ment of the worthy of whatever origin. 
 As democratic government is the outgrowth 
 of equality, so in its enlightened activity 
 it seeks to preserve equality. In the 
 pursuit of this purpose the public schools 
 furnish its most effective agency. They 
 act as a levelling force, not by pulling 
 down, but by lifting up. In some coun- 
 tries, where the aristocratic spirit is still 
 strong, the richest members of society, who 
 are able now to pay the expenses of educat- 
 ing their sons, object to the introduction 
 of free public instruction, because it would 
 give the sons of the poor opportunities to 
 prepare themselves to compete with the 
 rich, in the professions and in all callings 
 requiring education, and thus rob wealth 
 of one of its advantages ; because it would 
 throw down the barrier of inequality, and
 
 80 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 clear the way for the ambitious poor to 
 advance. Free public instruction opens 
 to the great mass of the people, to the 
 persons of small fortunes or limited in- 
 comes, the opportunity of placing their 
 sons in successful rivalry with those who 
 have the support of great wealth. It is 
 particularly important from this point of 
 view that under democracy all instruction, 
 the highest as well as the lowest, should 
 be free, since the highest form of instruc- 
 tion is of all the most costly and the most 
 difficult for individual effort to furnish. 
 If all the lower schools were free, and 
 university instruction were supported by the 
 fees of students, this order of things would 
 constitute an insurmountable obstacle to 
 the poor and to all persons of inferior 
 incomes ; it would give us that condition 
 of affairs which makes the member of the 
 aristocracy rejoice that his sons are released 
 from the necessity of competing with the 
 poor. A free university is, therefore, the 
 best expression of the democratic spirit in 
 an enlightened society. In obedience to 
 the demands of true democracy, the high-
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY. 8 1 
 
 est instruction must not only be free, but 
 it must also be equal to the best. The 
 university of a democratic commonwealth 
 must, therefore, be a great university, in 
 order that those who are unable to go to 
 the conspicuous centres of learning in 
 foreign countries, may be as well equipped 
 in knowledge and training as their rivals, 
 who have been able to avail themselves 
 of all the advantages the world has to 
 offer. Thus the great and free university 
 stands as the most efficient contributor to 
 equality on the higher planes of existence. 
 A monarchy may exist in stability, even 
 though the great body of the people is cor- 
 rupt ; but the continuance of democratic in- 
 stitutions, with whatever advantages they 
 possess, requires not only the preservation 
 of equality, but also the the maintenance 
 of a high standard of public morals and 
 private virtue. To every lover of the lib- 
 erty of his country therefore, it is of the 
 first importance that all the forces which 
 tend to enlighten and clarify the mind 
 should be upheld and magnified. It is 
 sometimes affirmed that there is a complete
 
 82 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 separation of moral and intellectual culture ; 
 but the moral condition of those countries 
 where this doctrine is assumed and carried 
 out furnishes its sufficient refutation. You 
 may make the human being dependent, 
 and by superior authority force him to 
 obey specific positive injunctions, but by 
 that process you may not give him a high 
 moral character, which, under conditions of 
 independence, will furnish worthy guidance 
 for his life, and make him a fit counsellor 
 for his fellows. The moral and intellectual 
 life are but different phases of the manifes- 
 tation of the human spirit, and in the nor- 
 mal man the higher moral life attends the 
 fuller development and education of this 
 spirit. As a representative republic, rest- 
 ing on democracy, this nation has not less 
 need than other communities for the eleva- 
 tion of its moral status, and consequently 
 not less need for the broadest and complet- 
 est education, an education that will give 
 sanity of understanding and clearness of mo- 
 ral discrimination. Such an education can 
 be attained only under the directing care and 
 stimulating influence of a great university.
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY. 83 
 
 In the extension of democratic institutions 
 over the present territory of the United 
 States, we may see illustrated the influence 
 of rapidly developing democracy on the ed- 
 ucational system, and also the influence of 
 popular education on the conduct of demo- 
 cratic government. The movement of civ- 
 ilization, from the east to the west, made 
 the West a colony of the East. After 
 the isolated settlements of the Mississippi 
 valley had been founded, they suffered the 
 ordinary fate of colonies ; they entered upon 
 a period of social stagnation. In spite of 
 the growth of population through the 
 attractive power of great material resources, 
 they remained, with reference to many fea- 
 tures of civilization, in a condition of ar- 
 rested development. Speaking generally, 
 when in a colony the period of stagnation is 
 passed, when the new commonwealth has 
 taken possession of the resources of the 
 country and developed among the inhabi- 
 tants a sense of common interests and com- 
 mon patriotic aspirations, the colony begins 
 to make its positive contributions to the 
 advancement of civilization. Unhampered
 
 84 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 by venerable traditions, not too careful in 
 observing the accumulated conventionalities 
 of older communities, yet gathering what ap- 
 pears worthy from their experience, it enters 
 upon the race of progress with the freshness 
 and vigor of youth. Its course is free from 
 antiquated and impeding social growths, and 
 its development is correspondingly rapid. 
 
 In the West, after the period of stagnation, 
 society passed in two decades over stages of 
 development corresponding essentially with 
 those covered in New England in two cen- 
 turies. In New England an institution 
 needed, at any given time, only small addi- 
 tions of funds to keep it abreast of a slowly 
 advancing society. Gradually, in the 
 progress of time, it grew strong through 
 the loyal support of generation after gen- 
 eration of its students ; with little risk of 
 being outrun by other social institutions, it 
 had the good fortune to be able to wait for 
 constituents to rise from those who had 
 experienced its beneficent influence. In 
 the West, however, an institution of learn- 
 ing could not afford to wait for a generation 
 of supporters to grow up from its alumni.
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY. 85 
 
 In order to continue to hold the same rela- 
 tive position to society which the New 
 England college had held, it had to mature 
 as the society matured, to make the growth 
 of two centuries in two decades. 
 
 Moreover, while the population of New 
 England in the early days was homogene- 
 ous, with certain ideas and sentiments and 
 purposes in common, that of the West com- 
 prised the heterogeneous gleanings of the 
 four quarters of the earth. The settlers of 
 New England were zealous in seeking to 
 realize ideas that concerned their spiritual 
 well-being ; the settlers of the West were 
 zealous in seeking to realize ideas that con- 
 cerned their material well-being. The ties of 
 blood and a common religion bound the New 
 Euglanders into a well-ordered community ; 
 but in the West the ties of blood were in 
 large measure wanting, and religion had no 
 specially binding force. There was little zeal 
 in common efforts that looked beyond the 
 personal gain of the individual members of 
 the community. In view of the imperative 
 need of rapid development, the lack of public 
 interest in anything so intangible as human
 
 86 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 cultivation, and the failure of the eccle- 
 siastical sects to co-operate and to furnish 
 the required support in the undertaking, 
 the organization for the promotion of higher 
 education very early reached the point 
 where it had to face these alternatives ; 
 either to hold to its primitive and inade- 
 quate form, borrowed from New England, 
 or to seek some other form and some more 
 efficient means of making the institutional 
 development keep pace with the almost 
 unprecedented growth of the society. 
 
 These alternatives presented themselves 
 throughout the western part of this country, 
 wherever the growth of population was es- 
 pecially rapid. The movement of inhabi- 
 tants into these regions from Europe and 
 the Atlantic States was a process of colon- 
 ization, and in the results of the movement 
 we observe the ordinary effects of coloniza- 
 tion. Conspicuous among these effects was 
 a tendency to equality of condition, a 
 tendency to a social state in which no one 
 was held to have extraordinary or superior 
 obligations concerning the public weal. 
 The fact of equality suggested and justified
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY. 87 
 
 the policy of contributions to the higher 
 aims of society proportionate to the amounts 
 of individual property. This policy deter- 
 mined with respect to education, was an 
 important step towards the support and 
 control of instruction by the state. The 
 development of this policy, as manifest in 
 the system of public schools of all grades, 
 belongs to the time of the most rapid 
 growth of population in the West, and, in 
 some sense, has its cause in the social con- 
 ditions established by the westward move- 
 ment of colonization. Already in the early 
 part of this century, New England appeared 
 to have solved the practical problem of 
 education, without relying on the state as 
 a permanent fact or in the support and con- 
 trol of the higher grades. But in the West, 
 during the formative period of its society, 
 there appeared no agency, except the govern- 
 ment, which was adequate to the under- 
 taking, and at the same time competent to 
 act with sufficient promptness to secure for 
 the means of higher instruction their proper 
 place among the institutions of the common- 
 wealth. From many points of view, the
 
 88 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 foundation and growth of colleges in the 
 West have followed the laws of colonial de- 
 velopment. These colleges have had their 
 periods of arrested growth, but some have 
 acquired forces which make for independent 
 progress. Like vigorous colonies, these in- 
 stitutions find themselves less hampered in 
 initiating reforms than their antecedent or- 
 ganizations. They have no shackling tradi- 
 tions, no long and respectable history, with 
 which they are morally bound to be con- 
 sistent. The future for them is an open 
 field for experiments ; and out of these ex- 
 periments there will undoubtedly come 
 important achievements in behalf of edu- 
 cational advancement. 
 
 In providing for the co-education of 
 young men and young women in the high- 
 est grades of instruction, the newer colleges 
 of this country have moved independently, 
 and taken a position to which they confi- 
 dently expect the rest of the world will 
 ultimately come. For the West the general 
 policy of educating young women with 
 young men is no longer in debate. The 
 advocates of this policy may not have fully
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY. 89 
 
 comprehended all the remote consequences 
 of their decision, but they seem to know 
 that what they seek, namely, a broader in- 
 tellectual horizon for women and a truer 
 view of life, lies in this direction. The 
 difficulty in this matter is not in establish- 
 ing the principle, but in so far breaking the 
 social traditions as to secure its application. 
 The history of woman from her oriental 
 bondage to her completest freedom under 
 democracy is spanned by the single expres- 
 sion, from the harem to the university. But 
 this transition has been long and difficult, 
 and checked at every turn by doubts as to 
 social proprieties. In free and cultivated 
 Greece, it was not compatible with good 
 form for a woman to appear in a public 
 place, even with her husband. In gratify- 
 ing her ambition to be something more than 
 an untaught child, she lost the esteem of 
 other women. But this spirit did not pass 
 away with the decline of the ancient world. 
 What kept the Grecian woman shut up in 
 her house with slaves, keeps many of the 
 young women of the present from acquiring 
 that cultivation which would enable them
 
 90 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 to have an intelligent part in the life of the 
 century to which they belong. But under 
 the influence of the spirit of democracy, 
 this tradition is passing, making the thought 
 and activity of women a more and more 
 important factor in the conduct of society. 
 The spread of education, made free and 
 public under democracy, removes the dan- 
 gers arising from great masses of the illiter- 
 ate, but at the same time it subjects the 
 state to the equally important danger of 
 falling under the control of the half-edu- 
 cated. In spite of the most ample provis- 
 ions for popular education, society under a 
 democratic organization is obliged to face 
 the evils of bold and self-confident half- 
 knowledge, which are not less than those 
 proceeding, under other forms of rule, from 
 illiteracy or malicious intentions. That 
 the terrorists of the French Revolution were 
 saint-like, except for lack of knowledge, is 
 hardly to be believed, yet it may be affirmed 
 that in this and in all other similar out- 
 breaks, the dominant desire is not to inflict 
 injury, but to attain what to the imperfectly 
 instructed mind of the revolutionist appears
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY. 9! 
 
 as a good. If evil has followed such out- 
 breaks, it is not because it has been the 
 ultimate purpose of that part of the com- 
 munity which has dominated and controlled 
 the action, but because, through lack of 
 knowledge, means have been employed 
 which could not possibly lead to a good 
 result. That the bulk of a nation should 
 will and consciously pursue any other end 
 than its own advantage is inconceivable. 
 It is one of the fundamental ideas of mod- 
 ern radicalism that every group of human 
 beings naturally seeks its own happiness, 
 or advantage, and that when clothed with 
 legislative power, it will legislate for the 
 attainment of this happiness, or advantage. 
 It is clear, however, that success in this de- 
 sign will depend less on the disposition to 
 seek social well-being, than on the ability to 
 discern and employ the means by which it 
 may be attained. However much, therefore, 
 modern society has to fear from malicious 
 intention and crass ignorance, it has a far 
 more threatening source of danger in that 
 widely diffused half - knowledge which 
 marks this age of expanding democracy.
 
 92 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 The social and political unrest which has 
 threatened to plunge Russia into anarchy, 
 which is raising up for the German govern- 
 ment an ever increasing socialistic opposi- 
 tion, and which finds expression in the 
 United States in noisy declamation against 
 grievances that are only dimly apprehended, 
 is not the product of downright ignorance 
 and brutish stupidity, but, on the other 
 hand, is the result of knowledge which is 
 sufficient to discern the existence of the 
 problem, but not sufficient to hinder the 
 advocacy of irrational and inefficient means 
 for its solution. As long as the Russian 
 serf remained in bondage, a mere clod of the 
 soil, with no hopes or prospects to stimulate 
 ambition, he remained a manageable ele- 
 ment of the nation. But when his bonds 
 were broken, and he was ushered into the 
 freedom of an independent citizen, there 
 dawned on his awakening mind the pros- 
 pect of a condition, to even the conception 
 of which he had hitherto not been able to 
 attain. The new prospects roused his slug- 
 gish intellect, and he was enabled to per- 
 ceive the hindrances in the way of realizing
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY. 93 
 
 his hopes. He saw the existence of a great 
 social problem, in the solution of which his 
 own well-being was involved ; and in the 
 confidence which half-knowledge inspires, 
 he undertook the solution ; he undertook 
 to break down the barrier that excluded 
 him from the promised land. From this 
 endeavor have come the woes of Russia. 
 Considerably less knowledge on the part 
 of the common people, and Russia would 
 have remained undisturbed in the repose 
 of dumb indifference. Considerably more 
 knowledge, and the futility of Nihilism as 
 a method of reform would have become 
 distinctly apparent. 
 
 The case of Russia is in one sense the 
 case of the whole Western world. In Ger- 
 many, in the United States, or wherever 
 the plan of universal education prevails, 
 there is, and will always remain, a half-ripe 
 element in the population, an element 
 whose unblushing confidence, born of half- 
 knowledge, urges the full exercise of the 
 vast power with which it is clothed. This 
 is the class at present contributing most 
 to disturb the social order of civilized
 
 94 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 nations. Its growth, activity, and vigorous 
 pursuit of Utopian ends, constitute a per- 
 petual menace to peaceful progress. Its 
 force is not in the utterly ignorant, but in 
 those who see somewhat of the ills by 
 which they are surrounded, yet whose un- 
 trained minds fall short of grasping the 
 proper remedy. The plan which seeks to 
 raise everybody to a certain medium level, 
 and offers little or no encouragement to 
 rise above this level, can have no other 
 ultimate outcome than to deliver the affairs 
 of civilization, material and spiritual, into 
 the hands of mediocrity. 
 
 Much of the special agitation of the last 
 hundred years may be set down to the 
 credit of half-knowledge. It is the work of 
 reformers who undertake to solve intricate 
 social problems, with an understanding of 
 only a limited part of the essential data. 
 The extreme socialism of to-day is a short- 
 sighted effort to realize the conditions of 
 Utopia, while the essential qualities of men 
 remain unchanged. It aims at the simul- 
 taneous attainment of liberty and social 
 equality. Liberty is clearly attainable, but
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY. 95 
 
 as long as men differently endowed enjoy 
 it, there can be no social equality. But 
 social equality may be attained under cer- 
 tain circumstances ; yet the means necessary 
 to its attainment involve the suppression 
 of liberty. More knowledge of the princi- 
 ples which underly the social fabric would 
 show the advocates of social reform the 
 utter incompatibility of these aims, and the 
 consequent futility of all efforts in this di- 
 rection. Through the presence of leaders 
 who are without such knowledge, and who 
 have never experienced the sobering force 
 of fundamental instruction on any subject, 
 society is compelled periodically to undergo 
 the terrors of the socialistic nightmare. 
 
 This illustration presents only one of a 
 long list of evils that may be ascribed to 
 the guidance of half -knowledge. But it 
 shows how far-reaching are the conse- 
 quences, going even to the destruction of 
 the basis on which alone it is possible to 
 build free human society. Other illustra- 
 tions might be drawn from foolish legisla- 
 tion which debauches the public mind and 
 entails expensive consequences ; from the
 
 96 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 bungling of scientific quacks, through 
 whose guidance property and life are dis- 
 sipated ; and from the work of half-edu- 
 cated teachers and the use of imperfect 
 text-books which lead to error and stupid- 
 ity rather than to true knowledge and 
 intellectual power. Not only do evils of 
 this character ' exist, but at the same time 
 there are powerful forces operating to per- 
 petuate the conditions out of which they 
 spring. Many of the smaller colleges of 
 this country are chartered opponents of 
 true education. They are established in 
 the interest of personal pride, local preju- 
 dice, or denominational zeal, and whatever 
 influence they exert is in favor of making 
 superficial knowledge general. They con- 
 tribute, moreover, to make the half-knowl- 
 edge which they encourage more noxious 
 than it otherwise would be, since they en- 
 dorse it with an academic degree, which is 
 the last assurance necessary to convince 
 the holder that he has swept the whole 
 intellectual horizon, and is consequently 
 fitted for the performance of any task 
 within the realm of intellectual effort.
 
 ED UCA TION A ND DEMOCRA C Y. 97 
 
 Scattered over the laud, they enlist and 
 doom to inferiority young men who, 
 through the better opportunities of the 
 great centres of thorough knowledge, 
 would easily rise out of the realm of medi- 
 ocrity, and become safe guides in the affairs 
 of society. 
 
 This policy of encouraging the diffusion 
 of half -knowledge rests in part on the false 
 notion, that if in proportion to the popula- 
 tion the United States has fewer real 
 scholars than any other civilized nation, 
 the lack is more than made up by our large 
 number of possessors of superficial knowl- 
 edge. It is true, in the matter of physical 
 power, ten weak men may be equal to five 
 strong men ; but, in the matter of intel- 
 lectual power, ten weak men are only equal 
 to one weak man. The plan of co-opera- 
 tion by which astounding results have been 
 produced in the material world, fails utterly 
 in its application to the intellectual world. 
 Five hundred lawyers, each of whom has 
 mastered only the elements of his subject, 
 are no match for him whose strong judg- 
 ment is supported by the vast knowledge
 
 98 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 it is possible for one to obtain. All the 
 poetasters of the ages are not equal to one 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 The theory of universal education in- 
 volves the idea of bringing the bulk of the 
 population to such a degree of intellectual 
 independence that public opinion and pub- 
 lic action will be the result of concurrent 
 independent individual judgments. This, 
 however, is a purely ideal end, that never 
 was and never will be reached in any hu- 
 man society. In the most advanced stage 
 of enlightenment, as well as in the rudest 
 condition of barbarism, men follow leaders : 
 and not infrequently, as in the United 
 States, bewail the degeneracy of the times, 
 when there are no great leaders to whom 
 they can look with confidence for guidance. 
 As society becomes more complex, and its 
 practical problems more difficult, the need 
 of leaders of extraordinary power and at- 
 tainments will become more and more im- 
 perative. But the wide diffusion of the 
 means for spreading half-knowledge will 
 tend to make mediocre attainments the 
 ideal, and society will be compelled to rely
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY. 99 
 
 upon inferior men as leaders, when strong 
 men are demanded. In this it is not 
 affirmed that the intellectual pursuits of a 
 nation are manned solely from the highest 
 schools, still it is the standard of these 
 schools that sets the intellectual standard 
 of the nation. Men may and do rise with- 
 out the aid of the schools, yet the schools 
 determine the extent to which they must 
 push their unaided achievements. The 
 degradation of the intellectual standard of 
 a nation is by no means the least of the 
 many evils resulting from that diffusive 
 policy which dissipates the educational 
 funds and force, without at any point ex- 
 tending the bounds of knowledge. 
 
 Still, because there are serious evils aris- 
 ing from that state of half-knowledge into 
 which men are plunged with the first spring 
 from ignorance, it does not follow that, for 
 the sake of avoiding these evils, we should 
 attempt to set aside the forces that are lift- 
 ing men from barbarism. Though there is 
 social peace in the state of Arcadian ignor- 
 ance, we are not able to turn back and seek 
 it, and thus shun the infelicities of the en-
 
 100 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 lightening process. The doom of onward 
 change is upon us. Within each progres- 
 sive nation, there is an unceasing move- 
 ment from ignorance towards intelligence, 
 with the inevitable result, that at any given 
 time, the majority of the population are 
 only midway in the transition. The evils 
 of half -knowledge are, therefore, not sim- 
 ply of this generation or this century ; 
 they are an unavoidable feature of the life 
 of every nation that seeks to rise from bar- 
 barism to civilization. But they are not 
 equally formidable in all nations. In a 
 nation which emphasizes the plan of mak- 
 ing its education universal, and which has 
 no ideal higher than mediocrity, these infe- 
 licities are without any important antidote. 
 They must be met stoically, as part of the 
 great sacrifice entailed by the peculiar line 
 of progress which that nation has chosen. 
 There is no escape by way of a return to 
 primitive ignorance, nor does the plan itself 
 promise the desired salvation. What is 
 especially wanted as a remedy for this con- 
 dition conspicuously illustrated in the af- 
 fairs of the United States, is not less in-
 
 EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY. IOI 
 
 struction for the great body of the people, 
 but a new ideal that shall be in harmony 
 with the fundamental principle of a repre- 
 sentative republic. This principle is that 
 all the citizens are not, and cannot become, 
 competent to pronounce an intelligent judg- 
 ment on all the diversified details of state 
 action ; but that they may be safely relied 
 upon to point out and elect the men best 
 fitted to perform the business of govern- 
 ment. The principle of pure democracy, 
 on the other hand, is that every citizen may 
 be, and should be, fitted to perform the 
 functions of any office in the state. It is 
 desirable, therefore, in a pure democracy, 
 that its education should be both uniform 
 and universal. But this nation is not, and 
 never can be, a pure democracy ; hence no 
 such educational requirement is demanded, 
 in order to secure harmony in the elements 
 of the state. A presupposition of repre- 
 sentative government is that some citizens 
 are well-fitted and others ill-fitted for the 
 conduct of public affairs. The univer- 
 sal and uniform education demanded by a 
 democracy is, therefore, not an imperative
 
 IO2 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 necessity under the representative system. 
 But it is demanded under this system that 
 there shall be men of extraordinary learning 
 and wisdom, who, as leaders in the common- 
 wealth, shall be worthy of confidence. Thus, 
 in so far as our plan of universal education 
 draws attention and support away from, 
 and prevents the development of, means 
 for the highest instruction, degrading the 
 intellectual standard and leaving us to the 
 guidance of the blind, in so far it is in con- 
 flict with the fundamental idea on which 
 every complex society is organized. The 
 preliminary educational need of this great 
 representative republic, as it appears from 
 this point of view, is not the further mul- 
 tiplication of institutions for superficial in- 
 struction, but the establishment of a new 
 and higher ideal of intellectual life, which 
 shall silence and put to shame the noisy 
 pretensions of half-knowledge, and, through 
 the realization of this ideal in higher wis- 
 dom, relieve the nation from the dangers 
 of uninstructed counsel.
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 PRESERVATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT. 
 
 A LTHOUGH the forms of our society 
 ** may change in the course of our so- 
 cial growth, yet at the same time we feel 
 the rightness of our instinct to preserve 
 the democratic life. We know that in a 
 community growing from simplicity to 
 complexity, equality tends to disappear, 
 and with equality also the conditions 
 favorable to democratic rule. Yet as a 
 nation we stand committed to a repre- 
 sentative republic based on democracy. 
 For us there is no alternative but an oli- 
 garchy or a military dictatorship, and to 
 neither of these can we look with any de- 
 gree of hope. A throne upheld by great 
 achievements and the traditions of glorious 
 centuries is impossible on this continent. 
 We are, compelled, therefore, to stand for 
 103
 
 104 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 what we have, for the fundamental ideas 
 and institutions under which we live, and 
 to attempt to counteract those social forces 
 that tend to make them impossible. We 
 stand for these institutions, although we 
 recognize that their establishment was in 
 some sense an experiment. In fact, we 
 recognize the establishment of every gov- 
 ernment as an experiment. Moreover, the 
 whole governmental history of the world 
 is only one long series of more or less suc- 
 cessful attempts to find some means for 
 wisely organizing and controlling men in 
 communities and nations. It is true, the 
 individual men who lay the plans and set 
 in operation the forces of the experiment 
 seldom live to see the outcome ; but the 
 nation or the race stands by and waits 
 calmly for the result. And all this must 
 be because no two governmental problems, 
 either in the same age or in different ages, 
 involve the same factors, and therefore the 
 history of the past furnishes only hints, 
 but no solutions, for the future. In making 
 the experiment, the government must be 
 framed on the basis of the circumstances
 
 THE ^DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT. 105 
 
 and conditions which we know from an ob- 
 servation of the present ; but it goes into 
 force to apply to circumstances and condi- 
 tions which we cannot know, because they 
 are in the undeveloped future. 
 
 After only one hundred years it may be 
 too early to pronounce on the success or 
 failure of this experiment. When the Ro- 
 man empire had lasted an hundred years, 
 it was still in its infancy. The close of the 
 second century saw it in increased renown 
 and undiminished vigor. As it passed the 
 end of the third century, it was guided by 
 one whose acts reveal the true prophetic 
 insight of a statesman. And not until af- 
 ter four hundred years was its existence 
 seriously threatened by external shock. 
 To have said during the first three hundred 
 years of its existence that the Roman em- 
 pire was a failure, as some have said of 
 this American republic in its first hundred 
 years, or to have said that it was estab- 
 lished to last forever, as our patriotism 
 prompts us to say of our government, 
 would clearly have been a false judgment. 
 The Roman empire may not have had all
 
 IO6 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 the qualities of our ideal of a wise and 
 efficient government, but at the same time, 
 in the second or third century, it had by 
 no means failed. Still it was not immortal, 
 and finally passed away with the develop- 
 ment of Christian society. 
 
 In view of the Empire's long unrivalled 
 dominion and final extinction, in view of 
 the perishableness of all human institu- 
 tions, which is emphasized on every page of 
 history, it is not to be supposed that as a 
 nation we have reached a point in the de- 
 velopment of social and political forms 
 beyond which we shall not advance ; to 
 suppose this is to presume that the active 
 practical intelligence which this nation has 
 displayed for an hundred years will sud- 
 denly become paralyzed, and social stagna- 
 tion settle over the land. As long as the 
 nation moves with the current of progress, 
 our institutions will continue to change to 
 
 O 
 
 meet the demands of the developing spirit. 
 If, then, the establishment of our gov- 
 ernment is one of a long line of experiments 
 which the race has made, why celebrate 
 its beginnings or take delight in its con-
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT. IO/ 
 
 tinuance ? The reason lies not in the wish 
 that the form may remain unchanged, for 
 the necessary condition of such a result is 
 a state of society entirely repugnant to our 
 strongest social instinct the instinct of 
 progress. We regard with patriotic pride 
 the beginnings of our government, not be- 
 cause we believe its institutions destined to 
 perpetual survival, but because we hold 
 that its establishment represents a step for- 
 ward, and because it has emphatically an- 
 nounced certain principles which we 
 believe will abide, however the forms may 
 change. As long as the nation moves for- 
 ward in the line of true progress, we may 
 look with gratification to the necessary 
 changes in the form of the state. There is- 
 reason for anxiety only in the indications 
 of a return to rejected principles and anti- 
 quated conditions. 
 
 Some phases of an important movement 
 are seen in our wide departure from simple 
 living, and in the prodigious attempts that 
 are making throughout the Union to draw 
 strong lines of class separation. Fifty years 
 ago the general equality of conditions
 
 IO8 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 among the people appeared to De Tocque- 
 ville as the fundamental fact and central 
 point of American life. But to-day we are 
 conspicuous among the nations for our lack 
 of simplicity of living, and for our wide 
 variations of conditions. This lack of sim- 
 plicity arises from the desire for social dis- 
 tinction taken with the fact that as a 
 nation we especially emphasize wealth as 
 the measure of the distinction to be ac- 
 corded. The ambitious German or Eng- 
 lishman dares to live simply, because his 
 society lays stress on other criteria of dis- 
 tinction than the display of wealth. In 
 some countries intellectual cultivation and 
 achievement balance nobility in giving so- 
 cial distinction, but in the great society of 
 America there is little to balance the pos- 
 session of wealth. There is, therefore, a 
 powerful stimulus to action in only one 
 direction. The highest, the non-commer- 
 cial pursuits, consequently appear unattrac- 
 tive, and comparative neglect attends these 
 phases of life on which alone rests a na- 
 tion's glory. 
 
 Yet one may easily underestimate the
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT. log 
 
 beneficent influence of wealth even on the 
 higher phases of national progress. To 
 avoid this liability, one may recall the fact 
 that the glorious period of art and learning 
 among the Dutch followed their commer- 
 cial supremacy in Europe, and that the un- 
 rivalled brilliancy of Grecian civilization 
 in the age of Pericles followed a period of 
 remarkable commercial and industrial activ- 
 ity. But in both of these nations personal 
 living retained much of its primitive sim- 
 plicity. In the conspicuous qualities of 
 American life, however, there is no evi- 
 dence that the civilization of either Hol- 
 land or Greece is our model ; rather that 
 we are returning to the social condition of 
 the Roman empire, in which vast accumu- 
 lations of wealth were used to promote rival- 
 ries in the magnificence of personal luxury. 
 The political significance of these changes 
 in the structure of American society has 
 already been made apparent in pointing to 
 the fact that certain forms of government 
 grow naturally, as a plant out of its proper 
 soil, from certain appropriate forms of 
 society.
 
 1 10 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 Among the forces which lead away from 
 democracy, and against which all champions 
 of democracy are obliged to contend, are 
 those which arise from the spirit of war ; for, 
 however persistently the Utopists and sen- 
 timentalists may affirm that the day of uni- 
 versal peace is about to dawn, the solemn 
 fact remains that military ambition and the 
 war spirit are as vigorous to-day as ever. 
 For the monarchical governments of Eu- 
 rope, the military spirit and the military 
 habit are sources of strength. They make 
 the people accustomed to absolute author- 
 ity, and prevent the administration from 
 becoming weakened by decentralization. 
 The military organization is the monarchi- 
 cal organization, and the monarch is the 
 military head of the nation. The military 
 spirit confirms the ruler in his position, 
 and gives vigor and compactness of organi- 
 zation to his kingdom. But the army of a 
 republic is not essentially different" in its 
 constitution and methods and influence 
 from the army of a monarchy. If, there- 
 fore, it is maintained in strength and em- 
 ployed in frequent wars, it will tend to
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT. Ill 
 
 develop in a republic the monarchical spirit 
 and a monarchical form of rule. Our 
 policy is thus a policy of peace ; for the 
 hope of staying the monarchical or oli- 
 garchical tendency in a republic hangs on 
 the possibility of finding some other means 
 for settling controversies than an appeal to 
 arms. It is for this reason that the people 
 of the United States are interested in the 
 plan of international arbitration ; and for 
 the same reason every association of per- 
 sons seeking the preservation of American 
 democracy must have as one of its practi- 
 cal purposes the advocacy of peace. 
 
 It is not, however, that war in all its 
 forms is to be repudiated. When it comes 
 to resist foreign encroachment, to defend 
 the rights of our citizens abroad, or to pre- 
 serve the integrity of the nation, even 
 though it come with all its attendant mis- 
 ery and sacrifice, it may bring incidental 
 blessings. It may strengthen the bonds of 
 national unity ; it may deepen the senti- 
 ment of patriotism ; it may give to the 
 pulse of every citizen a firmer and truer 
 and steadier beat. National independence
 
 112 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 and national honor we hold not dear, even 
 if they must be purchased and maintained 
 at the cost of human life. Moreover, in 
 war our sense of social duty is magnified, 
 and we become willing even to give our 
 lives to insure the welfare of the nation. 
 But war may not be employed with design 
 in a republic based on democracy as a 
 means of awakening a sense of social duty; 
 for the good which may attend it is only 
 incidental, while the evils are far-reaching 
 and fundamental. 
 
 Another force tending to the dissolution 
 of the democratic community is the strong 
 advocacy of individual rights, which marks 
 society under republican liberty. While 
 the oppressive hand of their superiors 
 rested on the common people of the several 
 civilized nations, they sought relief, and 
 demanded the satisfaction of their desires 
 under the guise of a recognition of rights. 
 But the identification of desires and rights, 
 followed by a strong and unwavering in- 
 sistence on their realization, tends to de- 
 stroy the bonds which hold society together, 
 places the individual in antagonism to his
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT. 113 
 
 fellows, and brings about that condition of 
 affairs where each is for himself and none is 
 for the state. It is a drift towards this 
 state of things that has conspicuously 
 marked the movement of society during 
 the last two hundred years, or even since 
 the rise of the individualism of the Protes- 
 tant Revolution. And as a consequence 
 of the general striving to realize individual 
 rights, we behold the diversity and antago- 
 nisms of modern life, and private judgment, 
 in both religious and political affairs, unre- 
 strained by authority, running into the wild- 
 est vagaries of individual opinion. From 
 this chaos of individualism, which manifests 
 itself in the assertion of rights, the republic 
 has need to be redeemed, and the redemp- 
 tion may come only through a revival of 
 the sense of social duty. 
 
 In political as well as in religious affairs 
 there is need of revival. The history of 
 every successful system of religion shows 
 either a continuous effort, or occasional ex- 
 traordinary efforts, to maintain in influence, 
 or restore to effective power, the principles 
 of the founders. Frequent recurrence to
 
 1 1 4 DEMO CRA C Y IN A M ERIC A , 
 
 the simple doctrines and zealous lives of 
 the early Mohammedans has kept Moham- 
 medanism a force in the world. The 
 strong traditions of the Hebrews, binding 
 the later generations to the principles and 
 lives of the early heroes, have preserved 
 that people true to itself, and given it a 
 consistent development through centuries 
 of trial. Christianity might have drifted 
 into lifeless formalism, but that ever and 
 anon the Christian world has been aroused 
 to lift its eyes from the material interests 
 of the day, and contemplate the sublime 
 spiritualism of the early Christian teachers. 
 What has been found needful to keep a 
 religious community in healthful life, is 
 equally needful for the broader life of a 
 political community. If the nation would 
 be true to itself throughout its changes of 
 
 O O 
 
 governmental forms, growth must continue 
 on the basis of its essential and fundamen- 
 tal ideas. Like a religious system, it must 
 seek to keep its primitive principles con- 
 spicuous, and if at any time they are lost 
 to sight, the nation must be awakened by 
 the preaching of a revival. The world
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT. 115 
 
 grown indifferent to primitive Christianity 
 was awakened by the preaching of Saint 
 Bernard, which was echoed from hill-top to 
 valley and from valley to hill-top through- 
 out Southern Europe. Again, absorbed in 
 the delights of ancient learning and the 
 external glories of artistic creations, there 
 was needed the sublime faith and heroic 
 devotion of Luther and Loyola to recall 
 primitive Christian teachings to the hearts 
 and minds of a worldly generation. Po- 
 litically we have fallen on barren times 
 like these. Our generation is either indif- 
 ferent to the political doctrines which un- 
 derlie our social organism as formed by 
 the founders of this republic, or it is ab- 
 sorbed in the wonders of our own physical 
 creations. We have need of a political re- 
 vival, a revival of democratic simplicity, 
 and an awakening of genuine patriotism. 
 
 Not only does this American generation 
 need to be recalled to the simplicity of the 
 fathers, but also to their more complete 
 conception of life. The youth of the pres- 
 ent are moved to criticise every plan of 
 education or pursuit in life with reference
 
 1 1 6 DEMOCRA CY IN A ME RICA. 
 
 to its power to contribute material advan- 
 tages, without regard to the nature of the 
 character that will result. Moreover, many 
 persons instead of viewing the state as 
 a beneficent organization whose effective 
 existence is secured only by the devotion 
 of citizens, regard it as something to be 
 plundered for immediate, individual profit. 
 Wherever we direct our view, we discern 
 the imperative need of a reviving voice 
 that shall awaken the nation to look once 
 more on its ancient and lofty ideals; and 
 in the attainment of this end the conserv- 
 ing forces of religion are of great impor- 
 tance. 
 
 Under democratic rule, as well as under 
 other forms of government, social growth 
 is dependent in a large measure upon re- 
 ligion. Yet it is not the the function of 
 religion to initiate new features of organiza> 
 tion, or to urge important social changes ; 
 it the rather represents the principle of 
 conservatism ; it stands for the forces of 
 instinct and tradition, and not for the forces 
 of intelligence. Under the domination of 
 freely acting intelligence, man appears as a
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT. 11? 
 
 radical, and seeks better conditions through 
 changes which he consciously proposes. 
 Under the domination of the religious in- 
 stinct, he appears as a conservative, and 
 holds to principles and forces which he 
 conceives to be a part of an everlasting or- 
 der. Pure intelligence in social progress 
 is revolutionary : in the creation and pur- 
 suit of its ideals it is self-sufficient and 
 neglectful of tradition. The religious in- 
 stinct, on the other hand, adores that which 
 was from the beginning, and, in its influence 
 on progress, tends to bind the present to 
 the past, and allow the forces of the past 
 to help determine the affairs of the present. 
 And through its conservative force it helps 
 to make effective the social ideals of the 
 past. 
 
 Because religion is conservative, it is 
 sometimes claimed that it hinders rather 
 than helps the onward movement, that it 
 chains the wheel of progress. Take an il- 
 lustration from two drivers on one of our 
 long, steep mountain roads. The one 
 chains a wheel of his wagon, and is thus 
 enabled to carry his load steadily and
 
 Il8 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 safely along the narrow decline to its des- 
 tination. The other will have nothing of 
 such hindrances, and, with all wheels free, 
 enters upon what he regards as his career 
 of rapid and uninterrupted progress. But 
 soon his load is beyond control, the leaders 
 are in wild flight, and, at a dangerous 
 turn, horses, driver, and all they carry, are 
 plunged over the precipice in one promis- 
 cuous ruin. If the American people, with 
 all the momentum of the as;es, have thus 
 
 O 
 
 far been able to keep to the road of genu- 
 ine progress, and have at different times 
 safely rounded the sharp curve which 
 looks into the abyss of national dishonor, 
 it is because there exists in us still some 
 inheritance of the things our fathers lived 
 for, some unconscious memory, it may be, 
 of the principles which their religious con- 
 sciousness approved. 
 
 The efficacy of religion in relation to so- 
 cial evolution is, furthermore, illustrated 
 by its power in strengthening the sense of 
 duty. As already suggested, this sense is 
 weakened in proportion as emphasis is laid 
 on individual lights. Since the loud proc-
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT. 119 
 
 laination of the rights of man in the last 
 century, the doctrine there involved has 
 operated on society as a disintegrating 
 force. It has tended to make the individ- 
 ual man forgetful of everything but his 
 claims. It has encouraged his natural sel- 
 
 O 
 
 fish ness, and made his relation to organized 
 society conspicuously a relation of personal 
 material profit. In itself, it points only to 
 anti-social consequences. In order, there- 
 fore, that through its influence the devel- 
 opment of society may not be prevented, 
 or the bonds of social intercourse be dis- 
 solved, the recognition of rights must be 
 supplemented by the recognition of duties. 
 It is only with the recognition of duties 
 that social evolution begins ; and, in the 
 whole course of social growth, no agency 
 has been more powerful than religion in 
 enforcing and keeping alive the sense of 
 duty, and thus implanting in men the 
 qualities under which society proceeds by 
 evolution to a higher standard. 
 
 It may not be maintained that religion 
 helps directly to build means of communi- 
 cation, to establish and operate factories, or
 
 120 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 in any other way to bring the forces of 
 nature into subjection to man. But doing 
 these things is only one phase of progress. 
 In the course of national evolution, there 
 are ages of action and ages of ideas ; and 
 the achievements of both are essential to 
 true social development. Neither the 
 heroic undertaking of the Athenians 
 against the Persians, nor the events of the 
 period of material prosperity which fol- 
 lowed, give us a full view of Athenian 
 civilization. The development was not 
 complete till the. spirit of the nation had 
 unfolded itself in the creation of religious 
 and artistic ideals, and realized through 
 these the higher manifestations of social 
 existence. What is true of the Athenians 
 is true of every nation. However great its 
 power and economic achievements, its evo- 
 lution is incomplete till it has acquired 
 clear religious ideals that have found ex- 
 pression in life. And it is to religion, 
 moreover, that society must look for the 
 transmission of its highest conceptions 
 from generation to generation. What re- 
 ligion teaches about God and moral con-
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT, 121 
 
 duct has taken form through human 
 thought ; and this doctrine, gathered into 
 one body and accepted as part of a system 
 of religion, goes everywhere, bearing the 
 stamp of divine authority. And through- 
 out the ages the religious system is des- 
 tined to be the means through which the 
 highest thoughts of the race concerning 
 human life are preserved and made a 
 portion of our common inheritance. It 
 maintains the continuity of our highest 
 conceptions, and carries them on, with all 
 their uplifting force, from age to age and 
 from nation to nation. 
 
 But there is a still more important ser- 
 vice which religion renders to social evo- 
 lution. By emphasizing the spiritual as 
 contrasted with the physical side of man's 
 being, a basis has been laid for a new and 
 higher estimate of the worth of human life ; 
 and this new conception of the dignity and 
 worth of man has given rise to many of the 
 characteristic qualities of the world's ripest 
 civilization. It underlies the movement in 
 behalf of universal education. It has called 
 into existence the whole scheme of modern
 
 122 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. 
 
 charity, from the care and training of waifs 
 to the efforts to protect and redeem the 
 idiotic and the insane. It has tended to 
 deprive the penalties of the law of their 
 former barbarity, without diminishing their 
 efficiency in defending the peaceful and the 
 virtuous. In a word, it has given to the 
 civilization of this age a rank not attained 
 by that of any other age, although other 
 ages may have transcended us in the excel- 
 lence of their literature and the perfection 
 of their art. 
 
 The social problems which a nation in any 
 generation has to face cannot be solved by the 
 pure intelligence of that nation as manifest 
 in that generation. The knowledge of the 
 bulk of any community is only half-knowl- 
 edge, and is inadequate to social control. 
 France, in the Revolution, cut loose from 
 religion, rejected her national tradition, and 
 relied on the immediate intelligence of her 
 people. The outcome was a fiasco ; and 
 after the Revolution had dealt its first blow 
 at the past, there was no hope of progress 
 for the nation till tradition, with its halo of 
 religion, had been rehabilitated. The tern-
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT. 12$ 
 
 porary failure here observed was such a 
 failure as is bound to appear whenever re- 
 form proceeds solely on the conclusions of 
 intelligence. We are not determined in 
 the larger part of our action or non-action 
 by the investigations and decisions of our 
 intelligence, but by tradition which operates 
 through our instincts, and brings already 
 formed a solution for most of the cases on 
 which we are called to act. If we work 
 not all the evil we might do, it is not be- 
 cause our intelligences sit in judgment on 
 every proposed act, but because we are 
 moved in our conduct by tradition, by an 
 inheritance of impulses which are able to 
 make themselves effective in our lives by 
 the fact that they were involved in the re- 
 ligion of our ancestors. It is this sanctified 
 inheritance which maintains society, in its 
 evolution, true to itself, and enables it to 
 preserve what is best in its experience and 
 the nobler features of its ancient ideals. It 
 is this which enables a nation to carry itself 
 steadily forward, in spite of the vagaries of 
 immature thought and the aberrations of 
 temporary passion.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Administrative power, 77 
 Agitation, 36, 53, 92, 94 
 America occupied by Europeans, i 
 Aristocratic spirit, 79 
 Authority and discipline, 72 
 
 Capital, private, 71 
 
 Change, from individual to corporate industry, 51 ; 
 
 in institutions, 31, 106, 107 
 Christianity, 114 
 Cities, 25, 34 
 
 Class, conflicts, 58, 60 ; separation, 107 
 Co-education, 88 
 Colleges, smaller, 96 
 Colonial life, 2 
 Colonies, growth of, 83, 88 
 Combinations of laborers, 56 
 Conflict, 36, 54 56 
 Conventionalities, r 
 Co-operation, 63, 66, 73-76, 97 
 Corporations, 41-51 
 
 Defectives, 74, 76 
 
 125
 
 1 26 INDEX. 
 
 Democracy, 9 ; in America, 11-13, l ^ '> disappears, 
 24, 27 ; prospects of, 19 ; in Europe, 29, 30, 
 78, 79, 83, 101 
 
 Dependence increasing, 26 
 
 De Tocqueville, 108 
 
 Discipline, 72 
 
 Distinction, social, 72 
 
 Division of employments, 73 
 
 Dutch art and learning, 109 
 
 Duty, 113 
 
 Education, 78, 90, 98, 101 
 Egypt, laborer in, 37 
 Emancipation of Spanish America, 15 
 Employments, division of, 61, 66 
 Encomiendas, 1 6 
 English in colonizing, 5, 13, 16 
 Equality, 2, 20-22, 71, 76, 79, 107 
 European, occupation of America, i ; tendency as 
 to democracy, 29 
 
 France as a republic, 17 
 Free instruction, 80 
 French Revolution, 58, 98 
 Frontier, 24 
 Fundamental tendency, 78 
 
 Government, an experiment, 104 ; complex, 65 ; 
 
 primitive, 64 ; support of schools, 87 
 Grecian women, 89
 
 INDEX. 127 
 
 Half-knowledge, 91-102 
 Happiness the popular aim, 91 
 Hebrews, 114 
 
 Immortality, national, 8 
 Inequality, n, 16, 20-22, 29, 78, 79 
 Intelligence in progress, 117, 123 
 
 Jack Cade, 58 
 Leaders, 98 
 
 Mediocrity, 94 
 Mexico, 32, 37 
 Migration, 4 
 Military affairs, 34 
 Mississippi valley, 83 
 Mohammedans, 114 
 Monarchy, 81 
 Montesquieu, 10 
 Morals and education, 82 
 
 New England and the West, 84 
 Nihilism, 93 
 
 Officers, Spanish, in America, 15 
 Official life, 72 
 Organization modified, 10 
 
 Pericles, 109 
 Political authority, 4 
 Progress, 4, 24, 38, 39
 
 128 INDEX. 
 
 Protestant revolution, 113 
 
 Providence, 3 
 
 Public instruction, 79, 80 
 
 Race-respect, 7 
 
 Railroads under socialism, 70 
 
 Religion in progress, 116-123 
 
 Revival, 114 
 
 Revolutionary period, 18 
 
 Rights, 112, 119 
 
 Roman Empire, 33, 59, 105, 106 
 
 Rosas, 32 
 
 Rural life, 25, 27 
 
 Schools, public, 79 
 
 Simplicity of living, 108 
 
 Socialism, 36, 61, 68-70, 74, 77, 94 
 
 Social order, new, 76 
 
 Society in American colonies and Europe, 30 
 
 Spain and corporations, 43 
 
 Spaniards in colonizing, 5, 14 
 
 Specialization of work, 62, 64 
 
 State, as an instrument, 3 ; formation of, 3 
 
 Struggle for life, 76 
 
 Suffrage, universal, 70 
 
 Superiority and dependence, 39, 55 
 
 Switzerland, 10, 14 ; canton of, 64 
 
 Tendency, fundamental, i 
 Trades, separation of, 71 
 Trusts, 45-5 1
 
 INDEX. 129 
 
 Unit in society, 64 
 
 University instruction under democracy, 80 
 
 Unrest, social and political, 92 
 
 Wages in America, 36 
 
 War, relation to monarchy and democracy, no 
 
 Wat Tyler, 58 
 
 Wealth, 109 
 
 West a colony of the East, 83 
 
 Woman's progress, 89
 
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