< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu
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66

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the accusers of themselves and of cautious justice. Whether his statecraft has on the whole been correct is a political question, out of place here. No doubt there are those who would try to punish him for deviations from the public policy they have desired by opposing him for a non-political post. With such animosity I shall not contend. We know that in the vast range of remote appointments Mr. Roosevelt's selection of men for places not the highest has often been bad. We know that near home, in his cabinet and otherwise, he has surrounded himself with some of the most capable. His desire and his enthusiasm for men of power, his absolute freedom from the jealousy that would surround itself with lesser and merely instrumental men, his generous friendship and laudation, are for our present interest amongst the traits that promise most.

The chief trait, that on which we have already dwelt, is perhaps best characterized in Walter Bagehot's remarks on Mr. Gladstone as a public speaker:

A man must not only know what to say, he must have a vehement longing to get up and say it. Many persons, rather sceptical persons especially, do not feel this in the least. They see before them an audience—a miscellaneous collection of odd-looking men—but they feel no wish to convince them of anything. "Are not they very well as they are? They believe what they have been brought up to believe." "Confirm every man in his own manner of conceiving," said one great sage. "A savage among savages is very well," remarked another. You may easily take away one creed and then not be able to implant another. "You may succeed in unfitting men for their own purposes without fitting them for your purposes "—thus thinks the cui bono sceptic. Another kind of sceptic is distrustful, and speaks thus: "I know I can't convince these people; if I could, perhaps I would, but I can't. Only look at them! They have all kinds of crotchets in their heads. There is a wooden-faced man in spectacles. How can you convince a wooden-faced man in spectacles? And see that other man with a narrow forehead and compressed lips—is it any use talking to him? It is of no use; do not hope that mere arguments will impair the prepossessions of nature and the steady convictions of years." Mr. Gladstone would not feel these sceptical arguments. He would get up to speak. He has the didactic impulse. He has the "courage of his ideas." He will convince the audience. He knows an argument which will be effective, he has one for one and another for another; he has an enthusiasm which he feels will rouse the apathetic, a demonstration which he thinks must convert the incredulous, an illustration which he hopes will drive his meaning even into the heads of the stolid. At any rate, he will try. He has a nature, as Coleridge might have said, towards his audience. He is sure, if they only knew what he knows, they would feel as he feels, and believe as he believes. And by this he conquers. This living faith, this enthusiasm, this confidence, call it as we will, is an extreme power in human affairs. One croyant, said the Frenchman, is a greater power than fifty incrédules.

This quality is far from the only quality required in an educational leader; but circumstances conspire to give it value in a college. Some-

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