That democracies are fickle is one of the oldest criticisms upon them.  We had thought that we were not subject to that criticism, and in the old days we were not.  We had the country debating club and the village lyceum.  We were an agricultural people, sober and slow-moving.  We had few books, they were good books and we read them many times.  We had few newspapers, we knew the men who wrote in them, and when we read an editorial, our mind was actively challenged by the sincere thinking of another mind.

To-day, everywhere, we have moved into the cities.  The strength of the country-side is sobriety and slow incubation of the forces of life.  Its vice is stupidity.  The strength of the city is keen wittedness, versatility, quick response.  Its vice is fickleness, morbidity, exhaustion.  We have our great blanket sheet newspapers, representing a party, a clique, a financial interest, with writers lending their brains out, for money, to write editorials for causes in which they do not believe.  We have the multitude of books, incessantly and hastily produced; we read much, and scarcely think at all.  We have got rid of the old “three decker” novel, reduced it to a single volume, and then taken out the climax of the story, publishing it in the corner of the daily newspaper, as the short story of the day, so that he who runs may read.  If he is a wise man he will run as fast as he can and not read that stuff at all.  We have our ever increasing “movies,” with their incessant titillation of the mind with swift passing impressions, as disintegrating to intellectual concentration, as they are injurious to the eyes.  The result of it all is an increasing fickleness of temper, so that the same people who shout most loudly when the popular hero goes by, the next week cover his very name with vituperation and abuse, if he offends their slightest whim.

This evil breeds another:  fickleness in the people means demagoguery in the leader, inevitably.  We have said to our public men—­not in words, but by the far more impressive language of our conduct—­“get money, power, success, and we will give you more money, power and success, and not ask you how you got them nor what ends you serve in using them.”  That so many have refused the bribe is to their credit, not ours; we have done what we could to corrupt them.

Finally, we are the most irreverent people in the world.  We believe in youth, we scorn age.  We have splendid enthusiasm, we do not know what wisdom means.  One hears college presidents say—­half jokingly, of course—­that there is no use appointing a man over thirty to the faculty these days.  So one hears Christian ministers, in those denominations where the minister is called by the particular church, say there is no use trying to get another call after one is fifty!  Of course, it is not true, but it is true enough to be a serious criticism upon us.  For what other vocation is there where the mellowness that comes only from time