and trades, professional outfits, and the manifold activity of life not primarily practical, or if practical not necessarily political.  Men of education, scholars especially, even in the field of political system, are not by the mere fact of their scholarship highly or peculiarly fitted to take part in the active leadership of politics, unless they have other qualifications not necessarily springing from their pursuits in learning; they are naturally more engaged with ideas in a free state, theoretical ideas, than with ideas which are in reality as much a part of life as of thought; and the method of dealing with these vitalized and, as it were, adulterated ideas has a specialty of its own.

It must be acknowledged, too, that in the past, the educated class as a whole has commonly been found to entertain a narrow view; it has been on the side of the past, not of the future; previous to the revolutionary era the class was not—­though it is now coming to be—­a germinating element in reform, except in isolated cases of high genius which foresees the times to come and develops principles by which they come; it has been, even during our era, normally in alliance with property and ancestry, to which it is commonly an appurtenance, and like them is deeply engaged in the established order, under which it is comfortable, enjoying the places there made for its functions, and is conservative of the past, doubtful of the changing order, a hindrance, a brake, often a note of despair.  I do not forget the great exceptions; but revolutions have come from below, from the masses and their native leaders, however they may occasionally find some preparation in thinkers, and some welcome in aristocrats.  The power of intellectual education as an element in life is always overvalued; and, within its sphere, which is less than is represented, it is subject to error, prejudice, and arrogance of its own; and, being without any necessary connection with love or conscience, it has often been a reactionary, disturbing, or selfish force in politics and events, even when well acquainted with the field of politics, as ever were any of the forms of demagogy in the popular life.  Intelligence, in the form of high education, can make no authoritative claim, as such, either by its nature, its history, or, as a rule, its successful examples in character.  The suffrage, except as by natural modes it embodies the people’s practical and general intelligence, in direct decisions and in the representatives of themselves whom it elects to serve the State, need not look to high education as it has been in the privileged past, for light and leading in matters of fundamental concern; education remains useful, as expert knowledge is always useful in matters presently to be acted on; but in so far as it is separable from the business of the State, and stands by itself in a class not servants of the State and mainly critical and traditionary, it is deserving of no special political trust because