USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Municipal government history and politics, Vol. V > Part 36
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20. History of the formation of the principal states of Europe in the middle ages.
21. History of relations between the Occidental States and the Oriental.
22. Money and Banking.
23. Organization of the Central government.
24. Finance.
The whole of this instruction is divided into five sections. They are known as-
1. Section of administration.
2. Section of diplomacy.
3. Section of political economy and finance.
4. Section of colonial policy.
5. General section, including public law and history.
In addition to these, and connected with both, is "a course in modern languages," the two on which especial stress is laid being German and English.
While the purpose of this school is to prepare young men, in a general way, for public affairs, it has immediately in view preparation for certain branches of the administration under the French civil-service system. Each of the sections com- pletely prepares for one of the following departments and their competitive examinations :
1. Diplomacy (ministry of foreign affairs, legations, con- sulates).
2. Council of State (auditorship of second class).
3. Administration, central and departmental (under pre- fectures, secretaryships of departments, councils of prefectures).
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4. Inspection of Finances.
5. Court of Claims.
· 6. Colonial service in its various departments.
Besides it prepares for certain high positions in commercial life (banks, secretaryships of companies, inspection of rail- ways, etc.)
This system of instruction presupposes the average second- ary education, which may be considered practically equivalent to that given up to the end of the first year in our better col- leges. The regular course of instruction in these schools is arranged to extend through two years.
A very interesting indication of the results obtained in this school is seen in the official statement regarding the success of its graduates in taking positions in the French administration under the civil-service rules. From the public competitive examinations, the following appointments have resulted :
Council of State.
1877-1887 .- Of 60 candidates appointed, 48 belonged to this school.
Inspection of Finances.
1877-1887 .- Of 42 candidates appointed, 39 belonged to this school. Since 1880 all the candidates appointed have been prepared by this school.
Court of Claims.
1879-1886 .- Of 17 candidates, 16 belonged to this school.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
1886 and 1887 .- Of 26 candidates appointed, 20 belonged to this school.
It will be seen, then, that this school, founded with an in- dependent organization by a number of energetic scholars and political men, is already beginning to place its graduates in
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leading positions under the French Government, and to act with force upon the amelioration of the French public service.
No one will wonder at these results who has conversed with the professors and students. If in the lecture-room of the College of France, at various visits during the last quarter of a century, I have admired the impulse given to general polit- ical thinking, I have admired not less in this newly founded school of political science the directness with which the best thought is applied to the immediate needs of the nation. Besides this, the French Government has taken pains that such instruction shall be brought to bear upon men in training for the great industries of the country. Wolowski, distinguished throughout Europe as a political economist, was employed to give lectures upon political economy at the Conservatory of Arts and Trades [Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers]. He was succeeded by Professor Levasseur, of the Institute, and rarely have I seen an audience so attentive as the body of workingmen which fills his lecture-room. Lectures were also, given by M. Burat in industrial economy and statistics.
ITALY.
In the universities of Italy, studies in political and social science and general jurisprudence have long been prominent. By the triumphs of Beccaria, Filangieri, and their successors, a great impulse was given to these subjects, and to this, prob- ably, more than to anything else, is due the skill of Italian political management during the trying times of the last twenty years.
For a quarter of a century there had not been any striking increase in the number of persons engaged in teaching these subjects, but there has been great progress, notwithstanding. In a third visit recently made to several Italian universities, and among others to those of Naples, Pisa, Padua, and Bologna, I found a new scholastic atmosphere. When, over thirty years ago, I entered some of them for the first time, I was 2
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struck with the listlessness, the trifling, the dalliance with what may be called the mere fringes of civilization, and, as a consequence, with the waste of vigorous thought; but as I stood again in some of those lecture-rooms, in the midst of a crowd of young men intently listening to lectures upon history, political economy, and kindred subjects, I could see that Rossi, Settembrini, Villari, Mancini, Pierantoni, De Gubernatis, and their compeers, had not labored in vain-that the country was aroused to the necessity of training up a body of men fitted to continue the work of Cavour, D'Azeglio, and Ratazzi. Especially valuable is the work begun and maintained under the direction and by the munificence of the Marquis Alfieri di Sostegno at Florence. His patriotism and filial love were combined in this school for instruction in political science and its influence upon his country, for good, is already felt. The higher instruction in Italy suffers undoubtedly from the scattering of resources through a multitude of universities ; still the provision in the best of them is by no means small. In the University of Rome, which may be taken as a type, we found the following studies :
1. The philosophy of history.
2. General geography.
3. International law.
4. Roman law.
5. Philosophy of law.
6. Political economy.
7. Introduction to the study of jurisprudence.
8. Diplomacy and the history of treaties.
9. History of law.
GREAT BRITAIN.
The tendency toward strengthening this side of the higher education is also evident in the English universities ; perhaps in none is the change within the last quarter of a century more striking. My first visit to them was made over thirty years
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ago. The provision at that time for instruction in political and social science, to say nothing of the natural sciences, was wretchedly inadequate. Now, although they fall far short of what they should be, the influence of such men as Whewell, Arnold, Smythe, Sir James Stephen, Goldwin Smith, Charles Kingsley, Thorold Rogers, Montague Bernard, Harcourt, Jevons, Stubbs, Freeman, Seeley, Bryce, Fawcett, and their associates, has told for good upon the generation which is beginning to take hold of public affairs.
It is true that there is not yet at the English universities at any one time any such extended faculty in this department as we find in the great institutions of France and Germany, but these subjects are beginning to assert themselves, and already concessions have been made to them by the university author- ities in the matter of examinations and degrees which a quarter of a century ago the most sanguine could not expect.
Nor is this all; the more recently founded public schools, or, as they might be called, preparatory colleges, are directing much attention to the fitting of men for the public service. Under the new civil-service system of the British Empire, such training has received a great impulse. In its whole development throughout the lower colleges and the universi- ties it is becoming more and more prominent, and the same tendency is clearly seen in the leading universities of Scotland.
Having thus called attention to the main lines on which this department of instruction has been developed, I would briefly point out what seems to me a very suggestive charac- teristic of the instructing bodies.
Whenever a faculty of instruction is entirely made up of men held aloof from the usual currents of public life, there is danger of doctrinairism and pedantry, if not of cynicism. But this European instruction in political and social science seems to have steadily warded off these evils.
The cause of this will be easily found, I think, by any one who will study the lists of professors. In every great nation
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of Europe it will be seen that in these faculties there is a con- siderable number of professors who, while carrying on their university duties, take an active part in public affairs. Pro- fessor Fawcett, of Cambridge, was a most energetic member of the British Parliament; Professor Montague Bernard, of Oxford, was hardly less energetic in the diplomatic service ; Professor Vernon Harcourt, of Cambridge, has shown him- self a statesman in the parliament and in the cabinet; Pro- fessor Goldwin Smith, formerly of Oxford, has exercised a constant influence as a debater and writer in centers of polit- ical activity. Professor Bryce is a member of Parliament and has held an important Under-Secretaryship.
In France, among professors now in service, in addition to others already mentioned, such men as Flourens, Dunoyer, Foville, Machart, Colmet, Vergniaud, and many others, have been actively engaged in various important departments of the public service.
In Germany, we may name out of a multitude who, as active men of affairs, have brought into the lecture room new currents of thought from the world outside, such men as Heffter, Gneist, Bluntschli, Knies, Roscher, Wagner, Holst, Oncken, and many others.
In Italy, the active interchange between professorial and public life is even more striking; every new ministerial cabi- net shows a strong representation from the great instructing bodies, and we constantly see leading men speaking, during one part of the year, from their seats as senators and deputies, and during another part from their professorial chairs at the various universities.
By this rapid summary, from which I have attempted to exclude confusing details as much as possible, it will be seen that the leading nations of Europe, republics as well as mon- archies, have committed themselves fully to the idea that the service of the state requires a large body of men carefully and thoroughly trained ; that in consequence a system of higher instruction has been adopted to meet the needs of those nations
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in this respect, and that the higher instruction has been kept in the current of the national life.
Application of European experience to ourselves.
I now turn to the practical application of this European experience and the modification of European methods with reference to the development of a system of instruction directly bearing upon public life in our own country.
The demand of this nation for men trained in history, political and social science, and general jurisprudence, can hardly be overstated.
In the United States we have, first of all, the national Congress, composed of two bodies, each called upon to discuss and decide the most important political questions, and to some extent the most important social questions. They thus discuss and decide for a nation, to-day of sixty millions of people, and which many now living will see numbering a hundred millions. Nor is it alone the appalling element of numbers which strikes the thoughtful citizen. Time stretches before us in a way even more appalling; foundations are now laying for centuries ; what is done now is to tell for good or evil upon a long line of generations.
Nor is this all; the nations of the earth may be divided into active and passive. Active nations are those which are to work out the development of the world by thought and by act, by the speech and the book, by the missionary and the soldier, by the machine and the process-nay, by mere bales and boxes ; passive nations are those which are to be acted upon, and often in ways more or less brutal. For good or evil, ours is to be among the active nations; its influence is to be felt not only upon the hundred millions of its own citizens, but upon the still greater number of the human race outside its boundaries.
Besides the Congress of the United States, we have nearly forty State legislatures, each composed of two houses, and
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besides these, county boards, town boards, and municipal councils innumerable.
There are also executive officers corresponding to these legislative assemblies, and all these, whether entrusted with executive or legislative functions, are called upon to think out and work out these problems, probably for the greater part of the human race.
Besides these regularly constituted bodies, there are, from time to time, constitutional conventions in the various States, fixing the basis of legislation; these exercise an influence exceedingly far reaching, for they discuss political and social questions with especial reference to the past experience and future needs of the country ; they fix the grooves, they lay the track in which political and social development will largely run.
Not less important are certain other bodies, having a more profound influence on real legislation than meu usually sus- pect ; despite the theoretical separation of powers in our gov- ernment, the judicial body, throughout this land, is, in a certain sense, a legislative body ; judge-made law is felt throughout our system and always will be felt; the judiciary of this country, from the honored bench sitting at the Capitol to the multitude of State courts of every grade, has an influence far outreaching the settlement of transient questions in accordance with recognized legal principles ; for good or evil, their ideas of public policy are knit into the whole political and social fabric of the future. The relations of capital to labor, the connection of production with distribution, education, taxation, general, municipal, and international law, pauperism, crime, insanity, all are constantly coming before these bodies ; poli- cies are fixed, institutions created, laws made with reference to all these questions-policies, institutions, laws, in which lie the germs of glory or anarchy, of growth or revolution.
More important in some respects than the demand for better political training, among those destined for the public bodies, is the demand by the press. Even those of us who had best
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realized the immense grasp which the newspaper press has upon modern civilization, were amazed, during the Expositions at Philadelphia, Paris, and New Orleans, at the revelations of the extent to which newspaper publishing is now carried.
When it is considered that at each of these myriad presses a knot of men is teaching large bodies of citizens, especially as to their rights and duties in society, and advising them on the most important political and social questions, it will be seen that here is an enormous demand for men trained in the subjects already referred to.
That there is not sufficient training of this kind at present is lamented by none more than by the leading editors of our greater journals ; it has passed into a proverb among them, that it is easier to obtain a score of men with striking ability as versifiers, novelists, critics, and humorists, than one man who can write brief, pithy, comprehensive articles on living questions.
The pulpit too, honored as it is throughout our land, and pledged to every form of humane work, is acknowledged by those who most adorn it to need greatly this same instruction. The charities of our cities are dispensed largely through church organizations, and those who have attended meetings of the Social Science Association of the United States will remember the lament of one of the most honored divines of the American pulpit at the mistakes made in these charities, and in other dealings with pressing social questions in which the clergy are greatly interested.
That there is a constant danger of error in the present is shown by the experience of the past.
There is no nation in the world to-day which is not suffer- ing from the mistakes of law-makers on all these questions ; no thoughtful student in social science is ignorant that educa- tion has been crippled by ill-studied institutions ; that pauper- ism has been increased by the very legislation intended to alleviate it ; that up to a recent period insanity was aggravated, and even made incurable, by the usual system of public pro-
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vision ; that ill-advised systems of warding off popular distress -systems embodying what is called "good common-sense"- have again and again brought great populations to the verge of starvation, and sometimes to the reality of it; and that down to a period within the memory of men now living, crime was rendered more virulent by the repressive system of every civilized country.
In the midst of this necessity for thought and care, how stands it with our own legislation ? It was recently remarked by one of the most able and devoted men who ever left a for- eign country to do noble work in this, that it saddened him to see many of the same lines of policy adopted in America that had brought misery upon Europe; to see the same errors in the foundation of these new states which have brought such waste and disaster and sorrow in those old states.
No one who knows anything of our legislation can deny that serious mistakes are constantly made, and often with the best intentions. Of course I do not pretend that there are not many excellent public servants who obtain their knowledge of political and social questions in later life ; nor do I claim at all that none but men educated in these questions should enter public life ; nor do I deny the great service of many men who have received no such training-recent events have revealed many such; but more and more, as civilization advances, social and political questions become complex ; more and more the men who are to take part in public affairs need to be trained in the best political thinking of the world hith- erto, need to know the most important experiences of the world, need to be thus prepared by observation and thought to decide between old solutions of state problems or to work out new solutions.
It will hardly be denied that the want of such knowledge and such training is seriously felt in all parts of the country. In various constituted bodies, theories have been proposed which were long ago extinguished in blood ; plans solemnly considered which have led, without exception, wherever tried,
·
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to ruin, moral and financial; systems adopted which have been sometimes the tragedies, sometimes the farces upon the stage of human affairs.
All this, too, not mainly by knaves or fools, but often by men of vigorous minds, of considerable reading, of what is called good common sense.
As to State legislation, we note a prodigious amount of waste and error in dealing with political and social questions. Institutions for the poor, the insane, the inebriates, the crimi- nals, are constantly created at vast expense, yet often so placed and built and organized as to thwart their highest purposes. Laws for the repression of crime are often discussed with an utterly inadequate knowledge of principles, that in some other lands have been carefully settled ; in questions of taxation, the settled experience and simplest reasonings and conclusions of thoughtful men in various nations often pass for nothing, and a spirit of anarchy results, only equaled by that of France just before the revolution of 1789; as regards pauperism, means are often taken similar to those which in England, over 300 years ago, began the creation of a permanently pauperized class ; in dealing with education, codes are made and millions voted with no thorough discussion, and the relations of educa- tion to industry, the problem now occupying every other great nation of the earth, argued with far less care than the location of a canal bridge.
In county, town, and municipal bodies the same thing is hardly less glaring; almost every municipal abuse which Arthur Young found in France under Louis XVI., and which May found in England under George III., seems to find its counterpart somewhere in our own land and time. In one of the most enlightened counties of one of our most enlightened States, a body of excellent reputation and sound common sense has, at large expense, for years and years, kept up an institu- tion, not merely for the punishment of old criminals, but for the development of new criminals; it has resisted, and is steadily resisting to-day, any movement to prevent the insti-
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tution being what it has long been-a criminal high school, taking large numbers of novices and graduating them masters of criminal arts. And such institutions are to be found prob- ably in every State in the Union.
This is not on account of want of integrity or capacity in the body concerned ; it is composed of men who manage their own affairs honestly and prudently ; but there is probably not one among them who has ever seen any discussion of the best modes of dealing with crime in civilized nations.
But let us leave the various constituted bodies and go among the people at large. In a republic like ours, the people are called on at the last to decide upon all fundamental questions ; on their decision rest the strength, the progress, nay, in many cases, the existence of the republic.
To any such proper discussion and adjustment of political and social questions by the people there are two conditions : first, there must be education of the mass of the citizens, at least up to a point where they can grasp simple political ques- tions; that is, up to the ability to read, to concentrate and exercise their reasoning powers on simple problems, and to know something of their own country and its relations to the world about it.
Such an education is given in the public schools of our country ; with such a basis, the first great element in the safety of the nation is reasonably secure. I am convinced that such an educated democracy is the best of all bodies to which general public questions can be submitted, and for this belief there is high authority where we might little expect it: the recent utterances of leading statesmen and thinkers in England regarding the submission of questions of fundamental policy to a fairly educated people, as compared with the submission of such questions simply to the most highly educated classes, are very striking ; the most thoughtful contemporary English statesman has declared that the judgment of the mass of the English voters on the leading political and social questions of the past fifty years has been far more just than that of the
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most highly educated classes, and he brings to the support of this statement historical arguments which cannot be gainsaid.1
As to this first condition, the general education of the people, we have made in most of our States large provision. I do not contend that our primary education is perfect ; its imperfec- tions are evident, but the people are awake to its importance, and show on all sides a desire to continue it ; of course, dem- agogues here and there, seek to gain bits of special favor by attempting to undermine the system, but their tendencies are well known, and are steadily becoming better known.
The second condition of the proper maintenance of the republic, is suitable instruction for the natural leaders rising from the mass. The rise of such leaders is inevitable; they are sure to appear in every sphere of political and social activ- ity ; they come from all classes, but mainly from the energetic, less-wealthy classes, from the classes disciplined to vigor and self-denial by poverty.
These are to influence the country in all executive, legisla- tive and judicial positions ; they are to act in the forum and through the press ; nay, perhaps more strongly still, by stimu- lating that imitation which a recent writer has shown to be one of the most powerful factors in the development of nations to higher political and social life.2
For the development of these with reference to this leader- ship, for the training of their powers of observation and reasoning, for the giving of that historical knowledge of past failures which is the best guarantee for future success, there is at present in our higher education in the United States no adequate provision. The educational exhibits at the Exposi- tions at Philadelphia, Paris, and New Orleans show that here and there, in a few of our higher institutions, beginnings have been made, and good beginnings; but such institutions are few ; in most of them political economy is not taught save by
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