POLITICS AND THE COLLEGE GRADUATE

The Englishman learns with astonishment that in the United States the college graduate is attracted mainly by business and remunerative professions, while comparatively few enter polities. In England the case is exactly contrary; there Oxford and Cambridge, regarding public service a high and universal duty, recruits the House' of Commons from their-graduate ranks, Englishmen, then, appraise the situation here as anomalous.

This anomaly, however, is easily explained by considering certain subsidiary features of the two political systems. In the United States, for example, the political curses honorum might be likened to a tall laddor which the politician, starting ordinarily at the bottom ascends rung by rung. The climb is long, laborious, and slow. The educated American, ever impatient of results, is not temperamentally equipped for the task, and easily deviates into fields where his ability will reap him a more speedy and direct compensation. On the other hand, the political apprenticeship of the Englishman is of short duration. He serves first in the borough council, and immediately afterwards is eligible to the House of Commons. There are no tedious waits or petty impedimenta. Yet another advantage is that the M.P. does not need to be a resident of the borough electing him, whereas the American is often barred from participation in politics by his location-a Republican in South-Carolina,-for-instance, standing little chance of holding major office in that thoroughly Democratic state. The college graduate is not out for the small game.

Men in public life often lament the dearth of college men is politics, and indeed, the fact is regrettable. A general education is the special education which the profession requires. As the man of special culture is the proper judge in his department, so the man of general culture is the proper judge of subjects in general; and, since politics is the science of judging things in general, this latter is the politician par excellence. It is unfortunate, then that this field should offer so little inducement to him.