Want might be banished, but desire would remain, Man is the unsatisfied animal. He has but begun to explore, and the universe lies before him. Each step that he takes opens new vistas and kindles new desires. He is the constructive animal; hẻ builds, he improves, he invents, and puts together; and the greater the thing. he does, the greater the thing he wants to do. He is more than an animal. Whatever be the intelligence that breathes through nature, it is in that likeness that man is made. The steamship driven by her throbbing engines through the seas is in kind, though not in degree, as much a creation as the whale that swims beneath. The telescope and the microscope-what are they but added eyes which man has made for himself? The soft webs and fair colors in which our women array themselves-do they not answer to the plumage that nature gives the bird? Man must be doing something, or fancy that he is doing something; for in him throbs creative impulse; the mere basker in the sunshine is not a natural but an abnormal man."-(pp. 408-419.) We could not forbear this long quotation from Mr. George's book. It is so applicable to our case, and so vivid in description of the present and prospective condition of man! The objection that to banish want and the fear of want would destroy the stimulus for exertion is farther answered by stating the fact that many of the most brilliant and active minds have been of those who were placed beyond want. In fact, the freer from this dread incubus, the stronger is the impulse to higher and nobler modes of life. The present disparity of social conditions-the struggle with poverty on the one hand and the inordinate and unjust accumulation of wealth on the other-tends to destroy those higher aspirations that better conditions would prompt. Avarice is the inspiring genius; it corrupts the social fountain; it turns the channel of thought and feeling from the higher impulses that are slumbering in the soul. In our government, corporations are the means by which these conditions of extreme wealth and extreme poverty exist-conditions fatal to the prosperity and happiness of the people. The fear of want that characterizes the " uneasy class". those occupying a middle ground but with a downward tendency-disqualifies them for better impulses and higher aspirations. Corporations for individual aggrandizement must give way to co-operative enterprises; and measures for the public good must be carried on for the equal benefit of all. Justice is thus made possible, and equality established-conditions absolutely essential to a true republic. CHAPTER XVIII. QUALIFICATION FOR CITIZENSHIP. 'A weapon that comes down so still As lightning does the will of God; RIGHTS enjoyed imply duties to be performed. Such are the demands of life. The balance of privilege and responsibility, of service and reward, is the constant requirement of justice. The eventful march of human progress carries along with it the service to be rendered as well as the privileges to be enjoyed; the one is as essential as the other is valuable. Among the most important duties the citizens of a republic are required to perform are: 1. Acquiring the necessary qualification. A clear conception of the principles upon which a free government is founded, the relations its citizens hold to it and to each other, are the first considerations. Experience as well as reason demonstrates the fact that due qualification for any work is a necessity; but in matters of government this seems to be overlooked. Reliance upon authority and blind confidence in those who are in the exercise of it, intensified by political bias and party zeal, without the "eternal vigilance" so earnestly recommended by that great apostle of human liberty, Thomas Jefferson, are fatal defects in the qualification for citizenship. Taking advantage of these, designing and ambitious men, selected not for their qualification but for their availability, are thrust upon the people-not chosen by them-to carry out the schemes for securing wealth and dominion. It is clearly the duty of citizens to protect themselves from such imposition; therefore, such a system of education as will develop a knowledge of the principles of a true republic is the pressing and imperative requirement. Whatever the character of the government may be, the governed must abide by it; and the question here is, What shall be the character of the governed? For in a republic they are the governors. This is so evident that it requires. nothing but the bare statement to bring it home to every intelligent mind. Are they self-reliant, and sufficiently independent of political tricksters; of the influence of party "fealty"; of the tyranny of capital; free from the debasing influences of vice? It is the aim and plan of the politicians distract and distrust and and their masters to mystify, to weaken, to demoralize, to create destroy confidence. The ignorant man is the weak man. He is the most easily led to believe he is wise, and therefore the most easily hoodwinked. His prejudices are aroused; he imagines them to be sound principles; party spirit is awakened forthwith; in his estimation he becomes a patriot. He mistakes sophistry for reason, and vehement declamation for profound wisdom. He is alike the sport and the victim of political jugglery. No one is capable of being deceived, but there stands ready a deceiver; no one in a condition to be robbed, but there stands ready a robber. Jefferson's test of the qualification for office is equally applicable to the citizen: "Is he capable? Is he honest?" The science of political economy should be regularly and thoroughly taught; not the theories found in the writings of the subjects of kings, and servilely imitated by writers who profess to live under a republican government; into whose heads the idea of the true source of power never enters; who take for granted the complicated and mystified theories of English finance, the oppressive and wicked system of land tenures, and thus establishing and firmly rooting the idea of the justice of land monopoly, a dual |