EDUCATION & POLITICS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1620, 11 December 1912, Page 6

EDUCATION & POLITICS.

In tho popular excitement which centred upon the result of theAmcrican Presidential election it is more than prohahlc that ono important aspect ,of the contest may pass unnoticed by the public, unless attention is drawn to it. Wo refer to the election of tv former President of an American ' University to White House. In the United Stales the great universities aro perhaps more intimately associated with tho life of the nation and its political ideals than is the case in any other country. Writing before tho result of the election was known," and immediately after the "straw votes" in the colleges, the New York Eveniiir/ Pout remarked on the political significance of the appeal for reform which was being made by the Democratic party to the educated young men of the country. -It will no doubt be remembered by, students of American political history that the Democratic party in the late 'seventies of the last century made a similar appeal, and many of the undergraduates broke away from the party ties traditional in their families. Gkover Cleveland alsomado a successful appeal to the universities with his promises of. political reform. The preference of the college men for Dn. Wilson "indicates," re-, marked tho Post, "a stirring and change of a.kind that we have not seen in this country for twenty years. Youth is politically a compound of revolt and hope. It is ever ready to break the old Yet it is not moved merely by a spirit of irreverence and destruction. What it is always on the watch for is the promise of a new way out of the old coil. Wo saw this at the time when Mu. Cleveland came forward as the leader of the nation's desire. He was a great quickener of hopefulness,' and the youth of the colleges rallied to him. They wished politics to become less sordid; they were for vitalising government and making it seem synonymous with reform; and into the high enthusiasms of that period they entered with a generous abandon." , It is, of course, the appeal to intellect as opposed to appeal to class interests and party passion. In c-ur own Dominion of New Zealand there has been great difficulty in inducing the best men of the community to come forward as candidates for public office, and nowhere in our history has this "boycott' of Parliament by the educated classes ■ been so pronounced as it was during a large part of the Seddon-Ward regime. The reason, of,course, has been that men of culture, trained intelligence, and high ideals have been loathe _to enter a political struggle in 'which the National interest was so largely subordinated to party ends, and appeals to class prejudices, and to the capidity of electorates, the most effective weapons in use. The Legislature of a country is an honourable institution wherein to serve one's country, and there are riot wanting signs at the present time that the educated classes generally are awakening to a sense of _ their ° responsibilities in this direction. "It should be of the greatest importanceand value," said the Eight Hon. Jas. Bryce (the British Ambassador at Washington), on the occasion of the memoraLle address which he delivered to the students pi Victoria College at the capping ceremony in June last, "if the Parliament included University-educated members, who would bring to the House their full knowledge, and he hoped that University men would offer themselves for service in public life, a,nd fill honoured places in tho Legislative Assembly." It is to men of trained intelligence, students of political history, and familiar with the principles of political economy that a country must look for the exposure of those political fallacies that are the peculiar attributes of the demagogue, whose feverish desire to bring about the millennium in his own political lifetime inspires him to submit unsound and disturbing proposals, the.iallacious nature of which those versed in economics can most readily expose. .