various positions with a view to discovering why we see things differently, and such discussion may terminate in agreement. If it does, it may be said that progress has been made. If it does not so terminate, the partisanship persists.

More specifically, we have certain political parties in this country. Nearly every citizen, for some cause or other satisfactory to himself, is attached more or less stubbornly to one of these parties. He is, of course, satisfied with his own partisanship. What he objects to is the partisanship of the other fellow who flocks with an opposition party. These party lines are national in extent, but it often happens that a man who sees his interests clearly in a continuance of a national Republican administration, for instance, has reason to oppose a local Republican administration. It is at this point where his antipathy to partisanship-he often calls it blind partisanship, which insinuates, of course, that his own eyes are thoroughly open and seeing-begins.

It is then he is apt to begin talking about men rather than issues, about electing "good men to office regardless of party affiliations," as if it had formerly been his policy, a policy of which other men were still guilty, to elect other than good men and as if there were any other way of judging the fitness of a man for a public office except by his party affiliations. In making such a remark, he fools himself. He loses the thread of his logic, if we may so dignify his mental process. If he would stop to think a little more deeply, he would find that he has not really changed his method from that of considering issues to that of considering "men regardless of party affiliations." He only thinks he has. When he says to elect "good men," he means to elect men who are in accord with him on the paramount local issues in question which, for the moment, overshadow all other questions. When these "good men" on local questions happen to be "bad men" on national questions, our elector fondly imagines that he has ceased to be a partisan.

Let us do him justice. Let us say that such an act as we have described, the act of thoughtfully discriminating between national and local topics, is commendable; that it signifies a moral and intellectual growth. All that and more. of a laudatory nature may be his due, but. nevertheless, he has not ceased to be a partisan. He has become, rather, a double partisan, a subdivided partisan, where before he was a single partisan in political matters. Perhaps he has joined himself to a local "Independent" movement. “Independent,” in this sense, does not necessarily connote the high and lofty motives with which the eloquence of the ages has enhaloed it. It merely means that those beneath its banner are, for

the matter in hand, independent of the other political parties. Such movements are usually, but not always, ephemeral, because they are not founded upon fundamental or enduring principles. A fundamental and enduring principle is one that has a broad base underlying the whole of society and one which society will continue to recognize as such throughout a long period of time.

Sometimes the name "Citizens' is used for these local schisms, as if the other parties were not composed of and controlled by citizens. In this case, "Citizens'" is but a designation, just as "Independent" was but a designation. Such a movement might as well be called "Reprobates" for all the clew it gives to the principles involved, as, indeed, the participants are often looked upon as reprobates by their opponents, who are as zealously trying to elect "good men” according to their own definition.

No enduring party was ever gathered around a man and no enduring party was ever gathered around a name. Men die, both good and bad. If they are leaders during their lifetime, it is for what they believe. If they have a considerable following, they are succeeded, at their death, by other men who believe the same or who are thought to believe the same. Names do not die, but they lose their significance with the passage of time. In the history of our country, the name "Republican" has stood for various policies, some of them diametrically opposed to each other. So has the name "Democratic." Yet, in a dictionary sense, they both stand for popular government. Those who compose the Republican party believe that popular government can best be conserved by certain policies and institutions. Those who compose the Democratic party believe that popular government can best be conserved by certain other policies and institutions. So with the Socialists and the Prohibitionsts. The word "Prohibition," in political parlance, has taken on a special significance. It stands for the prohibition of the liquor traffic. Yet, all the parties are prohibition parties. The Republican party would prohibit free trade. The Democratic party would prohibit protection. The Socialist party would prohibit competition in the means of production and distribution.

The men who participate in the mushroom movements referred to are men who desire to correct certain evils which they believe to exist and they become partisans for that purpose. Strangely enough, however, they often overlook underlying causes and find a superficial reason for what they seek to eliminate in mere abstract partisanship. To paraphrase this attitude, these men do no more than say that things are wrong because other men do not see things the way they do.

This, of course, begs the question and is evil because it distracts the mind from essentials. All men are partisans, but that does not mean that all men are absolutely right or absolutely wrong for that reason. The participants of a so-called "independent" or "citizens'" movement are partisans of that movement. The question of whether the movement is based on enduring principles is quite another matter and one which. time alone can ultimately settle. A question is relatively important according to the number of people who are thinking about it and who take sides in it. If a question is widely discussed and disposed of by a decisive majority, it is settled, at least for a time, for, in a democracy, there is no other way to settle it, no other authority than the popular will. Nevertheless, even though a question be once settled, there may be an intelligent and persistent minority which maintain that it has not been settled right. If this minority possesses sufficient arguments to hold itself together and attract an increasing number of adherents to its way of thinking, it may later become a majority and the previous expression of the public will on that particular question may be reversed.

Moral laws are numerous, but it is difficult to say what is absolutely right and what is absolutely wrong. Perhaps the best and perhaps the only standard after all is the will of the people. What a majority of the people desire is right. What a majority of the people oppose is wrong. In that case, whatever is is right. But that doos not mean that the people cannot or should not change their minds. To-day they may believe one thing and that is right to-day. To-morrow they may believe something different and that something different, wrong to-day, will be right to-morrow. It was once right to burn witches at the stake.

Each individual is a force in the making of public opinion and public opinion itself is the resultant of all these individual forces. I may have an opinion divergent from that of society. So far as society is concerned, I am wrong. So far as I am concerned, I am right. I am not responsible for my own opinions. It would be much more correct to say that society was responsible for them. My opinions somehow seize and possess me. I may change my opinion or society may change its opinion, to the end that we agree. When that time arrives, both society and I are the happier because we are in accord with one another. In the meantime, society being the stronger, I must suppress all actions. based upon my own divergent opinion and conform to society's regulations, arduous and unjust as they may seem from my own point of view. In the meantime, also, society must put up with me. As a disturbing element in its midst, society

must also take cognizance of me and my protestant attitude. Discord inevitably attracts attention. It is an indication of disease. It is the sign of social intercourse. It is society's duty to examine me and my position with all due care. It is my reciprocal duty to examine society, the goal of each being to establish a harmonious co-operation in order to stop the inevitable waste of friction.

But, while each according to his rights and duties and inclinations is trying to bring the other to his way of thinking, I am the one who must be docile, who must yield. Otherwise society will put me into prison or even put me to death. Indeed, society may decide, after a careful examination, that I am unable to entertain a sensible idea of any kind. In that case, it devolves upon society to declare me insane and put me in an asylum for safe keeping.

A partisan, in any realm of thought, is a man who has opinions and is not afraid to stand up for them. Those opinions may be crude. They may be childish. Thy may be the result of scant opportunities and experiences. In such case, more enlightenment will produce a change in his opinion, but this will not make him cease to be a partisan; it will merely direct his partisanship along new channels. A man who is incapable of being a partisan is a sorry specimen indeed.

Partisanship, therefore, comes naturally to sane. When we speak of blind partisanship, the accent should be upon the "blind." It is the blindness and not the partisanship which is objectionable.

ELLIS O. JONES.

College Men and Socialism.

HE status of the college education has undergone a radical change of late years. Formerly it was considered a luxury; to-day it is almost a necessity. Forced by economic pressure to compete ever fiercer and fiercer in the industrial field, workmen and small business men are sending their sons to college in order to fit them for the coming fight. This is amply attested by the phenomenal growth of industrial and scientific education, such as engineering and the like, as opposed to the subordination of purely cultural or classical education. Let us turn for a moment to the enrollment of one of the "big four" universities and compare figures for 1904-5 and 1907-8.

*University of Pennsylvania Enroll

The Summer School (college) and the Evening School of Accounts and Finance, founded in 1904, are distinctly the result of a demand and necessity on the part of the proletariat. The Courses for Teachers, established to meet the convenience of those who toil during the best part of the day, also show the largest enrollment in the practical or scientific branches of learning.