Men of the people lead, because
the people are the stake. On the other hand, educated leaders, however
well-intentioned, may be handicapped if they are not rooted deeply in
the popular soil. Literary education, it must never be forgotten, is not
specially a preparation for political good judgment. It is predominantly
concerned, in its high branches, with matters not of immediate political
consequence--with books generally, science, history, language, technical
processes and trades, professional outfits, and the manifold activity of
life not primarily practical, or if practical not necessarily political.
Men of education, scholars especially, even in the field of political
system, are not by the mere fact of their scholarship highly or
peculiarly fitted to take part in the active leadership of politics,
unless they have other qualifications not necessarily springing from
their pursuits in learning; they are naturally more engaged with ideas
in a free state, theoretical ideas, than with ideas which are in reality
as much a part of life as of thought; and the method of dealing with
these vitalized and, as it were, adulterated ideas has a specialty of
its own.
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