same. I do not care to go into the rationale of what is known as
proportional representation, nor have I time so to do; but, were it in
my power, I would prescribe to-morrow that hereafter the national House
of Representatives should be constituted on the proportional basis,--the
choice of representatives to be by States, but, as respects the
nomination of candidates, irrespective of district lines. Like many
others, I am very weary of provincial nobodies, "good men" locally known
to be such!
As I have already said, in parliamentary government all depends in the
end on the truly representative character of the legislative body. If
that is as it should be, the rest surely follows. The objective of
Aristotle is attained.
Exceeding the limits assigned to it, my discussion has, however,
extended too far. I must close. One word before so doing. Why am I here?
I am here,--a man considerably exceeding in age the allotted threescore
and ten--to deliver a message, be the value of the same greater or less.
I greatly fear it is less. I would, however, impart the lessons of an
experience stretching over sixty years,--the results of such observation
as my intelligence has enabled me to exercise. I do so, addressing
myself to a local institution of the advanced education. Why? Because,
looking over the country, diagnosing its conditions as well as my
capacity enables me, observing the evolution of the past and
forecasting, in as far as I may, the outcome, I am persuaded that the
future of the country rests more largely in the hands of such
institutions as this than in those of any other agency or activity. Do
not say I flatter; for, while I can hope for no advancement, I think I
have not overstated the case; I certainly have not overstated my
conviction. There has been no man who has influenced the course of
modern thought more deeply and profoundly than Adam Smith, a Professor
in a Scotch University of the second class. So here in Columbia seventy
years ago, Francis Lieber prepared and published his "Manual of
Political Ethics." Adam Smith and Francis Lieber were but
prototypes--examples of what I have in mind. The days were when the
Senate of the United States afforded a rostrum from which thinkers and
teachers first formulated, and then advanced, great policies. Those
days, and I say it regretfully, are past. Unless I am greatly mistaken,
however, a new political force is now asserting itself. I have recently,
at a meeting of historical and scientific associations in Boston, had my
attention forcibly called to this aspect of the situation now shaping
itself. I there met young men, many, and not the least noticeable of
whom, came from this section. They inspired me with a renewed confidence
in our political future. Essentially teachers,--I might add, they were
publicists as well as professors. Observers and students, they actively
followed the course of developing thought in Europe as in this country.
Exact in their processes, philosophical and scientific in their methods,
unselfish in their devotion, they were broad of view. It is for them to
realize in a future not remote the University ideal pictured, and
correctly pictured, from this stage by one who here preceded me a short
six months ago. They, constituting the University, are the "hope of the
State in the direction of its practical affairs; in teaching the lawyer
the better standards of his profession, his duty to place character
above money making; in teaching the legislator the philosophy of
legislation, and that the constructive forces of legislation carefully
considered should precede every effort to change an existing status; in
teaching those in official life, executive and judicial, that demagogy,
and theories of life uncontrolled by true principles, do not make for
success, when final success is considered, but that, if they did lead to
success, they should be avoided for their inherent imperfection.... The
province of the University is to educate citizenship in the abstract."
It is the presence of this class, to those composing which I bow as
distinctly of a period superior to mine, that you owe my presence
to-day,--whatever that presence may be worth. I regard their existence
and their coming forward in such institutions as this University of
South Carolina, as the arc of the bow of promise spanning the political
horizon of our future.
Through you, to them my message is addressed.
End of Project Gutenberg's 'Tis Sixty Years Since, by Charles Francis Adams