Now if England had been governed in the past by statesmen willing to be
ruled by such public opinion as that, she would have been wiped off the
political map long ago. The modern notion that democracy means governing
a country according to the ignorance of its majorities is never more
disastrous than when there is some question of sexual morals to be dealt
with. The business of a democratic statesman is not, as some of us seem
to think, to convince the voters that he knows no better than they as
to the methods of attaining their common ends, but on the contrary to
convince them that he knows much better than they do, and therefore
differs from them on every possible question of method. The voter's duty
is to take care that the Government consists of men whom he can trust
to devize or support institutions making for the common welfare. This
is highly skilled work; and to be governed by people who set about it
as the man in the street would set about it is to make straight for "red
ruin and the breaking up of laws." Voltaire said that Mr Everybody is
wiser than anybody; and whether he is or not, it is his will that must
prevail; but the will and the way are two very different things. For
example, it is the will of the people on a hot day that the means
of relief from the effects of the heat should be within the reach of
everybody. Nothing could be more innocent, more hygienic, more important
to the social welfare. But the way of the people on such occasions is
mostly to drink large quantities of beer, or, among the more luxurious
classes, iced claret cup, lemon squashes, and the like. To take a moral
illustration, the will to suppress misconduct and secure efficiency
in work is general and salutary; but the notion that the best and only
effective way is by complaining, scolding, punishing, and revenging is
equally general. When Mrs Squeers opened an abscess on her pupil's head
with an inky penknife, her object was entirely laudable: her heart was
in the right place: a statesman interfering with her on the ground that
he did not want the boy cured would have deserved impeachment for gross
tyranny. But a statesman tolerating amateur surgical practice with inky
penknives in school would be a very bad Minister of Education. It is
on the question of method that your expert comes in; and though I am
democrat enough to insist that he must first convince a representative
body of amateurs that his way is the right way and Mrs Squeers's way
the wrong way, yet I very strongly object to any tendency to flatter Mrs
Squeers into the belief that her way is in the least likely to be the
right way, or that any other test is to be applied to it except the test
of its effect on human welfare.