THE MAKING OF "POLITICIANS"
"The way the authors wish to realise their ideal would, I fear, merely
increase the output of politicians and political journalists, of whom
an adequate supply already exists."--Mr. E. B. Osborn, in _The Morning
Post_.
Sharp-wittedness playing on ignorance to the end of personal
advancement--so dominant a feature has this become of our political
life, that any protest against the misuse of a noble word, when men
speak contemptuously of politics, is no doubt quite untimely.
Untimely, because it is too early, not because it is too late. We
retain the word ourselves, and call the kind of education we advocate
political education; appropriately it seems to us, for we believe that
its wide adoption would remove the root cause which has made such a
stigma possible, and free the very name of politics from the
indignities it now justly suffers.
Nothing, indeed, could be wider of the mark than the notion that a
system of political education would increase the number of
self-seeking, power-hunting "politicians." Such men are the product,
not of political education, but of the lack of it. What is the present
situation? To the ordinary boy, politics, when it first obtrudes
itself on his attention, appears under one or other of two aspects. If
he is clever, or is imagined to be so by ambitious parents, or again,
if, though stupid, he happens to belong to a political family, the air
begins to be thick with talk of his "going into" politics. He is to
"go into" politics in the same way as men "go into" the Stock Exchange
or the law; by virtue either of birth or brains he is to enter one of
those little strongholds of his class, and earn his living there by
playing the appropriate game.
This is the guise under which politics appears to one type of boy. The
other type, hears in some quarter or other a babble about income-tax
and little navies and big loans; and either dismisses the whole thing
as "absolute rot," which can have no possible meaning for him, or
imbibes the ideas and prejudices of the people whose talk he is
listening to, without in the least understanding their implications.
From these two types is developed the great bulk of the population,
considered under its political aspect. On the one side, politicians,
whether clever or stupid; on the other, the electorate, ignorant and
apathetic, or prejudiced and inflammable, as the case may be. There
are, of course, other classes too. There is the man who has made money
in business, and late in the day conceives the idea of entering
Parliament--which he sometimes succeeds in doing even when he has been
unable to avoid making an election speech or two. There is the
idealist who takes up political work with the sole object of doing
useful service. There is the well-informed and open-minded student of
public affairs. There is the intellectualist. But the great majority
are as we have described them.
The introduction of a far-reaching system of political education would
have three results, each of which would reinforce the others in putting
an end to the present state of affairs. Make every one a politician,
and "politicians" will become rare. Politics will cease to be an
essentially specialised profession; men will no longer "go into" it as
into a thing apart. Some will administer, guide, and direct; others
will know and criticise. But every one will be politically active; and
instead of the stronghold of politics in a desert of ignorance, there
will be that interplay of political functions, distributed among the
whole body of the people, which is the real meaning of democracy.
And not only will politics cease to be a preserve, kept ready for
spoliation by the clever, the pushing, the rich, and the well-born, but
also the very desire in these men so to misuse their citizenship will
cease altogether to come to birth. For political education, properly
so called, awakens political idealism; it teaches principles, arouses
aspirations after public service. The "politician" is a man who finds
in political intrigue the fruitful source of his own advancement; one
who catches at every breeze to further his personal ends. But if
politics had formed the basis of his education; if, while his idealism
was still untainted, he had been led to consider fundamental
principles, and to examine public affairs in the light of them: then
the potential goodness of his political nature would have been so fully
realised, that no vain or mean thing would disfigure his maturity.
"Ah, but 'potential goodness' and 'while his idealism was still
untainted'; there's the rub," we hear the cynic saying. Such criticism
moves us not at all. We had to do during the course of our experiment
with a great number of boys of many different types; one can recall
hardly a case in which, when vital thought had really been awakened,
often after much sweat and agony, virtue was not found to be the
fundamental characteristic of the boy's intellectual nature. But the
teacher must not, of course, rest satisfied until he is certain that
the goal in very truth has been reached; until he is sure that his
pupil has thrown off the weight of carelessness, thoughtlessness, and
prejudice, and that his mind is really awake and is in actual contact
with ideas.
Finally, just as the leader and administrator will not desire to misuse
his powers, so the education of the rest of the nation will deprive him
of his opportunity. For it is only among a people politically
uneducated that corruption and intrigue on a grand scale can exist.
The unscrupulous creation and manipulation of public opinion; the
concealment of low and mean designs under an appearance of nobility and
disinterestedness; the putting forward of one argument in support of a
policy, while a thousand are kept back which weaken or invalidate it;
the appeal to prejudice and blind passion; the cunning use of
suggestion; worst of all that pitiable game which consists of turning
the people's noblest instincts--instincts of fellowship, solidarity,
romance--to the basest ends; marks of degradation such as these would
vanish gradually but surely as knowledge and power of criticism spread
to every section of the community. Such evil motives as still existed
would be seen through and exposed; events would be regarded, not as
isolated occurrences, but as a part of history, to be viewed in their
relation to the whole and to be judged in accordance with a definite
philosophy of life. So that if, here and there, a "politician"
survived or made his reappearance in the clearer atmosphere, he would
find his playthings gone; waiting instead for him would be men,
citizens, politicians--ready to sweep him aside and gaily choose a
better man.