Unfortunately, our clever young men leave the small towns of their birth and flock up to the great centres as offering wider fields for their advancement.In consequence, the local elector finds his choice limited to what is left - the intellectual skimmed milk, of which the cream has been carried to New York or other big cities.
No country can exist without a metropolis, and as such a centre by a natural law of assimilation absorbs the best brains of the country, in other nations it has been found to the interests of all parties to send down brilliant young men to the "provinces," to be, in good time, returned by them to the national assemblies.
As this is not a political article the simple indication of these two causes will suffice, without entering into the question of their reasonableness or of their justice.The social bearing of such a condition is here the only side of the question under discussion; it is difficult to over-rate the influence that a man's family exert over his decisions.
Political ambition is exceedingly rare among our women of position;when the American husband is bitten with it, the wife submits to, rather than abets, his inclinations.In most cases our women are not cosmopolitan enough to enjoy being transplanted far away from their friends and relations, even to fill positions of importance and honor.A New York woman of great frankness and intelligence, who found herself recently in a Western city under these circumstances, said, in answer to a flattering remark that "the ladies of the place expected her to become their social leader," "Idon't see anything to lead," thus very plainly expressing her opinion of the situation.It is hardly fair to expect a woman accustomed to the life of New York or the foreign capitals, to look forward with enthusiasm to a term of years passed in Albany, or in Washington.
In France very much the same state of affairs has been reached by quite a different route.The aristocracy detest the present government, and it is not considered "good form" by them to sit in the Chamber of Deputies or to accept any but diplomatic positions.
They condescend to fill the latter because that entails living away from their own country, as they feel more at ease in foreign courts than at the Republican receptions of the Elysee.
There is a deplorable tendency among our self-styled aristocracy to look upon their circle as a class apart.They separate themselves more each year from the life of the country, and affect to smile at any of their number who honestly wish to be of service to the nation.They, like the French aristocracy, are perfectly willing, even anxious, to fill agreeable diplomatic posts at first-class foreign capitals, and are naively astonished when their offers of service are not accepted with gratitude by the authorities in Washington.But let a husband propose to his better half some humble position in the machinery of our government, and see what the lady's answer will be.
The opinion prevails among a large class of our wealthy and cultivated people, that to go into public life is to descend to duties beneath them.They judge the men who occupy such positions with insulting severity, classing them in their minds as corrupt and self-seeking, than which nothing can be more childish or more imbecile.Any observer who has lived in the different grades of society will quickly renounce the puerile idea that sporting or intellectual pursuits are alone worthy of a gentleman's attention.
This very political life, which appears unworthy of their attention to so many men, is, in reality, the great field where the nations of the world fight out their differences, where the seed is sown that will ripen later into vast crops of truth and justice.It is (if rightly regarded and honestly followed) the battle-ground where man's highest qualities are put to their noblest use - that of working for the happiness of others.
