r we see him.

The notion that a people can run itself and its affairs anonymously is
now well known to be the silliest of absurdities. Mankind does nothing
save through initiatives on the part of inventors, great or small, and
imitation by the rest of us--these are the sole factors active in human
progress. Individuals of genius show the way, and set the patterns,
which common people then adopt and follow. _The rivalry of the patterns
is the history of the world_. Our democratic problem thus is statable
in ultra-simple terms: Who are the kind of men from whom our majorities
shall take their cue? Whom shall they treat as rightful leaders? We and
our leaders are the _x_ and the _y_ of the equation here; all other
historic circumstances, be they economical, political, or intellectual,
are only the background of occasion on which the living drama works
itself out between us.

In this very simple way does the value of our educated class define
itself: we more than others should be able to divine the worthier and
better leaders. The terms here are monstrously simplified, of course,
but such a bird's-eye view lets us immediately take our bearings. In our
democracy, where everything else is so shifting, we alumni and alumnae
of the colleges are the only permanent presence that corresponds to the
aristocracy in older countries. We have continuous traditions, as they
have; our motto, too, is _noblesse oblige_; and, unlike them, we stand
for ideal interests solely, for we have no corporate selfishness and
wield no powers of corruption. We ought to have our own
class-consciousness. "Les intellectuels!" What prouder club name could
there be than this one, used ironically by the party of "red blood," the
party of every stupid prejudice and passion, during the anti-Dreyfus
craze, to satirize the men in France who still retained some critical
sense and judgment! Critical sense, it has to be confessed, is not an
exciting term, hardly a banner to carry in processions. Affections for
old habit, currents of self-interest, and gales of passion are the
forces that keep the human ship moving; and the pressure of the
judicious pilot's hand upon the tiller is a relatively insignificant
energy. But the affections, passions, and interests are shifting,
successive, and distraught; they blow in alternation while the pilot's
hand is steadfast. He knows the compass, and, with all the leeways he is
obliged to tack toward, he always makes some headwa