arned nothing, and forgot nothing;" and
the common people were too discouraged to think. It is on these lines
that our modern democracies must be judged, not as efficient and
economical political machines, but as educational institutions. Judged
by this standard, we believe ourselves to be the triumph of the ages.

Nor can it be possible for people to enter political life fully prepared
for its duties. Even when a young man approaches a business career we do
not ask that he shall possess a knowledge of the business before
beginning. If he has general preparation, and a desire to learn, he is
admitted to share in its responsibilities, and then learns as he goes
along. It is the same in political life; few young men at twenty-one or
foreigners at the time of naturalization, have the knowledge indicated
in the preceding pages. If they have general preparation and a desire to
learn, we admit them to participation, and they learn through doing.

Years ago, while discussing education with an English statesman, he
asked whom I considered the leaders of education in his country. Knowing
his Tory instincts, I replied, "Bradlaugh, Annie Besant, William T.
Stead, John Burns and Keir Hardie." He laughed contemptuously: "Why
those people," he said, "are merely educating themselves in public." The
statement was true and far-reaching; that is what we are all doing in
our modern democracies; and that is at the same time our weakness and
our glory.

VIII

Woman's Relation to Political Life

In discussing woman's right to vote it is well to remember that the
right to rule, which is implicit in the right to vote, has always been
limited by conditions of birth, residence, wealth, morality or
intelligence. Universal manhood suffrage has never yet been achieved,
and probably never will be. Under the best Greek conditions, it was only
the free-born citizen, residing in his native city state, who voted. In
both Greece and Rome, the suffrage was limited to classes defined by
social position, wealth or military service. In our modern democracies
there have always been limitations of birth, which might be overcome by
naturalization; of residence, which could be overcome by living for a
certain time in a locality; of wealth, which was supposed to insure a
stake in the communal well-being; and of morals and intelligence, which
at least shut out criminals, the insane and the imbeciles.

Thus the right to vote is not the same thing as t