they are attending them because the modern political meeting is not like
the political meeting of five or ten years ago. That was a mere
ratification rally. That was a mere occasion for "whooping it up" for
somebody. That was merely an occasion upon which one party was denounced
unreasonably and the other was lauded unreasonably. No party has ever
deserved quite the abuse that each party has got in turn, and nobody has
ever deserved the praise that both parties have got in turn. The old
political meeting was a wholly irrational performance; it was got together
for the purpose of saying things that were chiefly not so and that were
known by those who heard them not to be so, and were simply to be taken as
a tonic in order to produce cheers.

But I am very much mistaken in the temper of my fellow-countrymen if the
meetings I have seen in the last two years bear any resemblance to those
older meetings. Men now get together in a political meeting in order to
hear things of the deepest consequence discussed. And you will find almost
as many Republicans in a Democratic meeting as you will find Democrats in
a Republican meeting; the spirit of frank discussion, of common counsel,
is abroad.

Good will it be for the country if the interest in public concerns
manifested so widely and so sincerely be not suffered to expire with the
election! Why should political debate go on only when somebody is to be
elected? Why should it be confined to campaign time?

* * * * *

There is a movement on foot in which, in common with many men and women
who love their country, I am greatly interested,--the movement to open the
schoolhouse to the grown-up people in order that they may gather and talk
over the affairs of the neighborhood and the state. There are schoolhouses
all over the land which are not used by the teachers and children in the
summer months, which are not used in the winter time in the evening for
school purposes. These buildings belong to the public. Why not insist
everywhere that they be used as places of discussion, such as of old took
place in the town-meetings to which everybody went and where every public
officer was freely called to account? The schoolhouse, which belongs to
all of us, is a natural place in which to gather to consult over our
common affairs.

I was very much interested in the remark of a fellow-citizen of ours who
had been born on the other side of the water. He said that