, from the poor devil who
simply comes in to keep warm up to the man who has come in to take a
serious part in the discussion of the evening. I want to tell you this,
that in the questions that are asked there after the speech is over, the
most penetrating questions that I have ever had addressed to me came from
some of the men who were the least well-dressed in the audience, came from
the plain fellows, came from the fellows whose muscle was daily up against
the whole struggle of life. They asked questions which went to the heart
of the business and put me to my mettle to answer them. I felt as if those
questions came as a voice out of life itself, not a voice out of any
school less severe than the severe school of experience. And what I like
about this social centre idea of the schoolhouse is that there is the
place where the ordinary fellow is going to get his innings, going to ask
his questions, going to express his opinions, going to convince those who
do not realize the vigor of America that the vigor of America pulses in
the blood of every true American, and that the only place he can find the
true American is in this clearing-house of absolutely democratic opinion.

No one man understands the United States. I have met some gentlemen who
professed they did. I have even met some business men who professed they
held in their own single comprehension the business of the United States;
but I am educated enough to know that they do not. Education has this
useful effect, that it narrows of necessity the circles of one's egotism.
No student knows his subject. The most he knows is where and how to find
out the things he does not know with regard to it. That is also the
position of a statesman. No statesman understands the whole country. He
should make it his business to find out where he will get the information
necessary to understand at least a part of it at a time when dealing with
complex affairs. What we need is a universal revival of common counsel.

I have sometimes reflected on the lack of a body of public opinion in our
cities, and once I contrasted the habits of the city man with those of the
countryman in a way which got me into trouble. I described what a man in a
city generally did when he got into a public vehicle or sat in a public
place. He doesn't talk to anybody, but he plunges his head into a
newspaper and presently experiences a reaction which he calls his opinion,
but which is not an opinion at all, b