It must be evident to any one who has carefully followed this analysis that hardly any of the adult male voters in our modern democracies have the qualifications of good citizens.  How, then, is good government achieved?  It is not achieved.  We have very bad government.  Everywhere there is waste and inefficiency.  Wealth is unjustly divided; great corporations seize public utilities and exploit them for private gain; enormous sums are squandered on unnecessary and dangerous battle-ships and soldiers; in building a single State Capitol, $3,500,000 was recently stolen, not only wasting public wealth, but corrupting public morals; in some parts of our land little children still drive the wheels of industry; and it is everywhere cheaper to scrap-heap men and women than machines; most of our cities are ugly and badly ruled; drunkenness, gambling and prostitution are common; life is not always secure from lawless attack; and the machinery of justice is clogged and moves slowly.  Part of our intelligent adult population has no direct share in the government under which it must live.  We have just such a government as we should expect where incompetent people decide such vast issues of life.

But, on the other hand, we are vastly better off than any great people has ever been before us.  The mistakes are our own; they are made by us who participate in government, and we are learning from them.  Those who exploit us may be called to account; and frequently they are caught and punished.  Of those who stole the millions in Harrisburg, nearly a score have died disgraced, or are in prison or exile; and $1,300,000 has been returned to the treasury of the State.  Even when those who betray us are not caught red-handed we learn to distrust and then to despise them.  They pass their last years in exile, and when their statues are erected in our State Houses they are memorials of shame.  Thus we learn the art of living, we who participate in political action.

The whole business of a modern democracy is to educate itself through doing, and we are all at school.  If the bills are heavy, they are our bills; and we are steadily learning how to make them less.  In the past no one learned.  “The Bourbons learned 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.