The injury wrought upon this country in its national Legislature and in its multitude of State Legislatures by want of knowledge is simply enormous.  No one who knows anything of the history of the legislation of any State will dispute this for a moment.  The question now arises, is such a state of things necessarily connected with a Republican government?  To this I answer decidedly, no.  The next question is, is there any practical means of improving this state of things?  To this I answer decidedly, yes. [Applause.]

Here comes the practical matter to which I would call your attention.  Recently, in the presence of some of you, I spoke at length on the necessity of training men in the institutions of higher learning in this country for the highest duties of citizenship, and especially for practical leadership.  I cannot here go into details as I was able to do in that paper, but I can at least say that if there is anything to which a portion of the surplus wealth of men who have been enriched in commerce and trade may well be devoted, it is to making provision in our institutions of learning for meeting this lack of young men trained in history, political and social science, and general jurisprudence—­in those studies which fit men to discuss properly and to lead their fellow-citizens rightly in the discussion of the main questions relating to commerce, to diplomacy, and to various political and social subjects. [Applause.]

I fully believe that one million dollars distributed between four or five of our great institutions of learning for this purpose would eventually produce almost a revolution for good in this country, and that in a very few years the effect of such endowments would be seen to be most powerful and most salutary.  Provision on the largest scale should be made for the training of young men in political and social science, in such institutions as Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Columbia, Princeton, Union, Johns Hopkins University, the State Universities of Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia, Minnesota, and California, and I trust that you will permit me to add, Cornell. [Applause.]

I do not pretend, of course, that this would supersede practical training—­no theoretical training can do this—­but it would give young men, at any rate, a knowledge of the best thoughts of the best thinkers, on such subjects as taxation, representation, pauperism, crime, insanity, and a multitude of similar questions; it would remove the spectacle which so often afflicts us in our National and State legislatures, of really strong men stumbling under loads of absurdity and fallacy, long ago exploded by the best and most earnest thought of the world, and it would teach young men to reason wisely and well on such subjects, and then, with some practical experience, we should have in every State a large number of well-trained men ready to reason powerfully and justly, ready to meet at a moment’s warning pernicious heresies threatening commerce and trade and our best political and social interests.  Had there been scattered through California during the recent canvass for their new constitution, twenty men really fitted to show in the press and in the forum the absurdities of that Constitution, it would never have been established. [Loud applause.]