In examining the mode in which this anomalous policy should be carried out, we must bear in mind the object with which it was instituted. It is most important to get rid of the custom, based on motives of self-interest, which has grown up during the last generation, of insisting on parliamentary experience as an apprenticeship for executive power; executive power being always the real object of ambition. We have found from experience what we might have anticipated on theoretical grounds, that this plan excludes all except mere talkers of the Girondin type, men totally devoid of statesman-like qualities. To working men it offers almost insurmountable obstacles; and even supposing these obstacles to be overcome, we may be sure that they would lose the straightforwardness and native vigour which constitute their best claim to the exceptional position proposed for them. It is best, then, that they should reach the position assigned to them at once, without the circuitous process of a parliamentary career. Our transition towards the normal state will then exhibit its true character. It will be tranquil and yet decisive; for it will rest on the combined action of philosophers without political ambition, and dictators adverse to spiritual encroachment. The teacher who attempts to govern, the governor who attempts to educate, will both incur severe public censure, as enemies alike of peace and progress. The whole result will be a change in our revolutionary condition identical with that which the Convention would have realized, if, as its founders contemplated, it had lasted till the Peace.