of administrative power the most trustworthy of its able citizens. In other words it must incorporate and make use of the principle of aristocracy; government by the best――_best in spirit_, not best-born. Rightly seen, there is no tug between democracy and aristocracy; aristocracy should be the means and machinery by which democracy works itself out. What then can be done to increase in the average voter intelligence and honesty, public spirit and independence? Nothing save by education. The Arts, the Schools, the Press. It is impossible to overestimate the need for vigour, breadth, restraint, good taste, enlightenment, and honesty in these three agencies. The artist, the teacher (and among teachers one includes, of course, religious teachers in so far as they concern themselves with the affairs of this world), and the journalist have the future in their hands. As they are fine the future will be fine; as they are mean the future will be mean. The burden is very specially on the shoulders of Public Men, and that most powerful agency the Press, which reports them. Do we realise the extent to which the modern world relies for its opinions on public utterances and the Press? Do we realise how completely we are all in the power of report? Any little lie or exaggerated sentiment uttered by one with a bee in his bonnet, with a principle, or an end to serve, can, if cleverly expressed and distributed, distort the views of thousands, sometimes of millions. Any wilful suppression of truth for Party or personal ends can so falsify our vision of things as to plunge us into endless cruelties and follies. Honesty of thought and speech and written word is a jewel, and they who curb prejudice and seek honourably to know and speak the truth are the only true builders of a better life. But what a dull world if we can’t chatter and write irresponsibly, can’t slop over with hatred, or pursue our own ends without scruple! To be tied to the apron-strings of truth, or coiffed with the nightcap of silence; who in this age of cheap ink and oratory will submit to such a fate? And yet, if we do not want another seven million violent deaths, another eight million maimed and halt and blind, and if we do not want anarchy, our tongues must be sober, and we must tell the truth. Report, I would almost say, now rules the world and holds the fate of man on the sayings of its many tongues. If the good sense of mankind cannot somehow restrain utterance and cleanse report, Democracy, so highly vaunted, will not save us; and all the glib words of promise spoken might as well have lain unuttered in the throats of orators. We are always in peril under Democracy of taking the line of least resistance and immediate material profit. The gentleman, for instance, whoever he was, who first discovered that he could sell his papers better by undercutting the standard of his rivals, and, appealing to the lower tastes of the Public under