But this seems to be the least important aspect of the subject. A mere question of salary, or, if you please, of system in the statute, is trivial, to my mind, by the side of that other consideration to which Senators have already alluded. I said that this was part of an educational system for the advancement of our service abroad. I do not think you can exaggerate its importance in this respect. Let any one who has been abroad, or had personal acquaintance with those who have been abroad, bear testimony to the abounding ignorance in our foreign service, from the circumstance that there is nobody there, unless a hired foreigner, acquainted with the language, the laws, or the usages of the people about him. Sir, it is a shame that our offices abroad, whether consular or diplomatic, are served in this inferior way. Here, now, is a practical proposition beginning a remedy. It is simple and direct. It seems to me that it cannot fail to be of considerable advantage. The business of these offices will be better done, and there will be a staff of educated experts, familiar with foreign life, whose knowledge and experience, even if not always in the service of Government, will pass into the capital stock and resources of the country. Nothing is clearer than that the education of the people is a source of national wealth, even of national power. But the Senator from Vermont says that education is needed more in the diplomatic service than in the consular. Granted; it is needed very much in the diplomatic service; but because needed there, is that any reason why we should not supply it here? The argument, it seems to me, was hardly worthy of that Senator. Let a proposition be brought forward for an educational system applicable to our diplomatic representatives, and we will entertain it. Meanwhile let us act on that before us, which, I submit, is eminently practical in character. Who are our consuls? They are not diplomatic or political agents in the common sense of the term; they are commercial agents. To discharge their duties fitly, they should be familiar with the interests of commerce, how it is conducted, and the language it employs, where they happen to be. And permit me to say, that a great country like ours, one of whose chief sources of wealth and of grandeur is commerce, must not hesitate to supply the education needed to secure commercial representatives not unworthy of the Republic they represent.