In this laudable effort to keep “abreast of the times” (as he phrased it), the Editor and part Proprietor determined to have leaders written by University men, who from their position of vantage enjoy a unique experience in practical matters. He had formed a very high opinion of Lambkin’s journalistic capacity from his unpublished letters as a special correspondent. Indeed, he was often heard to say that “a man like him was lost at Oxford, and was born for Fleet Street.” He wrote, therefore, to Mr. Lambkin and gave him “Carte Blanche,” as one French scholar to another, sending him only the general directions that his leader must be “smart, up-to-date, and with plenty of push,” it was to be “neither too long nor too short,” and while it should be written in an easy familiar tone, there should be little or no seriously offensive matter included. Mr. Lambkin was delighted, and when at his request the article had been paid for, he sent in the following: * * * * * THE LEADER. “The English-Speaking Race has--if we except the Dutch, Negro, and Irish elements--a marvellous talent for self-government. From the earliest origins of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers to the latest Parish Council, guided but not controlled by the modern ‘Mass Thegen’ or local ‘Gesithcund man,’ this talent, or rather genius, is apparent. We cannot tell why, in the inscrutable designs of Providence, our chosen race should have been so specially gifted, but certain it is that wherever plain ordinary men _such as I who write this and you who read it_,[60] may be planted, there they cause the desert to blossom, and the waters to gush from the living rock. Who has not known, whether among his personal acquaintance or from having read of him in books, the type of man who forms the strength of this mighty national organism? And who has not felt that he is himself something of that kidney? We stand aghast at our own extraordinary power, and it has been finely said that Nelson was greater than he knew. From one end of the earth to the other the British language is spoken and understood. The very words that I am writing will be read to-morrow in London, the day after in Oxford--and from this it is but a step to the uttermost parts of the earth.