There is another side to this subject, and one which cannot too quickly begin to turn the thoughtful portion of the public. “A little learning is a dangerous thing,” is a sentiment which has frequently been quoted. The inherent right of every citizen to reach the highest office of the government has so stimulated ambition that almost any one is willing to try for the position whether fit or not, and the same statement holds good regarding every other place of trust or profit in public or private life. Half-educated men, men of almost no education, have brought this country to great peril again and again. Their numbers are constantly increasing. We must be on guard against them. Misdirected activity is worse than no activity at all, but there is something worse than that, and it is the ceaseless ambition of men whose conscience does not keep pace with their intelligence. The school supplies intelligence, but conscience is something which cannot be made to order, and no institution under charge and supervision of a government can be expected to supply it. The nations of the Old World have attempted to do it for centuries through the medium of the church, but good and noble and self-sacrificing though the church has been at many times and in many lands, its ministrations cannot be forced upon those who are unwilling to receive them. The only available substitute is a high standard of public morality. This is voiced by the press, by the pulpit and in private life; but, unfortunately, when it reaches the domain of politics, it immediately becomes confused and enfeebled. A higher standard must be set by parties and maintained by the leaders and voters and adherents of those parties. The hypocrisy of all political utterances has been proved over and over again during the past few years in the United States. No man of honesty and high purpose can help blushing for shame when he reviews the broken promises of his own political organization, no matter what it may be. “Promises, like pie-crusts, are made to be broken,” says the practical politician, and while for three years and six months of every four the respectable citizen protests against such shameful disregard of public and private morals, in the remaining six months he is likely to give his tacit assent and his active vote to the party with which he has always acted in politics, regardless of who may be its leaders and what may be its actual intentions. Until both parties line down this disgrace and dishonor there will be a weak joint in our armor and our enemies will sooner or later discover a way of piercing it. “Righteousness exalteth a nation,” says an authority which most Americans regard with great respect--except during a Presidential campaign.