Bagehot, like most political writers and speakers, while recognizing the educative value to the voter of property ownership and management, fails to give sufficient importance to the effect of a business training. He elsewhere dwells upon the beneficial influence upon the voter of leisure, of education, of lofty pursuits, of cultivated society; but he overlooks the obvious fact that all good government is a business enterprise, and that a business training is essential to the instruction of the electorate. This oversight was perhaps natural for two reasons: one the traditionary contempt in which all business was formerly held in England, and by the literary class everywhere. Dickens, for example, had not the least idea of business capacity or of the intelligent life of the business world of London, and Thackeray very little. Their business men are of varying degrees of stupidity. The fact is that the world of art and letters has always been over conceited and inclined on insufficient evidence to believe itself superior in intelligence to the world of work and business. The other reason for the oversight referred to is that in former days business training was far less thorough and extended than it has since become and is today. Whatever may have been the case in days gone by, in our own time a business training is necessary to enable a voter to make a proper choice of candidates for public office. The only way to secure competent officials is through the demand of the electorate for capable men and by close and intelligent scrutiny of the candidates. But this implies capacity on the part of the voters to pass on the candidates’ qualifications and to make a proper choice; in other words an electorate of trained minds, good judgment and knowledge of men. The voter needs not only understanding of the merits of public controversies and knowledge of the published records of candidates for office but also judgment to weigh their qualities. And just as some knowledge of music is necessary to enable a listener to judge of the ability of a musician, so the voter who is to choose men for office having proper business qualifications should himself have had fundamental business training and experience, and an educated sense of honesty and justice in such matters.