The reason why we have not, of late years, had strong consistent centres of influence, focuses of steady political power, has been that the community has not developed men who could hold the note. It was only when the note made a temporary concord with some heavy political scheme that the reform leaders could hear it themselves. For the rest of the time it threw the whole civilization out of tune. The terrible clash of interests drowned it. The reformers themselves lost it, and wandered up and down, guessing. It is imagined that nature goes by jumps, and that a whole community can suddenly sing in tune, after it has been caterwauling and murdering the scale for twenty years. The truth is, we ought to thank God when any man or body of men make the discovery that there is such a thing as absolute pitch, or absolute honesty, or absolute personal and intellectual integrity. A few years of this spirit will identify certain men with the fundamental idea that truth is stronger than consequences, and these men will become the most serious force and the only truly political force in their community. Their ambition is illimitable, for you cannot set bounds to personal influence. But it is an ambition that cannot be abused. A departure from their own course will ruin any one of them in a night, and undo twenty years of service. It would be natural that such sets of men should arise all over the country, men who “wanted” nothing, and should reveal the inverse position of the Boss System; a set of moral bosses with no organizations, no politics; men thrown into prominence by the operation of all the forces of human nature now suppressed, and the suppression of those now operative. It is obvious that one such man will suffice for a town. In the competition of character, one man will be naturally fixed upon, whom his competitors will be the first to honor; and upon him will be condensed the public feeling, the confidence of the community. If the extreme case do not arise, nevertheless it is certain that the tendencies toward a destruction of the present system, will reveal themselves as a tendency making for the weight of personal character in practical politics. Reform politics is, after all, a simple thing. It demands no great attainments. You can play the game in the dark. A child can understand it. There are no subtleties nor obscurities, no higher analysis or mystery of any sort. If you want a compass at any moment in the midst of some difficult situation, you have only to say to yourself, “Life is larger than this little imbroglio. I shall follow my instinct.” As you say this, your compass swings true. You may be surprised to find what course it points to. But what it tells you to do will be practical agitation. III THE MASSES Let us examine current beliefs on popular education, and then thereafter let us look very closely at the work done among the poor, and see upon what lines it has been found possible to establish influence.