It seems to me that this movement can still be pressed. Congress can still be made to see that something must be done by the Government of the United States to open up this great path of education in the interest of the entire nation; but, fellow citizens, I am aware that some objections are made. Let me refer to them very briefly. The first is what may be called a political objection. It is said, leave this matter to time, leave it to the people, leave it to take care of itself. I have always noticed that when a political man wants to evade a question, wants to evade any trouble in the matter, he always says leave it to time, leave it to the natural forces, leave it to itself. Now, in addition to the argument that has already been so ably presented to you, let me say that the greatest apostle of the “laissez faire” system, the system under which everything is to be left to the natural course, John Stuart Mill, has expressly and in terms made an exception as regards popular education. This, he says, must be dealt with by organized humanity. This must be planned and carried out by the comparatively small number of men who see at the first the importance of it, and by that vast force which government alone can exercise. My friends, if it is left to time and chance, what is likely to follow? You can see as well as I. There comes first indifference. The great population concerned sinks back first into indifference and then into a sort of complacency, and finally into self-congratulation that somehow they are better than communities that are educated. There is nobody after all quite so conceited, I think you will find that the world over, as the man who is ignorant. He sees that educated men make certain mistakes. He makes no such. Therefore, he at last arrives at the point, he very often does, and especially when his ignorance is shared by a great population, that somehow he is superior to those who are educated. Then comes the greatest of all dangers. Then comes the danger of despotism, the despotism of an unenlightened mob of millions; and of all despotisms, fellow citizens, this, all history proves, is the very worst. Give me an autocrat, give me a despot the worst in history, and I will take him cheerfully rather than that many-headed despot, an unenlightened, uneducated democracy. Ah! my friends, you can make one despot see that his interest lies in the interest of his country. You can bring home to a single despot a sense of shame, a sense of honor, a sense of responsibility. You can never bring that home to a mob. It was said that the old Bourbon despotism of France was a despotism tempered by epigrams; but what wit, what wisdom shall temper a mob of uneducated millions, extending over thousands and thousands of square miles of territory. There is also a not often stated, generally unavowed, but none the less strong on that account, there is what may be called a social objection. It is freely avowed in Europe; I have often heard it.