But having reached the conclusion that true republicanism demands unification, and the removal of all restrictions on the popular will, Mr. Wilson relies on the attachment of the American people to the republican idea to carry out and realize his programme, however repugnant it may be to what they really desire and suppose they are supporting. He knows the people well enough to know that they do not usually discriminate with much niceness, and that they are easily caught and led away by a few high-sounding phrases and popular catchwords, uttered with due gravity and assurance--perhaps he does not discriminate very nicely, and is himself deceived by the very phrases and catchwords which deceive them. It is not impossible. At any rate, he persuades himself unification or consolidation can be carried forward and effected by appeals to the republican instincts and tendencies of the American people, and secured by aid of the colored vote and woman suffrage, soon to be adopted as an essential element in the revolutionary movement. The colored people, it is expected, will vote as their preachers direct, and their preachers will direct as they are directed by the Evangelicals. The women who will vote, if woman suffrage is adopted, are evangelicals, philanthropists, or humanitarians, and are sure to follow their instincts and vote for the unification or centralization of power--the more unlimited, the better. But the chief reliance for the permanence in power of the party of consolidation is universal and uniform compulsory education by the general government, which will, if adopted, complete and preserve the work of unification. Education is the American hobby--regarded, as uneducated or poorly educated people usually regard it, as a sort of panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to. We ourselves, as Catholics, are as decidedly as any other class of American citizens in favor of universal education, as thorough and extensive as possible--if its quality suits us. We do not, indeed, prize so highly as some of our countrymen appear to do the simple ability to read, write, and cipher; nor do we believe it possible to educate a whole people so that every one, on attaining his majority, will understand the bearing of all political questions or comprehend the complexities of statesmanship, the effects at large of all measures of general or special legislation, the bearing on productive industry and national wealth of this or that financial policy, the respective merits of free trade and protection, or what in a given time or given country will the best secure individual freedom and the public good. This is more than we ourselves can understand, and we believe we are better educated than the average American. We do not believe that the great bulk of the people of any nation can ever be so educated as to understand the essential political, financial, and economical questions of government for themselves, and they will always have to