downtrodden and miserable subjects, of unlettered and half-civilized men and women. It is not easy to decide which is more to be admired, the ability by which such young men rose, or the confidence with which they were chosen and expected to rise. If these men had not really risen, if they had remained boorish, ignorant, and narrow, though elevated to high position and authority, the facts would be less remarkable than they are. The evidence is, however, that they really became educated, cultured, and polished men: to this day their descendants have a manner and charm that can rarely be found among Western peoples. It is much easier to understand the whole process and its results in a modern democratic age and land than it was in feudal Europe of the sixteenth century. The Ottoman Ruling Institution was from start to finish ingeniously contrived to develop its members, within the limits of its purposes, to their utmost capacity. Great authority, great position, great financial rewards, were offered. Great punishments were not far away from those who might prove dangerous, treacherous, or even incompatible and inefficient. As a result of its careful selection and training of men for society, war, and government, the Ottoman Ruling Institution, allowing for all imperfections of structure, was a very efficient and permanent entity. It was later to endure terrible shocks and losses without destruction; it was to suffer a partial separation of its component institutions into hostile bodies, and to witness serious departures from its rules and principles. But, despite attack from without and disintegration and decay within, it long stood firm; and, together with its dissimilar companion, the Moslem Institution of the Ottoman Empire, it has kept the vital spark of that empire alive for more than two centuries after extinction began to be thought imminent. Even today its abiding spirit gives promise of lighting a new and very different torch, which, having burned away the limitations and imperfections that caused the ruin of the older institution, will yet be the brighter for preserving a democratic faith in the capacity of the able individual, and a disposition to help him forward by education and to trust him with all the responsibility that he is able to bear. Most features of the Ottoman Ruling Institution cannot live in the twentieth century. Despotism, military rule, personal privilege, excessive imperial splendor, proselytism, and slavery have been dethroned in favor of political and religious liberty, equality, fraternity, separation of church and state, and government by the people. But the idea of an education which will develop the individual to the full extent of his capacities is thoroughly modern; and the disposition to entrust high offices to those who, without regard to ancestry, are the ablest, and who become by their own efforts and by carefully supervised training the best equipped, is in advance of the ordinary