Page:Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations (1919).djvu/25

Rh It was about the same time that another historian—Professor Seeley—who held, like Mr. Freeman, that history is the training-ground for both citizenship and statesmanship, was addressing a working-men's club in London; and in the discussion that followed his lecture a remark was made which he often recalled, especially when he tried to measure the competence of the great mass of men for judging of large national issues. ‘I don't know how you feel,’ said a working-man, turning to the gathering of working-men, ‘and I don't know how it is, but whenever I hear the Russians mentioned, I feel the blood tingling all over me.’ The lecturer was alarmed at this way of handling the question before the meeting. Many, however, in the audience seemed to be surprised at the impression which was made upon him by the assumption of this speaker, that a mere instinctive feeling might quite fairly be taken as a guide to the proper steps for determining policy towards an important issue in international affairs. Seeley's lecture was given about ten years after Robert Lowe had uttered his deduction from the passing of the Second Reform Bill—that now we ‘must educate our masters’. Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff very dutifully and trustingly