Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/114

 He was a splendid leader of the people, at once practical and glowing with faith. A soldier lying wounded and depressed in a Breton hospital in the autumn of 1914 said, "If Jaurès were here he would have told us what to do."

Jaurès was anxious that the schemes for future development should be well and clearly understood by the proletariat. He realized the folly of leaving the people without the necessary education for the Social Revolution and of expecting them all at once to take on themselves the task of adapting, altering, and arranging the whole social system. He wished to see the people prepared for this task by taking their share henceforth in municipal and State government, and through the Co-operative movement gaining experience in economic development, in directing, and in owning, and in undertaking responsibility. He wished to see members of the proletariat not only forming, but leading the Army. Again and again we find him insisting that the proletariat must make a great effort, must put forth energy and exercise self-control. It was this call to the heroism of the people which marks him out as the true leader; he both believed that the people could do these things and had no fear of asking the necessary sacrifice of them.

It appeared to Jaurès that for this work of social transformation, of evolution from