Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/681

Rh not prevent the average intelligence of the community from being a matter of great moment even in political matters—supposed to be guided always by the wisest, despite the true saying that the world is governed with but a small amount of wisdom. What I have here said has no relation to the action of kings, princes, and the like, who in English-speaking communities can not now injuriously influence political relations except through the weakness or folly of statesmen. Yet the argument might be strengthened by calling attention to the way in which, even within the last thirty years, our own country has suffered in this special direction, statesmen weakly or foolishly yielding to public pressure by which the unwise counsels of princes have been supported, A hundred years ago our country saw in still more marked way how the average want of intelligence of the many, supporting the stupidity of a king (of alien race, in that case), may go near to wreck the fortunes of a great race. We may hope, however, that no such trouble is in store for us hereafter as afflicted the British people when a foolish people insanely strengthened the hands of a mad king.

In social matters a low standard of general intelligence is a serious evil, which a wise altruism will endeavor to diminish. "I do not mean," I may here say with Mr. Herbert Spencer, "such altruism as taxes rate-payers that children's minds may he filled with dates and names and gossip about kings and narratives of battles and other useless information, no amount of which will make them capable workers or good citizens; but I mean such altruism as helps to spread a knowledge of the nature of things, and to cultivate the power of applying that knowledge."

It is hardly necessary to multiply examples. We are confronted at every step by the harmful effects of prevalent want of intelligence. The fire which is intended to warm your room is so stupidly placed that it sends the better part of the heat up the chimney and creates cold draughts round your legs. Equally obnoxious to the understanding is the window by which you seek to ventilate your room. It is a struggle to open it, a struggle to close it, unless when your head is in the way, when it generally descends in effective guillotine-fashion. The carpeting of your room is an absurdity, the papering (apart from any question of beauty) a monstrosity. The gaseliers are so ingeniously arranged that you get a minimum of light and a maximum of heat and foul air. The chair you sit on seems intended to make you uncomfortable; as you draw it up to the table you find that the senseless people who plan furniture have provided sharp corners just where your knees are most likely to be caught. If you wish to lie down or to recline on a sofa, you find the head of the sofa so ingeniously padded that, while too sloped for reclining, it is not sloped enough for you to lie on it comfortably. Your child, running in for a kiss from