Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/81

 tional franchise should be conferred was, indeed, unfortunate; and, perhaps, in that respect, a great cause was never more unhappily marred by injudicious advocacy. An educational franchise must be considered in two phases,—first, the suffrage; secondly, the combinations to give effect to the suffrage. The justice of the claim of suffrage on the ground of scientific and literary distinction,—not for any special advantage to those who claim it, but that the people at large may have the aid of all contemporary knowledge in the business of their government,—will be adverted to in a subsequent chapter. The electoral combinations for giving effect to the suffrage, appear to have been the main subject of the address; and these, it was proposed, should be territorial, to avoid, as it was said, the danger of subjecting them to the influences of any particular class or profession. The apprehension that the learned bodies, if left to themselves, unfettered by territorial limitations, might make an improper choice, or, perhaps, submit to sinister influences, evinced less confidence than might have been expected in the discretion of those whose claim rested on the ground that they were more discreet than the general members of constituencies of which they formed a part. But the very apprehension was, in truth, one of little depth. If one of any of the learned professions were chosen by the members of his profession, he would, probably, be amongst the most distinguished of their number; and he who is a master in one science, as a general rule, approaches with more care and circumspection those departments of knowledge which he has not made his study than the man whose mind has never received any such special direction. Profound knowledge of one branch of science is no unfit preparation for the study of others, whilst it is a guard against that superficiality which is the bane of political discussion.

Passing from the reason assigned for the arrangement, to the territorial constitution which was proposed, it is difficult