Excerpt from The Relations of Political Science to National Prosperity: An Address Delivered at the Opening of the School of Political Science of the University of Michigan, October 3, 1881

These words of Milton, written while the party of which he was at once an ornament and a leader was struggling to lay the foundations of a popular government, express the conditions on which alone, in his opinion, a government by the people maysecure happiness, prosperity, and perpetuity. The conditions on which he insisted, it will be observed, were three in number first, that there should be a foundation in a good general educa tion; second, that there should be a thorough education in poli tical affairs; and, third, that the education, thus provided for should be in harmony with the principles of the government in which the person so educated is to live.

The full significance of the positions assumed by the great poet grows out of two very simple, but very fundamental and very important principles. These are, first, that the nature of all popular governments is determined, not so much by institutions as by popular opinion and, second, that popular opinion is always shaped and guided by the educated classes.

But is it true that the nature of a government depends more upon popular opinion than upon institutions? Yes, and for very simple reasons. Institutions are not the product of spontaneous generation, but are made by men. They do not precede intelli gence, but follow it. They are the product of thought and will and, therefore, like all other products, are either well or ill-con structed. Not only that, but when the political machinery is once complete, it has no power to work, of itself. Like all machinery, it is dependent upon some force from without. It must be worked by men. It demands, not simply acquiescence but also participa tion. There is no power in a law or an institution by itself, for the reason that a law or an institution is simply a means by which human intelligence and human will are applied. And so we find that no excellence of institutions is able to enforce a law that is at variance with the dominant force in society. Accordingly, in any community whatever, if there is a general repugnance to a statute, that statute cannot 'be enforced except by some external power. Give the wisest laws to the North American Indians. Does any one suppose that such laws could be made operative by any other agency than a foreign force? It required a thousand years to persuade the barbarians who overran the Roman Empire to accept and enforce the laws of civilization. And the reason was simply that a shorter length of time was not enough to con vert the dominant force of society to a better way of thinking.

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