the meanest of men, and some of the noblest of men have been illiterate, but have nevertheless shown their nobility by using such powers as they had for high purposes.

We never shall succeed in creating this organic passion, this great use of the mind, which is fundamental, until we have made real communities of our colleges and have utterly destroyed the practice of a merely formal contact, however intimate, between the teacher and the pupil. Until we live together in a common community and expose each other to the general infection, there will be no infection. You cannot make learned men of undergraduates by associating them intimately with each other, because they are too young to be learned men yet themselves; but you can create the infection of learning by associating undergraduates with men who are learned.

How much do you know of the character of the average college professor whom you have heard lecture? Of some professors, if you had known more you would have believed less of what they said; of some professors, if you had known more you would have believed more of what they said. One of the dryest lecturers on American history I ever heard in my life was also a man more learned than any other man I ever knew in American history, and out of the classroom, in conversation, one of the juiciest, most delightful, most informing, most stimulating men I ever had the pleasure of associating with. The man in the classroom was useless, out of the classroom he fertilized every mind that he touched. And most of us are really found out in the informal contacts of life. If you want to know what I know about a subject, don't set me up to make a speech about it, because I have the floor and you cannot interrupt me, and I can leave out the things I want to leave out and bring in the things I want to bring in. If you really want to know what I know, sit down and ask me questions, interrupt me, contradict me, and see how I hold my ground. Probably on some subjects you will not do it; but if you want to find me out, that is the only way. If that method were followed, the undergraduate might make many a consoling discovery of how ignorant his professor was, as well as many a stimulating discovery of how well informed he was.

The thing that it seems to me absolutely necessary we should now address ourselves to is this-forget absolutely all our troubles about what we ought to teach and ask ourselves how we ought to live in college communities, in order that the fire and infection may spread; for the only conducting media of life are the social media, and if you want to make a conducting medium you have got to compound your elements in the college,-not only ally them, not put them in mere diplomatic relations with each other, not have a formal visiting system among

them, but unite them, merge them. The teacher must live with the pupil and the pupil with the teacher, and then there will begin to be a renaissance, a new American college, and not until then. You may have the most eminent teachers and may have the best pedagogical methods, and find that, after all, your methods have been barren and your teachings futile, unless these unions of life have been accomplished.

I think that one of the saddest things that has ever happened to us is that we have studied pedagogical methods. It is as if we had deliberately gone about to make ourselves pedants. There is something offensive in the word "pedagogy." (Applause.) A certain distaste has always gone along with the word "pedagogue." A man who is an eminent teacher feels insulted if he is called a pedagogue; and yet we make a science of being a pedagogue, and in proportion as we make it a science we separate ourselves from the vital processes of life.

I suppose a great many dull men must try to teach, and if dull men have to teach, they have to teach by method that dull men can follow. But they never teach anybody anything. It is merely that the university, in order to have a large corps, must go through the motions; but the real vital processes are in spots, in such circumstances, and only in spots, and you must hope that the spots will spread. You must hope that there will enter in or go out from these little nuclei the real juices of life.

What we mean, then, by criticizing the American college is not to discredit what we are doing or have done, but to cry ourselves awake with regard to the proper processes. (Great applause.)

§ 50

THE PRESIDENT

By William Howard Taft

(Delivered on November 16, 1912, at a dinner of the Lotos Club of New York

City.)

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE LOTOS CLUB: The legend of the lotos eaters was that if they partook of the fruit of the lotos tree they

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, September 15, 1857; graduated from Yale, 1878; LL.B., Cincinnati Law School, 1880; admitted to the Ohio bar in 1880; Solicitor General of the United States, 1890-1892; United States Circuit Judge, 1892-1900; President of the United States-Philippine Commission, 19001901; Governor of the Philippine Islands, 1901-1904; Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President Roosevelt; elected President of the United States in 1908; Professor of Law, Yale University, since 1913.

forgot what had happened in their country and were left in a state of philosophic calm in which they had no desire to return to it.

I do not know what was in the mind of your distinguished Invitation Committee when I was asked to attend this banquet. They came to me before the election. At first I hesitated to come, lest, when the dinner came, by the election I should be shorn of interest as a guest and be changed from an active and virile participant in the day's doings of the nation to merely a dissolving view.

I knew that generally on an occasion of this sort the motive of the diners was to have a guest whose society should bring them more closely into contact with the great present and future, and not be merely a reminder of what has been. But after further consideration, I saw in the name of your club the possibility that you were not merely cold, selfish seekers after pleasures of your own; that perhaps you were organized to furnish consolation to those who mourn, oblivion to those who would forget, an opportunity for a swan song to those about to disappear.

This thought, prompted by the coming, as one of your committee, of the gentleman who knows everything, in the world that has happened and is going to happen, and especially that which is going to happen, by reason of his control of the Associated Press, much diminished my confidence in the victory that was to come on election day. I concluded that it was just as well to cast an anchor to the windward and accept as much real condolence as I could gather in such a hospitable presence as this, and, therefore, my friends, I accepted your invitation and am here.

You have given the toast of "The President," and I take this toast not merely as one of respect to the office and indicative of your love of country and as typical of your loyalty, but I assume for the purposes of to-night that a discussion of the office which I have held and in which I have rejoiced and suffered will not be inappropriate.

It is said that the office of President is the most powerful in the world, because under the Constitution its occupant really can exercise more discretion than an Emperor or King exercises in any of the Governments of modern Europe.

I am not disposed to question this as a matter of reasoning from the actual power given the President in the Constitutional division of governmental functions, but I am bound to say that the consciousness of such power is rarely, if ever, present in the mind of the ordinary individual acting as President, because what chiefly stares him in the face in carrying out any plan of his is the limitation upon the power and not its extent.

Of course, there are happy individuals who are able entirely to ignore those limitations both in mind and practice, and as to them the result may be different. But to one whose training and profession are subordinate to law, the intoxication of power rapidly sobers off in the knowledge of its restrictions and under the prompt reminder of an everpresent and a not always considerate press, as well as by the kindly suggestions that not infrequently come from that hall of Congress in which impeachments are intimated and that smaller chamber in which they are tried.

In these days of progress, reform, uplift, and improvement, a man does not show himself abreast of the age unless he has some changes to suggest. It is the recommended change that marks his being up to date. It may be a change only for the sake of change, but it is responsive to a public demand, and therefore let's propose it.

It is contrary to my own love for the dear old Constitution to suggest any alteration in its terms, lest it be regarded as a reflection upon, or a criticism of, that which has been put to the sacred use for one hundred and twenty-five years of maintaining liberty regulated by law, and the guaranty of the rights by law, and the guaranty of the rights of the minority and the individual under the rule of the majority.

But yielding to the modern habit and just to show that though I am a conservative I am not a reactionary or a trilobite, I venture the suggestion that it would aid the efficiency of the executive and center his energy and attention and that of his subordinates in the latter part of his administration upon what is a purely disinterested public service if he were made ineligible after serving one term of six years either to a succeeding or a non-consecutive term.

I am a little specific in this matter, because it seems necessary to be so in order to be understood. I don't care how unambitious or modest a President is; I don't care how determined he is that he himself will not secure his renomination (and there are very few, indeed, who go to that extent), still his subordinates equally interested with him in his reelection will, whenever they have the opportunity, exert their influence and divide their time between the public service and the effort to secure their chief's renomination and reëlection.

It is difficult to prevent the whole Administration from losing a part of its effectiveness for the public good by this diversion to political effort for at least a year of the four of each administration. Were this made impossible by law, I can see no reason why the energy of the President and that of all his subordinates might not be directed rather to making a great record of efficiency in the first and only term than in seeking a second term for that purpose.

Four years is rather a short time in which to work out great governmental policies. Six years is better.

Another suggestion I would make is that legislative steps be taken, for there is nothing in the Constitution to forbid it, bringing more closely together the operation of the executive and legislative branches. The studied effort to maintain these branches rigidly separate is, I think, a mistake.

I would not add any more actual power to the Executive in legislative matters, nor would I give the legislative any more actual power in executive matters. The veto on the one hand and the confirmation of appointments and the ratification of treaties on the other I would not change. But it does seem to me that they need not be at arm's length, as they are now under our present system.

It has been proposed twice in our history, after the fullest consideration by some of the wisest statesmen we have ever had, to pass a law giving to each department head a seat in the Senate and in the House, and a right to enter into the discussion of proposed legislation in either of the national legislative bodies.

This would keep Congress much better informed as to the actual conditions in the executive departments. It would keep the department heads on the qui vive with reference to their knowledge of their own departments and their ability to answer appropriate questions in respect to them. It would necessitate the appointment to the Cabinet of men used to debate and to defend their positions, and it would offer an opportunity for the public to judge of the Executive and of his Government much more justly and much more quickly than under our present system. The ignorance that Congress at times has of what is actually going on in the executive departments and the fact that hours of debate and use of pages of "The Congressional Record" might be avoided by the answer to a single question by a competent Cabinet officer on the floor. of either house is frequently brought sharply to the attention of competent observers.

I think, too, it might perhaps promote the amenities between the two branches if this system were introduced. The rules of the two houses, as I am advised, forbid the use of abusive language by one member against the other house or its members. A somewhat close examination of the rules, however, of both houses does not show that there is any limitation upon the parliamentary character of the language which may be directed against the President.

As to him, the members pursue their own sweet will, and that sometimes leads them into language and epithetical description of the Chief Executive that could hardly be called complimentary. If members of