to
me when I do not know, or at least have forgotten, even the salient
facts of French and English history?

We are undoubtedly the most superficial people in the world about
matters of this sort. Any bluff goes. I recall being at a dinner not
long ago when somebody mentioned Conrad II. One of the guests hazarded
the opinion that he had died in the year 1330. This would undoubtedly
have passed muster but for a learned-looking person farther down the
table who deprecatingly remarked: "I do not like to correct you, but I
think Conrad the Second died in 1337!" The impression created on the
assembled company cannot be overstated. Later on in the smoking room I
ventured to compliment the gentleman on his fund of information, saying:

"Why, I never even _heard_ of Conrad the Second!"

"Nor I either," he answered shamelessly.

It is the same with everything--music, poetry, politics. I go night
after night to hear the best music in the world given at fabulous cost
in the Metropolitan Opera House and am content to murmur vague ecstasies
over Caruso, without being aware of who wrote the opera or what it is
all about. Most of us know nothing of orchestration or even the names of
the different instruments. We may not even be sure of what is meant by
counterpoint or the difference between a fugue and an arpeggio.

A handbook would give us these minor details in an hour's reading; but
we prefer to sit vacuously making feeble jokes about the singers or the
occupants of the neighboring boxes, without a single intelligent thought
as to why the composer attempted to write precisely this sort of an
opera, when he did it, or how far he succeeded. We are content to take
our opinions and criticisms ready made, no matter from whose mouth they
fall; and one hears everywhere phrases that, once let loose from the
Pandora's Box of some foolish brain, never cease from troubling.

In science I am in even a more parlous state. I know nothing of applied
electricity in its simplest forms. I could not explain the theory of the
gas engine, and plumbing is to me one of the great mysteries.

Last, but even more lamentable, I really know nothing about politics,
though I am rather a strong party man and my name always appears on
important citizens' committees about election time. I do not know
anything about the city departments or its fiscal administration. I
should not have the remotest idea where to direct a poor person who
applied to me for relie