ot in accordance with their intelligence
or with their convictions, but as they are told to cast them. The first
duty of an American citizen should be a thorough acquaintance with
American political institutions, their origin, their growth and
progress, their utility or their worthlessness. The right of suffrage is
one of the inalienable rights of the people. It is one of their most
sacred rights also, and ought not to be exercised except under most
careful, candid and conscientious conditions.

One cannot suppose, even for a moment, that our people are not aware of
the accuracy of these assertions. We are not advocates of property
ownership as a qualification of voting, nor would we seek to lay down
any arbitrary _sine qua non_, to be rigidly adhered to in our
system of voting. But, is it enough that a man should know how to read
and write before he can cast a ballot? Do these qualifications comprise
everything that is necessary to a proper and safe exercise of the right
of suffrage? If so, then politics can never be formulated as a science,
and politicians can never be regarded other than what many of them seem
to be,--tricksters trading on the incredulity and ignorance of the
masses. It is only when people understand _how_ and _why_ they
vote, that they can vote intelligently.

It may not be generally known that we have in this state, with allied
organizations in other states, a Society for "Political Education,"
carrying on its work by furnishing and circulating at a low price sound
economic and political literature. Its aim is to publish at least four
pamphlets a year on subjects of vital importance. During the present
year, the "Standard Silver Dollar and the Coinage Law of 1878" has been
treated by Mr. Worthington C. Ford, secretary of the society; "Civil
Service Reform in Cities and States," by Edward M. Shepard; "What makes
the Rate of Wages," by Edward Atkinson, and others have also been
published,--in all sixteen pamphlets since the foundation of the
Society.

The first Secretary of the Society was Richard L. Dugdale, the author of
the remarkable social study called "The Jukes." The twelfth number of
the Economic Tracts of the Society gives a sketch of his life, and from
it the following quotation is pertinent:--

"The education of the people in true politics, it seemed to Mr. Dugdale
and his associates, would not only greatly aid popular judgment on
political questions, but would be a necessary prelimina