peared to be
her generic name for the vita. But the Jocks remained obdurately modest.
The prolonged silence did not seem in the least painful to the lecturer,
who thrust his hand in his pocket and continued to beam. He had learned
how to wait. And at last his patience was rewarded. A middleaged
soldier with a very serious manner arose hesitatingly, with encouraging
noises from his comrades.

"It's not Mr. Lloyd George I'm worrying about, sir," he said, "all I
wants is enough for the missus and me. I had trouble to get that before
the war."

Cries of "Hear! Hear!"

"Why did you have trouble?" inquired the lecturer mildly.

"The wages was too low."

"And why were the wages too low?"

"You've got me there. I hadn't thought."

"But isn't it your business as a voter to think?" asked the lecturer.
"That's why the government is sending me here, to start you to thinking,
to remind you that it is you soldiers who will have to take charge of
this country and run it after the war is over. And you won't be able to
do that unless you think, and think straight."

"We've never been taught to think," was the illuminating reply.

"And if we do think we've never been educated to express ourselves, same
as you!" shouted another man, in whom excitement had overcome timidity.

"I'm here to help you educate yourselves," said the lecturer. "But first
let's hear any ideas you may have on the question I asked you."

There turned out to be plenty of ideas, after all. An opinion was
ventured that Mr. Lloyd George served the nation, not for money but from
public spirit; a conservative insisted that ability should be rewarded
and rewarded well; whereupon ensued one of the most enlightening
discussions, not only as a revelation of intelligence, but of complexes
and obsessions pervading many of the minds in whose power lies the
ultimate control of democracies. One, for instance, declared that--"if
every man went to church proper of a Sunday and minded his own business
the country would get along well enough." He was evidently of the
opinion that there was too much thinking and not enough of what he would
have termed "religion." Gradually that audience split up into liberals
and conservatives; and the liberals noticeably were the younger men who
had had the advantages of better board schools, who had formed fewer
complexes and had had less time in which to get them set. Of these,
a Canadian made a plea for the American syste