n their own hearts the question whether they like or
dislike the truth that comes to light. Whoever weighs the social
significance of the jury system ought not to be guided by the few
stray cases in which the emotional response obscures the truth, but
all praise and blame and every scrutiny of the institution ought to be
confined essentially to the ability of the jurymen to live up to their
chief responsibility, the sober finding of the true facts.

It cannot be denied that much criticism has been directed against the
whole jury system in America as well as in Europe by legal scholars as
well as by laymen on account of the prevailing doubt whether the
traditional form is really furthering the clearing up of the hidden
truth. Where the evidence is so perfectly clear that every one by
himself feels from the start exactly like all the others, the
cooeperation of the twelve men cannot do any harm, but it cannot do any
particular good either. Such cases do not demand the special interest
of the social reformer. His doubts and fears come up only when
difference of opinion exists, and the discussion and the repeated
votes overcome the divergence of opinion. The skeptics claim that the
system as such may easily be instrumental for suppressing the truth
and bringing the erroneous opinion to victory. In earlier times a
frequent objection was that lack of higher education made men unfit to
weigh correctly the facts in a complicated situation. But this kind of
arguing has been given up for a long while. The famous French lawyer
who, whenever he had a weak case, made use of his right to challenge
jurymen by systematically excluding all persons of higher education,
certainly blundered in this respect, according to the views of to-day.
Those best informed within and without the legal science agree that
the verdicts of straightforward people with public-school education
are in the long run neither better nor worse than those of men with
college schooling or professional training. A jury of artisans and
farmers understands and looks into a mass of neutral material as well
as a jury of bankers and doctors, or at least its final verdict has an
equal chance to hit the truth.

But the critics say that it is not the lack of general or logical
training of the single individual which obstructs the path of justice.
The trouble lies rather in the mutual influence of the twelve men. The
more persons work together, the less, they say, every singl