sympathies are. I count it a great thing for the English peasant, a solid
addition to his life, that he is every day being put into more intimate
relations with every other man on the globe.

I know it is said that these are only vague and sentimental notions of
progress--notions of a "salvation by machinery." Let us pass to something
that may be less vague, even if it be more sentimental. For a hundred
years we have reckoned it progress, that the people were taking part in
government. We have had a good deal of faith in the proposition put forth
at Philadelphia a century ago, that men are, in effect, equal in
political rights. Out of this simple proposition springs logically the
extension of suffrage, and a universal education, in order that this
important function of a government by the people may be exercised
intelligently.

Now we are told by the most accomplished English essayists that this is a
mistake, that it is change, but no progress. Indeed, there are
philosophers in America who think so. At least I infer so from the fact
that Mr. Froude fathers one of his definitions of our condition upon an
American. When a block of printer's type is by accident broken up and
disintegrated, it falls into what is called "pi." The "pi," a mere chaos,
is afterwards sorted and distributed, preparatory to being built up into
fresh combinations. "A distinguished American friend," says Mr. Froude,
"describes Democracy as making pi." It is so witty a sarcasm that I
almost think Mr. Froude manufactured it himself. Well, we have been
making this "pi" for a hundred years; it seems to be a national dish in
considerable favor with the rest of the world--even such ancient nations
as China and Japan want a piece of it.

Now, of course, no form of human government is perfect, or anything like
it, but I should be willing to submit the question to an English traveler
even, whether, on the whole, the people of the United States do not have
as fair a chance in life and feel as little the oppression of government
as any other in the world; whether anywhere the burdens are more lifted
off men's shoulders.

This infidelity to popular government and unbelief in any good results to
come from it are not, unfortunately, confined to the English essayists. I
am not sure but the notion is growing in what is called the intellectual
class, that it is a mistake to intrust the government to the ignorant
many, and that it can only be lodged safely in the