instituted and carried through by Professor Virchow, then a member not merely of the city council but also of the state and national legislature; Professor Georg Meyer of Heidelburg has held the corresponding positions in Baden, and many other similar cases may be found. On the other hand, there can be little doubt that Mr. William L. Wilson's professional training and practice hurt his influence in Congress with some; and only lately a member of the city council of Philadelphia, who wished that he might hear some lectures on finance, qualified the wish by the statement that the lecturer ought not to be a university professor.
In England party leaders through their speeches in Parliament and before their constituents in great part determine what the people shall think on important questions of the day, though there, doubtless more than in Germany, the opinion of the leaders is modified by what they think the people are likely to wish for. Especially is this tendency evident in late years on questions of policy where the labor vote is likely to be felt in parliamentary action. The influence of a dominant personality like that of Gladstone or Bismarck is plainly seen by the course of events since the retirement of those leaders.
In the United States, on the other hand, so far as political matters are concerned, we find that our politicians as a rule rather follow than lead public opinion. Our leaders apparently often wait and find it hard to determine which side of prominent questions they shall take until they are able to gauge which way the public is likely to act. Indeed at all times the politicians say that they deem it their duty to follow public opinion, and that their votes in Congress shall be guided by the wishes of their constituents. For the last two or three months it has been almost impossible to find out definitely and clearly the opinions of important political leaders on the silver question, and the case is by no means an isolated one. We have here no few leaders who are generally followed. Public opinion seems to be rather, as intimated before, something that grows by a process of accretion.
And yet there are exceptions, and the positively expressed opinion of a man in prominent position doubtless counts. Nobody
