aspirations as to the future general destiny of the South African Republic. His mind seems to have been filled with the idea of competing with Washington for public admiration.
In all this there was much for which only the statesman and not the man must be blamed. The aspirations in themselves were noble and showed that Mr. Burgers had so far studied his subject as to know what things were good for a nation. But he had none of that method which should have taught him what things to put first in bestowing the blessings of government upon a people. We remember how Goldsmith ridicules the idea of sending venison to a man who is still without the necessaries of life.
"It's like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt."
It was certainly a shirt, and other of the simplest of garments,
which the people of the Transvaal then wanted;—the
ordinary calico shirt of taxation and the knee-breeches
of security for property;—while Mr. Burgers was bestowing
ruffles upon them in the shape of a national flag and a
national gold coinage with his own portrait. Education is
certainly one of the first wants of a people, but education
will not be assisted at all by a law declaring that all schoolmasters
shall have ample incomes, unless there be funds from
which such incomes may be paid. What is so excellent
as a good code of laws;—unless indeed it be some means of
enforcing them, without which the best code in the world
must be ineffective? A code of laws is to be had with
comparatively little difficulty,—almost as easily as the flag.
There are so many that an aspiring President need only
