exactly what is meant in the department of political science.
In the committee rooms, where practical men decide how much money it is proper for the State to invest in the various activities of the commonwealth, there is very little said about literature. It is ordinarily assumed that there is not much that can be said to the hard-headed type of man about literature. We who are its friends are obliged to admit that it does not directly increase the yield of corn per acre, nor reduce the waste in the consumption of coal, nor prolong the life of steel rails, nor multiply the endurance of reinforced concrete, nor intensify the killing power of chemical gases, nor extend the range of projectiles. The practical man concerns himself with strengthening the sinews of the state. He conceives that agriculture and engineering and business are sinews of the state; and he is right.
But even the most practical of men takes pretty seriously one form of activity which is neither agriculture, engineering, or business; and that form of activity is law-making or legislation. Laws, as he conceives it, are the necessary governors of the sinews of the state. In the degree of importance which he attaches to laws in the government of men and their activ-
