consequences of our public acts and institutions in moulding the next
generation. It will not, I think, be amiss to pass beyond policy for a
space, and to insist--even with heaviness--that however convenient an
institution may be, however much it may, in the twaddle of the time, be
a "natural growth," and however much the "product of a long evolution,"
yet, if it does not mould men into fine and vigorous forms, it has to
be destroyed. We "save the state" for the sake of our children, that,
at least, is the New Republican view of the matter, and if in our
intentness to save the state we injure or sacrifice our children, we
destroy our ultimate for our proximate aim.

Already it has been pointed out, with certain concrete instances, how
the thing that is, asserts itself over the thing that is to be; already
a general indication has been made of the trend of the argument we are
now about to develop and define. That argument, briefly, is this, that
to attain the ends of the New Republic, that is to say the best results
from our birth possibilities, we must continually make political forms,
social, political and religious formulae, and all the rules and
regulations of _life the clearest, simplest, and sincerest expression
possible of what we believe about life and hope about life;_ that
whatever momentary advantage a generation may gain by accepting what is
known to be a sham and a convention, by keeping in use the detected
imposture and the flawed apparatus, is probably much more than made up
for by the reaction of this acquiescence upon the future. As the
typical instance of a convenient convention that I am inclined to think
is now reacting very badly upon our future, the Crown of the British
Empire, considered as the symbolical figurehead of a system of
hereditary privilege and rule, serves extremely well. One may deal with
this typical instance with no special application to the easy, kindly,
amiable personality this crown adorns at the present time. It is a