Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. Excerpt: ... is more difficult to get rid of a corrupt or incompetent autocrat. Does democracy mean that every citizen knows how to govern the country, or wage war, or conclude peace, or develop industry, or conserve the public health, or do a thousand other things which are necessary in a modern state? Certainly not; ideal democracy means not less specialization, but fuller co-operation than in other forms of government. In science, medicine, education, commerce, industry, agriculture, and innumerable other fields, we must have specialists, and the same is true of the various functions of government. The war has done us a great service in awakening us to this fact and it will be a crime against civilization and progress if we allow the nation to settle back once more into the conditions which prevailed before the war. However, candid persons must recognize that there is abundant justification for the popular mistrust of certain types of experts. Sad experience has demonstrated again and again that a man may know a great deal about some specialty and still show a lamentable lack of good judgment. Narrowness of outlook and intense specialization often make "learned fools." Specialization of this type is like overspecialization in physical evolution, it leads to lack of balance and adjustment, and ultimately to elimination. Few nations have ever equalled the degree of specialization shown by the late Imperial German Government. All citizens, from the Emperor down to the common soldier, had undergone long training for their special duties. And yet it is the general opinion of most people, including the Germans themselves, that few nations ever made more serious blunders in policy, diplomacy, and even in military operations. These blunders were not in...