The
Difference Between Influence and Authority
In a democracy, it is important to discriminate influence
from authority. Rulers and magistrates may or may not be persons of influence;
but many persons of influence never become rulers, magistrates, or
representatives in parliaments or legislatures. The complex industries of a
modern state, and its innumerable corporation services, offer great fields for
administrative talent which were entirely unknown to preceding generations; and
these new activities attract many ambitious and capable men more strongly than
the public service. These men are not on that account lost to their country or to
society. The present generation has wholly escaped from the conditions of
earlier centuries, when able men who were not great land-owners had but three
outlets for their ambition—the army, the church, or the national civil service.
The national service, whether in an empire, a limited monarchy, or a republic,
is now only one of many fields which offer to able and patriotic men an
honorable and successful career. Indeed, legislation and public administration
necessarily have a very second-hand quality; and more and more legislators and
administrators become dependent on the researches of scholars, men of science,
and historians, and follow in the footsteps of inventors, economists, and
political philosophers. Political leaders are very seldom leaders of thought;
they are generally trying to induce masses of men to act on principles thought
out long before. Their skill is in the selection of practicable approximations
to the ideal; their arts are arts of exposition and persuasion; their honor
comes from fidelity under trying circumstances to familiar principles of public
duty. The real leaders of American thought in this century have been preachers,
teachers, jurists, seers, and poets. While it is of the highest importance,
under any form of government, that the public servants should be men of
intelligence, education, and honor, it is no objection to any given form, that
under it large numbers of educated and honorable citizens have no connection
with the public service.
—
Charles
W. Eliot (born March 20, 1834)
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| Charles W. Eliot (1834-1926) |
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