Probably
politicians are the last people who read Aristotle's "Politics." The
work is, indeed, apt to disenchant one with political life. It is
melancholy to see the little Greek states running the regular
round--monarchy, oligarchy, tyranny, democracy in all its degrees, the
"ultimate democracy" of plunder, lawlessness, license of women, children,
and slaves, and then tyranny again, or subjection to some foreign power.
In politics, too, there is no secret of success, of the happy life for
all. There is no such road to the City, either democratic or royal. This
is the lesson which Aristotle's "Polities" impresses on us, this and the
impossibility of imposing ideal constitutions on mankind.
"Whate'er is best administered is best." These are some of the
impressions made at Oxford by the studies of the schools, the more or
less inevitable "curricoolum," as the Scotch gentleman pronounced the
word. But at Oxford, for most men, the regular work of the schools is
only a small part of the literary education. People read, in different
degrees, according to their private tastes. There are always a few men,
at least, who love literary studies for their own sake, regardless of
lectures and of "classes." In my own time I really believe you could
know nothing which might not "pay" in the schools and prove serviceable
in examinations. But a good deal depended on being able to use your
knowledge by way of literary illustration.
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