A PUBLIC LIFE

In the not too distant past it was possible for the raw American youth with a half-formed fancy for law to enroll as clerk in the firm of the revered local "Judge," and at the feet of the mighty, glimpse the realm of torts and crimes. But when colleges rose in the backwoods and daily assignments replaced daily chores this personal contact between novice and initiate was largely lost. It is only occasionally, therefore, that the student who dreams vaguely of a legal career has an opportunity of meeting a master of the profession. And such an opportunity is extended tonight when the Honorable George Wickersham, former Attorney-General of the United States, lectures at the Union.

In opening the series of addresses arranged by the Committee on the Choice of Vocations it is peculiarly fitting that Mr. Wickersham should discuss public service as a career. The haphazard injection of butcher, baker, and candlestick maker into public life has resulted largely in that state of affairs which needs only the description of "American politics." The contrast with the English system in which training for a public career begins at Eton and continues at Cambridge has been made too often to be effective, but it points decisively to a remedy for that malady of corruption which has broken out recently, and breaks out periodically, at Washington. Certainly no college man can quite overlook the possibility of public service; and as obviously no man is better fitted to describe its appeal and its disappointments than one who has himself undergone the rigor of the "cursus honoris."