Excerpt from The Parliamentary Experiment in Germany: A Paper Read Before the American Historical Association, May 23, 1887 Public services of such an extraordinary merit cannot remain without reward. In Germany, the result has been that the ablest and most energetic minds of the nation to-day are drawn into the ranks of monarchy, and that the weight of public Opinion lies at present with the numerous class of govern ment officials. Those who consider democracy as the only rational form of government cannot but deplore this result. But it must be said that the ofiicial class in Germany is not a caste in the hateful sense of the word. It has its privileges. But these privileges are open to all they may be attained by the son of a cobbler as well as by that of a railroad president. The only pre-requisite is education. And is it altogether an irrational state of society in which the natural selection of the fittest is stimulated by a premium offered to education? Whatever may be the merits or demerits of German scholars. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.