A powerful speech addressing the responsibility of educated individuals to use their knowledge and privilege for the betterment of society, delivered by prominent social critic and abolitionist George William Curtis. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Excerpt from Public Duties of Educated Men: An Address, Delivered by William F. Herrin, June the 14th, 1910, at Corvallis Oregon, During the Quarter Centennial Jubilee Exercises of Oregon Agricultural College Therefore, though we find it difficult or even impossible adequately to define public opinion, that need not blind us to its importance nor to the tremendous part it plays and has always played in shaping our institutions and in determining the form of our government. Though we may not say pre cisely what public opinion is, I think we can say with some degree of positiveness what it is not. It is not, and never was, what is said or done by the frenzied mob, and whether the mob is a small isolated group of men acting under the stress of great excitement. Or is an entire community in the passing grip of the mob - spirit, our conclusion must be the same: that what is done or prompted by the mobspirit can in no proper sense of the term be said to be a manifestation of public opinion. We may then say that public opinion is the opposite of the spirit which controls the mob or goes with any excitable, passionateaction. I would say that the true public opinion of a people is and must be the result of their serious, deliberate thought. Therefore, public opinion, in the sense in which I use the term, is the deliberate and reasoned judgment of the community. 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.