The 335
In the of has
of those of the county; and the important of
justices of the and practically
But the line between non-official is often
to find in English history. When individuals could buy
themselves from burdens, the services which
we find mentioned official and non-official;
and such burdens the attempts to from them
appear to have as numerous In the fourteenth or
fifteenth century as in the thirteenth: petitions to the
Mng during the year 1384 reveal over thirty jobs or
offices from which men buying themselves free.
Surely it is a thing to be in the history of a
country that it was so that in the
case of so many offices, far from to buy them-
selves in, were eager to buy their selves out. the
question occurs, how far why has the government of
English-speaking remained non-professional-—
essentially amateur—and what is the value of
government. Without to so a
question, the opinion may yet be ventured that
kings, working in what they to be their
personal interest, so used the English in govern-
ment, laid upon them for centuries such burdens
responsibilities, that they went far towards creating the
Englishman's governmental competence. Such
varied and long-continued service—service unpaid
occasional and hence unprofessional— , it
have brought about special aptitudes, ways of
to conditions or problems, the competence, method,
atmosphere which determine the working of any political
form. If through England largely self-government has
come into the world, here may be something of value in
understanding its beginning; doubtless we should
speak less of a native genius for self-government and more
of the long and hard course of training through which
the English people, much of the time unwilling pupils,
passed. When Charles L, on the scaffold, said.