''Tone,"  to  be  sure,  is  a  terribly  vague  word  to  use,  but
there  is  no  other,  and  this  whole  meditation  is  over  ques-
tions of  tone.  By  their  tone  are  all  things  human  either
lost  or  saved.  If  democracy  is  to  be  saved  it  must  catch
the  higher,  healthier  tone.  If  we  are  to  impress  it  with
our  preferences,  we  ourselves  must  use  the  proper  tone,
which  we,  in  turn,  must  have  caught  from  our  own  teachers.
It  all  reverts  in  the  end  to  the  action  of  innumerable  imita-
tive individuals  upon  each  other  and  to  the  question  of
whose  tone  has  the  highest  spreading  power.  As  a  class,
we  college  graduates  should  look  to  it  that  ours  has  spread-
ing power.    It  ought  to  have  the  highest  spreading  power.
