The cynic's retort to the advocate of good government is “Your government is as good as you make it; why, therefore, fret yourself with dreams you have failed to realize!” The retort is easily answered. “Good” means better, and “you” looks as far into the past as good does into the future. Such degree of betterment in government as we enjoy today is not due alone to the desires or activities of the present generation, but to the cumulated efforts of all, past and present, who have contributed to the enlightenment of mankind in the field of political science and in the art of governing. Likewise what we of this generation may think or do will bear fruit, some today and some long after our generation has paṡsed away. The vision of today becomes the reality of tomorrow. If our cynical friend demands proof, point him to the history of men and institutions. If he dwells upon the accounts of evil doing, personal and public, with which the daily press is filled, bid him contrast, for example, the cities of the twentieth century with those of the eighteenth, marking especially the change in public sentiment in England since 1835, in the United States since 1880, and take courage.