For, when a crisis comes, or anything like a crisis, the world has a hopeless fashion of jamming its old stout felt hat over its ears, tying a stout scarf above it, and going out to battle in the storm, and forgets, in the fight, the lath-and-plaster hat which has dragged the street yesterday. It trusts a proved friend, though his felt be a little rough, and his braid a little frayed. And while Mr. John Sapp's portfolio of recommendations grew larger and larger, and showed he was good for everything, from a post on the Board of Health round to the janitorship of the public library, the public, when it was on its mettle, had a brutal way of appointing what he called "new men," who had made no application, or what he called "old fogies," who had been trained by experience to understand their duties. And it must be confessed that Mr. Sapp held back very modestly from the places which involved danger to-day, or which required preparation in years bygone. When the war came, he made no offer of service in the field, but was quite sure there must be some place as storekeeper that he should like. When Kansas was to be settled of a sudden, he did not think of emigrating; but he thought there might be some place for him in the office that sent the emigrants. I happen to remember that forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine other men of his age thought much the same thing. Having, indeed, been educated for nothing in particular, Mr. Sapp was always on the front list of applicants for places where there was nothing in particular to do.
I have had a great many such men to examine, sooner or later. If Mr. Sapp had come before me, sitting as county commissioner, or inspector of prisons, the question I would have put him first would have been, "What can you do best in this world? What do you think you are most good for? What do you like to do?" It is pathetic to see how disappointed men break down under that question. I once asked a foreign missionary what he would do if he had carte-blanche,—had a hundred thousand dollars to expend in the next year?
"I—I—I think, ah, ah—you had better ask the advisory board," he said.
There was nothing in particular that he wanted to do; and so he did nothing. I used to ask young men what they were reading, but I do not now, unless I am quite sure of them. So many men said, "Oh,—really, you know,—the newspapers, you know,—and the magazines, you know,—'Littell's' and 'Old and New' and the 'Atlantic,' you know—must keep up with the times, you know." I did not know any such thing. They read nothing in particular, and practically read nothing at all. Now, the people,—who are, on the whole, wiser than we think,—when their moments of crisis come, sweep all such Jacks-of-all-trades by. They light on some one man, who has done some one thing well. He has made fish leap up the falls at Lowell into the Merrimack. He has taught the waves to obey his bidding, and sheer off the shore at Chicago. He has administered a railroad, so that no widow weeps when she hears its name, no orphan curses the recklessness of its managers. The grateful people know such men. And when a crisis comes, that voice of the people, which is as the voice of God, says to such a man,—
"Thou hast been faithful in a few things: I will make thee ruler over many things. Thou hast been faithful in a very little. Have thou authority over ten cities!"
But Mr. Sapp heard no such order to come up higher. The truth is, that, in three cases out of four, official life with us is not a good training for business in any other work. And Mr. Sapp's office at the War Department had been one of those three cases. It had taught him to file letters, to note their contents in an alphabetical index, to refer them respectfully to somebody else, to write back in an invariable form to the authors that they had been respectfully referred, and, once a week, to send a volume of letters to the binder. But this was all that it taught him. The consequence was that when he was appointed to any function with any different duties, he functioned ill.
Thus he was a poor librarian at the Archæological; and the directors voted not to have any librarian. They appointed a superintendent; and Mr. Sapp was discharged.
He lectured ill for the Free Trade League, so that the people stayed at home. Now, as Lord Dundreary says, "How can a feller lecture, if people will not listen?"
He inspected orange peel ill, so that, whether the Know-nothings had come in or not, he would have gone out. In truth, he was, as I said, trained to do nothing in particular; and the only place he was fit for, therefore, was some place where there was nothing in particular to do.
In the English civil service there are many such places; but in that of America there are very few.