"The man with the university education is in honor bound to take an active part in political life, and to do his full duty as a citizen by helping his fellow citizens to the extent of his power in the exercise of his rights of self-government.

An educated man must not go into politics as such; he must go in simply as an American; and when he is once in, he will speedily realize that he must work very hard indeed, or he will be upset by some other American, with no education at all, but with much natural capacity. His education ought to make him feel particularly ashamed of himself if he acts meanly or dishonorably, or in any way falls short of the ideal of good citizenship, and it ought to make him feel that he must show that he has profited by it; but it should certainly give him no feeling of superiority until by actual work he has shown that superiority." 

Theodore Roosevelt [The Free Citizen (p.74)]