Another feature that engaged my attention quite as much as the features I have already spoken of was the contrast between the talents and knowledge of these representatives of the people on the one hand and, on the other, the nature of the tasks they had to face. Willingly or unwillingly, one could not help thinking seriously of the narrow intellectual outlook of these chosen representatives of the various constituent nationalities, and one could not avoid pondering on the methods through which these noble figures in our public life were first discovered.