The essence of the Wisconsin idea has been looking forward, not backward, in the art of democratic living. For this quality Wisconsin has been pre-eminent. So has the University. Each has nurtured the other in this tradition, now for a century. In each men have not been afraid to find or face new facts, or to devise means for making adjustments to them democratically. Often this has been done long in advance of other states and of the nation itself. And seldom has there been departure from the basic democratic conception that government rightfully is derived from the consent of the governed, not from their rulers; that it of right must be both by and of the people and for them.
