THE CAUSES OF WAR CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION-OUR SCHOOLS AND A NEW PATRIOTISM γου 1 YOU will recall readily the famous poster for the Second Liberty Loan, with the picture of the statue in New York harbor, of "Liberty Enlightening the World." The lady artist who designed this poster received a splendid prize from the United States Government, and she deserved it, for that poster went a long way in raising nearly $5,000,000,000, to help make the world "safe for democracy." The appeal that “Liberty must enlighten the world" had its effect. But let me tell you, recent convulsions, as in Russia, are teaching us that not only must liberty enlighten the world, but intelligence must enlighten liberty, in order to save the world. Our schools must save the democracy for which we fight. Our students, by making the most of their education and their American ideals, are to help gain and preserve the blessings of liberty to mankind. Many of the nations which, up to the present, have been taking leading places in the affairs and problems of the world, can do so no more. The war is sapping their manhood and retarding their institutions that train for greatest worth and usefulness to their fellowmen. Other nations, in their new-found freedom, know not how to use it, because of past oppressions and inexperience in self-government. Never did the world need leaders as it does today; never did it so need men of vision and of high ideals, men of incorruptible 1 Written February, 1918. moral fiber and integrity, men of sacrifice and of unfaltering determination in the arduous paths of service. The youth of America should be made to realize that here at once is their rich heritage and their unexampled opportunity. Not with one speck of pride or of superiority should they look upon this situation, but as a privilege to serve unequaled in the history of man. Out of this vision and this great opportunity is to come a new patriotism that has no bounds less than the planet itself. We must become more familiar with our country's most cherished ideals. We must see to it that our youth are intelligently imbued with those ideals. Only by so doing are we to vitalize our teaching and our training for citizenship in our schools. The principles of democracy are at stake in the world today; and if the major portion of the student's education in these trying times is not the gaining and putting into practice of these principles of patriotism and SERVICE, his education, costly as it is, is a failure. To the extent that his science, his art and his philosophy of history and of life fail to serve these ideals, just to that extent our educational system is serving the same base end as has Germany's in the past generation. Many of our students and teachers do not need this warning; yet there are many others that do, for to be asleep to the real needs and vital test of democracy in this time, is to be playing with our destiny as a free people. The supreme test of mankind today is a test of ideals, of moral and spiritual principles and standards of conduct; and everything material on earth must serve one or the other of these two opposing ideals. The one we hope America will be as ready to stand for as her patriots have always professed for her; the other we know autocratic powers have always stood for, and have made the lovers of freedom pay the price in suffering and blood. The clearer these principles are held before the younger generation, the safer are American democracy and world liberty to be. The provincialism in many circles, and the still prevalent ignorance of the present world conflict afford most convincing evidence of the universal need of enlightenment. And we know whence that training, to be effective, must come it must come through the education of the youth of our land. We should never forget that it was from the enlightened walls of schools throughout the nations that liberty was born-both religious and political freedom-and this fact answers the question why the schools of the nations have furnished the first martyrs in every great struggle for liberty. It is truthfully said, that in a democracy, where the people themselves rule, they should always know, before they embark on any great project, why they are going into it. Yet, even today, after the United States has witnessed this titanic world struggle for four and one-half years, not one boy in one hundred can give the essential causes of the war. This is not the student's fault, but the fault of aimless and indefinite teaching and training, for which we are all to blame-even the government of the United States (for it simply reflected the general disinterestedness of the masses of the people) which should have kept us better informed of the facts, from the beginning of the war. What are these American ideals, for which we now stand and stake our all? What is this liberty and democracy of which we rather flippantly speak in this generation, the selfish side of which we have appropriated so well, but which, nevertheless, is the message of our great republic to the world? The answer has come over and over again in the lives of our great American patriots, in their fervent speeches and their earnest devotion and invaluable service to their country. Their conduct is our creed, and we should therefore study their lives with a new purpose. The answer must likewise come in the present crisis. The war has brought out what sacrifice there is in the great heart of France. It has enabled England to find her soul, and with |