572 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



age, we arc admiring physical superiorities and those superiorities of 

 mental faculty which give fitness for dealing with emergencies, we are 

 also taught that, unless we rank highest the bodily powers and those 

 powers which directly conduce to self-preservation, we cannot say 

 that courage is the highest attribute, and that the degree of it should 

 be our standard of honor. 



That an over-estimate of courage is appropriate to our phase of 

 civilization may be very true. It is beyond doubt that, during the 

 struggle for existence among nations, it is needful that men should ad- 

 mire extremely the quality without which there can be no success in 

 the struggle. While, among neighboring nations, we have one in 

 which all the males are trained for war while the sentiment of this 

 nation is such that students slash one another's faces in duels about 

 trifles, and are admired for their scars, especially by women while 

 the military ascendency it tolerates is such that, for ill-usage by sol- 

 diers, ordinary citizens have no adequate redress while the govern- 

 ment is such that, though the monarch as head of the Church con- 

 demns duelling as irreligious, and as head of the Law forbids it as a 

 crime, yet as head of the army he insists on it to the extent of expel- 

 ling officers who will not fight duels while, I say, we have a neigh- 

 boring nation thus characterized, something of a kindred character in 

 appliances, sentiments, and beliefs, has to be maintained among our- 

 selves. When we find another neighboring nation believing that no 

 motive is so high as the love of glory, and no glory so great as that 

 gained by successful war when we perceive the military spirit so per- 

 vading this nation that it loves to clothe its children in gwas^-military 

 costume when we find one of its historians writing that the French 

 army is the great civilizer, and one of its generals lately saying that 

 the army is the soul of France when we see that the vital energies 

 of this nation run mainly to teeth and claws, and that it quickly grows 

 new sets of teeth and claws in place of those pulled out ; it is needful 

 that we, too, should keep our teeth and claws in order, and should 

 maintain ideas and feelings adapted to the effectual use of them. There 

 is no gainsaying the truth that, while the predatory instincts continue 

 prompting nations to rob one another, destructive agencies must be 

 met by antagonist destructive agencies ; and, that this may be done, 

 honor must be given to the men who act as destructive agents, and 

 there must be an exaggerated estimate of the attributes which make 

 them efficient. 



It may be very needful, therefore, that our boys should be accus- 

 tomed to harsh treatment, giving and receiviug brutal punishments 

 without too nice a consideration of their justice. It may be that, as 

 the Spartans and as the North- American Indians, in preparation for 

 warfare, subjected their young men to tortures, so should we ; and 

 thus, perhaps, the " education of a gentleman " may properly include 

 giving and receiving " hacking" of the shins at foot-ball: boot-toes 



