WAR AND CIVILIZATION. 763 



is the blessing and benefit that some pretend, the logical thing 

 would be to have war for war's sake, quite independently even of 

 so flimsy a pretext as the Venezuela boundary. Then, by a due 

 course of murder and rapine, we could train our youth to virtue, 

 our army contractors to public spirit and honesty, our newspaper 

 writers to modesty and truthfulness, our legislators to a lofty 

 patriotism, and everybody else to a correspondingly high moral 

 level. 



War is the avenger of the/awZi^s of civilization ; but, like other 

 avengers, it is too furious to be discriminating. It may sweep a 

 certain amount of " rubbish to the void," but none the less are 

 the brain and brawn and heart of noble manhood crushed under 

 its relentless feet. It may destroy some of " the cankers of a calm 

 world and a long peace," but it blights at the same time the 

 fairest promise of the age, and extinguishes its brightest hopes. 

 There are virtues developed in the battlefield and the bivouac ; 

 but how much of virtue perishes in the slaughter of the battle or 

 moans itself away within hospital walls ! It is easy to talk glibly 

 of the benefits of war; but if we seriously consider the havoc it 

 makes in homes and hearts, and the horrible sufferings of every 

 kind that it entails, not to mention the check that it gives to 

 peaceful industry, and the burdens that it imposes on future gen- 

 erations, the benefits in question will appear very unsubstantial 

 in comparison. 



Concrete examples will, however, serve our purpose here better 

 than any amount of generalizing. Twenty-five years ago there 

 was a great and bloody war of course the bloodier a war is the 

 more we may expect from it between France and Germany. 

 We may, therefore, advantageously study the effect of the strug- 

 gle upon both nations, and as regards one of them, Germany, we 

 have the facts of the case ready to our hand in an article by A. 

 Eubule Evans in the February number of the Contemporary Re- 

 view. The first result which this writer, who is far from wanting 

 in sympathy with the German people, notices is that their na- 

 tional self-consciousness and susceptibility are greatly increased. 

 They wish now to exclude all foreign words from their language, 

 even from the language of commerce, in which it is a decided ad- 

 vantage to have as many words as possible of world-wide signifi- 

 cation. Before the war the French word " billet " was commonly 

 used for a railway ticket ; now it is banished in favor of " Fahr- 

 karte." Before the war there was a disposition to abandon the 

 crabbed German character, and use the open Roman print, com- 

 mon to the rest of Europe ; to-day that idea, we are informed, is 

 tabooed. " The old letters have become the symbol of patriotism, 

 and no one talks of discarding them." So German eyes must sufi:er, 

 and additional difficulty must be thrown in the way of the acquisi- 



