152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



petence. The three duties of the citizen, " Soldat sein; Steuer; Mund 

 halten" (be a soldier; pay taxes; hold your tongue), are simple and 

 do not encourage initiative. Universal conscription binds the indivi- 

 dual into subjection to the central power. He has the choice between 

 docile acceptance of a fate not wholly intolerable, and revolt with 

 probable misery or death. Forms of insurance against poverty, unem- 

 ployment or old age guard him against total failure. The difficulties 

 which beset the common man in trying to enter the "learned pro- 

 letariat" of the universities or the sublimated caste of the army deter 

 all but the most gifted from ambition for advancement. Only real 

 genius for scholarship or for money-getting can break the bonds of 

 caste. This system minimizes the miseries of poverty, while at the 

 same time it checks initiative in the mass of the people. 



In general, it subordinates individual freedom to a prearranged 

 discipline of efficiency. This has culminated in the development of the 

 army and navy. To those who regard the dominance of militarism 

 as a survival of savagery, the recrudescence of military ideals in Ger- 

 many seems one of the saddest results of modern scientific advance. 5 



The victory over France in 1871 has had the effect of intensifying 

 the military spirit of Germany, and of making its extension appear an 

 integral part of the nation's commercial and industrial growth. This 

 fact operates toward final disaster, for whether successful or not in the 

 struggle with the allied powers, the aggregate result will be of the 

 nature of terrible defeat. When the record is summed up it may ap- 

 pear that Germany rather than France is the final sufferer from the 

 Franco-Prussian war and the "blood and iron" policy of Bismarck 

 and his successors. 



England 



In England, before the Great War, one often heard complaints of 

 the decadence of the nation. This is a habit of the British press in the 

 summer months in the intervals between sensations. The yeomanry 

 were disappearing. The slums of London, Manchester, Liverpool were 

 centers of sweat-shops and child labor, of wasting overwork, of infant 

 mortality, and malnutrition, of sodden drunkenness and helpless old age. 

 And in the higher classes, we were told of " flannelled oafs " and heed- 

 less sportsmen, men to whom a cricket match was of more worth than 

 the conservation of empire. Much of this complaint was complacent 

 self-criticism, a favorite amusement with the wealthy unemployed of 

 England. Some of it had the political purpose of discrediting the 

 government, but behind it all rests a certain neglected residuum of 

 truth. 



Great Britain has accomplished much in the last century, and much 

 s " To glorify the state is to glorify war, for there is no collective opera- 

 tion which can be so effectively achieved as war, and none which more conspicu- 

 ously illustrates the sacrifice of the individual to the nation" (Havelock Ellis). 



