SCIENCE STUDY AND NATIONAL CHARACTER. 95 



But by so doing we uncover another significant fact. We find 

 that many of the ideas so quickly thrown aside are those which 

 have been the foundation principles, and bear the prestige of great 

 names. "We have held it our special mission to show to warlike 

 nations that a power which stands for peace may be greater than 

 theirs; and, alas! many of our leaders, and our people, too, are 

 crying that the time has come — has now come — for us to take our 

 place among the great nations of the earth. We have pitied the 

 war-taxed peoples of Europe, and offered them a home where they 

 would not have to buy powder and guns. And now we are eagerly 

 rushing to take up the burden from which they have been fleeing 

 to us. We have held that great standing armies are unnecessary 

 and dangerous, and already we have quadrupled ours. We have 

 declared our determination to avoid foreign entanglements, and 

 now we are in the very heart of the sputtering coil in the far East. 

 With those who have thoughtfully decided that these changes have 

 been necessary or wise I have no wish to debate now, but we must 

 all unite in recognizing the spirit which has been shown, and is 

 now shown, in speaking of our past positions. The principles which 

 for years have been our rules of national conduct have been thrown 

 aside in a day, scoffed at, mocked. And we smile at the names of 

 the great men who have announced those principles and defended 

 them, or we flatly declare they are out of date. We once listened 

 with reverent and full hearts when our wise men spoke to us of 

 freedom, and recalled our national traditions and taught national 

 righteousness. Now we laugh at swaddling clothes outgrown, out- 

 used, and smile at the innocent simplicity of our fathers. We lift 

 our brows at the name of Washington : we say he was a fine old gen- 

 tleman, and his Farewell Address, considering everything, was a 

 very creditable paper, and well adapted to the exigencies of the time 

 in which it was written. And this carnival of irreverence is hold- 

 ing not only in our streets, but in our newspaper offices, in our pul- 

 pits, and in some of our higher institutions of learning. 



These are the phenomena of our recent national experience 

 which I desire you to consider. There may be other unfavorable 

 indications. There may be others, and many more, which are 

 hopeful and encouraging. But these clearly warn us of danger. 

 Furthermore, I insist that whatever may have been your sympathy 

 with the Administration, or your opposition to it; however numer- 

 ous the men of your acquaintance who have been free from such 

 influences, you must have seen them at work in a dangerously large 

 part of our population. Even if that part has, in your judgment, 

 reached the right position, you must recognize the ominous charac- 

 ter of their method of reaching it. 



