502 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



It is, unfortunately, only too 

 easy to cultivate the military spirit 

 in almost any nation, and the mili- 

 tary spirit, it need hardly be said, 

 is the spirit that seeks quarrels. 

 To the military man war means 

 excitement, emulation, reputation, 

 promotion, subject of course to the 

 possibility of injury or death. No 

 one denies that deeds of heroism 

 and self-devotion are done on the 

 battlefield; but that men should ac- 

 quit themselves nobly in the field is 

 no compensation for the horrors of 

 a war brought on by the predomi- 

 nance of the military spirit. 

 " ' Great fame the Duke of Marlborougb won, 



And our good Prince Eugene.' — 

 ' Oil, 'twas a very wicked thing,' 



Said little Wilhelmine." 



And every war is wicked and de- 

 testable that could consistently with 

 national honor be avoided. When 

 we say " honor " we do not mean 

 " reputation." Reputation depends 

 on the canons of judgment prevail- 

 ing among those who presume to 

 award it. In a dueling community 

 a man's reputation might suffer 

 by declining a challenge, but his 

 honor would be intact if he declined 

 from sincere unwillingness to do a 

 wrong act. There is much honor 

 sometimes in sacrificing reputation, 

 particularly the " bubble reputa- 

 tion " that is won " in the cannon's 

 mouth." Every appeal to the sword 

 weakens the reliance placed upon 

 principles of justice, and thus un- 

 does a vast amount of the work of 

 peace. When war is once set on 

 foot, the national judgment is m.ore 

 or less blinded. True, it is the ac- 

 tion of a majority of the people 

 only — admitting that a majority 

 wanted it — but who is uncompro- 

 mising enough, when his countiy's 

 armies are in the field, to proclaim 

 that they are fighting in a wrong 

 cause? A few may do it, but they 

 do it at their peril. In all other 

 matters a minority may censure 

 with any degree of severity the pol- 



icy of the majority, but not in the 

 matter of a war once entered on. 

 Yet how perverting such a situation 

 is to right judgment, and how inju- 

 rious an effect it must have on the 

 rising generation, are only too ap- 

 parent. 



These reflections may not at 

 first sight seem to have a very di- 

 rect bearing on the interests for 

 which this magazine is supposed to 

 stand, but to our mind science, in 

 the broad sense, has no function so 

 important as that of settling the 

 education of the young upon a right 

 moral basis. No system of educa- 

 tion deserves to be called scientific 

 that does not place the idea of jus- 

 tice at the very foundation of hu- 

 man life. You can not do this, how- 

 ever, without making it a working 

 principle, and without inculcating 

 a belief in it as such. Applying the 

 principle to national affairs, we see 

 at once that a strong nation which 

 desires to be just will take no 

 advantage of its strength in its 

 dealings with other nations. If 

 it has a demand to make, it will 

 make it simply in the name of jus- 

 tice, and cast no sidelong glances 

 at its up-to-date battle ships or 

 its well-equipped battalions. It 

 will have unbounded patience with 

 weaker communities, which, rightly 

 or wi'ongly, may seem to think they 

 have right on their side. It will not 

 be ashamed to shrink from the shed- 

 ding of blood. The " young bar- 

 barians " of our public schools are 

 always only too ready to exalt might 

 above right ; but the judicious teach- 

 er into whom the true spirit of sci- 

 ence has entered will seize every 

 favorable opportunity for inculcat- 

 ing the great lesson that the moral 

 law has a way of vindicating itself 

 in the end, and that the inheritance 

 of the earth has been promised not 

 to the quarrelsome or the overween- 

 ing, but to the meek. A generation 

 brought up on these principles 

 would be slow to make war, and 



