[falconek] conflict OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 229 



introduction, has had great vogue in Germany and may be taken as 

 giving utterance to widely held views. Its theme is that after the 

 war Mid-Europe should, under the hegemony of Germany, form one 

 of the units of world-power alongside the British Empire, Russia 

 and the United States. That the accomplishment of the task is 

 supremely difificult Naumann readily admits, but he faces it boldly. 



According to both these books a ruling idea of the German 

 people is found in the word "militarism." In the new edition Biilow 

 has added two chapters which he entitles, "The Beginnings of Mili- 

 tarism" and "Militarism as a Cohesive Force." In these chapters 

 he glories in what to the Allies has from the outset appeared to be 

 the shame of Prussia. "The German nation can assert before the 

 whole world that its greatest strength which has stood the test of the 

 past and of the present is to be found in that which in the hours of 

 direct need and danger saved the life of Germany — German mili- 

 tarism." The reason wh>' this militarism saved the nation is because 

 it is a spirit, a discipline, a habit of mind which above everything 

 else has entered into the body of the German people and re-created 

 it according to the type and pattern of the Prussian army. "More 

 by means of the army than by means of the constitution or of civil 

 and common law do the State and the nation in Germany achieve 

 unity." How different is this from Britain where the sovereignty 

 of law is supreme and the freedom of parliamentary government 

 unifies the country at home and is a bond of unit>' throughout the 

 Empire. Germariy has been made one in all its parts by another 

 tie which has never been laid on Britain: "The nation in the King's 

 uniform preserved the conception of the state, its national conscious- 

 ness in its purest form, untouched by political considerations. Time 

 has been unable to alter this in the smallest respect. The world-war 

 shows us the whole of that portion of the people which is capable 

 of bearing arms completely filled with that idealism that is the spirit 

 of the Prussian Army." "The voice of our national conscience tells 

 us what German militarism really is: the best thing we have achieved 

 in the course of our national development as a State and as a people." 



These extravagant professions of faith find an echo in Naumann: 

 "We conquer less through individuals than through the disciplined 

 feeling for combined difficult work. This intrinsic connection between 

 the work of war and peace called by our enemies 'German militarism' 

 we regard as reasonable, for Prussian military discipline influences us 

 all in actual fact from the captain of industry to the maker of earth- 

 works. The war has proved that the national genius was and is a 

 reality; we are a single unit." 



