232 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



conquest was ready to compass by bloody warfare what she was on 

 the verge of faiUng to do hi commerce. Here surely she would succeed. 

 Organisation and preparedness would guarantee her victory if onl\- 

 she struck swiftly and hard. But she did not know how virile France 

 was, nor did she count upon England. France on the Marne, at 

 Verdun and on the Somme has proved that she can beat German\- 

 at her own game. She has greater military genius than the most 

 highly organised military power of F^urope which for two generations 

 had claimed the primacy in this form of human effort around which 

 it had built its whole life. Naumann says, "Militarism is the founda- 

 tion of all order in the State and of all prosperity in the Society of 

 Europe." If so even \^erdun, the Marne, the Somme have proved 

 that the educational system of Prussia is a ghastly failure, to say 

 nothing of its result in ringing Germany about with the democracies 

 of the world in battle array. 



In France we find a people whose history is far more ancient 

 than that of Germany. It presents the dignity of a character unified 

 by long and manifold experience. The people have been rooted in a 

 soil which they love, from this country of peasants springs the Poilu, 

 who has established for himself a supreme reputation as a soldier, 

 valorous, intelligent, responsive to indications for strategy or attack. 



France and Germany stand in direct contrast to each other both 

 in their view of the State and of education. The France of to-da>' 

 is not the creation of a group of masterful men nor of a generation 

 of efficient persons, nor of a dominant caste like the Prussian Junkers, 

 supported by a special philosophic theory of the State. Though of 

 diverse racial origins the French people have become one, not in response 

 to any ideal or manufactured conception of national unit}-, but through 

 a long history of storm and sunshine in a well defined geographical 

 area. They love la belle France, a land enriched by fine traditions, 

 their home, where their fathers dwelt, to which they cling with a 

 profoundly human patriotism. Their love of France itself gives 

 concreteness to their relation to their country. It is not to the State 

 as such that they yield obedience, nor are they swayed by an imposing 

 imperial idea, but they live and die for France, the home of their 

 race which time and again through its history has suffered for mistakes, 

 recovered rapidly, but always followed some richly human idea which 

 glowed before her as a pillar of cloud even when it led her to cross 

 rivers of blood. They believe that the laws of France are not for her 

 alone but embody truth for the world as well, and she proclaims 

 liberty, fraternity and equality as the rights of humanity itself. 

 The Frenchman therefore obeys his government not as by an order to be 

 imposed upon him from above, but out of a sense of duty towards 



