The Monroe Doctrine 261 



readiness to uphold its interests and honor, at any 

 cost, when menaced from without. Educated men 

 owe to the community the serious performance of 

 this duty. We need not concern ourselves with the 

 emigre educated man, the American who deliber- 

 ately takes up his permanent abode abroad, whether 

 in London or Paris; he is usually a man of weak 

 character, unfitted to do good work either abroad or 

 at home, who does what he can for his country by 

 relieving it of his presence. But the case is other- 

 wise with the American who stays at home, and tries 

 to teach the youth of his country to disbelieve in the 

 country's rights, as against other countries, and to 

 regard it as the sign of an enlightened spirit to de- 

 cry the assertion of those rights by force of arms. 

 This man may be inefficient for good ; but he is ca- 

 pable at times of doing harm, because he tends to 

 make other people inefficient likewise. In our mu- 

 nicipal politics there has long been evident a tendency 

 to gather in one group the people who have no 

 scruples, but who are very efficient, and in another 

 group the amiable people who are not efficient at all. 

 This is but one manifestation of the general and very 

 unwholesome tendency among certain educated peo- 

 ple to lose the power of doing efficient work as they 

 acquire refinement. Of course in the long run a 

 really good education will give not only refinement, 

 but also an increase of power, and of capacity for 

 efficient work. But the man who forgets that a real 

 education must include the cultivation of the fight- 

 ing virtues is sure to manifest this tendency to ineffi- 



