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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



thereby intimate to the world, nor 

 yet to its own citizens, its desire and 

 intention to be always in the right, 

 to pursue undeviatingly the path of 

 justice, but a desire aud intention to 

 be able to pursue whatever course 

 may be indicated by national ambi- 

 tion. No one can doubt that in our 

 own country the disposition to trust 

 to right in our dealings with other 

 nations has been growing feebler 

 just as our armaments have been 

 growing stronger. Every new bat- 

 tleship makes it a matter of less ac- 

 countin the eyes of a large part of 

 the nation at least that we should 

 be in the right at all. By and by, if 

 things advance much further in the 

 same direction, national honor will 

 be held to demand that we commit 

 some great wrong, and prove at the 

 cannon's mouth that we are able to 

 stand by it. 



We confess that this is not what 

 we were hoping for. Some twenty 

 or twenty-five years ago, when the 

 minds of our people seemed turning 

 in the direction of a sound philos- 

 ophy, we were very far from antici- 

 pating that at this date there would 

 be a recrudescence of the spirit 

 which derides philosophy and en- 

 thrones brute force in its place. We 

 feel like asking what our schools 

 and universities have been doing all 

 this time. Have they been teaching 

 our youth that, in the matter of citi- 

 zenship, the highest honor any man 

 can enjoy is to belong to a state 

 whose respect for itself binds it to 

 respect for others, and whose aim is 

 far more to show the possibilities of 

 civilized life at home than to make 

 an imposing display of strength 

 abroad ? Do they teach that, if a 

 nation can, without sacrifice of honor 

 or betrayal of the just interests of its 

 citizens, live at peace with all the 

 world, it is its bounden duty, both 

 for its own sake and as an example 

 to mankind, to do so ? Do they 



teach that war and liberty are essen- 

 tially antagonistic, and that, only by 

 parting with a large share of domes- 

 tic liberty, can any nation take its 

 place among the great fighting pow- 

 ers of the world ? We fear that, 

 whatever has been done in the way 

 of inculcating these truths, the in- 

 struction has been far from adequate. 

 At the same time it is satisfactory to 

 note that, so far as men of scholar- 

 ship and learning have spoken in the 

 recent discussions of international 

 questions, their voices have almost 

 uniformly been raised on behalf of 

 wide, humane, and reasonable views 

 of national policy. 



It was with special pleasure that 

 we noted not long ago a " Symposium 

 on Patriotism in the Public Schools " 

 in the Interstate School Review, of 

 Chicago, in which some excellent 

 sentiments were expressed. One 

 writer, U. J. Hoffman, says: "Let 

 children study the lives of patriots, 

 let them read the thoughts of pa- 

 triots, such as Hawthorne, Bryant, 

 Longfellow, and love of our native 

 land will take care of itself. The re- 

 quirement of the flag law, that the 

 flag shall float every day, has caused 

 the purpose of the law to be de- 

 feated." Another, William D. Kel- 

 ley, says most excellently : l< In our 

 selection of subjects for hero wor- 

 ship we need not choose war heroes 

 rather than those who are eminent 

 in the acts of peace and charity. 

 The man who stands up resolutely 

 in the common council or the town 

 meeting for what is right and against 

 what is corrupt and wrong, is a pa- 

 triot, and often a hero, and may be 

 made as truly an example for chil- 

 dren as those far removed from them 

 in time, and whose fame is national 

 or world-wide. The teacher should 

 show that governments can commit 

 sins as well as individuals. I would 

 teach a love for the Revolutionary 

 principles and a dislike for our 



