EDUCATION PRESCRIBED AS ANTIDOTE FOR WAR.
President Faunce Believes the Spirit of Perpetual Peace Is Lurking in Public Schools.
Since the majority of evils spring from ignorance, education is the surest safeguard of virtue. It is a strong perversity that continues against a real understanding of the truth.
If war is an evil—moral, economic—as both economists and moralists generally admit, the hope of universal peace rests upon education. For that reason the suggestions made by President H. P. Faunce, of Brown University, in a speech at New Haven, carry the greater weight. He said:
No great movement is permanent until placed on an educational basis. Whatever enters the public mind through the schools enters as sunshine and rain into the fiber of the oak. A world-wide movement is now in progress, having as its object not the reformation of human nature, not the disbanding of all armies and navies, but simply the establishment of a better means than war for the settling of the disputes that must occur as long as the nations endure.
Already great results have been accomplished. Arbitration has been substituted for war in the majority of the cases. War is now the exception, not the rule, in case of international quarrel. It is not true that “in time of peace we must prepare for war,” but rather that in time of peace, we must prepare to make war impossible.
There is a growing appreciation throughout the world of the irrationality and futility of war. We have come to realize that the simultaneous discharge of pistols at fifty paces is no more likely to establish justice than the tossing of pennies or the throwing of the dice.
When the duelist became absurd, dueling was dead. The time is surely coming when the international duel will seem, in the face of international opinion, an utterly stupid way of settling differences.
What can we do in the public schools? We can inculcate the broad principle that rational men, when they differ, should appeal to reason and not to force. Already our schoolboys do this in athletics. They are accustomed to accept the decisions of umpires and referees without whining or complaint. The athletic field is a direct training for arbitration on a large scale.
We can teach in our schools that peace hath her victories no less renowned than war. We are learning to exalt a new type of heroism—the heroism of the social settlement of the city missionary, of the men and women who are devoting their lives to the uplifting of social conditions in the heart of our great cities. This newer heroism must be taught in our public schools.
We can inculcate the brotherhood of man in every class in our schools, and in every study that is taught. We can show that racial antagonisms are baseless and brutal. Each of the various races makes its own contribution to modern civilization. The last address of John Hay was an appeal for this point of view; for earnest endeavor on the part of all men and women in responsible positions to inculcate the method of arbitration as a substitute for the utilities of war.