For by means of Chess-play, one may learn and practice in their highest interpretation, mental and physical processes of paramount importance to the community in time of extreme peril.
From such considerations and for the further reason that in a true Republic all avenues to greatness are open to merit, scientific Chess-play should be intelligently and systematically taught in the public schools. “A people desirous of liberty will entrust its defense to none but themselves,” says the Roman maxim, and in crises, woe to that land where the ruler is but a child in arms, and where the disinclination of the people towards its exercise is equalled by their unfamiliarity with the military habit.
Despite the ethics of civilization, the optimism of the “unco guid” and the unction even of our own heart’s deep desire, there seems no doubt but that each generation will have its wars.
“Pax perpetua,” writes Leibnitz, “exists only in God’s acre.” Here on earth, if seems that men forever will continue to murder one another for various reasons; all of which, in the future as in the past, will be good and sufficient to the fellow who wins; and this by processes differing only in neatness and despatch.
Whether this condition is commendable or not, depends upon the point of view. Being irremediable, such phase of the subject hardly is worth discussing. However, the following by a well-qualified observer, is interesting and undeniably an intelligent opinion, viz.:
From the essay on “WAR,” read by Prof. John Ruskin at Woolwich, (Eng.) Military Academy.
“All the pure and noble arts of Peace are founded on War; no great Art ever rose on Earth, but among a nation of soldiers.
“As Peace is established or extended the Arts decline. They reach an unparalleled pitch of costliness, but lose their life, enlist themselves at last on the side of luxury and corruption and among wholly tranquil nations, wither utterly away.
“So when I tell you that War is the foundation of all the Arts, I mean also that it is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties of men.