"'Tis man's perdition to be safe,
When for the truth he ought to die."
That means, in the terms of to-day, that we must still sing to our children the glories of war. Americans properly hate war. It is antiquated, out of date,—utterly opposed to the spirit of the twentieth century. We should bring up our children to see that it is just that, and that we are fighting now simply because otherwise barbarism would overspread the world,—a barbarism which includes autocracy and militarism as its chief features, two elements which are intolerable in a world of democracy.
And yet war is often a purifying fire. It has its noble and uplifting side. This is the side which is emphasized in the heroic tales which have been mentioned, and which makes for the development of patriotism in the child and in the man.
CHAPTER II
THE PATRIOTISM OF PEACE
The great mind knows the power of gentleness—
Only tries force because persuasion fails.
—Robert Browning.
THE patriotism of war is far easier to teach than the patriotism of peace. When bands are playing and the love of adventure is calling, men find it easy to march away to battle for their country, and boys and girls throb through all their young beings to do something for it.
But when men are staying at home, with comfort beckoning; with the government jogging along and getting the main things done somehow or other, under the guidance of professional politicians; and with one's personal affairs requiring apparently the application of all one's mortal powers,—then patriotism needs a spur.