It was of such "piping times of peace" that Goldsmith wrote:
"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay."
The task set forth before the conscientious citizen then is to keep alive in himself the clear torch of patriotism,—which simply means the duty to sacrifice as freely, in proportion to the need, in time of peace as in time of war.
It is the difficulty of this task, seldom yet accomplished, which has led to the many eloquent panegyrics, in all languages, upon war as necessary to the very existence of a nation. Several entire books have been written to prove that sordidness and selfishness always possess and soon destroy a nation which does not have frequent wars. The philosophy of Nietzsche is largely founded upon this theory. Treitschke and Bernhardi follow him closely. Even De Quincey, Ruskin, and others from among our best English writers, subscribe to this monstrous doctrine, and it is true that there is plenty of support for it in history.
But we Americans have always believed in brains rather than brawn for the settlement of international as well as personal controversies. The duel has been banished from our country as an antiquated means of adjusting the quarrels of individual men, and logic requires that a similar course be pursued toward quarrels on a larger scale. Because we have been obliged to lay aside temporarily our convictions in order to save ourselves and the right, from a mad dog of a nation, which threatens to overthrow civilization, does not mean that we have given up our ideals. If the American nation stands for anything, it stands for peace, though we can and will fight if liberty and right are threatened.
In the study of the Iliad which has been suggested, the words which Agamemnon speaks to Hector should be especially commended to children:
"Cursed be the man, and void of law and right,
Unworthy property, unworthy light,
Unfit for public rule or private care,
The wretch, the monster, who delights in war,—
Whose lust is murder, and whose horrid joy,
To tear his country and his kind destroy."
But in the face of the almost universal testimony against it, all of us should realize that extraordinary pains must be taken to inculcate the truth, and live it, that high patriotism can be kept alive in peace as well as in war.
Precept alone goes not very far in any line, and less, perhaps, in this, than in any other. The study of history and a little of the most modern literature, helps. Classical literature, in all languages, preaches with frightful unanimity, the necessity and the nobility of war. In the religion of Rome, Mars received ten times more homage than did Jupiter. The book and the precept must not be neglected, but your chief weapon in teaching your child the patriotism of peace must be the deed. You must set a strenuous example, or else all your words will pass like the whistle of the wind.
In President Hadley's inaugural, he asserted that the main object of education is to make good citizens,—which is, perhaps, only another way of saying that the chief object of education is to make patriots.