Resistance to such infamies we regard as of more pressing importance than even the main object to which our leading articles have been heretofore devoted, namely, the elevation of the humbler man. We even regard that as, in the long run, the most effective agency toward Peace. But sometimes in emergencies, the long run has to be disregarded. Thus, not the least of the bad effects of the war is its diversion of effort from the social and political amelioration to which, for a generation, the world has given a degree of interest without precedent in all previous history. From this cause, where we would have our peculiar function the saving one of a brake, even our own humble efforts must be considerably diverted by an emergency so overwhelming; and we know that our readers, despite their inclination for the still air of delightful studies, can not fail to respond to so general and poignant an interest.
Buzzing around this subject, one of our most valued contributors writes: “Please don’t print a peace article. There are only two possible kinds of peace in this world, while man is man: the peace of exhaustion and the pax romana.”
How prophecy does rage on this subject—on both sides!
Which peace with each other did the chief European nations enjoy from 1871 to 1914, and the English speaking nations from 1814 to 1914? And we seem abundantly justified in hoping that it may be permanent.
“While man is man.” Which man—Homer’s,—butchering unarmed foes whom he finds in bathing; or today’s,—arbitrating most of his quarrels, and busying himself over schemes for the automatic settlement of the rest? Any one who fails to recognize the change in man, may well fail, especially at a time like this, to recognize the increasing peace and aids to peace among the nations. Between civilized peoples, war comes now mainly because of one decaying institution—autocratic government, and of one vanishing human peculiarity—the madness of the crowd—the readiness of men to do in mass what they scorn to do as individuals—to get excited over foolish causes, or no cause at all, and to find glory in doing at wholesale, work which, at retail, they shrink from as robbery and murder.
Academic Courtesy
A certain college professor was asked by a lawyer for technical information needed in a property case. The professor spent half a day in disentangling the material and putting it into practicable shape. With it he presented a bill for $25.00.
Was this sensible or shocking?—business or betrayal? The lawyer, who seems in no way to have begrudged the money, told the tale as an instance of vulgar commercialism worming its ugly way into the fair ethics of the academic profession. And with him doubtless most college professors themselves would agree, even in the face of his confession that for any scraps of legal information formally sought by the professor a lawyer would charge a fee.
To a layman the case for the defence seems simple. Here is no shining opportunity for the idealism of the scientist who, preferring to give to humanity the fruit of his works, refuses to patent discoveries made in the university laboratory. Nor is there in such an instance any question of aid to a disinterested “seeker after truth.” A professor of Greek will gravely spend several hours in answering a village clergyman’s question about the New Testament “baptism.” The historian himself will take the free hours of several days to make out reading lists for a woman’s club. But why should one man who is making his living give time and work freely to another man who is going to use them to increase his earnings? The professor’s salary, unadorned by inherited capital or wife’s dower or extra work, is not a living wage. He has to endure the annual appeal to humanitarian alumni to consider his needs, the reiterated disclosures of his poor economies and poorer expenditures. Why should he not take from a lawyer’s pocket, rather than from a “donor’s,” in return for desirable goods, money which will pay part of his expenses to the next meeting of that learned society before which he is to read an unmarketable paper?