devotion to honor and duty has a people
given? What has it done to increase the volume of knowledge? What
thoughts and what ideals of permanent value and unexhausted fertility
has it bequeathed to mankind? What works has it produced in poetry,
music, and other arts to be an unfailing source of enjoyment to
posterity? The small peoples need not fear the application of such
tests.

The world advances, not, as the Bernhardi school supposes, only or even
mainly by fighting; it advances mainly by thinking and by the process of
reciprocal teaching and learning; by the continuous and unconscious
co-operation of all its strongest and finest minds. Each race--Hellenic,
Italic, Celtic, Teutonic, Iberian, Slavonic--has something to give, each
something to learn; and when their blood is blended the mixed stock may
combine gifts of both. Most progressive races have been those who
combined willingness to learn with strength, which enabled them to
receive without loss to their own quality, retaining their primal vigor,
but entering into the labors of others, as the Teutons who settled
within the dominions of Rome profited by the lessons of the old
civilization.

Let me disclaim once more before I close, any intention to attribute to
the German people the principles set forth by the school of Treitschke
and Bernhardi--the school which teaches hatred of peace and
arbitration, disregard of treaty obligations, scorn for weaker peoples.
We in England would feel even deeper sadness than weighs upon us now if
we could suppose that such principles had been embraced by the nation
whose thinkers have done so much for human progress and who have
produced so many shining examples of Christian saintliness; but when
those principles have been ostentatiously proclaimed, when a peaceful
neutral country which the other belligerent had solemnly and repeatedly
undertaken to respect has been invaded and treated as Belgium has been
treated, and when attempts are made to justify these deeds as incidental
to a campaign for civilization and culture, it becomes necessary to
point out how untrue and how pernicious such principles are.

Most Wars Needless and Unjust.

What are the teachings of history to which Gen. Bernhardi is fond of
appealing? That war has been the constant handmaid of tyranny and the
source of more than half the miseries of man; that, although some wars
have been necessary and have given occasion for a display of splendid
heroism--wars