nourished by lies in the past. But we can prevent Germans or pro-Germans
writing our own school histories; we can prevent that "army of spies" of
which the Kaiser boasted to his council at Potsdam in June, 1908,
from continuing its activities among us now and henceforth; and we
can prevent our school textbooks from playing into Germany's hand by
teaching hate of England to our boys and girls. Beside the sickening
silliness which still asks, "What has England done in the war?" is a
silliness still more sickening which says, "Germany is beaten. Let
us forgive and forget." That is not Christianity. There is nothing
Christian about it. It is merely sentimental slush, sloppy shirking of
anything that compels national alertness, or effort, or self-discipline,
or self-denial; a moral cowardice that pushes away any fact which
disturbs a shallow, torpid, irresponsible, self-indulgent optimism.

Our golden age of isolation is over. To attempt to return to it would
be a mere pernicious day-dream. To hark back to Washington's warning
against entangling alliances is as sensible as to go by a map of the
world made in 1796. We are coupled to the company of nations like a car
in the middle of a train, only more inevitably and permanently, for we
cannot uncouple; and if we tried to do so, we might not wreck the train,
but we should assuredly wreck ourselves. I think the war has brought us
one benefit certainly: that many young men return from Europe knowing
this, who had no idea of it before they went, and who know also that
Germany is at heart an untamed, unchanged wild beast, never to be
trusted again. We must not, and shall not, boycott her in trade; but
let us not go to sleep at the switch! Just as busily as she is baking
pottery opposite Coblenz, labelled "made in St. Louis," "made in Kansas
City," her "army of spies" is at work here and everywhere to undermine
those nations who have for the moment delayed her plans for world
dominion. I think the number of Americans who know this has increased;
but no American, wherever he lives, need travel far from home to
meet fellow Americans who sing the song of slush about forgiving and
forgetting.

Perhaps the man I heard talking in front of the bulletin board was
one of the "army of spies," as I like to infer from his absence of
"come-back." But perhaps he was merely an innocent American who at
school had studied, for instance, Eggleston's history; thoughtless--but
by no means harmless; f