. An autocracy would better
rule its soldiers by a military caste; there can be no excuse for such
in a democracy. Thus, the utmost possible fraternization of officers
and men is desirable, and social snobbery, the snubbing of officers who
come up from the ranks, and other anachronistic survivals, should be
stamped out, as utterly foreign to what should be the spirit of the
military arm of democracy.

Further, in estimating the two types, one must remember that paternalism
may exercise its power in secret and that it accomplishes much in the
dark. Democracy, on the other hand, is afflicted and blessed with
pitiless publicity. Thus its evils are all exposed, it washes all its
dirty linen in public; but the main thing is to get it clean.

When it comes to invention and initiative, as already indicated,
democracy has the advantage, immediately, as in the long run. We are
the most inventive people on earth, and that quality is a direct result
of our democratic individualism. It is a significant fact that most of
the startling inventions used in this War were made in America--but
_developed and applied in Germany._ There, again, are evident the
contrasting results of the two types of social organization. The
indefatigably industrious and docile German mind can work out and apply
the inventions furnished it, with marvelous persistency and
effectiveness, under paternal control. We have the problem of achieving
by voluntary effort and cooperation a persistent thoroughness in working
out the ideas and inventions that come to us in such abundant measure.

The path of democracy is education.

XIX

THE SOLUTION FOR DEMOCRACY

When we say that the path of democracy is education, we do not mean that
there is an easy solution of its problem. There is no patent medicine
we can feed the American people and cure it of its diseases. There is
no specific for the menaces that threaten. Eternal vigilance and effort
are the price, not only of liberty, but of every good of man. Let
things alone, and they get bad; to keep them good, we must struggle
everlastingly to make them better. Leave the pool of politics unstirred
by putting into it ever new individual thought and ideal, and how
quickly it becomes a stagnant, ill-smelling pond. Leave a church
unvitalized, by ever fresh personal consecration, and how quickly it
becomes a dead form, hampering the life of the spirit. Leave a
university uninfluenced by ever new earn