sities, as statesmen in
Europe thought it necessary to disestablish the monastic foundations at
the close of the middle age. They, too, began as educational
institutions. If, on the other hand, the American college and university
remains true to its task, if it keeps its doors open and its spirit
democratic, if it seeks to render ever larger service to the great
public and to develop moral leadership for American democracy, then,
indeed, it will go ever forward upon its noble path.

XXI

DEMOCRACY AND SACRIFICE

We have seen the conflict of ideas in the War: the German philosophy
that man exists for the state, the contrasting idea of democracy that
the state exists for man. We may well ask why any institution should be
regarded as sacred, except as it has the adventitious sacredness, coming
from time, convention and hoary tradition. It was said long ago that
"the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath," and the
statement may be universalized. Every institution on earth--marriage,
the family, education, the church, the state--was made for man and not
man for the institution. Humanity must always be the end. Why should
we perpetuate any institution that does not serve life? Kant voiced the
principle in his second imperative of duty: "Always treat humanity,
whether in thine own person or that of any other, as an end withal, and
never as a means only." Kant was a Prussian philosopher: one wonders
what he would have thought of the "Kanonen-Futter" theory of manhood!

An organization or institution is only a machine, an instrument for a
purpose. Thus always it is a means, never an end: its value lies in
serving its purpose--the end of human life. So the whole existing order
must justify itself. Where it rests on forms of injustice, it must be
broken or destroyed, and there is no reason to fear the breaking.

Thus there is no "divine right" of kings. They represent a vested
interest, surviving from the past. They must justify themselves by the
service of those under them, or pass.

Similarly, there is no divine right of a class or caste, enjoying
supremacy or special privilege. It also is a surviving vested interest,
that must justify itself, or be swept aside as an incubus.

The same test applies to an empire. It, too, is a vested interest,
developed out of conditions prevailing in the past. If it does not
justify itself by the largest service of all within it, then it, too, is
an a