low a level,
something that ought to be put into education in a different manner.
The sense of solidarity and the idealism which the German has found in
his military discipline we must express in some other way. It is
especially the unproductiveness of military life, and the constant
suggestion of that which is archaic without either the practical
setting or the ornamental life to which such things belong, that are
especially to be charged against militarism.

We ought to ask, rather, how peace morale, and the essentials of the
warlike spirit may be maintained _without military training_. Is it
not rather by way of the more general and untechnical processes of
education which make for physical expertness, by fundamental social
education, by giving attention to our foundations of religious
education, that we shall be able to create and sustain the most
efficient morale? The best foundation for all necessary military
activities of a free people appears to be a by-product, so to speak,
of peaceful life sustained at a high point of efficiency and
enthusiasm. Military training disconnected from its immediate use and
application in war must appear to some and indeed to many as a misfit
in modern civilized life. This is not an argument for pacifism,
however. The war has taught us that militarism and military capacity
in high degree may spring up from very peaceful soil, and also that
military training, however perfect, is no substitute for the generic
virtues out of which courage and patriotism grow. In the long run will
it not be the country that can do without military training that will
have the advantage? Or the country in which military preparedness is
so merged in everything else as to be indistinguishable from the rest
of life? Is there not, in a word, a preparedness that will make a
country superior and safe both in war and in peace?

CHAPTER V

THE TEACHING OF PATRIOTISM

It would be hard to find a word (unless it be democracy) about which
so many questions gather as now cling to the word "patriotism."
Patriotism is praised as the highest virtue; it is also cursed as the
cause of war. Some think of it as the _sole_ cause of war. Some would
like to see it disappear for the reason that they believe it at best
an old and out-lived social virtue, now having become merely
ornamental and an obstacle to the true socialization of the world.
Some think patriotism still the center of the moral and the social
life.