decisions, they
could not have devised a more effective demonstration.

Thus it is that there can be no question of disarmament at present, and
that there can be no effective international tribunal unless it has
behind it an effective army. A great army must continue to exist apart
altogether from the question as to whether the army in itself is a
school of virtue or of vice. Both these views of its influence have been
held in extreme forms, and both seem to be without any great
justification. On this point we may perhaps accept the conclusion of
Professor Guerard, who can view the matter from a fairly impartial
standpoint, having served in the French army, closely studied the life
of the people in London, and occupied a professorial chair in
California. He denies that an army is a school of all the vices, but he
is also unable to see that it exercises an elevating influence on any
but the lowest: "A regiment is not much worse than a big factory.
Factory life in Europe is bad enough; military service extends its evils
to agricultural labourers, and also to men who would otherwise have
escaped these lowering influences. As for traces of moral uplift in the
army, I have totally failed to notice any. War may be a stern school of
virtue; barrack life is not. Honour, duty, patriotism, are feelings
instilled at school; they do not develop, but often deteriorate, during
the term of compulsory service."[235]

But, as we have seen, and as Guerard admits, it is probable that wars
will be abolished generations before armies are suppressed. The question
arises what we are to do with our armies. There seem to be at least two
ways in which armies may be utilized, as we may already see in France,
and perhaps to some slight extent in England. In the first place, the
army may be made a great educational agency, an academy of arts and
sciences, a school of citizenship. In the second place, armies are
tending to become, as William James pointed out, the reserve force of
peace, great organized unemployed bodies of men which can be brought
into use during sudden emergencies and national disasters. Thus the
French army performed admirable service during the great Seine floods a
few years ago, and both in France and in England the army has been
called upon to help to carry on public duties indispensable to the
welfare of the nation during great strikes, though here it would be
unfortunate if the army came to be regarded as a mere strike-brea