War is most illogical. It
breaks the law of the proper interpretation of causality. When two
nations of adjacent territory cannot agree over a boundary line, why
should settlement be made in terms of physical force? When two nations
fail to see eye to eye in adjusting the questions of certain fishing
rights, why should they incarnadine the seas in seeking for the truth
to be applied in settlement? In civil disputes, why, asks the student,
should rifles be employed to discover truth and right? War is an
intellectual anachronism, a breach of logic. Of course, one may reply,
humanity is not logical in its reasoning any more than it is exact in
its observing. Of course it is not; but the college is set to cast
out the rule of no-reason and to bring in the reign of reason. Peace
furnishes a motive and a method of such advancement. Peace is logic
for the individual and for the nation.

The illogical character of war is also made evident by the contrast
between the college man as a thinker and war itself. The college man
who thinks sees truth broadly; war interprets life narrowly, at the
point of the bayonet. The college man who thinks sees truth deeply;
war makes its primary appeal to the superficial love of glory, of
pomp, and of circumstance. The college man who thinks sees truth in
its highest relations; war is hell. The college man who thinks sees
truth in long ranges and in far-off horizons; war is emotional, and
the warrior flings the years into the hours. The college man who
thinks, thinks accurately, with logic, with reason; war does not
think--it strikes. "Strike," the college man may also say, "but hear!"
he cries; "yes, think." If the college can make the student think, it
has created the greatest force for making the world and the age a
world and an age of peace.

It is plain enough, too, that the economic side of war makes a
tremendous appeal to the student. The cost of the battleship _Indiana_
was practically $6,000,000; the total value of grounds and buildings
of the colleges and universities in Indiana is slightly more than
$7,000,000, and the productive funds are $4,000,000. The total cost of
the battleship _Oregon_ was more than $6,500,000; the total value of
grounds and buildings of the universities and colleges of Oregon is
less than $2,000,000, and the productive funds amount to hardly more
than $2,000,000. The cost of the battleship _Iowa_ was nearly
$6,000,000, and the productive funds of all the col