ness and confusion. War is an actuality and a genuine peril. It is, furthermore, a peril which threatens the collective life; there is no interest, however exalted, that is immune. Preparedness is therefore every man's concern. A national system of training and service is simply the responsible, concerted, and effective way of meeting this peril. But the spirit which animates a military organization, on the other hand, will reflect the interests which men desire to safeguard. If we in America desire to be and remain free, if there is a peculiar tone of personal independence and equality that is the breath of life to us, then that is the end to which our military organization will be consecrated, and that is the spirit which we shall carry with us into it. If we are to be free, we must be safely and effectively free. There must be a place secured for freedom, and to secure that freedom, free men may be soldiers.

A deliberate and rational concert of action does not hamper individuality. If there is any one incontrovertible principle that governs life, it is this: that freedom does not come of letting things take their course. Free individuals are not spontaneously generated by the bare removal of restrictions; they are the products of discipline and order. A freedom that knows no bounds is

the conceit of impatient and careless minds. A military system that is imposed from without, or hastily improvised in a moment of panic, may indeed be tyrannical. But a system freely adopted, in order to do loyally and skilfully that which must be done, is primarily a matter of morale and character. Over and above that it will vary with the genius and aims of the people who create it and enter into it.

Since war is an actuality and a genuine peril, let us soberly undertake the burden it imposes. Let us cultivate the soldierly qualities, and let us equip ourselves with the tools which are effective in modern warfare. Let us acquire the capacity for organized action, and be ready for the occasion which a rational man will both fear and deprecate. But let us be such soldiers as we would be men. If we are lovers of liberty and devotees of peace, let us inscribe these ideals on our banners.

IT

II

THE VIGIL OF ARMS

T was thought appropriate that a man should pass the eve of his knighthood "bestowing himself in orisons and prayers." A knight should be a good knight, "a noble and gentle knight”— one dedicated to service and jealous of honor. Power is admirable only when restrained. Physical strength in a man is justified only by the weakness which it succors, by the incorporeal things to which it gives a body. Unless their use is redeemed by necessity or by some humane cause, arms are merely cruel and mischievous. The sentiments and symbols associated with war are ways of recognizing its inherent hatefulness. They are the means of concealing the ugly truth that arms are devised to kill with. If the use of arms can be judged even tolerable it must be because of the soldier's code and the soldier's cause.

Hence a nation about to arm itself should confess its sins and renew allegiance to its ideals. The knight took vows to protect the holy sepulchre, "to maintain and defend all ladies, gentle

women, orphans, widows, women distressed and abandoned," or to perfect himself in purity, fidelity and honesty. It will not do to substitute for a code so exacting as that of chivalry, or a cause so clear as that of the crusades, a mere indeterminate vow of patriotism. Loyalty to one's country, unless one understands its policy and helps to mould it, is simply a shirking of the prior obligation to think for oneself.

Military service is at once a necessity, a good and a danger. But it is primarily a necessity. By this I mean that it is justified only as a means to an imperative end. It is not to be undertaken for itself, nor is it lightly to be adopted as a means. Nothing short of national safety or some higher design of international justice and order, can make it reasonable to cultivate the art of destruction. But since military service is so justified, as a painful necessity like surgery, capital punishment or self-sacrifice, it is reasonable that it should be done well, and soberly undertaken as a function of the state. In a democracy this means that it should be acknowledged and assumed as an obligation by all citizens. For democracy implies that there shall be neither privilege nor immunity. "All the inhabitants of the state are its defenders by birth," said Scharn

horst. If this could be said of Prussia, it can be said with greater reason of a country like our own which proclaims the principle of civic equality.

The scale and the method of modern warfare make universal training not only an appropriate means, but an indispensable means. An untrained nation depending on a small professional army or on a horde of "embattled farmers" and other indignant citizens, presents the same pitiful spectacle as that afforded by the dervishes who fought Kitchener with spears at Omdurman. An armed man attacked with the naked fist, shot and shell opposed by bows and arrows, men trained to use the most improved implements of war resisted by equally brave men who have hitherto handled nothing but a hammer, spade, trowel, tennis-racket, billiard-cue or umbrellathis is not magnificent, or even absurd; it is heart-breaking. Those who make it possible by their stubborn complacency or irrelevant idealism, are in effect as culpable as those who, because they preferred the individual to the group, and counted the soul's culture more important than mere bodily safety, might consent that undrilled children should crowd an inflammable schoolhouse.