The Psychology of Nations Part 11

As regards materials by means of which we are to teach a patriotism that shall be a strong devotion to the mores of the nation, there appear to be three important elements. We have, first, a literature which contains in part at least the spirit of our national life, although it does so _only_ in part. Secondly, we have a beginning at least of an interpretation of American life through an American history that is to be something more than a history of political events, and shall be a true history of the American people. This history must include the history of our ideas and our ideals, our literature, inst.i.tutions, art, and be indeed a true social history.

This history must be the main source book for teaching what our country has meant to those who have lived in it, and what these people have really been and done. This is national character study. Character study, a truly psychological and interpretative history, should teach us what we are likely to do and what we ought to do in all typical situations with which we are likely to be confronted. How far we are as yet from such a general knowledge in regard to ourselves needs hardly to be suggested. The third element in this aspect of the teaching of patriotism is something more tangible and more immediately practical. Our ideals have to some extent at least been crystallized in our inst.i.tutions, where they will still further be elaborated. The partic.i.p.ation on the part of all in some way in these inst.i.tutions is a part of our required training for good American life. A book knowledge of inst.i.tutions is, of course, better than none at all, but there is no reason why knowledge should end there. All people, especially those now being educated, ought to have more direct and more intimate part in all the representative inst.i.tutions of our country, even in the political inst.i.tutions, and perhaps in them most of all. Americanism, whatever else it may be, must be a practical Americanism. It must have ideals and clear visions, it goes without saying, but it is the making and shaping of inst.i.tutions by living in and through them that must be the main feature of our social life and of our education. When the individual and the social form are molded and developed together, patriotism will be a natural phase of mental growth.

CHAPTER VI

THE TEACHING OF PATRIOTISM (_continued_)

Patriotism we thought to be, in the third place, devotion to the _group_. Here the problem of the teaching of patriotism becomes specifically a question of social education. The question arises as to precisely what the objects of the devotion we call loyalty to the group are, and what factors in group-consciousness need most to be emphasized or educated as patriotism. Is it race or manners or the pure fact of propinquity or herd contact or all together that are the objects of social desire and the feeling of solidarity?

_Race_ has been emphasized as the prime interest in group loyalty, but there seems to be doubt about this. At least there are difficulties in isolating anything we can call love of race. We can never separate race from propinquity, for example, or from mores, or from the bonds due to common possession of causes. Race loyalty appears to be a primitive feeling. When races were pure, groups small and possession common, all the elements of loyalty to group were present at once and coextensive. As civilization progressed the bond of pure race lessened. All races have now become mixed, we are told, and kins.h.i.+p in a group has ceased to be a fact. Nicolai maintains that race patriotism has grown out of family instinct, as something quite separate from herd instinct, but it seems likely that common interests, organization under necessity, or the social attraction resulting from any common cause must have been stronger than any consciousness of kins.h.i.+p, or any herd instinct as such--which may indeed not have existed at all.

It is this more conscious bond of function and propinquity at least that must be taken into account in the education of patriotism--certainly American patriotism. We in America can hardly emphasize race patriotism, without producing internal disruption. It is common function that is the distinguis.h.i.+ng mark of the individuals of a group, rather than common origin. Common function, especially subsumption under one ordered government, particularly if the purpose be that of securing common protection, can plainly overcome all loyalty to race. Common religion antagonizes race consciousness, and we see therefore within nations races splitting up along lines of religious difference. We see within races also greater antagonism and greater lack of common interest between cla.s.ses than between the same cla.s.ses as found in different races. Aristocrats everywhere, for example, appear to have greater mutual sympathy and sense of nearness than do the upper and lower cla.s.ses of the same race.

One of our own urgent educational problems is that of overcoming race differences and of utilizing racial bonds for practical ends. We try to put loyalty to group first, and we a.s.sume that race patriotism can be supreme only among those who have no country worth being loyal to.

Loyalty to race, however, has a pedagogical use. We see it being employed to extend social feeling beyond the point to which propinquity and common cause can carry it. It was used, we know, in the propaganda and educational campaign by which German statesmen and historians hoped to develop a wider German consciousness. The racial object in this case is apparently purely fict.i.tious. We see the same concept being used now to create or expand social feeling throughout the Anglo-Saxon race. What we mean mainly by Anglo-Saxon race is really English speaking peoples, having common or similar mores and ideals. It is, of course, by emphasizing and partic.i.p.ating in common functions that loyalty either to an Anglo-Saxon union or to the total group in our own nation will be developed. Our own type of patriotism, in which there can be little or no racial loyalty as such, must be built upon more ideal and abstract conceptions than that of race. It is loyalty to group having a common idea, we say, which must be the basis of American group loyalty. This we must regard as higher than any race patriotism. All nations are now, as Boutroux remarks, to a greater or less extent _psychological races_. The factors that have produced them are the factors that have caused men to become functioning units.

This gives us a clew at least to a practical principle for the education of social loyalty. We must secure partic.i.p.ation on the part of the individual in every function that belongs to each group to which the individual himself is attached. Thus all degrees and kinds of loyalty may be made to exist in the same mind without conflict or confusion, precisely because the loyalty desired is loyalty to people as groups or organizations having causes, not to collections of individuals as such.

The teaching of loyalty to any cause appears to be a lesson in patriotism. So far as teaching of patriotism is centered directly upon the production of loyalty to the whole group which const.i.tutes the nation, the first object must be to create a sense of reality of the group in the mind of the individual. We may expect to do this in part by the teaching of geography and history in an adequate way, but we must also instill such patriotism by inducing individuals to partic.i.p.ate in nation-wide organizations, which are capable of realizing dramatic effects. The experiences of the war have taught us to see this. It is organization or cooperation for practical ends, under conditions in which deep feeling is aroused, that most quickly and effectually creates the sense of solidarity in great groups of individuals. We must study the psychological side of this matter, and see how the power and momentum that are so readily gained in time of need can be better controlled for all the routine purposes of education and the practical daily life. The organization of national activities by means of voluntary a.s.sociations will be likely to be one of the main educational methods of the future. If we are far-seeing we shall try to utilize the powers of organization, cooperation and communication to overcome many antagonisms now existing in society.

War temporarily suspends cla.s.s distinctions and many other forms of social dualism. The reaction after the war may be in the direction of increasing all the former antagonisms. To attain a strong morale and unity in times less dramatic than those of war is an educational problem, in a wide sense, but it is also a problem of the practical organization of all the social life.

All nation-wide affiliations of children which in any way cross-section cla.s.ses or antagonistic interests of any kind tend to create materials out of which patriotic sentiment is made. The school itself has tended to produce social unity, but it has also tended to level downward, and also to mediate a.s.sociations which do not touch upon the activities and interests and differences of society. Our schools are democratic by default of social interest in them, so to speak. We need organizations that shall level upward and to a greater extent involve the home. Then we shall see how democratic and how unified our social life really is. These organizations must be both democratic and practical. They must engage the interests of all cla.s.ses. We know little as yet about the potential power, both for practical accomplishment and for the building of a higher type of loyalty and patriotism, there may be in wide organization. Here we can best combine the initiative and spirit that usually come from the upper cla.s.ses with the great powers of achieving aggregate results inherent in the people as a whole. If we are to have a nation which shall be a unit, the people as a whole must have practical interests that require daily exertion and attention. They must be not merely united in spirit as a people, but united in common tasks that are definite and real. Devotion to the functions of the people is loyalty to the nation. This we should say is but an elaboration of the old colonial spirit of cooperation, when merely living in a community meant a certain daily service to all the community. We must continue to do now more consciously and with more technique, so to speak, what was once done more spontaneously and in a more primitive way. It is thus that the idea of neighbor might extend throughout the country as a whole. All the materials are at hand for an unlimited development of the practical life. _The sense of solidarity and the comrades.h.i.+p and helpfulness that grow naturally in a small community, where conditions are hard and dangers imminent, we must still maintain in a great nation by organization._ This is at heart an educational problem. It is a work of national character building. It is training in patriotism.

In this, as in all other phases of education now, we must consider how the great energies hidden in the aesthetic experiences can be put to use. The aesthetic, especially in its dramatic form, is a power to be reckoned with. Interest, organization, moral obligation do not control or release all the energies contained in the social life. We need the high moods of dramatic situations to reach the most fundamental motives. The teacher must not only present ideas; he must generate power. And this is true of all efforts to employ for any end the interests of the people, old or young. The social life, if it is to be effective, must constantly be brought under the influence of dramatic stimuli. Dillon, a political writer, earnestly pleads for an extension and deepening of the sympathies of children, and says that patriotic sentiment must be engrafted upon the sensitive soul of the child. No one could refuse to admit this. The question, however, is of ways and means. In our view it is mainly through play, or better, art, that the soul of the child is thus made sensitive. A dramatic social life must be the main condition upon which we depend for thus extending and deepening the sympathies of the child.

Among these dramatic social effects we seek, the use of national holidays, all methods of symbolizing events, causes, or functions which are nationally significant are of course not to be ignored, but after all it is through practical activity made social and raised to dramatic expression or feeling, either by its own inherent idea and suggestive power, or by the addition of aesthetic elements, that loyalty to the greater group and its functions will best be educated.

It is precisely the lack of these dramatic elements and these ma.s.s effects in the social life that now leaves the social sense in its national aspects weak, and allows the various dividing lines throughout society to make even the most necessary activities to a greater or less degree ineffectual.

The educational problem itself is plain. Unity of public interests, which can apparently now be obtained only under threat to national existence, must be maintained, not artificially, but voluntarily. We want the morale of war and the social solidarity of war in the times and activities of peace--in those activities that represent service to country and also those which consist of the service _of_ country in the performance of its broader functions as a member of a family or society of nations.

A fourth factor in patriotism we recognize as loyalty to government, to state, or to leader. The place of such loyalty in a truly democratic country as contrasted with an autocratically governed country seems plain. It is not only sovereignty but statesmans.h.i.+p as well that must reside in the people. The people must not only have the power but the wisdom to rule. Even the ideals of the country must come out of the common life, or there at least be abundantly nourished. The German writers protest that the purely native ideals of the people do not represent the meaning and purpose of the State. The natural feelings of the people lack purpose and definiteness. The State is something very different from the sum of the people and the representation of their will. The native sense of solidarity is not at all like the organization that comes through the State. But this abstract conception of the State as a being different from the people is precisely, in the view of such writers as d.i.c.kinson, the cause of wars. Upon this point d.i.c.kinson sees now a wide parting of the ways.

We must have either one kind of world or the other. We must continue our warlike habits, and make the G.o.d-state the object of our religion, or abandon all this for a thorough-going democracy. It is the special interest that is a.s.sumed to inhere in the G.o.d-state that is the menace to peace everywhere. The abstract theory of State inspires far-seeing policies, democracy lives more by its natural instincts and feelings.

The theory of necessary expansion, the right to grow and to intrude, is a natural deduction from the conception of the G.o.d-state; loyalty to the State demands ever increasing lands and population in order to have more military power.

The democracy, of course, can harbor no such conception of State.

Loyalty, in the democracy, must be to state and to statesmen rather as leaders of the people. The first and most necessary factor in patriotism as loyalty to authority is that authority _must_ represent interests of country and people and must for that reason deserve loyalty. Educationally, the problem is quite the reverse of the educational problem of the autocracy. The people are not to be trained in obedience and subservience to the state, but we have mainly to create in the minds of all people the capacity to recognize true leaders. It is not loyalty to authority as such, we say, that is wanted, but loyalty to leader _who has no power at all except the power of the good and its forceful presentation_. A democracy is a society in which the aristocrats rule by persuasion, although we must think of this aristocracy as an aristocracy of intellect and morality rather than of birth and wealth. The ideal, we suppose, toward which our definition of democracy leads is a state in which authority as represented in the inst.i.tutions of government, and leaders.h.i.+p represented in natural superiority coincide. It is a State in which the good and the great shall govern. But in general, parliaments cannot now be the sources of moral and intellectual leaders.h.i.+p of the people. They are subjected to too many conflicting interests. The time may come, we say, when authority and superiority will coincide, when laws will be made and executed by those who ought to do these things rather than by those who merely have the power to gain opportunity to do so. At any time and place we _may_, of course, behold great leaders.h.i.+p combined with great authority. A true democracy is a state in which such coincidence will be inevitable.

The minds of men are now full of these themes. They ask how nations may become unified without injustice and autocracy. Trotter says that national unity is what is wanted most of all things now in England.

England must become conscious of itself, he says, and infuse into public affairs a spirit that will carry leaders far beyond their own personal interests. England has survived until now in spite of a strong handicap of discord. He speaks of the imperfect morale of England, shown in the war, which arose from the preceding social discord, and shows that the only perfect morale is that which is based upon social unity in the nation. All this is true also of ourselves.

We also have our problem of creating loyalty to government and a national unity upon which a perfect morale both for peace and for war may be a.s.sured, by inspiring an ideal of honor, honesty, and efficiency in all public service, and also by arousing an intense interest in public service and deep appreciation of what public service and leaders.h.i.+p mean, on the part of all the people. This is plainly not merely a work of _cleaning politics_. It is a work of public education. The att.i.tude of a people toward authority and leaders.h.i.+p is something more than a _susceptibility_ to leaders.h.i.+p and influence. There is a desire for the experience of ecstatic social moods, the craving to be active and to be led. We make a great mistake if we think all that democracy means is an instinct of individual independence, a desire to take part in the government as an individual. It is also a social craving that is involved. The presence of the great leader, even in times of peace, stimulates social feeling, and raises it to a productive level. This social feeling, we say, is not a mere reaction. It is the expression of a desire and readiness on the part of the people to partic.i.p.ate in social activities, and to attach themselves to worthy leaders, or to those now who appeal to the most dominant selective faculties.

It is precisely at this point that the educational problem comes into view. We are likely to think of the public education required in a democracy as too exclusively political education, education that will enable the individual to a.s.sert himself--to know, to criticize, to vote, to take an active part in politics. This spirit is especially prominent in English life. It is all very good in itself and necessary. But we need to educate ourselves also so that _we may have a capacity to be led, in the right direction_. To increase sensitiveness to leaders.h.i.+p, but also to make that sensitiveness selective of true values, is one of the great educational problems of a democracy.

It seems to be a part of the work of education to create popular heroes, to do upon a higher level what the public press does in its own way, but mainly partisanly and too often from wholly unworthy motives--make reputations. We must do more in the teaching of history and biography than to glorify the lives of dead heroes. We need to be quite as much concerned about coming heroes. We must excite the imagination of the young and prejudice the public mind through educational channels, in favor of sincere and true leaders. The opportunity of the story teller is large, in this work, and we need also to develop to a very high degree of excellence the educational newspaper. One of our great needs in education in this country is a daily newspaper for all schools--one that shall be both informing and influential, appealing by every art to the selective faculties, governed absolutely by ethical, or at least not by political and partisan motives. The power of such a press might be very great indeed. As an unifying influence and a ready means of communication, and an instrument of use in the organization of all children, the function of this press would be a highly important one.

All means of creating political ideals from within, of forging the links between leader and people in the plastic minds of children and youths, will be an education in one of the fundamental elements of patriotism. Such an education would be very different, however, from the state planned and authorized education that has been carried on under autocratic regimes. The difference is one of spirit and result, rather than of method. In one case the State becomes a kind of Nirvana, in the thought of which personality and individuality are negated. Patriotism produced in the minds of the young under the influence of a democratic spirit tends to become a creative force rather than a blind devotion to an accepted order. Inst.i.tutions are made and advanced rather than merely obeyed and defended in this educational process. The widest scope and the freest opportunity are allowed for superior qualities of leaders and for right principles to have an effect upon society (and the result we invite indeed is a profound hero wors.h.i.+p on the part of the young), but the conditions would be such that no other kind of authority would be able to exert a wide influence. To secure these conditions is, of course, one of the chief tasks of all the administrative branches of our educational service.

The final factor of patriotism, according to our a.n.a.lysis, is loyalty to country as an historical object. The ideas and the feelings centering about the conception of country as personal, as living, as having rights and experience, duties and individuality are likely to be vivid and intense. They are the inspirers of supreme devotion to country, and also at times, of morbid national pride and fanatical country-wors.h.i.+p. The education of this idea of country we should suppose would be one of the fundamental problems of the development of patriotism. Presumably we are not to try to destroy this idea of country that all people seem to have, or to show it as one of the illusions of personification. Country is, of course, different from the mere sum of the people. It has continuity and it performs functions and it is an historic ent.i.ty. Modernize and reform this idea, we must, but we cannot do away with it as something archaic and superst.i.tious. Country is real, the concepts of honor and right belong to it, and country is something to which the mind must do homage.

Boutroux says that a nation is a _person_, and has a right to live and to have its personality recognized as its own. Granting this to be true, and that we must think of country as personal and active, the question arises whether this concept of country is something that _requires in any definite way educational interference_. We should say that if countries are essentially living historic ent.i.ties having as such a high degree of reality, this reality-sense will be an important element in the practical life of peoples. There can be no thought in our historical era of breaking up these ent.i.ties we call nations. It is a day of intensified rather than of diminished nationalism. The sense of reality of nations must, we might think, be made more intense; pride of country must remain; we may find some place even for the idea of the divine nature of country, which is an element in the patriotic spirit everywhere. That this conception of country is a very necessary element in the morale of a country in war seems clear; that the morale of peace must be founded upon the same personal and religious sentiments we can hardly doubt.

_Ambition for country_ is a normal result of the acceptance of the idea of country as personal, and ambition for country appears to be the very essence of any patriotic sentiment that is sincere. Still ambition for country has been, in some of its forms, a cause of wars.

What other conclusion can we come to, then, than that ambition for country must be subjected to radical educational influences? This is the reverse side of political progress. Ambition must be given new content and new direction. All the power and the sentiment of the old imperialistic motive must remain, but all peoples must now be educated to see that the maintenance of its position in the world on the part of any nation is now a far more difficult and far more complex task than ever before. The building of empire must be shown to have been far easier and far less heroic, and much less a test of the superiority of a nation than we have supposed. We can show that military virtues are much more nearly universal than has often been a.s.sumed, and that nations that are inherently superior must abandon voluntarily their ambitions of aggression, if they wish to remain superior and to have a place of honor in the world.

This implies no teaching of pure internationalism. We still recognize as fundamental the whole spirit of nationalism. Country must remain first after all. All must indeed learn to take in some way the statesman's point of view in regard to country--with its sense of the future, of wide relations and long periods of time, and its practical vision. It is futile to think of this future as one wholly without struggle and compet.i.tion. We must teach history also far more with the forward view. History has dealt too exclusively even in America with the past. National ambition that has as its aim to realize, with independence and power, all the good that an enlightened nation contains, but at the same time to act with justice and with the thought of the nation as a part of a coordinated world must take this point of view.

It is a median course between merely nave and day by day living, such as Lehmann (15) complains about as the natural tendency of uneducated patriotism, and the kind of program making that takes into account only the purposes of a single nation that we must follow in teaching this forward view of national history. There is a danger in either extreme. We may remain a nature people, without a true historic sense, and be conscious only of a dramatic past which appeals to sentiment and a still more ambiguously glorious future; or, on the other hand we may become too definitely ambitious and too conscious of some special mission in the world. A nation with a program, a nation that does not recognize the experimental nature of history, is a dangerous element in the society of nations, even though its ambitions be not purely selfish. Excessive rationalism in national consciousness is itself a menace. We must live by our historic sense, by some ideal of a future for our nation; the people must have _some_ vision of a glorious future, and not be expected to see only an unending vista of problems and labors, but this history must be understood and taught intimately and appreciatively and not merely objectively and logically. We must take an interest in the careers of all nations, and understand history psychologically and be willing to judge it ethically. So far we have had the opposite view in most of our teaching and writing of history.

We must take a fair and tolerant view of the power motive that exists in all nations, and try to understand what it means to be of another nationality and to have ambitions like our own. Without such an att.i.tude, we should argue, no one can be truly patriotic, if patriotism means having at heart the true interests of one's own country.

It is not only possible and fair, therefore, but necessary that patriotism be enlightened. It is possible to be devoted each one first of all to his own country, to have few illusions about its values, and at the same time to have tolerance for all other nations. What other spirit is there, in fact, in which our history can now be taught? It seems absurd to say that such a spirit is weak. It implies consciousness of strength, of being able to hold one's own in a fair field, to have the dignity and sense of maturity that come from contact with a real world. With such a spirit it would not be necessary to accept as inevitable the brutality of all national development, to use the words of Mach, a recent writer. We need no longer believe that war is the only thing that can prevent national disintegration, as many maintain. National consciousness certainly makes progress even without such dramatic and tragic events as have recently taken place. Boutroux says that in France, after the Dreyfus affair, although strong nationalistic feeling was stirred, there was also a new vision of the destiny of the French people as not only defenders of their own country but as champions of the rights of all nationalities. German writers have not failed to notice this, and have been inclined to regard this spirit of France as a sign of degeneration and decay of the national life. We see now that generosity and justice are far from being evidences of weakness, and also that in the larger logic of history these weaknesses generate strength; at least they bring powerful friends in time of need.

Once Germany herself was affected by such ideals of history. In the time of Goethe, Cramb reminds us, mankind, culture and humanity were the great words. But upon this love of humanity and culture and love of the homeland a political spirit was engrafted, and this new spirit of Germany has manifestly now led to her downfall. No! there is no threat to national existence and no disloyalty to country in the form of internationalism that now is before us. As social consciousness widens and social relations become more intricate and more practical, national lines are not lost, but indeed become clearer. These national boundaries are not temporary or artificial or imaginary lines, for they represent and define activities and interests that engage the most fundamental and the most persistent of human motives.

It is in this spirit that loyalty to country as historic object should, we believe, be taught. This idea we teach of course through history, in part, but history alone in any ordinary sense, as we might think of it as a subject in the curriculum of a school, is not enough.

These ideas must be made persuasive and dynamic. For this as we see over and over again, art is the true method. The object to be presented and which must inspire devotion is an ideal object. It is complex and it performs practical functions, but it is through and through such an object as appeals most deeply to the aesthetic feelings. The image of this object must be made impressive. Since the ideal of our country is more abstract than that of most countries, as an object still less vivid and less personal, since it lacks some of the means of appeal to the feelings that imperialistic countries have, there is all the more need of art to make the figure of ideal country stand out sharply before us. As we pa.s.s beyond the patriotism which is only a love of home, or a devotion to a political unit, to a patriotism that is a loyalty to a more abstract and more intangible idea, the art by which the idea of country is conveyed would, we should suppose, also become more abstract. Hocking says that it is through symbols that the mind best gropes its way to the realization of ideas. Feeling and imagery, we know, are very susceptible to the influences of the symbol, and also to the phrase which is a lower order of symbol. Dramatic representation, all pageantry, pictorial art, music, even the art of the poster artist and the cartoonist have a place in the work of portraying country as an ideal object, and inspiring devotion to it and its causes. A far-seeking educational policy will scorn none of these in its effort to crystallize the concept of country and give it power and reality.

Finally this idea of country must be put to work in every mind and in every life. Otherwise all education of patriotism will tend toward inevitable jingoism, and arouse all the violent and introverted feelings that have made history a long story of wars without end. This idea of country has been too aristocratic. It must now become accustomed to a life of daily toil, and not merely expend itself in enthusiasm and in self-sacrifice in crises such as war. Country as an idol of the aristocratic patriotism has always been too far removed from practical affairs. This patriotism has been too personal and too exclusive. Glory, honor and fame have played too large a part in it.

On the other hand, the common idea of country needs to be made more vivid and more glorious. This spirit is accustomed to toil but not to have enthusiasm. It certainly needs more of art in its patriotism as well as in its daily life. We all need historical perspective. We must have through education what tradition has failed to give us. It is just by lacking the patriotism that a vivid sense of country as historic personage gives, by lacking imagination and the ability to detach themselves from the reality and the surroundings of the daily life that the working cla.s.ses are so likely to be affected by influences that tend to break down _all_ patriotism.

We shall have a true patriotism, we should say, only when country is an idea that is worked for by all cla.s.ses; when it is an idea that is woven into the daily lives of the people; when it makes the daily toil lighter and touches it with glory, and when it enters into all the enthusiasm of the more favored cla.s.ses and inspires it with the spirit of daily service.

CHAPTER VII

POLITICAL EDUCATION IN A DEMOCRACY

One of the results of the war has been to raise in the minds of all peoples, to an extraordinary degree, the most earnest questions about the nature and validity of government. The political sense of all peoples has been stimulated. We see on every hand new conceptions of government and demands for more and better government, but also the most radical criticism and the denial of all government. The determination in very fundamental ways of what government is, and must be, what ideas must prevail, what must be suppressed, what an ideal government is, if such an ideal can be formed, the question of evils inherent in the idea of government itself (if such evils there be), the laws of development of government in all their practical aspects--all these questions now come up for examination, and will not be repressed. If we do not take them at one level we must upon another. Naively or scientifically, philosophically or radically, the nature of government must be dealt with.

Government is now being examined, we all see, from points of view not hitherto taken. The conscientious objector raises the question of the ultimate basis of the right of the many to control the lives of individuals, and he asks especially whether there is any ground for the a.s.sumption that in this sphere, more than in any other, might makes right. Conscription, in fact, has driven us to consider the meaning of liberty and the foundations upon which the right to it rests. This stern fact of conscription, the realization that in a moment the most democratic governments in the world are capable of bringing to bear, quite const.i.tutionally, absolute control over the most basic possessions of the individual, has led many to ask seriously whether government is after all a good in itself, or is merely a necessity having many attendant evils. They wish to know whether there is in the principle of government something that takes precedence over all the a.s.sumed rights of the individual. Does government, they inquire, have a _right_ to the individual; or is it only in _serving_ the individual that it is ent.i.tled to exercise authority that limits the individual?

These are questions, manifestly, that involve the whole foundation of sociology, but we need not be unduly dismayed at that. This is a time when nave thinking and exact science must make compromises with one another. For better or for worse we must find some working hypothesis upon which a fair adjustment may be made in the practical life of the present moment. This _working hypothesis_ must also serve--and perhaps that is after all its main function--as something to guide us, something having solidity upon which we can stand, in performing our work as educators.

What we need, what we believe all feel now the need of, is a conception of government satisfying to the mult.i.tude of common people.

We wish to know whether we live for the state, we say, or whether the state lives for us. We wish to understand what the basic rights and duties of the individual are. As average individuals, willing to give service in any cause that seems good, we do not ask so much to have determined for us precisely what type of government best satisfies the requirements of science or philosophy, but what the best working basis for harmonious adjustment in the social life of the future is to be.

These enquiring moods on the part of the people are a part of the temperament that has issued from the war. We shall make a mistake if we regard it as a mere pa.s.sing effect, however; _it means a deep stirring of the political consciousness of people throughout the world_.

Significant differences may be observed in the general att.i.tude toward government among the people in the great nations of the world. Each nation appears to have its own political temperament, and this quite apart from the views represented especially by political parties and the like, and quite independently of the scientific and philosophical conceptions of government and its functions of which there are a great number, and among them certainly no agreement upon the main issues and values.

Taking public opinion as a whole, Germany, England, France and America seem to represent distinctly different att.i.tudes toward government. The State in the German philosophy of life, as every one is now aware, is all; the individual derives his reality and his value, so to speak, from the idea of the supreme state. Individuality and freedom in this philosophy of life do not refer to _political_ individuality and freedom at all. In England, and perhaps to some extent in all democratic countries, the prevailing thought seems to be that the government that governs the least is, on the whole, the best government. The English government is supposed to be the servant of the people, and the individual has been in the habit of looking to the government for many services. The individual, free and self-determined, is the unit of value and of society, and the regulation of his conduct by government is at best a necessary evil. It came as a surprise to the Englishman when he realized that the state could command the most personal service and the most complete surrender of the property rights of the individual.

Le Bon says that the Frenchman, too, thinks of the state as something to be kept at a minimum and to a certain extent to be opposed.

Opposition to the government is a part of the Frenchman's plan of life. Boutroux says the same--that in France the habit of thinking of the government and of society as two rivals has not been overcome.