of war is far easier to teach than the patriotism of peace. When bands are playing and the love of adventure is calling, men find it easy to march away to battle for their country, and boys and girls throb through all their young beings to do something for it.

But when men are staying at home, with comfort beckoning; with the government jogging along and getting the main things done somehow or other, under the guidance of professional politicians; and with one's personal affairs requiring apparently the application of all one's mortal powers,—then patriotism needs a spur.

It was of such "piping times of peace" that Goldsmith wrote:

The task set forth before the conscientious citizen then is to keep alive in himself the clear torch of patriotism,—which simply means the duty to sacrifice as freely, in proportion to the need, in time of peace as in time of war.

It is the difficulty of this task, seldom yet accomplished, which has led to the many eloquent panegyrics, in all languages, upon war as necessary to the very existence of a nation. Several entire books have been written to prove that sordidness and selfishness always possess and soon destroy a nation which does not have frequent wars. The philosophy of Nietzsche is largely founded upon this theory. Treitschke and Bernhardi follow him closely. Even De Quincey, Ruskin, and others from among our best English writers, subscribe to this monstrous doctrine, and it is true that there is plenty of support for it in history.

But we Americans have always believed in brains rather than brawn for the settlement of international as well as personal controversies. The duel has been banished from our country as an antiquated means of adjusting the quarrels of individual men, and logic requires that a similar course be pursued toward quarrels on a larger scale. Because we have been obliged to lay aside temporarily our convictions in order to save ourselves and the right, from a mad dog of a nation, which threatens to overthrow civilization, does not mean that we have given up our ideals. If the American nation stands for anything, it stands for peace, though we can and will fight if liberty and right are threatened.

In the study of the Iliad which has been suggested, the words which Agamemnon speaks to Hector should be especially commended to children:

But in the face of the almost universal testimony against it, all of us should realize that extraordinary pains must be taken to inculcate the truth, and live it, that high patriotism can be kept alive in peace as well as in war.

Precept alone goes not very far in any line, and less, perhaps, in this, than in any other. The study of history and a little of the most modern literature, helps. Classical literature, in all languages, preaches with frightful unanimity, the necessity and the nobility of war. In the religion of Rome, Mars received ten times more homage than did Jupiter. The book and the precept must not be neglected, but your chief weapon in teaching your child the patriotism of peace must be the deed. You must set a strenuous example, or else all your words will pass like the whistle of the wind.

In President Hadley's inaugural, he asserted that the main object of education is to make good citizens,—which is, perhaps, only another way of saying that the chief object of education is to make patriots.

He was talking of the education of the schools; but Emerson somewhere says, in effect, that though we send our children to the schoolmaster, it is, after all, their environment which does most of the educating.

Emerson speaks of the shop-windows along the child's way; but it is his home which forms the most influential factor in his environment; and the part of the home usually dearest to him is his mother. It is a common saying, especially in our cities, that fathers see their children only when they are asleep, leaving them at breakfast-time, and returning after they have gone to bed. Up to the age of twelve, or thereabout, children should retire shortly after eight o'clock. During the next few years, even though they sit up later, they generally have to study. Thus, during their formative period, it is upon the mother that the home training of the children chiefly devolves.

A distinguished clergyman in a public address once eulogized his mother. He attributed to her every virtue and a wonderful mind. He was a violent anti-suffragist, and supposed that he was presenting a strong argument for his side when he said, "But though my incomparable mother counseled us upon almost every subject that could engage our attention, she never mentioned to us the subject of politics."

Had he not struck, perhaps, the main reason for the corruption of our politics? The fathers have no chance to instruct their young children in the rudiments of politics,—yet those children ought to be so instructed by somebody. They get little or nothing of it in school. If their mother does not teach them something about it, they will probably grow up ignorant of many of its snares and its opportunities.

To-day the anti-suffragists are wiser. They say that women should understand civic duties and should canvass them thoroughly with their children. The sin and the shame come only, in their opinion, when women actually vote for the best men and women to fill the offices.

The case is as if a woman should furnish a house, supplying its kitchen with every facility for cooking and cleaning; fitting its dining-room with the proper linen, silver and china; arranging its bedrooms for comfortable sleep; making its parlors beautiful for guests; and then, though she has known so well the needs of a household and how to provide for them, she draws back from the responsibility of running her model house, as if to say: "My sisters and I are not competent to manage this house. You men are far abler. Please make and enforce all the rules to govern it."

Let the men and the women work together, dividing the responsibility according to the fitness of each individual. There are stupid men and stupid women and there are bright men and bright women. Women are human beings before all else and all human interests are their interests. There is among us too much of cowardice and laziness, posing as hyper-refinement and modesty. Women as voters, "weavers of peace," as the old Saxons called them, are bound to be a helpful force in many departments, and especially in this great work of establishing universal peace, and teaching men how to use it. They should begin with the child in its cradle.

For, let us repeat, it cannot be too strongly impressed that the underlying and fundamental principles of politics must be taught by the mother, if they are taught at all; and like everything else that is good, they can be and should be taught. It does not seem to be generally understood, but it is a fact, that a training in politics is possible, and if