The policy of peace and restraint has brought us to a position in which we can only assert our place among the Great Powers and secure the conditions of life for the future by the greatest expenditure of treasure and, so far as human conjecture can go, of blood. We shall be compelled, therefore, to adopt, without a moment's delay, special measures which will enable us to be more or less a match for our enemies—I mean accelerated ship-building and rapid increase of the army. We must always bear in mind in the present that we have to provide for the future.
Apart from the requirements of the moment, we must never forget to develop the elements on which not only our military strength, but also the political power of the State ultimately rest. We must maintain the physical and mental health of the nation, and this can only be done if we aim at a progressive development of popular education in the widest sense, corresponding to the external changes in the conditions and demands of existence.
While it is the duty of the State to guide her citizens to the highest moral and mental development, on the other hand the elements of strength, rooted in the people, react upon the efficiency of the State. Only when supported by the strong, unanimous will of the nation can the State achieve really great results; she is therefore doubly interested in promoting the physical and mental growth of the nation. Her duty and her justification consist in this endeavour, for she draws from the fulfilment of this duty the strength and capacity to be in the highest sense true to it.
It is, under present conditions, expedient also from the merely military standpoint to provide not only for the healthy physical development of our growing youth, but also to raise its intellectual level. For while the demands which modern war makes have increased in every direction, the term of service has been shortened in order to make enlistment in very great numbers possible. Thus the full consummation of military training cannot be attained unless recruits enter the army well equipped physically and mentally, and bringing with them patriotic sentiments worthy of the honourable profession of arms.
We have already shown in a previous chapter how important it is to raise the culture of the officers and non-commissioned officers to the best of our power, in order to secure not only a greater and more independent individual efficiency, but also a deeper and more lasting influence on the men; but this influence of the superiors must always remain limited if it cannot count on finding in the men a receptive and intelligent material. This fact is especially clear when we grasp the claims which modern war will make on the individual fighter. In order to meet these demands fully, the people must be properly educated.
Each individual must, in modern warfare, display a large measure of independent judgment, calm grasp of the facts, and bold resolution. In the open methods of fighting, the infantryman, after his appointed duty has been assigned him, is to a great degree thrown on his own resources; he may often have to take over the command of his own section if the losses among his superiors are heavy. The artilleryman will have to work his gun single-handed when the section leaders and gun captains have fallen victims to the shrapnel fire; the patrols and despatch-riders are often left to themselves in the middle of the enemy's country; and the sapper, who is working against a counter-mine, will often find himself unexpectedly face to face with the enemy, and has no resource left beyond his own professional knowledge and determination.
But not only are higher claims made on the independent responsibility of the individual in modern warfare, but the strain on the physique will probably be far greater in the future than in previous wars. This change is due partly to the large size of the armies, partly to the greater efficiency of the firearms. All movements in large masses are more exacting in themselves than similar movements in small detachments, since they are never carried out so smoothly. The shelter and food of great masses can never be so good as with smaller bodies; the depth of the marching columns, which increases with the masses, adds to the difficulties of any movements—abbreviated rest at night, irregular hours for meals, unusual times for marching, etc. The increased range of modern firearms extends the actual fighting zone, and, in combination with the larger fronts, necessitates wide dÉtours whenever the troops attempt enveloping movements or other changes of position on the battlefield.
In the face of these higher demands, the amount of work done in the army has been enormously increased. The State, however, has done little to prepare our young men better for military service, while tendencies are making themselves felt in the life of the people which exercise a very detrimental influence on their education. I specially refer to the ever-growing encroachments of a social-democratic, anti-patriotic feeling, and, hand-in-hand with this, the flocking of the population into the large towns, which is unfavourable to physical development. This result is clearly shown by the enlistment statistics. At the present day, out of all the German-born military units, over 6.14 per cent. come from the large towns, 7.37 per cent, from the medium-sized towns, 22.34 per cent. from the small or country towns, and 64.15 per cent. from the rural districts; while the distribution of the population between town and country is quite different. According to the census of 1905, the rural population amounted to 42.5 per cent., the small or country towns to 25.5 per cent., the medium-sized towns to 12.9 per cent., and the large towns to 19.1 per cent. of the entire number of inhabitants. The proportion has probably changed since that year still more unfavourably for the rural population, while the large towns have increased in population. These figures clearly show the physical deterioration of the town population, and signify a danger to our national life, not merely in respect of physique, but in the intellect and compact unity of the nation. The rural population forms part and parcel of the army. A thousand bonds unite the troops and the families of their members, so far as they come from the country; everyone who studies the inner life of our army is aware of this. The interest felt in the soldier's life is intense. It is the same spirit, transmitted from one to another. The relation of the army to the population of the great cities which send a small and ever-diminishing fraction of their sons into the army is quite different. A certain opposition exists between the population of the great cities and the country-folk, who, from a military point of view, form the backbone of the nation. Similarly, the links between the army and the large towns have loosened, and large sections of the population in the great cities are absolutely hostile to the service.
It is in the direct interests of the State to raise the physical health of the town population by all imaginable means, not only in order to enable more soldiers to be enlisted, but to bring the beneficial effect of military training more extensively to bear on the town population, and so to help to make our social conditions more healthy. Nothing promotes unity of spirit and sentiment like the comradeship of military service.
So far as I can judge, it is not factory work alone in itself which exercises a detrimental effect on the physical development and, owing to its monotony, on the mental development also, but the general conditions of life, inseparable from such work, are prejudicial. Apart from many forms of employment in factories which are directly injurious to health, the factors which stunt physical development may be found in the housing conditions, in the pleasure-seeking town life, and in alcoholism. This latter vice is far more prevalent in the large cities than in the rural districts, and, in combination with the other influences of the great city, produces far more harmful results.
It is therefore the unmistakable duty of the State, first, to fight alcoholism with every weapon, if necessary by relentlessly taxing all kinds of alcoholic drinks, and by strictly limiting the right to sell them; secondly, most emphatic encouragement must be given to all efforts to improve the housing conditions of the working population, and to withdraw the youth of the towns from the ruinous influences of a life of amusements. In Munich, Bavarian officers have recently made a praiseworthy attempt to occupy the leisure time of the young men past the age of attendance at school with health-producing military exercises. The young men's clubs which Field-Marshal v.d. Goltz is trying to establish aim at similar objects. Such undertakings ought to be vigorously carried out in every large town, and supported by the State, from purely physical as well as social considerations. The gymnastic instruction in the schools and gymnastic clubs has an undoubtedly beneficial effect on physical development, and deserves every encouragement; finally, on these grounds, as well as all others, the system of universal service should have been made an effective reality. It is literally amazing to notice the excellent effect of military service on the physical development of the recruits. The authorities in charge of the reserves should have been instructed to make the population of the great cities serve in larger numbers than hitherto.
On the other hand, a warning must, in my opinion, be issued against two tendencies: first, against the continual curtailing of the working hours for factory hands and artisans; and, secondly, against crediting sport with an exaggerated value for the national health. As already pointed out, it is usually not the work itself, but the circumstances attendant on working together in large numbers that are prejudicial.
The wish to shorten the working hours on principle, except to a moderate degree, unless any exceptionally unfavourable conditions of work are present, is, in my opinion, an immoral endeavour, and a complete miscomprehension of the real value of work. It is in itself the greatest blessing which man knows, and ill betide the nation which regards it no longer as a moral duty, but as the necessary means of earning a livelihood and paying for amusements. Strenuous labour alone produces men and characters, and those nations who have been compelled to win their living in a continuous struggle against a rude climate have often achieved the greatest exploits, and shown the greatest vitality.
So long as the Dutch steeled their strength by unremitting conflict with the sea, so long as they fought for religious liberty against the Spanish supremacy, they were a nation of historical importance; now, when they live mainly for money-making and enjoyment, and lead a politically neutral existence, without great ambitions or great wars, their importance has sunk low, and will not rise again until they take a part in the struggle of the civilized nations. In Germany that stock which was destined to bring back our country from degradation to historical importance did not grow up on the fertile banks of the Rhine or the Danube, but on the sterile sands of the March.
We must preserve the stern, industrious, old-Prussian feeling, and carry the rest of Germany with us to Kant's conception of life; we must continuously steel our strength by great political and economic endeavours, and must not be content with what we have already attained, or abandon ourselves to the indolent pursuit of pleasure; thus only we shall remain healthy in mind and body, and able to keep our place in the world.
Where Nature herself does not compel hard toil, or where with growing wealth wide sections of the people are inclined to follow a life of pleasure rather than of work, society and the State must vie in taking care that work does not become play, or play work. It is work, regarded as a duty, that forges men, not fanciful play. Sport, which is spreading more and more amongst us too, must always remain a means of recreation, not an end in itself, if it is to be justified at all. We must never forget this. Hard, laborious work has made Germany great; in England, on the contrary, sport has succeeded in maintaining the physical health of the nation; but by becoming exaggerated and by usurping the place of serious work it has greatly injured the English nation. The English nation, under the influence of growing wealth, a lower standard of labour efficiency—which, indeed, is the avowed object of the English trades unions—and of the security of its military position, has more and more become a nation of gentlemen at ease and of sportsmen, and it may well be asked whether, under these conditions, England will show herself competent for the great duties which she has taken on herself in the future. If, further, the political rivalry with the great and ambitious republic in America be removed by an Arbitration Treaty, this circumstance might easily become the boundary-stone where the roads to progress and to decadence divide, in spite of all sports which develop physique.
The physical healthiness of a nation has no permanent value, unless it comes from work and goes hand-in-hand with spiritual development; while, if the latter is subordinated to material and physical considerations, the result must be injurious in the long-run.
We must not therefore be content to educate up for the army a physically healthy set of young men by elevating the social conditions and the whole method of life of our people, but we must also endeavour to promote their spiritual development in every way. The means for doing so is the school. Military education under the present-day conditions, which are continually becoming more severe, can only realize its aims satisfactorily if a groundwork has been laid for it in the schools, and an improved preliminary training has been given to the raw material.
The national school is not sufficient for this requirement. The general regulations which settle the national school system in Prussia date from the year 1872, and are thus forty years old, and do not take account of the modern development which has been so rapid of late years. It is only natural that a fundamental opposition exists between them and the essentials of military education. Present-day military education requires complete individualization and a conscious development of manly feeling; in the national school everything is based on teaching in classes, and there is no distinction between the sexes. This is directly prescribed by the rules.
In the army the recruits are taught under the superintendence of the superiors by specially detached officers and selected experienced non-commissioned officers; and even instruction is given them in quite small sections; while each one receives individual attention from the non-commissioned officers of his section and the higher superior officers. In a school, on the contrary, the master is expected to teach as many as eighty scholars at a time; in a school with two teachers as many as 120 children are divided into two classes. A separation of the sexes is only recommended in a school of several classes. As a rule, therefore, the instruction is given in common. It is certain that, under such conditions, no insight into the personality of the individual is possible. All that is achieved is to impart more or less mechanically and inefficiently a certain amount of information in some branch of knowledge, without any consideration of the special dispositions of boys and girls, still less of individuals.
Such a national school can obviously offer no preparation for a military education. The principles which regulate the teaching in the two places are quite different. That is seen in the whole tendency of the instruction.
The military education aims at training the moral personality to independent thought and action, and at the same time rousing patriotic feelings among the men. Instruction in a sense of duty and in our national history thus takes a foremost place by the side of professional teaching. Great attention is given to educate each individual in logical reasoning and in the clear expression of his thoughts.
In the national school these views are completely relegated to the background—not, of course, as a matter of intention and theory, but as the practical result of the conditions. The chief stress in such a school is laid on formal religious instruction, and on imparting some facility in reading, writing, and ciphering. The so-called Realign (history, geography, natural history, natural science) fall quite into the background. Only six out of thirty hours of instruction weekly are devoted to all the Realien in the middle and upper standards; in the lower standards they are ignored altogether, while four to five hours are assigned to religious instruction in every standard. There is no idea of any deliberate encouragement of patriotism. Not a word in the General Regulations suggests that any weight is to be attached to this; and while over two pages are filled with details of the methods of religious instruction, history, which is especially valuable for the development of patriotic sentiments, is dismissed in ten lines. As for influencing the character and the reasoning faculties of the scholars to any extent worth mentioning, the system of large classes puts it altogether out of the question.
While the allotment of subjects to the hours available for instruction is thus very one-sided, the system on which instruction is given, especially in religious matters, is also unsatisfactory. Beginning with the lower standard onwards (that is to say, the children of six years), stories not only from the New Testament, but also from the Old Testament are drummed into the heads of the scholars. Similarly every Saturday the portions of Scripture appointed for the next Sunday are read out and explained to all the children. Instruction in the Catechism begins also in the lower standard, from the age of six onwards; the children must learn some twenty hymns by heart, besides various prayers. It is a significant fact that it has been found necessary expressly to forbid "the memorizing of the General Confession and other parts of the liturgical service," as "also the learning by heart of the Pericopes." On the other hand, the institution of Public Worship is to be explained to the children. This illustrates the spirit in which this instruction has to be imparted according to the regulations.
It is really amazing to read these regulations. The object of Evangelical religious instruction is to introduce the children "to the comprehension of the Holy Scriptures and to the creed of the congregation," in order that they "may be enabled to read the Scriptures independently and to take an active part both in the life and the religious worship of the congregation." Requirements are laid down which entirely abandon the task of making the subject suitable to the comprehension of children from six to fourteen years of age, and presuppose a range of ideas totally beyond their age. Not a word, however, suggests that the real meaning of religion—its influence, that is, on the moral conduct of man—should be adequately brought into prominence. The teacher is not urged by a single syllable to impress religious ideas on the receptive child-mind; the whole course of instruction, in conformity with regulations, deals with a formal religiosity, which is quite out of touch with practical life, and if not deliberately, at least in result, renounces any attempt at moral influence. A real feeling for religion is seldom the fruit of such instruction; the children, as a rule, are glad after their Confirmation to have done with this unspiritual religious teaching, and so they remain, when their schooling is over, permanently strangers to the religious inner life, which the instruction never awakened in them. Nor does the instruction for Confirmation do much to alter that, for it is usually conceived in the same spirit.
All other subjects which might raise heart and spirit and present to the young minds some high ideals—more especially our own country's history—are most shamefully neglected in favour of this sort of instruction; and yet a truly religious and patriotic spirit is of inestimable value for life, and, above all, for the soldier. It is the more regrettable that instruction in the national school, as fixed by the regulations, and as given in practice in a still duller form, is totally unfitted to raise such feelings, and thus to do some real service to the country. It is quite refreshing to read in the new regulations for middle schools of February 10,1910, that by religious instruction the "moral and religious tendencies of the child" should be awakened and strengthened, and that the teaching of history should aim at exciting an "intelligent appreciation of the greatness of the fatherland."
The method of religious instruction which is adopted in the national school is, in my opinion, hopelessly perverted. Religious instruction can only become fruitful and profitable when a certain intellectual growth has started and the child possesses some conscious will. To make it the basis of intellectual growth, as was evidently intended in the national schools, has never been a success; for it ought not to be directed at the understanding and logical faculties, but at the mystical intuitions of the soul, and, if it is begun too early, it has a confusing effect on the development of the mental faculties. Even the missionary who wishes to achieve real results tries to educate his pupils by work and secular instruction before he attempts to impart to them subtle religious ideas. Yet every Saturday the appointed passages of Scripture (the Pericopes) are explained to six-year-old children.
Religious instruction proper ought to begin in the middle standard. Up to that point the teacher should be content, from the religious standpoint, to work on the child's imagination and feelings with the simplest ideas of the Deity, but in other respects to endeavour to awaken and encourage the intellectual life, and make it able to grasp loftier conceptions. The national school stands in total contradiction to this intellectual development. This is in conformity to regulations, for the same children who read the Bible independently are only to be led to "an approximate comprehension of those phenomena which are daily around them." In the course of eight years they learn a smattering of reading, writing, and ciphering.[A] It is significant of the knowledge of our national history which the school imparts that out of sixty-three recruits of one company to whom the question was put who Bismarck was, not a single one could answer. That the scholars acquire even a general idea of their duties to the country and the State is quite out of the question. It is impossible to rouse the affection and fancy of the children by instruction in history, because the two sexes are taught in common. One thing appeals to the heart of boys, another to those of girls; and, although I consider it important that patriotic feelings should be inculcated among girls, since as mothers they will transmit them to the family, still the girls must be influenced in a different way from the boys. When the instruction is common to both, the treatment of the subject by the teacher remains neutral and colourless. It is quite incomprehensible how such great results are expected in the religious field when so little has been achieved in every other field.
This pedantic school has wandered far indeed from the ideal that Frederick the Great set up. He declared that the duty of the State was "to educate the young generation to independent thinking and self-devoted love of country."
[Footnote A: Recently a boy was discharged from a well-known national school as an exceptionally good scholar, and was sent as well qualified to the office of a Head Forester. He showed that he could not copy correctly, to say nothing of writing by himself.]
Our national school of to-day needs, then, searching and thorough reform if it is to be a preparatory school, not only for military education, but for life generally. It sends children out into the world with undeveloped reasoning faculties, and equipped with the barest elements of knowledge, and thus makes them not only void of self-reliance, but easy victims of all the corrupting influences of social life. As a matter of fact, the mind and reasoning faculties of the national schoolboy are developed for the first time by his course of instruction as a recruit.
It is obviously not my business to indicate the paths to such a reform. I will only suggest the points which seem to me the most important from the standpoint of a citizen and a soldier.
First and foremost, the instruction must be more individual. The number of teachers, accordingly, must be increased, and that of scholars diminished. It is worth while considering in this connection the feasibility of beginning school instruction at the age of eight years. Then all teaching must be directed, more than at present, to the object of developing the children's minds, and formal religious instruction should only begin in due harmony with intellectual progress. Finally, the Realien, especially the history of our own country, should claim more attention, and patriotic feelings should be encouraged in every way; while in religious instruction the moral influence of religion should be more prominent than the formal contents. The training of the national school teacher must be placed on a new basis. At present it absolutely corresponds to the one-sided and limited standpoint of the school itself, and does not enable the teachers to develop the minds and feelings of their pupils. It must be reckoned a distinct disadvantage for the upgrowing generation that all instruction ends at the age of fourteen, so that, precisely at the period of development in which the reasoning powers are forming, the children are thrown back on themselves and on any chance influences. In the interval between school life and military service the young people not only forget all that they learnt, perhaps with aptitude, in the national school, but they unthinkingly adopt distorted views of life, and in many ways become brutalized from a lack of counteracting ideals.
A compulsory continuation school is therefore an absolute necessity of the age. It is also urgently required from the military standpoint. Such a school, to be fruitful in results, must endeavour, not only to prevent the scholar from forgetting what he once learnt, and to qualify him for a special branch of work, but, above all, to develop his patriotism and sense of citizenship. To do this, it is necessary to explain to him the relation of the State to the individual, and to explain, by reference to our national history, how the individual can only prosper by devotion to the State. The duties of the individual to the State should be placed in the foreground. This instruction must be inspired by the spirit which animated Schleiermacher's sermons in the blackest hour of Prussia, and culminated in the doctrine that all the value of the man lies in the strength and purity of his will, in his free devotion to the great whole; that property and life are only trusts, which must be employed for higher ideals; that the mind, which thinks only of itself, perishes in feeble susceptibility, but that true moral worth grows up only in the love for the fatherland and for the State, which is a haven for every faith, and a home of justice and honourable freedom of purpose.
Only if national education works in this sense will it train up men to fill our armies who have been adequately prepared for the school of arms, and bring with them the true soldierly spirit from which great deeds spring. What can be effected by the spirit of a nation we have learnt from the history of the War of Liberation, that never-failing source of patriotic sentiment, which should form the backbone and centre of history-teaching in the national and the continuation schools.
We can study it also by an example from most recent history, in the Russo-Japanese War. "The education of the whole Japanese people, beginning at home and continued at school, was based on a patriotic and warlike spirit. That education, combined with the rapidly acquired successes in culture and warfare, aroused in the Japanese a marvellous confidence in their own strength. They served with pride in the ranks of the army, and dreamed of heroic deeds…. All the thoughts of the nation were turned towards the coming struggle, while in the course of several years they had spent their last farthing in the creation of a powerful army and a strong fleet."[B] This was the spirit that led the Japanese to victory. "The day when the young Japanese enlisted was observed as a festival in his family."[B]
In Russia, on the contrary, the idea was preached and disseminated that "Patriotism was an obsolete notion," "war was a crime and an anachronism," that "warlike deeds deserved no notice, the army was the greatest bar to progress, and military service a dishonourable trade."[B] Thus the Russian army marched to battle without any enthusiasm, or even any comprehension of the momentous importance of the great racial war, "not of free will, but from necessity." Already eaten up by the spirit of revolution and unpatriotic selfishness, without energy or initiative, a mechanical tool in the hand of uninspired leaders, it tamely let itself be beaten by a weaker opponent.
[Footnote B: "The Work of the Russian General Staff," from the Russian by Freiheu v. Tettau.]
I have examined these conditions closely because I attach great importance to the national school and the continuation school as a means to the military education of our people. I am convinced that only the army of a warlike and patriotic people can achieve anything really great. I understand, of course, that the school alone, however high its efficiency, could not develop that spirit in our people which we, in view of our great task in the future, must try to awaken by every means if we wish to accomplish something great. The direct influence of school ends when the young generation begins life, and its effect must at first make itself felt very gradually. Later generations will reap the fruits of its sowing. Its efficiency must be aided by other influences which will not only touch the young men now living, but persist throughout their lives. Now, there are two means available which can work upon public opinion and on the spiritual and moral education of the nation; one is the Press, the other is a policy of action. If the Government wishes to win a proper influence over the people, not in order to secure a narrow-spirited support of its momentary policy, but to further its great political, social, and moral duties, it must control a strong and national Press, through which it must present its views and aims vigorously and openly. The Government will never be able to count upon a well-armed and self-sacrificing people in the hour of danger or necessity, if it calmly looks on while the warlike spirit is being systematically undermined by the Press and a feeble peace policy preached, still less if it allows its own organs to join in with the same note, and continually to emphasize the maintenance of peace as the object of all policy. It must rather do everything to foster a military spirit, and to make the nation comprehend the duties and aims of an imperial policy.
It must continually point to the significance and the necessity of war as an indispensable agent in policy and civilization, together with the duty of self-sacrifice and devotion to State and country.
A parliamentary Government, which always represents merely a temporary majority, may leave the party Press to defend and back its views; but a Government like the German, which traces its justification to the fact that it is superior to all parties, cannot act thus. Its point of view does not coincide with that of any party; it adopts a middle course, conscious that it is watching the welfare of the whole community. It must therefore represent its attitude, on general issues as well as on particular points, independently, and must endeavour to make its aims as widely understood as possible. I regard it, therefore, as one of the most important duties of a Government like ours to use the Press freely and wisely for the enlightenment of the people. I do not mean that a few large political journals should, in the interests of the moment, be well supplied with news, but that the views of the Government should find comprehensive expression in the local Press. It would be an advantage, in my opinion, were all newspapers compelled to print certain announcements of the Government, in order that the reader might not have such a one-sided account of public affairs as the party Press supplies. It would be a measure of public moral and intellectual hygiene, as justifiable as compulsory regulations in the interests of public health. Epidemics of ideas and opinions are in our old Europe more dangerous and damaging than bodily illnesses, and it is the duty of the State to preserve the moral healthiness of the nation.
More important, perhaps, than teaching and enlightenment by the Press is the propaganda of action. Nothing controls the spirit of the multitude so effectually as energetic, deliberate, and successful action conceived in a broad-minded, statesmanlike sense. Such education by a powerful policy is an absolute necessity for the German people. This nation possesses an excess of vigour, enterprise, idealism, and spiritual energy, which qualifies it for the highest place; but a malignant fairy laid on its cradle the most petty theoretical dogmatism. In addition to this, an unhappy historical development which shattered the national and religious unity of the nation created in the system of small States and in confessionalism a fertile soil for the natural tendency to particularism, on which it flourished luxuriantly as soon as the nation was no longer inspired with great and unifying thoughts. Yet the heart of this people can always be won for great and noble aims, even though such aims can only be attended by danger. We must not be misled in this respect by the Press, which often represents a most one-sided, self-interested view, and sometimes follows international or even Anti-German lines rather than national. The soul of our nation is not reflected in that part of the Press with its continual dwelling on the necessity of upholding peace, and its denunciation of any bold and comprehensive political measure as a policy of recklessness.
On the contrary, an intense longing for a foremost place among the Powers and for manly action fills our nation. Every vigorous utterance, every bold political step of the Government, finds in the soul of the people a deeply felt echo, and loosens the bonds which fetter all their forces. In a great part of the national Press this feeling has again and again found noble expression. But the statesman who could satisfy this yearning, which slumbers in the heart of our people undisturbed by the clamour of parties and the party Press, would carry all spirits with him.
He is no true statesman who does not reckon with these factors of national psychology; Bismarck possessed this art, and used k with a master-hand. True, he found ready to hand one idea which was common to all—the sincere wish for German unification and the German Empire; but the German nation, in its dissensions, did not know the ways which lead to the realization of this idea. Only under compulsion and after a hard struggle did it enter on the road of success; but the whole nation was fired with high enthusiasm when it finally recognized the goal to which the great statesman was so surely leading it. Success was the foundation on which Bismarck built up the mighty fabric of the German Empire. Even in the years of peace he understood how to rivet the imagination of the people by an ambitious and active policy, and how, in spite of all opposition, to gain over the masses to his views, and make them serve his own great aims. He, too, made mistakes as man and as politician, and the motto Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto holds good of him; but in its broad features his policy was always imperial and of world-wide scope, and he never lost sight of the principle that no statesman can permanently achieve great results unless he commands the soul of his people.
This knowledge he shared with all the great men of our past, with the Great Elector, Frederick the Incomparable, Scharnhorst and BlÜcher; for even that hoary marshal was a political force, the embodiment of a political idea, which, to be sure, did not come into the foreground at the Congress of Vienna.
The statesman who wishes to learn from history should above all things recognize this one fact—that success is necessary to gain influence over the masses, and that this influence can only be obtained by continually appealing to the national imagination and enlisting its interest in great universal ideas and great national ambitions. Such a policy is also the best school in which to educate a nation to great military achievements. When their spirits are turned towards high aims they feel themselves compelled to contemplate war bravely, and to prepare their minds to it:
"The man grows up, with manhood's nobler aims."
We may learn something from Japan on this head. Her eyes were fixed on the loftiest aims; she did not shrink from laying the most onerous duties on the people, but she understood how to fill the soul of the whole people with enthusiasm for her great ideals, and thus a nation of warriors was educated which supplied the best conceivable material for the army, and was ready for the greatest sacrifices.
We Germans have a far greater and more urgent duty towards civilization to perform than the Great Asiatic Power. We, like the Japanese, can only fulfil it by the sword.
Shall we, then, decline to adopt a bold and active policy, the most effective means with which we can prepare our people for its military duty? Such a counsel is only for those who lack all feeling for the strength and honour of the German people.
