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.