does not make ready to hold its own in time of need against all who
would harm it! And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average
man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if
the day of need should arise!
It is no impossible dream to build up a civilization in which
morality, ethical development, and a true feeling of brotherhood shall
all alike be divorced from false sentimentality, and from the
rancorous and evil passions which, curiously enough, so often
accompany professions of sentimental attachment to the rights of man;
in which a high material development in the things of the body shall
be achieved without subordination of the things of the soul; in which
there shall be a genuine desire for peace and justice without loss of
those virile qualities without which no love of peace or justice shall
avail any race; in which the fullest development of scientific
research, the great distinguishing feature of our present
civilization, shall yet not imply a belief that intellect can ever
take the place of character--for, from the standpoint of the nation as
of the individual, it is character that is the one vital possession.
Finally, this world movement of civilization, this movement which is
now felt throbbing in every corner of the globe, should bind the
nations of the world together while yet leaving unimpaired that love
of country in the individual citizen which in the present stage of the
world's progress is essential to the world's well-being. You, my
hearers, and I who speak to you, belong to different nations. Under
modern conditions the books we read, the news sent by telegraph to our
newspapers, the strangers we meet, half of the things we hear and do
each day, all tend to bring us into touch with other peoples. Each
people can do justice to itself only if it does justice to others; but
each people can do its part in the world movement for all only if it
first does its duty within its own household. The good citizen must be
a good citizen of his own country first before he can with advantage
be a citizen of the world at large. I wish you well. I believe in you
and your future. I admire and wonder at the extraordinary greatness
and variety of your achievements in so many and such widely different
fields; and my admiration and regard are all the greater, and not the
less, because I am so profound a believer in the institutions and the
people of my own land.
* * * * *
THE CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS
An Address at the Cambridge Union, May 26, 1910
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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