It is strange, indeed, that in a country where words like those of Judge Holmes can be spoken, there should exist men who actually oppose the building of a navy by the United States, nay, even more, actually oppose so much as the strengthening of the coast defences, on the ground that they prefer to have this country too feeble to resent any insult, in order that it may owe its safety to the contemptuous forbearance which it is hoped this feebleness will inspire in foreign powers. No Tammany alderman, no venal legislator, no demagogue or corrupt politician, ever strove more effectively than these men are striving to degrade the nation and to make one ashamed of the name of America. When we remember that among them there are college graduates, it is a relief to remember that the leaders on the side of manliness and of love of country are also college graduates. Every believer in scholarship and in a liberal education, every believer in the robust qualities of heart, mind, and body without which cultivation and refinement are of no avail, must rejoice to think that, in the present crisis, college men have been prominent among the leaders whose far-sighted statesmanship and resolute love of country have made those of us who are really Americans proud of the nation. Secretary Olney is a graduate of Brown; Senator Lodge, who took the lead in the Senate on this matter, is a graduate of Harvard; and no less than three members of the Boundary Commission are graduates of Yale. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [19] The Bachelor of Arts, March, 1896. [Illustration] XII WASHINGTON’S FORGOTTEN MAXIM[20] A century has passed since Washington wrote “To be prepared for war is the most effectual means to promote peace.” We pay to this maxim the lip loyalty we so often pay to Washington’s words; but it has never sunk deep into our hearts. Indeed of late years many persons have refused it even the poor tribute of lip loyalty, and prate about the iniquity of war as if somehow that was a justification for refusing to take the steps which can alone in the long run prevent war or avert the dreadful disasters it brings in its train. The truth of the maxim is so obvious to every man of really far-sighted patriotism that its mere statement seems trite and useless; and it is not over-creditable to either our intelligence or our love of country that there should be, as there is, need to dwell upon and amplify such a truism.