"_All the pure and noble arts of peace are founded on war; no great art ever rose on earth but among a nation of soldiers. There is no great art possible to a nation but that which is based on battle. When I tell you that war is the foundation of all the arts, I mean also that it is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties of men. It was very strange for me to discover this, and very dreadful, but I saw it to be quite an undeniable fact. The common notion that peace and the virtues of civil life flourished together I found to be utterly untenable. Peace and the vices of civil life only flourish together. We talk of peace and learning, of peace and plenty, of peace and civilization; but I found that these are not the words that the Muse of History coupled together: that on her lips the words were peace and sensuality, peace and selfishness, peace and death. I found in brief that all great nations learned their truth of word and strength of thought in war; that they were nourished in war and wasted in peace; taught by war and deceived by peace; trained by war and betrayed by peace; in a word, that they were born in war and expired in peace._" * * * * * We must not conclude, from the above quotation from Ruskin, that he was an advocate of brutality versus humanity, for he was not. The thought he meant to convey was simply this--that only a supreme trial, a supreme responsibility, where country, life itself, and that which is dearer than life--home--are staked on the issue, can bring out the highest virtues. The struggle for inalienable human rights, whose observance is freedom, has been the greatest influence to stimulate the genius and the virtues of men, and these things have been accomplished, and could only have been accomplished, by war. The humanity of Ruskin is well brought out in the following quotation: * * * * * "... _Depend upon it, all work must be done at last, not in a disorderly, scrambling, doggish way, but in an ordered, soldierly, human way--a lawful or 'loyal' way. Men are enlisted for the labor that kills--the labor of war: they are counted, trained, fed, dressed, and praised for that. Teach the plough exercise as carefully as you do the sword exercise, and let the officers of troops of life be held as much gentlemen as the officers of troops of death; and all is done: but neither this, nor any other right thing, can be accomplished--you can't even see your way to it--unless, first of all, both servant and master are resolved that, come what will of it, they will do each other justice._" * * * * *