I know of no way in which to meet this danger effectively; but I do know that it is not through reprisals or punishments. Perhaps it is best to hope that at the close of the war we shall all recover our sanity. Certain it is that the American people have in the Germans in this country too valuable and powerful an element to alienate, and the German people who have made this country their home have too great a sense of the value of it and its institutions, to them and their children, to be willing to jeopardize the American Spirit, because of that which must be but a passing phase in the history of our poor, misguided, human race. Besides the threatened break in unity, the American Spirit is being challenged by a call to arms, not merely to avert any momentary, threatened danger, but to be permanently safeguarded, prepared against its predatory neighbors all around the globe. Whether those who join in this call know it or not, or wish it or not, it means militarism. When just such arguments were used for Germany's preparedness, when that gospel was being preached with all possible fervor, one of the wisest Germans said: "_Wehrkraft wird immer Mehrkraft_" ("Defensive power always becomes offensive power"), and I am sure that the average American will say that, in the case of Germany, this has proved true. If I were arguing for military preparedness, I would not be so insistent upon the building of new fortresses, or the accumulation of ammunition. I would insist upon training our children in obedience and reverence. I would give them schoolmasters who know what they teach and who would demand strict application to the curriculum. I would oppose the growing pedagogic idea that the schoolroom is a playground, and that knowledge may be acquired without hard work. I would restore the rod and banish the coddler. I would call in our high school boys from the side lines, from their vicarious athletics and their slavish imitation of college customs, and teach them how to dig trenches and serve cannon, which seem to be the chief need in modern military operations. It is folly to believe that the _fiasco_ of the Russian armies was due to the lack of ammunition or of sufficient fortresses; it was due to the lack of good schools and to the lack of discipline among its educated classes.