Britain never loses a chance to turn a slur into an honor, and every officer and man who was at the front or on the way over seas to fight for the motherland at the time that the Kaiser referred to England’s “contemptible little army” gets the red chevron on his sleeve which allows him to call himself a “contemptible.” Those are the little things on which a great nation is built. These officers were as jolly and unassuming as a lot of school boys. I like the way in which the British can, at times, forget rank and put behind them the things they have done. They decline to take themselves seriously--yet they manage to make the rest of the world do so. Other nations take themselves seriously, and have something in their manner that suggests with more or less menace that you must have the same attitude toward them. But the British have welded an empire out of many queer nationalities with the simple idea that a gentleman does not have to insist that he is a gentleman--the instant he does so he ceases to be a gentleman. I do not believe the British have always been right, but they have been right often enough to win my admiration. And the best any nation can do is to try and be right all the time. Standards of conduct for individuals and nations are always changing, despite the assertions of many people that “human nature cannot be changed.” Quite true, but human nature which displays barbaric tendencies can be controlled. At one time a man had to get drunk to be a gentleman, and he had to fight a duel if challenged, or challenge to a duel if he suffered what he considered insult. Human nature has not changed, but we have changed the standards for decent human conduct. And some day there will be no wars because human nature is willing to meet the new standards we shall set up. In the meantime, we cannot end wars by throwing away our own guns and allowing the other fellow to keep his. We must evolute by education rather than by legislation, though continual legislating internationally will advance the education by providing a free interchange of ideas and a setting up of international ideals.