In home, in the school, in the high school, during military service, in office work, everywhere passive dependence is insisted on under the name of discipline, discretion, faithfulness to duty. And like all the fine words, by which the living souls of men are turned into the slaves of discipline, these terms exalt _esprit de corps_, and pass over really serious faults. Discipline means subordinating one's self to every crude force. Only when all Protestants really become actual Protestants, and refuse to receive the greatest good of life, their religion, through authority, will they begin even in social and political questions to attain an independent opinion of their own. As teachers and leaders, they will secure for school children, and for students, for officers and for officials, the freedom in word and deed that is the right of the citizen and the man. Men and women, who in their private life are strictly honourable, have learnt, in general questions, to put their thoughts, their acts, under the command of a leader, and above all they have learnt to do this in the name of religious belief. The courage to construct one's own opinion in everything that makes the essential worth of life, but chiefly in one's religious belief, the power to express it, the will of making some sacrifice for it, all these give man a new share of civilisation and culture. As long as education and social life do not consciously forward this kind of courage, power, and will, the world will remain as it is, a parade ground of stupidity, crudeness, force, and selfishness, no matter whether radicals or conservatives, the democratic or aristocratic elements, have the upper hand.