Part 26 (1/2)
_Flanders, a Mudhole, February, 1915._
... Is not my old friend Anderson's plan the only natural, practical, efficient method by which to humanize their barbarous instincts? a.s.suming that they will be defeated, as they _must_ be, the Anderson project, as you see, is that a permanent arrangement must be offered them, and if necessary enforced upon them, whereby a mult.i.tude of young German men and women shall be sent yearly to foreign democratic lands to _live_ and be educated there for a period. By attractive scholars.h.i.+ps, by pecuniary inducements or by any of a number of programmes, young Germans can be tempted to this step. In living and studying, before middle age, under free and liberal conditions, they will begin looking at foreigners in a friendly, or what we should call a Christian, manner. After awhile, after generations perhaps, this leaven will work in the thick, tough, sour Teuton dough. It will transform the people. They will gradually become allies at heart instead of remaining hostiles.
As it is now, the German eats, drinks, bathes, and nauseatingly does other elemental things much as he did a hundred years ago, because he receives his instruction in his homeland with the idea, not only complacent but aggressive, that his habits are the best. And this is for the reason that he has seen no other kind when young. Do you think, for instance, that a youthful German, after living in the freedom of our young s.e.xes, would return to the Rhine and long be content with the iron-like Teuton customs in love, courts.h.i.+p and marriage?
A youthful person is apt to admire the people among whom he is staying a long while for the reason that, under such circ.u.mstances, aliens are kind. He will always take pride in these foreign connections, pride in what he has learned abroad.
He will think himself more fortunate and more advanced than his fellow stay-at-homes. The young German, becoming used to more amiable modes of existence, would naturally become more or less fond of them. A broader, more human social spirit--the true social spirit--would get a hold in him.
I would go further than my friend Anderson. I would have _all_ civilized countries adopt this plan with one another as well as with Germany. The trouble with civilization, as seen in this war, is that no people understands or truly sympathizes with any foreign nation--not even among the Allies. They are strangers because they have been kept strangers. This creates suspicion, envy, enmity, for they have not in any noticeable degree lived together. They do not know one another's customs, habits, perspectives. As a result, armies, navies, tariffs, treaties backed by force, are necessary to hold civilization precariously in shape--and at what colossal effort, anxiety, expense? The different languages, literatures, arts, educations, religions, should become familiar to large numbers in each race and be the open, peaceful highways back and forth instead of, as now, barriers.
_Flanders, another Mudhole, February, 1915._
... I see the woeful, tragic need for this international co-education all around us here at the front. The Canadians, Australians, English, French, all quarreling back and forth and pulling against one another as unfriendly strangers.
Germany is giving--has given--one great lesson to them all and to us Americans at home. And that is, IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH.
After this war the tremendous question before the world will be:
_How are we going to live with the Germans?--how get on with them?_
The only true and gracious solution I can see is--_To a.s.sociate and study together when young_! Would not you--would not everyone--agree that this interchange in education, which would not be very troublesome or expensive, is a true manner in which to remove from the German make-up its savage, destructive animus toward mankind? In order really to change a race, the work must be done from the inside outward. And this means _some_ form of education, not merely victories, edicts, Leagues.