World Unity/Volume 2/Issue 3/Text

[Page 149]

WORLD UNITY

A Month]; Magnzim for than who Jul: the world outlook upon present deadlymmt: of philosophy, m‘em‘e, n igion, ethic: and lb: art:

W

JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, Editor Hones Haunt, Managing Editor HELEN B. MACMILLAN, Bmirm: M41145”

Contributing Editor:

C. F. Arm." JOIN \V. Gun»: Lucu AMI: Mun W. \\'. Atwooo MAIJA GIUNDMANN-KOSCICNSKA Knm Mmuus MAII’ AUSTIN FIANI H. HANKlNS Hlllll'l A. Maul A. Msnmuouu Burnout A. Eusnu Hnnou Fun Mn-mun Duos Ewan): WILL Hun Dmm Gout. Mung)! L. F. n- Buwon' Yuno lcmcunm lm Mann 1 Gal!" A. Bmxn Rurus M. jon- Hnuv Ania Ovnsnln ‘ Plun Bum MOIDICAI W. Jonmou Dunn Purim Enwm Arman Burr: DAVID Sun Jonmm John Hlunn RANDALL, JI. Hun- Cmnuwonn Sum". Lucn Joan: Cuuus RICII'I’ Nu Peon Cnlw Eunm Juan Font“ Rum Rl'nouu 1. Com Vumull Kunnou Tu. Runs“ lhuun Donal P. \V. Kuo Wuum R. Suulnn GIDIGII Dulmll. Rlcnnn Lu an Sllfilli‘l ANNA B. Ecmuu Hun LIV! Ann HILLII. SILvn kuocx Eu.“ ALAIN Loan 15100. Small Avnusu Foul. GIDIGI DI Lumlcs ' Auous‘rus O. Tuoun C. F. Gun Laws L. MANN Gluu‘r Tuoms \'. SCIIULZI Givnnm Sll Jun: Mncnnn' Rusruu \‘iulhr Huuwru Vol Gaunt Varm- Mnounn'n WALT“ \V'Aun Hun“ Angus Gillan; R. H. Mnnum HANS Wnlnno Kuuu. Guns Anna W. Martin M. P. \qucocn (lunwrn Palms Gnu“): F. 5. anm Fun: LLom Wnou'r

Kiln." F. Mun“

Editorial t ‘ficu—4 East nth Street, New York City

Woxm UNITY Ml. am: is published by WORLD UNITY PumsmNe Conounon, 4 East 11th =(met. New York City: MARY Ruusmr Movws, prm'dun; Houcn HOLLBY, vimpmidmt; FLORENCE Morrow, manner; JOHN Humm RANDALL, mung. Published monthly. 3; cents a copy. $3.50 a ycar in the United States, $4.00 in Canada and $4.50 in all other countries (postage included). Tm; Wont) Umrv Punusnmo Conron'nou and its editors do not invite unsolicitcd manuscripts and art mamial, but welcome correspondence on articles related to the aims and purposes of the magazine. Printed in U. S. A. Content: copyrighted 192.8 by Wonn UNITY Puuusnmo Comu-nou.

[Page 150]B—vfi-m

o INSTITUTION inspired by fear can further 'ife. Hope, not fear, is the creativ. \rinciple in human afl'airs.

All that has It : man great has sprung from the attempt to Secure what is good, not from the struggle to avert what was thought evil. It is because modem education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom g achieves a great result. The wish to pre, serve the past rather than the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young. Education should not aim at a passive awareness of dead facts, but at an activity directed towards the world that our efforts are to create. It should be inspired, not by a regretful hankering after the extinct beauties of Greece and the Renaissance, but by a shining vision of the society that is to be, of the triumphs that thought will achieve in the time to come, and of the everwidening horizon of man’s survey over the universe. Those who are taught in this spirit will be filled with life and hope and joy, able to bear their part in bringing to mankind a future less somber than the past, with faith in the glory that human effort can create.

—Selrmd Paper: of Bertrand Rune”

[Page 151]

WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

\‘ntt ll JUNE, 1918 No. 3

EDITORIAL

cm. DEMOCRACY REAPING THE HARVEST

renewed social faith and energy were cast into a freshly plowed field. The hostile past, as much as humanly possible, was overthrown, repudiated or transformed.

But democracy has been a garden without a gardener. It has offered its precious store of fertile earth and fertilizing sun and rain to rankest weed or poison vine on equal terms with the herbs of healing, the flowers of beauty, the trees of ftuitfulness. The state of democracy today is that of a neglected garden, atrived at its inevitable autumn, when the householder must lay up what harvest he can for the winter to come.

Democracy sowed a new vision of education. It reaps a citizenry whose minds are organized in division and disciplined in philosophies of strife.

Democracy sowed a new vision of social equality. It reaps the most sinister racial problem on earth—the gulf between the white man and the black, the son of slavedrivcrs and the son of slaves.

Democracy sowed a new vision of religious tolerance. It reaps a system of competitive churches which perpetuate every hmitation and localism of the human soul, {tom the quietism of Quakers to the hierarchy of Rome.

Democracy sowed a new vision of freedom and personal opportunity. It reaps an all-dominating industry which knows how to gratify desire and passion at the price of life.

Democracy sowed a new vision of political cooperation. It reaps a militarism intent upon arming one continent against the world.

Even democratic society followed revolution—the seeds of

Isl

[Page 152]

151 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

Unguessed in the green leaf, the tragedy of democracy manifests itself all too clearly in the sere. The worm eats at the heart of the rose; the creeping parasite gains upon the lordly mk; beneath the fruit-laden arbor coils the serpent; witless moths masquerade in colors stolen from the fallen flown. In face of this bitter reality, the claims of the optimist seem as the chirp of crickets before the frost.

How, it may be asked, tnay any general criticism be entered against an entire society without revealing a mere subjective, personal attitude? By basing judgment not upon the advantage or disadvantage incurred by individuals or groups who are members of the society, but upon the objeCtive fact represented by the sum of the influences the society wields in relation to the othet nations and peoples of the world.

It is because democracy makes no adequate moral impact at this crucial moment in human evolution; because democracy possesses no colleCtive, sacred force, hoists no banners to inspire the righteous among men, produces no world program, transmits no vision, that we must admit the wave of our civilization has subsided, its original creative force been spent.

No unassailable ruler dictated the terms of this spiritual defeat. We differ from lost Tyre, or Ninevah the fothtten, in that today government and people are one‘ What has failed is not a system but a humanity; not a code but the soul of man. If the onmshing year can he stayed at its mellow OCtober, then may democracy be spared its winter of discontent, the season of frustration when men must depend upon the lean harvest of their own planting and learn again, by agony, to invoke the guidance of the Supreme.

[Page 153]

WEW

BUILDING UP THE INTERNATIONAL MIND

5: Hun ALLEN Ovnnsnnn' Colh‘t 0] lb: City 0] New York

r WA: were a complete horror, a monstrosity; or if it were a laughable absurdity, it would go out overnight. War lasts because there is something in us that makes it last.

What is this something in us which makes war last; and what can we do about it?

If I read in the morning newspaper that a father deliberately murdered his daughter; cut her into pieces; gathered the pieces into a sack and threw them into the river, I exclaim at the monstrosity. There is nothing "natural" about such a deed. It is the sign to me of some abominable perversion of human nature. If I were in the vicinity of the murder and were given authority, I should wish to examine that man, to discover, if possible, what psychological abnormality in him had brought about his monstrous behavior.

In the same newspaper I read that the King of Bessarabia, let us say, has declared war on the King of Mesopotamia. In this case, I get no sense of the horrible; no sense of the monstrously unnatural. As a matter of fact, things will happen in that coming war which will probably equal if not exceed in horror the murderous act of the aforesaid father. But my mind is quite calm about it all. I may regret the unpleasantness between the two kings; I may enquire a little anxiously into my holdings in the Bessatabian and Mesopotamian vicinities; but I shall take it all as'a matter of course,—even though a regrettable matter of course. War, in

short—unlike personal mutder—has come throughout the cenIn

[Page 154]154 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

turies to be regarded as something ”natural," something to be expected. There have, indeed, been those who have argued that we shall never be able to rid ourselves of war because it actually mats in an ineradicable instinct, the instinct of pugnacity. There have been others—the war mystics—who have declared that war is so fine and sound a thing that we should not even try to eradicate it. It makes—like strong food and exercise and sex responsibility—for the manly and adventurous qualities. As for the rest of us, whose enthusiasm is often a little dampened by the nasty things we find happening in war, we take war for granted as rooting in one of those queer defects of human nature which we are constantly encountering, like jealousy or acquisitiveness or the desire to beat the other fellow. So when we read the account of the threatened war, we sigh a little and turn to the next page. "Well, I suppose thete'll have to be another siege of it now. I only hope it does not spread." As if it were measles or chickenpox.

This is the most ominous thing about war, that it is taken to be something wholly natural, something fundamentally part of us; something to be expected, something therefore of which it would be quite futile to attempt to rid ourselves. That, in short, is the habit of mind which mankind has developed toward war.

It is precisely as if, seeing a brute knock down a woman, we should shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, it's natural to knock down a woman once in a while. If you're a man you've just got to do that kind of thing."

If anything is to be done about war, then, the first task of the psychologist-educator must be to weaken this sense of the naturalness of war. How can he do it?

In the first place, I should say that a new method of studying all wars must be adopted. We are all sufficiently familiar with the hitherto prevailing mode of studying war. Statement of cause; date of declaration of war; battles fought; who came off the victor and when; and what did the victor get out of it? I venture to say that this method has simply tended to establish more firmly

[Page 155]IUIIDING UP THE INTERNATIONAL MIND 155

in the mind of the young the conviction that wars are natural events; things to be expected; in brief, natural ways of having quarrels with other groups. There have been so many wars (in fact history seems to be about little else. really) that they force conviCtion by the very constancy of their repetition. When Thomas Edison was asked the other day whether he believed that wars could be eliminated, he replied, "There are four of them going on now."

So there is, at present, this auoriativt linkage which our study of history establishes with the word war. "An event that is usual and quite natural." We educate our children into that particular associative linkage. Hence they accept war as part of their expected social inheritance.

Consider, on the other hand, the associative linkage with the word ”brutal murder." "An eVent that is unusual and wholly horrible." We teachers and parents deliberately form that linkage for our children. Can we develop some such new associative linkage with the word war?

It can only be done, I believe, if we study our historic wars in a new and far more penetrating way.

Wars have always been either methods of settling disputes or methods of getting something. Suppose we consider the first kind of war. Whenever a dispute has arisen which has led to war, we are fairly safe in assuming that the war cvcntuated either (1) because of stupidity, or some other mental defect, like stubbomness or conceit or ignorance on someone's part; or (2.) because of someone's double dealing. The first is a form of mental defect; the second a form of moral perversion. We may sum it up, in short. by saying that every war arising out of a dispute has resulted either from mental deficiency or moral perversion on someone's part.

If this is doubted, it might be an excellent plan to offer a prize to any person who will successfully indicate any war whatever in which all parties to the issue exhibited the utmost clarity of mind and the utmost integrity both of purpose and behavior. The offering of such a prize-preferably of a large amount [Page 156]

156 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

would, I ventute to believe, make a deep impression—and would cost the prize ofl‘erer nothing.

In the second place, whenever a war has been launched for the sake of getting something, there has always been present on one side or the other, the attitude of taking something away by force. Stealing, in short.

Now I can easily imagine a method of teaching history in which every war, whether ancient or modem, is dealt with somewhat in this fashion.

"Again the peaceful development of art, industry, and science is interrupted. Men are thrown into a fever of destructiveness, of suspicion, hate, and cruelty. Man's reason and man's decency take a holiday. There is an interregnum of bloodshed and terror.

"Let us try to find out whether the cause of this particular war lay (1) in someone's mental deficiency; or (2.) in someone's mental perversion. "

Such a treatment of wars might be made to suit even the super-patriots—whether German, French, English, American or otherwise. For it could be granted to them that in the wars for which they still wave flags and plant wreathes, their particular side was the victim of one or other of these two deplorable causes. Thus, for example, the honor of the American Revolution is saved by noting the stupidity (mental deficiency) of King George III; the honor of'the North by noting both the greed and stupidity of the Southern slaveholders. Whether the Mexican war could be thus salvaged for our pride is, perhaps, a little doubtful. But it must ever be a soothing thought to the superpattiot that someone else's stupidity, or someone clsc's double dealing or someone else's greed was to blame for the particular war in which his country played so gloriously heroic a part.

Our attitudes, as we have suggested, are built up {undamentally out of our associative linkages. If, now, We can accustom the child mind instantly to associate the word war with mental or moral deficiency, his attitude toward war will be difl'erently ' shaped. He will think of war, then, in terms of these associated

[Page 157]

i i l

BUILDING UP THE INTERNATIONAL MIND 157

behaviors. War, in short, becomes for him a symptom of deplorable human weaknesses. The bugle blowings and the gun firings, dramatic as they are, will then have back of them this persistent sense that someone blundeted, someone went astray.

In this manner, then, we build up the attitude that wars are more or less tragic mistakes, and we set the young mind to searching why these mistakes are made and how such mistakes may in future be prevented.

It is profoundly significant, from a psychological point of view, to realize that no generation has yet been trained to this particular associative linking of wax with mental and moral defects. Certainly our generation was not. War was presented with an associative linkage of glory, courage, heroism, devotion. It was presented. therefore, as something strong and admirable m life. When we‘ realize how well-nigh universal has been this linkage of war with the glorious human qualities, we can understand why the mind of man is so set in its habits of war-adoration.

II

This, then, is the first task of a psychologist-educator, to lmild up a mu! 53mm! of associations wit}: tbs word war. This task will be performed, I believe, only as the psychologistmducatot keeps clearly in mind what he wants to do. He wants to make the word war instantly mean something low and barbarous and unnatural. I think most history teachers never think of wanting this. What they want is to have the child correctly remember that the war was fought and how it was fought. He excuses this attitude on the ground that history must be neutral as to values. But such history teaching is not neutral at all. On the contrary, in building up an association with war as an amped fact, it helps strongly to perpetuate a human monstrosity.

There is a story of a little French boy, just published in France, which is typical of the older conditioning. I think if I am not mistaken that it has been crowned with a prize. This little boy had one life-ambition. He wanted to be a soldier. But he was a very poor little boy, and he could not leave his village to go to

[Page 158]158 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

the big city where soldiers were made. So day after day he dreamed of being a soldier. He got his companions together and drilled them. He had them charge up the hills to storm imaginary forts. He had them scatter over the country on scouting expeditions. He marched them down the village streets, stemly attentive to their discipline.

Then a great man heard of the little fellow. He came one day and asked him if he did not wish to go away and be a real soldier. Imagine the joy of the little boy. Tears trickled down his cheeks. At last all that he wanted in life was to come to him. God was good!

So the great man gave the little boy a flaming red soldier suit and took him with him. The boy went into the army; blew his little bugle lustily by day and by night and—you know how the story will inevitably come out—one day he saved the life of his beloved commander when the ferocious, and of course wholly despicable enemy, had shot the aforesaid beloved commander down.

He was given a great ovation, a medal, several hundred francs and sent back to his village a hero.

Think of sophisticated American children of the future who have been brought up on the teaching that wars are due either to mental deficiency or moral perversion, reading a story like that "Poor simp!" they will say.

And that, precisely, is what we want to get our children to say.

When you and I were boys and girls, we did not say, "Poor simp!" We, too, dreamed of uniforms and gallant chargers. And, simply because in those days no one told us that war was about the silliest and stupidest of all the human occupations.

"I

Our next task is to bring about a new associative linkage with the word "history." It is curious how uncritical in our thinking we have all been about history. We have learned quite naturally to assume that history is a record of events. Nothing,

[Page 159]

.V A __.._.______ 4 BUILDING UP THE INTERNATIONAL MIND 159

of course, is farther from the truth. History "as she is taught“practically everywhere in the world—is a combination of fact and legend. One has but to read a few history textbooks as one finds them in England, Germany, France, China, Japan,‘and Other lands to realize that, far from being rigorously trustworthy accounts of factual happenings, they are more or less fabricated, more or less insidiously selective accounts drawn up to gratify the sensibilities and the prejudices of the particular group. I need not elaborate upon this. The present indignation against those of the newer historians who, taking their task with a seriousness befitting an emerging science. are exploding many of our cherished myths, is sufficient indication that history is supposed to serve the end not of proof but of pattiotic self-congtatulation. As one of out particularly infantile American poets recently expressed it:

“They would tear down the idols (sic) we have raised,

And fill with sordid fact fair history's page."

The trouble, of course, is that fair history's page has not been filled with "fact," sordid or otherwise. Nevertheless, we have all been taught history as if it were fact. And there has lain the tub. For when the German boy imbibed "historic fact" from his text book, he never questioned but that it was the truth and nothing but the truth which he was getting. And when the French boy did his imbibing of a very different kind of "truth," he likewise never doubted what he was getting. Likewise the English boy. And likewise the American.

And so each promptly proceeded to hate or to boast or to reverence as the case might be, never for a moment realizing that what he was reading was fairly good fiction in spots but not rigorous fan.

I am sure that nothing more salutary could occur than to induce in all children a wholesome skepticism about this thing called ”history." The associative linkage should no longer be "history . . . fact;" but ”history . . . fact, prejudice, misinformation, group egotism all mixed together."

How may we develop such wholesome skepticism? It has been suggested that history be eliminated altogether {tom the

[Page 160]

60 won.» um MAGAZINE

curriculum. This, I think, is really to evade the main issue. For what we wish to do is so to train the minds of our children that they will not easily be taken in by what passes for history.

There are two possible ways, I think, of doing this. One is to teach history campamtiveb. Let us suppose that we are studying English history. Would not it be instantly illuminating if we studied what the German history books said about English history; what the French books said; what the Chinese and Japanese said; and, if there are Hindu books, what they said? It would not take a child long to see that these accounts Were fat from being identical. Then, when an American text book was placed in his hands, would he be as likely as he now is to accept the whole thing as gospel truth?

So much for the first suggestion. The second is that we substitute for the history of nations the binary of human progrm. At any one time all kinds of forces are at won'k, from all quarters of the globe, to advance or to retard the march of human kind. It is utterly preposterous to consider the advance and the retardation from one small spot on the planet. If this is true, then the teaching of history, to be worthy of its name, must emancipate itself from its traditional provincialism and regard itself no longer as the apologist for a dynasty or even for a people, but a searcher-out-of the-truth about the enterprise of mankind as a whole.

Such an attempt is almost nowhere in evidence. Hence, through our history teaching, we still tend to build up provincial minds. Once, however, we seriously undertook to teach the history of human progress, all these petty lines of division would be broken through, and the mind of the child would be enabled to move freely and generously over his human world.

1V

Our next task is to bring about a new associative linkage with the concept "my country." If one thinks for a moment of what leaps instantly to mind when the words ”my country" are spoken, I think I am not mistaken when I say that it is one or both of two ideas,—love and defense.

[Page 161]

BUILDING UP THE INTERNATIONAL MIND 161

Now love is good, and defense is often necessary; but when love and defense are the two sole ideas conioined, a curiously inadequate concept is built up. It is a concept built altogether out of a "property" relation. My country is a place; it has something within it—rocks and rills, hearths and homes. These are very lovely—nnd also very tempting to wicked people who look on envious from the outside. This place, in short, belongs to us; we own it; it is ours; all our happiness depends upon its not being taken from us. Therefore it is deeply essential that we defend it with out lives against all possible maraudets.

I think without any question that this is the typical mental picture which almost universally is called up by the words, "My country."

It is that picture of something to defend, something which we possess, which breeds'wars; for it is a picture which inevitably paints the outsiders, the lookets-in, as potential enemies, potential takers-away. It is that picture, in Other words, so deeply engraved in our minds, which breeds our type of exclusive nationalism, the nationalism which holds Other nations off at arms length and which refuses to join with them in a common enterprise of keeping the human peace and of advancing the human welfare.

This morning I read in the newspaper that a professor of the University of Wisconsin has refused two million dollars for his discovery of Vitamin D. ”I am a scientist," he said in effect. "What I have discovered does mt belong to me; it is in no way my property; it belongs to mankind."

The scientific attitude, as we know it, is built out of a point of view widely different from that of possession. it is the point of view of contributing something, finding something out that can be of value to everybody. Think of Marconi ptesenting his discovery to Italy and holding that no American had any right to it. And the Italians getting up a great national holiday. ”We shall defend radio to the death, for radio belongs to our own dear fathetland!" .

How preposterous! Science, fortunately, has never yet suffered the sad fate of being linked up with possession. From the

[Page 162]162. woau) um" MAGAZINE

beginning it has been linked up with a far different idea. the vitalizing, civilizing idea of "contribution to mankind."

Now it is some such new associative linkage which must, in one way or another. be built up with the idea ”my country." The idea which should constantly be evoked in a child is nm of his country a: a place to defend. but rather of his countty a: a group that am cumin: .mmtbing really great to VI» ongoing of mankind.

How can this be done? Briefly, we need to introduce to all our schools and colleges a new kind of study of nations—the study of nations as contributors—to each Other and to the general advance of civilization. We might call this a study of ”contributory nationalism," as over against the tnditional study of ”defensive and possessive nationalism." There is no slightest need to sneer at the idea of nationalism. The need rather is to build up a new associative linkage with the word "my country," the type of linkage which makes patriotism a proud joining-in with the contributory functioning of one's people.

The child is altogether too apt—history teaching has not done much to disabuse him——to regard his world as a kind of checkerboard of nations. Germany here, France there, Italy over there, and so on. A wholly physical, material view. On a checkerboard each square lies outside the Others; pushes the Others, so to speak, away from it; defends itself against invasion. But what is the actual situation? Germany long ago invaded America; Italy long ago invaded Germany; France long ago invaded all the other checkerboard squares. And America for a hundred years has been invading all the rest of the world. Each nation, if it is worth its salt, spreads out beyong itself, penetrates other nations—with what? Obviously, with the peculiar thing that is different, the unique contribution which it can offer.

France is indispensable to us all. Why? That would be a long and fascinating story t work out. It might keep a class of children busy for weeks on wngland has. been indispensable to us all. America has been indis nsable.

May it not, in short, be possible to introduce a new kind of study—the study of natinnal values? It would probably breed a fat

[Page 163]

BUILDING UP THE INTERNATIONAL MIND 163

hner race of future citizens if a year or so were spent in hunting. sympathetically and understandingly, for the great contributions w h ich etch people had made to the ongoing enterprise of civilizanon. After that study had been made, it would not be difficult for students to list the negative contributions— the false propaganda. the hate-brecding lies, the physical and moral poisons contributed at various times by individuals from various groups and by the constituted governments of various groups. Such a study would doubtless make children instantly aware of the false attitudes contained in many of our patriotic songs. Take as an excellent example the lines from “Rule, Britanniaz"

“The nations not so blest as thee Must in their turn to tyrants fall; Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free, The dread and envy of them all."

But what would be most important would be the building up of a new, instant response to the words "my country." That response would no longer be “love and defense against enemies," but "love and contribution to the ongoing of mankind."

What we need then is to build up a new kind of response to the words "my country.” That response must no longer be in terms of defense, of bigness, of threat to other lands, but rather in terms of the finest possible contribution to the ongoing of mankind.

V

Finally our task is to establish a new linkage with the idea of "disputes between nat‘nns.” I remember, when I was a boy in school, that the United States came into a dispute with Chili over some mistreatment of our man-oi-war sailors. I reacted instantly by writing a hat, patriotic poem in which I angrily advised the United States to "get out the fife and drum, boys,". and wipe the Chileans off the earth. The poem was published in a local newspaper; and I was a seven days patriotic wonder.

[Page 164]164 wont) UNITY MAGAZINE

The pitiful thing about it all was, not so much that the moronic editor published the poem. as the fact that, when an international dispute arose, the instant expectation in the mind of a fairly intelligent youngster was that the only way of settlement was a resort to arms.

I think I am right in asserting that that was the only expectation of youngsters in those days. We knew of no other way of going about the settlement of international disputes. We Were not super-militatists. We were just plain ignorant.

The world has advanced far beyond that stage. Nowadays there at: Other ways. Hence, now, there is obviously one fundamental task which the teacher of today can and should perform; he must build a new kind of expectation in the minds of his youngsters. A child of today, hearing, for example, of the Nicaraguan trouble, should be so taught that the first thought which leaps to his mind is: ”It will have to be arbitrated." He must learn to expect arbitration as the fnst step in the settlement of disputes. He must learn to expect that arms will be resorted to only as a last and wholly deplorable tesott.

The thing need not be moralized about at all. Children hate moralizing. All that we need is to dramatize the settlements by arbitration as vividly as we have dramatized the booming 0"?big guns.

There was, for example, the Aaland Islands dispute. Sweden and Finland glaring at each other across the water. The tramp of regiments. The tattling of sabers. All Europe waiting, hushed; fearful of being drawn into a conflict that might put an end to an already exhausted civilization. And then a quiet call for a commission. The simple peasant folk going to the commission to tell their story; the politicians and the diplomats. The neutral commissioners listening gravely; trying hard to find out the tights and fife Wrongs. Then the decision. Some grumbling; some disappointment; but a great sigh of relief all over the civilized world thlt one more war had been averted.

The trouble with out school historians is thatthey mostly

[Page 165]

BUILDING UP THE lN'l'BINA'flONAL MIND 165

lack imagination. Brought up in their day on gold braid, they can now only think of history as animated gold braid. Perhaps 11 is because they fear the child mind, not really undentanding it. They feel that they must make their texts “interesting." What they need, really, is to stretch their imaginations by visiting the archives at a place like Geneva and finding t.‘1e vital human interest that thtobs in those huge volumes which recount one after another of the settlements that have kept our world out of wild plunges of war.

The child does not need tin soldiers if he can equip himself with a M .-ano or a Chemcraft set. The school child need not be drugged with the Deadwood Dick type of military exploitsts h1ch we have misnamed' ‘history’ '——if he can be given a vivid and dramatic sense of the great humanizing projects that are now happening 1n the world.

So the psychologist-educator has this new task—of building up new expectations. Wherever, nowadays, two or three are gathered together {or the mutual understanding of intetnational dilficulties,- there the spirit of a new world prevails. It is that spirit of a new world—the world we are slowly moulding into shape—which must become the chief concern of education. there is no fatal necessity that 0111' children should grow up war—mindcd. Children are surprisineg reasonable. And what, indeed, is more reasonable than to suppose that when nations have fallen out, they try first to understand what the whole quarrel is about? And what, above all, is more reasonable than that they work out for themselves, in times of peace, a technic and an organization fitted to the task of mutual adjustment, so that when the moment of stress comes, there will be the instant possibility of doing what is sane rather than stupidly insane?

What We need, therefore, is to teach internationalisatdramatically, thtillingly,—as the next step in man's advance to a fuller rationality. In this manner we build up the new associative linkages which will make the mind of the future a very different mind from the pathetically misinformed and emotionally distorted mind of the past.

[Page 166]

@thmm

SCHOOLS AND THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER

5: WILLIAM Low: BRYAN Indiana Ulu'unio

moral habits of oneself or of any one else. It' is enormously difficult to change any habit. About two years ago at Indiana University, Dean Pound of the Harvard School of Law recited a list'of grammatically unlawful phrases which he had found in the examination papers of his students—all of them post-graduates, all of them in the upper levels of ability and attainment as compared with average college men. These superior men coming up through many of the best schools and colleges of America had mastered a thousand hard asks but had not escaped from the bad speech habits of childhood. In a matter of morals the task is far harder. In a matter of morals one must fight habit and also passion. A man has no passionate interest in saying "I seen" or “He don't" or "I aint." But his badunoral habits are inttenched in hungets and hates which ety up from evety cell of his body. "I find then a law,’ ' said Paul, "that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For l'delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 0 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this dead body."—Roman 6: u-u. To make a plan for moral improvement is a joyous enterprise. To bting about real improvement in oneself or in any one else is the hardest thing in the world. Nevettheless we must think of plans and methods and I shall at this time name four. I“

Tn: hardest thing in the world is to make really better the

[Page 167]SCHOOLS AND THE BUILDING 0F CHAlACTER 167

I

First: Moral education requires good teaching of the regular school subjects.

A few years ago I inspected a high school which was abnormally bad. I saw first year students of algebra trying to multiply one quantity by another when they did not know anything with certainty from the first of the book to the lesson of the day. They did not know exactly how to add or subtract or multiply. They did not know a coefficient from an exponent. They could not have had one good lesson since school began. They were stumbling about trying by hook or crook to get the answers in the book. I found very much the same condition in other classes. Of course there was disorder. A glance across the room would show everywhere potential anarchy. I was not surprised to heat later that the principal had been dismissed and that a lively school war had broken out in the community. The whole school situation in that town was sick. A principal part of the blame doubtless was that children were going to school day after day without being made to work steadily at good tasks. A few years later I found a new situation—a new man at the head—a new policy. Lessons in the outset short. A few alphabetic things exactly learned. Children having the satisfaction of little successes. Learning to like work. Getting the habit of work. Energies turned [tom wrong disease-making channels to right healthmaking channels. The whole school situation growing healthy and healthgiving. In a word here was real moral progress which came largely (not wholly) from the fact that children were properly led to work at the tasks which make civilized men.

Here I wish to say a word for those teachers who are not much touched by emotion, who never preach and seldom sing, whose lives are slow and gray but who lead children to work steadily and in good temper from September to June at the ABC’s of civilized knowledge and who therefore develop in children the habit of steady hard work. These teachers are the hidden builders of society. The y are not seen among the heroes on horse [Page 168]_ liest down and when thou rises: up and when thou art by the way.

168 woun 1mm MAGAZINE

back. They are on foot. in the dust, lost in the crowd; but theirs is the heroism which bears up and carries forward most of the work of civilization.

Second: Right principles of morality must be taught.

The teaching of morals is a thing not to be despised or neglected. This is proved by the experience of the best races through thousands of years of time. The best example that I know is the practice and experience of the Hebrews. The base fact that the Hebrew race has survived undet the most difficult conditions producing generation after generation of healthy men and women. producing century after century great men, makers of civilization, is complete proof of the fundamental morality'of that race and makes them authoritative counselors as to the moral education of children.

If the test of truth is experience, then this expetience in producing men through the greater part of histotic time has a weight far beyond the most plausible theorizing whose claim fox consideration is that it is fresh. Apart from any theological consideration, I believe that the best book on the methods of moral education is the Hebrew _Bible. In the forefront of their moral theory and practice the -‘Hehrews put the teaching of the Law. From end to end the Old‘ Testament rings with this counsel: “The Law is thy Life. Teach it to thy children when thou

lay up these my Wand: in thy heart and in thy soul and bind them as a sign upon thy hand and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy Word. Thy Wm! is a lamp unto my feet and a light onto my path." The same counsel is given to the people as a whole. The Law is your life. Forsake it and you will be scattered and destroyed. Keep it and you shall live among the nations forever. This cane and this blessing have been fulfilled even unto this day.

The same evidence of the value of moral teaching comes to

[Page 169]

“001.8 AND m BUILDING O! CHAMC‘I'BI. [69

us from the history of tLe Christian Church in its best estate both ancient and modern. Christianity through the church and family and also during most of its history through the schools has taught its children its principles of faith and practice. Most men of whatevet faith recognize the value of much of this teaching and all recognize its efficiency. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount sink deep into the marrow of a society whose children leatn them by heart.

I shall not hete and now discuss the calamitous fact that in avoiding as we must the entanglement of church and state we are not free to use in our schools the gteatest book of morals which the human race possesses. We must do the best we can in spite of this handicap. There is no adequate compensation {or it.

"I

Third: Moral education requires the help of art.

The most distinguished advocate of art as a means of moral education known to me is Plato. Plato believed as severely as the writers of the Bible that there is no law {qr children or for men or for nations except the eternal Truth. He thought however that children could not comprehend the truth in its abstract purity and must receive it through the forms of art. He therefore urged that rigid selection be made of the few‘ best poems, songs, et cetera, which were true and pure as well as beautiful so that through them the children might get a first sense of the truth nccessary for their lives.

Thirty years ago in this town I hearda disciple of Plato, an leducationsl statesman, Nebraska Ctopsey, tell of the coming of art into the schools of Indianapolis. Here are tens of thousands of children, she said, that are touched by no uplifting institution except the school. We teach them to read and to spell and to add and presently thousands of them go out to be hewets of wood and drawers of water for life without a glimpse of beauty and without the hunger for it. We give them, she said, an Art Museum and no interest in going there. V I remember the nun-lilte quiet, the white fite of this woman

[Page 170]\;‘~nMM

... “4......

I70 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

as she said, ”If we are to save Indianapolis from damnation, we must bring to all these children of the people the greatest music in the world that they can like, the greatest pictures in the world that they can like, the greatest poetry in the world that they can like. They will like some of these things if they have the chance."

And then she said in substance as Plato said before her, "Out youth will dwell in a land of health amid fair sights and sounds; and beauty, the efl‘luence of fair works, will meet the sense like a breeze and insensibly draw the soul even in childhood into

a harmony with the beauty of reason."

Within the thirty years since Nebraska Ctopsey and Wilhelmina Seegmuellet made the vision of Plato in some degree a reality in Indianapolis, the American schools elsewhere and almost everywhere have done the like.

In this connection I wish to indicate a certain new movement from which I have good expectation. I have for years hoped to see made a list of books. for children which should have these three characteristics:

1. The list would be small, perhaps 100 books.

2.. Every book would be of course quite fitst-tate.

3. The men and the methods of selection would be such as to give the excellent small list the greatest possible prestige.

Then I would hope that this small group of quite fitst-tate books would go into every school of America, not only to benefit millions of children individually but so as to unite them. Dr. Newlon has said that if any group of propagandists could control the curriculum of textbooks of the American schools, they could in large part control the ideas of America in twenty years. Sundry groups of propagandists are trying to do that thing. I propose another propaganda. I propose that every school in America, along with whatever else it has, shall have the same small shelf of books, every book chosen as a work of genius that children can like. Not all the children will read or care. But millions of children from ocean to ocean, millions of children of diverse race and breeding and occupation will grow together in mind by

knowing together and loving together a few eternally great

[Page 171]SCHOOLS AND THE BUILDING OF CHAIN! 171

things. America will be tightly united when in such fashion its. children stow together in mind.

Let me add that committees of the Association of American Universities, of the American Library Association, and of the National Educational Association are working together at this plan.

IV

Fourth: Moral education requires just and wise administration of the school.

The‘most important influence affecting a boy's character is not what is said to him but how he is dealt with. The opening exercises may go in one ear and out the other, but an unfair deal in the discipline is not forgotten in forty years. What kind of deal the boy gets depends first upon the teacher. If she is mean, uncandid, unfair, petty, vindictive, her school is as if stricken with a plague. Her moral diseases are catching and reappear in a score of evil ways in the children. On the other hand, if the teacher is good tempered, honest, fair, magnanimous, these qualities of health are also catching. I agree heartily with the old commonplace saying that by fat the most important factor in moral education is the character and dispoo ’tion of the teacher. It is however necessary to remember that the kind of deal a boy gets in school depends upon many who stand behind the teachet—the superintendent, the trustee, the city council, or the city boss. If the situation behind the teacher is corrupt, if men can reach through the teacher and determine the treatment that falls to the children not for the children's sake but {at their own eompt advantage, then the school which ought to be a kingdom of righteousness tends to become a kingdom of iniquity. When this: mortal offense against the life of the children is tolerated, :1! the ordinary means of moral education become futile or worse. Wh‘en the things darn ate a shock to the justice of the school, the presentation of noble ideals there seems a kind of blasphemy. What can the teacher do in such case? Two things are possible. You can fight as Chancellor Lindley fought for us all in Kansas. You can

[Page 172]. ‘~\—v- u.

a -,_-.._.. 171 won!) UNITY MAGAZINE

stand at the door of your school between the kingdom within, which should be sacred, and those who would tavish it and can

' fight there until you fall—no: less heroically than one who falls in

battle. But there is anothet possibility. Men are not divided into good and bad. All men are both good and bad, the proportions varying. A school man needs to remember that he is far ftom perfect himself and then to discover that his worst opponent is not without elements of goodness. The best school men know these things well. They face a cottupt city as they face a bad school, to convert, to rescue, to win the city up-to its own best convictions. In this way the so-called bad man who was running amuck through the school system has been led to come around and join the guard about the school where his children go. He has done this not through the fine diplomacy of any one, but because at the bottom of his heart there is a good man.

I often think that the most dangerous position which any man among us holds is that of school superintendent. The government cares for the soldier and fat his fsmily. But the school man st the height of his capacity and usefulness my be struck down nod turned out with wife and children and without resource. It is a fearful calling. It. is no wonder that many falter and droop and see]: only to creep from year to yea: in safety. It is no wonder that some of a fine sort turn aside in despair and seek only to save their own honor in a wicked and pervetse genmtion. But it is a wonder, a wonder none the less because again and again we see it hnppen, when the school master makes the community his charge and through a"generation of service, with a scant living and at peril of his daily bread, leads his people and their children some way on the upward toad.

[Page 173]

AN OBJECTIVE FOR CIVIC EDUCATION 5.7

Anton) H. Klimt“

the bringing into being of a generation of citizens that

are, 1) tealists, frankly willing to face social conditions

as they ate,-to know the worst as well as the best; 1) philosophical fteemen, free from the partisan, pervetting influence of "isms," whether radical or conservative; and, 3) social experimenters, eager to carry the scientific attitude and the experimental idea into politics.

It is obvious that a civic education should be planned with regard to the needs of the society the destinies of which those that are now children will some day shape. But social needs are being too narrowly conceived. The world is not primarily in need of citizens who know the mechanism of government. What society needs first of all is not voters who know how the county court works, how a congress overrides a veto, how the postofflcc functions, and how elections are held. Nor is its primary need that for citizens who vote, obey the law, do jury duty, and salute the flag. What is needed before all things is a generation of citizens in whom has been cultivated the scientific attitude that may do for social problems that which it has done for the problems of physics, chemistry, and bioldgy.

Now the scientific attitude is characterized by a relative freedom from eteeds and "isms." To the scientist, ideas and systems of ideas are not mystic entities that are to be loved, deified, _ worshipped, and perpetuated for ever and ever. They are instruments of action, growing out of action, tested by action, and modified or killed by action. The genuine scientist must hold himself ready to modify or discard a whole flock of pet ideas,

m

n. N oancrwn that a civic education should have in view is

[Page 174]I74 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

pleasant ideas, traditional ideas, or ”sacred" ideas. if facts disclosed by observation or experiment demand modification or discard.

What can civic education do to make the scientist's eagerness to be free from bias, to know the truth, and to progress through experiment, a part of the mental equipment of the coming citizen? The civic educator, if he be himself scientifically minded, will be an experimenter. And if he be an experimenter, it will occur .to him that the problems of society, like the problems of educationand the problems of society ate to a very great extent problems of education—may be solved by the application of the experimental method. Such an application can perhaps be assured by inducing scientific attitudes and experimental habits in those who will some day be citizens.

The scientific attitude has something to ofl’et to the solution of humanity‘s problems; in that attitude, and not in partisan hatangues, lies the hope of the world. It needs to be made the common property of all. It is therefore in the halls of education. rather than the legislative chambers, that immediate steps toward

a fundamental solution of this world's problems must be taken.

The world does need reconsttuction; that fact needs to be recognized. The attitudes of men to each other. of nations and races to each other, of classes to each othet, of the sexes to each otherall need reconstruction. This, too, needs to be recognized. To accomplish these reconstructive tasks. it is necessary, as a first step, to reconstruct civic education. And this, too, needs to be recognized.

• IE * # fi

It is suggested here that a reconstruCtion of civic education might shape itself along the following lines:

a) Social conditions should be portrayed as they really are. This will help dispel the myth that extant social institutions have attained a state that is very like perfection, except for a slight blemish here and there. Educators who are free from mythological influences will insist that the coming generation

[Page 175]AN 0.1m“?! POI CIVIC EDUCATION 17’

shall know that the world is in a torty. condition, has always been, and is in need of a cleansing, repairing, tebuilding.‘

b) Pupils should be placed beyond the range of partisan propaganda. If It is at all possible, they should be kept free from the contamination of conservatisms, liberalisms. and radicalisms —ftoIn socialism, communism, capitalism. syndicalism, nationalism, intemationalism, or any other kind of "ism." They should study these things when they have arrived at maturity. or when a critical, experimental, utilitarian attitude toward ideas has become established in them.

c) A tolerant attitude toward dissenting opinions should be cultivated in children. In clubs, ciasses, and junior republics children should learn to consider all ideas as worthy of a hearing. to judge them on their merits, and to permit the experimental application of ideas other than their own.

Competitive debates, such as those held between individuals, clubs, classes, and schools, dispose students toward intolerance. toward the wish to beat the fellow who holds dissenting views, toward the over-valuation of victory in argument, and should therefore be abolished.“

"Particularly must we guard against dislikes founded on differences in opinions and beliefs. The great need here is of course to fortify young minds against the animositics which are so sedulously and easily aroused toward dissenters and innovators. On the other hand, need I say that we are not encouraging hostility to conservatives as such, that we are not promoting a tolerance which works only one way? We want to make it plain, first, that intolerance is inhuman and, second, that it is foolish. Inhuman, of course, because the mind cannot be forced, and the holding or disavowing of any belief or any opinion on any matter whatsoever 'is therefore no proper index of virtue or depravity, nor proper cause for praise or rebuke. Foolish, because an impediment to

" latheathoolsinttodme ppilstotheanllyaitdsodalidnb—aulyuis.thuia,notol

mutdthemdlyopuaduvduminmtneityflheudtmby Whitheudattitguided.‘ W—GeorpACo: "ShalIVleTuehChildtenourSoeialldealn". in

'ThWotldTonorIow," Sepunhetugu. "Setthewriter'urtiele. ‘TheCOIIIpetitiveDebue." in "SehoolandSodetyf' Maytag“.

[Page 176]I76 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

enlightened progress."—Sylvester B. Butler, “Public School Possibilities. Principles Guiding One Practical Experiment," in ”The World Tomorrow," September, 192.4.

d) Children should be taught that ideas, beliefs, opinions, crecds, are instruments of action, growing out of action, tested by action, modified and killed by action. They should be taught that there is no special merit in a permanent and tenacious adherence to an idea that aetion has not verified. They should be commended for changing their opinions as experience and experiment direct.

e) Children should be habituated to membership in minorities, and to playing the role of a minority of one. They should be taught that no special merit attaches itself to membership in a majority; they should be taught that the important thing in a discussion is, not the winning of it, but the learning and the spreading of the truth.

0 Social institutions, customs, and conventions should be described as instruments, tools, machinery, to be used for the welfare of men, and to be modified, improved upon, or discarded. as human needs may dictate. ”We are striving to rid ourselves of our prepossessions and prejudices, that we may not convey them to our boys and girls. It is up to us to explain their social environment to pupils from an objective Standpoint. We would have them realize, and their early reading about primitive and foreign people is designed to make the point stronger, that manners, customs and institutions are not universal, and that many other people are able to live just as happily as they, though quite differently. We aim to reveal to them through their later more organized study of human history that the world and its institutions 'iave been and are in a continuous state of change and development, which intelligent human action will not try to block, but to steer in the right direction. Thus would we imbed in their minds the illuminating principle that the function of institutions is to serve man and not to shackle him. And we must do nothing to give them the idea that adherence to certain beliefs or conformity to certain practices which do not direCtly involve one's attitude to one's fellows is a necessary part of their lives and

[Page 177]AN OBJECTIVE FOR CIVIC EDUCATION 177

essential to good citizenship. Daily devotional exercises, {lag salutes. and American Creed recitals make it unusually difficult to avoid this danger, and these customs cannot be modified all in a moment, if ever, more's the pity.“

g) Every child community—class, club, school, or campshould be turned into a self-govetning social laboratory. Social experiments should be going on all the time. The rules, laws, regulations, customs, traditions, and institutions of the club, class, school, or camp, should be constantly subjected to the test of practicality. Does it work? Does it help or hinder the aims of the child community? These are the questions the laboratory should be made to answer.

The child citizens should be habituated to the practice of changing every one of their laws, rules, regulations, customs, and traditions, and to the practice of changing them as fast as the needs of the community require.

They should learn to avoid long and wrangling debates. Questions that cannot be quickly settled by discussion should be referred to the laboratory test. They should learn that experiment, and not debate, not a majority vote, determines the truth of an idea.

Social experiment, social construction and reconstruction, social progress, should be made to become habitual.

h) Children shou'd be habituated to avoid the use of labels as a basis for an expression of judgment. They should eschew the thatacterization of proposals as American or un-American, socialistic, Jewish, Christian, un—Christian, atheistic, materialistic; they should be taught not to permit their championship of, or opposition to, a measure to be influenced by the use of these words. The habit should be set up of basing all judgments concerning proposals upon their workability.

Juvenile speakers should always be guided to address their appeals to the reason, never to the emotions or prejudices of their audiences. They should be taught to express themselves in the group discussions in a simple, sober manner without display.

' Sylvenet 3. Butler. "Public School Possibilities."

[Page 178]178 wonm 1mm! MAGAZINE

”We are striving to promote the positive attitude, by which we mean one of seeking to understand the ideas of others before disputing them and to find the elements of good in a proposition before commencing destructive criticism. We would also put our pupils on guard against and teach them to detect the appealing catchwords, irrelevant arguments, superficial thinking, and appeals to prejudice with which proposals and projects of great worth are so often defeated and many maleficent policies are successfully carried out and maintained. What an annoyance ate the folks who attempt to demol .sh you with one of these weapons! The only way I know to protect our boys and girls against them is to warn them to fetch themselves back ever to this anchor: 'What does that have to do with the welfare of men and women?" " , . i) Guard should be maintained against the use of constitutions, by-laws, and parliamentary rules for political or party purposes. The writer, when a boy, had some expetience in clubs that had a great deal of use for rules and laws. He was in a position to observe their pernicious effect. Members were conStantly yielding to the temptation to utilize them in political maneuvers. Members opposed to a given proposal would define some clause or section of the constitution, by-laws, or parliamentary manual in such a way as to justify the throttling of all discussion upon it. at the same time that advocates of the proposal would be either interpreting the same clause or section the opposite way, or frantically searching for a clause that would justify the continuance of discussion.

Furthermore, the program that this article outlines may do something toward the creation of an atmosphere discouraging to the formation of cliques and parties among the citizens of juvenile republics.

What of the home? Much is being said nowadays with reference to the more fundamental importance of the home as an educational agency. It is the home, one is told, in which the education of the child has, must have. its beginnings. All very

' Sylvesm I Butler, “Public School Possibilities."

[Page 179]AN OBMVE FOR CIVIC EDUCATION 179

true. no doubt. But to the writer it seems that for the present and for some time to come it will be the school that will bear the burden of child education. Indeed, it will be one of the chief duties of the school to neutralize the effects of the education that children of preschool age acquire at home. For it is the educator, and to some extent the teacher, rather than the parent, who embody the scientific spirit in education. It is teacher and educator who are more likely to possess the scientific attitude that experiments of the sort just discussed require. Truth to tell, most parents themselves stand in need of a recducation in the direction of the acquisition of something approaching a scientific attitude.

But there are some things parents can do. They can strive to put into operation some such program as the aforementioned one, and to go as great a distance with it as domeStic circumstances will allow. They can in addition do at least three things more for the civic education of the child:

t.—They can try and set the child an example in democratic and cooperative behavior. If parents could observe democratic and cooperative, rather than bossist, attitudes toward each other, the child might, conceivably, find in them the archetype of its own behavior.

2..—They can learn to consult the child in matters concerning its welfare. This may not always work for efficiency in domestic administration, and there will be times when the plan will not be feasible. But it may be found to contain much of educational value. It will set an example in democracy and cooperation to the child, it will educate him in matters pertaining to his welfare, it will heighten his self-esteem and thus act as a neutralizet of feelings of inferiority. Neurotic children may therefore be exchted to profit from this plan.

3.—They can learn to acquire the habit of working in cooperation with teacher, educator, neurologist, psychiatrist, and consulting psychologist. In doing so, they will be utilizing the resources of psychologic science, they will acquire much information from first-hand sources. They may, in the pretess, even make an approach toward the acquisition of a scientific attitude.

[Page 180]WWM' &)

THE COLLEGE STUDENT AND HIS RELIGION

by HAnnY WALKER Hum: 01W 0] Buu‘um Porbmy, Syalm University

interesting evolution when he comes to college. A certain type of freshman comes to college from a home of very pious parents. The freshman's mind is at test with the problem of his future life. He knows where he came from and he knows where he is going. A learned professor of philosophy who has spent forty years in the study of religion seldom has so satisfying a. religious concept as this naive youth who embarks on a college course and expects to see every 'aspect of the universe from a new angle but imagines that religion, to him, will always remain the same. From early childhood he was told what to believe and he has not yet begun to question the whence and whither of his existence. His philosophy of life is built around the central concept of a God whom he pictures in human form. This Father is stern in his demands, but also offers a rich reward for a life of moral conduct and unquestioned acceptance of his mandates. The freshman who has been thoroughly indoctrined thinks that he should be good because hell awaits him if he is bad and heaven if he is good. He knows that his soul is immortal and he vaguely piCtures himself judged at the time of the Judgment Day when he expects, by a narrow margin, to be allowed to enter the pearly gates where he will have a harp on his arm and walk the golden streets with nothing to do. There will be angels in heaven and they will be in female form but he will have no sex instinct. Perhaps the reader considers this picture of the youth who

comes to the ivyclad walls of the college as an unusual rather [80

Tm: typical college student's religious views undergo an

[Page 181]TBB COLLEGE STUDENT AND HIS RELIGION 181

than a typical product of the modem religious home. He is no: at all unusual but very frequently met although I do not meet him so often as I did twenty or ten years ago. Of recent years I meet more who have no religious views whatever. These latter say that religion is the “bunk" and try to avoid any discussion of it. From contacts with thousands of college students it is evident that few come to college with a given set of religious ideas and leave with the same set. They may come with a satisfactory philosophy of life but when they leave with their diplomas under their arms they no longer understand religion in the same manner as when they came. In the great majority of cases they have been upset. or at least disturbed, by their contacts with the sciences. histories, philosophies, and religions of the world. They do not know what to believe, but many do know that they cannot believe. what they once wholly accepted.

When they meet their parents they avoid any mention of religion. Some seniors have stated that when they go to their homes at vacation time they say grace before meals with the same outward devotion they exhibited in childhood. They know that it is hopeless for them to discuss religion with their parents because the parents are too deeply steeped in the old fundamentals to allow any critical examination of their faith. Hence, many of these young men and women who are to be the leaders of the next generation have no one to whom they may express themselves freely and sincerely.

The question has been raised, ”Why do the university professors break down the religious beliefs of their students?" The answer is that the teachers in the colleges seldom make a direct attempt to break down the religious beliefs of the members of their classes. The professors are teaching the facts of the sciences and any person who studies the sciences is liable to have his Fundamentalist religious concepts badly battered without any help from the professors. Most college teachers are too greatly interested in their respective specializations to go out of their way to lambast religion or to reconcile it to an old order. They stick to science no matter where science may lead them.

[Page 182]182. wonm UNITY MAGAZINE

Sometimes students in the classroom do raise the question as to how a certain scientific law or principle affects religion. Most professors in denominational colleges avoid the issue or straddle it in some manner so that if any of "the unseen forces of the college" may hear of it, the professor will not lose his job. Teachers in colleges which are supported by religious denominations develop a happy faculty of avoiding or evading dangerous discussions of religious topics. A few do express themselves too freely and are asked to move on "because of changes in the plans for the department. "

This situation often puts the student into an unfortunate position. His old beliefs are slipping away and there is no one who will give him an acceptable philosophy of life to take the place of those foundations on which he once securely rested. What, then, happens to the student? Generally, the students gravitate into one of three groups: those who hang on to the old, those who try to harmonize religion and science, and those who toss religion overboard and refuse to consider it any further.

The first group or II» bangers-nn are usually those who have had little of the sciences. They may have taken a short course or two but not enough to give them the basic foundations and implications of biology, chemistry, physics, geology, and psychology. They do not see the universe as in a state of constant evolution but still think of man as in a fixed state.The world to them is less than ten thousand years old, and the universe consists of a big earth, a small sun, the moon, and some lighted specks in the sky. Accordingly, the members of this group have only occasional misgivings regarding the religious teachings of early youth. They cling tenaciously to the old ideas and resent any intrusions into the sacred chambers of their minds. Many of the men who go into the ministry are in this group. As a rule, these students are not very brilliant mentally but do have the ability to plug along on their lessons and their assigned papers are turned in promptly but with few evidences of original thought.

It is a dangerous matter to question the religious views of the members of this group. They have built up a thousand defenw

[Page 183]

THE COLLEGE s-runzm' ANT) ms RELIGION \ 183

mechanisms and they threaten any one who pokes a suck at their tlcfcnses. To my mind, it is exceedingly unfortunate that the men of this type go into the ministry. It means that the religious leaders of the future will be out of harmony with the thinking of the classes and the masses to the same degree as the preachers of the present. Frankly, I am unable to see how such ministers can lead their flocks or the public out of the sloughs of doubt into a satisfactory philosophy of life. Most preachers of this kind are afraid to wander very far from the shores of their early religious training lest they be unable to find a comfortable harbor in new lands.

The second group are the combiner: of religion and science, who try to reconcile the two in some rational manner. They say that the earth was created in six days but the day: were not of the twentyt‘our-hour variety. They can also give some logical explanation of the miracles described in the Bible. Any difficult point brought [0 their attention is explained in some manner which they prefer to accept as satisfactory. If they are forced into a searching discussion about religion and science they rationalize about it or change the conversation to some other field. They are not quite certain that their explanations are satisfactory or really sound but they prefer to believe that all is well.

The third group consists of the dupairm or those who have mail: a sincere effort to reach a logical conclusion regarding religion and a philosophy of life, but have given up in despair. Their usual answer regarding their religious status is "The devil take religion! I can't see anything in it that satisfies me. I've given up all hope of understanding it and I refuse to bother with it any longer." Many of the best students of the college belong to (his group and they are the most amenable to an intelligent treatment of the problem. I can talk to them and really help them far more easily than those who are in the two Other groups.

From contacts with all classes of people, it is probable that the thinking element of the American public might be classified In the same manner as the students. The college student simply mirrors the trend of the times and the views of people in general.

[Page 184]184 wonu: UNITY MAGAZINE

It appears, therefore, that we might just as well stop being ostriches, pull our heads out of the sand, and take a square look at the fact that the old-time religion is no longer a guiding force in the lives of many people of this country. The fires of hell have cooled off to a state of non-existence and the harps of heaven at: too prosaic to appeal to the jazz and speed of an age which tides in motor cars. We ought to admit that the old-time religion which was good enough for our fathers is now obsolete for the thinking element of our population. It no longer functions in the college group as a real life-forcc. Many parents, preachers, and teachers refuse to admit this, but it is true just the same. These confused students need a philosophy of life which they can understand and live by.

By a philosophy of life I refer to a rational explanation of our existence and an explanation which will influence the behavior of men and women as it should be influenced to make us all happier, cleaner, berter, and more competent to meet the problems of our times.

Some readers may say that it is an insult to religion to confuse it with a philosophy of life. No, I do not think so. Religion is or should be a guiding force in the lives of those who believe in that religion. The real purpose of religion is largely that of telling us whence we came, whither we ate going, and what we should do in the meantime. Religion merely for its own sake has no value. To have value it must be a dynamic factor. It must enable a man to unify and explain his existence and his experiences. It must give to you and to me a satisfactory reason as to why we should be moral, honest, and industrious. Religion in the past performed just that function, at least, for most people. It still does for many who cannot or will no: think. We do not wish to quarrel with those who prefer to keep religion on a non-rational basis nor do we want to confuse or unsettle them. They are satisfied and happy in their present state. If they want a system of emotionality rather than an intellectual interpretation of life, we should allow them to have the old-timt religion that gives peace and comfort to their minds and hearts.

[Page 185]THE COLLEGE STUDENT AND HIS RELIGION 185

But if you are now a member of this old-time-religion group and your son comes to college do not expect him to leave college with the same set of religious ideas that you have and which you may have taught him very diligently. Moreover, do not blame the college for his changed ideas. The forces which are bringing about these changes are far stronger than the colleges or their teachers. It is the onward march of progress in science, investigation, thinking, and the distribution of fans. Even though your son may never enter college, eventually he will be caught in this deluge of new ideas. The higher his native intelligence and the stronger his curiosity of the abstract, the more certain will he be to find the old religious views unsatisfacrory.

lf we admit that the old beliefs are passing away and that many people are in a state of religious confusion and aimlessly floating about without a real philosophy of life, what are We going to do about it? Why do the university teachers allow their students to leave college without attempting to give them something to take the place of that which religion once supplied to many and still supplies to some?

There are three reasons why college professors will not answer the Macedonian call of their students. The fact that many pro{cssors cannot express themselves freely to their students has already been mentioned. Only a few institutions really permit complete freedom of speech in the classroom. The professors will have to continue to avoid discussions of religion for some time to come and the students will have to continue to go out into life religiously maladjusted.

A second reason why many of the university teachers will not deal with this problem of their students is the fact that the prolcssors are specialists in their respective fields and do not know how to help their students in religious matters. I have asked many of my faculty colleagues as to what they tell their better-grade students who are searching for an acceptable philosophy of life and few have anything to offer. Some admit that they themselves have no guiding philosophy and they do not attempt to give one to their students who may request it.

[Page 186]1|

186 wonw 1mm: MAGAZINE

A third reason why it is difficult to answer the religious problem of people is because very few people can discuss religion objectively. It is a subject which has been consigned to a logictight compartment of the mind. If we are tactful, we do not discuss our religious views with our friends unless we happen to know that their views agree with ours. When people go to church they do not go in an attitude of analysis or in an attempt to find out the facts of the subject. They go with the expectation of finding additional reasons why they should believe just exactly as they have believed. The mental attitude of the scientist and of the regular church-goer are opposite in nature. The one seeks truth regardless of what the truth may mean to him while the other seeks more props to bolster up his faith.

The situation is, however, not hopeless. The answer lies in the fact that WC are gradually developing a bio-social philosophy of life which informs the intelligent man why he should be moral, love his children, pay his debts, and do his work efficiently. 1 refer to the principle of group allegiance and the belief in the survival of man, here on earth, as a species of living organism.

You ask me why I am loyal to my own wife and manage to keep my hands and mind off my neighbor's. Is it because I am afraid of going to hell or because I want to go to heaven or because

‘ I fear the law, or custom, or pubiic opinion? 0! course not. I try

to be decent because I am convinced that decency is the best form of conduCt for me and for my group. If I disobey the laws of nature or the customs which are based upon laws of nature, I am really harming the group to which I belong and I am a contributory agent in decreasing the chances of man's survival.

You might ask me why I should care whether man, as such, shall survive. The answer is that any conduct on my part which harms the group will also, in turn, harm me. My instincts compel me, therefore, to be loyal to the group interest both now and in the future and for the future. The biological principle of natural selection which results in the survival of the "fitter" is still operating and I can assist in the survival of man by intelligent conduct; including morality, honesty, and industry.

[Page 187]

THB COLLEGE STUDENT AND HIS RELIGION 187

The Fundamentalist would say that this is not religion. It is just an intellectual concept. Herein lies the answer to the religious problem of the college man. He is seeking an intellectual explanation rather than an emotional bath. Why should a man's teligion or rather his philosophy of life depend upon emotion or blind faith when science and rational inteprctations are taking the place of superstition in every other phase of our lives? Religion, too, must be put on a rational basis.

Once a man really grasps this bio—social philosophy of life he knows why he tries to live more decently and he has a helpful guide for his daily conduct. The acceptance of such a principle on lhc part of the general public would bring about a reformation in politics, business, and the use of leisure time.

Perhaps I can illustrate the failure of the old religion compared with the success of the new philosophy of life by citing two cases from my advisory experiences. Oliver R. was reared in the kind of religious home previously described. He said his prayers each night during his freshman year. In his second year he developed some misgivings regarding his childhood training. In his third year he was a confirmed agnostic and saw no reason why he should conduct himself in a moral manner. He said that his animal instincts were natural and he had a right to satisfy them. He said that he associated with prostitutes and drank to excess. The pleasures of the hour dominated his conduct. Religion was damned as a concoction of lies suitable only for imbeciles and morons. Unfortunately, I did not take seriously enough his youthful exaggerations of statement and conduct. Shortly after our first intctview he was dismissed from college for some infraction of rules which came to the direct attention of the college administration. Two years later he committed suicide and left a note, stating that he had nothing to live for and that he had had his fling. Life was only a sad farce.

Contrast this case with that of Nelson H. who had a similar early history in life and college. When I met him he was a member of the third group who despised religion. But Nelson assimilated enough biology, psychology, and sociology to grasp the im [Page 188]188 wont) pm‘rv MAGAZINE

penance of his part in husbanding the social heritage. He developed, gradually, a philosophy of life which means more to him than the religion be brought to college. He now attends church services occasionally and even helps to support the church in his community. He does this, not because he believes the sermons he bears in church but rather because he recognizes the church as a constructive institution of the community and as a help to certain kinds of people. Furthermore, he feels that if the church is to be improved he ought to do it from the inside rather than merely damn it from the outside. His philosophy of life is a dynamic force which compels him to be a construCtive member of his community. He is emotionally contented because his intellect has unified his experiences, his existence, and his future.

Certainly, I do not wish to imply that the loss of the old-time religion on the part of one man and the acquiring of a new intctpretation of life on the part of another alone will bring about the differences between indecency and decency, between dishonesty and honesty, or between suicide and a constructive happy life. But I do believe that these delightfully fascinating young men and women in our colleges of today need a rational lodestar to guide them when the kerosene light of religion flickers and, frequently, goes out. Some will be oriented by such a philosophy alone while Others need this bio-social concept to supplement a wavering religion of childhood.

We need have no fears that society is going to the bow-wows because church attendance is decreasing. We are in a transitional stage at present but the youth of this and the next generation will probably give us a new Reformation which will force the church to teach the peoples rather than merely indoctrinate them and appeal to their cmations. Do the church leaders realize the change that is taking place? I doubt it. The change will have to be thrust upon the churches and the institutions of learning are now preparing the leaders for this Reformation of the Twentieth Century. The church of the future will be an institution of learn. ing. Or perhaps the institution of learning will be the church of the future.

[Page 189]

APOSTLES OF WORLD UNITY

VIII—VISCOUNT EIICHI SHIBUSAWA

5}

YAMATO lcnuusm 011mm" a] mum, Slulnd Uninm'a

Wonu) UNITY are or were scholars, statesmen, novelists, publicists: professions seem to have something to do in developing cosmopolitan idealists. Yet here is Effendi Shibusawa, the son of a peasant, a successful businessman and now honored as a Viscount because of his interest in national and international peace. The significance of these simple facts becomes plain when one recalls the {act that in Japan until sixty years ago feudalism prevailed. in whose society the farmer had no social status and the tradesman was regarded as the lowliest even among common men, only little better than the outcast. This Japanese apostle of peace, dubbed the ”grand old man" (he is now nearly ninety years old), is one man in Japan who is hated by no one, not even feared by any, and the writer is tempted to add, is loved by all of his compatriots. The his: characterization may be a slight exaggeration but is not to be seriously challenged. A successful businessman who enjoys such a reputation in a restless. and rapidly changing country, is indeed a rare phenomenon. In 1915 the writer heard the Viscount speak for the first time. He said in part: "When Commodore Petty entered the harbor of Uraga in 1853 l was fifteen years old. A mere farmer boy, I could net know much about foreign countries. In that year I was taken to Tokio for a visit by my parents." This event marked a turning point in the career of that peasant boy. A few years later he found his way into the Shogun's administration, a monopoly of the '99

TH): apostles of world unity so far presented to readers of

[Page 190]

190 “'0an UNITY MAGAZINE

Samurai, the two-sworded gentry. In 1867—8 just before the downfall of the Shogunate he was sojourning in Paris as the companion of a Tokugawa Prince. Yet in the following year we find him sewing in the Treasury Department of the newly established Imperial Government in spite of the fact that the ex-Shogun's servants were looked upon with suspicion and hostility by the new government. In 1873 as the result of a conflict with his Ministct he resigned the post. Since then he has never been connected with the government.

That same year he founded a bank which proved successful because of his business ability. It goes without saying that he amassed a fortune as a banker. But he did not exclusively devote his talent to his own success. He became very intetested in improving the life and character of business and businessmen of Japan. Consequently he founded a commercial school out of which the present Tokio College of Commerce, the best of its kind, was developed. For further inspiration and suggestion he travelled extensively in Europe and America in 1907.. In 1905 he instituted the Tokio Chamber of Commerce with the help of statesmen like Ito and Okuma. He was the unchallenged leader among businessmen of Japan, now recognized as an economic power.

At this point it may be interesting to pause for a moment and look into his training or how he had been guided in his work. He says, "From childhood I was taught to read the Chinese classics and have learned the Confucian precept that it is the duty of a man ‘to look after his character—building, to adjust his household affairs, to rule the country properly and to make peace with the world.‘ That has been my life-long motto." This statement was made a little more than a decade ago. Its meaning can be fully rcaiized when one recalls the history of modern Japan, a nation praCtically unknown and neglected by the rest of the world in 1853 and a nation recognized as a Great Power in 192.8. Shibusawa had to struggle not to deviate from the above precept throughout his long and revolutionary career, and he is one man who is credited to have succeeded in this respect.

[Page 191]

VISCOUNT EIICHI SHIBUSAWA 19!

As a practical apostle of world unity Shibusawa was unable to play an important téle before the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-; because the world politely ignored his nation. 50 he had to content himself in lookin g after the charactet-building of his own and others, in adjusting the household afl'airs of his own and others and in aiding to rule his country properly. But the war which involved a European state changed the general attitude of western nations toward Japan, and especially so when she won a victory over Russia. She began to face a new world situation. In brief Japan became an enigma, a 'Yellow Peril,’ the seriousness of which became at once apparent to the keen mind of Shibusawa, a lover of peace. He now started his organized effort to promote international peace by making Japan's ideals known to the world.

In October, 1906, the so-called school question arose in San Francisco and consequently the traditional friendly relations between the two nations became strained. Shibusawa was shocked because a few months before when the same city had been visited by a calamitous earthquake and fire, he, in conjunction with the Japanese Red Cross, had contributed the sum of $144,960 to the relief of the victims. This act was motivated by the Japanese' desire to demonstrate their traditional friendship toward America. To Shibusawa this country had been his ideal nation since the coming of Perry and Harris for whom he had entertained highest regards. In 1902. he had met many prominent Americans in all walks of life, and was happy to discover in them what he had already learned through indirect sources. He had been naturally grateful to President Roosevelt for his part in ending the war in 1905. But to return to 1906 he now calmly took up the school question and studied it by gathering facts from japanese residents

n America and leading Americans. It became evident to him that

this particular question was but a phase of the general problem ot’jnpnnese immigration. Happily this vexing problem was settled 1‘} the so-called gcntlemen's agreement of 1907.

But in order to prevent future recurrenCcs Of the similar dithculty Shibusawa launched what may be described as a campaign

[Page 192]192. WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

of education, for he believed that international troubles would inevitably arise unless nations understood one another. This was assumed to be true as between America and Japan. As a result of his effort along this line, the Japanese Chambers of Commerce invited in 1908 the similar organizations of the Pacific Coast States. Eight American Chambers accepted the invitation and sent their delegates to Japan. These visitors saw the country and met and exchanged views with the leading Japanese businessmen in regard to their international relations. In turn Japanese businessmen were invited by the American organizations to visit America, and a party of more than fifty men and women headed by Shibusawa came here in 1909. They had similar experiences in America as the Americans had had in Japan. In 192.0 a group of prominent New York businessmen were invited by the Japanese. The writer had the opportunity of participating in their conferences in the various parts of the country, and was very much impressed with the value of their outspoken views.

But realizing insufficiency of the businessmen's understanding alone, the Viscount took the lead in arranging for exchange professorships. From Japan came Professors Nitobe, Sato and Anesaki and from America want Doctors Mabie, Peabody, Jordan and Him. The contributions of these gentlemen to mutual understanding cannot be overestimated. Likewise, the Viscount spared nothing in promoting contacts, interviews and conferences between labor leaders, politicians and others of the two countries.

More than a decade ago when his country began to face new social problems including those of capital and labor, he retired from business to devote himself to amelioration of these as We" as to that of the problem of world peace. There is no organization in Japan having for its object peace and harmony, national or international, with which he is not actively connected, and there are a great many such organizations in that country. The most important of these is the League of Nations Association which has been carrying on a campaign of world peace education among the Japanese. Its work among students including those of elementary schools as well as those of universities is proving invalu

[Page 193]

VISCOUNT BIICHI SHIBUSAWA I93

able in internationalizing the Japanese mind. It publishes journals according to the needs of its members made up of children and adults. Then there are the Pan-Pacific Union and the Institute of Pacific Relations which hold conferences at regular intervals and discuss matters of all sorts—scientihc, social, economic and political—which affect the interests of the Pacific nations. Besides there are the America-Japan, Anglo-Japanese, Franco-Japancsc, Getman-Japanese, Russo-Japanese, Sino-Japanese societies just to mention the more important of such organizations to effect better understandings among these nations. One more must be noted though not an international organization: this is Roshi Kiocho Kai or The Capital and Labor Hatmonization Society. This organization has already accomplished a great deal in preventing or solving many of the acute problems of capital and labor. In its activities Shibusawa's contributions have been of concrete value for he enjoys the confidence of both capitalists and laboring classes in a manner no one else does.

In all these efforts to promote world peace and domestic hatmony Viscount Shibusawa has never played a specucular role. He shuns that, but he has been and is behind every important movement of this kind, and his leadership in Japan for world peace cannot be queStioned. He is not a scholar, therefore, he will not be recognized in the tealm of scholarship as a scholarly apostle of world unity. Historians, however, may be interested to know that under his financial responsibility, several historians jointly published an eight volume biography of the last Shogun whom Shibusawa served in his youth. The book is one of the most valuable historical works on modern Japan. He speaks eloquently, he writes forcefully, and he is even a poet, but he is not a writer by profession, therefore, he will not be remembered in the domain of literature. He isnot a statesman, so the political history will say nothing of this great private citizen. In the world of business he will undoubtedly occupy an eminent position. But the world at large must reckon him as one of the great lovers of mankind; not a dreamy utopian but an idealist who actualizcs his visions.

[Page 194]QWQW

THE WISDOM OF THE AGES

Edited by

ALFRED W. MARTIN 3m 1» mad cum. Nm Yul

TI): Samd Scripture: of Hinduixm—Cantinued

THE BHAGAVAD-GlTA—(CONCLUDED)

s me direct aim of the Gita was to glorify the duties of caste, so the indirect aim was to set forth a new way of salvation, one more easily understood and more adoptable than either the current Yfiana-Yoga (Way of

Knowledge) or Katma-Yoga (Way of Works). Krishna reviews them both in the course of his conversation with Arjuna.‘ "In this world," says Krishna, ”Twofold is the path already described by Me. The Way of Wisdom is for the meditative and the Way of Watks is for the active. ([11. 3) A Yogi (one who is striving for final union with God through the practice of concentration and meditation) should constantly practice concentration of the heart, remaining in seclusion, subduing his body and mind and being free from longing and the sense of ownership.

“In a cleanly spot, having established his seat firmly, with a cloth and Kusha grass (a fine and fragrant grass used in Hindu ceremonies and said to have a purifying influence) placed one on the other, let him hold his body, head and neck erect and motionless, fixing the gaze on the tip of his nose, net looking around.

“Let him sit steadfastly absorbed in thoughts of Me, regarding Me as his supreme goal. In that state transcending the senses, the Yogi feels that infinite bliss which is perceived by the purified understanding; knowing that being esnblished therein, he never falls back from his real state of sclf-knowledge." (VI. ‘The quoudou ate fnm the tnnsletious o! the Blupvnd-Giu by Swami Pmuda. m

[Page 195]

um SACRED scmnunzs or Hnfiwxsm 195

10 foll.) Thus one of the two methods of attaining salvation is lhc Yfiana-Yoga or mental concentration practice; grasping the difference between soul and matter; by sheer intellectual effort attaining salvation—final release from rebirth and union with Brahma.

The other way of salvation, Karma-Yoga, is touched upon by Krishna in the following passages: “O Arjuna, he who con(rolling the senses by the mind follows the path of aetion, he 15 esteemed.

“Do thou perform right and obligatory actions for action is supetior to inaction. “Perform thy duties (the work that is to bedone) unceasingly for through the performance of action man attains the highest. (III. 7. x9.) Him the sages call wisest whose undertakings are devoid of desire for results, whose acrions are burned by the fire of wisdom." (III. 19)

But exalted above both these methods of knowledge and of works, of Yfiana-Yoga and Karma-Yoga, is Bakhti,—devotion to Vishnu-Krishna, ttustful love of the God Vishnu as incarnated in Krishna; for Vishnu made Himself man to save the world. The poem as a whole might be construed as an anthem in praise of Bakhti—simple tmstful love of the immanent God who is also a personal, tender, lover of mankind, who made Himself man to preach the Gospel of salvation through devotion and who brings His devotees salvation through their fervent passionate love of Him.

"Those who worship Me with devotion,

They are in Me and I am in them. (Compare John XV. 5. 7.)

Even if the most wicked warships Me with undivided devotion,

He shall be regarded as good for he is rightly resolved.

Soon he becomes a righteous soul and attains to eternal peace.

Know, O Son of Kunti, that My devotee never perishes.

Even those who are of mlputc birth—women, Vaishyas (merchant-class), and Sudras (setvant-class)Even they, by taking refuge in Me, attain to the supreme goal."

(IX. 19—31.).

[Page 196]196 wonu) um-nr MAGAZINE

“I save those who set their hearts on Me.

Through My grace, they are saved.

They that love Me ate in Me and I in them.

I am the father, the methet, the way of salvation, the only Lord and refuge.

Even they who worship other gods with faith and lo ve

Ate really worshipping Me alone." (XII. n).

"That worshipper of mine who cherishes no hate against any being but is full only of friendliness and compassion, who is free from self-seeking and from the illusion of self, who is patient and content, self-controlled and resolute of heart and mind, he is dear to Me. He before whom no one is disquieted and who is disquieted before no one, he also is dear to Me. He who is unconcerned about the things of this world, who is pure, impartial, unttoubled, doing no thing from self-interest, he is dear to Me. The man whose every act is void of self the enlightened call a learned man; free from concern over the fruit of his works, everlastingly contented, unconfined. he gets no defilement and becomes not fettered; free from thought of an I, without thought of a min: and at peace, he becomes fit for Brahmahood." (XII. n3 foil.)

The authors of this Bible, it would seem, hold that no two men can find God in the same way. It is the same God they both find but the statements of their vision are different even as are any two descriptions of one and the same sunset. To put the matter in common parlanCe: as a man takes his own particular shape and size in shoes, so must his soul choose its own way of salvation; eventually all the ways lead to the same God. Whether a man choose the way of wisdom, or of action, or of devotion. or of all three, at the end, what he experiences is the one inclusive God. "

But special value attached to the way of Bakhti because it was one which the masses could comprehend and by which they could directly find release from rebirth. Moreover, salvation was hereby offered freely to the worst of sinners, to women, as in

[Page 197]

THE SACRED SCRlPl'UlES 0!" HINDUISM 197

the plea, "Come, worship! Perish not!" (IX. 33—34); offered freely to Sudtas, the lowest caste,—final release {tom rebirth instead of merely the hope of being reborn into a higher caste, as was taught in the law: of Many. (IX. 334) A far cry, this, from the severely intellectual ideals of Brahmanism as expressed in the Upanishads, with their insistence on knowledge and reflection as necessary steps to salvation and their restriction of religious privileges to the upper castes alone. Here, too, in the Giro, was a God who could be “touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Heb. IV. 14), who made Himself man by sheer love for etring humanity and who vouchsafed salvation to all who sought in faith and love the precious gift of Vishnu. How such doctrines of incarnation and devotion can conquer the hearts of men is attested by the 450 million Christians who can see in this Athanasian feat of Vishnuism its essential strength. What was wanted after the long reign of Brahmanism, with its intellecmalisms, was a personal God, invested with a warm humanity, and this demand was met in the person of VishnuKrishna.

It is not surprising that the Bhagavad-Gita should have been Xikened to the New Testament because of (a) the doctrine of incarnation and the language in which it is expressed, re. minding the reader of the Fourth Gospel; (b) the Imman in Jesus the Christ and in Vishnu—Krishna; (c) the gospel of Bakhti, suggesting Jesus' gospel in the Sermon on the Mount, of a heavenly Father‘s love and the need of reproducing it in human life; (d) the mystical method of Bakhti, reminding us of Paul's “Put )‘c on the Lord Jesus Christ."

Did then the Hindu author borrow his thoughtfrom Christian sources? No, because the Bhagavad—Gita was finally edited not later than to A.D., and the earliest of the New Testament books is Paul's letter to the Galatians 52. A.D., while the Fourth Gospel was produced not earlier than no A.D. Scholars give the probable date of the Mahabharata, in which this story of the Bhagavad-Gita is inlaid with an individuality of its own, as the third century B.C., but the epic itself reaches back perhaps

[Page 198]198 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

another four or six hundred years. During a thousand years this great classic of the Hindus was forming. Nor is there any evidence to support the belief that Christian authors had access to the Gita or that either jesus or Paul were ever in India. There is no evidence to support borrowing by either side.

Finally, we have to note the deeper meaning of the poem as an allegory of the moral life. In one of the Upanishads, we read of a chariot and a charioteer: “Know the self to be sitting in the chariot, the body to be the chariot, the intellect the chatioteet, and the mind the reins. The senses they call the horses. the objeCts of the senses their roads. When he is in union with the body, the senses and the mind, then wise people call him the enioyet. He who has no understanding and whose mind is never firmly held, his senses are unmanageable, like vicious horses of a charioteer. But he who has understanding, and whose mind is always firmly held, his senses are under control, like good horses of a charioteer. . . . He reaches the end of his journey. and that is the highest place of Vishnu." (Katha. 1,3,3.)

And since the Gita, as we have seen, is based on the Upmixbad:, we see the symbolism of the story. Indeed the poem itself states the symbolic idea in the following passage: Krishna speaks “The dust is on the mirtor.

The smoke hides the flame.

So is your soul's insight.

Behold Me net with your two outer eyes which are blind But with the eye of your spirit."

Following the lead of this symbolism, it is clear that the blind king is any one who looks at his own problems blindly, with the outer eyes. The clairvoyant, Sajaya, is the eye of the spirit; the charioteer, Krishna, is the immortal soul, and the chariot is the body. Arjuna, one of the five sons of Pandu, epitomizes the five senses which the soul leads to war against the evil passions, and impulses, epitomized by the five sons of Drishastra. The battlefield is the world of temptation, trial,

[Page 199]THE SACRED SCRIPTURES 0F HINDUISM 199

discipline; while Victory is the reward that comes .to him who follows out any one of the three known ways of realizing his identity with God who awaits each soul at the end of its path.

"No matter which path a soul may take If he follow it to the end 1, God, receive him."

Krishna docs net light for Arjuna but is only his guide, i.e., each man must fight his own battles.

And this brings us to the high-water mark of ethical teachin g in the Gita. It deserves special mention because we are living at a time when the world is in dire need of it. I refer to the belief in moral freedom which the Gita presupposes throughout. From start to finish the poem postulates the freedom whereby each man, fat from being predestined to act in a given way, is free to contend with the hindrances that lie in the path of release from rebirths, free to choose a higher or a lower goal. No such thing as Calvinistic ptedestination was in the author's mind. He, like Dante, built his poem on the capacity for moral choice as a prerequisite for moral progress. No freeiom, no morality.

According to Dante we are not to blame for our being attracted by forbidden pleasures, we are blameworthy only to the cxtcnt that we yield to them, to the extent that we adopt them into our own will. Thus the ethical teaching of Dante is based upon the living frccwill, upon man's capacity for moral choice, which is the essential prerequisite for progress in the moral life. Now. contrast this inspiringgospel with some of the perverted preachment that is brought to us, preachment to the effect that our moral nature is no more free to resist behaving the way it does than the apple on the tree can resist the law of gravitation that pulls it to the eatth, preachment on heredity and environment and constitution and temperament, that these forces make us what we ate, and prevent us from acting as free moral agents. These fatalists deny the affirmation of the poet: "I am the captain of my soul." Nay, they say, the re'al captain of your soul is the resultant of these forces, physical, psychological, biological,

[Page 200]zoo WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

that has made you exaCtly what you ate. Dante would admit very promptly that heredity and environment have had their influence upon the conduct of man, but Dante would insist that of his soul he was the real captain, that when he committed an evil deed he might have prevented it. For the :mngut mative is always the one that prevails, and an originally weak mative can be made the strongest when we persistently and definitely concentrate our energy upon it.

"The greatest gift that in His latgesse God

Creating made and doth most highly prize

Is the freedom of the will whetewith

The creatures of intelligence bath were and are endowed." (Patadiso V.)

Back of all the injunctions given Arjuna by Krishna is the assumption of metal capacity to fulfil them. No fatalism is bound up with Karma. Every soul is free to contend against the bindtances that lie in the path of release and ultimate attainment of bliss in the presence of Vishnu. (V1.18) Because the moral power

to overcome these hindrances is in Arjuna as in all other men, Krishna bids him

"Subdue the senses, kill this desire,

The sinful destroyer of wisdom and self-knowledge.

O mighty-atmed, destroy this enemy in the form of desire. Dilhcult to overcome. (111.4143)

Latent patentialities there are in man that exalt him above ctyStals, trees and all the tribes of animals and forever league him with what is infinite and eternal. Having a constant residuum of capacity for improvement no matter how many times he fail, man is essentially a spiritual being and can be fully accounted for only in terms of a spiritual origin.

In this ethico-spiritual gospel of the Gita lies its permanent worth, not only for India, but for all the world.

[Page 201]

WQWQ

THE WORLD WE LIVE IN

Men live less and let: in geomphiul Ind note and more in tpititull communities. The involuntary elements of existence tend to be limited to the regional area. the voluntary element: find imifll opportunity of telf-expteuion thtough aweiotion of likenintled people selected out of the entite populuion by identity 0! interest: And ideals. ln thismment. Wald Unit; Mama: will publish eKh month I brief description of some impotuut movement. voluntuy in chum aid hummituian in Ha. believing that knowledge ol‘ then utivities is not only menthl to the world outlook, but ll” elm the true remedy lot the tent: of itolation end lonelineu which ha lollowed the btultclm of the traditional local neighborhood.

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS' LEAGUE

HE most important movement ever made by the artists

of the world will be initiated at an international congress

to be held in Brussels, June 30th—July 3rd, 1918, at the

Palais Mondiale. The various existent artists' groups will federate to form the International Artists' League, and to frame an international constitution, thereby establishing them in their due place as a powerful force in the social orhr, and enabling them to demonstrate their economic and social value to the entire world. The following charter has already been drawn:

The economic situation having made it necessary for men to unite in socially conscious groups, the Artists' League has been formed to cooperate with other international organizations {or the advancement of constructive efforts towards peace and for the protection of creative labor.

Art has been greatest when it has best served human needs. We desire to extend the usefulness of the artist, and by combining with scientific, educational and labor forces, both extend old fields of activity and initiate research into new possibilities.

We shall thus h -.ve the power to conserve national art and maintain its high standard, which can only be done when the artist, necessarily an individualist, is not at the mercy of economic

forces. lo]

[Page 202]7.07. \VORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

Art has always been a strong bond for the unity of mankind. To make it an effective ally of other unifying forces there must be a center where they are already working for this end; where all nations, in spite of political and racial differences, can unite through art, which is their common language.

Some of the specific steps to be taken by the International Congress are: 1. Legal protection for the artist and his work. 2.. The creation of an international center of art and a place for continuous exhibitions. 3. Research and plans for the increased use of the artist.

The Union des Associations Internationales (League of International Associations) has just submitted to the Associations Intcmationales (International Associations), to various Governments, to the Bureau International du Travail (Internauonal Labor Bureau), to the Société dcs Nations (League of Nations), and to the Union Pan-Américaine (Pan-American Union), the plan for a MUNDANEUM.

The plan aims at the foundation, at Geneva, of an institution of a general charaCter, non-political, broadly intellectual and social, devotcd to Education, Science, Documentation (Statistics) and free International Research. It would take over and establish definitively, and in a big way, the task till now undertaken by the Institutes of the Palais Mondial (World Palace) of Brussels, by a first grouping of international organizations.

The Union appeals for the support of all countries and all personalities able to create the MUNDANEUM on a cooperative and fcderativc basis. Especially it appeals to the United States, with its great Associations and Foundations.

The MUNDANEUM will be a great center aloof from politics, an International House pratecting freedom for all ideas and all movements. If all would lend it aid, it might very soon become a great instrument of Progress and Intellectual Liberty, bent on the quest for Truth.

[Page 203]WQW

THE NEW HUMANITY

"Without tdtfm or rule: or mum: or an} argument, The imitation of tin: dear love of cammdu."

Edited by

MARY SIEGRIST Aubr 0/ "Yu Ibo! Cunt AIM". 0:.

spirit of poetry unfettered has power to liberate it.

”Rhythm," as Francis Gummcre points out, “is an in destructible medium of human emotion and sympathy; it timed the first consenting steps of the earliest social groups, taught them in part the secret of coherence and unity and communal life and will time the steps of poetry so long as poetry shall continue to voice the cmotions of social man." Poetry that is native to the soil and to its people has in it therefore the wholeness and integrity of all life that is freshly flowing. It is the overflowing music at the roots of life passed into the still throbbing sculptured word. As such, it has power to become man's Magic Mirror, his Flying Carpet to the worlds of his desire. Such vast power of release does it hold for man that if he will listen to its voices with the inner car, he will be restored to a world of dawn-creation with its changing shapes of everlasting freshness and beauty.

”And how shall I become my freer self unless I slay my burdened selves or umess all men become free?" cries the Madman of Gibran. . . . Wherever there is a group of those who listen whole-heartcdly to these voices of pity and terror, of joy and ecstasy, it follows inevitably that. "the Soul of Comradeship glides in." In this way is being built the Eternal City that has lain always in the dream of poets—the Commune of those joined

in the close-knittcd fellowship of the imagination to help lift us

JUST as "poetry fettered fettcrs the human race," so the

[Page 204]104 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

up the spiral made out of the very rhythms of the life-breath. In this way poetry will build up ”the spheres of ourselves continually for the joyance of each other until it shall come about that at length we shall need no other world, no other worlds."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT

It is portentous and a thing of state

That here at midnight, in out little town

A mourning figure walks, and will not rest, Near the old court-house pacing up and down,

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards

He lingers where his children used to play,

Or through the market, on the well-worn stones He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black, A famous high top—hat and plain worn shawl Make him the quaint great figure that men love, The prairie lawyer, master of us all.

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now. He is among usHe is among us—as in times before!

And we who toss and lie awake for long.

Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.

His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings. Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep? Too many peasants fight, they know not why, Too many homesteads in black terror weep.

The sins of all the wat-lords burn his heart. He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main, He carries in his shawl-wrapped shoulders now The bitterness, the folly and the pain.

[Page 205]THE NEW HUMANITY 10S

He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn

Shall come;—the shining hope of Europe free: The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth, Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.

He breaks his heart that kings must murder still, That all his hours of travail here for men

Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace That he may sleep upon his hill again?

VACHEL LINDSAY A Poet's RELIGION

And an old priest said, Speak to us of Religion.

And he said:

Have I spoken this day of aught else?

Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,

And that which is neither deed not reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands lch the stone or tend the loom?

Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?

Who can spread his hours before him, saying, "This for God and this for myself; this for my soul, and this other {or my body?"

All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.

He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.

The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.

And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song—bird in a cage.

The frees: song comes not through bars and wires.

And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter it, take with you your all.

[Page 206]106 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute, The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight, For in rcvclry you came: rise above your achievements nor {all lower than your failures. . And take with you all men: 5 For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.

And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.

Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.

And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending m ram.

You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.

From The Prophet By KAHLIL GIBRAN

[Page 207]

UNITY AND DISUNITY IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

Edited by

DEXTER PERKINS Dtpml of Minor; and Comm, Unimu'lj o] Ruben"

Step: Toward the Outlaw] of War (Continued)

at any rate, Mr. Kellogg's proposal for the outlawry of

war continues to hold the center of the stage. The negotia tions described in last month's issue have been continued, md. though it is obvious that there are many weeks of wearisume negotiation ahead, the hope continues to be justified that something ptactical may in the end result.

The discussions have now moved from the plane of diplomatic correspondence to the plane upon which accual treaty «Eufts are being discussed. Shortly after the events described in the last article, Mr. Kellogg submitted to the live great governmmts of the world, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and .lJPan the text of an agreement such as he hoped to see actually l‘mught into being. This text was simple in the extreme. It muored entirely the difficulties that had been raised by the lrcnch government, and in unequivocal language, without Y:\L'rvation of any kind, pledged the signatories to condemn war h an instrument of national policy, and to agree to seek the wlution of all disputes between them by pacific means. Provision

ms also made for the adhesion of other governments to the

anginal compact.

The Kellogg draft has been well received in London and in lkrlin, though perhaps for not wholly disinterested reasons, or

nun in the expectation that it will come to anything practical. 1-07

IN THE field of diplomacy, as viewed from the American angle,

[Page 208]2.08 wonm um'n' MAGAZINE

It is the policy of both Great Britain and Germany at the present time to curry favor, whenever possible, with the United States. While there is no reason to impugn completely the sincerity of the motives of these two Foreign Offices, it is clear that the desire to stand well with Washington played a part in forming their attitude. 0n the other hand, their sympathy with the American project may be of very considerable aid in the discussions which are still necessary before any real advance can be assured.

The Italian and the Japanese governments do not appear to have been so enthusiastic Mussolini has more than once scoffed at the peace movement. He can hardly be expected, in view of his strongly nationalist philosophy, to be particularly ardent for such a compact as Mr. Kellogg is proposing. Nevettheless, it is to be remembered that his signature stands at the bottom of the treaty of Locatno. Italy, in the long run, cannot afford to pursue an entirely independent line in international politics. While the Fascist government cannot be expected to give any particular encouragement to American efforts, it will probably be found lining up with the other states of Europe, if a real decision is reached. As for Japan, all that may be said at present is that the government has not answered the United States. Japanese motives and opinions are veiled in Oriental obscurity.

But what of the French government, to whose initiative. in a sense, all these negotiations were due? The French government answered the Kellogg note on the 10th of April. Its answer contained an alternative draft to the American treaty draft. It was a draft, as will shortly appear, hedged about with numerous reservations. In its caution, its legalism, and its precision is to be seen the hand of Raymond Poincaté rather than of Atistid: Briand. The French prime minister does not intend, it is clear. to sacrifice any material French interest to what his rather narrow but highly practical mind may easily regard as a vague formula.

The French draft is in five articles, as compared with the three of the American. The first article contains a renunciation

[Page 209]

STEPS TOWARD THE OUTLAWRY OF WAR 109

of war as an instrument of national policy, but the renunciation is declared to be ”without any intention to infringe upon the exercise of their legitimate rights of self-defense within the framework of existing treaties. particularly when the violation of certain of the provisions of such treaties constitutes a hostile act." and an exception is also made with regard to "action in respect of which they (the parties) might become involved through the obligation of a treaty such as the Covenant of the League of Nations or any Other treaty registered with the League of Nations." Nor is France satisfied with these reservations. Article 111 provides that "in case one of the high contracting parties should contravene this treaty, the other contracting parties would ipso facto be released with respect to that party from their obligations under this treaty." Article IV declares that the treaty shall net affect the obligation of prior international agreements. And finally, Article V provides that the treaty shall have no force until "generally" accepted unless by special agreement of the signatory powers.

Now the first impulse of many persons may be to condemn a draft so full of qualifications as that which France has presentcd. But if the matter be viewed realistically, a good deal of any such resentment is bound to disappear. It is probably a just criticism that the French have made a too meticulous attempt to forestall any conflict of their existing engagements with those of the prorosed compaCt. The effec: of such an attempt is to cast doubt upon the sincerity of French intentions and cool enthusiasm for the whole project. M. Briand himself, who is much more likely to be conciliatory than M. Poincare, has recently mired that the differences between the United States and France could be settled by a single reservation covering substantially the ground of Article III of the French draft, cited above. A good deal of the French text is verbiage, of doubtful necessity, rather chilling in its aspect.

But, in fundamentals, the French view is not by any means wholly unreasonable. France has built up, through the Covenant and special treaties, machinery on which she depends for security.

[Page 210]

110 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

She is now asked by the United States to sign a compact for thc outlawry of war. In this compact there is no mention of any machinery for the peaceful settlement of disputes, and no mention of any punishment of an aggressor nation. Is it not perfectly natural that there should be some hesitation in subscribing to any such formula?

Look at it from another viewpoint. Rightly or wrongly, France has signed alliances, alliances of a purely defensive chataeter, with certain other European states, such as Poland. She cannot wipe these alliances off the slate without arousing all kinds of resentment. She cannot throw over her solemn obligations at the behest of another government.

And there is still another justification of the French viewpoint. The French feel, and with reason, that the Kellogg proposal does not represent a really careful and thoroughly digested effort to attain world peace. They are inclined to be a little cynical as to whether the State Department really means what it says. or whether, if it thinks it means it, it knows precisely what it is doing. Suppose, for example, a European state committed acts of aggression against a Latin-American republic in the area of the Caribbean. Would the United States forego the tight to act against such a state? Or, to take another example, what about American interventions in the affairs of neighboring governments? Would the United States forego such interventions?

Now of course it may be argued that this country ought to do just that. Perhaps it ought. But any treaty for the outlawry of war has to run the gamut of American public opinion, and-what is not always the same thing—of the Senate of the United States. A realist in politics may be excused if a little sceptical as to the points raised in the preceding paragraphs. And as for the French themselves, they have burned their fingers badly already. They negotiated a treaty with President Wilson, and they saw that treaty reduced to ruins and finally defeated in the Senate of the United States. They feel that they have a tight to know what they are doing as they embark upon new negotiations. Is it not the part of practical wisdom, they ask, to anticipate the

[Page 211]STEPS TOWARD THE OUTLAWRY OF WAR 1.11

diliiculties that may arise, and not leave a crudely-digested instrument to the tender mercies of possibly hostile ratifying bodies?

Such a viewpoint is essentially a healthy one. For the problem of world peace is not a simple problem. It is not a problem of pious intentions alone, though pious intentions will help. It is a problem which calls for an intensely practical spirit, and for a clear understanding of international realities.

In conclusion, there is one point which the editor of this department feels it necessary especially to emphasize. A promise to outlaw war will, in the long run, depend for its efficacy upon the provision of proper machinery for the peaceful settlement of international disputes, and for the punishment of the aggressor nation. Taken by and of itself, its value, while not to be ignored, will be only secondary. 'l'hc Kellogg negotiations are of interest and importance because they open the door to great constructive achievement in which the United States, in common with the nthel’ great nations of the world, may light the way to peace. But it would be foolish to be too optimistic with regard to them. Much international discussion, much more careful thinking, much more constructive effort, are necessary if these negotiations are to mark a landmark in international progress.

65

[Page 212]ammamm

THE RISING TIDE

Notes on current books possessing special significance in the light of the trend toward world unity.

Edited by

JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, JR. Dam of Pbiluapb], Giulio Ulirmiq

Tun ANTHIOPOLOGIST Looxs AT THE RAINBOW or HUMAN CULTURES

mm of the current interest in Other peoples and their ways is the great appetite for what the social scientists have to tell us about human cultures and their relations and growth. For a generation anthropologists and

sociologists have been amassing knowledge about the rounds of activities and beliefs that characterize different human groups. From a careful study of this material they have developed certain concepts and ideas with which to view objectively the cultural achievements of mankind wherever they are found. The great popular demand for the fruits of this concern all too often results in hastily written and violently prejudiced pseudo-scientific apologetics for our own culture. But it has also led to a number of really noteworthy attempts to make available the best that scientific impartiality and objectivity has discovered. Such a humanization of the genuine social scientist's point of view is to be welcomed, for it is the best antidote against racial chauvinism and nationalistic prejudice. Nothing so contributes to a just estimation of the achievements of our own group and other civilizations than to realize that our culture is but one amongst many, and that no body of men has failed to develop a complex way of life that roughly answers its needs and provides adequate channels for the expression of a rich and variegated experience. HI

[Page 213]THE RAINBO\V OF HUMAN CULTUIIES 113

And nothing is more needed by sentimental lovers of all mankind than an exact knowledge of the infinitely diversified ways in which different societies in different environments have used the means at their disposal to meet the same universal human problems.

Two books are at hand that deal sancly and intelligently with the interrelations between human cultures. Neither of them emphasizes the factor of race, which in the present state of our knowledge is left by the careful scientist to the exploitation of the prejudiced. The scientific observer can tell us much about cultures, which are before us as facts; he has only guesses as to the racial bases of civilization. It is in these days almost a sure mark of impartiality and scientific detachment to find a book dealing, not with problems of race, but with problems of culture. The anthropologist finds all cultures, from his point of view of interest in understanding, equally fascinating; and the more he studies the achievements of a wide variety of groups, the more he finds it difficult to think in terms of higher and lower, better and worse. Some societies have succeeded better in facing certain problems than others; but there is no society, however "primitive," that does not on careful investigation awaken his admiration for some at least of its distinctive features. Such an interest in scientific understanding is not everything: it can never take the place of an active concern in the well-being of every human group. But it goes far to break down the barriers of ignorance and prejudice.

Roland B. Dixon, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard, and author of one of the sanest treatments of the subject of race in his Racial HiJ'MU of Man, offers in attractive form the conclusions of the best anthropological thought on Tb: Building of Cultum.' From his broad knowledge of concrete human societies he emphasizes the complexity of factors that enters into the growth of cultural traditions. Those theories that lay stress on some one element, whether it be climate, environment, race, or the civilizing mission of :l chosen people, he recognizes as all

‘ Roland B. Dixon, Tb: Brim»; 9/ Cultura. Scribnets. 54. X. )1: pp.

[Page 214]114 “’ORLD UNITY MAGAZI NB

containing important truths. But taken in isolation each sp'ecial theory merely lends itself to the bolstering up of existing prejudices, and manifestly each exclusive claim is canceled out by the test. Theories of the importance of the environment ox'crlook the different reactions that different peoples have made to essentially the same conditions. The progress of the material side of civilization, indeed, continually tends to emancipatu culture from the tyranny of the environment in which it is placed. ”Environment creCts but few real barriers. With few exceptions, it sets before man opportunities which he may take. rather than issues commands which he must obey." Special environmental theories. like the emphasis on climate, completely break down in the face of facts. For example, Huntington reached the remarkable conclusion that the optimum temperature and humidity for physical and intcllcctual efficiency is furnished only in the climates of the eastern United States and northwestern Europe. Curiously enough. precisely these regions are regarded (by Americans and Europeans) as the scene of the world's highest cultural achievements! The most that can he said. remarks Dixon, is that such a climate is best for the development, by the peoples who happen to live in it, of the culture they happen to have developed. It has no bearings on the achievements of, say, Hindu civilization in the Indian climate.

Dixon inclines. with Frank H. Hankins, for example, to believe that "there appear to be ecrtam aptitudes, habits of mind, temperaments which are not mere culture patterns, that are associated with whole national or racial groups, and color their culture or cultures throughout." He thinks that "peoples like individuals vary in grade and frequency of genius." But he is very cautious in admitting the possibility of such racial dillarences, and regards them as "a real. if relatively minor feature" of cultural growth. In any event. such differences do not spell differences in value; groups that do not show as great inventiveness in material devices do display remarkable social organintion. Such differences have become increasingly minor obstacles in the face of the “intensive use of practically all available

[Page 215]THE RAINBOW OF HUMAN CULTURES 115

opportunities" that marks the wide diffusion of cultural traits today. Of the three main factors in invention, genius, need, and opportunity, the last two are much the more important, and under modern conditions are becoming the property of all peoples. By many examples Dixon shows the impossibility of the Curious hypothesis of the extreme difl'usionists that civilization was invented once, in Egypt, for example, and spread thence around the world. Invention is no monopoly of a chosen people; it occurs everywhere, and successful inventions spread. The more carefully one investigates, the more one finds unique achievements everywhere, and the more one is impressed by the skill of men in every society in solving their problems. Complete isolation, naturally, throws groups upon their own resources, and cuts them off, like the inhabitants of Tietta del Fucgo, from the rapid advance that is possible when resources can he pooled. The conclusion of the anthropologist is that there is little evidence for denying a large measure of genius and achievement to any society, and that what is attained only reaches its fullest development when fruitful intercourse between peoples is possible. Charles A. Ellwood, Professor of Sociology in the University of Missouri, and author of a treatment of the present religious problem called The Reconstruction of Religion, has written on the same theme in his Cultural Evolution.‘ Ellwood's book is neither so objective nor so factual as Dixon's; though he is fully conversant with the best anthropological opinion, he is primarily a sociologist, and given to broader generalizations. He is accordingly interested in the more complex forms of institutional life, and his standpoint is not so much that of the impartial observer of all societies as of the thoughtful appraiser of our own civilization, which for him is unquestionably the highest development of cultural life. Like Dixon, he recognizes truth in all theories of social and cultural growth; because he is dealing primarily with the more complex forms of social institutions, he emphasizes the educational aspect of the building of cultures. The building of culture is a collective learning process. ”The differ ' Charles A. Ellwood. Cult-al Evolution. The Century Company. $1.30. 167 pp.

[Page 216]7.16 \VORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

ence between the primitive mind and our own lies in the fact that we have a store of accumulated knowledge and of traditions to guide our responses to stimuli and to control our behavior, while there were no such traditions or accumulated knowledge for the earliest men." "Culture is the process by which the spiritual element in man is gradually transforming not only the material environment, but man himself. . . . It is an expanding process starting with the material- furnished by organic evolution and the geographic environment, but building a human world toward a goal which we are only dimly beginning to perceive."

While Ellwood reiterates that there is no single line of Cultural evolution, he tends to see all social institutions as ultimately becoming rationalized forms of what is characteristic of our American life. Property will be "rationalized and socialized." The ultimate family will again be ”a stable monogamy, but upon a basis of the ethical obligations of the family group to society and to humanity at large." Government will become social democracy. "Culture is slowly working out a rationalized and socialized morality." Jesus "completely humanized and socialized religion." "Science is bound to dominate all other phases of culture." In view of the irresistible spread of Western civilization, the immediate future may well see such developments. But the reader may well wonder whether, as in one of the many diagrams, the present time in America is nine—tenths of the way toward a stable “perfection!"

There are retrogressions in Fllwood's diagrams. the chief of which is connected with the coming of organized warfare. ”It will be noticed that this graph seems to show aberrations in the family. in government, in religion, in morals. and in other phases of culture after the starting of organized warfare. But the retrogtessions caused by war were temporary and relative. In one sense they were but steps, after all, toward the achievement of a still higher culture. The world, however, has not yet recovered from slavery, polygamy, and autocracy. to take only three of the questionable cultural outgrowths of war, and we

[Page 217]THE RAINBOW 0P ROMAN CULTURES 2.17

cannot say what the ultimate outcome for humanity will be. If humanity is unable to throw off these erroneous social adjustments, it will probably be unable to develop any higher culture than is at present achieved. If humanity, however, shows the same power of dealing with war that it has shown in dealing with most of its other erroneous adjuStments, that is, of learning how to profit by its mistakes, then the organized warfare of the last five thousand years will prove but a stepping-stone to a higher, peaceful culture. Wat is an indication of a failure on the part of men to cooperate. Culture is necessarily a product of cooperation. The struggle of man for food, against disease, ' against crime, will probably tax the resources of human cooperation in the future to the utmost. Therefore man must learn to transcend war if he is to continue to advance in culture."

"Practically, only two things can interrupt the accumulation and transmission of culture in human society. These are first, war, both international and civil; and second, luxury, by which we mean the devotion of energy to non-productive selfindulgence." Ellwood sees in science the way of salvation. "The development of the scientific method and scientific attitude within Western civilization, we may reasonably hope, will tend to prevent, if not entirely to eliminate, the mistakes and blunders in social policy which lead to cultural disaster. thther we believe that the scientific method and the diffusion of the scientific attitude can thus safeguard our civilization or not, it is at least important to see that there is no inevitable law of decline or decadence in the cultural process, but that, on the contrary, all cultural decadence is due to the interruption of the collective learning process. The development of science, especially of social science, should work to prevent this, especially if the cooperation of the masses of mankind with scientific leaders can be secured. Reversions in culture are, it would seem, no more inchtable than famine, pestilence, or war. All these, to be sure, have hitherto characterized the history of mankind; but science believes that they can all be eliminated and prevented."

The following books have also been received.

[Page 218]2.18 won!) vm'nr MAGAZINE

Raymond Leslie Buell, Tb: Native Prablem in Africa. The Macmillan Co. $15. xiv, 1045 pp.; x, 1101 pp. A fully documented and detailed examination of relations of whites and blacks in the French, British, and Belgian territories, and in Liberia: a mine of information for every student of the workings of imperialism.

Ameen Rihani, Maker of Modern Arabia. Houghton Mifilin Co. 56. xvii, 370 pp. The story of Ibn Sa'oud, King of the Hijaz, by a Syrian Christian.

ché Fulop-Millcr, Tb: Mind and Face of Balsbwbm. An attempt by a German to give an unprejudiced examination of cultural life in Soviet Russia.

Albert Leon Guétatd, Beyond Hatred. Scribner's. $3. xx, 2.98 pp. An interpretation of the democratic ideal in France and America by a brilliant Franco-American scholar.

Léon Daudet, The Stupid XIth Cum”). Payson 'and Clarke. $1.50. A clever expression of French Royalism and its dislike for modern ideas.

Henri Massis, Defence of the Wen. Harcourt, Brace and Co. $3. 160 pp. The superiority of the rationalistic and Catholic tradition in Europe over the fatalism and mysticism of the East.

Paul Monet, Emu Data: Fax. Les Editions Riedet, Paris. 30 francs. 42.4 pp. A series of documents illustrating the plight of an enlightened French colonial administrator in IndoChina. caught between native dissatisfaction and the policies of the Ministry of Colonies.

L'Education et la Paix. A bibliography of books dcaling'with the cultivation of international understanding through the schools, issued by the Bureau International d'Education of Geneva.

Houston Peterson, Havelaclz Ellis, Pbiluoplm of Law. Houghton Mifllin Co. $4.50. ix, 432. pp.

A scholarly biography, fully documented with original letters, ctc., of ”the most civilized living Englishman," one of the builders of the new world.

[Page 219]

The grandfathers of the young men now undetgraduatts were apparently very greatly preoccupied with the peculiar form of mysticism which expressed itself through the ritual of the Greek Letter secret societies ——1 "pagan" institution on which was supetim a form of Christian morality and the whole synthesis made to the latent cxclusivcness of a politically democratic people. The sons of these Alphas and Omega: encountered a vigorous attempt to restore the Evangelical spirit of a simpler age but translated this spirit into the so-callcd "social gospel." In both cases an extta-curticular activity supplied the focal point to the cultural experience of a generation. Against this background it is interesting to follow present experiments in applied internationalism among college students. According to a recent newspaper article, two hundred students from sixteen New England colleges met at Amherst to conduct and participate in the "first league of nations model assembly in this section of the country. . . . The meetings will be carried out on the same procedure as that prevailing at the league assembly in Geneva. . . . A feature which will distinguish this meeting from similar assemblies in other parts of the country is that the delegations will represent nationalitits rather than colleges. and each

NOTES AN D ANNOUNCEMENTS

student will be recognized as a national from the country he represents."

Here we have, at last. a perfect coincidence between idealism and method, between spirit and form, which makes this undergraduate experience infinitely more fruitful for the future than the experience of any preceding generation. Out of these "model assemblies," it is to be hoped, it new quality of watesmanship will eventually appear.

0“

But the undergraduate is only following in the footsteps of older men and women in this matter of international experience. The increasing number of International Conferences held annually in different countries is also a training school in n-arld unit), since by their variety of purpose and appeal lhcsc Cnnferences serve to quicken the spirit of internationalism among the general population through the channels of industrial as well as professional and moral interests. “'01an Usnv Mmmzmr is happy to publish the following list of Conferences to be held during the next few months:

International hangress of Artists, Brussels. June §0~July ;.

lntemational Historical Congress, Oslo. August 14-18.

119

[Page 220]7.10 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

Institute of International Law, Stockholm, Summer of 191.8.

Interpatliamentary Commercial Conference. Paris, June 19.

Pan American Highway Conference, Rio de Janeiro, July.

International Congress of Esperanto, Antwerp. August 6—12..

Pan American Women's Conference. Honolulu, August 9-19.

Pan Pacific Commercial Congress, Los Angeles, December 192.8.

Universal Religious Peace Conference, to be held under auspices of the Church Peace Union. Geneva, September 1918.

Universal Peace Congtess, Watsaw. June 15—19.

World Youth Peace Congress, Erde, Holland, August 17-16. The editors will be glad to publish material provided by any international meeting whose deliberations clarify, in a scholarly manner, any of the issues with which this magazine is primarily concerned.

The present issue of WORLD UNITY presents the second of the three symposiums announced a few months ago. The topic, “The Need of the Spiritual Element in Education." goes to the heart of the modern world problem. In the brief compass

of this magazine it is impoSsible to deal with more than a few of its myriad facets, but the essays published this month. and those to be published in October, indicate how profound ate the conscious form now arising to ovetcome the materialistie education which conditioned those who have held the reins of political and economic power. Not in the halls of scientific and technical knowledge has materialism erected its throne of darkness. but in those religious teachings which, unscientific in nature and sectarian in purpose. compelled an evolving knowledge to develop along non-religious lines. The capture of the modem imagination by "secular" teachings has had the inevitable result of enabling free souls to reinterpret the fundamental religious experiences in terms of human living and thus dissolve theology into its component parts—mysticism, psychology, phi. losophy. esthetics and ethics.

As many discerning minds have lately remarked, many of the functions of the church are being taken over by the school and college, a process the end of which cannot now be foreseen. While society has arrived at a point where education is a necessity, and its lack a sin. the need for sources of inspiration, inner renewal and enlightenment is equally vital.

[Page 221]

T HE VITAL NUCLEUS OF CREATIVE THOUGHT

1- 1m: inmost secret heart of matter we find one mysterious point of elccttonic enetgy—the vital nucleus—capable of attracting and holding to itself the patterned elements which produce recognizable form and function

in the eternal reciprocity we call life. Reduce all points of matter and energy to one similarity and nothing would coherc; time, space and evolution would cease to be.

Man's inner life, too, has a vital nucleus, whether we term it faith or awarenm, which gathers into useful, organic substance the otherwise unrelated elements of will, desire, memory, conscious thought.

The flow of conscious forces today passes over us unfelt, ungucsscd, unless our center of being has acquired a personality in contact with worldwide ultimates in the domain of loyalty and purpose. Perhaps the greatest value of World Unit} Magazine consists in its power to transform the direction of effort from past to future, from illusion to reality, from a dead social environment to one quickened in rebirth.

Subscribe to World Unity Magazine and bring it to the attention of your friends.

Want) Um" PUBLISHING Comnnou, 4 EAST u-n-l s'ruzr, new you.

Plea: nmr m] :dxm'ptian to World Unit] Magazim. I excl”: 3.10. (In Canada. 34.00; other mmm'u. $4.”. Indium wbnlm :uburipn‘un i: M 645i» with October, 1927, or am»! mu.)

u:

[Page 222]Juan: H. Turn '1'. V. Slur: Managing Editor Austins Editor

For thitty~five years the leading quarterly in its field. Tbs Imrutiml Journal of Etbiu numbers among its contributors the foremost wtitets in America and Great Britain.

It: province is both the centtsl field of ethical knowledge and practice, and the' bordering fields of law. politics. economics. literature. and religion. Promoting the study of ethics and of other sciences in so far as they beat directly upon conduct, the dInmmal is a common

and for the intetchange of Vtews between stu cuts of law and sments of ethics and the social sciences.

1’15“be quarterly in the month 0] 0005",]4111411, April, Jul jelly Subuription 3’.” p010". Single cups}: 7] mm

The FIGURE in the CARPET: A Magazine of Prose

Dedicated primarily to the study and practice of the art of prose. Among the contributots appearing regularly are Gotham B. Manson, Waldo Frank, Alfred Kreymhor , Elva de Pue. William Ttoy. Genevieve Taggatd, and Hansel] augh.

Recent contributions have included articles, criticisms and critical notes on Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Santayana, Wyndham Lewis; Precursors of Transition. 3 discusston of the recent trends of the novel, The American Caravan, and Marginalia, some hints for reading more awately.

A pears six times per year. Twenty-hve cents a copy at the best hoofsellets here and abroad.

THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET 465 West 23rd Street. New Yoek City

[Page 223]Rudin‘ Lin 0!

CURRENT BOOKS on WORLD UNITY

3!

JOHN H. RANDALL, JI. Rm'm Elk». World Unit] M15453:

WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE Reprint No. 1.

Ten cents a copy postpaid ln quantity, five cents

Womem'n'PunusmNGCou. 4 En: nth SI. New Yotk

WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE Vol. I

October I 97.7 to

March 1 918

World Unity rudcn should haw: the bound volum—the contents of this magazine has more zlnn mere unmiem,

semi: inmeu.

K our file com m b otdcrin Volmyl m. Amullifive, duilblc bl“: human. gold nmping. If we supply the six monthly numbers. pricc. postpaid 34.1.5.

If you lend your copies. postpaid, 5:..5u.

WouDUNInPunusumaCou.

4 Eu: nth Street New York

THE FOUNDATIONS 0!

WORLD UNITY

SELECI'ION from th: public “drum delivered by 'Abdu'lHIM u Universitiu. Churches. Synagogues And Pence Sociniu in the United Sines And Cmuh during 19"..

ua. pages. paper covers. SevenIy-five cum I copy a: your boohton. From the pnblishcr. poupaid. eighty cents.

WonmUNrn! PunusmNcConp. 4 East nth Suez: New York

Were the Nations Insane?

Presented dramaticallv in one of thtce plays against War by Henry Bailey Stevens. Suitablc citherfor reading or production.

“Won't Bernard Shaw be iulousi" —Dmair Judd; Nm 1

"Almost enough to convince a court." -—Thc Sun!)

Order A CRY OUT OF THE

DARK. coauinin (h: onc-acl

plan. "The Mcd let". "5010

ml Babeme" and "The Madhouse."

60¢ postpaid

Tu: NATIONAL COUNCIL

for Mt Puvnmnou of Wu,

”2. Seunmzh 5L, N. W., Wuhinyon. D. C.

u}

[Page 224]BOOKS RECOMMENDED BY WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

New Geo a h , Bookgilp y 81W.W.Amol

The American Rhythm Evmman's Genius ByMnyA-m The Fightin Instinct th’tm Prinfi 113%??blems o I t m in BJEfianrBems Treatment of Exempt Classes of Chinese in America 31315 Pmem Israel's Contribution to America thulolpb 1.6.11"

The Heart of the World 8] Gaga Dsluml

Stantenschutzvertrag znr Sicherung des Weltfriedens 81 Am B. Edmin

The New Spirit The Dance of Life 3, um“: Elli:

Das Parlement B] Hellmtb m Gulltb

Introduction to World Politics Europe Since I [S B] Hu‘m Alan Gi hm

His Religion and Hers B] Charlene Perkin Gillmm

War from a Quaker Point of View The Divinity in Man B} jot. W. Cuban

Any of the above may be obtained from

WORLD UNITY PUBLISHING CORPORATION 4 East 12th Street. New York City

114

The Racial Basis of Civilization 5, rm H. W

The Lar Bible 3] W‘ I Hi)"

Fundamental Ends of Life Social Law and the

Spiritual World 1 Rain M. Juan

A Religion of Truth, Justice and Peace Bahá’í-gu Proceedings of the Convention of World Federation of Education

Associations El. 01 Aqua: 0. Thu:

The Voice of Peace

Sparks from the Fire 5, 6mm Than:

For International Peace

The Outlawry of War 5, David Sun 1nd.

Oriental Int etations of the Far astem

Problem 3, P. w. x Race Contacts and InterRacial Relatiom The New Negro

B, Aim Lad:

The Master Problem The Future of Christianity 8] Sivjnm Mmbul TheFellowshi ofFaiths

Comparative eligion B, Allud W. Mam

The Gen of H a, m... °"‘ Pro and Hist Evmon of “lam Pace Science and Civilization El. 5} F. S. Maui Swords and Plough shares 3: Led- Ana Mud

Races, Nations and

Clusee B; Hahn A. Malln‘

My Brother's Face B] Dbl Gap! W

Influencing Human Behavior About Ourselves B; Han] .4. 0mm:

Humanity at the Cross Roads 8119‘: Hm W

The Makin of the

Modem ind B] jab: Hm WI. jr.

The Messages of the Poets The Prophet of

Nazmth n, Nam: mm

Demo on

BJFmg'hhil

The Moral Damage 0! War

The World Rebuilt B, Wdur Wald:

Between the Old World and the New

Towards New Horizons a, M. F. Willer