up this position: That youth have for too long left exclusively in
our hands the decisions in national matters that are more vital to
them than to us. Things about the next war, for instance, and why
the last one ever had a beginning. I use the word fight because it
must, I think, begin with a challenge; but the aim is the reverse of
antagonism, it is partnership. I want you to hold that the time has
arrived for youth to demand that partnership, and to demand it
courageously. That to gain courage is what you came to St. Andrews
for. With some alarums and excursions into college life. That is
what I propose, but, of course, the issue lies with M'Connachie.

Your betters had no share in the immediate cause of the war; we know
what nation has that blot to wipe out; but for fifty years or so we
heeded not the rumblings of the distant drum, I do not mean by lack
of military preparations; and when war did come we told youth, who
had to get us out of it, tall tales of what it really is and of the
clover beds to which it leads.

We were not meaning to deceive, most of us were as honourable and as
ignorant as the youth themselves; but that does not acquit us of
failings such as stupidity and jealousy, the two black spots in
human nature which, more than love of money, are at the root of all
evil. If you prefer to leave things as they are we shall probably
fail you again. Do not be too sure that we have learned our lesson,
and are not at this very moment doddering down some brimstone path.

I am far from implying that even worse things than war may not come
to a State. There are circumstances in which nothing can so well
become a land, as I think this land proved when the late war did
break out and there was but one thing to do. There is a form of