Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy of the World War in Relation to Human Liberty by Edward Howard Griggs
page 48 of 94 (51%)
In such a time, then, all of us who believe in the spirit must hold high
the torch of humanistic culture. Education is for life and not merely
for efficiency. Of what worth is life, if one is only a cog-wheel in
the economic machine? It is to save the spiritual heritage of humanity
that we are fighting, and it is that heritage that education must bring
to every child and youth, if it fulfills its supreme trust. Education
for the purposes of autocratic imperialism seeks to make a people a
perfect economically productive and militarily aggressive machine.
Education for democracy means the development of each individual to the
most intelligent, self-directed and governed, unselfish and devoted,
sane, balanced and effective humanity.





XII

SOCIALISM AND THE WAR

One of the surprises of the War was the complete breakdown of
international socialism. Not only socialists, but those of us who had
been thoughtfully watching the movement from without, had come to
believe that the measure of consciousness of international brotherhood
it had developed in the artisan groups of many lands, would be a
powerful lever against war. We were wrong: the superficial
international sympathy evaporated like mist under the rays of a revived
nationalism. The socialists fell in line, almost as completely as any
other group, with the purely nationalist aims in each land.

DigitalOcean Referral Badge