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The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy of the World War in Relation to Human Liberty by Edward Howard Griggs
page 8 of 94 (08%)
to them and why, that heritage surely ought to show in some reaction
against the present autocratic regime, after the War closes, if not
before, perhaps even to the extent of making Germany a republic. That
would be some compensation for the waste and destruction of the War.
Meantime Germany stands now, ruthlessly, for the dedication of Man to
the State.

One can understand why a Prussian minister forbade the teaching of
Froebel's ideas in Prussia during the latter period of the educator's
life. So one understands the hatred of Goethe because he refused
allegiance to a narrow nationalism and remained cosmopolitan in his
world-view. Similarly Hegel, with his justification of absolute
monarchy and his theory of the German state as the acme of all spiritual
evolution, was the acclaimed orthodox philosopher of Prussia, while the
individualist, Schopenhauer, was neglected and despised.

One must have lived in Germany to realize the absolute control of the
State over the individual--the incessant surveillance, the petty
regulations, the constant interference with private life. It was to
escape just this vexatious control, with the arduous militarism in which
it culminates, that so vast a multitude of Germans left their native
land and came to the United States--not all of whom have shown
appreciation and loyalty to the free land that welcomed them.




III

THE IDEAS FOR WHICH THE ALLIED NATIONS FIGHT
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