Germany and the Next War by Friedrich von Bernhardi
page 299 of 339 (88%)
page 299 of 339 (88%)
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the State. The duties of the individual to the State should be placed in
the foreground. This instruction must be inspired by the spirit which animated Schleiermacher's sermons in the blackest hour of Prussia, and culminated in the doctrine that all the value of the man lies in the strength and purity of his will, in his free devotion to the great whole; that property and life are only trusts, which must be employed for higher ideals; that the mind, which thinks only of itself, perishes in feeble susceptibility, but that true moral worth grows up only in the love for the fatherland and for the State, which is a haven for every faith, and a home of justice and honourable freedom of purpose. Only if national education works in this sense will it train up men to fill our armies who have been adequately prepared for the school of arms, and bring with them the true soldierly spirit from which great deeds spring. What can be effected by the spirit of a nation we have learnt from the history of the War of Liberation, that never-failing source of patriotic sentiment, which should form the backbone and centre of history-teaching in the national and the continuation schools. We can study it also by an example from most recent history, in the Russo-Japanese War. "The education of the whole Japanese people, beginning at home and continued at school, was based on a patriotic and warlike spirit. That education, combined with the rapidly acquired successes in culture and warfare, aroused in the Japanese a marvellous confidence in their own strength. They served with pride in the ranks of the army, and dreamed of heroic deeds.... All the thoughts of the nation were turned towards the coming struggle, while in the course of several years they had spent their last farthing in the creation of a powerful army and a strong fleet."[B] This was the spirit that led the Japanese to victory. "The day when the young Japanese enlisted was |
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