bit against human peace and human happiness.

There are some other little sentences of the Kaiser and his Huns of
which I shall speak before I finish: we must now take up the controversy
of those men in front of the bulletin board; we must investigate what
lies behind that controversy. Those two men are types. One had learned
nothing since he left school, the other had.



Chapter VIII: History Astigmatic


So far as I know, it was Mr. Sydney Gent Fisher, an American, who was the
first to go back to the original documents, and to write from study of
these documents the complete truth about England and ourselves during the
Revolution. His admirable book tore off the cloak which our school
histories had wrapped round the fables. He lays bare the political state of
Britain at that time. What did you learn at your school of that political
state? Did you ever wonder able General Howe and his manner of fighting
us? Did it ever strike you that, although we were more often defeated
than victorious in those engagements with him (and sometimes he even
seemed to avoid pitched battles with us when the odds were all in his
favor), yet somehow England did seem to reap the advantage she should be
reaped from those contests, didn't follow them, let us get away, didn't
in short make any progress to speak of in really conquering us? Perhaps
you attributed this to our brave troops and our great Washington. Well,
our troops were brave and Washington was great; but there was more
behind--more than your school teaching ever led you to suspect, if your
schooling was like mine. I imagined England as being just one whole unit