national prosperity and in the course of history, should not desire a
change in the mental attitude of our countrymen towards maritime
affairs. The subject presents itself not merely as one of national
importance, but as one concerning the world's history and the welfare
of mankind, which are bound up, so far as we can see, in the security
and strength of that civilization which is identified with Europe and
its offshoots in America. For what, after all, is our not unjustly
vaunted European and American civilization? An oasis set in the midst
of a desert of barbarism, rent with many intestine troubles, and
ultimately dependent, not upon its mere elaboration of organization,
but upon the power of that organization to express itself in a
menacing and efficient attitude of physical force, sufficient to
resist the numerically overwhelming, but inadequately organized hosts
of outsiders. Under present conditions these are diked off by the
magnificent military organizations of Europe, which also as yet cope
successfully with the barbarians within. Of what the latter are
capable--at least in will--we have from time to time, and not least of
late, terrific warnings, to which men scarcely can shut their eyes and
ears; but sufficient attention hardly is paid to the possible dangers
from those outside, who are wholly alien to the spirit of our
civilization; nor do men realize how essential to the conservation of
that civilization is the attitude of armed watchfulness between
nations, which is maintained now by the great states of Europe. Even
if we leave out of consideration the invaluable benefit to society, in
this age of insubordination and anarchy, that so large a number of
youth, at the most impressionable age, receive the lessons of
obedience, order, respect for authority and law, by which military
training conveys a potent antidote to lawlessness, it still would
remain a mistake, plausible but utter, to see in the hoped-for
subsidence of the military spirit in the nations of Europe a pledge of