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 The Moral Damage of War 
 to the School Child* 
 
 BY REV. WALTER WALSH. 
 
 English was the poet who wrote, but universal is the 
 principle contained in, the couplet, 
 
 " 'T is education forms the common mind ; 
 Just as the twig ia bent, the tree's inclined." 
 
 Speaking from, an experience as an administrator of 
 various educational bodies, extending over many years, 
 recalling the sufferings of my own children as pupils in 
 the public schools of Scotland during the period of the 
 Boer war, and after careful and minute collection of 
 facts and incidents thoroughly authenticated, the present 
 speaker undertakes to make good before this important 
 congress of educationists the proposition that the war- 
 spirit is displayed in its most unnatural and revolting 
 characteristics by the moral damage it inflicts upon the 
 school child. Hideous as is the bodily slaughter of our 
 young manhood demanded by the military Moloch upon 
 the field of battle, more abominable still is the sacrifice 
 of the soul of childhood in the school-room. Indeed, it 
 is the demoralization of the scholar that makes possible 
 the destruction of the soldier and the devastation of the 
 field. Therefore the wounds of battle can be staunched 
 only in the school-room. Salvation must begin with the 
 ABC. Judgment must begin at the schoolhouse. 
 
 In his mysterious " Dream Fugue," which, like the 
 vision of a later Ezekiel, ecstatically pictures the thun- 
 derous announcement of the victory of Waterloo, the 
 rapt De Quincey perceives a baby in the path, threatened 
 
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 by the furious Jehu who shakes the earth in his zea'i to 
 break the news of battle, and the terrified seer cries aloud, 
 " O baby ! shalt thou be the ransom for Waterloo ? Must 
 we, that carry tidings of great joy to every people, be 
 messengers of ruin to thee?" 
 
 We know that the vision was a reality. The soul of 
 the child is the price we pay for our Waterloos. 
 
 The modern spirit is increasingly offended by a dual 
 morality which prescribes one law for the individual and 
 another for the community, one doctrine for the church 
 and another for the senate, one s^t of principles for a 
 time of peace and quite a different set for a time of war. 
 It is with growing discomfort that the citizen is carrying 
 around the modern world two Sinais, two sets of com- 
 mandments, or perhaps, more correctly, a Sinai in one 
 part of his mind and a Calvary in another, this incul- 
 cating hostility and that prescribing benevolence, to-day 
 feeling that it is his duty to die for, and to-morrow that 
 it is right to kill, his enemy. It is with growing uneasi- 
 ness that he dedicates one-half of his life to Christ and 
 the other half to Cain, printing the Golden Rule upon one 
 lobe of his brain and the lex talionis upon the other. He 
 is Dr. Jekyll, the pacifist, and Mr. Hyde, the militarist, 
 in one skin; but the pacifist is steadily absorbing the 
 militarist, involving him more and more in the pains of 
 death and the terrors of judgment. 
 
 The demand for a harmonious and coherent ethic 
 would become more and more importunate if the public 
 mind could be brought to realize the disastrous effect of 
 dualism upon child nature, — how it splits childhood into 
 halves, giving one-half to the true mother, Humanity, 
 and another half to the false mother, Militarism; how it 
 forces the half-conscious soul of innocence into an uneasy 
 feeling that it has to choose between the " gentle Jesus " 
 oi its hymnology, and the teacher who prescribes such a 
 Dattle-song as : 
 
 " We talk of night surprises, 
 Of sudden fierce attacks, 
 Of shooting Indian rebels, 
 Of bayoneting blacks.' 1 
 
 Detailed proofs of the moral damage inflicted upon the 
 school child by the war-spirit become visible the moment 
 
we turn our eyes to the sanctuary of the class-room. Take 
 the case of two nations actually at war with one another. 
 What is the nature of the instruction imparted respec- 
 tively to the children of those nations? Almost univer- 
 sally, they are dosed with biased comments upon past 
 history and excited diatribes on contemporary combats. 
 If we could take seats in such a class-room, we should 
 not unseldom hear a narrow provincialism propounded 
 in the name of patriotism by instructors who were really 
 partisans masquerading as patriots. Honorable excep- 
 tions, to be sure, there would be; but the prevailing 
 temper would certainly be that indicated by Herbert 
 Spencer in his " Bias of Patriotism." At such times the 
 usual subjects are neglected for declamation on the pass- 
 ing incidents of the campaign; the settled findings of 
 history are forsaken for dilations upon the distorted and 
 ephemeral bulletins from the front; studies of historical 
 characters are displaced by newspaper sketches of the 
 generals in the field. Essays that were formerly pre- 
 scribed upon the nobler themes of literature now turn 
 upon the respective characters of the belligerent peoples, 
 the enemy being represented in the darkest and most 
 slanderous colors, while the aggressive people are painted 
 as the bravest and most virtuous imaginable. Sometimes 
 the school song is turned into a hymn of battle; the 
 drawing lesson is a caricature of the enemy. An in- 
 spector regales a public meeting with the pitiful spite he 
 has taught an innocent child to set down in its essay. 
 
 Lower still is the deep in which the school child is 
 taught that it is base to think his country to be in the 
 wrong, treacherous to disagree with his country's quarrels, 
 cowardly to grieve when a large number of the enemy's 
 men are killed in defending their own. Lowest of all is 
 the deep in which the infant non-juror, the non-conform- 
 ing pupil, the child of pacifist parents, is insulted in the 
 class, persecuted in the playground, and terrorized by the 
 agents of a militarized government, which controls both 
 the school and the army, and is fast learning to bless the 
 day it was driven by zealous educationists to drill the 
 scholar as well as the soldier. 
 
 When this stage has been reached, the children will 
 begin to understand that they are not expected to apply 
 
to international relationships, or to periods of war, the 
 ethical principles they have been taught in the Sunday 
 school, the moral instruction class, the young citizen- 
 class and the home. They will know that these princi- 
 ples relate only to personal affairs and to times of peace. 
 They will recognize that the arts of war — " legitimate 
 warfare " is the phrase — include all the mean, false, cow- 
 ardly and unchivalrous actions they have been taught to 
 despise in their own behalf, such as stratagems, ambushes, 
 spying, eaves-dropping, hitting from behind or when a 
 fellow is down, lying, forging letters, telegrams, signals 
 to mislead the enemy, following up a beaten enemy and 
 hammering at him with cavalry and artillery so as to 
 annihilate him ; insisting upon the severest possible terms 
 of surrender, or refusing all offers of surrender with the 
 order, "Take no prisoners." They may perhaps learn 
 the explicit declaration of a British commander-in-chief, 
 that while "Truth always wins in the long run" and 
 "Honesty is the best policy" did very well for their 
 school copy-books, they are not to be acted upon in war- 
 time ; and they will rightly conclude that the same actions 
 which are counted vicious, cruel and disgusting in per- 
 sonal affairs, become virtuous, lawful and praiseworthy 
 when perpetrated upon a national foe. 
 
 Who can wonder if they not unseldom conclude 
 that all they w T rote in their copy-books is open to the 
 same repudiation; that chastity, justice, truth-speaking, 
 magnanimity, commercial integrity, a fair day's work for 
 a fair day's wage, are equally, under special conditions, 
 subject to suspension or repeal? Who can blame them 
 that, being taught that it is permissible to suspend the 
 decalogue for their country's sake, they afterwards repeal 
 the Ten Commandments for their own? As a matter of 
 fact, is it not certain that projection of the fighting ethic 
 into the domestic and industrial realm is the principal 
 cauee of poverty, injustice, disorder and the principal 
 hindrance to the general elevation and advance of 
 civilized affairs? 
 
 Why are we so foolish as to think we can gather 
 grapes from thorns or make silk purses from sows' ears ? 
 if we systematically inculcate two contradictory codes of 
 morality, how are our children to decide which code to 
 
follow, or when to iollow one rather than the other? 
 Will they not naturally do just as their fathers have 
 done before them, choose the " line of least resistance," 
 and follow the code which is more convenient and profit- 
 able? Will not they put expediency before principle? 
 Will they not infer that the religious principle can be 
 detached from whole segments of life? What can be 
 more confounding to the moral sense of a very young 
 child than to hear a teacher commend those military 
 operations his father has taught him to abhor, or even 
 insult the sentiments his mother has commanded him to 
 reverence? What can be more perplexing than this 
 collision between home and school, parent and teacher, 
 nay, between teacher and teacher, class and class, book 
 and book, subject and subject? Those who have seen 
 the pained look upon a child's face, the excitement, the 
 resentment, the flush of injury, and noted the hardening 
 effect upon the child mind, will understand. To tear a 
 child limb from limb would hardly be more cruel than 
 to ravage his tender soul with this clash of ideals, this 
 conflict of authorities, and would certainly be less wicked. 
 The spectacle of the war demon assiduously poisoning 
 the well-heads of humanity is one of the most distressing 
 that can afflict the thoughtful mind. To instill the prin- 
 ciples of intellectual atheism into his pupils would be 
 considered a thing monstrous and unnatural in a peda- 
 gogue, but is it any nobler to sap a child's faith in 
 morality, truthfulness, consistency? Are not the very 
 bases of human nature shaken when we teach childhood 
 that, under certain conditions, it is lawful, even laudable, 
 to kill, lie, steal, boast, slander, glory in slaughter, trample 
 down harvests, burn up houses, make other children 
 fatherless and the mothers of other children widows? 
 is not this to filter the very quintessence of immorality 
 into the inner soul of childhood? Sang William Blake, 
 the gentle author of the " Songs of Innocence " : 
 
 "He who mocks the infant's faith 
 Shall he mocked in age and death ; 
 He who shall teach the child to douhfc, 
 The rotten grave shall ne'er get out." 
 
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 Is it not possible to have Blake's seer's vision, and dis- 
 cern the very closest connection between our systematic 
 demoralization of the child's mind and the hideous, abom- 
 inable and unnatural conditions which prevail between the 
 families of the nations ? For the sake of some imagined 
 national good, we are plainly consigning the childhood 
 oi tne nation to a moral hell of hopeless inconsistency ; 
 we are prolonging the noxious habit of double-niinded- 
 ness into an age which at the same time in every 
 department of its affairs cries aloud for conciliation, 
 reconcilement, at-one-ment, and confesses that it can 
 find happiness and universal peace only in unity of 
 thought, of motive and of purpose. 
 
 The process of debauching the child soul in order to 
 degrade the scholar into a conscript is well understood 
 by the evil power that sways the militarized governments 
 of the world, whose purposes would be ill served by the 
 abolition of the dual code of ethics, and the reign of the 
 one law of reason, justice and love over the political as 
 over the personal affairs of life. The governments that 
 own both the army and the school find free, universal, 
 tax-supported education a new opportunity for developing 
 their military resources. Hence the encouragement given 
 to rifle brigades, shooting clubs, cadet corps, and military 
 drill of various kinds. The school-room is a recruiting 
 ground for the army. The teacher prepares the way of 
 the recruiting agent and the drill sergeant. 
 
 The friends of democracy and popular education have 
 good reason to bewail this unexpected result of their 
 splendid struggle for universal, state-aided and state- 
 directed schools ; for while the pioneers aimed at making 
 a broad road from the school to the university, the mili- 
 tarist is striving more and more to transform it into a 
 highway to the army. Particularly unhappy would it 
 be if the wistful militarist could compass his end in the 
 public schools of the United States. The very fact that 
 your schools are international in the truest and largest 
 and most literal sense gives the American teacher an 
 opportunity unequaled in any other country in the world. 
 Into your seminaries are gathered the plastic minds of 
 the youth of all nations, first of all, no doubt, that you 
 may show them how generous and hospitable is the ideal 
 
of American citizenship, but also that you may furtner 
 show how American citizenship itself leads up to a citi- 
 zenship of the world yet more ample and fraternal. 
 
 The inevitable result of our dual standard of ethics is 
 not wholly a matter of speculation, but is attested by 
 faces tabulated by the statistician, and which the ethicist 
 finds explicable in no truer way than has been indicated. 
 It is noted that every outburst of military energy is fol- 
 lowed by an increase of crimes of violence, though the 
 limits of the present address forbid any attempt to ex- 
 hibit the connection of warlike operations with "juvenile 
 crime " committed by "young offenders." Even in the 
 prison cell another queer paradox must puzzle the ex- 
 scholar, if he has really acquired powers of reflection — 
 the paradox, namely, that a government should clap a 
 lad into jail as a criminal for doing in his own person 
 that which in the school-room is praised as patriotism 
 when done in the name of his country. 
 
 The purification of public ethics, the sweetening of 
 international ethics must proceed from the school-room. 
 The angel of mercy must smile down upon guileless 
 childhood from the wall of the schoolhouse without any 
 suggestion of brazen Mars or burning Moloch behind the 
 picture. The foul vapors from the field of carnage must 
 be excluded from childhood's temples, that the flowers 
 of innocence and pity may acquire a heavenlier lustre 
 than when they drooped in the abodes of prejudice and 
 revenge. The old-time brute must no longer be per- 
 mitted to raven the evolving angel. The future human- 
 ism must not longer be sacrificed to the " patriotism " of 
 an hour. The voice of childhood must be universally 
 raised only to the music of home and nature, of joy and 
 faith, of love and peace, of innocent delights by stream 
 and meadow, of manly enterprise and womanly grace. 
 Schools and schoolmasters must busy themselves to sub- 
 stitute the principles of justice for the prejudices of 
 patriotism ; to exalt reason, moral suasion, magnanimity 
 over aggression, intolerance and force. The history book 
 must not regild the faded exploits of the military con- 
 queror, but proclaim the peaceful heroisms of the ex- 
 plorer, philanthropist, inventor, savior and martyr. The 
 manslayer must become the villain, not the hero, of the 
 
human tragedy. It must be made an infamous offense 
 to teach a child to despise life when it is incarnate in a 
 so-called " enemy." No longer must childhood be called 
 upon to admire "hell" and "the sum of all villainies," 
 but to put the virtuous who retain their virtue amid 
 every inducement to vice far above him who merely dis- 
 plays brute courage against odds. Their attention must 
 be diverted from the fighter who saves his life by taking 
 the life of another, to the worker who cheerfully dies to 
 save a mate from danger, or manfully plies his tool to 
 minister to the well-being of society. 
 
 The teacher, particularly the woman teacher, will be 
 the savior of the child, the apostle of the higher civiliza- 
 tion. In proportion as unity of mind and motive are 
 produced in the school-rooms of the world, the unity of 
 peoples will organically follow. If, as has been said, the 
 battles of England were won in the playground of Eton, 
 the war against war will be won in the 6chool-rooms of 
 America. 
 
 American Peace Society, 
 
 Colorado Building, Washington, D. C. 
 
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 L445 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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