University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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16 THE REDWOOD principles of a higher law, inherent right and wrong, and essential good and evil. It is a fundamental theory of your educational system that men must he forever taught that just as there is a law of gravitation that holds the earth to its orbit, as really is there a higher law that holds mankind to its orbit also ; that there are principles of eternal truth from which spring prin- ciples of eternal justice ; that out of that higher law and from those eternal principles issue human rights and du- ties superior to the State and which no government may violate whatever its necessities; that among the most pre- cious of the principles that spring im- perious and inviolable from that higher law are these: Man was not made for the state, the state was made for man; there are principles of civilization that carry a divine sanction ; there are man- dates of international law that say, Thou shalt not, to a government even when they leave it no other alter- native; the end does not justify the means, with a state any more than with an individual. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar ' s, and unto God the things that are God ' s. Teachings of Christian Education the Very Axioms of Civilization. These are not novel doctrines that you teach and that are the heart of your teaching. These are not principles alien or antagonistic to the spirit or institutions of your country. These are not theorems out of touch with modern civilization. These are the very axioms of civilization for the tri- umph of which this nation has cast its far-flung battle-line in this momentous struggle. These are the very cells of the soul of the civilization for which this country is rushing her flag and her sons to the forefront of this mighty conflict. These are the very truths — sublime and stirring — with which Desire Cardinal Mercier, writing with the pen of an arch-angel, has roused and rallied the civilized world. Nor are these principles ethereal, too abstract or too intangible to take firm hold of the minds and hearts of men. Why, these very principles are that same spiritual force, mightier than the mightiest that material agencies can create, that takes its stand today in the great highway of time, of destiny, of civilization, of the world, and says with serenity, with confidence, with as- surance, to the most stupendous array of physical power that was ever mar- shaled in the history of men: You shall not pass ! ' ' And it shall not. Democracy Without Spirit of Individ- ual Restraint Merges Into Despotism. It is also a cardinal principle of your central teaching theory that these sov- ereign truths, inborn though they are in human nature and responsive to ap- peal, should find a place in education; and that out of them will come, with many other fruits, the all-saving vir- tue of restraint; indeed, that there is no firm foundation for that virtue but that higher law and those principles that issue from it. You hold fast, too,

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THE REDWOOD 15 oned on the banner of the aggressor are such pagan shibboleths as these : Might is right, There is no higher law, There is no right or wrong, The State is the only reality and sub- stance, Man is made to serve the State and has no higher destiny, There is no international law, Neither in the heavens above, nor in the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth, is there aught that you shall serve but me. War Forced On Us as a Challenge of Our Civilization. And even for all that we did not go to war — it came to us. Our participa- tion in it has the soundest justification. Though it challenged our civilization, assailed our honor and threatened our existence, we shrank from it till our forbearance looked like cowardice and our patience like fear ; and we found ourselves at last on the battlefield, not because we had gone to it, but because they had projected the battlefield onto American territory by attacking ship after ship that flew the American flag. They belong together, therefore, in this solemn hour and this genuine cru- sade — the cross, the emblem of the Kingdom of God, and the flag, the em- blem of a Republic that stands for the fundamentals of Christian civilization. That is the pledge with which you and we respond to the eager inquiries of our country; and those are the tok- ens we tender of its sincerity. The message with which this conven- tion replies to the anxieties of the hour is even more re-assuring than its pledge. It is a message that springs from the very heart of your mission and goes direct to the heart of the mis- sion of our country in the war. Man Was Not Made for the State, But the State Was Made for Man. For what is the central principle of the system of education which this con- vention represents but this : Knowledge is power, but power of any kind, with- out restraint, is an evil worse than ig- norance or weakness ; knowledge is force, but force of every variety, undis- ciplined, runs straight to tyranny; and unrestrained power and undisciplined force, in the material order as well as in the mental, have their last root in those very principles of that false and pagan philosophy which has loosened this plague upon the world, Might is right, There is no higher law, There is no right or wrong, The State is the only reality and substance, Man is made to serve the State and has no higher destiny. The central principle of your theory of education declares further that there is no royal road of escape from power unrestrained and force undisciplined, whether they have taken possession of a man or a State ; that there is no short cut to im- munity from the evils of the reign and rule and ruin of those dire principles ; that as those evils have their root in those false principles, those false prin- ciples must be rooted up in individual life and thereby in national life, and in their place must be planted the eternal

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THE REDWOOD 17 to the theory — all too plain from fa- miliar experience — that it is the natur- al tendency of power, in every phase in which it is developed and in every de- partment in which it is employed, to run to the limit of excesses; that it fails to provide spontaneously its cor- responding virtue of restraint ; and that it is imperative therefore to satur- ate the process of education throughout with those great moral principles that give vitality to that essential quality. All these considerations have pecu- liar application to a democracy, where every man is a sovereign and the col- lective individuals rule. For, as Tocqueville says: The weakness of a democracy is that, unless guarded, it merges in despotism. And Wendell Phillips: Despotism looks down into the poor man ' s cradle, and knows it can crush resistance and curb ill-will. Democracy sees the ballot in that baby- hand; and selfishness bids her put in- tegrity on one side of those baby foot- steps and intelligence on the other, lest her own hearth be in peril. That is the message with which this convention answers this questioning hour. That is the patriotic service with which it shows cause to its fellow-citi- zens on this dark and anxious day. Is it genuine service? Or could it easily be dispensed with? James Bryce on the American Commonwealth. The best study that has been made of our institutions, their origin, their op- erations, and the influences that have affected them for good or evil, is The American Commonwealth by James Bryce. Let me read, without com- ment, a few observations from that standard authority along this line : No one is so thoughtless as not to sometimes ask himself what would be- fall mankind if the solid fabric of be- lief on which their morality has hith- erto rested, or at least been deemed by them to rest, were suddenly to break up. . . Morality with religion for its sanction has hitherto been the basis of social polity, except under military despotism; would morality be so far weakened as to make social polity un- stable? and if so, would a reign of vio- lence return? In Europe this question does not seem urgent, because in Eu- rope the physical force of armed men which maintains order is usually con- spicuous, and because obedience to au- thority is everywhere in Europe matter of ancient habit. . . . But in Am- erica the whole system of government seems to rest not on armed force, but on the will of the numerical majority, a majority most of whom might well think that its overthrow would be for them a gain . . . Suppose that all these men ceased to believe that there was any power above them, any future before them, anything in heaven or earth but what their senses told them of . . . would the moral code stand unshaken, and with it the rever- ence for law, the sense of duty towards the community, and even towards the generations yet to come, . . . His-