that universal training is possible without the interference with productive industry which has resulted from the kind of military training required in Germany.

In a free republic the people govern themselves and educate themselves. They ought also to be prepared to defend themselves.

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L

OGICALLY, this would be the wrong title for this article if my own experience were to determine my wish for my boy. My experience has been this. After graduating from a prominent non-denominational seminary, I became pastor of a church, and a "council" was called to examine me preliminary to possible ordination. The stage was set for my downfall; for had I not studied at this particular seminary, and had I not cast reflections upon the ministers of the examining association by inviting three friends to share in the ordination programme if it should be decided to have the ordination? Suffice it to say that only the presence of two of the three friends prevented my ministerial decapitation.

Defeated in this plan, the ministers bided their time until I desired a change of pastorate. In the meantime all of them had gone to other fields. From church after church came the reply to myself, as well as to those who tried to gain a "hearing" for me, that these ministers had kept track of me and were poisoning the minds of the people. Therefore" hearings" were denied me in some churches and action favorable to calling me to the pastorate in two churches was defeated by these men. Their activity ceased temporarily when the word reached them that a repetition of their work would be visited with evidence of righteous indignation." And I became pastor of a church that could not have been scared by their kind. But this form of persecution and the attempt to trammel freedom of thought and of its expression continues. A successor to one of the men, judging me only by hearsay, has introduced me three times to others recently with the postscript," Watch out for him; he is a graduate of Seminary."

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Financially, my experience has been unencouraging. In my first pastorate my salary was in three figures and a house was provided. But the stubs in my receipt-books for that period reveal dribble payments and salary overdue most of the time. This compelled incurring debts.

But with a change of pastorate and an increase in salaryjust over the three-figure mark-conditions have not bettered. A small debt due to the first pastorate, the cost of "running" a too-splendid manse, and the higher cost of simpler living have helped to complicate conditions.

Nevertheless, I wish my boy to become a minister. He will be old enough—some day.

And I hope that he will enter the ministry because the " millennium" will not have dawned by the time of his manhood. Men

will still be needed in pulpits to bring men to God-consciousness, to interpret the Interpreter of God to men, to interpret life to men. Men will be needed to influence men to become reconciled to the spiritual laws of life, even as they are reconciled to the laws of nature, to be reconciled to God's way of doing things, and to God's worthy plan for individuals and for humanity as revealed in and through the Master.

Moreover, by the time of his manhood there will be greater liberty of expression theologically. The quest of truth in this realm and the attempt to express it will be in as good standing as in other regions. More ministers-the pew is already outstripping the pulpit-will admit the possibility (!) of the truth of our Lord's statement that the Holy Spirit shall guide into all the truth. By that time truth will not inspire fear, for it will be recognized that "all truths blend." As a corollary to this, it will be possible for a man to graduate from a non-denominational seminary and be received with approval into a denomination of his own choosing.

By that time the laborer will be thought worthy of his hireany increase in the cost of living will be reflected in an increase in his salary-and the financial experiences of the past will not be repeated. It was with a mingled feeling of wonder, amusement, and admiration that a while ago the writer had a minister friend tell him he had just been looking up in Dun and Bradstreet the financial standing of the men of a certain church of which he had been invited to become pastor. Sensible man! And if ministers would always investigate in any community the financial habits and standing of a church, the churches would soon be known for their businesslike methods, and the pastors would not have their own financial reputation endangered except through their own lack of care.

Then, as now and as heretofore, the "workman that needeth not to be ashamed " will be respected and beloved in most communities. But he will have to have superior mentality along scholastic and theological lines and be a leader or up with the leaders among the people.

If my boy cannot be such a man, it will be unwise for him to enter the ministry. If he "has the making" of such a man, I wish for him the greatest opportunity of life-that of Christian ambassadorship. And I wish him to use the pulpit rather than any other way as the channel for fulfilling that ambassadorship. My own experience has not "soured me in regard to the work of the ministry, even if I must shortly take up other work to "make both ends meet."

W

E Americans have been priding ourselves on what we have done to furnish the starving and suffering Belgians with supplies of food and clothing. There are two phases of this work. Americans may be justly proud of one of these phases; of the other there is some ground for being ashamed.

The foregoing observations are the result of some facts which have just been given to The Outlook by William L. Honnold, Director in America of the Commission for Relief in Belgium. Mr. Honnold, a distinguished American mining engineer, was for many years manager of a group of the largest of the gold mines in South Africa. He gave up this important work to go

into the organization of Belgian relief with Mr. Herbert Hoover. Having been for some time engaged in the administrative work of the Commission in London, Mr. Honnold has now come home to take general charge of the work in the United States.

The thing to be proud of is the efficiency and success with which the Commission for Relief in Belgium has done its work. All the belligerents have trusted the Relief Commission because it is an American organization. A member of the British Cabinet has described it as "a miracle of scientific organization."

When the invasion of Belgium resulted in the cessation of railway transportation, the disappearance of currency, the clos

ing of the banks, the withdrawal of credit, and the consequent dislocation of the complicated mechanisms of government and society, a group of citizens endeavored to provide for the famine which the country was facing. The German authorities agreed to allow food to be imported and distributed, provided it should be done under neutral control. The American Government gave its moral support to this proposal. Ambassador Page nominated Mr. Herbert Hoover, an American mining engineer residing in London, as the head of the relief organization. For the last two years the Commission for Relief in Belgium, with Mr. Hoover as its chief executive, has been carrying on its work of salvation. Its agents and workers in Belgium are American citizens. The chief administrative office is in London, but the New York office is the main purchasing and shipping center. During the last two years the Commission has collected and expended over $200,000,000 in food and clothing for Belgium and northern France. Of this amount over $125,000,000 hás been spent in the United States. Over 1,500,000 tons of cargo have been despatched from the United States, of which over 1,200,000 tons, or nearly 50,000,000 bushels, were wheat. The Commission for Relief in Belgium is thus providing every day food for over 9,000,000 persons, 5,000,000 of whom are practically destitute. These figures will give some idea of the gigantic nature of the business of the Commission for Relief in Belgium. It is carried on just as a great business corporation would be carried on, and yet the total overhead expense of handling this vast business over two years has averaged only five-eighths of one per cent. "Such figures," says Mr. Honnold, "of course could not be realized but for the magnitude of the business and the valuable voluntary services rendered by the members of the Commission and their supporters. The executive work has been carried on by volunteers with wide business experience, whose work has been invaluable. Most of the departmental heads and many assistants are wholly or partly volunteers, fully paid men being employed only in specialized branches for which no experienced volunteer service is available. . . . More than one hundred and twenty-five men, mostly young, with their life-work still to be accomplished, have unselfishly gone into Belgium and heartily contribute in various capacities to the success of the Commission's work."

That this wonderful organization is wholly American in spirit and almost wholly American in personnel is the great contribution of this country to Belgian relief, and is something of which every American citizen may be proud.

Mr. Honnold, however, gives us some additional facts which present a less pleasing picture to the American eye. The total contributions of food, clothing, and money so far collected in the United States are a little less than $9,000,000. In the aggregate this is a large sum, but reduced to a per capita basis it makes a somewhat poor showing, especially in view of the fact that the Commission has spent over $125,000,000 in this country, or more than fourteen times the amount of the American contri

THE

butions. The United States has contributed 8 cents per capita to Belgian relief, Great Britain 18 cents, Canada 18 cents, Australia $1.23, New Zealand $1.98, and Tasmania $6.53 per capita. The Government of Great Britain, in addition to bearing the terrific expense of the war, and feeding its own poor and destitute, is now giving through the Belgian Government $5,000,000 per month to Belgian relief. The French are giving to the destitute Belgians through the Commission over $2,000,000 per month, and in addition are giving approximately $6,500,000 per month to the destitute in French territory occupied by the Germans in northern France. These are Government contributions. Private contributions from the British Empire have amounted to $13,000,000, while private contributions from the United States have amounted to under $9,000,000. On a per capita basis, each British subject has given over twice as much as each American, and has also been carrying on an inexpressibly expensive war undertaken largely for the defense of Belgium. The Commission to-day is $3,000,000 per month short of the amount required to provide Belgium with what is regarded as a minimum living ration. Says Mr. Honnold:

Just what this means may perhaps be best shown by stating that, even if this extra $3,000,000 were forthcoming, the ration available for the destitute would still be more than twenty per cent inferior to that given by the Germans to their war prisoners; more than twenty-five per cent inferior to that given by England to her war prisoners; and about one-third less than commonly provided in England for the inmates of workhouses.

It is partly to meet this deficiency that the Commission has asked the American people to give $1,000,000 per month-say one-tenth of the total requirements-to cover the cost of a muchneeded supplementary meal for the school-children; this seeming to be the most effective means of safeguarding the coming generation against the ravages of tuberculosis and other diseases now increasing at an alarming rate in consequence of the inadequate food supply. In the face of such a situation, is it too much to ask of America that she support the Commission to the extent asked for?

The United States, at a conservative estimate, has made a cash profit of $15,000,000 on the purchases of supplies in this country by the Commission. It has contributed to the cause less than $9,000,000. There is a disagreeable discrepancy in these figures. We Americans have made more money out of Belgian suffering than we have given to relieve that suffering. Can any one doubt that as soon as the people of this country realize these figures they will change them?

A sense of pride that Americans have created and are administering this wonderful organization, combined with a sense of chagrin that rich America has contributed proportionately so little to the material relief of the suffering Belgians, will, we hope, stimulate contributions in the United States to the Commission for Relief in Belgium, 120 Broadway, New York, so that it can obtain from this country the $1,000,000 per month which it so sorely needs for its work, especially among the children.

N December 12, 1916, Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg made overtures for peace. On December 31 the Allies' reply became known. Its reception in Germany, as shown by the press, according to despatches in English, would apparently mean (1) the abandonment of any immediate hope of peace, and (2) a determination to fight to a finish.

This, of course, was to be expected from such a journal as the "Preussische Kreuzzeitung," the organ of the Junkers and militarists. It says: "The form of the Entente's rejection makes it an insult. Our reply can only be given with the sword." It was also to be expected from the Berlin "Lokal Anzeiger,' a great commercial newspaper that undertakes to represent Government views. It remarks:

None ought to be surprised at the action of the Entente nations in rejecting peace proposals, but it is surprising that ten men should sign such a document without any foundation a frivolous, lying document, constituting the last kernel of untruth.

...

It may be the people of Germany will read hope of peace between the lines. However, we consider it the sharpest refusal. We now can see that the world is full of devils. Let every one in Germany do his utmost so that they will not succeed. Even the often more liberal Berlin "Vossische Zeitung" declared: After this insulting refusal there is only one answerenergetic fighting until our cold steel forces the enemies' feverish temperature down to normal.”

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"The peace dream is over for the present," adds the Berlin "Tägliche Rundschau," a liberal paper that has become very aggressive during the war. "Whoever abandoned himself thereto will be sobered by the Entente reply and will adapt himself to the hard reality." The paper proceeds:

If the German offer is to-day rejected, the thought of peace is not by this refusal suffocated. The British, French, and Russian people have been deluded into the belief that our offer of peace was a confession of our weakness and an attempt to save

Finally, come the much more liberal "Berliner Tageblatt and "Vorwärts," the Socialist organ. The "Tageblatt," which is supposed to be specially close to the Chancellor, says:

We would gladly have written "Peace be unto thee over the gate of the new year, but it would be childish to seek in the Entente's reply any expressions but those of an absolute "No." Who in the world can now doubt that the Entente plans, which aim at the dismemberment of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey, will be resolutely repelled by the German people? The "Vorwärts," which has more than once been suppressed for its frank adverse criticisms of the Imperial Government, concludes:

Since our enemies desire to continue the war, no choice remains to the German people. There will be no illusion that be

hind the refusal lies the hope of finally being able to lay Germany prostrate. It is to the interest of the whole German people to frustrate this design.

Turning away from the capital, we note the widely differing comment of two well-known papers of the Rhine region. The organ of industry in the iron region of Westphalia, famous for the Krupps, the "Rhenische Westphälische Zeitung, "says:

The German people to one man will now gather around von Hindenburg. The last plea for indulgence falls to the ground. All our sharp weapons must come into use on the land and sea and in the air. We know the points where Great Britain is vulnerable.

The "Kölnische Zeitung" is the Government organ for the west in Germany. Hence its opinion has special significance. It says: "It is not yet decided what the Government will do, but it is not improbable that Germany will again precisely define the German view direct to the neutrals."

W

HEN war drenches Europe in blood, it is natural that we Americans should shudder at the sight. To call upon the combatants to stop the carnage is an impulse so strong that it even tends to displace judgment and distort values. We are apt to forget, at any rate for the time being, that there are conditions under which the mere stopping of warfare may bring a curse instead of a blessing. We need to be reminded that peace is the triumph of righteousness and not the mere sheathing of the sword. To clamor for an ending of the present war without insuring the vindication of truth, justice, and honor is not to seek peace but to sow disaster.

Because it is so easy to lose sight of these essential principles, we, the undersigned, view with some concern the organized and deliberate effort now being made so to stampede Christian sentiment as to create a public opinion blindly favorable to stopping hostilities without adequate consideration of the issues which the war involves.

We are Christians, and, as such, deem that truth and righteousness are to be maintained inviolate, even at the sacrifice of physical life. We are citizens of the United States, and, as such, are conscious of the solemn responsibilities of our Christian citizenship. We accordingly venture to direct the attention of our fellow-Christians to a few of the vital issues which are making their mute appeal for final decision.

The ravage of Belgium and the enslavement of her people: was it right or wrong ?

The massacre of a million Armenians: was it a permissible precaution or an unpardonable crime?

The desolation of Servia and Poland: was this a regrettable necessity or a frightful injustice?

The destruction of life through the sinking of the Lusitania and of other merchant ships: was this an ordinary incident of warfare or was it deliberate and premeditated murder?

:

The starvation of Jews and Syrians in the Holy Land is this an accident of economics or a violation of the laws of God and man?

The attempt to array Moslems against Christians in a "Holy War:" was it a laudable act of imperial statesmanship or was it the treachery of a Christian monarch?

The intimidation of small nations and the violation of international agreements: are these things excusable under provocation or damnable under all circumstances?

In the presence of these pending and as yet unsettled issues we feel impelled to warn our brethren against those who cry "Peace, peace," when there is no peace. The just God, who withheld not his own Son from the cross, would not look with favor upon a people who put their fear of pain and death, their dread of suffering and loss, their concern for comfort and ease, above the

holy claims of righteousness and justice and freedom and mercy and truth. Much as we mourn the blood shed in Europe, we lament even more that supineness of spirit, that indifference to spiritual values, which would let mere physical safety take precedence of loyalty to truth and duty. The memory of all the saints and martyrs cries out against such backsliding of mankind. Sad is our lot if we have forgotten how to die for a holy cause.

We solemnly declare to you our conviction that the question of all questions for our immediate consideration is this: Shall the ancient Christian inheritance of loyalty to great and divine ideals be replaced by considerations of mere expediency?

(Rev.) JOSEPH F. BERRY, Bishop Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia.

(Rev.) NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS, Pastor Plymouth (Congregational) Church, Brooklyn.

(Rev.) WILLIAM C. BITTING, Pastor Second Baptist Church, St. Louis.

(Rev.) GEORGE A. GORDON, Pastor Old South (Congregational) Church, Boston.

(Rev.) ALBERT E. DUNNING, Former Editor of the "Congre-
gationalist," Boston.

(Rev.) CORNELIUS H. PATTON, Corresponding Secretary Ameri-
can Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
(Rev.) NEWMAN SMYTH, Congregationalist, New Haven, Conn.
(Rev.) LYMAN ABBOTT, Editor-in-Chief of The Outlook.
GEORGE WHARTON PEPPER, Lawyer, Protestant Episcopalian,
Philadelphia.

(Rev.) JOHN GRIER HIBBEN, President of Princeton University.
CHARLES J. BONAPARTE, ex-Attorney-General, Roman Catholic,
Baltimore.

WINSTON CHURCHILL, author, Cornish, N. H.

(Rev.) HENRY C. KING, President of Oberlin College.
GIFFORD PINCHOT, Forester, Author, Protestant Episcopalian,
Milford, Pa.

(Rt. Rev.) WILLIAM LAWRENCE, Protestant Episcopal Bishop
of Massachusetts.

(Rev.) WILLIAM A. SUNDAY, Evangelist.

(Rev.) HARRY E. FOSDICK, Únion Theological Seminary.
(Rev.) CHARLES R. BROWN, Dean of Yale School of Religion.
WILLIAM R. MOODY, Head of Northfield Schools, Editor of
"Record of Christian Work."

(Rev.) WALTER LAIDLAW, Secretary of Federation of Churches,
New York.

(Rev.) HENRY STIMSON, President Congregational Board of Ministerial Relief.

(Rt. Rev.) CHARLES H. BRENT, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of the Philippine Islands.

'Rev.) ROBERT F. COYLE, formerly Moderator Presbyterian General Assembly.

AND SOME FORTY OTHERS

T

HERE could be no disaster to intellectual progress so great as the spread of a general belief among educated people that proficiency in war is the end-all and be-all of national organization and effort. War is an art and a complicated art. But it is the lowest of the arts, lower than painting, music, sculpture, literature, and utterly intolerable to nine-tenths of the people who are condemned to practice it. To organize a society for war is to organize it for barbarism, since, however greatly we may exalt the splendid qualities of heroism and devotion which are brought out by war, the truth remains that war is necessarily savage and that all the polite conventions and oratorical phrases do not disguise the fact that its business is to produce death and mutilation and to augment the sorrows and sufferings of the world.

For this reason there is all the greater anxiety to extract some permanent advantage out of so patent a calamity. People go about saying: "We are spending five millions a day upon killing and wounding Turks and Germans. Why should we not hereafter spend ten millions a year in educating our own people?" The war has altered the scale of values. Some time before the war the Liberal Government brought in a scheme of old age pensions, the total cost of which was estimated at nine millions. "What, nine millions! It spells ruin. The country will never bear the burden." Sensible and philanthropic people belonging to each party in the state might be found not only saying, but really thinking, that the proposed annual burden of nine millions would seriously hamper the development of the country. But how small a sum nine millions seems to us now! Why, it is shot away in a couple of days, and we seem to think nothing about it. The democratic party in Great Britain is not likely to forget its new lesson in political arithmetic, and when a scheme for social or educational reform is opposed on the ground of expense it will bring up an unanswerable argument based upon the expenditure of the present war.

Somehow or other, then, it is felt that a great deal more money will have to be found for education. Our system in England has grown up piecemeal, mainly out of individual efforts and benefactions reaching back to the twelfth century, or even earlier, and is only in part the creation of the legislative activity of the state. Consequently there are gaps here and gaps there, unevennesses of surface and the inequalities which are the price of private initiative blended with public effort. Our principal gap is the absence of any effective system of continuative education for the boys and girls who leave the elementary and do not proceed to the secondary school. We provide night schools, but night schools are not enough. A child who has already done a full day's work in a factory is not able to profit very much by evening instruction, and, since there is no compulsion to attend, only a comparatively small fraction of the young persons of school age are brought under this imperfect but beneficial agency. The consequence of the sudden withdrawal of all educational discipline and control after the age of fourteen is so serious that there is no result of the present educational campaign more certain than the provision of some compulsory scheme for day continuation classes, partly of a technical and partly of a general character, for all young persons who do not proceed to secondary schools. It is too early yet to say what shape the scheme will take. The significant fact is that it commends itself to the judgment of the manufacturing and commercial community, and that the chambers of commerce all over the country have been passing resolutions in its favor.

A chamber of commerce is not an academy of the arts and sciences. Still less is it a college of saints. However disinterested its members may be in their private capacity, however willing to spend their lives for their country, collectively the chamber observes its strict professional code of etiquette, “ Business is business." When, therefore, the chambers of commerce proclaim the need for continuation schools, it is clear that they

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think that some advantage will accrue to industry from the extension of education. And they are the more readily impelled to this conclusion by reason of the very uneasy and indeed perilous relations between capital and labor which prevailed before the war. Business men in England were very anxious a few years ago, and they are anxious still. They see that the future of the country depends on the establishment of harmonious relations between employer and employed, and they believe that a sound system of continuative education, even if the whole cost should fall upon the management, would conduce to a betterdisciplined spirit and a more reasonable temper among the younger workers in their employment.

Another great deficiency in our present system of education has recently been revealed in a remarkable report issued by Sir George Newman, the distinguished Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education. No less than a million children are found to be "so physically or mentally defective or diseased as to be unable to derive reasonable benefit from the education which the state provides." The ultimate cause of this distressing fact is rooted in the industrial history of England. Long before machinery was introduced on the Continent of Europe, and while yet the male Europeans wore knee-breeches and a big wig, water power and steam power were transforming the industrial conditions of England. Factories were built before the principles of factory administration had been thought out. Villages grew into small towns and small towns grew into huge cities before it had occurred to a legislature of landlords to consider that anything remarkable had happened at all. The consequence is plain enough to us now, though our forefathers in the last decades of the eighteenth century, having no experience of a great urban civilization to guide them, may be pardoned for some lack of foresight in their failure to apprehend it. A considerable proportion of our population, despite all the efforts of our housing reformers and our sanitary reformers, still live under conditions so deplorable that no less than a million schoolchildren are physically prevented from receiving benefit by their schooling. The remedy for this state of affairs is easy to appre hend, but less easy to effect. Housing reform must be pressed on more vigorously. Public hygiene, which has of recent years made great advances, must be still further developed, and the mechanism for the medical inspection of school-children must be made the principal lever for securing a more complete and effective supervision of the health of children, not only during the years of school attendance, but during the period which pre

cedes it.

In this most urgent and important reform the public conscience, sharply quickened by the tragic experiences of the war, will brook no delay. The country, realizing the waste of a million minds through the malnutrition of a million bodies, is determined that no effort can be too great which is calculated to extirpate the evil. The principle of giving free meals to schoolchildren is already acknowledged in practice and seems to be one of the corollaries of compulsory education. State Socialism had gone far already before the war. It has been greatly extended during the war, and the impetus once given is far from being exhausted. The separation allowances given to the wives of soldiers have been granted upon a scale so liberal as to enable the children of the families so endowed to be brought up upon a scale of comfort of which they had previously no experience. If the cost has been great, the result upon the whole world has been excellent. The money has, in the main, been wisely expended. The children get more clothes, more warmth, better food. Less of the family income has been wasted in drink, more has gone to the building up of the physical capital of the nation. When the war comes to an end, the allowances will cease, but they may nevertheless have contributed permanently to raise the standard of living in a large number of homes, and, in any case, they will have furnished for a limited