institutions or the secularization of theological ones-such as Harvard or Yale or Princeton-with the elaboration of the public school systems of the different states of this country or any other, the powers of government, visible or invisible, have determined largely what should and what should not be taught, what is true and what is false, always from the point of view of the interests of these powers. Heresy has been consistently persecuted, with means varying from the auto-da-fe of the Church to the more delicate tools of contemporary university trustees or school committees. Heresy consists of that which is not in accord with the interests or prejudices of the ruling power.

Now the art of education involves three forces: First, its theme-the growing child, whose creative spontaneities are to be encouraged, whose capacities for service and happiness are to be actualized, intensified, and perfected. Second, the investigator and inventor who discovers or makes the material and machinery which are the conditions of the child's life and growth, which liberate or repress these. Third, the teacher who transmits to the child the knowledge of the nature and use of these things, drawing out its powers and enhancing its vitality by means of them. Obviously, to the last two, to the discoverers and creators of knowledge, and to its transmitters and distributors, to these and to no one else beside, belongs the control of education. It is as absurd that any but teachers and investigators should govern the art of education as that any but medical practitioners and investigators should govern the art of medicine. International law would best abolish this external control by making the communities of educators everywhere autonomous bodies, vigorously cooperative in an international union. Within this union the freest possible movement of teachers and pupils should be provided for, exchanges of both between all nations to the end of attaining the acme of free trade in habits and theories of life, in letters, and in methods.

Regarding the second principle of internationalized education that it must be unprejudiced: This requires the systematic internationalization of certain subject-matters. In the end, of course, all subject-matters get internationalized. The process is. however, too slow and too dangerous with respect to some of these, history being the most flagrant. Compare any collection of history textbooks with any similar collection in physics, for

example, and you will find the latter possessed of a unanimity never to be attained in the former. Why? Because every hypothesis in physics is immediately tested in a thousand laboratories and the final conclusion is the result of the collective enterprise of all sorts and conditions of physics. In the writing of history such cooperative verification never occurs. Most histories, particularly those put into the hands of children, utter vested interests, not scientifically tested results; they utter sectarian or national vanity, class privileges, class resentment, and so on. Compare any English history of the American Revolution with any American history! Fancy the wide divergence of assertion between friends and enemies in the matter of German atrocities! Naturally, the interpretation of historic "fact" must and should vary with the interpreter, but the designation of the same "fact" should clearly be identical for all interpreters. To keep education unprejudiced requires therefore the objective designation of historic fact-"historic" to mean the recorded enterprise of all departments of human life. The "facts" of history should be attested by an international commission. So the second function of education is served.

With this we have established the full pattern of the house of peace—an international democratic congress, limiting armaments, judging disputes, coordinating and harmonizing the great national institutions by means of which men get food and clothing and shelter and health and happiness, making for a free exchange of all excellence, punishing default with interdict or excommunication or war, resting its authority upon public opinion and strengthening it by internationalized education.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 1

The experience of Rome in ancient times shows us what the Empire of the Caesars did for the enfranchisement and peace of the universe, so long as it continued to be a league of nations. The peoples which made up that Empire did not depend upon an Emperor, but upon a political association, a body of senators, magistrates, and citizens; and they realized that they had at the same time a great and a smaller country.

1 By Albert Thomas, Leader of the new (French) Socialist Party of the Right. Atlantic Monthly. p. 677. November, 1918.

This happy equilibrium was destroyed on the day when the Roman Empire undertook to transform itself into a single entity; when it ceased to be an organization of different nations and cities, and mingled all that it included in one confused whole, without proper differentiation.

In the Middle Ages we have the example of the Church, which exercised rights of sovereignty in each of the states under its jurisdiction. Its role in the termination of wars, in the conclusion of treaties, affords an example of numerous supra-national interventions which were effective down to the period when religious authority was checkmated by the coming of modern times and the development of lay elements.

More recently still, it has been impossible to disregard the scope of international conventions; for example, those which were created to abolish slavery and to establish the Universal Postal Union.

Since the meeting of the Anti-Slavery Conference at London, that is to say, from 1841 to 1910, there have been 175 intergovernmental conferences, some of which have met with quasiregularity; for instance, there have been fifteen geodesic conferences, thirteen sanitary, and eight penological.

Lastly, there have been the conferences at The Hague, where we find a significant alignment of the powers in making important decisions. When, in 1907, the nations had assembled to enter into compulsory arbitration treaties among themselves, the main principle was ratified by thirty-five votes, with only five in opposition-those of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Greece, Roumania, and Turkey. That is to say, only eleven years ago, at the time of signing the arbitration treaties, the Entente stood almost solidly on one side, with the neutrals, while on the other side were the Central Empires and their allies. In these beginnings, made in the face of opposition, we see the first form of that League of Nations which, since the war began, has resolved itself into the present system of inter-Allied relations. In the federation of all the nations who are fighting for the Right; not one is, at this moment, acting with entire independence. They must, one and all, unite and act together, not only in what concerns their armies, but also in respect to the general conduct of all the diplomatic and political affairs of the Alliance.

In face of the unity of control of the enemy, the restrictions upon their individual sovereignty to which the Allied nations

assent go constantly deeper and deeper. Every day further progress is made among them toward a closer and closer bond of union, a subordination of all alike to the common, higher interest which guides them and unites them in this conflict.

This bond of union, freely accepted, and this subordination of all to the general interest, have extended from the general conduct of the war to the domain of supplies, of finances—in a word, step by step, to the whole life of the nations.

The reciprocal oversight thus exercised does not appear in the light of an annoyance or an encroachment but, on the contrary, as a guaranty and constant assurance of the continuity and fair distribution of the efforts of each one of the nations in the common struggle.

In this closely knit bond of the Entente, the smaller nations are neither sacrificed, nor even subordinated more than the greater ones, to the general interest. But they feel that they stand on an equality as to their rights, no less than as to their duties, in the councils which decide upon the common action and upon the means of putting it in execution. It was these councils which reached an agreement to define our war-aims. They will lay down our terms of peace also, which will include no private terms for any member of the Entente.

We see, then, that it has been found to be necessary, in order to bring the war to a successful issue, to establish between the various nations of the Entente a system of international relations, more strictly defined and more restrictive of their individual sovereignty than would be possible in times of peace. And this is the decisive, peremptory argument which answers by anticipation all the objections as to practical obstacles in the way of the creation of the League of Nations. What remains to be solved is nothing in comparison with what has been solved and with the benefits we may expect to derive therefrom.

If the League of Nations had been in existence in August, 1914, Germany probably would not have declared war; but even if she had dared to do so in defiance of the conventions signed by her, all the nations which are willing to guarantee justice and the law would have found themselves compelled to enter at once into the conflict. Instead of intervening without concert and one by one, all the nations of the Entente would have come forward together, armed and ready to defend the Right, at the precise moment in August, 1914, when the crime was committed.

Such is the world-organization at which we aim, and which has been proved to be practicable by the experience of four years of war. It is in process of realization; to perfect it, nothing more is needed than perseverance on the part of the governments, and the concurrence of all the free nations.

To progress from the anarchical condition of the world before the war to a complete organization deserving the name of a League of Nations in the fullest sense of the word-that will unquestionably be a long, long road; but we can clearly make out the first stage, which we can traverse during the war.

A court of arbitration must be set up-that is to say, a method of procedure for settling controversies between nations, analogous to that which has already been resorted to in a certain number of cases. But to avoid the repetition of an experiment which was tried in the last decades of the nineteenth century, and of which the acid test of this war has demonstrated the inadequacy, we must invest the tribunal with the function of drawing up the rules to be applied, and reinforce it with the power to execute them.

In reply to President Wilson's eloquent appeal in favor of compulsory arbitration, we saw last year the Central Empires, and even the Sultan of Turkey himself, give in a solemn adhesion to the principle. There was just one small restriction: the principle of arbitration was accepted by the representatives of our adversaries only with reservation of the "vital interests" of either of the three Empires concerned. We know to-day, by the example of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, what those Empires mean by their "vital interests," and how far they carry their contempt of the most legitimate interests of other nationalities.

Of course, nations more considerate of the rights of others might refrain from such excesses; but we must recognize none the less that an attitude of distrust with respect to any given system of unconditional arbitration is altogether justifiable, even for states honestly well disposed to the principle.

The supra-national organization should therefore take for its immediate task to establish the essential rights likely to be agreed upon by the participating nations. General formulae are not enough. Upon general formulae the whole world may declare itself to be in accord-even Chancellor von Hertling and President Wilson; but as soon as we come to precise applications, unconquerable opposition appears.