Chapter VII: Part 7

When the Goths sacked Rome, St. Augustine wrote the “City of God,” putting a spiritual hope in place of the material reality that had been destroyed. Throughout the centuries that followed St. Augustine’s hope lived and gave life, while Rome sank to a village of hovels. For us, too, it is necessary to create a new hope, to build up by our thought a better world than the one which is hurling itself into ruin. Because the times are bad, more is required of us than would be required in normal times. Only a supreme fire of thought and spirit can save future generations from the death that has befallen the generation which we knew and loved.

It has been my good fortune to come in contact as a teacher with young men of many different nations—young men in whom hope was alive, in whom the creative energy existed that would have realized in the world some part at least of the imagined beauty by which they lived. They have been swept into the war, some on one side, some on the other. Some are still fighting, some are maimed for life, some are dead; of those who survive it is to be feared that many will have lost the life of the spirit, that hope will have died, that energy will be spent, and that the years to come will be only a weary journey towards the grave. Of all this tragedy, not a few of those who teach seem to have no feeling: with ruthless logic, they prove that these young men have been sacrificed unavoidably for some coldly abstract end; undisturbed themselves, they lapse quickly into comfort after any momentary assault of feeling. In such men the life of the spirit is dead. If it were living, it would go out to meet the spirit in the young, with a love as poignant as the love of father or mother. It would be unaware of the bounds of self; their tragedy would be its own. Something would cry out: “No, this is not right; this is not good; this is not a holy cause, in which the brightness of youth is destroyed and dimmed. It is we, the old, who have sinned; we have sent these young men to the battlefield for our evil passions, our spiritual death, our failure to live generously out of the warmth of the heart and out of the living vision of the spirit. Let us come out of this death, for it is we who are dead, not the young men who have died through our fear of life. Their very ghosts have more life than we: they hold us up for ever to the shame and obloquy of all the ages to come. Out of their ghosts must come life, and it is we whom they must vivify.”

THE END

FOOTNOTES

[1] On this subject compare Bernard Hart’s “Psychology of Insanity” (Cambridge University Press, 1914), chap. v, especially pp. 62–5.

[2] This was written before Christianity had become punishable by hard labor, penal servitude, or even death, under the Military Service Act (No. 2). [Note added in 1916.]

[3] The blasphemy prosecutions.

[4] The syndicalist prosecutions. [The punishment of conscientious objectors must now be added, 1916.]

[5] In a democratic country it is the majority who must after all rule, and the minority will be obliged to submit with the best grace possible (_Westminster Gazette_ on Conscription, December 29, 1915).

[6] Some very strong remarks on the conduct of the “white feather” women were made by Mr. Reginald Kemp, the Deputy Coroner for West Middlesex, at an inquest at Ealing on Saturday on Richard Charles Roberts, aged thirty-four, a taxicab driver, of Shepherd’s Bush, who committed suicide in consequence of worry caused by his rejection from the Army and the taunts of women and other amateur recruiters.

It was stated that he tried to join the Army in October, but was rejected on account of a weak heart. That alone, said his widow, had depressed him, and he had been worried because he thought he would lose his license owing to the state of his heart. He had also been troubled by the dangerous illness of a child.

A soldier relative said that the deceased’s life had been made “a perfect misery” by women who taunted him and called him a coward because he did not join the Army. A few days ago two women in Maida Vale insulted him “something shocking.”

The Coroner, speaking with some warmth, said the conduct of such women was abominable. It was scandalous that women who knew nothing of individual circumstances should be allowed to go about making unbearable the lives of men who had tried to do their duty. It was a pity they had nothing better to do. Here was a man who perhaps had been driven to death by a pack of silly women. He hoped something would soon be done to put a stop to such conduct (_Daily News_, July 26, 1915).

[7] By England in South Africa, America in the Philippines, France in Morocco, Italy in Tripoli, Germany in Southwest Africa, Russia in Persia and Manchuria, Japan in Manchuria.

[8] This was written in 1915.

[9] This would be as true under a syndicalist régime as it is at present.

[10] These changes, which are to be desired on their own account, not only in order to prevent war, will be discussed in later lectures.

[11] What is said on this subject in the present lecture is only preliminary, since the subsequent lectures all deal with some aspect of the same problem.

[12] Except by that small minority who are capable of artistic enjoyment.

[13] Booth’s “Life and Labour of the People,” vol. iii.

[14] As regards the education of young children, Madame Montessori’s methods seem to me full of wisdom.

[15] THE TEACHING OF PATRIOTISM. HIS MAJESTY’S APPROVAL.

The King has been graciously pleased to accept a copy of the little book containing suggestions to local education authorities and teachers in Wales as to the teaching of patriotism which has just been issued by the Welsh Department of the Board of Education in connection with the observance of the National Anniversary of St. David’s Day. His Private Secretary (Lord Stamfordham), in writing to Mr. Alfred T. Davies, the Permanent Secretary of the Welsh Department, says that his Majesty is much pleased with the contents of the book, and trusts that the principles inculcated in it will bear good fruit in the lives and characters of the coming generation.—_Morning Post_, January 29, 1916.

[16] What Madame Montessori has achieved in the way of minimizing obedience and discipline with advantage to education is almost miraculous.

[17] There was a provision for suits _in forma pauperis_, but for various reasons this provision was nearly useless; a new and somewhat better provision has recently been made, but is still very far from satisfactory.

[18] The following letter (_New Statesman_, December 4, 1915) illustrates the nature of his activities:—

DIVORCE AND WAR.

_To the Editor of the_ “New Statesman.”

SIR,—The following episodes may be of interest to your readers. Under the new facilities for divorce offered to the London poor, a poor woman recently obtained a decree _nisi_ for divorce against her husband, who had often covered her body with bruises, infected her with a dangerous disease, and committed bigamy. By this bigamous marriage the husband had ten illegitimate children. In order to prevent this decree being made absolute, the Treasury spent at least £200 of the taxes in briefing a leading counsel and an eminent junior counsel and in bringing about ten witnesses from a city a hundred miles away to prove that this woman had committed casual acts of adultery in 1895 and 1898. The net result is that this woman will probably be forced by destitution into further adultery, and that the husband will be able to treat his mistress exactly as he treated his wife, with impunity, so far as disease is concerned. In nearly every other civilized country the marriage would have been dissolved, the children could have been legitimated by subsequent marriage, and the lawyers employed by the Treasury would not have earned the large fees they did from the community for an achievement which seems to most other lawyers thoroughly anti-social in its effects. If any lawyers really feel that society is benefited by this sort of litigation, why cannot they give their services for nothing, like the lawyers who assisted the wife? If we are to practise economy in war-time, why cannot the King’s Proctor be satisfied with a junior counsel only? The fact remains that many persons situated like the husband and wife in question prefer to avoid having illegitimate children, and the birth-rate accordingly suffers.

The other episode is this. A divorce was obtained by Mr. A. against Mrs. A. and Mr. B. Mr. B. was married and Mrs. B., on hearing of the divorce proceedings, obtained a decree nisi against Mr. B. Mr. B. is at any moment liable to be called to the Front, but Mrs. B. has for some months declined to make the decree _nisi_ absolute, and this prevents him marrying Mrs. A., as he feels in honor bound to do. Yet the law allows any petitioner, male or female, to obtain a decree _nisi_ and to refrain from making it absolute for motives which are probably discreditable. The Divorce Law Commissioners strongly condemned this state of things, and the hardship in question is immensely aggravated in war-time, just as the war has given rise to many cases of bigamy owing to the chivalrous desire of our soldiers to obtain for the _de facto_ wife and family the separation allowance of the State. The legal wife is often united by similar ties to another man. I commend these facts to consideration in your columns, having regard to your frequent complaints of a falling birth-rate. The iniquity of our marriage laws is an important contributory cause to the fall in question.

Yours, etc.,
E. S. P. HAYNES.

_November 29th._

[19] Some interesting facts were given by Mr. Sidney Webb in two letters to _The Times_, October 11 and 16, 1906; there is also a Fabian tract on the subject: “The Decline in the Birth-Rate,” by Sidney Webb (No. 131). Some further information may be found in “The Declining Birth-Rate: Its National and International Significance,” by A. Newsholme, M.D., M.R.C.S. (Cassell, 1911).

[20] The fall in the death-rate, and especially in the infant mortality, which has occurred concurrently with the fall in the birth-rate, has hitherto been sufficiently great to allow the population of Great Britain to go on increasing. But there are obvious limits to the fall of the death-rate, whereas the birth-rate might easily fall to a point which would make an actual diminution of numbers unavoidable.

[21] I should add artists but for the fact that most modern artists seem to find much greater difficulty in creation than men of science usually find.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.

Duplicate hemi-title removed just before first chapter.