Preparation for war has a double task to discharge.  Firstly, it must maintain and raise the military capabilities of the nation as a national asset; and, secondly, it must make arrangements for the conduct of the war and supply the requisite means.

This capability of national defence has a pronounced educative value in national development.

As in the social competition the persons able to protect themselves hold the field—­the persons, that is, who, well equipped intellectually, do not shirk the contest, but fight it out with confidence and certainty of victory—­so in the rivalry of nations and States victory rests with the people able to defend itself, which boldly enters the lists, and is capable of wielding the sword with success.

Military service not only educates nations in warlike capacity, but it develops the intellectual and moral qualities generally for the occupations of peace.  It educates a man to the full mastery of his body, to the exercise and improvement of his muscles; it develops his mental powers, his self-reliance and readiness of decision; it accustoms him to order and subordination for a common end; it elevates his self-respect and courage, and thus his capacity for every kind of work.

It is a quite perverted view that the time devoted to military service deprives economic life of forces which could have been more appropriately and more profitably employed elsewhere.  These forces are not withdrawn from economic life, but are trained for economic life.  Military training produces intellectual and moral forces which richly repay the time spent, and have their real value in subsequent life.  It is therefore the moral duty of the State to train as many of its countrymen as possible in the use of arms, not only with the prospect of war, but that they may share in the benefits of military service and improve their physical and moral capacities of defence.  The sums which the State applies to the military training of the nation are distinctly an outlay for social purposes; the money so spent serves social and educative ends, and raises the nation spiritually and morally; it thus promotes the highest aims of civilization more directly than achievements of mechanics, industries, trades, and commerce, which certainly discharge the material duties of culture by improving the national livelihood and increasing national wealth, but bring with them a number of dangers, such as craving for pleasure and tendency to luxury, thus slackening the moral and productive fibres of the nations.  Military service as an educational instrument stands on the same level as the school, and, as will be shown in a later section, each must complete and assist the other.  But a people which does not willingly bear the duties and sacrifices entailed by school and military service renounces its will to live, and sacrifices objects which are noble and assure the future for the sake of material advantages which are one-sided and evanescent.