I have tried to make it clear in what I have said that in this matter of social activity, public institutions should go as far as they can in furnishing facilities without taking upon themselves the burden of administration.  I believe fully in municipal ownership of all kinds of utilities, but rarely in municipal operation.  Municipal ownership safeguards the city, and private or corporate operation avoids the numerous objections to close municipal control of detail.  So the library authorities may retain sufficient control of these social activities by the power that they have of admitting them to the parts of the buildings provided for them, or of excluding them at any time.  These activities themselves are better managed by voluntary bodies, and, as I have said, there is no indication that the formation of such bodies is on the wane.  The establishment and operation of a musical or athletic club, a debating society, or a Boy Scouts company, are surely quite as educational as the activities themselves in which their members engage.  Do not let us arrogate to ourselves such opportunities as these.  I should be inclined to take this attitude also with regard to the public playgrounds, were they not somewhat without the province of this paper; and I take it very strongly with regard to the public school.  Throw open the school buildings as soon as you can, and as freely as you can to every legitimate form of social activity, but let your relationship to this activity be like that of the center to the circle—­in it and of it, but embracing no part of its areal content.  So, I am convinced, will it be best for all of us—­for ourselves, the administrators of public property, and for the public, the owning body which is now demanding that it should not be barred out by its servants from that property’s freest and fullest use.

THE SYSTEMATIZATION OF VIOLENCE

The peace propaganda has suffered much from the popular impression that many of those engaged in it are impractical enthusiasts who are assuming the possibility of doing away with passions and prejudices incident to our very humanity, and of bringing about an ideal reign of love and good will.  Whether this impression is or is not justified we need not now inquire.  It is the impression itself that is injuring the cause of peace, and will continue to injure it until it is removed.

It may at least be lessened by allowing the mind to dwell for a time on another aspect of the subject in which the regime of peace that would follow the discontinuance of all settlement of disputes by violence will appear to consist not so much in the total disappearance of violence from the earth as in the use of it for a different purpose, namely, the preservation of the peaceful status quo, by a systematic and lawful use of force, or at any rate, the readiness to employ it.