of association which seeks to ignore the part which physical force plays in life is necessarily incomplete.  Just as formerly the irresponsible and meaningless use of political power created the need of special religious associations, independent of the state, so now the responsible, the purposeful, and the efficient use of physical force, characteristic of modern nations, has in its turn made such independence less necessary, and tends to attach a different function to the church.  A basis of association narrower than the whole complex of human powers and interests will not serve.  National organization provides such a basis.  The perversity of human nature may cause its ultimate failure; but it will not fail because it omits any essential constituent in the composition of a permanent and fruitful human association.  So far as it fulfills its responsibilities, it guarantees protection against predatory powers at home and abroad.  It provides in appropriate measure for individual freedom, for physical, moral, and intellectual discipline, and for social consistency.  It has prizes to offer as well as coercion to exercise; and with its foundations planted firmly in the past, its windows and portals look out towards a better future.  The tendency of its normal action is continually, if very slowly, to diminish the distance between the ideal of human brotherhood, and the political, economic, and social conditions, under which at any one time men manage to live together.

That is the truth to which the patriotic Americans should firmly cleave.  The modern nation, particularly in so far as it is constructively democratic, constitutes the best machinery as yet developed for raising the level of human association.  It really teaches men how they must feel, what they must think, and what they must do, in order that they may live together amicably and profitably.  The value of this school for its present purposes is increased by its very imperfections, because its imperfections issue inevitably from the imperfections of human nature.  Men being as unregenerate as they are, all worthy human endeavor involves consequences of battle and risk.  The heroes of the struggle must maintain their achievements and at times even promote their objects by compulsion.  The policeman and the soldier will continue for an indefinite period to be guardians of the national schools, and the nations have no reason to be ashamed of this fact.  It is merely symbolic of the very comprehensiveness of their responsibilities—­that they have to deal with the problem of human inadequacy and unregeneracy in all its forms,—­that they cannot evade this problem by allowing only the good boys to attend school—­that they cannot even mitigate it by drawing too sharp a distinction between the good boys and the bad.  Such indiscriminate attendance in these national schools, if it is to be edifying, involves one practical consequence of dominant importance.  Everybody within the school-house—­masters,