[John L. Hulshof, in the Tuckahoe Record, New York]

The aim of all education is spiritual. Yes, the aim of education must be eternal. It must take hold of those things that are eternal—truth, righteousness, love, faith.

The course of study never makes a school. Many a teacher has used the Bible to teach unbelief; but the right teacher can make an arithmetic lesson teach the love of truth and God. We need more culture of spiritual ideals in our teaching profession.

[Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins, in the Living Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin]

Education with God left out of it is not education at all in any sense of the word. And any education which disregards Christ [Jesus] and his loving sacrifice, a sacrifice which has led millions to find peace and comfort and which has made life a new thing, is no real education, since it disregards the great force of the centuries. Jesus Christ and him crucified and risen from the dead—these are truths which have made it possible for us to grow and learn and trust.

[The Archbishop of Canterbury, as quoted in the Guardian, London, England]

Twenty-one years ago a soldier [Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell] dreamed a dream. From his boyhood he had rejoiced in the life of a Scout. In many adventures he had found that it quickened the mind and braced the will and made men good comrades. His dream was that the spirit of the good Scout might make the boys of his own nation healthy, happy, and helpful, and fit them for loyal service to their country and their God. To-day, "behold, this dreamer cometh," and he comes not alone but with a comradeship of nearly two million boys belonging to forty-one countries. His dream has become one of the great realities of the world. How deeply must his heart be moved as he remembers the little camp of a score of boys at Brownsea Island, where he first tried to make his dream come true, and contrasts it with this vast camp of fifty thousand and thinks of his two million Scouts in every quarter of the globe! May I not dare to say to him before you all, "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour"? I pray that God's blessing in fullest measure may be upon him and upon the world-wide company wherein his dream has been fulfilled.

In this truly wonderful movement each one of you has his own place. That place means a great trust. It is that just there you will be true to the ideals for which the movement stands. For, remember, it is not mere numbers that give it worth. The counting of heads may be a danger and a snare. It is the spirit that matters. So I have a word for each of you this morning. It is one given long ago by St. Paul to a young comrade. You will find it in our English Bible in his first letter to Timothy, chapter 6, verse 20. It is this: "Keep that which is committed to thy trust." What is the spirit you are on trust to keep?

This is the fourth of August. It is impossible to forget that on this very day fifteen years ago this realm was drawn into the great war, which for four years darkened the earth. God forbid that I should recall the bitter memories of that awful time. I only speak of it because to-day we see coming forth from its shadow this great army of the youth of all nations pledged to the spirit of peace and good will among men. Here is a power without which treaties and leagues are of little avail. It is a power of the Spirit. It passes into you and lays hold of you through the instinct of comradeship one with another. You are learning it when you see boys of many nations and many languages wearing the same Scout's uniform and obeying the same Scout law, and when around the camp fire you meet together. In future days, when you have become citizens of your various countries, you will remember and know that, in spite of any differences which may arise, you are all brothers.

Yet if war is to be banished is there anything that can take the place of the appeal it has made for centuries, not least in the heart of you, to the spirit of adventure and the splendor of self-sacrifice? Can these great qualities be found along the ways of peace? Your movement is giving the answer. Quite apart from military ways and memories you find scope for adventure in games, in camps, in rambles through wood and field. You learn to play and work together as good comrades, thinking less of yourself than of your side. You are bound in honor to be alert in finding chances of doing useful service and acts of helpfulness and kindness. Thus day by day, by an instinct you are scarcely aware of, you are discovering that happiness does not go with selfishness and that what makes life worth living is not success for self but the service of others.

All this means that the true spirit of the Scout comes from another world than that in which men push and strive for themselves. It comes from a world where honor and truth and unselfishness and brotherhood rule: the world whose name is the kingdom of God. Let me repeat to you some words written by a brilliant servant of the British Empire in the stress of the war. They were sung in Westminster Abbey at the service of thanksgiving for the recovery of our king. The writer is full of fervent love for his own country as you will always be for yours:

Then he remembers—

This other country is the true home of the spirit committed to your trust. Just in so far as you are mindful of her, loyal to her, will you be good citizens of your own country and a friend to all the world.

[The Chicago Post, as quoted in the Boston Evening Transcript, Massachusetts]

A bill has been introduced in Congress providing for establishment by the Federal Government of a peace college.

That seems to us an eminently wise and exceedingly timely proposal.

We have a naval academy and a military academy—schools dedicated to the so-called art of war—why not a peace academy?

Peace is the avowed policy of the United States, and it has become a policy demanding the most thoughtful consideration and planning. It is no longer merely the expression of a pious hope.

The establishing of world peace is to-day an aim to which the minds of statesmen, scientists, economists, sociologists are being given with diligent devotion. It is an objective to be sought practically, whereas once it was merely a sentimental goal. It has become essential to the continuance of civilization, to the promotion of every worth-while interest of human life. In the Kellogg Treaty the conception of world peace has been given expression and pledge such as it never had before in the history of nations. The effective working of that treaty requires the education of peoples in new ways of thinking, in new modes of conduct, in new attitudes of relationship. Its success will mean a new world order, for which leaders must be trained.

There is a technique for peace, both in securing it and in its practice, which the world needs to learn. The technique itself needs to be developed out of the experimental approach to it which has been made. In all of this a college or academy of peace would help tremendously.

If Congress cannot get the vision of useful possibilities in such an institution; if it cannot see that a nation which professes devotion to peace, and, at the same time, boasts of its practicality, should have a peace college as well as academies to train fighting men, it is to be hoped the idea may appeal to private sources of wealth and lead to a pioneering effort which may set an example to government.

[Dr. W. W. Comfort, in the Kiwanis Magazine, Chicago, Illinois]

Most important of all is the conviction which is found here and there all over the civilized world, that education must foster more idealism, unselfishness, tolerance, and good will. Youth must be encouraged to risk more for the idealism which it is supposed to possess. Education for mere personal advantage and self-exploitation must make way for a greater sense of personal responsibility for good government, high motive, and cooperation with the external moral forces making for righteousness. Men have been taught to master the tricks of mere existence at each other's expense, but not the secret of an abundant life. They have been fed on canned goods instead of fresh fruit. They have been deprived of what men live by, of an underlying philosophy of life. These moral and spiritual values must be put back into education from bottom to top, or we shall perish. There must be a vision.

No amount of mere skill and cleverness will prevent men from growing utterly weary and faint. The monotony of a machine age and the pessimism of a society without faith in the "imponderables" must be counteracted by a reaffirmation of faith in the value of the individual and in the eternal forces of righteousness and justice which know no national frontiers. Only by so doing can the suicide of individuals and nations be prevented. Sustained happiness is more to be sought than ephemeral pleasure, and international cooperation than national aggrandizement. . . .

The future is full of hope. . . . That education is an individual process is being recognized everywhere; that education can and should continue throughout life is widely held, while our responsibility to instruct our children is a universal concern; and that this instruction must somehow include the things of the spirit as well as of the body and mind is generally admitted. The universal interest in education is the best indication of the solicitude felt on every hand that we may be wisely guided to provide for the happy and useful service of our children in a social world that needs their help.

[From Young People, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]

Harmonious action always costs a little, and sometimes a great deal. It costs self-control and courtesy and an effort to put yourself in the other person's place. But it is always worth tenfold what it costs.