It is quite surprising and humiliating that other things can be
discussed and settled as international affairs, before education. Yet
you have hundreds of things regulated by international laws, and among
these hundred things education is net yet reckoned. You have the
International Institution of the Red Cross, international laws on trade,
fishery, travel, copyright, political crimes, barbarities in war-time,
&c. But this war shows quite clearly that education--before anything
else--should be a matter of international consideration and regulation.
Behold, how illusory are all international restrictions when the
education of a nation is quite excluded from any control! When the
Nitzschean education of Germany teaches the German youth to despise all
neighbours, all nations and races as inferior ones, how could you expect
the Germans to respect the laws and regulations about Belgium, and
submarines--and Zeppelin-warfare, and use of the dum-dum bullets and of
poisonous gases?
If there is anything to be learned from this war it is doubtless this:
The education of youth in all the countries of the world must become an
international affair of the very first importance.