Education as an International Affair
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.