EDUCATIONAL MELTING POTS

The war made it more than ever apparent that whole masses of people were being led about by the nose. Men fought without knowing why they were fighting; storms of passion arose out of misapprehension. Therefore the resolve was taken in the heat of the battle, that the masses should be leavened by education, and the men should be taught to live peacably side by side through seeing one another clearly. In the United States the first material development of this idea was the formation of the Committee of One Hundred under the leadership of Mr. Elihu Root. Its purpose, announced early in March, is to bring to the American enter the "facts which form the necessary basis of all sound reasoning upon international affairs."

But it was to a school of even greater scope that the idealists of the war looked forward. They would found a university somewhere in No Man's Land where students from every nation might gather, as in the famous Mediaeval universities, exchange their ideas on God and Man, and hear the most learned lectures of every nation. Such a university would be a clearing house for international misapprehension.

Fortunately before the calm of peace has cooled the iron, another important step in this direction has been taken, in this case by law. In The Hague, the center of neutrality, an academy for the study of international law is to be founded. To it every country may send qualified students, including diplomatic representatives, to hear world-famous jurists and "search together the sea of international law." The academy does not purpose to nourish its members on long lists of past cases and decisions. Neither is its purpose to hand down decisions on future disputes, as the ancient University of Paris did in weighty ecclesiastical affairs. The academy at the Hague intends solely to explore the bases of international justic and the rules for its beneficent administration. Not only will it further international understanding and furnish a preparatory school for membership in the Permanent Hague Court, but it will also blaze the trail for more such schools in other fields of study.