country and to serve her, we say amen [applause]; and we point, both of us, to our past in proof that we are national in that sense. [Applause.] But if it means that the national university is to be a university administered and managed by the wise Congress of the United States, then we should agree in taking some slight exceptions. [Laughter.] We should not question for a moment the capacity of Congress to pick out and appoint the professors of Latin and Greek, and the ancient languages, because we find that there is an astonishing number of classical orators in Congress, and there is manifested there a singular acquaintance with the legislation of all the Latin races. [Laughter.] But when it should come to some other humbler professorships we might perhaps entertain a doubt. For example, we have not entire faith in the trust that Congress has in the unchangeableness of the laws of arithmetic. [Laughter.] We might think that their competency to select a professor of history might be doubted. They seem to have an impression that there is such a thing as "American" political economy, which can no more be than "American" chemistry or "American" physics. [Applause.] Finally, gentlemen, we should a little distrust the selection by Congress of a professor of ethics. [Laughter.] Of course, we should feel no doubt in regard to the tenure of office of the professors being entirely suitable, it being the well-known practice of both branches of Congress to select men solely for fitness, without regard to locality, and to keep them in office as long as they are competent and faithful. [Laughter and applause.] But, gentlemen, I think we ought to recur for a moment, perhaps, to the Pilgrim Fathers [laughter], and I desire to say that both Harvard and Yale recognize the fact that there are some things before which universities "pale their ineffectual fires." Words are but breath; but where great deeds were done, Now, gentlemen, on that sandy, desolate spot of Plymouth great deeds were done, and we are here to commemorate them. Those were hard times. It was a terrible voyage, and they were hungry and cold and worn out with labor, and they took their guns to the church and the field, and the half of them died in the first winter. They were not prosperous times that we recall with this hour. Let us take some comfort from that in the present circumstances of our beloved country. She is in danger of a terrible disaster, but let us remember that the times which future generations delight to recall are not those of ease and prosperity, but those of adversity bravely borne. [Applause.] THE ARMING OF THE NATIONS This address was given at the dinner of the Canadian Club of Ottawa on Saturday, February 23, 1907. Other addresses by Dr. Eliot are printed in Volumes IV and VII. MR. PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CANADIAN CLUB:I came to Canada this time to dine with the American University Men's Association at Montreal. It was a great pleasure to me to accept that invitation, because it is always a satisfaction to me, who have been long in the service of one American University, to recognize the unity of the entire group and the common motives which actuate them. And I shall extend that welcome idea of unity and coöperation to all the Canadian universities; because I am sure that Canadian universities, like American universities, express perhaps better than any other institutions of our two lands, the common loves and aspirations of these two nations-the love of truth, the love of freedom, and the love of seeking both truth and freedom. [Applause.] Your president has been kind enough to allude to the excellent quality of Harvard graduates, who here represent Harvard University in the work of their daily lives. That is the kind of fruit a university always desires, the fruit of the men gone out from her walls and doing good work in the world. I have seen a great stream of youth going out from the walls of Harvardfor it is over fifty years since I went there myself-a great stream of this youth going out into the work of the world and carrying with them these loves and hopes and aspirations, the love of truth, the love of freedom, and the love of public justice. Now, I took a very serious subject for my few minutes talk to you to-day, when I wrote to your secretary that I should like to speak about "The Way of Escape from the Competitive Arming of the Nations." Secretary Root alluded to what is to be my text when he spoke before you a few weeks ago. There is, in the history of the United States and Canada, a most extraordinary act, which, I believe, prophesies a way of escape from this monstrous and shameful evil, the competitive arming of the civilized nations against each other. Secretary Root alluded to it as a convention, a convention made in 1817 by the Government of Great Britain and the Government of the United States, to limit the armaments on the Great Lakes for both nations. That was a very extraordinary document in its form. It was not a treaty; it was not a law; it was, as described in the proclamation of James Monroe, President of the United States, an "arrangement"-that was all. The two countries agreed that they would only maintain on the Great Lakes each one vessel of not exceeding one hundred tons and carrying one eighteen-pounder on Lake Ontario, two other vessels on the "Upper Lakes," as they were described, each of the same size and with the same gun, and one other on Lake Champlain. That was to be the absolute limit of the armaments of these two nations on the Great Lakes. Now that "arrangement," as President Monroe called it, was made under very extraordinary circumstances. It was the invention of John Quincy Adams. It was presented by him to our then Secretary of State, James Monroe, who, in the following year, became President. But the person who negotiated it on the part of the United States was only Deputy or Under-Secretary of State-it did not attain even the dignity of an "arrangement" by the Secretary of State. It was the simplest possible agreement for an heroic and monumental purpose. [Applause.] What was the condition of things on the Great Lakes at that time? The British Government then had vessels mounting over 300 guns in commission on the Lakes, and was building at that moment two seventy-four gun ships on the Lakes-actually building them at the time this arrangement was made. And what was the state of mind of the two nations, calm or excited? They had just come out of a war, and a war in which fighting on the Lakes bore a great part. Were not these extraordinary conditions under which to make a simple "arrangement" which does not cover twenty lines of printed paper, to secure a perfect peace of ninety years already without once transgressing this extraordinarily low limit of armament upon these Lakes on our borders? I say that this act prophesies the way of escape from competitive armaments. When we consider the means of navigation in those days, the time required for voyages across the Lakes, and the dangers on the way, with only wind to propel the vessel, the Atlantic Ocean does not offer greater obstacles in the way of such an "arrangement" as this than the Lakes did then. [Applause.] We cross the Atlantic Ocean in six or seven days, with the greatest facility. We mount on what may be called platforms, heavy armaments which are yet capable of proceeding through the very roughest ocean in comparative steadiness. Our means for naval fighting on the instant are very much greater, relatively to the Atlantic Ocean, than the means of these two peoples were for fighting on the Lakes in 1817. I say, therefore, that in this act of our two governments there is a prophecy, a hopeful prophecy for the future. What is the essence of this regulation? It is simply a selfdenying ordinance which secures equal force to the two governments on the Lakes, and prevents any surprise of one power by the other. And that is just what needs to be done on an international scale. Moreover, this little armament on the Lakes on either side is nothing but a police force. Now, that is exactly what we want all over the world-a self-denying ordinance and a police force furnished by all the civilized nations, combined to maintain a common force. What is the difference between the police function and the soldier's or the sailor's function in war? I think the chief difference is that in the main the first is protective and the other destructive. Both imply the use of force; and we are a long way from the time when government will not rest on force. At the bottom, the most civilized governments need force as the basis of their power and of the means of executing their will. But there is a tremendous difference between force and force. A police force is, in the main, a protective force. Now and then, to be sure, it proceeds energetically against a criminal, an offender, a disturber of the peace. But far the greater part of the function of the police is protection. It goes quickly to the scene of any catastrophe; it preserves order on the highways, in crowds, and in industries; it maintains the peace. You have in Canada a splendid example of the legitimate, the indispensable, the eminently useful police in your Northwest Mounted Police. [Loud applause.] There is a force eminently superior to that of the soldier. Any one of these police officers can arrest-that is a very wholesome power, and it is just what we want between the nations; we want a force that can arrest the disturber. [Applause.] [Applause.] We want that bulwark of peace-a police force that can prevent disturbance, and deal effectively and finally with the disturber of the peace, whoever he is. He is probably a person temporarily out of his mind. [Laughter and applause.] He needs protection from himself, and all the rest of us need to be protected from him. That is the true function of a police force, and that is what the civilized world greatly needs. But then, you will say, police officers ordinarily act under the direction of a court, if there be an accessible court. It is quite convenient in the wilderness to have a police officer who is himself a magistrate, and that is just what you have provided. [Hear, Hear.] But, as a rule, an effective police acts under the orders of a court. There again, we have at The Hague, a momentous prophecy of the reorganization of the civilized world to preserve peace, and to protect the productive industries. It is but the shadow, the ghost, you may say, of an effective court as yet-for behind every effective court must lie force the police force. That is what the international tribunal will need and must have to be an effective tribunal. Should we shrink from the prospect of such control, under the findings of an international court with force behind it to compel obedience? We are used to all that in the organization of every one of the civilized nations. In the structure and development of every nation that process, that habit of obedience to the mandate of a court enforced marks the gathering growth of civilization. And that is what the group of nations which is to make up the civilized world needs to create-the habit, as a group of nations, of submitting to the mandate of an international court enforced. Now, we people who have come into this new land, out of |