TRUE PREPAREDNESS 
 
 A BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS DE- 
 LIVERED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 CINCINNATI ON JUNE 4, 1916, BY 
 PRESIDENT CHARLES WILLIAM DABNEY 
 
 Reprinted from the Uaiveraityoi Cinormati Record, Vol. XII 
 
TRUE PREPAREDNESS 
 
 BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS 
 
 By PRESIDENT CHARLES W. DABXEY 
 
 June 4, 1916 
 
 "Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with 
 truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; 
 and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel 
 of peace." Ephesians VI, 14, 15. 
 
 This is a part of Paul's exhortation to spiritual pre- 
 paredness addressed to the Ephesians. He uses the terms 
 descriptive of the equipment of the Roman soldier, the 
 finest soldier in the world down to his time, and urges the 
 warrior to put on the whole armour of God — the breast- 
 plate of righteousness, the shield of faith, and the helmet 
 of salvation — and to take in his hand the sword of the 
 spirit. It is thus an exhortation to proper equipment for 
 a spiritual struggle, to preparedness for a great war with 
 evil. In this central verse of the great charge, Paul gives 
 the three great elements of moral courage, the qualities 
 that enable the champion of the right to stand. They are 
 truth which girds his loins, making him staunch; right- 
 eousness, which, like a breastplate, protects his heart 
 and vital organs; and the gospel, religion, which, like 
 shoes, gives his feet security and swiftness in the battle. 
 These are the essential things needed by the true soldier; 
 they constitute the chief elements of the preparedness of 
 the warrior in the great battle for humanity. I ask you 
 to consider these qualities with me at this time as supplying 
 the only true preparedness for the battle of life upon 
 which you are about to enter. 
 
 Preparedness is the theme of the hour. The news- 
 papers and magazines discuss little else. We have pre- 
 
paredness processions and preparedness conventions; 
 preparedness drills and preparedness camps. Most of us 
 accept military preparedness as an unfortunate necessity 
 in this stage of the world's development. No true citizen 
 would neglect any measure for the security of the nation. 
 I shall, therefore, not argue for military preparedness. 
 But the application of the preparedness idea does not 
 cease there. Caught by a new word, fascinated by a new 
 phrase, men are preaching preparedness as a universal 
 measure. Its advocates proceed enthusiastically to apply 
 it to industry, to government, and to private life, as well 
 as to plans for the defence of the nation. It is to be the 
 remedy for every political and social evil, the method of 
 promoting every economic and industrial interest. At- 
 tracted by the popular excitement, the reformers and 
 agitators, the politicians and demagogues, the faddists 
 and fakirs, are everywhere shouting for preparedness. 
 The need of preparedness has come to be spoken of also 
 by serious people as an axiom and an aphorism. Some 
 would make it the criterion of every social program, the 
 shibboleth of every political party. It is a dictum to 
 which we must assent, or be outcasts; a creed we must 
 accept, or be damned. At such a time it is well to think 
 soberly of the whole subject. 
 
 Let us remember, first, that this excitement about 
 military preparedness has a temporary cause. This 
 cause is found in the two awful tragedies of the day — the 
 great tragedy of the war in Europe and the smaller, but 
 to us, nearer, tragedy of the utter breakdown of govern- 
 ment in Mexico. The spectacle of so many armed men, 
 equipped in such marvelous fashion to use such titanic 
 forces in such desperate fighting, naturally arouses great 
 emotional excitement concerning military matters. The 
 storm of anarchy raging now for nearly five years in 
 Mexico, which on several occasions has thrown its bloody 
 waves upon our shores, also awakens our deep concern, 
 and turns our thoughts to means of defence and restoration 
 of order. This is all very natural; but such spectacles 
 and such fears furnish no proper basis for an estimate of 
 
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our necessities and requirements. They should only be 
 considered as object lessons of the general advisability of 
 preparedness. 
 
 This propaganda in favor of preparedness has the 
 fault of every propaganda. Its advocates are so excited 
 that they have only a vague idea of the principle involved. 
 The preparation of a nation is a long process. The mili- 
 tary preparation of some of the nations of Europe now at 
 war has required fifty years. To say, too, that their 
 preparation was military is to state only a part of the 
 truth. As a fact, their preparation has consisted chiefly 
 in the training of their people and the development of 
 their intellects and characters, which is the most important 
 preparation. 
 
 In the next place, let us remember that the doctrine 
 of preparedness is as old as history. The preparation of 
 the earth through the ages and the preparation of plants 
 and animals, period by period, is an essential part of the 
 modern doctrine of evolution, but thousands of years 
 before evolution was conceived of, men recognized the 
 truth of preparedness in Nature and taught the law of 
 preparation in government, industry, and commerce, as 
 well as in war. Nature, history, and practical experience 
 have, in fact, taught men through the ages the necessity 
 of systematic preparation in all departments of life. 
 
 The course of Nature is one continuous process of 
 preparation. Astronomy, geology, and biology all teach 
 us that the material world was progressively prepared, 
 just as history, philosophy, and religion teach us that the 
 minds and souls of men have been prepared through the 
 ages. 
 
 If we consider, first, the material world, and look up 
 into the heavens through the telescope, we learn that out 
 of chaos was prepared a cosmos, and out of nebulae, the 
 planetary systems with their suns, moons, and worlds. 
 If by the aid of chemistry we look down into the minute 
 things of matter, we see that out of electrons are prepared 
 formed atoms; out of atoms, molecules; out of molecules, 
 crystals; out of crystals, mountain ranges. So physical 
 
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geology teaches us that each change on the surface of the 
 earth was a preparation for another change, each period 
 a step in the preparation of the earth for man. Mountain 
 and plain, river and ocean, plants and animals, all were 
 prepared by the Creator for the coming of man, the 
 creature made in His image, who was to have dominion 
 over them all. We see more clearly every year that the 
 material world was prepared deliberately and with design 
 and purpose to be the home of life, culminating in the 
 life of mind and spirit. As the wise man said, three 
 thousand years ago: 4 'The Lord by wisdom hath founded 
 the earth, by understanding hath He prepared the heavens. 
 By His knowledge the depths are broken up and the 
 clouds drop down the dew." 
 
 So in the world of life. Each species of plant was a 
 preparation for a more perfect one — the algae for the 
 ferns, and the ferns for the flowering plants. Every new 
 animal was a preparation for a higher one — fishes for 
 reptiles, and reptiles for mammals. First the frost and 
 water, then the bacteria and earth-worms, prepare the 
 soil for the grass; the grass is food for the ox; and the 
 ox is food for man. The seasons also sing of preparation 
 for the coming life — winter for spring and its flowers, 
 spring for summer and its harvests, and summer for 
 autumn and its fruits. In all our plans we rely upon the 
 orderly sequence of the days, the months, and the seasons — 
 morning preparing for noon, noon for night, and each 
 month for the next, the year round. The farmer relies 
 upon Nature's help in preparing the soil and in supplying 
 the rain. Wise husbandmen, like the squirrels, lay in 
 their fruits for the coming winter; "like the ants, a 
 people not strong, they prepare their meat in the summer." 
 
 Now, as it is in the cosmic orders, planetary systems, 
 geologic periods, and genera of plants and animals, as it is 
 with the seasons, so it is with each individual life, whether 
 it be a bacterium, plant, animal, or man. Each has a 
 special period of preparation, a time of incubation or a 
 chrysalis stage, as well as a spring of growth and a summer 
 of fruitage, before it yields the stage of life to its successor. 
 
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Of no living thing is this more true than of man. As 
 all Nature labored to prepare the world for man, so his 
 preparation for complete living has been the task of the 
 ages. To make man worthy of his Maker is the final end 
 of all natural things — the end of our society, institutions, 
 and governments, as well as of our homes, schools, and 
 churches. Philosophers tell us that as we go up the scale 
 of life, whether it be bird, lower mammalian, or man, the 
 period of infancy and preparation grows constantly 
 longer and more important in its influence on the develop- 
 ment of the species. The greater the brain and nervous 
 system, the longer is the period of preparation. Prepara- 
 tion is the law of education. 
 
 History teaches the same lesson. Each age, each 
 nation, has been a preparation for a better age and a 
 greater nation. To His chosen people God said : ' 'Behold, 
 I send an angel before thee to keep thee in the way and 
 to bring thee into the place which I have prepared." 
 True to His promise, through all history the angel of the 
 Lord has led His people into, first, one prepared land, 
 then into another — first, into Palestine; then, into 
 Greece; then, to Rome; then, into continental Europe; 
 and now, to America. Throughout all ages the command 
 has been: "Prepare ye the way of the people, cast up, 
 cast up the highways, gather up the stones, lift up the 
 standard for the people." 
 
 The solemn question for us today is: Whither shall 
 the angel of the Lord lead His people next? It will surely 
 be into a prepared land, into the land where men are 
 ready to do the Lord's work. The great people of the 
 future will inhabit the land best prepared to develop men. 
 Will it be Europe, will it be the Orient, or will it be 
 America? If science, biology, and history teach us any- 
 thing, the great civilization of the future will develop in a 
 prepared land among a prepared people. Whether Ameri- 
 cans shall be that people will depend upon how they are 
 prepared in body, mind, and soul. 
 
 This law of preparation governs the spiritual, as well 
 as the material and industrial world. The minds and the 
 
 5 
 
spirits of men are being prepared, as well as their bodies. 
 Men were given a church and religion for the development 
 of their spirits. As He made an earth for training their 
 bodies, so God built a temple for training the souls of men. 
 Through the ages His spiritual temple has been preparing. 
 Abraham built his altar at Bethel. With the stone that 
 was his pillow when he had the vision of the ladder into 
 Heaven, Jacob built his house of the Lord. After the 
 plans given by God in the Mount, Moses built the taber- 
 nacle in the wilderness. We read that "All the work of 
 Solomon was prepared unto the day of the foundation of 
 the house of the Lord and until it was finished. So the 
 house of the Lord was perfected." And the prophet 
 declared: ''And it shall come to pass in the latter days 
 that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be prepared 
 in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above 
 the hills; and all the nations shall flow into it, and many 
 people shall go and say: 'Come ye, and let us go up to 
 the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of 
 Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will 
 walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, 
 and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.' " So in due 
 course of time John the Baptist came "to make ready a 
 people prepared for the Lord," and Jesus taught that His 
 Heaven was to be a prepared place for prepared men. 
 "Come, ye blessed of My Father," He said, "and inherit 
 the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
 world." 
 
 There has always been, in every age, a leading people 
 in a specially prepared land. Assyria, Egypt, Palestine, 
 Greece, all had their day of glory and service. Do we 
 desire that our land may be this prepared land, the land 
 of peace, the home of progress and the mother of the 
 coming race? What, then, is our ideal for America? Are 
 wealth and power our only ends? Shall we be satisfied 
 with mere quiet and the chance to feed and multiply? 
 Or have we a higher ideal? "Broad based upon her peo- 
 ple's will" America has a higher destiny than to breed 
 men and make them fat with ease. Theodore Parker has 
 
 6 
 
given us the classical definition of the American idea. In 
 1850 he said : "This idea demands, as the proximate orga- 
 nization thereof, a democracy that is a government of all 
 the people, by all the people, for all the people; a govern- 
 ment of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging 
 law of God. For shortness' sake, I will call it the idea 
 of Freedom." This is the American idea, this is the 
 purpose of our nation, the realization of freedom in a 
 democracy, the embodiment of eternal justice in a govern- 
 ment of the people. This government which our fathers 
 left us it is our duty to preserve and develop. How then 
 shall we, their descendants, do this? Can we do it merely 
 by marshalling our industries and drilling our people as 
 some propose? Can we by "scientific efficiency" save 
 America and make her a moral power in the world? 
 Preparedness is not merely the training of the people in 
 "scientific efficiency," meaning thereby "mechanized 
 efficiency." True national preparedness is something 
 far different and much larger than engineering skill or 
 industrial organization ; it is socialized energy, it is the 
 intelligence and character of a people organized for service. 
 This kind of efficiency cannot be drilled into a people by 
 autocratic authority. Social efficiency is a human, a 
 spiritual quality. 
 
 Moreover, such a quality becomes a social force only 
 through democratic agencies. A machine may be effi- 
 cient in a certain sense, but it cannot be efficient in the 
 sense that a human being is; for a machine cannot con- 
 form itself to conditions, but must, when not directed by a 
 man, perform one process at all times and under all 
 circumstances. Only a human being can direct himself, 
 guiding his actions by a mind and a conscience. In the 
 autocracy the people need no conscience, for the sovereign 
 orders what shall be done. Only in a democracy, where 
 men are free to use their own minds and consciences, can 
 true social efficiency exist. In an autocracy the people 
 cannot possess this socialized energy; they cannot be 
 truly efficient. As Shelley says: 
 
 7 
 
"Power, like a desolating pestilence, 
 Pollutes whate'er it touches, and obedience, 
 Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, 
 Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame 
 A mechanized automaton." 
 
 How, then, can the democracy develop this true 
 efficiency? Only by educating and training its individual 
 members and giving them character, as well as intelli- 
 gence. Where each individual is a part of the sovereign 
 power, he must have not only intelligence, but conscience. 
 The efficient democracy is embodied conscience and 
 heart. 
 
 The paramount issue, then, that is brought home to us 
 by this European war and by this anarchy in Mexico is 
 not merely military preparation; it is the issue of the 
 development, through the education and the moralization 
 of the people, of a more perfect socialized energy. A state 
 is only truly great in the moral qualities of its members, 
 and moral qualities can only be developed by the mutual 
 interaction of minds and hearts. The primary business 
 of the state is not war, it is the making of men. Character 
 and courage are the first characteristics of the prepared 
 people. Even in war it is not the big gun that wins the 
 battle, it is the man behind the gun; it is not even the 
 high explosive that actuates the gun, it is the character 
 of the man. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen of the graduating class, consider 
 your part in this preparedness program. I have said 
 enough, I hope, to show you that you have much to do in 
 the preparation of this nation, besides drilling soldiers, 
 training nurses, or paying taxes for guns and munitions, 
 warships and forts. It is by preparing yourselves that 
 you can best prepare your country for the struggles ahead 
 of her — by preparing yourselves in mind, heart, and con- 
 science. Proud as we are of what you have done here, it 
 is my duty to tell you that your preparation has only just 
 begun. You will become cooperating citizens of a nation, 
 which has to be prepared for the greatest tasks to which 
 any people was ever called. And you can best prepare 
 
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this nation to meet these tasks by making yourselves 
 noble men. 
 
 "A people is but the attempt of many 
 To rise to the completer life of one; 
 And those who live as models for the mass 
 Are singly of more value, than they all." 
 
 That you have the ability to do your part we testify 
 by putting our stamp upon you. We have tested you 
 and we know you have talents; we have trained you and 
 we know you have capacities; but your resources will 
 be like crude coal in the mines, your powers like water 
 running over the fall, if you do not use them. To be 
 useful, the coal must be mined; to be productive, the 
 water must be turned into the penstock and over the 
 wheel. 
 
 You are now calling for a chance. If prepared, you 
 shall have it. The opportunity to serve comes to every 
 prepared man and woman, and when it comes it will call 
 for all the talents and all the character you can muster. 
 Prepare! Success is never accidental. There is no luck 
 in the moral world. True success is always prepared. 
 
 I have tried to show you that education is not all, and 
 efficiency is not enough; that there must be character 
 back of your education and your efficiency. Man is 
 something more than body and mind— he is a soul. 
 
 Tolstoi said: "It is necessary for man to have a soul." 
 Why? Because there are many things which it is impos- 
 sible to explain without a soul. One of these things is 
 man's progress. In order to move forward the race has 
 through all the centuries regularly had to sacrifice the 
 body to the soul. In wars and martyrdoms, on the block 
 and at the stake, man has given his body to make way 
 for his spirit. The soul has been marching over the body 
 through these thousands of years. Behind and above all 
 human progress has stood the regnant soul. For this 
 reason no other animal has progressed like man. Hogs 
 today are just the same as the Gadarine swine which ran 
 down the bluff of the Sea of Galilee. The horse is today 
 
 9 
 
no nobler than he was when Alexander drove him to his 
 chariot. But man is still pressing up the heights of 
 progress, holding in his hand the lamp of liberty that 
 lights the path to the home of the immortals. 
 
 It is also necessary for a nation to have a soul. Has 
 America a soul? Our fathers made the great sacrifice 
 that we might have souls, but are our souls progressing? 
 What are we sacrificing for the souls of our children? 
 Have we met the great issues of the last two years as we 
 should have done? More than one nation has found its 
 soul in these last terrible months. While their souls are 
 marching on so grandly, some of us are wondering if 
 Americans have not been selling their souls for Mammon. 
 Have we not failed to take the moral leadership we should? 
 Morally have we not lost our way? 
 
 Upon you, young men and women, will be the duty to 
 lead this people back into the right way. Some of you 
 will be called upon to sacrifice your bodies that the soul 
 of this nation may go marching on. Are you ready, 
 ready in spirit, as well as in mind and heart? I charge 
 you, then, to prepare your souls, as well as your minds 
 and hearts. The supremest preparedness is soul pre- 
 paredness. 
 
 How shall you get this soul preparedness? Only by 
 the pursuit of truth and righteousness. Then you must 
 have an ideal of the truth, and a standard of righteousness; 
 in other words, you must have a religion. Without re- 
 ligion neither man nor nation can make any progress in 
 righteousness, justice, or brotherhood. Religion is the 
 only safe foundation of personal and national life. This is 
 true of all forms of national life, but it is above all true of 
 the democracy. Our whole American system rests upon 
 the moral judgment and right feeling of the people, and 
 religion is the only means of cultivating moral judgment 
 and right feeling. I sincerely believe that the only hope 
 of the democracy is that the people shall believe in God 
 and shall learn from Him to live righteously and to love 
 their fellow men. 
 
 Because then you have a soul, it is necessary for you 
 
 10 
 
to have a God. Not by hands, nor eyes, nor ears; not 
 by mind, but by soul is it that man progresses. The soul 
 of man has two great needs; it needs guidance and it 
 needs power. First, the soul needs a teacher. A man 
 without a God is like a ship without a pilot; it may float 
 for a while, but it will not sail very far or carry anyone 
 into the harbor. Alan needs God for his ideal, his inspir- 
 ing standard, for his ineffable and ineffaceable light. 
 Human ideals are faulty and fail, they are uncertain lights, 
 they flicker fitfully, burn down in their sockets, and go 
 out. They lead him, like will-o'-the-wisps, into the 
 swamp, and then go out in the darkness. But God is an 
 eternal light, a shining, deathless, everlasting sun. The 
 godless man is in the dark; he has lost his way; his con- 
 science is befogged; he has no guide to duty. What then 
 can a man do better than to give God his hand and pray: 
 "Lead Thou me on, 'till night is flecked with day and day- 
 grows nightless," 
 
 The other need of the soul is for power, power to en- 
 dure, to struggle, and to conquer. God is also man's 
 power to be and to become. Temptations are ever pres- 
 ent. He who yields to low motives and base desires has 
 already lost the fight. One needs not only the guidance 
 of a great ideal, but the lift of a strong hand. The most 
 glorious deeds are accomplished when God and man strike 
 hands to do. Then is wrought that which cheers the 
 faint, lifts the fallen, and frees the fettered, rights wrong 
 and crowns right. 
 
 St. Paul would teach us that the man whose light and 
 strength is God can stand alone. He may be abused, 
 villified, persecuted, but he will not flinch. He will regard 
 duty as a finer thing than life, prefer death to dishonor, 
 and stand face to face with grim terror, fighting on when 
 all others have fled the field. 
 
 We are told that the noblest thing Pompeii has yielded 
 to the explorer was that ''figure of a Roman soldier, clad 
 in complete armour, who, true to duty, true to the proud 
 name of a soldier of Rome, full of the stern courage which 
 had given that name its glory, stood to his post by the city 
 
 11 
 
gate, erect and unflinching, until the hell that raged 
 around him burned out the dauntless spirit it could not 
 conquer." Such, doubtless, was the Roman soldier Paul 
 had in mind. Magnificent example of the man now 
 needed to withstand the volcanic eruptions of these 
 times! Like that Roman soldier, may you stand, "having 
 your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast- 
 plate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the 
 preparation of the gospel of peace." 
 
 12 
 
940.^5 D114 P12991