The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-07-05

 times the influence is incidentally exerted as when, for example. nation in the extension of it's commerce introduces it's language and enlarges the horizon of the people with whom it trades. This inciden tai benefit conferred by the opening of new markets must be apparent to any one who has watched the stimulating influence of the new ideas which have been introduced into Asia and Africa through the medium of the English lan- guage. This is not the mother tongue of very many of the worlds leaders in religion, statesmanship science and liter ature, but it has received through trans- lation the best that has been written and spoken in other countries. He who learns this language, therefore, is like one .=ho lives upon great highway where he comes into daily contact with the world.
 .sWithout disparaging other modern languages it may be said with truth that whether one travels abroad or studies at home there is no other language so useful at the present time as that which we employ at this banquet board, and the nation which is instrumental In spreading this language confers an nestimable boon even though the comforting of it be not in- cluded in it's general purpose. England has rendered this service to the people of India and the United States is rendering the same service to the people of the Philippines, while both England and the United States have been helpful to Japan and China in this way.
 Put Forth Constant Effort.
 But the advanced nations cannot con- tent themselves with the conferring of in- cidental benefits; If they would justify their leadership they must put forth con- spiot1c a pd mt effort for the nrOmO- ton of the welfare of the nations which lag behind. Incidental benefits may fol-
 low even though the real purpose of 3 nation is a wholly selfish one, for as the sale of Joseph into Egypt resulted in blessings to his family and to the land of the Pharaohs, so captives taken in war have sometimes spread civilization and blacks carried away into slavery have been improved by contact with the whites. But nations cannot afford to do evil in the hope that providence will transmute the evil into good and bring blessings out of sin. Nations, ls they would be great in the better sense of the term, must in- tend benefit as well as confer it, they must plan advantage, and not leave the results to chance.
 T take 1t for granted that our duty to the so-called inferior races is not dis charged by merely feeding them in times of famine or by contributing to their tenn porary support when some other calamity overtakes them. A much greater assis- i tance is rendered them when they are led to a more elevated plane of thought and activity by ideals which stimulate them to self development. The improvement of the people themselves should be the para mount object in all intercourse with the Orient
 Among the blessings which the Chris tian nations are at this time able-and in duty bound--to carry to the rest of the world, I may mention five-education, knowledge of the science of government, arbitration as a substitute for war, ap- preciation of the dignity of labor and a high conception Of life.
 Education Comes First.
 "Education comes first, and in nothing have the United States and England been more clearly helpful than in the advocacy of universal education If the designs of God are disclosed by Ills handiwork, then the creation of the human mind is in- dubitable proof that the Almighty never intended that learning shoul- be monopo- lized by few, and He arrays Himself against the plans of Jehovah, who would deny intellectual training to any part of. the human race. It is a false civilization, not a true one, that countenances the per manent separation Of society into two distinct classes the one encouraged to improve the mind and the other con demned to hopeless ignorance Equally false is that conception of international politics which would make the prosperity of one nation depend upon the exploita- tion of another. While no one is far-sight- ed enough to estimate with accuracy the remote, or even the immediate, conse- quences of human action. yet as we can rely upon the principles that each in- dvidual profits rather than loses by the a,,I npif of so we cannot doubt that 1t Is to the ad- vantage of each nation that every other nation shall make the largest possible use of it's own resources and the capabil- ties of it's people.
 "No one questions that Japans influ- ence has been beneflcient one since she has emerged from illiteracy and endowed her people with public schools open to all her boys and girls. The transition from a position of obscurity into a world power was scarcely more rapid than her transition from a menace into an ally. China is entering upon a similar eNperi- ence. and I am confident that her era of reform will make her, not yellow peril, but a powerful co-laborer in the inter- national vineyard. In India, in the Phil ippines, in Egypt and even in Turkey, sta tistics show a gradual extension of edu- cation, and I trust I will be pardoned if I say that neither the armies, nor the navies. nor yet the commerce of our nations, have given us so just a claim to the gratitude of the people of Asia as have our school teachers, sent. many of them, by private rather than by pub lie funds.
 English Language is Vehicle.
 ''rhe English language has become the vehicle for the conveyance of govern mental truth even more than for the spread of general information for begin ming with Magma Charter and continuing through the era of the American revolu- tion and the Declaration of Independence down to the present, no language has been so much employed for the propaga- ton of that theory of government which traces governmental authority to the con sent of the governed. Our own nation presents the most illustrous example known to history of a great population working out it's destiny through laws of it's own making, and under officials of it's own choosing, although. l may add we scarcely go beyond England in recognz- ing the omnipotence of a parliament fresh from the people. 1t is difficult to over estimate the potency of this conception of government upon the progress of q nation, and, in turning the thought of the world away from despotsm to the possibilities of self-government, the pio- neers of freedom made western civilza- ton possible. An idea will sometimes