what true civic life means, understand and have a true conception of what it is really to be a citizen,—a citizen not each one living for himself, but each one living first for his family, and through that for the civic order or State,—there can then be no such thing as a stable society, civic order or State in the true sense of the word.—A State such as we see it in modern Europe and American to-day, where the men and women have not a true conception of civic life,—such a State with all its parliament and machinery of government, may be called, if you like,—a big Commercial Concern, or as it really is, in times of war, a gang of brigands and pirates,—but not a State. In fact, I may permitted further to say here, it is the false conception of a State as a big commercial concern having only the selfish material interests of those who have the biggest shares in the concern to be considered,—this false conception of a State with the esprit de corps of brigands, which is, at bottom, the cause of the terrible war now going on in Europe. In short, without a true conception of civic life there can be no true State and without a true State, how can there be civilisation. To us Chinese, a man who does not marry, who has no family, no home which he has to defend, cannot be a patriot, and if calls himself a patriot,—we Chinese call him a brigand patriot. In fact in order to have a true conception of a State or civic order, one must first have a true conception of a family, and to have a true conception of a family, of family life, one must first of
