Teaching Political Science in a World at War

In: American political science review, Volume 35, Issue 2, p. 325-333

Abstract

Writing in the October Atlantic Monthly, Paul P. Cram insists that "the task of our teachers at the present moment is one of the most terrible responsibilities in modern times." In less troubled eras, some of us would probably reply that teachers have little influence over college students, who are more interested in sex, football, and liquor than in democracy and war and peace. But Bismarck declared that the German history professor had more to do with winning the Franco-Prussian war than any other group in the Fatherland with the exception of the German High Command. And the fate of France demonstrates with terrible clarity the misfortune that may befall a nation if its people are mentally unprepared to meet existing emergencies.