the disaster of the great war came to sanderson as a tremendous distressful stimulant, a monstrous and tragic turn in human affairs that he had to square with his aims and teaching. he had had our common awareness of its possibility, and yet when the crash came it took him, as it took most of us, by surprise. at first he accepted the war as a dire heroic necessity. this aggression of a military imperialism had to be faced valiantly. that was how he saw it. both his sons joined up at the earliest possible moment, and the school braced itself up to train its senior boys as officers, to help in the production of munitions, to produce aviators, gunners and engineers for the great service of the war.
[pg 98]
the practical quality of the old boys from oundle became apparent at once. they stepped from laboratory and factory and office into commissions; they returned from all over the world to prepare for the battlefields. by 1918 over a thousand oundle boys had gone into the fighting services, three had v.c.'s, many had been mentioned in despatches, awarded the military cross and the like.
he did his best to find god and creative force in the world convulsion. here is a part of an address to the church parade of the cadet corps which shows his very fine and very human struggle to impose a nobility of interpretation upon the grim distressful last stages of the war.
'it is a pleasant thing to wander about these fields and watch the cadets who are told off to instruct their squads. it is a splendid illustration of the power of co-operation in education—where boys and men, or where a community work together, teaching one another, learning one from the other, where all are teachers and scholars, a body of co-workers, helping, encouraging, stimulating each other. this community method is dominant wherever there is a great stirring, e.g.[pg 99] a great call, a great pressing into a new kingdom; wherever there is a great discovery and a new need. the war will establish it in schools.
and just one word when you go forth from here. you will carry this mutual co-operative spirit with you. you will love your men, take care of their interests, making full use of their individual faculties, and learn to be co-workers with them.
it is often said that wars will never cease—that they are a necessity—and in a sense this is true. one thing we know quite well, that in all affairs of life peace may be simply the peace of death. there is the peace of lifelessness, of inactivity, notwithstanding all its autumnal beauty. there is the quiet peace which changes not, the conventional belief, the conventional kind of round of work, with lack of initiative, of experiment, of testing and trials. there is the peace which follows on contentment with things as they are, the peace of death. the land of peace and of convention, and of cruel contentment. the land of dark satanic mills—as in blake's imagery. war may come to break up this deathful peace. so said john ruskin. i have a letter[pg 100] written to me just when the war broke out. in july 1914 the o.t.c. was inspected by general birkbeck, and in his speech he expressed his belief that war was coming. on 2nd august, 1914, he wrote to me:—
"dear mr. sanderson,—we little thought when i spoke to those boys of yours how near we were to our trial!" and he adds: "these are the words of a peaceful philosopher, mr. ruskin, when concluding a series of lectures on war at woolwich royal academy institution, which may give you comfort. men talk of peace and plenty, of peace and learning, of peace and civilisation; but i found that those are not the words which the muse of history has coupled together! on her lips the words are peace and selfishness, peace and sensuality, peace and death!!! i learned, in short, that all great nations learned their truth of word and strength of thought in war; that they were taught by war and betrayed by peace—trained by war and deceived by peace—nourished in war and decayed in peace; in a word, that they were born in war and expired in peace."
this is the prophet's call to arise and awaken out of sleep; to abandon the easy life of routine and routine's belief. it is a call to rise up and breathe life into the dry bones of the past; it is[pg 101] the trumpet blast for active warfare against all things that have become lifeless and dead. it is the herald call for a new army, to build up a new world of active, creative, dynamic peace.'
