Danke, Geburtstagskind.

If peace is ever to be secure, there will have to be great changes in education. At present, children are taught to love their country to the exclusion of other countries, and among their countrymen in history those whom they are specially taught to admire are usually those who have shown most skill in killing foreigners. An English child is taught to admire Nelson and Wellington; a French child, to admire Napoleon; and a German child, Barbarossa. These are not among those of the child’s countrymen who have done most for the world. They are those who have served their country in ways that must be forever closed if man is to survive. The conception of Man as one family will have to be taught as carefully as the opposite is now taught. This will not be an easy transition.

Bertrand Russell: A New Approach to Peace