To Bring Children of the World Closer Together

Let them meet as often as possible; I mean the children from England and the children from Serbia, the children from Russia and the children from France. So they will know about each other that they all are human beings, and that they all can smile in friendliness on each other. Let them travel to each other’s country; I mean the children from Germany and the children from Italy, the children from Japan and those from Scandinavia. Let them see how every spot on earth is wonderful in its way, and how worthy of love, of patriotism. When will the railway companies and ship companies say: Let the children come to us? When will they arrange the best trains, better than the royal trains, the most commodious and decorated with flowers and flags of different nations and with one special flag of the Children World Union? When the moment comes that the wonderful modern communication begins to help the children to meet each other and to pay visits to each other, at that moment the invention of steam and electricity will justify itself. In transferring the troops and facilitating crime it does not justify itself. Let the word communication be not only for the sake of crime and for the sake of bread; let it be for the sake of peace and of souls.

Let them sing together, everyone in his own tongue; I mean the children from the East and West and North and South. You should have been the other day in the Mansion House when the English and Serbian boys met together, and have listened to the English singing the Serbian and the Serbian singing the English National Anthems, and you would have been fascinated by the sweet revelation of the future world.

Let the children from the East and West and South and North, pray together. Why not? Bring them, thousands of them, to a mountain, upon which our ancestors prayed, and let them at sunset kneel down and sing some common prayer that they all know, or, if they have no such common prayer in their creeds, let them just kneel and silently pray! Such a silent prayer will do more good than any thousand years’ old discussion about religion. It is very easy to convince all the children of the world, just because they are children, that they have one Father in Heaven, and that they shall send their prayers to Him. But even if they send their prayers in different directions, they will arrive at the same place. All prayers, whenever and wherever sent, go always the same way.

Let the children from the northern ice and from the tropical heat carry on a correspondence. Millions of letters are written and sent every day, which mean nonsense and evil. The post communication will justify itself much more by bearing the children’s mail, with truth and love, than by bearing perfidious diplomatic notes or letters which mean nonsense and evil. One of the unforgettable events in Serbia during this war happened in 1914 on Christmas Day, when an American ship arrived and brought gifts and letters from the children of America to the children of Serbia. This wonderful mail produced the greatest imaginable excitement among the Serbian children. They were busy, very busy for some weeks, reading the friendly letters from so far, and answering them. I am sure they will forget many sad events of the war, but they never can forget this wonderful and surprising mail, which made for peace more than any of the costly commissions for the investigation of war cruelties, or any of Carnegie’s empty, although wonderful, luxurious halls of peace.

Let the children, the representatives of all the countries in the world, come to The Hague to hold the International Peace Congress. The programme of this Congress should be: Singing, playing, dancing, smiling and praying. They will meet as friends and speak every one in his native language, and they will understand each other very well as friends always understand each other. This Children’s Hague Conference will promote the world peace more than The Hague Conference composed of enemies, mutually annoying themselves by obligatory politeness and bad French.

But, you will ask, who is going to arrange and execute all this? The International Board of Education.

But, you will say, it will be very expensive? Yes, but, supposing it will be as expensive as the war, for which of the two do you prefer to give money—for such a salvatory experiment or for the war? Yet, I am sure of one thing, it will cost less than a war.