Mr. Baldwin's treatment of patriotism was delightful. At its best,
he said, it was a noble virtue. It was an emotion, a primitive instinct, not an intellectual concept: It was based in childhood on the love of fields and wood's and streams, and later not only on that but on the love of serving such a country. " You cannot make the world the better by abandoning one of the most powerful motives to noble action that the world has yet known." The whole passage distinguishing true from false patriotism was extremely fine. With such sound political advice before them people will not be in much danger of reverting to an empty, flag-waving, vulgar jingoism. " Pure patriotism which asks nothing and seeks nothing, which gives service because it ' can no more,' is the necessary ingredient in the character upon which a great democracy is built."
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