Can National Service Become Integral to Our Culture?

Most accounts of the long roller-coaster ride of the idea of universal national service see William James as the father of the idea. After delivering an influential address at Stanford University in 1906, the popular philosopher elaborated his proposal in 1910 in a long, widely read essay titled 'The Moral Equivalent of War.' 'This is my idea,' James wrote. 'Instead of military conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature.' Through such service, he asserted, 'injustice would tend to be evened out' and 'numerous other goods to the commonwealth' would result. 'Our gilded youths' would 'get the childishness knocked out of them' and 'come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas.' He predicted: 'It is only a question of blowing on the spark until the whole population gets incandescent.' In the decades since, there has been a continuing discussion over James's idea-whether it should be mandatory or voluntary, and, if voluntary, whether it could become as common an expectation as finishing high school is now. There have been high and low points for national service. The question today remains: Can blowing on the spark succeed in making enough Americans incandescent about the idea so that it becomes an accepted part of our culture? Adapted from the source document.