century, community of language might seem to be the background of national life. It touches the most sympathetic chords in our hearts. Italians worked for the overthrow of all the small local and great foreign interests that were opposed to the national unity of all Italian-speaking people. German patriots strove for the federation of the German-speaking people in one empire. The struggles in the Balkans are largely due to a desire for national independence according to the limits of speech. The Poles are longing for a re-establishment of their state which is to embrace all those of Polish tongue.
WITHOUT THE BOND OF LANGUAGE
Still this does not comprise the whole of nationalism, for no less ardent is the patriotism of bilingual Belgium and of trilingual Switzerland. Even here in America we see that the bond of tongue is not the only one. Else we should feel that there is no reason for a division between Canada and the United States, and that the political ties between western Canada and French Quebec must be artificial. Neither would it be intelligible why modern Germany should never have pursued the policy of unifying all German-speaking peoples in Europe, why she should not covet the large German provinces of Austria, and should patiently witness the forcible Russianization of the German towns in the Baltic provinces and the Magyarization of the Germans in Hungary.
Neither the bonds of blood nor those of language alone make a nation. It is rather the community of emotional life that rises from our every-day habits, from the forms of our thoughts, feelings, and actions, which constitute the medium in which every individual can unfold freely his activities.
