Life, 1916-02-17 · page 13 of 52
Life — February 17, 1916 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine page satirizes early 20th-century military education. The main cartoon depicts **Attila the Second, Chapter V**, showing a military instructor teaching "ignorant subjects in gunnery, theology, cookery, harmony, shorthand, portraiture and the sciences." The joke invokes Attila the Hun—history's archetypal brutal conqueror—to mock an overly ambitious educational curriculum. By naming the instructor "Attila the Second," the cartoonist suggests that such comprehensive, scattered teaching represents intellectual barbarism rather than genuine learning. The accompanying text discusses diplomats Meyer and Beale's street fight near the Metropolitan Club in Washington, implying that even "trained and experienced diplomats" resort to crude violence—supporting the cartoon's theme that civilization merely masks brutish behavior.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HE INSTRUCTS HIS IGNORANT SUBJECTS IN GU Modem Version HE Russ who fights And runs away Comes back to fight Another day. Two Gentlemen Have It Out HEN we were advocating a bigger navy and army, and contending that we could hold them without getting rush of soldiers to the head, it was quite an embarrassment to have two trained and experienced diplomats like Mr. Meyer and Mr. Beale treat themselves to a street fight in front of the Metropolitan Club in Washington. And the papers said the difference ATTILA THE SECOND. CHAPTER V PORTRAITURE AND THE SCIENCES grew out of an armament discussion! Of course, all the advocates of Na- tional Nakedness raised the hand to call attention to what the war spirit leads to. But, after all, if gentlemen can ease their war ginger in street fights now and then, that isn’t so bad. In the fight in question nobody was much hurt, the munition-makers were not a cent the richer, no pacifist hearts bled any in advance, and the whole country got a spasm of entertainment. So the net results were not particu- larly detrimental. Mr. Meyer is an important and fairly articulate member of a party that thinks the present administration side-steps too much. He is now in a position to NNERY, THEOLOGY, COOKERY, HARMONY, SHORTHAND, give us a little dissertation on the rela- tive merits of side-stepping and hav- ing it out, Mr. Meyer has the floor. Mind Your Words! EVER speak disparagingly of your fellowman, no matter how utterly vulgar, ugly, cowardly, intemperate, un- truthful, hypocritical, disreputable, low- born, and altogether insufferable he may be. Vandalism OT long since Europeans were decrying the irreverence of vulgar American vandals who were taking art treasures away from the Continent.