Rudyard Kipling hymn and footnotes (or how to brainwash in two easy verses)

294 Germany. L. M.

1 Father in heaven, who lovest all,
   O help Thy children when they call;
   That they may build from age to age
   An undefiled heritage.

2 Teach us to bear the yoke in youth,
   With steadfastness and careful truth;
   That, in our time, Thy grace may give
   The truth whereby the nations live.

3 Teach us to rule ourselves alway,
   Controlled and cleanly night and day;
   That we may bring, if need arise,
   No maimed or worthless sacrifice.

4 Teach us to look in all our ends
   On Thee for Judge, and not our friends;
   That we, with Thee, may walk uncowed
   By fear or favour of the crowd.

5 Teach us the strength that cannot seek,
   By deed or thought, to hurt the weak;
   That, under Thee, we may possess
   Man's strength to comfort man's distress.

6 Teach us delight in simple things,
   And mirth that has no bitter springs;
   Forgiveness free of evil done,
   And love to all men 'neath the sun.
                         Rudyard Kipling
                         The Methodist Hymnal 1939 edition

<idle musing>
I'm blogging about this hymn not because I like it; I find it mediocre at best. Nor am I posting it because it was written by Rudyard Kipling. The reason is because of the footnoted two verses:

1 Land of our birth, we pledge to thee
   Our love and toil in the years to be,
   When we are grown and take our place
   As men and women with our race.

7 Land of our birth, our faith, our pride,
   For whose dear sake our fathers died;
   O Motherland, we pledge to thee
   Head, heart, and hand through the years to be.

Now, remember this hymnal was originally published in 1939, close to the height of the America First movement and just prior to the outbreak of WWII. Anti-immigrant feelings were running high, if anything higher than they are right now. Racism was rampant, even worse than today. Ever heard of lynchings? They were still happening. (Now we just shoot them—not sure that's an improvement!)

The verses are bad enough in and of themselves, but the footnote is what really burned me:

This may be used as a children's patriotic hymn by use of the following stanzas.

Look, a hymn that pledges allegiance to any earthly authority as ultimate is bad enough. But to endorse it with the suggestion that it would be appropriate for children is just too much like brainwashing for me. I wonder if the irony of the tune title was lost on them: Germany. And the first line of the (real) first verse: "Father in heaven, who lovest all." Of course, that's offset by the last line, with its "undefiled heritage"—a code word in those days for eugenics.

I can somewhat understand that in 1939 the cultural climate was conducive to it, but I own the 1963 reprint—and it's still in there! I guess we didn't learn anything from the pledge to the fatherland and race and what it can do to people, did we?

What a way to start the new year…
</idle musing>