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The Danish pacifist, Fredrik Bajer (April 21, 1837-January 22, 1922), was born in Vester Egede, near Naestved, Denmark. The son of a clergyman named Alfred Beyer, he adopted the altered spelling of his surname in 1865. Bajer entered the Sorø Academy in 1848 and six years later a military school. In 1856 he joined the…

Ferdinand Édouard Buisson (December 20, 1841-February 16, 1932), «the world’s most persistent pacifist», was born in Paris, the son of a Protestant judge of the St.-Étienne Tribunal. For his ardent partisanship of pacifist, Radical-Socialist, anticlerical views he was vilified by journalists, attacked by clerics and conservative scholars, forced from public office by political slander, and…

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Ludwig Quidde (March 23, 1858 – March 4, 1941), the oldest son of a wealthy merchant, grew up in the republican atmosphere of the Hanseatic city of Bremen, enjoying an unusually liberal education at its humanistic gymnasium, «an education in freedom to freedom». He studied at the Universities of Strassburg and Göttingen, where his professors…

Albert Schweitzer (January 14, 1875-September 4, 1965) was born into an Alsatian family which for generations had been devoted to religion, music, and education. His father and maternal grandfather were ministers; both of his grandfathers were talented organists; many of his relatives were persons of scholarly attainments. Schweitzer entered into his intensive theological studies in…