V. THE MAN-MAKING FORCES OF THE MODERN STATE

Of late years, in Great Britain more particularly, the School has been called upon to conquer still other fields. It has become apparent that in this monarchy of ours, in which honour is heaped high upon money-making, even if it is money-making that adds nothing to the collective wealth or efficiency, and denied to the most splendid public services unless they are also remunerative; where public applause is the meed of cricketers, hostile guerillas, clamorous authors, yacht-racing grocers, and hopelessly incapable generals, and where suspicion and ridicule are the lot of every man working hard and living hard for any end beyond a cabman’s understanding; in this world-wide Empire whose Government is entrusted as a matter of course to peers and denied as a matter of course to any man of humble origin; where social pressure of the most urgent kind compels every capable business manager to sell out to a company and become a “gentleman” at the very earliest opportunity, the national energy is falling away. That driving zeal, that practical vigour that once distinguished the English is continually less apparent. Our workmen take no pride in their work any longer, they shirk toil and gamble. And what is worse, the master takes no pride in the works; he, too, shirks toil and gambles. Our middle-class young men, instead of flinging themselves into study, into research, into literature, into widely conceived business enterprises, into so much of the public service as is not preserved for the sons of the well connected, play games, display an almost oriental slackness in the presence of work and duty, and seem to