How often in the War was the complaint not heard that our people were so little able to hold their tongues, and how difficult it was, therefore, to keep even impor¬ tant secrets from the enemy’s knowledge ! But con¬ sider for yourself; did German education before the War ever bother to represent silence as a manly virtue ? No, for our existing school system regards that as a trifling matter. But that trifling matter costs the State untold millions in law expenses, since ninety per cent, of the libel cases and the like arise simply from inability to keep silence. Careless statements get cast back equally carelessly ; our national trade is constantly injured by manufacturers’ secrets being carelessly given away, and any quiet preparations for defence of the country are made illusory because the people have never learned to hold their tongues, and never stop talking. In war this passion for chattering may lose battles and be an essential cause of a war ending badly. It ought to be realized that what is not practised in youth cannot be learned when a man is fully grown up.
Deliberate development in our schools of the finer qualities is to-day non-existent. From now on it must be considered in quite a different light. Trustworthi¬ ness, readiness for self-sacrifice, silence, are virtues which a great nation needs, and training in them in our schools is more important than a lot of the stuff which now fills the school curriculum.
Thus the educational work of the national State must lay great stress on formation of character side by side with cultivation of the body. Many moral defects, now inherent in the body of the nation, might by con¬ sistent training be very greatly modified, even if not entirely extirpated.
People have often complained that throughout November and December, 1918, there was failure in every quarter, and that from the Monarch down to the last divisional commander no one could summon