cook for each other in health. A tribe of Arabs or a commando of Boer
farmers would be far more competent than they.

But the said deficiency, which would be painfully illustrated by a
serious crisis, is there equally in ordinary humdrum times of peace. The
crippled and idiotic life which would bring disaster _then_ is
undermining our very existence _now_. Is it not time that a sensible
nation should look to it that every one of its members, when adult,
should at least be healthy, well-fed, and well-grown, and that each
should not only be decently developed in himself or herself, but should
be capable of bearing a useful part of some kind in the life of the
nation? Is it not time that the nation should place _first of all_ on
its programme the creation of capable and healthy citizens? Can a nation
be really effective, really strong, really secure, without this? I do
not seem to doubt a large _willingness_ among our people to-day for
mutual service and helpfulness--I believe a vast number of our young
women of the well-to-do type are at this moment deeply regretting their
inability to do anything except knit superfluous mufflers--but was there
ever in the history of the world such huge, such wide-flooding
_incompetence_? The willingness of the well-to-do classes may be judged
from their readiness to come forward with subscriptions, their
incompetence from the fact that they have _nothing else to offer_: that
is, that all they can offer is to set _some one else_ (by means of their
money) to do useful work in their place. They cannot themselves nurse
wounded soldiers, or make boots for them, or build huts or weave
blankets; they cannot help in housing or building schemes, or in schemes
for the reclaiming and cultivation of waste lands; they cannot grow corn
or bake bread or cook simple meals for the assistance of the indigent or
the aged or the feeble, because they understand none of these things;
but they can _pay some one else_ to do them--that is, they can divert