school yard. No systematic effort is made to interest the children of
the operative classes in Greater Britain. India and the Colonies are
facts in geography troublesome to learn and easy to forget. The history
of the British Empire is sterilized before it is imparted to them. They
are not taught to realize that the happiness and prosperity of a large
proportion of the inhabitants of the world are dependent upon the moods
of the population of a small group of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, and
that in the ballot-boxes of Great Britain are cast the fortunes of many
millions of their fellow-creatures.

Foreigners have remarked that the minstrelsy of Great Britain is
singularly devoid of patriotic songs. The British soldier has no
"Star-Spangled Banner" or "Wacht am Rhein" to sing on the line of march
or in the bivouac, but only the last comic or sentimental ditty which he
may have heard at the Garrison Music Hall before embarking on active
service. The National Anthem is not a patriotic song but a prayer for
Divine Protection for the Sovereign, to which have been appended some
inappropriate stanzas now rarely heard; while "Rule, Britannia!" might
have been composed for the gasconading swashbuckler of an extravaganza.

It would therefore be surprising if the recruit joined the Army with a
highly pitched conception of the work he has undertaken. Destitution; or
trouble about a woman, or with his own people, or with the police; or
the mysterious magnetism of an adventurous life rather than the desire
to serve his country, has induced him to enlist. An existing or
prospective War always keeps the recruiting sergeant busy, but the
object of a War is a matter of indifference to the recruit. Most of our
wars have been waged for political reasons which he cannot understand.
Apart from the difficulties of language and of unaccustomed
environments, he would as readily serve in any other Army in which the