battle by the British Army. There is this to be said for the working
classes, that in youth, if not longer, they in general endure a hard and
strenuous life, and at least in their school years they cannot indulge a
passion for amusement; whereas the class from which the officers of the
British Army are drawn is encouraged on the other hand to indulge it
from childhood. Owing to the prominence given in the Public Schools and
Universities to games and athletics and to the esteem in which
proficiency in these is held, youths of the upper middle and upper
classes are dumped upon the world not humbly but arrogantly ignorant of
almost everything necessary to qualify them to take their proper place
in the community. They have subsisted in a rarefied intellectual
atmosphere, and to fit themselves for any profession for which they may
have an inclination they have to be forced or "crammed" in a saturated
atmosphere by which they are congested. The result is that "young
officers now join the service with a very fair idea of cricket and
football, bridge, and even motor-driving; but with no education in
patriotism; no real acquaintance with the history or geography of their
own or other countries; unable to write English concisely, or even
grammatically;[14] unaccustomed to read general information for
themselves other than under the headings of the _Daily Mail_; unable to
talk a foreign language; and with no knowledge of the sciences which are
of military use."[15] To this may be added the fact that these young
dullards, the supply of whom is dwindling, are, on joining the service,
encouraged and accepted rather with reference to their sporting and
social qualities than to their military capacity.

England, as a sporting, athletic, and game-loving nation, has of late
years suffered many rebuffs. By the United States she has been taught
the scientific method of riding racehorses, and also of sailing yachts;
she has been defeated in polo by a Transatlantic team; her selected