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 consider it rather good form to
do so. And seeking for some reason and some remedy for this remarkable
phenomenon, a number of patriotic gentlemen have discovered that the
Schools, the Schools are to blame. Something in the nature of Reform
has to be waved over our schools.

It would be a wicked deed to write anything that might seem to imply
that our Schools were not in need of very extensive reforms, or that
their efficiency is not a necessary preliminary condition to general
public efficiency, but, indeed, the Schools are only one factor in a
great interplay of causes, and the remedy is a much ampler problem than
any Education Act will cure. Take a typical young Englishman, for