ms of the
stupid system which has placed them in the position they occupy. The
education they have received has, in the first case, unfitted them for
the performance of any but mechanical and routine work; and the strain
of a competitive examination, involving the most unintellectual and
brain-paralyzing process of cram, has probably destroyed the faculty of
initiative, which should be, but is not, a distinguishing characteristic
of the administrative official.

Herein lies the secret of all opposition to progress. It is the
permanent official who needs reforming. He is the embodiment of routine
and conservatism, because he is the embodiment of mediocrity. Progress
means ideas, and mediocrity does not deal in them. It has been
furnished, instead, by a systematic course of instruction, with a
sufficient equipment of the ideas of other people to last its lifetime.
Whilst we fill our public service with specially prepared mediocrity,
the administrative departments will remain reactionary. And as long as
education is synonymous with cramming on an organized plan, it will
continue to produce mediocrity.

The army affords at the present moment an admirable object-lesson in
this connection. The results of cramming young men as a preparation for
a profession which demands, more than any other, individual initiative
and independence, have become painfully apparent upon the field of
battle. One of our foremost generals has come home from the campaign
declaring the necessity of both officers and men being trained to think
and act for themselves. That is one, perhaps the chief, of the great
lessons which this war has taught us. But here, again, no useful reform
can be achieved by alterations in the drill-book, through lectures by
experienced generals, or by the issue of army orders. It is our entire
system of education which is again at fault.

Boys are stuffed with facts before they go to Sandhurst, and when they
get there they are crammed in special subjects. The whole object of the
process is to enable candidates to pass examinations, and not to produce
good officers. The effect here is the same as elsewhere. A quantity of
useless and some useful knowledge is drilled into the pupil in such a
manner that the mind retains nothing that has been put into it. And, to
make matters worse, all this is done at the expense of retarding the
proper development of faculties which would be of incalculable value to
the soldier.

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