age in private and individual work done during a lad's school
life. For it is only by means of independent work that the pupil learns
to hold his own against external difficulties, and to find in his own
strength, in his own nature, in his own being, the means of resisting
such difficulties and of prevailing over them.'

The inevitable result of this sacrifice of individuality must be the
intellectual decay of the nation, or at least its degeneration into a
state of hopeless mediocrity. Unless, therefore, Germany can persuade
other countries to adopt similar tactics, and to meet her on the plane
where she has already obtained the start of a generation, she must come
hopelessly to grief in the future.

Unfortunately, there seems every indication that the statesmen who lead
rival nations are only too ready to follow Germany's blind lead. In this
country it is only the blessed ignorance of the people which is holding
back those who are anxious to commit the folly that has put pounds,
shillings, and pence into German pockets, at the cost of taking
originality and character out of German heads.

This educational suicide, it must also be remembered, can only be
committed without serious social disturbance in a despotically-governed
country like the German Empire. In England, with our system of party
government, a complete measure of State control in educational matters
would create a political pandemonium that would be little short of
appalling.

The party struggles of the future would, if this Prussian system were
transplanted here, centre round educational control. The schools would
no longer be regarded as establishments for the instruction of youth;
they would be looked upon simply as the nursery of the future voter. A
Conservative Government would cram everything into the curriculum
calculated to stifle inconveniently progressive ideas, whilst a Radical
Government would try to banish from the schools all established beliefs
and conventions.

Between these opposing stools the manufactured scholar would fall
lamentably to the ground. He would be neither fish, flesh, nor fowl.
There would be a perpetual chopping and changing in the methods of his
education, from which he would not even derive the benefit, so
gratefully acknowledged by Wordsworth, of being neglected by his
teachers.

To talk of beating Germany at her own game is, therefore, the height of
absurdity. Nothing could result from such an endeavour but ruin