the good
points in a resolute enemy. As far as this war is concerned they can be
summarized under two heads: (1.) The German Board of Education, which
has developed and mobilized the last ounce of German brains and directed
them into the service of the Fatherland.[216] (2.) The German War
Office, which has mobilized Germany's physical and technical forces.

[Footnote 216: Five years ago the present author wrote in the September
number, 1910, of Macmillan's _School World_:--"Educational reforms and
plans must come from the schoolmen; they never spring of themselves from
out of the people; and this is perhaps the most deplorable admission of
all, that modern England has no great educationist or statesman capable
of formulating a national system of schools which shall develop the
intellectual material of the nation to its highest powers, and direct
those powers into the best channels. For several decades school
inspectors, etc., have visited continental countries to study their
educational systems, and have returned home with innumerable fads--but
no system. Everything of the fantastic has been copied, but no
foundations have been laid; with the result that England's educational
system to-day resembles a piece of patchwork containing a rich variety
of colours and a still greater variety of stuff-quality. It were better
for us to have done with educationists who preach about 'the rigid
uniformity of system which is alien both to the English temperament and
to the lines on which English public schools have developed.' The said
public schools have hopelessly failed to meet the necessity of a
national system of education, or to form the nucleus from which such a
system could or can develop itself. That the Falls of Niagara, however,
dissipate untold natural forces is just as true as that England wastes
immeasurable intellectual force because her forces are allowed to
dissipate through not being disciplined and bridled by a fitting
educational mechanism. Therefore let England turn to the prosaic work of
organising!"]

No other State possesses institutions to compare with them. They are the
foundation of Germany's strength, and the present author's only regret
is, that the overwhelming forces obtained by bridling the Teutonic
Niagara of brains and muscle, have been directed by a false patriotism
into the wrong channels. Still that is what Britain is up against, and
Britain can only secure an honourable victory by surpassing the