ch upon the success of individuals. It began, quite
naturally and rightly, with wanting England to win. The second stage was
that it wanted some Englishmen to win. The third stage was (in the
ecstasy and agony of some special competition) that it wanted one
particular Englishman to win. And the fourth stage was that when he had
won, it discovered that he was not even an Englishman.

This is one of the points, I think, on which something might really be
said for Lord Roberts and his rather vague ideas which vary between
rifle clubs and conscription. Whatever may be the advantages or
disadvantages otherwise of the idea, it is at least an idea of procuring
equality and a sort of average in the athletic capacity of the people;
it might conceivably act as a corrective to our mere tendency to see
ourselves in certain exceptional athletes. As it is, there are millions
of Englishmen who really think that they are a muscular race because
C.B. Fry is an Englishman. And there are many of them who think vaguely
that athletics must belong to England because Ranjitsinhji is an Indian.

But the real historic strength of England, physical and moral, has never
had anything to do with this athletic specialism; it has been rather
hindered by it. Somebody said that the Battle of Waterloo was won on
Eton playing-fields. It was a particularly unfortunate remark, for the
English contribution to the victory of Waterloo depended very much more
than is common in victories upon the steadiness of the rank and file in
an almost desperate situation. The Battle of Waterloo was won by the
stubbornness of the common soldier--that is to say, it was won by the
man who had never been to Eton. It was absurd to say that Waterloo was
won on Eton cricket-fields. But it might have been fairly said that
Waterloo was won on the village green, where clumsy boys played a very
clumsy cricket. In a word, it was the average of the nation that was
strong, and athletic glories do not indicate much about the average of a
nation. Waterloo was not won by good cricket-players. But Waterloo was
won by bad cricket-players, by a mass of men who had some minimum of
athletic instincts and habits.

It is a good sign in a nation when such things are done badly. It shows
that all the people are doing them. And it is a bad sign in a nation
when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few
experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely
looking