[73] Another instance of the fallacy is the quite unjustified prejudice in the Army in favour of "Regular" officers.
[74] The foundation of German business efficiency not on the practical science of the specialist but on theoretic and general mental exercise is further illustrated by the great and increasing prevalence of Latin and Greek in German education ... while again our own "Business Experts" are reversing the process. The passages that follow are quoted from a letter of Dr. Rice Holmes in The Times of August 11, 1916.
"In German schools not only are classics taught more systematically and more thoroughly than in all but a few of our own, but they are learned by a greater proportion of the population; and, moreover, the hours devoted to natural science in those schools in which it is taught are fewer than in our public schools.... Since 1903 the number of German boys receiving a classical education has steadily increased. In 1904 there were 196,175 pupils in schools (Gymnasien and Realgymnasien) where Latin is compulsory, of whom 153,680 belonged to the classical schools (Gymnasien), and therefore learned Greek as well (W. Lexis, Unterrichtswesen im Deutschen Reich, ii. 218); in 1911, as Mr. R. W. Livingstone has shown (The Times Educational Supplement, April 4, p. 49, col. 2), the corresponding figures were 240,000 and 170,000; and in 1908, 'out of a total of 31,622 students entering 18 out of 21 German universities (Munich, Erlangen, and Wurzburg not reporting), ... only 7-1/2 per cent entered without Latin or Greek' (Professor Francis W. Kelsey, Latin and Greek in American Education, 1911, p. 43). "Möge das Studium der griechischen und römischen Literatur immerfort die Basis der höheren Bildung bleiben." So wrote the greatest of the Germans; and the countrymen of Goethe, whose genius was scientific as well as poetical, have not forgotten his words. On the other hand, in the modern schools (Realgymnasien and Oberrealschulen) only a small fraction of the time-table—from two hours a week (out of twenty-five) to six (out of thirty-one)—is devoted to natural science. To anyone who has read Matthew Arnold's Higher Schools and Universities in Germany, or Dr. M. E. Sadler's The Realschulen in Berlin, or who is acquainted with the opinions expressed by Helmholtz, A. W. Hofmann, Bauer, and other 'eminent scientific professors,' it will not appear paradoxical that the object of thus restricting the hours devoted to the teaching of natural science in schools is to promote the scientific efficiency of the German nation. It was with this object that by the regulations published in 1901 the time devoted to Latin in the Realgymnasien was increased. And those who do not learn natural science learn what for the nation is equally important—the value of scientific method."
[75] The Daily News, October 20, 1915:—
"A pathetic story is told in the Vorwärts by Herr Adolf Köster (who acts as war correspondent for the German Socialist Press) in connection with the recent fighting at Hooge. A German soldier told him of a young Scotsman whom he had killed with a hand-grenade in whose pocket he had found a little pocket-book:—
"'We looked through the booklet. It contained postcards from the front, from home, from a sister and from a sweetheart—photographs from the battlefields of brave soldiers and from home. There was also a small amateur photograph, rather badly made, of a young girl sitting at a typewriter. She had blonde hair and on the back of the photo she had written: "Look at the waves of my hair and note also how very diligent I am" (English in the original). One of us asked the soldier to give him this photograph. But he replied: "You can take the whole book, photos, postcards, etc. But this picture I will keep in memory of my friend." By "his friend" he meant the Scotsman whom he had killed by his hand-grenade.'"
[76] Spinoza, Ethica, IV, 45.
[77] Labour Leader, March 30, 1916, quoting an address by Mr. Arthur Ponsonby, M.P.—I have not been able to verify these references, so I give the story only as an example of the method of progressive distortion, and not as one that actually occurred, though it may have done so.
[78] H. N. Brailsford (The War of Steel and Gold, p. 125) speaks of an "indifferent democracy." Unhappily our democracy is not indifferent to Imperialism, for it is misled to believe that mere expansion is somehow grand and good; the only geography it learns at school is miscalled "patriotic" because it is designed to encourage this belief.
[79] I.e. as a real "Empire," the British Empire was a failure, as all Empires must be. It has been a success since it ceased to be an Empire about a hundred years ago. Cf. Professor H. E. Egerton's remark:—