"Be
good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever," we have said to
Britannia. So we have acquiesced in being the worst educated people
west of the Slav frontier.
I do not wish to dwell on the disadvantages which we have thus
incurred in international competition--our inferiority to Germany in
chemistry, and to almost every continental nation in scientific
agriculture. This lesson we are learning, and are not likely to
forget. It is our spiritual loss which we need to realise more fully.
In the first place, the majority of Englishmen have no thought-out
purpose in life beyond the call of "duty," which is an empty ideal
until we know what our duty is. Confusion of means and ends is
especially common in this country, though it is certainly to be found
everywhere. The passion for irrational accumulation is one example of
the error, which causes the gravest social inconvenience. The largest
part of social injustice and suffering is caused by the unchecked
indulgence of the acquisitive instinct by those who have the
opportunity of indulging it, and who have formed a blind habit of
indulging it. No one, however selfish, who had formed any reasonable
estimate of the relative values of life, would devote his whole time
to the economical exploitation of his neighbours, in order to pile up
the instruments of a fuller life, which he will never use. To regard
business as a kind of game is, from the highest point of view, right,
and our nation gains greatly by applying the ethics of sport to all
our external activities; but we err in living for our games, whether
they happen to be commerce or football.
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