in the Public Schools and Universities to games and athletics and to the esteem in which proficiency in these is held, youths of the upper middle and upper classes are dumped upon the world not humbly but arrogantly ignorant of almost everything necessary to qualify them to take their proper place in the community.  They have subsisted in a rarefied intellectual atmosphere, and to fit themselves for any profession for which they may have an inclination they have to be forced or “crammed” in a saturated atmosphere by which they are congested.  The result is that “young officers now join the service with a very fair idea of cricket and football, bridge, and even motor-driving; but with no education in patriotism; no real acquaintance with the history or geography of their own or other countries; unable to write English concisely, or even grammatically;[14] unaccustomed to read general information for themselves other than under the headings of the Daily Mail; unable to talk a foreign language; and with no knowledge of the sciences which are of military use."[15] To this may be added the fact that these young dullards, the supply of whom is dwindling, are, on joining the service, encouraged and accepted rather with reference to their sporting and social qualities than to their military capacity.

England, as a sporting, athletic, and game-loving nation, has of late years suffered many rebuffs.  By the United States she has been taught the scientific method of riding racehorses, and also of sailing yachts; she has been defeated in polo by a Transatlantic team; her selected representative horsemen are unsuccessful in the International Military Tournaments; she cannot defeat Australia on the cricket field; a Belgian crew holds its own at Henley.  If these rebuffs tend to abate the mania for watching the performances of a handsome but not particularly intelligent quadruped, and for studying the various methods of imparting motion to a Ball and to show the vanity of the passion for sports and games when indulged to excess, they will have served their purpose.  The nation, disgusted at its want of success in its favourite pursuits, may perhaps turn its manhood to the noblest pursuit of all, the defence of the Fatherland; and then it will not be the betting and football news that has to be blacked out of the daily papers in the free libraries, but the bi-weekly military gazettes, the reports from the military stations and the Special Correspondents’ letters from Salisbury Plain during the manoeuvres.

Notes: 

[Footnote 2:  In justice to the War Office it should be stated that this was inserted at the instance of Sir Redvers Buller, who believed that he would be able to raise in South Africa a sufficient force of mounted troops.]

[Footnote 3:  B. Viljoen in his “Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War” frequently complains of the insubordination, the malingering, and the cowardice of his followers, and of the incompetence of his superior officers.]