This is one of the strongest instances of the particular kind of evil that arises from our English form of the worship of athletics.  It concentrates too much 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 on.  Suppose that whenever we heard of walking in England it always meant walking forty-five miles a day without fatigue.  We should be perfectly certain that only a few men were walking at all, and that all the other British subjects were being wheeled about in Bath-chairs.  But if when we hear of walking it means slow walking, painful walking, and frequent fatigue, then we know that the mass of the nation still is walking.  We know that England is still literally on its feet.