he blunders of the war are, in fact, attributable to want of
common sense, and common sense consists in the capacity of an individual
to think for himself and to exercise his judgment. Educational methods
which, in the majority of cases, appear to destroy this faculty
altogether are clearly pernicious. Common sense is the most valuable
gift with which man can be endowed. It is the very essence of genius,
for it consists in the application of intelligence to every detail, and
the highest order of intellect can accomplish no more than that. Yet it
is the rarest of all attributes, for the very reason that it is
deliberately destroyed by conventional methods of bringing up children
and instructing youth. Therefore, before we can hope to obtain a supply
of self-reliant officers and men, we must see some radical change in the
very principles upon which modern methods of education are founded.

Wherever we go we find this curse of mediocrity. In the professions, at
the Bar, in the pulpit, amongst physicians, it is apparent everywhere.
There are clever men, of course; but the very fact that their names
spring at once prominently to mind is in itself a proof that ability is
exceptional.

Some people, of course, accepting the world as they find it, may think
it very unreasonable to expect able men to be plentiful in all walks of
life. That is, to my mind, the chief pathos of the situation. It has
come to be accepted that the world must be filled with a great majority
of very commonplace people, even amongst the educated classes.

No doubt it is filled at the present moment with a very vast
preponderance of conventional minds manufactured to meet the supposed
requirements of our complicated civilization. But I deny that this need
be the case. On the contrary, we are surrounded on all sides by ability,
by great possibilities of individual development, even by genius.

And our education systems are busily engaged in the work of destroying
this precious material, substituting facts for ideas, forcing the mind
away from its natural bent, and manufacturing a machine instead of a
man.

CHAPTER II

SQUARE PEGS IN ROUND HOLES

Perhaps the worst evil from which the world suffers in an educational
sense is the misplaced individual. Nothing is more tragic, and yet
nothing is more common, than to see men occupying positions for which
they are unfitted by nature and therefore by inclination; whilst it is
obvious that, had the c