s. It may well be taken in that
case as a model for us to copy.

People should, however, ask themselves these questions: Is it
international commercial rivalry that produces the necessity of a State
system of education to equip the nation for the struggle? Or is it the
State system of education, with its organized attempt to manufacture a
race of traders, which has artificially created the state of commercial
warfare into which we are rapidly drifting?

The answer seems to me to be plain enough.

The individuality of individuals is rapidly disappearing throughout that
part of the world which has chosen to subject itself to uniform
education systems. One Englishman is much like another, in the same way
that Russians, or Germans, or Frenchmen resemble each other. In other
words, the only individuality which education is leaving us is that of
nationality; and the reason of this is because the manners, the customs,
and the school systems of various countries still differ to a certain
extent.

Instead, therefore, of the individual competing against the individual,
we are rapidly approaching the point where the whole strength and
resources of each nation will be employed to co-operate against the rest
of the world. And this is no mere natural outcome of evolution. Germany,
with her extraordinary cuteness and foresight, invented the game for her
own benefit a generation or two ago. She has spent the best part of half
a century equipping herself, hand over fist, for this kind of commercial
contest.

But what is she sacrificing in order to obtain this triumph of the
trader?

There cannot be a question that she is deliberately and systematically
throwing away the most precious of all human possessions--the character
of the individual. At the Berlin Conference on Secondary Education, held
in 1890, Dr. Virchow observed: 'I regret that I cannot bear my testimony
to our having made progress in forming the character of pupils in our
schools. When I look back over the forty years during which I have been
Professor and Examiner--a period during which I have been brought in
contact not only with physicians and scientific investigators, but also
with many other types of men--I cannot say that I have the impression
that we have made material advances in training up men with strength of
character. On the contrary, I fear that we are on a downward path. The
number of "characters" becomes smaller. And this is connected with the
shrink