ion in
Prussia in 1807: 'All the inhabitants of the State are its defenders by
birth.'"

[Footnote 1: _Board of Education Special Reports,_ vol. ix. p. 43.]

At last we have reached the root of the matter. It is not German culture
which is the source and centre of the ideas to which Great Britain is
opposed: nor yet is it German militarism. Our real opponent is the system
of training and education, out of which both German culture and German
militarism spring. It is the organisation of German public life, and the
"spiritual force" of which that organisation is the outward and visible
expression.

Sec.4. _German and British Ideals of Education._--Let us look at the German
ideal more closely, for it is worthy of careful study. It is perhaps best
expressed in words written in 1830 by Coleridge, who, like other well-known
Englishmen of his day (and our own) was much under the influence of German
ideas. Coleridge, in words quoted by Dr. Sadler, defines the purpose of
national education as "to form and train up the people of the country to
obedient, free, useful, and organisable subjects, citizens and patriots,
living to the benefit of the State and prepared to die in its defence." In
accordance with this conception Prussia was the first of the larger States
in Europe to adopt a universal compulsory system of State education, and
the first also to establish a universal system of military service for its
young men. The rest of Europe perforce followed suit. Nearly every State in
Europe has or professes to have a universal system of education, and every
State except England has a system of universal military service. The Europe
of schools and camps which we have known during the last half century is
the most striking of all the victories of German "culture."

Discipline, efficiency, duty, obedience, public service; these are
qualities that excite admiration everywhere--in the classroom, in the camp,
and in the wider field of life. There is something almost monumentally
impressive to the outsider in the German alliance of School and Army in the
service of the State. Since the days of Sparta and Rome, there has been no
such wonderful governmental disciplinary machine. It is not surprising that
"German organisation" and "German methods" should have stimulated interest
and emulation throughout the civilised world. Discipline seems to many to
be just the one quality of which our drifting world is in need. "If this
war had been