p the Scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, who in His Name have prevented the People from learning how
to read and write.

Look through Hansard. There never has been a Debate in the House of
Commons devoted to the question of Education itself. If the War can
teach us any lessons, as a nation--and sometimes I doubt whether it
will--it ought at least to teach us the essential vicious rottenness of
our present educational system.

This tirade may seem a far cry from Mrs. Boyce and her sister mothers.
It is not. I started by saying that there are hundreds of thousands of
British mothers, with sons in the Army, who have never read a line of
print dealing with the war, who have the haziest notion of what it is
all about. All they know is that we are fighting Germans, who for some
incomprehensible reason have declared themselves to be our enemies;
that the Germans, by hearsay accounts, are dreadful people who stick
babies on bayonets and drop bombs on women and children. They really
know little more. But that is enough. They know that it is the part of
a man to fight for his country. They would not have their sons be
called cowards. They themselves have the blind, instinctive, and
therefore sacred love of country, which is named patriotism--and they
send forth their sons to fight.

I stand up to kiss the white and delicate hand of the gentlewoman who
sends her boy to the war, for its owner knows as well as I do (or ought
to) all that is involved in this colossal struggle. But to the
toil-worn, coarse-handed mother I go on bended knees; nothing
intellectual comes within the range of her ideas. Her boy is fighting
for England. She would be ashamed if he were not. Were she a man she
would fight too. He has gone "with a good 'eart"--the stereotyped
phrase with which every English private soldier, tongue-tied, hides the
expression of his unconquerable soul. How many times have I not heard
it from wounded men healed of their wounds? I have never heard anything
else. "The man who says he WANTS to go back is a liar. But if they send
me, I'll go WITH A GOOD 'EART"--The phrase which ought to be
immortalized on every grave in Flanders and France and Gallipoli and
Mesopotamia.

17735 P'V'TE THOMAS ATKINS 1ST GOD'S OWN REG'T
HE DIED WITH A GOOD 'EART

So, you see, I looked at this rather silly malade imaginaire of an old
lady with whom I was taking tea, and suddenly conceived for her a vast
respect--even veneration. I say "rat