ght be applied to our own country. And if we look into the matter
the happiness and independence of nations seem everywhere to bear a
strict proportion to their moral and intellectual training. Switzerland
spends as much money on education as on soldiers and their costly
equipment; Denmark half as much, and Belgium about a third, and these are
all prosperous and contented little States. But the great empires which
clutch territory and ignore men, spend prodigally on their armies and
parsimoniously on their people. In Prussia education obtains scarcely a
fifth of the amount lavished on preparations for war; in England only
one-sixth the amount; in Italy less than a tenth; and in Russia a hundred
pounds are squandered on turning peasants into soldiers for every twenty
shillings spent on making the peasants fitter to perform their duties in
the world. For my part I would rather see our people developed according
to their special gifts than see them masters of limitless territory or
inexhaustible gold reefs. A Celtic people trained to become all that their
nature fits them to be--humane, joyous, and generous, living diligent,
tranquil lives in their own land, and sending out from time to time, as of
old, men whose gifts and faculties fitted them to become benefactors of
mankind--that is the destiny I desire for my country. None of us can be
ignorant of the fact that a change has come over the national character in
latter times which is not altogether a change for the better. The people
are more alert and resolute than of old, and that is well; but they are
more gloomy and resentful, and something of the piety and simplicity of
old seems to have disappeared. Nature made them blithe, frank, and
hospitable; pleasant comrades and trusty friends; but hard laws and hard
taskmasters have sometimes perverted their native disposition. To my
thinking that patient, long-suffering, bitterly wronged people still
preserve fresh and perennial many of the spiritual endowments which are
among the greatest possessions of a nation. But, like soldiers returning
from a long campaign, who bring back something of the manners and _morale_
of the camp, twenty years of agitation, which however just and necessary
was inevitably demoralising, has blunted their moral sensibility. Blessed
be those who will warn them that to be just and considerate towards
friends and opponents, to refrain from cruelty or wrong under any
temptation, and to speak and act and