I find that form of
impatience cropping up everywhere. I hear echoes of Mr. Blatchford's
"Wanted, a Man," and we may yet see a General Boulanger prancing in our
streets. There never was a more foolish cry. It is not a man we want,
but just exactly as many million men as there are in Great Britain at
the present time, and it is you, the reader, and I, and the rest of us
who must together go on with the perennial task of saving the country by
_firstly_, doing our own jobs just as well as ever we can, and
_secondly_--and this is really just as important as firstly--doing our
utmost to grasp our national purpose, doing our utmost, that is, to
develop and carry out our National Plan. It is Everyman who must be the
saviour of the State in a modern community; we cannot shift our share in
the burthen; and here again, I think, is something that may well be
underlined and emphasised. At present our "secondly" is unduly
subordinated to our "firstly"; our game is better individually than
collectively; we are like a football team that passes badly, and our
need is not nearly so much to change the players as to broaden their
style. And this brings me, in a spirit entirely antagonistic, up against
Mr. Galsworthy's suggestion of an autocratic revolution in the methods
of our public schools.
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