5 Science in Public Affairs 



how badly it must be one of the objects of this 

 essay to show. For, verily, in this matter we 

 have drifted too long. A lethargic public opinion 

 muddles on from one mild sensation to another, 

 and the nation's open sores call aloud for help, 

 but in vain. A Committee reports on Physical 

 Deterioration ; politicians hungering for a party 

 cry, or eager only to let sleeping dogs lie, and 

 fanatics with some cure-all nostrum, eagerly catch 

 up the Report, but its language is too mild for 

 them. They find no grand and drastic reform 

 proposed, only a number of remedies, minor in 

 themselves, however cumulatively far - reaching. 

 As a result, the Report is shelved. Yet the docu- 

 ment is worthy of close and continued attention. 

 Taken together with its immediate predecessor, 

 the Report of the Royal Commission on Physical 

 Training (Scotland), it covers most of the ground 

 before us. From the study of both these docu- 

 ments, and perhaps still more from the manner 

 in which they have been received, one fact is 

 abundantly clear, that the wheels of social reform 

 drag heavily for want of adequate driving-power. 

 It is no doubt disappointing to find that the 

 great evils complained of cannot be cured by the 

 " hi-presto " of a sweeping Act of Parliament, but 

 there is some comfort in knowing that while poli- 

 ticians are rising early and sitting up late at West- 

 minster, with little reaping to show for their much 

 sowing, the press, the platform, the schoolmaster, 

 and the still more potent influences of private 

 example and precept, may speed the day when a 



