PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 635 



are willing enough to listen to the orator who merely appeals to their fighting 

 instincts and join in the game of grab as against the employer ? On the other 

 hand, strikes have occurred when employers have honourably carried out their 

 obligations and undertakings, and the men have shamefully departed from an 

 agreement made by their- chosen leaders, throwing over the leaders the 

 moment they have fancied it to their own selfish interests to do so and without 

 a single thought of their duty to the community as a whole. 



We have recently seen the Prime Minister and other leading statesmen 

 struggling, sometimes in vain, to bring large bodi.<i3 of men to a reasonable 

 state of mind. Is not this (and I speak without the slightest reference to 

 party questions) a case of Nemesis overtaking us for having in so many cases 

 pandered to the selfish instincts of large bodies of men in order to secure their 

 votes, instead of sternly telling them unpalatable truths ? 



There was recently an intensely interesting article by the late Professor 

 Friedrich Paulson, previously Professor of Philosophy in Berlin University, 

 published in the ' Educational Review ' of New York. In this article, the 

 subject of which was ' old and new fashioned notions about education,' he 

 pointed out that the whole of our educational system was going wrong, and 

 that we could not escape the conviction that a tendency towards weaknesa 

 and effeminacy was its chief trait. His three mottoes were : learn to obey; 

 learn to apply yourself ; learn to repress and overcome desires ; and he remarked 

 with great truth under the first htvading : ' He who has not learned to do this 

 in childhooti will have great difficulty in learning it in later life ; he will rarely 

 get beyond the deplorable and unhappy state that vacillates between outward 

 submission and uproarious rebellion.' 



Is not one of the first things the reform of our educational system ? 



The other day a writer in the Spectator said with great truth that ' what 

 Great Britain is suffering from acutely and dangerously at the present time is 

 the absence of discipline,' and a neutral writer in the Times remarked as 

 follows: 'The uniformity of German effort, due doubtless to their myriad 

 well-organised, machine-like minds, though it renders them excessively tiresome 

 people to dwell among in peace time, enables their Government to extract 

 every ounce of energy in the conduct of a war.' He further went on to say 

 that the British Empire 'could not have been created by minds like these, 

 but it should not be forgotten that in the concentration necessary to national 

 effort in a struggle like this the German system of self-subservience to the 

 State has enormous advantages.' 



One of the tasks to which the British Association might bend its energies 

 with the greatest benefit to the country, is to bring about a reform of "our 

 educational system, so that while we do not kill individual enterprise and 

 freedom of thought, which have contributed so largely to the political organisa- 

 tion and constitution of the British Empire, of the value of which we have 

 had such wonderful evidence from our Colonies and dependencies during this 

 War, we seek to implant in tho minds of young and old those ideas of discipline 

 and service to the State, the want of which so seriously threatens the successful 

 organisation of our industrial life. 



Conclusion. 



In bringing my address to a close I hope I have made it clear that I 

 have had throughout a practical object. Expressed briefly, it is that the 

 service of every agency is wanted for definite work at this crisis, both in the 

 actual war, and afterwards in the war of industry which will be waited 

 with equal intensity in peace time. The British Association cannot be s'aid 

 to have undertaken as a whole a work of this kind, yet one finds a creneral 

 desire on the part of every member that something should be done. With this 

 object I communicated with the President, and found that both he and such of 

 the officers as could be got in touch with were in entire sympathy with the 

 general proposal, and advised that our Section, like that of Economics, should 

 start at once with a committee on the subject. I have great hopes that such 

 a committee will be formed, but I have no hopes of either our own sub-committee 

 or the committee of the Association as a whole doing any good, unless they are 



