Chapter LXXXVIII: Book IX: The Next Stage in History (8)

G. M., I submit, has not grasped the modern idea in education. The modern idea of a public school as exemplified in such a case as Oundle does not fill up the time of the boy with prescribed work and games; it leaves large spaces for self-development; but also it provides museums, a good collection of pictures, libraries, and an abundance of good music in addition to the mere “playing fields” of the old type of public school. And it inquires into the use a boy is making of his free energies. The phase of “cram” is over, but the new schools do provide good pasture, show the way thither, and “vet” a boy who displays no appetite. G. M. ignores entirely the clear statement in the text that Gladstone was a grossly _ignorant_ man, and the instances given of the feebleness and worthlessness of the “generalized science” these boys of the old persuasion picked up. So far from the old classical training being the education of an aristocratic class, it was, as G. M. admits within a line or so, the education of a few individuals, the rest of the class remaining barbarians. It may have aimed at culture and inner development, but it missed its aim. Consequently, the bright lads of the Gladstone-Macaulay-Peel type who did not pick up a few enlightened ideas by accident or at home, were quite unable to carry their own class with them; it remained politically boorish. They had to appeal for understanding to classes whose education had been free from “classical” pretentiousness....

These notes submitted to E. B. at this stage provoked him to a warm protest. His sympathies were “heart and soul with G. M.,” and Mr. Gladstone, he declared with emphasis, was not an ignorant man. A little more must be said on this question. If the reader realize, what we have been trying to make clear in this history, that human progress is largely mental progress, a clearing and an enlargement of ideas, then he will understand why it is that the compiler of this _Outline_ has given so much space here to these controversial notes upon the education of Mr. Gladstone. For the education of Mr. Gladstone was typical of that ruling-class education which has dominated British and European affairs, so far as they have been dominated by ideas, up to the present time. It is most significant of the differences and difficulties of our age that the statement, which seemed to the writer a simple statement of an obvious fact, that Mr. Gladstone was a profoundly ignorant man, should have so scandalized two of the editors of this work. No doubt Mr. Gladstone knew much and knew many things, and it is just because he did so and was in many respects the fine flower of the education of his period, that his ignorance is so interesting to us. Many Chinese mandarins knew much and many things--beautifully. And were ignorant men. Mr. Gladstone’s was not the ignorance of deficiency, but the ignorance of excess, a copious ignorance; it was not a failure to know this or that particular fact, an ignorance excusable enough, but a profound and sought-after and established ignorance of reality, so that he did not grasp the bearing of definite facts presented to him or of far-reaching ideas put before him, upon the great issues with which he was concerned. He lived, as it were, in a luminous and blinding cloud. That cloud, which I call his ignorance, my two editors call his wonderful and abounding culture. It was a culture that wrapped about and adorned the great goddess Reality. But indeed he is not to be adorned but stripped. She ceases to be herself or to bless her votary unless she is faced stark and faced fearlessly.--H. G. W.

[476] The impression made on me, an old Gladstonian, by Gladstone’s politics, was mainly twofold. (1) A strong assertion that politics were (as Aristotle said) a development of ethics, and concerned with discovering and doing what is Right, not what is convenient or profitable to any particular class or nation. (2) A strong subconscious suggestion that the highest education and culture and knowledge were useful for politics, which was in fact a very high practical art, demanding the highest qualities. Hence largely the horror we had of Dizzy. (3) A general sanguine conviction that Honesty was the best policy; that what was right would also prove to be ultimately the most profitable, so that there was no real conflict.

I do not say that Mr. G. acted consistently up to these principles, or that they could be acted up to; but they formed the milk of the word for most of us.--G. M.

I cannot agree that Gladstone was a prophet of nationalism. He was a prophet of Liberalism, and, as such, a hater of oppression. He protested against Bourbon oppression in Naples or Turkish oppression in Bulgaria or Armenia; but to protest against oppression is not to champion nationalism. Gladstone championed not nationalism, but internationalism; he emphasized the idea that “public right” should control the relations of states. The fine words which Mr. Asquith used to state the British cause in August, 1914, were (unless I am mistaken) an echo of Gladstone’s own words. A noble objection to oppression; a noble championing of the rule of public right--these were the staples of Gladstone’s prophecy. The pity was that, when it came to the actual handling of foreign affairs (_e.g._ in Egypt about 1884), Gladstone could not translate his ideals into practice.--E. B.

[477] G. B. Stern’s _Children of No Man’s Land_ is a novel of this topic of British nationality in relation to German Jews written with great insight.

[478] The doctrine of nationalities was in reality a legacy of French revolutionary theory. From the men of the First Republic, who found it a useful excuse for a forward foreign policy in the best Richelieu tradition, it passed into the possession of Napoleon, who gave more attention to it at St. Helena than he had ever done at the Tuileries. Thence it came naturally into the political inheritance of Napoleon III, who sacrificed France to his belief in it. Gladstone only got it by a side wind, the theory having drifted into the British tradition by reason of the accident of Canning’s anti-interventionist foreign policy during the Spanish-American War of Independence.--P. G.

[479] This is a paradox to which I cannot subscribe. Please put me down as convinced of the opposite.--E. B.

[480] Albert Thomas in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_.

[481] There were also hopes of an Italian alliance for France, and these, combined with the anti-Prussian direction of Austrian policy, and the Franco-Russian _rapprochement_ which had followed the Crimean War, almost justified Napoleon in believing that he would not be left entirely alone.--P. G.

[482] Hence “Jingo” for any rabid patriot.

[483] See _England’s Debt to India_ by Lajpat Rai for a good statement of India’s economic grievance.

[484] Now a French Protectorate.--P. G.

[485] See Putnam Weale’s _Indiscreet Letters from Pekin_, a partly fictitious book, but true and vivid in its effects.

[486] With the exception of one wretched Dutch factory on the minute island of Deshima in the harbour of Nagasaki. The Dutch were exposed to almost unendurable indignities. They had no intercourse with any Japanese except the special officials appointed to deal with them.

[487] A new and much more liberal Maltese constitution was promulgated in June, 1920, practically putting Malta on the footing of a self-governing colony.

[488] All intelligent Englishmen or Englishwomen with a vote owe it to the Empire and themselves to read at least one book dealing with India or Egypt from the native point of view. For India, Lajpat Rai’s Political Future of India is to be recommended. A compact book running counter to the views in this text, and giving the Church missionary point of view, is the Rev. W. E. S. Holland’s Goal of India. William Archer’s _India and the Future_ is an interesting display of the temperamental clash of a Nordic writer with things Dravidian. It sustains the argument that even the most high-minded Nordic type cannot be trusted to govern other races sympathetically. (See also in that matter Archer’s _In Afro-America_.) The Aga Khan’s _India in Transition_ gives very admirably the views of a liberal Indian gentleman. Sidney Low’s _A Vision of India_ is still not yet superseded as a picture of India in 1905-6, when the present stir was only brewing.

[489] A very good book for the expansion of this chapter is Stearns Davis’ (with Anderson and Tyler) _Armed Peace_, a history of Europe from 1870 to 1914. Even more illuminating is G. P. Gooch’s _History of Our Time (1885-1911)_. This is quite a tiny book, but very clear and thorough. It was revised in its present form in February, 1914, so that its title is misleading; it comes up to 1914. It contains an excellent student’s bibliography.

[490] See F. M. Hueffer’s able but badly named book, _When Blood is their Argument_. It gives an admirable account of just how the pressure was applied to the teaching organization.

[491] These quotations are from Sir Thomas Barclay’s article “Peace” in _The Encyclopædia Britannica_.

[492] St. John Ervine’s novel, _Changing Winds_, gives a good account of the mentality of this time.

[493] See the various publications of the Irish Dominion League, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin. A good recent account of Irish ideas is to be found in Lynd’s _Ireland a Nation_ (1919).

[494] Wilfred Scawen Blunt regards the English remaining in Egypt, when they had pledged themselves to go, as the greatest cause of the troubles that culminated in 1914. To pacify the French over Egypt, England connived at the French occupation of Morocco, which Germany had looked upon as her share of North Africa. Hence Germany’s bristling attitude to France, and the _revival_ in France of the _revanche_ idea, which had died down. See Blunt’s _My Diaries_, vol. i, September 30th, 1891.--A. C. W.

[495] It should not be forgotten that Italian action against Turkey was precipitated by the granting of a charter by the Sultan to an Austro-German company or syndicate for the “taking over” of the Tripolitaine: a process which could only have ended by the hoisting of the Imperial German flag on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, opposite Italy. Also, that through Morocco the Germans were attempting to undermine the French position in Algeria and Tunis by supplying the Moroccans with arms and money, and inducing them to attack French rule separately in Western Algeria, and even by way of Saharan oases in Southern Tunis. The writer of this note has actually witnessed this process going on between 1898 and 1911. He asserts that, whether from right or wrong motives, Germany forced France to tackle the thorny problem of Morocco. Either she had to do so or prepare for the evacuation of Algeria. France may have made a few mistakes, but she has conferred enormous benefits on North Africa. Under her control the indigenous population has increased remarkably.--H. H. J.

[496] The general reader who wants some picture in his mind of the recent state of Russia should read Ernest Poole’s _The Village_. Pre-revolutionary Russia is admirably sketched in Maurice Baring’s _Mainsprings of Russia_, _The Russian People_, and _A Year in Russia_. A small, very illuminating book on the Russian revolution is M. H. Barber’s _A British Nurse in Bolshevik Russia_.

[497] One very good reason for the provisional retention of the Philippines under American control is the certainty that the “Moros,” the Muhammadan peoples of Palawan, and the southern islands of the main groups would proceed to conquer the “Christian” Filipinos, and that after a welter of civil war and destruction, Japan or some other outside power would be appealed to to intervene.--H. H. J.

[498] An unfriendly critic might denounce the treaty-making power of the United States, and the machinery by which it operates, as complicated and cumbersome, ill adapted to the complex demands of international intercourse, slow in action and uncertain in outcome. The requirement of a two-thirds rather than a majority vote in the Senate he might criticize not unjustly as a dubious excess of caution.... Believe me, the American people are like for many years to accomplish through this means their compacts with mankind. The checks and balances by which it is surrounded, the free and full debate which it allows, are in their eyes virtues rather than defects. They rejoice in the fact that all engagements which affect their destinies must be spread upon the public records, and that there is not, and there never can be, a secret treaty binding them either in law or in morals. Looking back upon a diplomatic history which is not without its chapters of success, they feel that on the whole the scheme the fathers builded has served the children well. With a conservatism in matters of government as great perhaps as that of any people in the world, they will suffer much inconvenience and run the risk of occasional misunderstanding before they make a change.--J. W. Davis (U. S. A. Ambassador to Britain), _The Treaty Making Power of the United States_. (Oxf. Univ. Brit. Am. Club. Paper No. 1.)

[499] I think his policy was quite clear. He said to Germany, “If you bring on war, you must expect England to support France and Russia.” To France and Russia he said: “If you are unreasonable, do not expect England to support you.” He thus brought pressure to bear on both sides.--G. M.

An illuminating book on the causes of the war is Lord Loreburn’s _How the War Came_.--H. H. J.

[500] Kautsky’s report on the origin of the war.

[501] For the common soldier’s view of the war there is no better book than _Le Feu_ by Barbusse. An illustrated book of great quaintness, beauty, and veracity is André Hellé’s _Le Livre des Heures_. No other book recalls so completely the _feel_ and effect of the phases of the war. An admirably written and very wise book is Philip Gibbs’ _Realities of War_. Some light upon the peculiar difference of the fighting of the Great War from any previous warfare will be found in McCurdy’s _War Neuroses_ and Eder’s book on the same subject.

[502] “What mainly was wrong with our generalship was the system which put the High Command into the hands of a group of men belonging to the old school of war, unable by reason of their age and traditions to get away from rigid methods, and to become elastic in face of new conditions. Our Staff College had been hopelessly inefficient in its system of training, if I am justified in forming such an opinion from specimens produced by it, who had the brains of canaries and the manners of Potsdam. There was also a close corporation among the officers of the Regular Army, so that they took the lion’s share of Staff appointments, thus keeping out brilliant young men of the New Armies, whose brain power, to say the least of it, was on a higher level than that of the Sandhurst standard.” Philip Gibbs, _Realities of War_.

[503] “The smart society of G.H.Q. was best seen at the Officers’ Club at dinnertime. It was as much like musical comedy as any stage setting of war at the Gaiety. The band played rag-time and light music while the warriors fed, and all these generals and staff officers, with their decorations and Army bands, and polished buttons and crossed swords, were waited upon by little W.A.A.C.s., with the G.H.Q. colours tied up in bows on their hair, and khaki stockings under their short skirts, and fancy aprons. Such a chatter! Such bursts of light-hearted laughter! Such whisperings of secrets, of intrigues, and scandals in high places! Such callous-hearted courage when British soldiers were being blown to bits, gassed, blinded, maimed, and shell-shocked in places that were far, so very far, from G.H.Q.”--Phillip Gibbs, _The Realities of War_.

[504] But see Roch, _Mr. Lloyd George and the War_, and Arthur’s _Life of Lord Kitchener_.

[505] “The want of an unlimited quantity of high explosives was a fatal bar to our success.”--_The Times_, May 14th, 1915.

[506] But compare the British bombardment of Japanese towns noted in Chap. xxxix, § 11. And aeroplane bombs and machine-gun fire have since been used by the British military authorities against Indian village crowds _suspected_ of sedition.

[507] _E.g._ in hand grenades.

[508] For the flighty incapacity of the British military authorities in this adventure, see Sir Ian Hamilton’s _Gallipoli Diary_. It is only fair to the British commander to add that the incapacity was that of the home authorities to understand his demands for men and material.--P. G.

[509] See Stern, _Tanks 1914-1918_. See also Fuller, _Tanks in the Great War_.

[510] “I found a general opinion among officers and men under the command of the Fifth Army that they had been victims of atrocious staff work, tragic in its consequence. From what I saw of some of the Fifth Army staff officers, I was of the same opinion. Some of these young gentlemen, and some of the elderly officers, were arrogant and supercilious, without revealing any sign of intelligence. If they had wisdom, it was deeply camouflaged by an air of inefficiency. If they had knowledge, they hid it as a secret of their own. General Gough in Flanders, though personally responsible for many tragic happenings, was badly served by some of his subordinates, and battalion officers and divisional staffs raged against the whole of the Fifth Army organization, or lack of organization, with an extreme passion of speech.”--Philip Gibbs, _Realities of War_.

[511] A very good account of the state of mind of Paris during and after the war is in W. P. Adams’ _Paris Sees it Through_.

[512] _The Times_, December 8th, 1919.

[513] Authorities vary between 250,000 and a million houses.

[514] J. M. Keynes, _op. cit._

[515] They debauched the currency, _i.e._ and wasted money recklessly.

[516] Mr. Keynes ignores the fortunes made by deliberately cornering and withholding commodities in a time of shortage.

[517] Among the books consulted here, for this and the two following sections, were Dr. Dillon’s _Peace Conference_; H. Wilson Harris’s _The Peace in the Making_ and _President Wilson, his Problems and his Policy_; J. M. Keynes’s _Economic Consequences of the Peace_; Weyl’s _The End of the War_; Stallybrass’s _Society of States_; Brailsford’s _A League of Nations_; F. C. Howe’s _Why War?_ L. S. Woolf’s _International Government_; J. A. Hobson’s _Towards International Government_; Lowes Dickinson’s _The Choice before Us_; Sir Walter Phillimore’s _Three Centuries of Treaties_, and C. E. Fayle’s _Great Settlement_.

[518] “The Allied Governments,” the effective passage ran, “have given careful consideration to the correspondence which has passed between the President of the United States and the German Government. Subject to the qualifications which follow, they declare their readiness to make peace with the Government of Germany on the terms of peace laid down in the President’s Address to Congress of January 8th, 1918, and the principles of settlement enunciated in his subsequent Addresses.”

(Note transmitted to the German Government by the Allies through the Swiss Minister on November 5th, 1918.)

[519] In his book, _The Peace Conference_.

[520] Dillon.

[521] Dillon. And see his _The Peace Conference_, Chapter III, for instances of the amazing ignorance of various delegates.

[522] See _Clemenceau_, by C. Ducray.

[523] He wrote several novels. They are not very good novels; they incline to sentimental melodrama. _Le Plus Fort_ is now available to English readers in a translation under the title of “The Stronger.” It is tawdry and dull. A cinematograph version has been shown.

[524] Keynes.

[525] Checked by subsequent comparison with the published article in the _Jour. of the Roy. United Service Institution_, vol. lxv., No. 457, February, 1920.

[526] Cp. Psalm cxxxvi.

[527] Here is another glimpse of the agreeable dreams that fill the contemporary military mind. It is from Fuller’s recently published _Tanks in the Great War_. Colonel Fuller does not share that hostility to tanks characteristic of the older type of soldier. In the next war, he tells us: “Fast-moving tanks, equipped with tons of liquid gas ... will cross the frontier and obliterate every living thing in the fields and farms, the villages, and cities of the enemy’s country. Whilst life is being swept away around the frontier, fleets of aeroplanes will attack the enemy’s great industrial and governing centres. All these attacks will be made, at first, not against the enemy’s army ... but against the civil population, in order to compel it to accept the will of the attacker.”

For a good, well-balanced account of what modern war really means, see Philip Gibbs, _Realities of War_, already cited in two footnotes to § 8.

[528] A suggestive book here containing a good account of the drift of modern religious thought is G. W. Cooke’s _Social Evolution of Religion_.

[529] Compare Basil Thompson, _The Fijians, a Study of the Decay of Custom_; Introduction and opening chapters. This is a fine study of an ancient “heliolithic” culture breaking up under modernization.

* * * * *

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

Volume I.

parellel=> parellel {pg 618}

Justianian=> Justinian {pg 618}

Kaniska=> Kanishka {pg 646}

Volume II.

agressive=> aggressive {pg 503}

completer=> complete {pg 527}

Arisona=> Arizona {index}

Vimeiro=> Vimiero {index}