it is carried on at the public expense does not make it national.  Education is training the child for his life to come, and his life’s value consists in the work which he will do.  National education means bringing up every boy and girl to do his or her part of the nation’s work.  A child who is going to do nothing will be of no use to his country, and a bringing up that leaves him prepared to do nothing is not an education but a perversion.  A British national education ought to make every man a good workman, every man a gentleman, every man a servant of his country.

My contention, then, is that this British nation has to perform certain specific tasks, and that in order to be able to do her work she must insist that her people—­every man, woman, and child—­exist not for themselves but for her.  This is the principle of duty.  It gives a standard of personal value, for evidently a man’s use to his country consists in what he does for it, not in what he gets or has for himself, which, from the national point of view, is of no account except so far as it either enables him to carry on the work for which he is best suited or can be applied for the nation’s benefit.

How then in practice can the principle of duty be brought into our national and our individual life?  I think that the right way is that we should join in doing those things which are evidently needed, and should postpone other things about the necessity of which there may be disagreement.  I shall devote the rest of this volume to considering how the nation is to prepare itself for the first duty laid upon it, that of assuring its security and so making good its position as a member of the European community.  But before pursuing that inquiry I must reiterate once more the principle which it is my main purpose to set before my countrymen.

The conception of the Nation is the clue to the solution of all the problems with which the people of Great Britain are confronted.  They are those of foreign and imperial policy, of defence national and imperial, of education and of social life.

Foreign and imperial policy include all affairs external to Great Britain, the relations of Great Britain to Europe, to India, to the Colonies, and to the Powers of Asia and America.  In all these external affairs the question to be asked is, what is Britain’s duty?

It is by the test of duty that Great Britain’s attitude towards Germany should be tried.  In what event would it be necessary and right to call on every British citizen to turn out and fight, ready to shed his blood and ready to shoot down enemies?  Evidently only in case of some great and manifest wrong undertaken by Germany.  As I am aware of no such wrong actually attempted, I think a conflict unnecessary.  It is true I began by pointing out the danger of drifting into a war with the German Empire, but I wish to do what I can to prevent it, and to show that by right action the risk will be diminished.