Such, it is believed, is briefly the history of Patriotism, and the theory is supported by the fact that the British soldier is not patriotic by nature.  It is not his fault.  The class from which he is usually drawn has unhappily less reason for respecting and admiring the Supreme Community than any other class, for it participates fully in the distresses and meagerly in the successes and good fortune of the Nation, from which, though not actually unpatriotic, it stands sullenly aloof.  It can hardly be denied that the power and prosperity of Great Britain have favourably affected the position of the upper and middle classes to a greater degree than they have ameliorated the condition of the lower classes, and it is therefore not surprising that the latter seem to take little or no pride in their nationality, and sometimes even act perversely in opposition to its interests.

The private soldier has never been taught to think about his country.  The education which he may have received at the Board School is not calculated to arouse in him a feeling of national pride which is non-existent in his home life.  The display of the National Flag, which flutters over so many distant lands, is discouraged in the primary schools of Great Britain as tending to “flag-worship.”  In the United States, on the other hand, the Stars and Stripes are hoisted in every school yard.  No systematic effort is made to interest the children of the operative classes in Greater Britain.  India and the Colonies are facts in geography troublesome to learn and easy to forget.  The history of the British Empire is sterilized before it is imparted to them.  They are not taught to realize that the happiness and prosperity of a large proportion of the inhabitants of the world are dependent upon the moods of the population of a small group of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, and that in the ballot-boxes of Great Britain are cast the fortunes of many millions of their fellow-creatures.

Foreigners have remarked that the minstrelsy of Great Britain is singularly devoid of patriotic songs.  The British soldier has no “Star-Spangled Banner” or “Wacht am Rhein” to sing on the line of march or in the bivouac, but only the last comic or sentimental ditty which he may have heard at the Garrison Music Hall before embarking on active service.  The National Anthem is not a patriotic song but a prayer for Divine Protection for the Sovereign, to which have been appended some inappropriate stanzas now rarely heard; while “Rule, Britannia!” might have been composed for the gasconading swashbuckler of an extravaganza.