He remembers from his school
lessons or reads in the newspapers of the greatness of England in past
centuries, and naturally feels that with such a past and with so great
an Empire existing to-day, his country should be a very great Power. But
as he discovers what the actual performance of Germany is, and becomes
acquainted with the results of her efforts in science, education, trade,
and industry, and the way in which the influence of the German
Government predominates in the affairs of Europe, he is puzzled and
indignant, and feels that in some way Great Britain has been surpassed
and outdone.
The state of the world which he thought existed, in which England was
the first nation and the rest nowhere, has completely changed while he
has been attending to his private business, his "politics," and his
cricket, and he finds the true state of the world to be that, while in
industry England has hard work to hold her own against her chief rival,
she has already been passed in education and in science, that her army,
good as it is, is so small as scarcely to count, and that even her navy
cannot keep its place without a great and unexpected effort.
Yet fifty years ago England had on her side all the advantages but one.
She was forgetting nationhood while Germany was reviving it.
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