Somebody might object that even if we are totally ignorant of Russia in England there is no great harm done, that Russia is a far-off country with an impossibly difficult language; why should we bother about it? To this I would reply that the British people have shown themselves to be gravely concerned about the increasing competition with which the Englishman has to contend in all branches of life, and at the alarming improvement in the methods of his neighbours, which is met by no similar improvement at home. British trade, British influence, are rapidly, it is said, being outstripped. Remedies, such as protection, are suggested. As to whether such a remedy would prove efficacious or not I have no idea; but one practical reason of our stagnation in certain matters cannot fail to strike the most indolent observer. Our neighbours are well and practically educated. We are not. Is not this fact the cause of a great many things? If we want to remedy an evil we must look for the cause. I firmly believe that the unpractical education which is given to so many of us is largely responsible for the comparative stagnation of Englishmen in matters of trade and enterprise, compared with the sedulous efforts of the citizens of other countries. I am not advocating the introduction of a purely continental system of education, nor would I like to see our system of athletics disappear; but it is obvious that there is not and never will be any danger of either of these two things happening. But I never mean to lose an opportunity of advocating a radical reform in the old-fashioned strictly classical education given and received at our public schools and rendered necessary by the obstinacy of our universities, owing to which Greek and Latin are taught (but no longer learned except by a slender minority), to the exclusion of all other useful knowledge. The mass of boys who now learn nothing because Greek and Latin mean nothing to them, would gladly assimilate something which would be useful to them in after life: for instance, some smattering of their own history, some mastery of the English tongue, or the knowledge of a modern language. There is no country where the disadvantage at which an Englishman finds himself compared to his continental rivals is made so plain as in Russia. In Russia there is, and there will be even more in the future, an immense field for foreign enterprise. The Germans have taken, are taking, and will take the utmost advantage of this fact. The English are content to send advertisements here, written in the English language, and never dream of trying to learn Russian themselves.