Nor is it impossible to compensate ourselves for the loss of physical training consequent upon the rejection of military training. For there are other ways of providing for physical efficiency; and those other ways are more consistent with the aim of a democratic education. In the sports field, for instance, you have at once an instrument of physical training as well as a definite education in a team work, which does not depend upon uniform and synchronous movements commanded from without, but upon the intelligence and dexterity of the players themselves. Moreover, the sports field affords an illustration of the proper use of the competitive spirit. The military discipline has its eye upon potential enemies to be destroyed; the sports discipline has its eye upon rival teams of friends and thus always a cheer for the beaten team in the end. It has been observed that the difference in temper between the behaviour of the German and the English soldier was to be traced to the fact that the football field had played a large part in the training of the latter; and it is not unlikely that even the superior military efficiency of the English soldier in the latter stages of the war has to be attributed to the same circumstance. In any case, sportsmanship is nearer akin to the spirit of democracy than the military discipline. A plea has been made for military training on the ground that the rhythm of its movements has a certain psychological value. That the place of rhythm in education has been neglected is indeed true; and there is little doubt that a more sustained attention to it would add much to physical grace and the joy and beauty of life. The question, however, remains whether the military rhythm which rests upon a principle of regularity is likely to have the psychological effects proper to such education as these pages contemplate. The rhythm of the folk-dance like the rhythm of the ballad is a far more accurate version of the rhythm which is natural to men and women; and the rhythm of Walt Whitman, which is of the same order, reflects the genuine rhythm of democracy. The Eurhythmics of Dalcroze, because they encourage a spontaneous self-expression through the free rhythmical movement of the body promise more for the future grace and beauty of democratic life than a military discipline can from its very nature do. VII