COMMENTERS
with Names starting with
B
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Lieut.-General Sir R. S. S. Baden-Powell,
C.B., K.C.V.O., F.R.G.S.
"I am delighted that you should use my name if you consider it any help in promoting your excellent views on 'Duty and Discipline.' "
The Right Hon. Arthur James Balfour, P.C., F.R.S.,
late Prime Minister.
" I think your objects are quite admirable."
The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, D.D.
"Pray add my name to the list of those who have expressed their cordial sympathy with the admirable efforts of the writers of the ' Duty and Discipline' series of leaflets to stir up a deeper sense of the responsibility of life, and of the necessity of training all classes, from childhood to full age, in habits of prompt obedience, of self-respect, of simplicity of living, and of determination to do their duty.
"It is the lesson England learned of old and seems to have for¬gotten. The want of these elementary principles is felt in our Colonies as it is experienced at home.
"The late Premier of South Australia, an ardent democrat, who up to the time of his death strongly advocated compulsory military service throughout the Commonwealth, told me a year or two ago that he did this scarcely so much from the point of view of defence, as from the necessity (as he thought it) of bringing into the lives of men who were loafing idly about the street corners those habits of a dis¬ciplined life which, he was convinced, would make all the difference between such men being a gain to their country or a perpetual anxiety."
Admiral the Lord Charles Beresford, G.C.V.0„ G.C.B.,
"Thank you for the admirable leaflets, 'Duty and Discipline,' so well named.
"The future of our race depends upon the children of to-day. Unless a sense of duty, self-respect, obedience, discipline and good comradeship is practically taught and engrained in the youthful mind, the old characteristics of our people will disappear.
"There are plenty of the right stamp in the country—men and women who are chivalrous, unselfish and patriotic—but there are an increasing number who show a lack of that vim and grit which made and has maintained the British Empire. That strong sense of duty, without which an individual or a people becomes soft and degenerate, is not so clearly visible as it was in my younger days ; the general tendency is to think of self, pleasure, indulgence, and to work only for personal objects. These habits are growing and taking the place of those British traits of pluck, determination, and unselfishness that never knew defeat, no matter what difficulties had to be faced.
" I am anxious about the future. This great Empire will certainly decay if the sentiments, physical qualities, and right-mindedness of its people deteriorate. It is not the fashion of the multitude to be manly. Now the fashion is to look on and criticise, not act. Your leaflets show where we are going wrong as a nation, and what is necessary to put us right. May all good luck attend your patriotic efforts."
The Right Hon. Sir Robert Bond, P.C., K.C.M.G.,
Premier of Newfoundland.
"I am exceedingly obliged to you for the leaflets entitled ` Duty and Discipline,' so kindly forwarded to me under cover of your letter of the 21st ult. I have read them with very great interest and pleasure, and most cordially sympathise with the object that the distinguished authors have in view."
General Booth, LL.D.
"General Booth is quite willing that you should place his name in the list of people who approve the series of pamphlets entitled ' Duty and Discipline.' . . . He wishes me to assure you of his hope that the publication of the various pamphlets will have a good result."
Mrs. Bramwell Booth.
"Mrs. Bramwell Booth is glad to know of the ' Duty and Dis¬cipline' series, realising that nothing is more important to the nation than the correct and thorough training of its young people, especially in the home."
The Right Hon. Louis Botha, P.C., LL.D.,
Premier of United South Africa.
It is with pleasure that I signify my approval of the general aim, as expressed in the Preface, of the series of publications referred to, the ' Duty and Discipline' series, though, of course, with the quali¬fication that I cannot be held to agree with all the opinions and publications of individual writers."
Captain Sir J. W. Nott Bower,
Commissioner of Police of the City of London.
"I fully agree with the views expressed by the valuable ' Duty and Discipline' series of leaflets. My police experience of over thirty years has convinced me that a very large proportion of the crime of the country is due to the sad refusal in the present day to impress upon children that neglect of duty must entail consequences un¬pleasant to themselves. The rod is spared, the child is spoilt. The criminal is manufactured, the country loses a ' man.' "
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The Right Hon. the Earl. Brassey, G.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., etc.,
late Governor of Victoria, Australia.
"I highly appreciate these essays. They show the need of higher training for our boys and girls in duty and discipline. It is by these alone that a great Empire can be maintained and strengthened for the advantage of mankind."
The Right Rev. Charles Brent, D.D.,
American Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church
in the Philippine Islands.
"I have received your letter and the leaflets. You have my enthusiastic endorsement of the principles which they enunciate. I believe that there are few things more important to-day than the insistent call upon the part of us who have responsibility for the young to endure hardship. Because we are living in the midst of profusion it is no reason why we should become victims of luxury. The moment that material influences begin to dictate terms to the young people of a nation that nation is in great peril. All this applies with cogency to the situation in the Philippine Islands, and indeed to the whole Orient. I do not hesitate to say that civilisation, as we of the West understand it, is a very doubtful blessing as applied to the peoples of the Tropics and the Far East. Indeed, it seems to me that none but a Christian nation can stand the strain of civilisation in its Western sense, and even Christian nations have thus far stood it in a fourth-rate way. Your leaflets are bound to do good, and I am happy to have my name, even in a small way, associated with them.'
The Rev. David Brook, M.A., D.C.L.,
Ex-President of the National Free Church Council.
"With the main contentions of this book I am in enthusiastic agreement. There is a real danger of England becoming a nation of slackers,' and the thought of it, in an age of unparalleled opportunity, is appalling. Please accept my grateful appreciation of this book."
The Rev. Charles Brown,
President of the National Free Church Council.
"I am much obliged to you for sending me a copy of Duty and Discipline ' essays. I have been much interested in their perusal, and while I do not agree with all the sentiments therein expressed, I feel that their circulation is calculated to do immense good. I am perfectly certain that grave fault attaches to the motherhood of the present day. It is far too soft and indulgent, and our manhood is thereby deteriorating."
Sir William Bull, M.P.
"I think the work you are trying to do with your ' Duty and Discipline' series of leaflets is work that is urgently needed for the nation's benefit. It is a most timely reminder that the moral char¬acter which has made the race strong for good purposes was not acquired by indulgence and dependence on the efforts of others. The principles enforced by the leaflets seem to me of the highest impor¬tance and value in the present phase of opinion and sentiment in this country—a phase in which self-reliance and fortitude are too often treated as unnecessary and even misguided virtues. I shall be most happy if my name and cordial expression of agreement are of any use to the ' Duty and Discipline' movement."
The Right Hon. John Burns, MP.,
President of the Local Government Board.
"Many thanks for your packet of pamphlets, which I have read, and the underlying objects of which I agree with."
Thomas Buzzard, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.P.,
Consulting Physician
to the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic.
"Your letter has long remained unanswered, and I can only offer as an apology that I wished to read all the leaflets of the 'Duty and Discipline' series before replying, and that I found myself so attracted by them that many had to undergo re-perusal. It is hard to express how good they seem to me. The field which they cover is so large that anything like reference to their individual merits is impossible, but I should like to single out especially those which deal with the Education (using the term in its true etymological sense) of Young Children.
"It has always been a source of wonder to me how the little ones grow up even as successfully as they do. The youthful parents of a growing family find themselves suddenly engaged in a business, as it were, of which they have had no previous experience—in a position of extraordinary responsibility for help in which they have hitherto looked in vain to individuals or to books.
"No doubt in some philosophical treatises the subject of child training may be found discussed, but this is almost always in a some¬what abstract form, and fails to give much aid to the parent who is confronted by the difficulties which are apt to arise daily in the nursery. There are few intelligent parents, I imagine, who, after reading these leaflets, will not be inclined to say : ' How useful these would have been to me when my children were young, and what mistakes they would have helped me to avoid I ' Some will object, perhaps, that there is nothing particularly new in the ideas, and that they cordially agree with them. But that is not the point. It has been well observed that we continually fail to see what we do not expressly look for, and a study of these little papers will certainly open the eyes of parents to the fact that they are taking the education of their children too much for granted, and that special observation of individual temperaments and steady adherence to true principles are necessary for success in this responsible duty."
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