[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATORM Snt,—Dr. Maguire writes of
what he has seen (Spectator, December 15th). But does he ever see the better class of public-school boy, and is it fair to condemn such schools because the boys who do come to him have idled there ? From Eton my son passed eleventh into Sandhurst, and came out with honours. He was then as well educated as any man taking a low honour degree at a University. But from South Africa he writes that nearly all he has learnt since leaving Sandhurst is valueless. There is the rub,—not a want of mere book-learning, but a want of practical technical train- ing. Allow me to give an instance of what the training even now is. In the summer another of my sons was out with his Yeomanly regiment. Along comes a general, who thus accosts my son : "Why have you not got an outpost on the hill there ? " My son replies that he has. Then says the general : " Well, I don't see them." My son, in explaining that he had ordered his men to take cover, did not, of course, venture to point out that an outpost was probably both safer and more useful when it did not serve as a signpost to
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