Collected papers on physical and military training / by Sir Lauder Brunton.
- Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
- Date:
- 1915
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Collected papers on physical and military training / by Sir Lauder Brunton. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN RELATION TO NATIONAL DEFENCE. [PEOCEEDING-S OF THE NATIONAL DEFENCE ASSOCIATION.] By Sir Lauder Beunton, Bt., M.D., F.RS. Paper read at the evening Meeting of the National Defence Association, at the Piccadilly Hotel, November 25, 1908. Sir George Taubman-Goldie in the Chair. (Reprinted from National Defence, March, 1909.) It is eight hundred years since this island was last invaded. May it be eight hundred years before it is invaded again. In the only other Empire that could compare with the British there were free men, but there were a great many slaves; whereas in the British Empire it is our proud boast that there shall be no slavery where the British Plag flies. We have been accused of being greedy; we have been accused of being selfish, perfidious, stupid ; well, these accusations may not be entirely baseless, yet I beheve that the great characteristic of Britons is fakness. We want to be fair always. We some- times do things that may be unfair, but I believe it is through ignorance, not through wilfulness ; and that the great motto that we put before us is, Let every man have a fair chance. Now I believe we all wish that; but this motto is not carried into practice as it ought to be in this coiintry. A great many men and women are born who have not had a fair chance from birth onward. It is not that they have been born poor, because poverty may be a stimulus to exertion; but it is that they have been born feeble in body, weak in mind, unfit for work, even if they had no disease either mental or bodily. It is this great body of unfit who go to swell the ranks of the unemployed or to form the criminal classes. Now it is our duty as citizens to see that all these people get a fair chance. I have heard it said that if this island were (11996) ^](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21358497_0309.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
