Note 80 — Chapter IV

"For permanent work the soldier is worse than useless; his whole training tends to make him a weakling. He has the easiest of lives; he has no freedom and no responsibility. He is, politically and socially, a child, with rations instead of rights—treated like a child, punished like a child, dressed prettily and washed and combed like a child, excused for outbreaks of naughtiness like a child, forbidden to marry like a child, and called "Tommy" like a child. He has no real work to keep him from going mad except housemaid's work" ("John Bull's Other Island"). All those familiar with the large body of French literature, dealing with the evils of barrack-life, know how strongly that criticism confirms Mr. Bernard Shaw's generalization.