Originally Posted by Trollheart

I'd have to ask then how teachers get their jobs? Are there not any kind of conditions, any exams they have to pass? This is ridiculous; these are the people training the minds of those who may end up running the country at some stage? When I went to hedge school, at least the wizards and monks all knew their stuff. It's disgraceful to say that teachers - surely, in terms of knowledge, the most relied (or expected to be able to be relied) upon other than doctors and lawyers - are so badly trained and so ill-informed. Batty, your story about the Lieutenant is a glaring example, and exactly as you say: even if you don't know the name, how could someone with so low a rank be a supreme commander? It's not like they were like that guy in World War II, Sergeant Montgomery.

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien

There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.