Ever since the war we had lived in a form of state socialism with tremendous controls and regulations over economic and social life. I can remember w… - Correlli Barnett

In 1890 there were still twice as many academic chemists in Germany as in Britain, though the British population was three-quarters of the German figure. In 1892 Britain had 287 academic staff in mathematics, science, and engineering compared with 452 in Germany. In engineering in particular the major German technical high schools had 7,130 students in 1901 against a total of 1,443 in British universities. In terms of overall university provision, Britain spent £26,000 in government grants in 1897, while Germany spent £476,000; in 1902 Germany had 22 universities for a population of 50 million, England and Wales 7 for 31 million.
And...British industry still lagged badly in advanced industries like chemicals, electricals, and machine tools, and even in basics like steel—partly because of a continuing lack of trained personnel at all levels (the "practical man" still failing to recruit enough of them). Britain's annual rate of growth in the years 1880–1900 averaged 1.7 per cent against Germany's 5.3 per cent and America's 4.5 per cent. Britain's own rate of growth in industrial production was also declining—from 33 per cent in the decade of the 1860s to 24 per cent in the 1890s and 9 per cent in the 1900s.

[T]he essential and constant factor common to all three national academies [in Britain, France and America] is the indoctrination with tradition: potent emotional conditioning in military myth, habits, and attitudes. There are the physical symbols and reminders: engraved tablets of the glorious dead; the museums; the assembled iconography of illustrious graduates; statues; guns... At all three academies there are songs, slang, customs and ceremonies that link each annual class together for the rest of their army life... This indoctrination has grown out of history rather than been artificially created, but it may be doubted whether psychologists or sociologists could improve on it. Upon this mental sub-structure, purely neo-feudalist with its emphasis on glory, gallantry, honour, duty, and patriotism, is built functional and technical training, both concurrently at the academies, and later in schools of application. But it is this indoctrination, together with drill and discipline, that turns civilians into soldiers. Without it there would be no difference between a general in a defence ministry and a high executive in a business cartel. In terms therefore of creating the common character of the military elite, this constant factor of conditioning inside cadet colleges has been of greater importance than the changing detail and emphasis of academic curriculum and military training.

Nor, except in the garden or allotment or on the sports field, did Britons generally evince an eagerness for strenuous effort. A journalist with the British Army advancing into the heart of Germany in April 1945 noted: "It occurs to me that the Germans are a menacing race by reason of their docility and their ability to toil. No man ought to love work as they do – it's indecent, certainly uncivilised. We English don't love work in this slavelike way, and thank God for it." And a week later the same journalist, J. L. Hodson, confided to his notebook that the reason why the British were unable to maintain hatred for long was their temperament was "too lazy, too indifferent, too good-natured".