Evening Post.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 12, 15 January 1910, Page 4

Evening Post .

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz^zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzi SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1910. COLLEGE AND CAMP. The proposal that a chair of military science should be established at each of the four university colleges, and that the subject should be made an optional one for the Arts course, was considered by the Professorial Board of Victoria College yesterday, and the board nfay be congratulated upon the decision arrived at. While in full sympathy with the project, the board recognised the rights and duties of the Government in the matter, and on that account passed a resolution which, without -fully endorsing the proposal, is likely to help towards a satisfactory solution of the problem. Realising that the Government must make some provision for teaching the theoretical and practical sides of the military art, the board expressed itself as willing to do all in its, power to further that object. But it was not prepared to say whether the direction and control of such instruction should rest with the Defence Council or with the colleges. The board also expressed the opinion that on this point the advice oi Lord Kitchener should be sought. We think that the circumspection of thp Victoria College Professors will enhance their reputation for practical wisdom, aud will not prejudice the object which the Military Committee of the college has in View. According to the proposals of the committee the financing of the scheme is to be borne entirely by the Government, and in any event tne Government must find the lion's share of the cost if the scheme is to be put through on anything like the proposed scale. The Government must therefore be allowed* a. voice, and a preponderant voice, in the matter. From this point of view it is clear that thb relationship of the scheme to the wnole system of military instruction must be considered before the Government is committed to its support. The Professorial Board of Victoria College touches the crucial point when it expresses its uncertainty whether the Defence i Council or the university colleges should control the academic instruction mjnilitary science. It must, of course, be clearly borne in mind that military science and military art are distinct things, and that it is only ■with the former that the university colleges are asked to concern themselves. This point has been overlooked by Ihosa who urge as an objection to the present proposal that the proper training-ground for the officer, as for private, is the drillshed and the camp, and not the lecture hall. This conten-. tion is correct as an abstract proposition, bat quite irrelevant as an objection.

I Book-learning cannot make a soldier, and nobody supposes that it can. But in providing their students with booklearning in military science — and they are asked to do nothing more — the university colleges will be qualifying them to make the best possible use of the practical training which it will be the principal object of the Defence Council to administer. The training, without which all theoretical knowledge is vain, will not be touched by the colleges, nor wil 1 their degrees or diplomas regulate the appointment or promotion of officers, as one indignant critic assumed m a letter which we published a few days ago. A monopoly of the practical and* administrative work must remain with the Defence Council, whether the proposed chairs of military science are endowed or not. Inasmuch, however, as the Defence Council must also concern itself with scientific teaching., there would be some overlapping unless the council controlled the academic teaching, as the Professorial Board oi Victoria College thinks may be desirable, or- -there was a close co-operation between the council and the colleges, as we have previously suggested. Though, the question is not a purely military one, Lord Kitchener's advice, which the board desires the Government to take, might provide valuable help. The financial .aspect of the proposal is not touched by the board's resolution, but it is the very first point that the Government must emphasise as soon as it is approached. We have already suggested that the matter is one in which an appeal should be made to the individual patriotism and generosity of our citizens. Why should such appeals be reserved for times of actual emergency ? When the Boer war was upon us, tho response was adequate, and any dramatic occasion of the same kind would produce the same result. But just as the universal training of our young men in times of peace to which the country is now committed is a more businesslike and more truly patriotic proceeding than to raise contingents in a hurry after war has broken out, so private munificence would be better employed in supplementing that training by the method now proposed than in raising a war fund at a time when trained men will be worth more than cash. The ' rumour reaches us from the South that our suggestion has been well received by some of the men best qualified to make it a success, and we trust that their sympathy may .soon take a practical and organised shape.