MILITARY v. EDUCATIONAL TRAINING

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 22, 26 July 1920, Page 8

MILITARY v. EDUCATIONAL TRAINING

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, —In your leading article on military training you set forth the objections made by the National Defence League to a scheme of training under the Education Department. It is ' specially : noticeable that the league does not, even argue that tho scheme would not secure, sound military training. It must, therefore, be taken that it would. Otherwise the league, whose first business is to consider the defence aspect of a matter, would have been sure to show where they thought the proposals were unsound. This scheme for training under the Education Department has been before the Defence League in explicit terms since early July and before tho country for a year or more.

Unable to question the soundness or efficiency of the scheme, though now they may attempt to do so, the league is, as you point' out, attacking it on other grounds. General Russell says they do not want to militarise our educational institutions. To that I would reply that there is no. chance of doing so. Military drill was a part of the school curriculum for Very, many years, but no ono ever dreamed that the schools were- thereby being militarised. In addition, many schools had splendid cadet companies, but there was not even a sign of the school toeing militarised. Tho league's argument is very far-fetched and strained, and all it does is to show that in the opinion of the league militarism is an evil thing. That is a curious admission from them. General Russell adds that "we do not want our children in their tender years, the age of innocence, to be taught the übo of the'bayonet." I am not aware that junior cadets are taught tho use of the bayonet. Supposing they were. If it is wrong for a teacher to givo bayonet drill to a. boy in the school grounds, what makes it right for a military man to give the same drill to the same boy at a territorial parade or camp? Another objection is that the_ school syllabus is overburdened. Provision is already made for physical training- in tho schools, and it is in this time that the military training would bo given. What surprises me is that those who appear so fearful of overloading' the syllabus (which this scheme would not do), do not in the least mind calling boys, many of them, schoolboys, away from, their homes for drill at night, eveir though they have school Work to do at home, with the result that they have either to stay up unduly late or to rise unduly early next morning. That ib where overloading comes in. Then, oddly enough, the defenders of the military system dread that the schools will be militarised. They don't mind the boys who are attending 1 or have just left school being militarised, but they dread it. for the "schools." This is a distinction without a difference. But,if the drill is taught by the teachers, or thosa under them, neither the boys nor the "schools" will be militarised. Again, I say, we had for years military drill in the schools and school cadet companies, and no one dreamed of their being militarised. Next we are asked whether the German education system was riot mainly responsible for the late war.. Tho military party in Gerrmlny ueed the education system,, as they used everything else, for furthering their own ends, but they did not, as far as I know, use the schools' for training. The training was.given in* camps by the military just as the Defence League here desires. , It was the military party that ran everything and brought Germany to disaster. The moral of_ the argument, therefore, is do away with the military party and let the training be under the Education Department.—l am, etc., A. S. MALCOLM. 23rd July.