Boy Soldiers.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 4, 24 September 1915, Page 3

Boy Soldiers.

Despatches from Berlin indicate that the German Government is preparing to introduce compulsory military dr:i. ror all boys between the ages of twelve and sixteen in order that they may be ready and fit to be enrolled as soldiers as so n t.s they have passed their ixt.;enth birthday. The German military authorities appear to en'tert: m the idea of making up for the rapidly diminishing reserves o. human material by drawing on th boy of the country, acting on toe belief that a lad of .-ixiaen, i well trained phy- leal: v and em ciently drilled in m.ii y matte v may make the Dost o .-oi liars. As a matter of fact, many volunteers have been accepted for enlistment in the German army during the present war whose ages have been u ider seventeen, and som -times even less than sixteen. But these have been exceptions, and it is now proposed that they shall become the rule. The successful realisation of the new scheme for getting more men to tight is greatly facilitad by tiie German system of education, under which practically all*the boys of the whole country attend State schools, so that the are amenaable to official eo: .1 as though they were conscripts. Private schools are few am. hr between,

and only provide for the education of one in a thousand of the boys in Germany. No statistics are available showing (he number of conscripts wnom Germany can raise by this new plan, but it probably amounts to several hundred thousand.