E.—ld

6

We thus have a total of 5,712 of all ranks towards inaugurating the system in connection with our public schools, and there is not the least doubt that as soon as the winter holidays are over a further number of schools will apply for recognition of their corps or detachments. The offer of the Government to supply model and miniature rifles, belts, bugles, and chevrons for non-commissioned officers, and badges, swords, sword-knots, and slings for officers, is greatly appreciated, inasmuch as the ranks concerned will not, as heretofore, have to purchase these articles of equipment, and uniformity in them will be established. In conclusion, I can only say that the scheme for the organization and equipment of the cadet corps meets with the entire approval of the various Education Boards of the colony, and there is no reason why the general wish to see the boys taught the drill and duties of a soldier, and to learn to become good shots, should not be carried out. I have, &c, L. W. Loveday, Major, Commanding Public-school Cadets. The Hon. Mr. W. C. Walker, C.M.G., Minister of Education.

APPENDIX.

The following extracts are from a paper on "Military Training in Public Schools," read before the members of the Royal United Service Institution at a meeting on the 28th November, 1900, by the Rev. C. G. Gull, M.A., Captain-Commandant 4th London Volunteer Rifle Corps, Headmaster of the Grocers' Company School, Major-General Viscount R. H. Frankfort de Montmorency, X.C.8., in the chair. The paper is published in the Journal of the Institution for February, 1901. " It has always seemed to me remarkable that the army is the only department of athletics in which early training is neglected. If you wish to make a boy a cricketer you take him in hand before he goes to his public school; if he is to be a good rider you give him a mount in early youth ; swimming is regularly taught to children ; but drill, which is essentially a matter of rigid obedience, of collective practice, and of mechanical precision, is generally deferred to an age when the practice necessary for the attainment of these habits either disgusts or tends to cramp the intelligence and destroy the faculty of individual initiative. In the navy they have adopted a wiser method : they catch their recruits when young, and train them during boyhood to the required pitch of discipline. " Boys do not, in my experience, find drill-training irksome, partly because they pick up the routine work far more quickly than men, partly because they more enjoy the precision and the rhythmic movements of drill, and also their imagination is caught in the military ideal. Our boys take their places in the battalion at the age of eleven " It is unnecessary perhaps to labour the point that military drill and the use of arms can be, and ought to be, taught to boys. Many schemes are on foot to promote this object. Cadet corps are being formed in many public schools " In order that the scheme proposed may be carried out with success it is essential that great care should be taken in the selection of sergeant instructors But if military work in schools is to be successful it must not be left entirely under the control of the sergeant-instuctor class. Every inducement should be held out to assistant-masters to take an active efficient part in the training. There will, I think, be little difficulty here ;in all large schools one or more of the members of the staff have been members of a Volunteer or of a cadet corps ; to secure the cooperation of such men they should be recognised in the Army List as subordinate officers, and should have every facility given them in the schools for officers to make themselves thoroughly efficient To complete the organization, an Inspector-general of Military Training in Schools would be necessary so that a uniform standard of work may be maintained, and a grip may be kept by the War Office on the whole system Certainly the ease and steadiness with which well-trained boys take their places in the ranks in after-years would surprise those who have not witnessed it. The recruit-age does not exist for such men. If such training became general the nation would receive a great accession of strength " Lieut.-Colonel T. H. Baylis, V.C. (late 18th Middlesex, V.R.C.), remarked, " Military training has its special advantages physically. Drill is of essential value; it opens the heart, it expands the chest and lungs, it improves the figure and carriage, and increases the muscular power. Mentally it encourages manliness. It teaches the duty of obedience, both in obeying and being obeyed. It is more easy to obey than to insist on obedience, which requires patience, firmness, intelligence, and self-reliance The lecturer is moving in the right direction in urging the advantages of military training in schools " Approximate Cost of Paper.— Preparation, not given ; printing (1,475 copies), £& la.

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