236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fairly under way in the State of New York, to establish through- 

 out the country a system of military drill in the public schools 

 and colleges ? At a time when so much is heard about Germany 

 groaning under its military system, rigorously maintained by its 

 young war lord, this announcement ought to be well calculated to 

 make every unassuming, liberty-loving American rub his eyes in 

 wonder and ask whether he is dreaming or not. Many there are, 

 no doubt, who will look upon it with a smile as a mere fad, per- 

 haps good-naturedly regard it as a means toward the improve- 

 ment of the general deportment and physical conditions of the 

 young. But if they for a moment will consider the source from 

 which it springs and carefully weigh the reasons with which it is 

 launched forth, it surely must take a more serious aspect. The 

 fact alone that it originated in G. A. R. circles, is backed and 

 indorsed by certain high military dignitaries, civil functionaries, 

 and legal authorities ought to arouse a suspicion in the ordinary 

 citizen of a supposed free industrial country. It is, however, 

 when we examine the arguments in its favor by some of these 

 high military and legal authorities that its real essence, its mili- 

 tary and retrogressive spirit, becomes clear. 



In the first place, there is the usual soldier's argument that 

 "if ever an occasion should arise when a call to arms should 

 again be sounded, those to respond (having been trained in the 

 schools to military tactics and to the use of arms) would be ten- 

 fold more efficient than were, at first, the brave boys of '61 and 

 '62, who mostly went to the war practically undrilled." To this 

 it only needs to be said that, the business of the professional sol- 

 dier being to kill, it also becomes part of his business to find or 

 devise new occasions for the exercise of his professional duties. 

 It is significant of the extreme plight in which the military au- 

 thorities find themselves in this respect that the gentleman, an 

 officer of high rank, who gave utterance to the above warning 

 could find no other possible occasion for the call to arms than 

 " the anarchistic and socialistic forces tending to undermine our 

 democratic republican government." Whatever influence, there- 

 fore, he may exert on the timid and the unthinking, to the philo- 

 sophical, the trained minds, who recognize that these anarchistic 

 and socialistic forces are the natural effects of real causes in our 

 industrial and political conditions, to these his suggestions will 

 have the weight of the professional soldier's pleading for his own 

 existence and no more. 



But the burden of argument in favor of this proposed military 

 training of our boys and young men is that it will make them 

 better citizens of this free country that " a vote in the hands of 

 a man who has been taught to love his country, and to recognize 

 the value of obedience to law, and to toe out and hold his chin up 



