NOTES 633 



of what I call Health Conscription, consisting of at least a fortnight's compulsory 

 Physical training, under discipline in the open air, for both sexes every year for five 

 years between the ages, say, of fifteen and twenty. 



Of course, if the general principle of such a scheme were to be accepted, the 

 details would require careful consideration and, probably, amendment by experts. 

 Personally, I should prefer a month's to a fortnight's course, or, possibly, periods 

 graduated according to age ; and instead of the ages between fifteen and twenty 

 being selected, it might be better to take those between ten and fifteen for girls 

 and twelve and seventeen for boys. Three instead of five years may suffice. 



The training should be given in the open country in some of the admirable 

 hutted camps built for soldiers, most of which will be available immediately after 

 the declaration of peace. Probably the summer months will be selected, and the 

 young people could be pushed through the courses in batches, so that the same 

 instructors and camp-staffs could be used over and over again. 



I anticipate, of course, that food, cooking, bedding, lavatories, etc., will be 

 provided, just as they are for soldiers, with parade grounds, drilling and messing 

 sheds, reading rooms, and other details. The sites must, of course, be selected 

 with care and with regard to accessibility, sanitation, salubrity, and even beauty of 

 scenery, and the existing camps will afford a wide choice. Free railway tickets 

 to and from the camps must also be provided. Until details are decided upon it 

 is not possible to quote figures regarding the total accommodation that will be 

 required and the cost of the scheme. 



For the boys' camp the actual training should, I think, be similar to the 

 preliminary training given to recruits, that is, various kinds of drill, exercises, and 

 route marches, increasing in amount towards the end of each course, when the 

 boys will have become hardened. 



Whether training in the use of weapons is to be given in the later courses will 

 depend on political decisions ; but in any case the preliminary stage of drill will 

 have been passed through ; and if training in weapons is not to be allowed, other 

 kinds of training or field instruction can be substituted. The evenings will be 

 utilised for out-of-door games, followed perhaps by singing, lectures, and other 

 forms of instruction. 



For the girls' camps the training must, ot course, be suitably modified. In 

 both cases much of the teaching now administered in the smoky atmosphere of 

 schools in towns may under the proposed scheme be better imparted in the camps. 

 Class certificates should, I suppose, be given at the end of each course to the 

 young people who deserve them. 



Obviously the scheme is merely, or partly, an extension of the admirable Boy 

 Scout and Girl Scout movement due to the genius of Sir Robert Baden-Powell. 

 It can be linked up later with Territorial or with universal military training, as may 

 be decided upon. In any case it will give to the whole population the health-giving 

 open-air exercise now enjoyed by boys in our public and certain other schools. 



Personally I should be in favour of the scheme being ultimately made com- 

 pulsory, like other branches of education, for all classes, because I should deny 

 that faddy parents have the tight to refuse to their children anything that makes 

 for their health and happiness. But we are an air-loving people, and I fancy that 

 all classes will welcome the principle. 



Of course the cost will be large ; but even if it amounts to several millions 

 annually it will be small compared with the cost of the physical and mental 

 degeneracy now too often inflicted upon the young who spend all their lives in the 

 bad air and the slums of our cities. 



