PHYSICAL CULTURE AND MILITARY DRILL. 351 



amounts to this : The school boy requires systematic physical 

 exercise in order to develop his body and keep him in a satis- 

 factory state of health. He is afforded a certain degree of 

 this necessary recreation in his school sports and games. It 

 is generally agreed, however, that supplementary exercises of 

 a more formal character are desirable for the purpose of cor- 

 recting faults of posture and gait and of concentrating" atten- 

 tion and quickening response to commands. This require- 

 ment is usually metby introducing simple marching drill, and 

 exercises performed with wands, hoops, clubs and dumb-bells. 

 Now, I have nothing to say in condemnation of such exercises 

 as an aid to physical culture: but what I do maintain is that 

 they are of no intrinsic value in themselves and that in the 

 case of boys of, say, 12 years and over they can be advan- 

 tageously replaced to a large extent by a form of drill which 

 is equally beneficial in improving the health and bodily develop- 

 ment, and wdiich might also prove of use to the country in a 

 national emergency. 



To be more specific, I am of opinion that at every school 

 in which there are as many as 20 boys of 12 vears and upwards 

 a division or company of cadets should be formed, consisting 

 of a captain (who would usually be one of the teachers), a 

 lieutenant (or perhaps in a big company a ist and 2nd lieuten- 

 ant), sergeants, corporals, a bugler and privates. It would be 

 advisable" perhaps to have some sort of special uniform — and, 

 naturally, if they w-ere aflfiliated to some central organisation, 

 all the divisions or companies would have the same uniform — 

 but no particular kind of dress is really necessary, at least for 

 a start. The boys should be paraded 'by their officers at least 

 twice a week, for three-quarters of a hour or an hour at a 

 time ,and put through the customary movements and evolu- 

 tions; the "falling m," the standing at "attention," march- 

 ing, turnings, etc. It would also be of great assistance to the 

 success of the movement if each boy could be furnished with 

 a model or dummy rifle. These could be obtained at a small 

 cost and would enable the cadet to be instructed in manual 

 and firing exercises as efficiently as if the weapons were real 

 ones and without the attendant danger or much expense. A 

 further advantage of the dummy rifle is that it can be con- 

 veniently employed in gymnastic exercises, which should form 

 no inconsiderable part of the physical training of the cadet. 

 Such a scheme of exercises as this would be found to possess 

 great interest for the boys themselves, and in addition to its 

 possible usefulness in after life, would prove perhaps quite 

 as effective a form of physical culture as any other. 



So much. then, for the drill part of the system. But there 

 is another factor in the training of the cadet which is also 

 highly important, namely, instruction in the art of shooting. 

 Unlike the part of the cadet system which I have already out- 

 lined, this branch can scarcely be described with accuracy as a 

 species of physical training; but it should prove a clean, 

 healthy and interesting pastime for the boys, apart from its 

 intrinsic usefulness. As far back as 1545. Roger Ascham, 

 the great educational reformer, wrote as follows: — " He that 



