TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION 249 



temptuously an agitator is nothing more nor less than a 

 possible part of the inchoate nervous system of a new 

 body. By the time it is properly organized we usually 

 cease to call the leaders abusive names, and if they keep 

 a firm nervous control over their numbers we are prepared 

 to do them more or less honour. 



I think we may now say that, when we have specific 

 training for specific and definite purposes, we must have 

 a union of organized ideas, a common end, and a nervous 

 system. I dare say you have often been bored to tears, 

 almost to extinction, by some of the training through 

 which you have been put. This I know to be especially 

 true of the men who are, or will be, under your command, 

 when they are going through the long early stages of their 

 drill. Although on general principles it is not essential 

 to explain definitely to most recruits the whole purpose 

 of their training, I think the time comes when the men 

 should be given some of the real reasons why they have to 

 do things which weary them. Sometimes you will hear 

 a private declare he wishes he had not joined the army, 

 because he has been " forming fours " for twelve months 

 at a time. He cannot understand why he and the battalion 

 to which he belongs are not yet considered ready for 

 the Front. He will add that when he gets there he does 

 not suppose he will be kept " forming fours," and he 

 cannot understand why he should learn it anyhow. He 

 does not know that till it bores him in some measure it 

 has not become instinctive. And it has to be instinctive, 

 because only so can his nervous system learn to respond 

 rapidly to orders. Perhaps it is in some ways the same 

 with you. Possibly you wondered why you were put 

 through so much drill or why you had less than recruits. 

 It was not because you were more intelligent, but because 



