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guard against the sheer Ignorance of all military art which shrouded the coun- 
try, and especially the North, at the time when the tocsin of war sounded at 
Fort Sumter." 
These words clearly explain the object which Mr. Morrill had in view in 
making provision for instruction in military tactics in the colleges of agriculture 
and the mechanic arts. 
The presence of a great conflict, which found the nation unprepared to meet 
either internal or external enemies, awakened public opinion to a scnsr of 
danger — a danger not only in the past, hut ever present: a danger which could 
not he met by an extemporized army, or a levy en masse, hut only by a provision 
which should he of the nature of an institution, not subject to temporary change 
of feeling, not liable to failure from neglect or forgetfulness. To statesmen 
looking beyond existing tumults the Republic meant peace, but they were then 
for the first time learning that peace exists only in those nations that know how 
to maintain peace. To keep up a large standing army was contrary to the 
genius of American liberty and to all national traditions. But here was an 
opportunity to do something toward meeting this ever-present danger of " unpre- 
paredness " by distributing throughout peace-loving and industrial communities 
in every State a certain amount of " military schooling." as Mr. Morrill calls it, 
and the result of such schooling in a goodly number of men, highly trained in 
other respects, with a modicum, more or less, as the plan should work out, of 
military training superadded. 
It may be pertinent to note that. when, twenty-eight years after the passage 
of the bill, in the "piping times of peace," Mr. Morrill again asked Congress to 
consider the needs and claims of the education offered in the colleges of agri- 
culture and the mechanic arts and to increase their scope and their efficiency 
by an increased endowment, no further provision was made for. and no mention 
was made of, military instruction. 
Passing now from consideration of the motives and utterances of the founder 
of the colleges to the language of the organic act, we find that the intent and 
purpose of the act as regards military instruction gets rather scant expression. 
It is all embraced in three words — "including military tactics" — "one college 
where the leading object shall be. without excluding other scientific and classical 
studies, and including military tactics, to teach, etc." That constitutes the 
entire mandate on the subject. It is evident that the intent of the act was not 
to establish military institutions — that is, institutions in which the leading 
object is to teach the military art. Classical and other scientific studies are not 
to be excluded, and military tactics are to be included, but the leading object 
is to teach branches of learning related to agriculture and the mechanic arts. 
Evidently there were not to be military academies after the manner of West 
Point in all the States, nor feeble imitations of West Point. 
If some institutions or some army officers detailed as military instructors in 
the colleges have desired to make the military the leading feature, to insist on 
army ideas and methods in the government of the institutions, and to subordi- 
nate practically the other elements to the military, this has been without warrant 
from the ordaining act. If this had been the intent and purpose of the founder 
and of the act of Congress, they would have declared military training to be 
the leading object, whereas it is not included among the leading objects. 
What is meant by the term " military tactics," which the act says are to be 
included in the branches taught in the colleges? Obviously the word "tactics" 
is used in a general and popular, not in a technical sense. " Military tactics " 
is a broad and elastic term, including much that would not come within a strict 
definition. This breadth and comprehensiveness, in distinction from a rigid 
prescription of specific things to be done, is characteristic of the whole act. It 
recognizes the great diversity of conditions existing in different parts of the 
country, and now that it is operative in forty-five different States, this elasticity 
and adaptability to conditions appears still more admirable. It is matter for 
congratulation that we have in this grand scheme for national education, not a 
thoroughly organized, bureaucratic system like that which fits in well with the 
genius of the French people, but a simple outline, a broad, free, suggestive 
sketch plan, of the general objects to be sought, leaving to the several localities, 
and specifically to the legislatures of the several States, to fill in the details as 
their special needs and interests may prescribe. As in the case of all other 
branches of learning, so in case of the military science and art, the institutions 
are left free to work out their own problems in their own way, provided that 
way comes fairly within the express provisions of the act of Congress. As we 
have seen, the incorporation of military instruction into the curriculum of the 
