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colleges was Intended to moot one of the great and permanent needs of the 
country. Su<h instruction is mandatory apoo the colleges. By the acceptance 
of the grant with Its conditions this instruction has become an obligation, recog- 
nized as such by the colleges. So much- -that the colleges shall give Instruction 
in military tactics is. so to speak, constitutional, unalterable, not debatable. 
All else is merely statutory or administrative, subject to by-laws, as wisdom 
and good policy may ordain. 
Leaving, therefore, large latitude to the predilections of individual institutions 
for more or less of the military feature in their curriculum, what may the 
colleges, in an average way. be fairly expect* d to do as their pari toward 
supplying the country with a soldiery in time of oeed? The organization of a 
national militia under Federal laws in all the States has materially changed 
the situation since .Mr. Morrill pictured the nation's " unpreparedness " in 1862. 
When not recognized as a part of the militia — as they are in some States — the 
college battalions represent the possibility of a volunteer corps which would be 
immediately effective for service, and the individual students and graduates 
constitute a body out of which officers, commissioned and noncommissioned, 
could be drawn for service in a suddenly enlisted corps. It can not be expected 
of the colleges that they turn out thoroughly trained and accomplished otllcers. 
It takes four years of military training at West Point to do that. To attempt 
even something very much below this would take so much of the students' time 
and energy from their main studies that they would go to colleges in which this 
burden was not laid upon them. But the colleges, without sacrifice to their 
" leading objects." may so train their students in the military art, that they, 
or a good number of them, would make serviceable sergeants, lieutenants, and 
captains in any force which the State or the nation might need for keeping the 
peace and enforcing the laws. It is of some consequence that students should 
make a good appearance at inspection or on parade. It is of much more impor- 
tance that they should learn some of the soldierly virtues, prompt obedience, 
power of command, the fine combination of self-respect and submission, which) 
make the good citizen and the good patriot as well as the good soldier. 
But on this part of the subject I am privileged to offer the expert evidence of 
an able and accomplished officer of the Artillery Corps and a highly successful 
professor of military science and tactics in the University of Vermont, Copt. 
C. J. Bailey, Fifteenth Artillery. Captain Bailey says : 
"An opinion is desired as to what extent military instruction should be car- 
ried in the land-grant colleges. 
"Throwing out those institutions in which the military feature predominates 
and is advanced as an attraction for students, there remain the colleges or uni- 
versities in which the student is fitted for almost any profession save the mili- 
tary. In these every hour devoted to military work takes from the student an 
hour he might advantageously devote to studies in the particular line he has 
chosen. Should, then, this military work be Hunted to three hours weekly, and 
is even this worth to the student and to the college the advantages gained by 
both from the endowments made by the Government? 
'" When the writer took up this work in the University of Vermont in 1807 he 
was of the opinion that the three hours weekly was inadequate for carrying out 
the purposes desired by the Government and he still believes that it should be 
increased, at least during that part of the college year when outdoor work can 
be carried on, if this can be done without iK>sitive detriment to the other work 
of the college. If this can not be done, however, sufficient instruction can be 
done in the shorter time to render its value incontestable, particularly if the 
instructor is allowed some latitude in dividing the students in such a way that 
small bodies can be instructed in certain parts of the work rather than the whole 
student body at once. 
" In colleges keeping to this minimum much that an officer deems essential in 
teaching recruits must either be omitted or the student so interested that he will 
voluntarily do the work by himself. This refers particularly to the ' setting up ' 
drills and calisthenics now so largely employed in the Army. The college gym- 
nasium may and should take the place of these, for it is particularly necessary 
that the student should have them or similar work both to keep him in health, 
and to give him the erect carriage distinctive of the good soldier and equally 
advantageous to the good civilian. But the writer realized from his first at- 
tempt that to make any progress in the drills of the company and battalion 
nothing beyond a superficial course in these gymnastics could be attempted. 
" Both theoretical and practical military work can be so varied that the inter- 
est of the majority of the students is easily retained, the difficulty being to 
