ARMY SCHOOLS.
The valuable advantages these institutions offer to soldiers and their children will, we trust, be evident from the perusal of the following short account of their organisation. With regard to children, these schools will soon have little to do; for the new system of short service promises to do away almost entirely with the married soldier. A soldier is not allowed to marry till he has served seven years, subject to certain qualifications of good conduct; but as the great majority of men are passed into the Reserve before they reach that length of service, the proportion of married soldiers is very small, and rapidly becoming more and more reduced in number. It is rather with the men themselves, therefore, that the military schoolmaster and his assistants have now principally to deal.
Every regiment or depôt has its school. The schoolmasters are trained at Chelsea; and though non-combatants, they are subject to the usual army regulations. They now rank as warrant-officers, and, on the whole, are an able and estimable body of men. Occasionally, educated and promising young soldiers are selected from the ranks and sent to the training college to qualify as schoolmasters. Their number is, however, very limited; the great majority of the schoolmasters enter the army through the college, joining it as civilians; consequently, a schoolmaster cannot be reduced to the ranks. If he misconduct himself seriously, he is liable to be tried by court-martial and dismissed. Such cases are very rare. The army schoolmaster retires with a pension on attaining twenty-one years’ service, though, under certain conditions, it is possible for him to prolong his engagement. If of more than ordinary ability, he is often promoted to the higher rank and more important position of Sub-inspector of Army Schools.
Assistants are allowed in these schools according to the numbers in attendance at them. There is usually one school-assistant to about every twenty men or children attending. In depôts, where the soldiers are mostly recruits, the attendance is often very large, with a correspondingly increased number of assistants. The latter are picked out from among the better-educated men in a regiment; they receive extra pay, and are exempt from the ordinary drill and duty of the rank and file, giving their time and attention to the working of the school and the details connected with it. Many well-educated men, who are not otherwise well suited for non-commissioned officers, are employed in this way in imparting instruction to their more illiterate comrades.
Every recruit on joining a depôt has to attend school until he satisfies an examiner—sub-inspector—of his familiarity with certain elementary subjects. Examinations for this purpose are held at intervals. There are four classes of certificates granted to candidates on passing the necessary examinations. Supposing a man to be competent to pass the fourth or lowest standard, he becomes exempt from further school attendance. But if ambitious of being made a non-commissioned officer, or of securing one of the other good berths, of which there are many open to intelligent men, it is advisable for him to hold on till he gains a higher certificate. For example, to be promoted to the rank of corporal, the aspirant must be in possession of a third-class certificate; to attain to a sergeant’s position, he must have one of the second class. Thus, a considerable proportion of the men in a regiment are kept under instruction; and as soon as one batch has been passed out of the school, other candidates appear. A few unfortunates, entirely destitute of education when they enlist, are often long in obtaining the desired certificates. After a year or two’s attendance, they are probably dismissed from school as ‘useless.’ Such hopeless ignoramuses—happily not so numerous now as formerly—are a bugbear to the school staff: they soon cease to make any attempt to learn, and are simply in the way of the more intelligent or persevering men. Of course, to such, the school-work is a species of punishment. But let us glance at the quantity and quality of the learning implied in obtaining the certificates.
To satisfy the examiner, the entirely uncultured youth has in the first place to set himself resolutely to learn to read. Then he must be able to write to the extent of transcribing a few lines from a book. With the mysteries of the four elementary rules of arithmetic he must display a tolerably intimate acquaintance. To men who can already read and write, the latter does not prove an insuperable obstacle. Having furnished a moderately good ‘paper’ on these not very exacting subjects, he in a few days receives his fourth-class certificate, and leaves the school in triumph. But if he aspires to a third-class certificate, a man of this kind has yet much to do. As a matter of fact, very few attempt more from mere love of self-improvement; an eye to advancement in the ranks acts as the stimulus to further study. Writing fairly well to dictation is a part of this next higher step, and often proves a serious difficulty. Arithmetic will include the compound rules and reduction; and on a man passing this standard, a third-class certificate is granted. The possession of this qualifies the holder for the rank of corporal. But to the corporal, further promotion is necessary. No corporal would go to so much trouble, besides having to perform the ordinary duty attached to his rank in regimental affairs, except as a step towards the coveted chevrons of the sergeant. To attain sergeant’s rank may be taken as the aim and ambition of all corporals; and the latter are the men who, as we have seen, try to get the third-class certificates. But a sergeant must, by the regulations, have a second-class certificate. To the comparatively untutored corporal, this object entails his continued use of the school, and an increased demand of the schoolmaster’s instruction. In short, to a man whose education has been more or less neglected in early youth, this second-class test is a pretty stiff one; it requires a considerable amount of application for a time before he can present himself for examination with a reasonable chance of passing. He must be able to write fluently and correctly a moderately difficult passage to dictation; and take down military orders with due care to arrangement and spelling. A long list of terms connected with military matters—such as ‘commissariat,’ ‘aide-de-camp,’ ‘manœuvre’—has to be written and spelt correctly. The arithmetical part of the examination consists of the ordinary rules as far as and including decimals. Besides, he must be able to work out a debt and credit account, a military savings-bank account, and a mess account. Withal, he must read with fluency, and write a good legible hand. Such is the necessary scholastic attainment of the modern sergeant. The ordeal would probably have terrified his predecessors of a quarter of a century ago.
There remains still the certificate of the First class. This is obtained by a comparatively small number of men. It enters into details which would be, to many, insurmountable difficulties; and as the possession of it is not compulsory for any non-commissioned rank, it is not much sought after. A few of the originally better-educated men do, however, go in for it. As a passport to the higher grades of clerkships, or even to eventual commissions, it is desirable. The examination includes an extra subject, such as a language, or geometry; the whole of arithmetic; and a searching test as to spelling and composition.
The reader will see that, from the above description, the second-class certificate is the important one to possess. Men having got it, are available for all the higher kinds of non-commissioned officers, as colour-sergeants, sergeant-majors, &c. The work of preparing men for this is perhaps a very important part of the business of the school, and is generally undertaken mainly by the schoolmaster himself.
In an army school the men are divided into classes according to their several abilities or stages of advancement. A special class is usually composed of men preparing themselves for the next examination for sergeants; another lot looking forward to being made corporals are engaged in the necessary work for third-class certificates. Then there are still more elementary classes for men trying to get themselves exempted from school attendance by passing the fourth class; and lastly, are the complete ‘ignoramuses’ who are labouring at the alphabet or assiduously making pot-hooks. The duration of the daily attendance is from an hour to an hour and a half; but other duties frequently break in upon this, and men are not able to be present every successive day. As attendance is compulsory, the men are paraded and marched to school as for any other duty; but the room is open in the evening for those anxious to push on with their work—the latter being, so to speak, volunteers, and nearly all non-commissioned officers. From this it will be seen that men really desirous of picking up a serviceable education have ample opportunity of doing so, especially when we consider the large share of spare time which the soldier has in ordinary circumstances on his hands.
All the schools are furnished with maps, books, and everything essential for carrying on their work. Where there are children, they are supplied with these requisites. Children, however, from being at one time the more important, have now become a secondary element in army schools. The present writer was connected with a school having an average attendance of two hundred men, but no children. This was in a depôt, and the men were almost without exception recruits. A small number of children in barracks were sent out to the Board School, leaving the school staff to devote its whole attention to the adults. At one time several regiments would have been required to furnish such a numerously attended school as the above, when recruits came in at the rate of perhaps about twenty annually. But short service has filled regiments up with recruits, or at least with very young soldiers, which, together with other circumstances, has given more ample employment to the schoolmaster. If we compare the number of recruits who join a regiment with that of the certificates of education granted in the same corps, we speedily find that the school department has not been asleep; and especially is this the case when we consider what is the educational standard of most men who enlist. We hear a good deal from time to time concerning the superior class of men that now seek to enter the army; but, practically, from an educational point of view, recruits are not so very different from what we have seen for many years past. It will yet be long before the army schools are abolished.
Among some statistics, we lately noticed some figures relating to the standard of education of soldiers. In this statement, a large percentage—fifty-seven per cent. of the whole rank and file—was set down as of ‘superior education.’ This probably referred to the men in possession of the two highest kinds of certificates, as holders of the third class could hardly be included under such a heading. The reader may perhaps be inclined to smile at the use of such a high-sounding term; though that such a large proportion of the ranks are educated even to this degree appears on the whole to be very creditable indeed. It certainly offers a marked contrast to the state of affairs at no very remote period.