The law as passed in 1916 contained a significant clause relative to the excusing of boys exempted by the Military Training Commission. It was felt by the critics of the bill that, although the law requiring military and physical training was a movement in the right direction, it left much to be desired. The ambiguous word "exemptions" is one subject to fine distinctions. Furthermore, it was felt that the law was essentially one of discrimination. The schoolboy of 16 to 19 was in an exclusive military class, set apart, in his capacity to be trained for national service, from the employed boy of the same years.
It is not easy to justify the selection of the high-school pupils of the state as the only young people who shall be the recipients of military training. The report of the New Jersey commission appointed to study military training in its relation to high schools covers this point admirably.
The duty of the common defense is one which belongs properly to all who are physically capable, and none should be deprived of the opportunity of qualifying himself, if such opportunity is offered to any, to perform this duty effectively. It cannot be claimed that the boys of the high schools are exceptional, and that they are the only ones who can receive this instruction profitably. If there is any advantage in it, all boys equal in age and physique to high-school boys can receive it with equal probability of profit. If it is claimed that the reason for providing this instruction for the high schools is that the pupils can best afford the time for it, it must be answered that very many of these derive an income from labor out of school hours which enables them to attend school. These are as worthy of exemption from military instruction as those who leave school because they lack the ambition to continue their education, or because they are compelled to do so by circumstances. Whether this instruction is compulsory or optional with pupils of the high schools, if required or offered at all, it should apply to all boys, out of school as well as in school, of prescribed ages and strength.
Military training and service, if they are necessary, are obligations of citizenship, not of education alone.
It is difficult to contemplate with satisfaction or even complacency the social cleavage which is bound to result from a system of military instruction which is applied to high-school pupils and not to other boys. To assign or reserve the privilege, or duty, or obligation, however it is regarded, of preparing to fight for the country to the better-educated class is just as repugnant to democratic ideals as was the practice in days long gone by of leaving it to the nobility. To select high-school pupils for this training is open to the same objection as would be a plan of selecting adults for actual military service solely on the basis of their occupations or professions—a plan which would receive no consideration.
Military authorities admit that the fundamental aim of every form of military training must be to cultivate physical health and strength. As Dr. George Fisher, secretary of the Physical Department, International Committee, Y.M.C.A., and a member of the New York State Military Training Commission, puts it, "In the training camps in England it takes a full year to get the men in condition after they enlist. England's experience in this war indicates that the big problem is not primarily the training of the men on military tactics or drill, but conditioning the men. Therefore the lesson to us should be to discover what methods can best be used to put and keep men in good physical condition."
If any evidence of the accuracy of this opinion were needed, it is necessary only to consult the records of the United States War Department. The following table shows the number of applicants for enlistment in the United States army, furnished by the several recruiting districts, together with the number accepted or rejected in said districts, fiscal years ending June 30, 1911 to June 30, 1915:
| Total Number of Applicants | Accepted | Rejected | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent of total applicants | Number | Per cent of total applicants | ||
| Total for five years | 747,704 | 157,043 | 21 | 590,661 | 79 |
In order, therefore, that all citizens may be properly trained and prepared to perform effectively all their duties, no matter what they may be, we recommend and strongly urge that the necessary steps be taken to provide for all the schools of the state a complete and thorough system of physical training. This system should be compulsory for all pupils, and should include carefully selected exercises adapted to the different ages of pupils, and designed to protect their health, stimulate bodily functions, and promote physical strength. It should apply to all girls as well as boys. It should aim to prevent bodily abnormalities or deformities, or to correct them if they are found to exist. It should include personal and community sanitation, first aid in emergencies, bandaging, and all forms of instruction in personal safety. It should encourage outdoor activities. It should provide abundant games for all pupils in which group activities are prominent, and in which appeal may be made to the spirit of competition. It may include those features of military drill which properly serve the purposes of physical training, but which must be regarded as subordinate to these purposes. It may even include practice with the miniature or the service rifle, if such practice is regarded as necessary to develop steadiness of nerve, bodily control, and accuracy of sight. In the case of such exercises the educational error does not lie in their use, but in the exaggerated military purpose which they are made to serve. All the features and exercises of the thorough course of physical training which we recommend should be intimately connected and interrelated, on the one hand with the moral or character-forming instruction of the schools and on the other with the complete provisions for medical inspection which have already been made compulsory by law.
Now boy service should be democratic. The exemptions, whatever they are, must be made on a basis of the equality of the schoolboy and the boy engaged in wage-earning. A boy should not be excused from his rightful preparedness training because he happens to be employed as a bell boy in a metropolitan hotel. Such work is not industrially productive, nor could any devised system of military equivalents make it a substitution for personal contribution to national preparedness.
In the spring of 1917 the legislature amended the law to include all boys—a drafting of the boy power of the state in much the same way that the European nations in conflict make provisions for the full utilization of man power. An additional amendment, as stated in chapter 49, Laws of 1917, reads:
Such requirement as to military training may, in the discretion of the commission, be met in part by such vocational training or vocational experience as will, in the opinion of the commission, specifically prepare boys of the ages named for service useful to the state, in the maintenance of defense, in the promotion of public safety, in the conservation and development of the state's resources, or in the construction and maintenance of public improvement.
The commission was given power to establish a bureau of vocational training. This, through careful inspection of the work of boys of the ages named in industrial, commercial, and agricultural pursuits, will determine the types of vocational training or vocational experience which, in the opinion of the commission, specifically prepare boys for service useful to the state.
Such a bureau would, under normal conditions, appoint a few inspectors and investigators to study conditions in order that carefully laid plans might be made for carrying out the provisions of the amendment. But war emergency in the matter of food supply gave the Military Training Commission an opportunity to organize at short notice one branch of military-equivalent service, that is, the farm-cadet unit, and it extended an offer of assistance to the Food Supply Commission to organize farm-cadet bureaus in each of the six military zones of the state. Through these the Military Training Commission has been useful in placing boys upon farms, and in following up such farm service with a view not only to determining its merit as an equivalent or partial equivalent for military service but also (with the coöperation of church and business organizations, the Y.M.C.A., and the Boy Scouts) to giving the task which these boys have been doing on the farms its proper place in relation to the physical, mental, and social ideals which lie outside the hard and often unfamiliar round of field work.