It is submitted that the statistics available for the State of New South Wales apply equally to the other States of the Commonwealth pro rata of their population.
In New South Wales in December, 1904, there were:
| 17,467 | male children between the ages of | 12 | and | 13 | |||
| 17,214 | " | " | " | " | 13 | " | 14 |
| 16,666 | " | " | " | " | 14 | " | 15 |
| 16,084 | " | " | " | " | 15 | " | 16 |
Of the above number of male children the following were attending schools:
| Between | Public Schools. | Private Schools. | Total. | Out of | |||
| 12 and 13 years | 12,650 | 3,160 | 15,810 | 17,467 | |||
| 13 | " | 14 | " | 11,400 | 2,840 | 14,240 | 17,214 |
| 14 | " | 15 | " | 6,080 | 2,080 | 8,160 | 16,666 |
| 15 | " | 16 | " | 2,400 | 1,240 | 3,640 | 16,084 |
It is evident that the falling off of 50 per cent. at the age of 14-15 years and of 75 per cent. at 15-16 years proves that the schools cannot and are not to be depended upon as the training ground of the nation’s boyhood beyond the age of 14-15 years; and that at the very time when that training would be naturally expected, if continued, to reach the most satisfactory results, namely, from 15 to 18 years of age, the boys are removed from the schools, in natural compliance with the demands of the economic conditions of citizenship in the nation, and that unless some satisfactory means is devised to compulsorily compel those boys who have left school to continue to be trained up to the age of at least 19 years, the earliest age at which young men may be considered capable of undergoing the bodily fatigue necessary to give them sufficient knowledge of such drill as will ensure that confidence in the field so essential to success as a fighting unit, it would appear evident that the foundation previously laid by the attainment of the first and second requirements as a whole, and the third requirement in part, will remain a foundation only, and the superstructure thereon will not be completed.
It is on the above grounds that it is contested that the cadet system, as popularly understood, is not considered to be reliable as a solution to the fulfilment of the requirements laid down for the training of a citizen soldier.
It is now pointed out that it is reasonable to argue that:
1st. It may be considered equally undesirable to compel boys from 15 to 19 years of age as to compel young men from 18 to 23 years of age to be partially trained.
2ndly. It will hardly be denied that the partial training of young men from 18 to 25 years of age in the field will give better results than the training of boys from 15 to 19 years of age, and on these premises it is urged that, to attain the fourth requirement, all young men from 18 to 25 should be partially trained, and thereby build on the foundation laid down by the attainment of the 1st and 2nd requirements and part of the third.