[MILITARY ELEMENT IN SCHOOLS OF ALL GRADES.]
INTRODUCTION.
In all ages and in all countries there have been educators who recognized the importance of the physical, and more specifically, of the military element in their schemes of individual and collective teaching. No higher authority in English pedagogical literature of the liberal type, can be named in this connection, than John Milton, who, in his brief but masterly outline of “a virtuous and noble education,” includes this in the means of a complete and generous culture, that is “to fit a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war.” In the outset he demands that the number of pupils, for whose accommodations a spacious house and grounds were to be provided, should be large enough for “the convenience of a foot company or interchangeably two troops of cavalry,” so that systematic exercise could alternate with the studies and diet. In his general programme he includes studies which shall “stir up their spirits to manly and liberal exercise,” and “inflame their hearts with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots.” In the enumeration of studies he specifies mathematics, the practical aid of instruments in surveying and engineering, and their application to fortification and navigation. Living in the midst of a civil war like our own, when the preservation of constitutional liberty had summoned troops from the field, the shop, and the study, and placed men in command who had not been trained to the profession of arms, Milton directs or points out the value of studies, the mastery of whose general principles “may at some time or other save an army, and not let the healthy and stout bodies of young men rot away under them for want of this discipline, which is a great pity, and no less shame to the commander.” In treating specially of physical culture, Milton assigns to military drill, and use of sword and other weapons, at least an hour and a half each day, that his pupils may be equally good both for peace and war. “The exercise which I commend first is the exact use of these weapons to guard and strike safely with edge or point. This will keep them healthy, nimble, strong, and well in breath; is also the likeliest means to make them grow large and tall, and to inspire them with a gallant and fearless courage, which being tempered with seasonable lectures and precepts to make them of true fortitude and patience, will turn into a native and heroic valor, and makes them hate the cowardice of doing wrong.” With the use of the sword Milton would associate all athletic sports “wherein Englishmen are apt to excel.” And after the day’s study has been thoroughly done, “with minds in good tune and satisfaction,” he would occupy the “two hours before supper in military motions, under sky, or cover, according to the season, as was the Roman wont; first on foot, then as their age permits, on horseback to all the art of cavalry; that having in spirit, but with much exactness and daily muster, served out the rudiments of their soldiership in the skill of embattling, marching, encamping, fortifying, besieging and battering, with all the helps of ancient and modern strategems, tactics, and warlike maxims, they may, as it were, out of a long war come forth renowned and perfect commanders in the service of their country. They would not then if they were trusted with fair and hopeful armies, suffer them for want of just and wise discipline to shed away from about them like sick feathers, though they be never so oft supplied; they would not suffer these empty and unrecruitable colonels to quaff out or convey into secret hoards the wages of a delusive list and miserable remnant. No, certainly, if they knew aught of that knowledge which belongs to good men or good governors, they would not suffer these things.” To these school studies and practical exercises, Milton would add excursions “to all quarters of the land, learning and observing all places of strength, all material for building, all soil for towns and tillage, harbors and ports of trade. These ways would try all their peculiar gifts of Nature, and if there is any secret excellence among them, would fetch it out and give it fair opportunities to advance itself by.”
The views of Milton in favor of military exercises can not be attributed to any professional bias, for his tastes and his habits of life were in the shaded walks of the academy, “contemplating the serene countenance of truth in the still air of delightful study.”
The example of Switzerland can be cited on the side of their practicality, on a scale as liberal and much more popular than their author at the time contemplated; and quite recently (1871), the Federal war authorities propose that the older boys in the secondary and superior schools shall be instructed in outpost and skirmishing duties.
[X. PHYSICAL AND MILITARY EXERCISES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.]
A NATIONAL NECESSITY
BY EDWARD L. MOLINEUX
Major and Inspector in New York Militia.
From a long and unexampled period of political and commercial prosperity we suddenly find ourselves called upon to struggle for national existence, and while a noble response from the people to the necessity of the struggle has strengthened the hand of government with an intelligent army, and developed the resources of the country, yet the occasion has laid bare defects which call for correction.