For the advantages of this system let us examine the practical testimony afforded in the European schools, where considerable attention has been paid to this important matter.
On the continent the advantages of physical training are appreciated to their fullest extent, especially in the Industrial Reform schools, where the admirable principle has been adopted of teaching “what they will have occasion to use when they become men,”[24] and thus render them useful members of society. To Dr. Barnard’s National Education in Europe, we are indebted for the following extracts and illustrations of this position.
In the Reform School of Rauhen Haus, near Hamburg, “they are taught to develop their bodily and mental powers in various practical ways; to use the fire engine, to swim, to save persons from drowning, and use remedies to recover them, to climb a mast and handle the sail, of a ship. They act as a jury among themselves. Their chief reward is to be enrolled in the table of honor. In the great fire of Hamburg, their conduct was physically, as well as morally, heroic, and while bravely saving life and property, they steadily refused rewards.” Parents who, perhaps justly owing to the numerous accidents in Gymnasiums, are timid of their children becoming injured by these exercises, should carefully read the system pursued in Fellenberg’s celebrated establishment at Hofwyl. “A great variety of exercises of the body and the senses are employed, so that every boy shall acquire a knowledge of his physical strength, and attain confidence with regard to those efforts of which he is capable, instead of that foolhardiness which endangers the existence of many who have not learned to estimate their own powers correctly.” At Ruysselde, Belgium, the following plan was pursued: In summer, from 5½ to 6½ A.M., Exercises and Manœuvres; from 7½ to 8¾ P.M., Gymnastics. In winter, several hours were devoted to these exercises, and the result found (as in this report,) was, that “rickets, scrofula, want of elasticity in the limbs, difficulty of walking, all rapidly disappeared under the drill, which confirmed the health and increased the strength and activity of the children, and accustomed them to discipline. It predisposed the pupils to sleep, and was an effective safeguard against shameful habits and secret vices. The battalion movements were performed with as much precision as that of the army, a platoon armed with condemned carbines, marched at the head. The bayonet exercises and skirmishing were as good as play to the boys.” A remarkable instance of the moral effects of military discipline upon the lads of the Colonie Agricole, at Mettray, is related by M. Demetz, and was published in Barnard’s Journal, Vol. 1, p. 623. “During the revolution of 1848, a band of workmen came to Mettray, with flags flying and trumpets sounding, and meeting the youths returning, tired from field labor, their pickaxes on their shoulders, thus addressed them:—‘My boys, do not be such fools as to work any longer. Bread is plentiful; it is ready for you without labor.’ The chef, who was conducting the boys, and who behaved with the greatest calmness and tact, immediately cried, ‘Halt! form in line,’ The lads, being accustomed to march like soldiers, immediately formed. The chef then said to the men, ‘My friends, you have learned to labor; you have a right to rest; but leave these lads: let them learn now, and when their turn comes they may rest as you do.’ The men gave way, the youths marched home, and Mettray was saved,—saved, as I believe, by our habit of military discipline.” It was the heroic exertions of these young colons during the inundation of 1856, which won for them the praises of all France. These instances might be multiplied, but are sufficient to show the moral and physical benefits of military exercises and discipline upon boys, even of the lowest class.
The governments of Europe being upheld by the bayonets of large standing armies, and requiring, as they do, in many of the kingdoms, the compulsory service of all young men, renders it unnecessary for the daily public schools to teach military exercises to that extent, which it is well for our Republican government to do. Yet in Europe they watch with the greatest assiduity and care the bodily powers of the children, knowing its great advantage not only in health, but the maintenance of order.
In Great Britain much interest has of late been evinced on this subject, and Mr. Edwin Chadwick becoming convinced that the studies and confinement in their schools were generally prolonged beyond the powers of the children, and in violation of the laws of health, devoted himself to collecting testimony respecting the advantages of the military drill upon the health of children. His investigations have elicited much valuable information, the more interesting to us as they mark its advantages to a nation which, like our own, depends for its defence mainly upon a volunteer force.
The following synopsis of his pamphlet we extract from the N.Y. Evening Post, November 1st:
Mr. Chadwick considers “In a sanitary point of view that a systematized drill is good, and for defective constitutions requisite for the correction of congenital bodily defects and taints, with which the youth of a very large proportion of the population, especially among the poorer town populations, are affected: and that for these purposes the climbing of masts, and other operations of the naval drill, and swimming, are valuable additions to the gymnastic exercises of the military drill, and when properly taught are greatly liked by boys. From a moral point of view, also, this drill will give the pupil an early initiation into all the acquirements of discipline—namely, duty, order, obedience to command, self-restraint, punctuality and patience.”
The evidence furnished by English drill officers shows its national value, and “That at school it maybe taught most economically, as not interfering with productive labor, and that thirty or forty boys may be taught the naval and military drill at one penny farthing (two and a half cents) per week per head as cheaply as one man, and the whole juvenile population may be drilled completely in the juvenile stage, as economically as the small part of it now taught imperfectly on recruiting or in the adult stage; and that, for teaching the drill, the services of retired drill sergeants, and naval as well as military officers and pensioners, may be had economically in every part of the country.
That the middle and higher class schools should have, in addition to the foot drill, the cavalry drill, which the parents of that class of pupils may afford.
That the drill, when made generally prevalent, (without superseding,) will eventually accomplish, in a wider and better manner, the objects of volunteer corps and of yeomanry, which, as interrupting productive occupations now becoming more absorbing, is highly expensive, rendering all volunteer forces dependent in fitful zeal, and eventually comparatively inefficient; that the juvenile drill, if made general, will accomplish better the objects even of the militia; that the juvenile drill will abate diffidence in military efficiency, and will spread a wide predisposition to a better order of recruitment for the public service, will tend to the improvement of the ranks of the regular forces, whether naval or military, and will produce an immensely stronger and cheaper defensive force than by the means at present in use or in public view.