[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sru,—Referring to your article
on the above subject in the Spectator of February 11th, may I, as an old public-school boy, and one who has only left a few years, say a few words on the question of compulsory military training for those boys who have the good fortune to go to one of our public schools ? Surely no better officer can be obtained than from this
source ; yet how little the Government seem to realise what raw material they have at hand, and the desirability of establishing compulsory military training at these schools. Probably they would say that the Cadet corps attached to our public schools receive sufficient encouragement, and that their management is perfection ; yet I submit that an inquiry into the facts would prove that this is very far from being the case. Is it not also true that many of the College authorities give no encouragement to the boys to join the Cadet corps, many of which only contain some two or three fifths of the total number of boys in the school ? During the time I was a member of the Cadet corps attached to my public school no Cadet was obliged to do any Morris-tube firing or any shooting whatsoever, and so the actual use of the rifle was never brought home to those Cadets who never learnt to shoot, the majority of whom never obtained suf- ficient interest in the military training they otherwise had to make them continue it after they left school, either in the Regular Army or the Volunteers, for which the War Office are continually in want of officers. The Cadet was looked down upon by the other boys not in the corps, and was ridiculed and asked how he liked playing at "tin soldiers," which was really rather a good expression seeing that perhaps eighty per cent. of the Cadets, many of whom only joined for the sake of getting an extra half-holida.y, never did any shooting of any kind, which was discouraged, for one reason, on the ground that the Cadet would be frequently absent from games, which was considered a heinous crime. Surely, Sir, the encouragement and development of these Cadet corps, and the question of compulsory military training at our public schools, should be seriously considered by the Govern- ment, as well as the physical culture of the working classes, which you so ably advocate in your article.—I am, Sir, Sec., H. W. M.
[We hold that at every public school all the boys should be obliged to join the Cadet corps, or, in the case of Eton and the other large schools, first a Cadet corps and then a full Volunteer corps or school company. This should be done at once, and while we are waiting to get Parliamentary sanction for compulsory physical training of a military character in elementary schools. The public schools should show the way in the matter of universal physical training of a military nature.—ED. Spectator.]
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