W E are delighted to see signs that the nation is
about to take the question of physical education into serious consideration. No one can doubt the need for paying attention to this subject who studies the health statistics of our great towns, or sees before his eyes the dwindling stature and physical degenera- tion of our town-bred, and even of our country-bred, population. The State has wisely insisted that every boy and girl shall be compelled to receive the rudi- ments of a literary education before they begin their work in the world, and become self-supporting members of the community. The need for compulsory physical education is equally great. And this need is empha- sised by the fact that for the first thirteen or fourteen years of his life we compel a child to pass long hours within doors engaged in learning to read, write, and cipher. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the demand for the compulsory physical edu- cation of the young can only be supported on hygienic grounds. The moral need, as the Bishop of Bristol pointed out at the Conference on physical education held on Wednesday in London, is quite as great. It would not be true to say that a man will be virtuous and a good citizen because he is healthy in body, or to assert that no one who is physically degenerate can hope to be sound in mind and morals. What, however, can be said is that in an enormous number of cases moral development is impeded by the lack of proper physical development, and that there is a whole class of vices which can be distinctly traced to physical degeneracy. Again, all who are interested in the growth of the young know that they may be kept out of bad habits and may acquire good habits by being interested in those games and outdoor pursuits which can only be pursued by the healthy in body. The lad who plays football and cricket, who is good at gymnastics or is an expert bicyclist, is much less likely to spend his time idling or betting on a racecourse or at a football match than the lad whose only ideas of sport are connected with the odds and the winner.
But granted that we ought to have a system of universal physical education, what form is it to take For ourselves, we have no sort of doubt that for the boys it should partake of a military character, and should include drill and simple military exercises, including the use of the rifle. There are two equally important reasons for this. In the first place, you will not make physical training a success in elementary schools unless you can make it interesting to the boys who are under training. Now, it is a matter of universal experience that boys like drill. They enjoy the precision of movement and the sense of co-operation which belong to military exercises. While the mere use of clubs and dumb-bells leaves them cold and bored, the combined action of squad or company drill always interests them. If to this is added an elementary training in the use of the rifle, if the boys can be taught its by no means difficult mechanism, and can learn, also, to hold their rifles steady and to train their eyes by firing with a miniature charge at a miniature target, you give them a reason and an object for their physical exertions which vivify and inspire the whole course of training. We have noted with the greatest satisfaction that Dr. Macnamara, M.P., than whom there is no more capable educational expert in the kingdom, lately stated in an interview published in the Daily Express that he was strongly in favour of boys receiving physical training of a military character. Dr. Macnamara, we need hardly say, is no devotee of militarism in any shape, but he sees clearly that it would be madness to deprive the youth of the country of the best form of physical training because there is a prejudice—and, we grant, a very right and proper prejudice —among Englishmen against militarism. In reality, the endowing of every Englishman with a physical train- ing of a military character—that is, with an elementary knowledge of drill and of the use of the rifle—would act as a bulwark against the militarism of the Continent rather than as an encouragement. If the population as a whole knew the elements of the soldier's business, there would be far less fear than now of our being hurried at a moment of panic into some unnecessary and dangerous scheme of compulsory service. We can understand some timid Eldonian Tory objecting to such a training of our working population as we suggest on the ground that it would not be safe to teach such lessons to what he would call the "proletariat." We can well imagine such a man arguing that social order would not be safe when the people were drilled and knew how to shoot, and that the military art had better be confined to Regular soldiers, who could be relied upon not to fraternise with the people. Such arguments were heard in plenty at the beginning of the old Volunteer movement. They are even used against those who, like ourselves, are doing our best to help on the establishment of rifle clubs throughout the country. They are, however, somewhat ridiculous in the mouths of those who profess to be democrats, and who declare their trust in the people. In sober truth, there is no danger either of militarism or of a social revolution from a people instructed in the use of arms. The British people govern themselves by their votes, and the question whether they receive or do not receive a physical training of a military character will have no political effect whatever on the nature of their Govern- ment. The effect on the safety of the nation and the Empire will, however, we believe, be very great. Do what we will, say what we will, we are certain that whenever we are engaged in a great war (and great wars will not cease because of Hague Conferences), we shall be forced to rely, as we have always relied in the past, and as our sister- community the United States has always relied, on improvised armies. But improvised armies can be raised not only far more quickly, but when raised will be far more efficient, if every man in the nation when a boy has had his body developed by physical drill, has acquired the power of acting with other men, of obey- ing and giving commands, and has learned how to handle, to load, to sight, and to fire a rifle. If all boys learnt the elements of drill and of rifle-shooting at school, those who later on joined Volunteer corps would have half their work accomplished, and would at once be able to get to the serious soldier's work of field training and of long-distance shooting. Again, at a sudden call to arms, as in the case of the Imperial Yeomanry in the Boer War, we should not see the humiliating spectacle of willing and courageous young men of twenty-five or thirty for the first time learning their elementary drill and how to fire a rifle. We have spoken as if the training we desire to see established would take place only while boys were in the primary schools. We agree, however, most strongly with Dr. Macnamara that the physical training should go on in continuation schools up to the age of twenty. We say this quite as much in the moral and physical interests of the lads as from a desire to promote that elementary military tra ining which, in our opinion, is essential to complete manhood. If boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen or twenty could be obliged to receive on one or two evenings in the week for a couple of hours mixed physical and. mental training, we believe that there might be a most considerable moral improvement, not merely in the " hooligan " classes, but amongst all young lads. By getting wholesome exercise in the evenings, they would be kept out of the public- houses and the streets. For ourselves, we should like to see such continuation classes made compulsory, and we do not see why the Bishop of Hereford's proposal for lowering the age-limit for day schools should not be applied to towns as well as to the country provided that the com- pensatory attendance at evening schools were compulsory.
Though we have dealt chiefly with the problems connected with physical training of a military nature, it must not be supposed that we advocate universal physical training merely from the military point of view. We desire, in the first place, to improve the physique of the nation both in girls and boys in order to obtain the moral and hygienic results which, we believe, may be obtained therefrom. The instruction of the manhood of the nation in exercises which will make them more capable of defending their homes from attack is, we admit, a by-product. Since, however, it is a by-product which is of immense im- portance, and can be obtained without extra cost or trouble provided that universal physical education is adopted for other reasons, we hold that it would be a dereliction of duty for us not to direct the attention of the nation to the by- as well as to the essential product which the State, that great manufactory of good citizens, proposes to create.
THE QUESTION OF " COMPULSORY " GREEK.
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