pro Tel ED/706 011 en "srsermx."1 Sin,—In the several uses
of the Volunteer Training Corps may I instance one which has been overlooked perhaps? Every Public School has its O.T.C. But there is nothing analogous for the growing youth of the masses. The V.T.O. having attracted such youth before it is ripe for the Regular Forces (from sixteen and a half years, say), can do the "donkey" work—can lick it into shape—and so send on to His Majesty's sergeants a material less raw than it would be without such training. To the State this is a saving of bandit. able time. To the subject it may prove a lively benefit. For it gives him a capital start, when he reaches the Army, in the race for promotion to N.C.O. rating. He will have learned enough with the V.T.O. to secure him, in these abnormal times, his first stripe quickly. The battalion of the Volunteer regiment with which I am associated has during the last eight months been privileged to inculcate keenness in and handle a few such youths, before passing them on, in due course, to the colours. When the war is over, when recruiting appeals and posters are peeled from our walls, but when our need for a very large army will still press, I conjure the vision of a National Training Corps—a standing reservoir for Britain's forces. If such could spring from the buffeted Volunteers, they may—who knows P—deserve well of their country.—! am,
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